After the penalty shootout against Qatar in the 2018 AFC Under 23 Championship semi-final match that carried Vietnam into the final of the competition for the first time in history, thousands of fans flocked to the streets nationwide to celebrate.

 Export turnover of agro-forestry-aquatic products in January 2018 was estimated at 3.09 billion USD, up 25.9 percent against the same period last year. 

 There will be more than 40,260 redundant teachers when the new national curriculum for general education is implemented from 2019, according to the Ministry of Education and Training.

The Ministry of Health urged city and provincial people’s committees, health departments and citizens across the country to take preventions against a possible bird flu over the next 16 days ahead of the Lunar New Year.

 The International Union for the Conservation of Nature last week launched a pilot project for flood-based livelihoods that will enhance the water retention capacity of the Mekong Delta.

  Parking lots are places with a high risk of fire. When a fire breaks out, there are often very serious consequences as vehicles are parked close together and oil and gasoline can sometimes be present on the ground.

 The year 2017 led to an increasing number of maritime mishaps involving fishing and cargo ships in the seas around Viet Nam, highlighting the perils seafarers face.

 Shares declined on the HCM Stock Exchange (HOSE) on January 29, dragged down by blue chips despite rising demand on the southern bourse.

VietNamNet Bridge - Many wooden houses built just two to three years ago have been sold and taken from of the mountainous district of Tuyen Hoa in Quang Binh province.  

Goalkeeper Bui Tien Dung and right wing Nguyen Quang Hai of the U23 Vietnam has been picked by sports reporter Scott McIntyre of Fox Sports Asia, as two of the best players after the three-week AFC U23 Championship in China was over. 

 It remains impossible for Vietnam’s securities market to get promoted from a frontier market to an emerging market this year, officials say.

 General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong was awarded the 50-year Party membership badge at a ceremony in Hanoi on January 29. 

 Residents in Vinh Cuu and Dinh Quan districts, the southern province of Dong Nai, have proposed local authority construct additional 20 kilometres of electric fence to prevent wild elephants from wandering into residential areas.

Vietnam’s football potential has yet to be fully tapped and the freshly-concluded 2018 AFC U23 Championship where Vietnam claimed the silver medal is just a beginning, said U23 Vietnam’s head coach Park Hang Seo. 

 Mechanisms should be rolled out promptly in order to prevent corrupt acts, said Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh at a conference in Hanoi on January 29. 

 Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc highlighted Viet Nam’s significant achievements in 2017 in an article published in a special issue titled “The Year Ahead 2018: Hope Against Rage” of the international media organisation Project Syndicate. 

 National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan has complimented Vietnam’s U23 football team on their excellent performance and historical achievements at the continental sport event. 

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc at MPI’s year-end summation conference last week again requested the General Statistics Office (GSO) to re-calculate GDP. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Unable to ‘play’ on a level playing field, domestic games developers and distributors are finding it difficult to grow.

Research by a group of lecturers from the HCM City University of Education has found signs of self-destructive behavior in 84 percent of secondary school students in the city.