Politics

-- President of Argentina Mauricio Macri and his spouse on Tuesday began their three-day state visit to Vietnam, from February 19 to 21, to deepen bilateral strategic partnership, marking his first Vietnam visit as the Argentine head of state.

Society

-- The Vietnamese government has issued a degree extending a pilot scheme that grants citizens of 35 countries, down from 40 countries in the previous fiat, eligibility to apply for Vietnamese visas online and have them issued electronically.

-- Traffic officials in Da Nang are conducting a comprehensive safety inspection of approach roads leading to the Hai Van Tunnel, which connects the central cities of Hue and Da Nang, after a bus carrying South Korean tourists encroached on the opposite lane and collided with a semitrailer, sending 11 to hospital on Monday when it was about to enter the tunnel.

-- Two hog cholera outbreaks have been confirmed in the northern provinces of Hung Yen and Thai Binh after local pig farms reported their animals catching the classical swine fever, according to Vietnam’s Department of Animal Health.

-- The Ministry of Public Security has launched criminal investigation against five officials of a state-run lottery company in the southern province of Dong Nai for “lack of responsibility” and “abusing powers and positions” for their roles in the company’s investment in a soccer subsidiary that resulted in the loss of nearly VND100 billion (US$4.34 million) in state assets.

-- Over 6,000 dengue fever patients have been hospitalized in Ho Chi Minh City since the start of 2019, a 200-percent increase from the same period of last year, according to the municipal Preventive Medicine Center, as health experts warn of unusual infection rates.

Business

-- Vietnam’s Ministry of Trade and Industry has issued a warning about products made overseas that are wrongly labeled as ‘made in Vietnam’ in order to enjoy favorable tax when exported to a third country, which not only hurts the reputation of authentic Vietnamese products but also subjects the country’s goods to trade defense lawsuits.

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday chaired a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other relevant government agencies to discuss solutions to the rice sales crisis that is hitting farmers in the country’s Mekong Delta region following plummeting market demands.

-- As a popular investment channel for foreign investors in recent times, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) secured Ho Chi Minh City $6 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in 2018, vice-chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Thanh Liem said at a recent conference.

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