Here are today’s leading news stories:

Society

-- Vietnam’s Ministry of Health on Monday evening reported five new COVID-19 cases, including a flight attendant, an Indian expert, and three Vietnamese citizens returning from Romania and the Philippines. The country’s tally sits at 1,312, with 1,151 having recovered.

-- About one to two storms or tropical depression are forecast to enter the East Vietnam Sea until the end of this year and will mainly affect the weather in central and southern provinces, the National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting reported.

-- A 26-year-old woman in the central city of Da Nang was fatally hit by a truck while stopping at a red light on Monday morning.

-- The operator of the multi-story parking lot at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City is expected to install two more elevators prior to December 20 so that passengers can easily access the third, fourth, and fifth floors to meet their ride-hailing drivers.

-- A six-grader in the northern province of Thai Binh was killed after being hit by a collapsing wall while walking home after school on Sunday afternoon, local authorities confirmed on Monday.

-- More than 730,000 houses were damaged and inundated due to natural disasters in Vietnam since the beginning of this year, according to statistics from the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control.

Business

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked the garment-textile and footwear sectors to promote the quality of Vietnamese brands and supply chain linkages, and develop supporting industries during a working session with the business representatives in Hanoi on Monday.

-- A total of 112 Vietnamese engineers will be awarded ASEAN professional engineer certificates during the Annual Conference of the ASEAN Federation of Engineers (CAFEO) organized in Hanoi on November 25 and 26, according to the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA).

-- State-owned Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) has made it into the top three largest firms in Vietnam this year, the tenth year in a row, according to the latest ranking co-released by Vietnam Report (VNR) and e-newspaper VietNamNet.

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