The Canadian fund Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) on January 10 announced a primary 7.7 million CAD (US$7.2 million) aid to 22 mental healthcare projects worldwide, including one in Vietnam.

Almost 300 people, including poets, writers, musician, singers and artists joined students and representatives from the armed forces in Ho Chi Minh City on January 10 to celebrate the soldiers protecting the country’s seas and islands.

Politburo member and standing member of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat Le Hong Anh has praised efforts of the mass mobilisation sector over the past year.

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation has funded a project to help Vietnam better develop legal regulations that ensure sustainable employment and gender equality for labourers.

The 23rd annual meeting between border guard delegations from Vietnam and Laos took place in Hanoi from January 8-10. 

China’s recent acts concerning the East Sea are illegal and of no value, and seriously violating Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes. 

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has unveiled a plan to promote the tourism industry overseas with a target to welcome 8 million foreign visitors this year.

A communication campaign has been launched in the northern province of Quang Ninh in a bid to raise public awareness about the need to protect bears during the first tourism months of 2014. 

The charitable “Fairy Moon” programme, the sixth of its kind, is expected to raise over US$569 million to help orphans and disadvantaged children experience a joyful Lunar New Year (Tet) festival. 

Do Ha Duy Thanh, 32, who is living in Ho Chi Minh City, was arrested on January 9 after being charged with “using information from computer networks to appropriate property.”