Immediately after taking office on July 25, newly elected State President Truong Tan Sang talked to the media, emphasizing that safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity is an issue of prime importance.

Traffic law violators will have to do community services, said a new bill on administrative violations to be voted on later this year.

Yesterday the Hanoi Health Department ordered YNG SHIN Food Co. Ltd. in the Bich Hoa Industrial Park, Thanh Oai District, to withdraw all of its 12 fruit juice products that have been tested positive for cancer-causing plasticizer DEHP.

A woman and two her children were crushed and injured by a falling tree branch when they were selling lottery tickets on Tan Binh district’s Pham Van Hai street in Ho Chi Minh City this afternoon.

Families of several of the victims who died in the restaurant boat accident on the Saigon River that left 16 people dead last month have decided to drop charges against the company’s employees who were detained after the tragedy.

The Investigation Department of the Supreme People’s Procuracy yesterday charged three former senior police officials in the southern province of Tien Giang with misusing billions of dong of government money and illegally detaining people.

The Ho Chi Minh City police arrested the former acting director and chief accountant of a Can Tho-based state housing company for allegedly taking bribes from a construction company to award a contract to build two villas six years ago.

The Ho Chi Minh City police said it has received complaints from many people, including from 2006 Miss Sea Vu Ngoc Diep, against a company that may have forged documents to purport as a land dealer.

A large number of titanium mining firms in the southern central province of Binh Thuan are destroying the local environment, water supply and agricultural crops.

A 17-year-old man in the southern province of Long An was sentenced to one-and-a-half years probation Wednesday for blackmailing Vietnam’s largest dairy producer, Vinamilk , for VND70 million (US$3,500) with allegedly pesticide-tainted milk.

The Hayward police in California reported that they have identified some people as “persons of interest” in the investigation into the disappearance of Vietnamese American nursing student Michelle Le, 26, on May 27.

Phu Yen has sent an emergency dispatch to the Foreign Ministry seeking help after four fishing boats based in the northern province were threatened by Chinese vessels Wednesday.

The families of the four Chinese victims who died in the tour-boat tragedy in the Saigon River last month are demanding greater compensation than originally agreed with the boat operator, while the families of the Vietnamese victims have approached a lawyer.

A sand barge ran off course in Vinh Long as its driver fell asleep, crashing into a house and sinking dozens of boats in early morning Tuesday.

A missing nursing student's family is offering $20,000 for information about her whereabouts after she disappeared Friday at a northern California hospital.