What you need to know today in Vietnam:

Politics

-- Ho Chi Minh City’s Union of Friendship Organizations and the Cambodian Consulate General in the city held a get-together on Thursday to mark 42 years since the victory in the southwestern border defense war and the joint victory on January 7, 1979 of Vietnam and Cambodia over the genocidal Pol Pot regime, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Society

-- Vietnam reported four imported coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the tally to 1,509 patients, with 1,353 recoveries and 35 virus-related deaths, according to the health ministry.

-- Vietnam's Ministry of Health said on Thursday experts were working on the conditions of two COVID-19 patients that had turned significantly worse over the last days.

-- Temperatures dropped to 11 degrees Celsius on Friday morning, according to local weather forecasters.

-- Service providers have said that an imported COVID-19 vaccine will be available in Vietnam at the end of the first quarter of this year.

-- A Ho Chi Minh City court on Thursday sentenced 39-year-old Nguyen Huu Phuoc to death for setting fire to a house in District 9, now Thu Duc City, leading to the death of five people last year.

Business

-- Vietnam's military-run telco Viettel announced a new brand kit, with red being the main theme, on Thursday to "suit the digital age."

-- Credit growth in Vietnam may reach 13-14 percent this year, partly driven by progress in the production of COVID-19 vaccines, the Vietnam News Agency reported, citing a 2021 banking outlook report released by the SSI Securities Corporation on Wednesday.

World News

-- "U.S. President Donald Trump returned to Twitter on Thursday with a video acknowledging that Joe Biden would be the next U.S. president as other social media services including Facebook Inc blocked his accounts over concerns that his messages might spark further violent protests," Reuters reported.

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