Authorities in the central province of Quang Nam plan to review all its 43 hydropower dams as the largest one continues to worry residents with its ongoing leaking problem, the VnExpress newswire reported Tuesday. The report quoted Nguyen Thanh Quang, director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, as saying inspection teams will be sent to check the dams next month to suggest risk minimizing measures. Local authorities are especially concerned about the [...]

Construction has started on the first public high rise parking lot in Ho Chi Minh City, as many similar structures are expected to be built in coming years. The news website VnExpress on Wednesday said multi-story parking lots are considered by many investors to be an “optimum solution” for the city’s parking scarcity, as they cost less money and take less time to built than underground facilities. On March 23, the Saigon Transport and Mechanics [...]

A nearly 400 year-old cluster fig tree in the northern midland province of Phu Tho is the first to become a Vietnam Heritage Tree. A recognition ceremony was jointly held by the Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment (VACNE) and the local authorities of Xuan Anh commune, Ha Hoa district, on April 20. The tree measures 5.6m in circumference, 1.65m in diameter and is more than 3m high. It has a root in [...]

Two 300-kilogram bombs left over from the Vietnam War were discovered in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Binh District Tuesday by workers digging at a construction site. The 1.3-meter-long bombs were found in an alley off Ly Thuong Kiet Street in a plot owned by Nguyen Thi Ngat. The workers reported to local authorities and military sappers soon turned up to unearth the bombs from about 30 centimeters under the ground. “We are yet to [...]

A report on the quality of Vietnam’s gasoline will be sent to the Prime Minister next week, but is unlikely to pinpoint the causes of hundreds of vehicle fires that have plagued the country since 2010. Inspections were launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology in January per the orders of PM Nguyen Tan Dung, after experts alleged that adulterated gasoline was probably the cause of the mysterious fires, VnExpress reported Friday. However, Nguyen [...]

A court in the northern province of Vinh Phuc on Wednesday rejected an engineer’s petition against his former employer, Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV). Le Van Tach, who had worked as a technical officer for TMV for 10 years, filed a lawsuit against the company last September and filed a petition asking that general director Akito Tachibana be brought up on formal charges for the actions he took against Tach once the latter began reporting the [...]

Police in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue have arrested a man who pickpocketed an ambassador during a street carnival at the 2012 Hue Festival. The arrest was made thanks to another ambassador who took a picture of the act, the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported. Ngo Hoa, vice chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, told a press conference on Tuesday morning the victim of the robbery was Alberto Jaime Kaminker, Argentina’s ambassador to Vietnam. [...]

The driver of a public transport bus in northern Vietnam has been arrested after he drove more than a kilometer with a police officer, who tried to pull him up for breaking road rules, clinging precariously to the bus’ windshield wipers. It happened in Hanoi on Monday and was videotaped by a reader who sent in the clip to VnExpress. Lieutenant Nguyen Manh Phan of the Ba Vi District traffic police division ordered Phung Hong [...]

Hanging on his bike a sign that reads “Xe om tay phuc vu” (motorbike taxi service offered by a Westerner), Zagrodski Adrian, a Polish student at Hanoi University, has caught the attention of local people. Adrian, often called Adi, a student at the Vietnamese-Thai faculty of Hanoi University, is currently working for a television station in Hanoi. He has become famous since his image as motorbike taxi service provider was posted on Facebook, drawing thousands [...]

An eight-year-old girl who has a massive tumor on her left leg was admitted to a Ho Chi Minh City hospital Monday, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. Nguyen Thi Loan from the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong underwent scans and tests at the Children’s Hospital 2 where doctors plan to discuss her case Wednesday. Loan, born to Nguyen Cong Duc, 35, and Nguyen Thi Tam, 30, had an unusually large left leg when she was [...]