Catch up on the news in Vietnam today:

Politics 

-- Vietnam's Ministry of National Defense held a ceremony in Hanoi on Monday to hand over the state president's and the defense minister’s decisions to send three officers to the United Nations peacekeeping missions in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Abyei.

-- Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China Zhao Leji presided over a welcome ceremony for and held talks with Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue in Beijing on Monday, during which Zhao said China always considers Vietnam a priority in its neighborly diplomacy policy. 

The top Vietnamese legislator also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping the same day as part of his ongoing official visit to China through Sunday this week.

Society

-- Flights to and from Dien Bien Airport in the namesake northern province were canceled on Monday due to poor visibility caused by haze, which has affected flights to and from the airport since last weekend, the airport operator said.

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Monday signed an official dispatch asking officials to ensure sufficient fresh water supply to residents in the Mekong Delta as saltwater intrusion is forecast to continue in the region until mid-May.

-- Doctors at the Vietnam – Cuba Dong Hoi Friendship Hospital in Quang Binh Province, north-central Vietnam have saved a ninth grader who was stabbed in his kidney by his schoolmate, the hospital announced on Monday.

-- Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday rescued a three-year-old girl and a seven-year-old girl that their mother reported missing while they were selling candies on Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street in District 1 on Wednesday last week. Police officers found that a 21-year-old woman had enticed the children and kept them in an apartment in Binh Thanh District.

-- The Vietnamese government has tasked four ministries with weighing the import of sand from Cambodia for supply to expressway projects in the southern region.

World News

-- “Throngs of skywatchers across North America gazed upward at a blackened sun in the midday dusk on Monday, celebrating with cheers, music and matrimony the first total solar eclipse to darken the continent in seven years,” Reuters reported.

-- “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned China on Monday that Washington will not accept new industries being decimated by Chinese imports, as she wrapped up four days of meetings to press her case for Beijing to rein in excess industrial capacity,” according to Reuters.

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