Check out today’s leading news stories:

Politics

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc held talks with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in Vienna, Austria, on Monday, as part of his official visit to the European country.

-- About 120 delegates are scheduled to attend the third ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Women (AMMW) and related meetings in Hanoi from October 18-25, Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Ha told a press conference on Monday.

Society

-- The Department of Transport in the northern province of Quang Ninh is considering raising the maximum speed of vehicles along an expressway linking its coastal city of Ha Long with the northern Hai Phong City from 80 to 100km per hour. The new speed limit is expected to be applied on January 1, 2019.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City administration is planning to spend more than VND96 trillion (US$4.1 billion) on building 189.5 kilometers of new roads and 49 bridges by 2020, in a bid to alleviate traffic jams across the metropolis.

-- Police in Hanoi on Monday initiated legal proceedings against four people for trading human kidneys in the name of organ donation since January.

-- A truck carrying dirt crashed into a cargo train in the north-central province of Ha Tinh on Monday, causing the truck driver to be seriously injured and his assistant slightly wounded.

-- The Ministry of Transport inspectorate has announced multiple violations of one of the contractors in charge building the expressway linking the central city of Da Nang with the south-central province of Quang Ngai.

-- Police officers in Ho Chi Minh City have identified Ho Vu Linh Thuy, hailing from the southern province of Dong Nai, as the driver of the truck that pulled down the construction scaffold at the entrance of the Saigon River Tunnel (Thu Thiem Tunnel) on Monday morning.

-- The Hanoi People’s Committee has submitted a report to the Ministry of Transport regarding the plan to forcefully disassemble old and degraded apartment buildings to avoid potential collapse and other dangerous consequences.  

-- A company in Dong Nai Province on Monday was fined VND40 million ($1,712) for illicitly constructing a 14 hectare pig farm near the upstream section of the Dong Nai River. The firm was also required to pull down the facility.

Business

-- The National Fiscal Supervisory Commission has proposed further support, including tax reduction, for medium and small-scaled businesses.

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