Check out the news you should not miss today, December 23

Politics

-- President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee Tran Thanh Man visited and extended Christmas greetings to Catholic and Protestant dignitaries and followers in southern localities on Friday.

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe expressed their delight at the robust growth of Vietnam – Japan relations across all sectors in 2017 during a talk on the phone on Friday.

Society

-- Japan will provide Vietnam with non-refundable aid totaling nearly $400,000 for five health care and educational projects, according to contracts signed on Friday by the Japanese Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City

-- Three people have been held by police in the northern province of Hai Duong for illegally transporting two kilograms of drugs and 4,000 methamphetamine pills, officers said on Friday.

-- A high-level court in the northern province of Ha Nam on Friday upheld the verdict for Tran Thi Nga, who was sentenced at a July first-instance trial to a nine-year imprisonment on the charge of conducting anti-state propaganda.

-- Police issued a wanted notice on Friday for Phan Van Anh Vu, a business tycoon whose house in the central city of Da Nang searched by investigative police on Thursday, on charges of "deliberately disclosing state secrets."

-- Authorities in Tien Giang are ready to evacuate 40,000 local residents as typhoon Tembin , the 16th to hit Vietnam this year, may make landfall in southern Vietnam on Monday next week.

Business

-- PetroVietnam Oil Corporation (PVOil) is completing preparations for its January 25, 2018 initial public offering (IPO) in Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE), with interested investors encouraged to pay deposit from December 22, 2017 to January 17, 2018.

-- Facebook has followed Vietnam's request to remove 159 accounts that defame and spread anti-state propaganda, Vietnamese Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan said at a meeting on Friday.

-- Total volume of remittance to Ho Chi Minh City in 2017 topped $5.2 billion, up 4.5 percent from last year, according to Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam.

-- Vietnam’s foreign reserves have reached a record high of $48 billion, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Le Minh Hung revealed at a meeting on Friday.