The Government of Spain will support Ho Chi Minh City in a project to control pollution in the Saigon river.

Once they are employed, disabled people feel more confident to play an equal role in family and society.

Between 800,000 and 900,000 women who are more than three months pregnant and around 280,000 health-care workers nationwide will be vaccinated against A/H1N1 flu.

Including gender related issues in climate change policy is just one of the recommendations in a report released by the United Nations and Oxfam representatives at a workshop on climate change in Hanoi on Dec. 2.

The German government has provided Vietnam with a preferential loan of 120 million euro to help the country slash its electric energy loss from 30 percent to 15 percent and save it about 400 million kWh per year or VND350-400 billion annually.

The King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, has donated 200 tonnes of goods to assist the victims of the recent natural disasters in central Vietnam.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked the Ministry of Information and Communication to thoroughly inspect all websites after the Tuoi Tre (Young Age) Newspaper ran an article on the launch of unlicensed websites.

A new air route from Taipei in Taiwan will officially commence on December 26, according to the Danang City People’s Committee.

Around 1 million rural workers, including 100,000 from communal cadres, will receive vocational training every year from now until 2020. 

The Automotive Asia Company, the main importers of Audi cars, on December 1 signed an agreement with the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Department, under Vietnam’s General Department of Customs, on the exchange and supply of information.

A seminar on the study of French in Southeast Asia opened in the Central Highland city of Da Lat on December 1. 

Menras André Marcel, a faithful friend of the Vietnamese people for nearly 40 years, has become a citizen at a ceremony held in Ho Chi Minh City on December 1. 

A press briefing was held on December 1 by the German Embassy in Hanoi to announce a preferential credit loan worth US$180 million for a project to cope with climate change and to launch a website on German cooperation and development in Vietnam.  

The Joint Advocacy Network Initiative (JANI) held a seminar to review its communication campaign and collect initiatives on how to cope with natural disasters in Hanoi on December 1.

A seminar on developing information system on administrative reform was held in Hai Phong City on December 1 by the Ministry of Home Affairs in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

By September 30, 2009, Vietnam had recorded more than 156,800 people living with HIV/AIDS, including 34,391 cases of full-blown AIDS. So far, 44,232 people have died from the deadly virus.  

Vietnam is trying to develop its marine reserves from now until 2020 to protect its ecological systems and marine creatures with a high economic and scientific value, boost the marine-based economy and improve the living standards of coastal communities.

More than 10,000 Caodaism followers across the country flocked to the Tay Ninh

The Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration on November 30 inaugurated a dormitory for learners funded by the Chinese government.

The Vietnam National University (VNU) presented the Certificate of Honourable Doctor to US trade policymaker, Prof. Susan Schwab, in Hanoi on November 30.

As many as 350,000 carbon credits, or Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), from a project to collect and use associated gases from the Rang Dong oil field in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau will be auctioned in Hanoi this December.

Vietnam and Sweden signed an agreement to support a poverty reduction programme named “Sharing”, the second phase (2009-2011) in Hanoi on November 30.

The Austrian Ambassador to Vietnam Georg Heindl said in a working visit to the central province of Thua Thien-Hue on November 30 that his government has accepted to provide an ODA package of 17 million euro for the province to upgrade the Cancer Centre at the Hue National Hospital.

The southern city of Can Tho is full of festivity at the moment, with colourful flags and flowers, posters and decoration lamps. Streets have been cleaned up for the international event and many domestic and foreign tourists have registered to visit the city.

A conference highlighting exemplary role models from the movement “Studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s moral example” was held in Russia on November 29 by the Vietnamese Embassy, with more than 120 delegates from Party organisations and Youth Union of the overseas Vietnamese associations in Russia taking part.

The annual cultural performance night was held on November 28 by Vietnamese students at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) under the University of London to collect money for charity events in Vietnam.

Vietnam plans to produce an antibiotic to protect people from the H1N1 virus by the beginning of 2010, at a price 4.5 times cheaper than Tamiflu.

Ninh Binh attracted over 2 million visitors, 27,000 from overseas, in the first 11 months of 2009, according to the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.  

Kim Paul Nguyen, a Vietnamese from Brisbane, Australia, is making a bicycle trip around the world to call for environmental protection and green house gas reduction to save the Earth from global warming.

Construction work began on November 28 on a project for the elderly in Minh Phu commune in Hanoi’s outlying district of Soc Son.