Traditional slaughterhouses in HCM City must either close down or modernise their facilities and relocate to outlying districts by the end of the year, Vũ Văn Hoan, the spokesman for HCM City People’s Committee, has said.

The HCM City Department of Construction has called for amending the agricultural zoning master plan, promoting housing development and changing the construction inspection model to reduce violations, which increased by 16 per cent year-on-year in the first 10 months of this year.

Nearly 1,000 people registered to donate their tissue and organs at a health festival in the northern province of Nam Định on Friday.

“Everyone has their own interest. For me,  rescuing wild animals is my passion,” said Nguyễn Thanh Long from the Central Highlands’s province of Đắk Lắk.

For six years, Vũ Văn Quang has helped hundreds of students cross the road safely. His two daily shifts at Trung Sơn Trầm Primary School, from 10 to 10:45 in the morning and from 16:15 to 17:00 in the afternoon, are inspired by disturbing accidents he saw years ago.

The pơ-mu (Fujian cypress) forest in Yên Bái Province once protected water resources and prevented soil erosion, but in recent years, it has become exploited to the point of destruction. But not everyoned is prepared to admit this.

Representatives from twenty five traditional medicine and pharmaceutical producers joined a workshop last Friday in Hà Nội, focusing on promoting sustainable harvesting and fair trade practices as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR), in particular through the application of the FairWild Standard.

An inter-departmental team of officials will study the 10 areas with the worst traffic congestion in HCM City and recommend measures to ease the problem by year-end.

Proactive preparations are urged in the face of an incoming tropical depression which is likely to strengthen into a typhoon over the next 24-48 hours, the central steering on natural disaster prevention said.