Here are today’s leading news stories:

Politics

-- Vietnamese State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation left Hanoi on Saturday night for an official visit to Cuba, which is scheduled to run from September 18 to 20.

COVID-19 Updates

-- The Ministry of Health documented 9,373 COVID-19 cases, including 4,237 in Ho Chi Minh City, on Saturday evening, raising the country’s tally to 677,023, with 448,368 recoveries and 16,857 deaths.

-- The National Ethics Committee in Biomedical Research on Saturday approved the mid-term evaluation report of the third phase of clinical trials for Vietnam's homegrown Nano Covax COVID-19 vaccine.

-- The central city of Da Nang recorded no local infection for the first time in 70 days on Saturday even though authorities had been conducting mass testing over the past days, according to the municipal steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control.

-- The Ministry of Health has required authorities in virus-hit provinces and cities to conduct rapid COVID-19 testing on managers and merchants at wholesale markets every week to prevent serious outbreaks.

Society

-- A 37-year-old men from the north-central province of Quang Binh has been arrested for setting up a COVID-19 checkpoint and collecting money from commuters.

-- Environmental police in the north-central province of Ha Tinh have discovered a frozen tiger weighing 160 kilograms along with animal bones inside a local resident’s house.

-- The director of the medical center in Thot Not District, located in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, has been given a warning as a disciplinary action for letting an under-18-year-old person receive COVID-19 vaccination.

-- A Singaporean investor has donated medical equipment and supplies worth SG$1 billion (US$741,000) to the southern province of Binh Duong to support local pandemic prevention and control efforts.

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