What you need to know today in Vietnam:

Society

-- The administration of northern Lang Son Province on Saturday successfully auctioned several custard-apples for VND880 million (US$36,959), with one sold at VND220 million ($9,239) and another at VND200 million ($8,399). The amount will be used to build bridges and houses for disadvantaged students in the province.

-- Police in Do Son District, Hai Phong City, northern Vietnam on Saturday said that they were investigating a case in which a group of people called 'Black Roses' took blood samples from over 400 students for unknown purposes and without local authorities’ permission.

-- Rescuers have found the bodies of two fishermen who went missing after their coracle capsized while they were catching squid off Phu Yen Province, south-central Vietnam on Friday, the provincial border guard force said on Saturday.

-- Hoang Anh Gia Lai Football Club in Gia Lai Province, located in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, on Saturday transported the body of Paollo Madeira Oliveira, a Brazilian-Portuguese striker who tragically lost his life in a recent traffic accident, to Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City for a flight to Portugal.

-- Some 40 households in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City have seen their houses cracking and subsiding, attributing the issue to the construction of an embankment in Phu Dinh Wharf, part of the second phase of the Ho Chi Minh City water environment improvement project.

-- A glass-bottomed bridge was opened in Da Lat City, a tourist attraction in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, on Saturday. The bridge, which is 90 meters above the ground, is the first of its kind in the Central Highlands and southern regions.

Business

-- Ho Chi Minh City led the nation exports and imports in the January-July period of this year with respective figures of $23.6 billion and $31 billion, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Sports

-- Vietnamese runner Nguyen Thi Oanh, the only Vietnamese athlete to compete in the ongoing 2023 World Athletics Championships in Hungary, set her own new record after finishing the women's 1,500-meter run event in four minutes and 12.28 seconds on Saturday. She ranked 51st among the 54 runners competing in the hurdle.

Lifestyle

-- Hundreds of residents and tourists flocked to a commune in Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam to enjoy the first cow cart race in the province with the participation of six teams on Saturday.

World News

-- Forest fires in Canada's western province of British Columbia intensified further on Saturday, doubling the number of people under an evacuation order to 35,000 from a day earlier, as authorities warned of difficult days ahead, Reuters reported.

-- At least seven children were killed in eastern Congo on Saturday after a fire broke out at camp for people displaced by flooding, Reuters cited local official Thomas Bakenga as saying.

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