Unknown player Tran Thanh Tu defeated Grandmasters to win the men's gold medal at the National Rapid Chess Championships, which ended in HCM City on May 3.

 The Hue Craft Village Festival ended yesterday (May 3), after a six-day event in which 34 craft villages from around the country participated by displaying their handicraft skills and products.

Numerous gas stations in Hanoi may be better thought of as ticking time bombs. Despite being located in the middle of crowded residential areas, many overlooked or ignored fire safety regulations in both design and in day-to-day operations.

 HCM City is developing its first special economic zone in the south of the city, encompassing districts 7, Nha Be and part of Binh Chanh and Can Gio with a focus on marine economy.

Ocean Group Joint Stock Company (OGC) may lose nearly VND3 trillion (US$139 million) after the State Bank of Viet Nam completed a merger for OceanBank for VND0 last month, Tri Thuc Tre (Young Intellectual) online newspaper reported .

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) is planning to raise the tariff on cassava and ethanol exports in an effort to retain materials for domestic biofuel production. Cassava and ethanol bear an export tariff of zero percent. 

 The Government, for the first time, has instructed relevant ministries to create a legal mechanism to allow for part of foreign currency reserves to be used to fund development projects.

 More than 200 teachers in Ky Anh district, central Ha Tinh province, are set to lose their jobs this month as the district authority has introduced new contract rules.

 The 11th plenary session of the 11th Party Central Committee opened in Hanoi on May 4, with focus on personnel plan for the next tenure and the number of delegates for the 12th Party Congress.

 Vietnam appreciates its traditional ties and comprehensive cooperation with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Thanh Tuan said while presenting his credentials to the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 More than 1,000 athletes from 54 countries and territories will compete in the Ironman, an international triathlon, in the coastal central city of Da Nang on May 10.

 The agricultural and rural development departments in three southern central provinces said they were not planting the summer-autumn rice and several crops due to prolonged drought.

 Private investors are now being encouraged to invest in rail infrastructure development and infrastructure leasing ventures in Vietnam.

 Can Cau Market opens every Saturday and on holidays, revealing the simple but colorful life of ethnic people in the northern highlands.

 Police in northern Son La province have seized 160 kg of heroin with a street value estimated in the millions of dollars and arrested dozens, killing one, in one of the largest drug busts of recent memory.

 Emile Chaillot, an accomplished bartender from Paris, will conduct sessions demonstrating the finest of bar techniques on how to design and mix cocktails on May 5 in HCM City.

 The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), scheduled to take shape in late 2015, is expected to facilitate the free flow of goods, services, investment, as well as skilled workers within the bloc.

 VietNamNet Bridge - Industrialization of agriculture is the major solution to create competitive advantage for Vietnam's agricultural products in the international and domestic market.

 The nation's agriculture sector needs to bridge the gap that exists between planning and implementation in order to reduce farmers' vulnerabilities to vagaries of the weather and the marketplace, experts say.

Although Vietnam performed organ transplant operations half a century later than much of the rest of the world and 20 years later than regional countries, it has now caught up with countries that have modern medicine.