Read what is in the news today:

Politics

-- The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday issued a statement expressing its deep concern over a China coast guard ship’s hitting and sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the East Vietnam Sea on April 2.

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc sent a video message to a teleconference of health ministers from the Western Pacific region hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday, with a focus on fighting the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Society

-- Vietnam reported no new COVID-19 cases on Thursday morning while more than half of the 251 patients have recovered, with at least two more of them expected to be discharged later same day.

-- The rector and six other officials at Banking University Ho Chi Minh City have been suspended for 15 days for disregarding social distancing by attending a party at the apartment of one of the officials, after which a lecturer fell to his death from the 14th floor of the building on Sunday.

-- All police officers at the police unit of Dong Ngac Ward in Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi have been placed under quarantine after their deputy police chief came into close contact with Vietnam’s COVID-19 patient No. 243.

-- The Ministry of Information and Communications has set a target of having 60 percent and 40 percent of Vietnamese people use social networks and search engines, respectively, developed domestically by 2025.

Business

-- The first of two initial shipments of more than 450,000 protective suits made in Vietnam departed Hanoi on Tuesday, bound for the United States to help healthcare professionals there fight the coronavirus.

World News

-- The novel coronavirus has infected over 1.5 million people and killed more than 88,300 around the world as of Thursday morning, according to numbers pooled by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. More than 329,600 patients have recovered.

-- Northern Irish truck driver Maurice Robinson has pleaded guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter related to the deaths of Vietnamese people found in a shipping container in southeast England last year, Reuters quoted police on Wednesday.

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