Check out the news you should not miss today, October 19:Politics

-- At the 17th meeting of the Special Working Committees of the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday, Vietnam and Cambodia agreed to intensify their cooperation in searching and repatriating the remains of voluntary Vietnamese soldiers and experts who laid down their lives in Cambodia during wartime. 

Society

-- According to the General Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health, more than 3,000 cases of measles and measles-suspected rash and fever were recorded during the first nine months of this year.

-- The US$21 million General Hospital 2 of the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong’s Bao Loc City has been left unused due to severe degradation.

Business -- Vietnam’s economy has grown by more than six percent annually over the past two decades, expanding by 6.81 percent in 2017 and nearly seven percent in 2018, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Thursday briefed participants on Vietnam’s situation in his keynote address at the 16th Asia-Europe Business Forum held in Brussels, Belgium. 

-- Japan is currently a leading economic partner of Vietnam, ranking first among official development assistance (ODA) providers, second among foreign investors, third among sources of foreign tourists, and fourth among trade partners of the Southeast Asian nation, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung said while receiving Governor of Japan’s Niigata Prefecture Hideyo Hanazumi in Hanoi on Thursday.

Lifestyle

-- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports on Thursday revealed a detailed plan to develop a $64.3 million concert hall, with the venue to be constructed from 2018 to 2022.

-- The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has recently issued a regulation to limit smoking scenes on stages and screens, especially completely banning smoking scenes from works for children.

Education

-- Kindergarten children under five in areas in difficult social-economic situations will have their tuition and lunch fees exempted, according to the government’s amendment to regulations on education.