What you need to know today in Vietnam:

Politics

-- Vietnam is developing an e-government and cyber security so the country wants to cooperate with Japan in these fields, the Vietnam News Agency quoted Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc as saying on Thursday.

-- Vietnam is ready to take citizen protection measures when necessary given recent tensions between the U.S. and Iran in the Middle East, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang said during a regular meeting in Hanoi on Thursday.

Society

-- Authorities in Tay Ninh Province, located in southern Vietnam, found nine decomposing skeletons in a rubber plantation following a tip-off by a local on Thursday.  

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People's Court on Thursday sentenced Piek Bunthoeurn, a Cambodian citizen, to 18 months in prison for killing a person in a crash in the city in 2017 and running away.   

-- Police in Nghe An Province, located in north-central Vietnam, arrested a driver for carrying 840kg of firecrackers, two leopard carcasses, and other wildlife parts in his sleeper bus bearing a Laos number plate while he was steering it on a local road.

-- Vietnamese firms have been required to cease sending migrant workers to the Middle East amid tensions between Washington and Tehran in the region, according to Minister of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung.

Business

-- Coca-Cola Vietnam has been required to pay over VND821 billion (US$35.4 million) in fines and tax arrears, a source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Thursday.

-- Supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City are flooded with Tet gift baskets to serve surging demand for celebrations as the Lunar New Year is just two weeks away.

Sports

-- Vietnam will play the UAE in their Group D opener at 5:15 pm on Friday at the 2020 AFC U23 Championship in Thailand. The game will be broadcast live on national TV channel VTV6.

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