Here are today’s leading news stories.

Politics

-- Vietnamese should pay a ‘goodbye fee’ of US$3-5 every time they leave the country, a former tourism official and now lawmaker suggested at a debate on the Immigration Bill in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

Society

-- A team of five construction ministry inspectors have been temporarily detained by police of the northern Vietnamese province of Vinh Phuc for allegedly soliciting up to VND10 billion ($428,000) during a work trip to the locality.

-- An appeal trial in Hanoi on Thursday upheld a 15-year sentence for Phan Van Anh Vu, also known as Vu “nhom,’ and 30-month and 36-month verdicts for former Deputy Ministers of Public Security Bui Van Thanh and Tran Viet Tan, respectively. The three were involved in a scandal of acquiring public property and land in the central city of Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.

-- More than 72,000 fake textbooks were detected at a bookstore in the south-central province of Binh Dinh on Wednesday.

-- The Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security announced on Thursday that it has equipped its officers with body-mounted cameras to record traffic offenses, as well as their interactions with civilians.

Business

-- Vietnam spent $1.43 billion importing 64,795 foreign-made cars in the first five months of this year, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

-- The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism’s Tourism Magazine and TikTok Vietnam officially began promoting Vietnam’s famous tourist spots and special tours on the Chinese video app TikTok on Thursday, with a goal of creating 30,000 short videos featuring Vietnamese landscapes, culture and people in the remainder of 2019 and 2020.

-- Vietnam spent $1.1 billion importing mobile phones and spare parts in May, up 36.2 percent from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Lifestyle

-- ‘A O Lang Pho,’ one of the most well-known Vietnamese bamboo circus shows, has been showcased at the Sydney Opera House in Australia from June 12 to 15.

Sports

-- Professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting may finally be coming to Vietnam, with the first event possibly scheduled for September, the Singapore-based ONE Championship’s chairman Chatri Sityodtong shared in a press briefing in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.

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