Read what is in the news today, May 27!

Politics

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and a high-ranking delegation of Vietnam arrived in Stockholm on Sunday to begin their official visit to Sweden at the invitation of Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. It is part of the Vietnamese leader’s ongoing Europe trip from May 20 to 29 that includes stops in Russia and Norway.

Society

-- Vietnamese legislators will deliberate on the implementation of policies and laws on the planning, use and management of land in urban areas on Monday during the seventh session of the 14th National Assembly in Hanoi. Other key issues including the use of the 2019 state budget are on the lawmakers’ working agenda this week.

-- One person remains unaccounted for and dozens of steel-clad cargo boats have been sunk in the northern province of Quang Ninh after prolonged rain, which took place from Saturday night to early Sunday morning, caused extreme flooding in the area.

-- Smoking is the cause of 90 percent of deaths by lung cancer in Vietnam, higher than the global average of 70 percent, Vietnamese health ministry official Luong Ngoc Khue said at an anti-smoking event in Hanoi on Sunday.

-- The High People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on Monday morning begins considering an appeal filed by Da Nang business tycoon Phan Van Anh Vu against a 17-year jail sentence imposed upon him by a court in Hanoi last December.

Business

-- Thailand was the biggest exporter of automobiles to Vietnam in April, accounting for nearly 52 percent of 10.868 cars – worth US$244 million – imported by Vietnam last month. Indonesia trailed close behind with 3,669 cars exported to Vietnam in the fourth month of 2019.

-- Vietnam and Sweden should cooperate in environmental protection and sustainable development in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh told Vietnam News Agency in an interview ahead of the Vietnamese PM’s official visit to the European country on Sunday.

-- Vietnam’s mobile network market is witnessing the rise of virtual network operators (VNO), a term describing wireless communications services providers that do not own the infrastructure over which they provide services to their customers. Three VNOs have announced their launch in less than two months in the Southeast Asian country.

Lifestyle

-- ‘Nude’, an oil painting by famed 20th-century Vietnamese painter Le Pho, was sold at a Christie’s Hong Kong auction on Sunday for nearly $1.4 million, a record price for a work by a Vietnamese artist.

-- Hundreds of beautifully groomed orchids wowed visitors to the south-central city of Nha Trang on Sunday as a national competition among orchid growers in Vietnam was held in the coastal city.

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