The sky above Ecopark, a new green urban residential area in the northern province of Hung Yen, was peppered with giant kites representing buoyancy with hope and joy of life during the opening ceremony of an international kite festival on April 30.

 Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party’s Committee Dinh La Thang has said an e-government system will enable the city to move forward with administrative reforms.

 Investors, start-up founders and experts gathered in Singapore for a two-day Tech in Asia 2016 conference. Vietnam News talked with some of them to discover why Vietnam is becoming a hot-spot for start-ups.

 Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Pham Quang Vinh and Vietnamese Consul General to Houston Nguyen Van Hoa met outstanding business representatives in the US state of Texas on April 28.

 Vietnam Airlines, the national flag carrier, started using its new generation aircraft Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner for the Hanoi-Beijing (China) route, with the first flight landing in Beijing on April 30.

 A letter condemning China’s escalating militarisation in Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes has been sent to the Chinese Embassy in the Czech Republic by the Vietnamese community in the country.

 The Hanoi Transport Corporation (Transerco) put into operation a new bus route connecting downtown Hanoi with Noi Bai international airport, costing only 30,000 VND (1.35 USD) per leg, on April 30.

The southern province of Binh Duong and the World Bank concluded negotiations on a 92 million USD loan for the urban wastewater collection and treatment project in Di An town on April 29.

 Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung hosted a dialogue with locals in central Quang Binh province’s Bao Ninh commune concerning recent mass fish deaths on April 29.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Widow Than Thi Ngoan, of My Dien Village in the northern Bac Giang Province, said in tears that her husband died six months after discovering he had stomach cancer.

 Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired an irregular meeting with Cabinet members to consider and address requests made by businesses during the freshly-concluded dialogue with the Government leader in Hanoi on April 29.

 A Vietnamese delegation led by Permanent Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for External Information Service Pham Van Linh paid a working visit to South Africa from April 24-29, to strengthen links in communication between the two countries.

 More than 160 players representing 18 delegations nationwide will be contending for top honours at the National Table Tennis Championships 2016, taking place at Ho Xuan Huong Gymnasium in HCM City from May 8 to 15. 

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan will be holding a series of Japanese cooking seminars in HCMC on May 4-5.

 Vietnamese enterprises were fined a total of VND8.6 billion (US$385,600) by competent agencies for using pirated software since the Intellectual Property Law came into force in 2006.

 On April 26, Canal+ Group’s Vietnamese subsidiary, Vietnam Satellite Digital Television (VSTV), announced the completion of the purchase of the broadcasting rights of the English Premier League (EPL) for the 2016-2019 period.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Watching children grow up and learn new things in life brings great happiness to every parent.

 A month after being elected as the prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc has said he is saddened by the fact that the public and business community continue to be the victims of corruption.

VietNamNet Bridge - “Vietnam has 64 independent economies, including 63 local economies and one central economy,” commented Tran Dinh Thien, head of the Vietnam Economics Institute.

 Several photographers have voiced their opposition to a new Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism circular that bans artists and models from nude photography, saying that they would ignore the circular.