Read what is in the news today, April 3!

Politics

-- Vietnam regards France as a partner of priority in its cooperation with Europe, said Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, chairwoman of Vietnam’s lawmaking National Assembly during a meeting with President of the Senate of France Gerand Larcher in Paris on Tuesday.

-- A ceremony to repatriate remains of U.S. servicemen who died during the war in Vietnam was held at Da Nang International Airport in the central city of Da Nang on Tuesday, attended by representatives from the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Personnel, the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam and the U.S. MIA Office in Hanoi.

Society

-- Underdeveloped transportation infrastructure has prevented 13 provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam from unleashing their full potentials as they struggle to attract investors, local experts and officials have told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper in separate interviews.

-- The Airports Corporation of Vietnam has proposed a new plan that would scrap tolls on cars entering Vietnamese airports to pick up or drop off passengers, only collecting ‘parking fees’ from vehicles that overstay a given grace period.

-- Vietnam’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information on Tuesday said it had sent an official request to video-sharing site YouTube to remove videos published by ‘Kha Banh’, a Vietnamese man who has become an Internet sensation after posting videos that chronicle his ‘thug life’ with excessive violence and infringement of the law.

-- Police officers in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City are investigating a reported case of elevator sexual attack at a local apartment building after CCTV footage circulated online showing a middle-aged man grabbing and kissing a little girl inside a lift on Monday.

-- A project to build Ho Chi Minh City’s largest-ever zoo, Saigon Safari, in the rural district of Cu Chi has not made any progress over the past 15 years as residents whose houses were cleared for the project still struggle to find a new home.

Business

-- A proposed decree by the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment seeks to ban imports of scrap plastics for use in manufacturing intermediate products such as plastic resins from 2025, while limiting the maximum level of imported scrap content in a domestically-manufactured product to 70 percent.

-- Vietnamese brewer Sabeco announced on Tuesday it had withdrawn a term in its labor contracts that requires employees to enter a probationary period when renewing their contract, after the controversial term raised eyebrows on its legality.

-- Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are among Vietnamese localities ranked worst in terms of corruption control, according the 2018 Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index released on Tuesday.

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