The scale of tobacco smuggling has fallen but the situation remains complicated, especially in ‘smuggling hubs’ like the Southern cities and provinces of HCM City, Long An, Tây Ninh, An Giang, and the Northern provinces of Hải Phòng, Quảng Ninh, Thái Bình, a conference on combating smuggling has heard.

The Bình Tiên Bridge and Road project will be built by four contractors with total investment of VNĐ3.508 trillion (US$157 million) to relieve traffic congestion, the city’s Transport Department has said.

Hastening the disbursement of official development assistance (ODA) and preferential loans remains a huge task for the remaining two months of this year in the context of increasing public debts and limited resources, said Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Bình Minh.

Experts have recommended that the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta should expand “smart” rice cultivation to reduce production costs and increase profits.

The increasing number of suicides in Điện Biên over the last few years was raising alarms among the community in the remote mountainous province.

School violence has recently increased not only in quantity, but also in severity, said educational experts.

National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân yesterday visited and presented gifts to flood victims in Hương Khê and Vũ Quang districts – the most vulnerable to flooding in the central province of Hà Tĩnh.

Minister of Information and Communications Trương Minh Tuấn today decided to temporarily suspend the editor-in-chief and the deputy editor-in-chief of online newspaper infonet.vn.

Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has made a proposal to the prime minister on next year’s public holidays scheme.It has suggested two options for Tết ( Lunar New Year) holidays -- seven days off or 10 days off.