We wish you a prosperous year ahead!

Society

-- Well over a thousand people started flooding into downtown Ho Chi Minh City around 6:00 pm on Monday to watch fireworks and public New Year performances while more than a million Hanoi dwellers congregated around the iconic Hoan Kiem Lake for similar events.

-- A 54-year-old man was discovered dead in a trishaw – his means of livelihood – by the roadside on Monday morning in Thanh Hoa Province, north-central Vietnam. Local authorities found no evidence of murder and suspected he died of low temperatures, which went below 10 degrees Celsius on Monday night.

-- Eighty-one people died and 41 injured in 116 road accidents nationwide during the last three days of 2018, when multiple people traveled to hometowns or tourist attractions, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee.

-- Police are hunting over ten motorbike-riding muggers who attacked riders with knives in different areas in Ho Chi Minh City’s suburban district of Binh Chanh. Amongst the victims was a South Korean.

-- Locals in Binh Duong Province, next to Ho Chi Minh City, on Sunday night managed to stop a hit-and-run driver who fled in his semi truck three kilometers from the scene where the vehicle ran over a motorcyclist, who immediately died.

-- A tropical low pressure air system off the coast of southern Vietnam may evolve into a storm packing over 60 kilometers per hour as it is forecast to move westward toward the country’s southernmost tip by Wednesday afternoon.

Business

-- Vietnam’s tourism ministry plans to create a breakthrough in attracting more tourists to the south-central resort city of Nha Trang and neighboring areas in 2019.

-- The first catamaran ferry with a 300-passenger capacity began operations on Monday between the south-central resort city of Phan Thiet and the tourist island of Phu Quy, around 100 kilometers away. The travel time is now two hours.

-- Quang Nam Province, where the ancient town of Hoi An is located, randomly chose its 3.8 millionth foreign visitor for 2018 during a New Year event on Monday.

-- Ho Chi Minh City welcomed its first international tourists in 2019 at the local Tan Son Nhat International Airport early Tuesday morning. The German visitors were given a free tour to places of interest in the metropolis.

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