Here are today’s leading news stories:

Politics

-- Vietnamese Party chief and State President Nguyen Phu Trong on Monday hosted a reception for his Laotian counterpart Bounnhang Vorachith and a high-ranking delegation, who are on a Vietnam visit to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Traditional Day of Vietnamese Volunteer Soldiers and Experts in Laos.

-- The Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson Geng Shuang confirmed on Monday that the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam is keeping close contact with Vietnamese agencies for the case of 39 people found dead in a container truck in the United Kingdom last week. 

Society

-- Tidal flooding continued troubling residents in many districts of Ho Chi Minh City on Monday as water levels in the Saigon River was recorded at 1.67 meters. High tide is forecast to peak on Tuesday.

-- A tropical depression was located about 250 kilometers east of Vietnam's Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago on early Tuesday morning and is forecast to strengthen into a storm as it heads to the mainland in the south-central part of the country over the next 24 hours.

-- Police in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong have arrested five suspects for poisoning nearly 1,160 pine trees, all of which are about 30 years old, by injecting herbicide into their trunks.

-- Officers in Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City are investigating a case where a 16-year-old schoolgirl was brutally assaulted by several other students on the evening of October 22. The attackers also filmed the incident and uploaded the footage on social media.

-- The prime minister has approved a plan on the construction of the Dai Ngai Bridge connecting Tra Vinh and Soc Trang Provinces in the Mekong Delta. The project is expected to cost more than VND8 trillion (US$344 million), most of which will funded by ODA loans from the Japanese government.

-- Vietnamese electronics brand Asanzo shows signs of faking its products’ origin and tricking consumers, the General Department of Vietnam Customs quoted the result of its investigation during a meeting with relevant ministries on Monday.

Business

-- German automaker Volkswagen has admitted it had borrowed some automobiles from its Chinese partner to display at the Vietnam Motor Show 2019 organized in Ho Chi Minh City from October 23 to 27 after one of the cars was found to have a map containing the illicit ‘nine-dash line.’

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!