Check out what is in the news today, November 1:

Society

-- Representatives of the Vietnam Social Insurance reported astonishing differences among various groups’ retirement pensions at a webinar on Tuesday.

-- One tropical depression forming in the sea was heading toward southernmost Ca Mau Cape, while another was forecast to fortify into a storm which would move to the southern provinces, according to the Central Hydro-Meteorological Station.  

-- Doctors at Da Nang Hospital in the namesake central city revealed on Tuesday they had saved a 25-year-old British tourist who suffered multiple injuries, including a life-threatening heart rupture, from a road accident on her way from the locality to Hoi An City nearby. 

-- Dang Trung Thanh, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, in the south-central province of Binh Dinh, confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper they were working with the Vietnam Maritime Administration to seek permission to dump 439,000 cubic meters of waste matter into local waters in a bid to clear the flow and facilitate traffic from and to Quy Nhon Port.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Office has requested the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment to work with competent agencies to excavate war martyrs’ remains scattered in the western area of Tan Son Nhat International Airport from Thursday to November 24.

-- Authorities in Bay Nui District, located in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, were struggling powerlessly to cope with rampant illegal sand mining activity in local forests and mountains over recent months.

Business

-- At a working session on Tuesday, Jang Sang Kyu, board chair of Korean YK Group, sought permission to invest in a build- operate-transfer (BOT) project to construct National Highway 91C that runs through Can Tho City in the Mekong Delta.

-- Several hi-tech agriculture projects have seen delays or sluggish implementation as the government’s VND100 trillion (US$ 4.3 billion) package had yet to be disbursed.

-- Representatives of Lee & Man Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Lee & Man Paper, which had been raising environmental concerns, have confirmed the plant was ready to come on stream now that an environment project conducted by local authorities at the mill had completed.