Vietnam has always strived towards protecting the integrity of its maritime sovereignty in tandem with maintaining friendly relations with all countries, enabling a peaceful environment for the national economy to take off.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Fees for more than 1,900 healthcare services for insured patients were raised from 3 per cent to more than 11 per cent at all health facilities in the country on December 15,

 VietNamNet Bridge – DID TV, which produced and owns the series Gạo Nếp Gạo Tẻ (Vương’s Family), has filed a lawsuit against FPT Telecom for infringing its copyright.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Streamlining the Party’s structure is a difficult, sensitive, and complex task that takes time, said Party General Secretary, President Nguyen Phu Trong.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Labour-export companies might be banned from sending Vietnamese workers abroad for jobs considered dangerous.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Nguyen Thi M (not her real name) made the difficult decision to take her mother to a Hanoi nursing home five months ago.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Three BT (Build-Transfer) infrastructure projects in Hanoi were found to have claimed much higher investment estimates than the actual expenditures they required,

 VietNamNet Bridge – Authorities in Dak Lak Province have warned farmers not to expand the area under sacha inchi, also called wild peanut, since demand for it is not consistent.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Writer Nguyen Xuan Khanh from Hanoi has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Literary Award for his contribution to the literature in Vietnam.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Tran Thi Hien, a 49-year-old from Hanoi who works in the construction sector, won the Mrs Viet Nam title on December 18.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Multidimensional poverty (MDP) in Vietnam witnessed a significant drop from 15.9 per cent in 2012 to 9.1 per cent in 2016 with some six million people escaping from poverty.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Surgeons of Duc Giang General Hospital in Hanoi successfully operated on a male patient with acute appendicitis last weekend, despite his internal organs being in different places than most people.

A fishing vessel saved 10 foreign men, including eight Burmese nationals, who were drifting on a life raft in the seas of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, about 25 nautical miles to the southeast of Con Dao Island.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Dao Thi Thanh Binh, a reporter for Thương Hiệu và Công Luận newspaper, was arrested on Wednesday after she tried to extort US$70,000 from a China-invested enterprise in Bac Giang Province.

Le Van Luc, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Electricity and Renewable Energy in Vietnam tells Hải Quan (Customs) newspaper that it will take at least a decade for the nation to achieve full energy security.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The central city of Da Nang’s education and training department has allocated a fund of VND40 billion (US$1.77 million) to upgrade and build new multi-sport arenas at 26 schools by 2022.

 VietNamNet Bridge – A former intravenous drug user in HCM City had the hepatitis C virus (HCV) for many years but did not know about it.  

 VietNamNet Bridge – Scientists have gathered more evidence of a 14th-century Buddhism centre in an excavation at Am Cac Pagoda, Tinh Gia District in the central province of Thanh Hoa.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese students won one gold medal and one bronze in karate at the ASEAN University Games in Myanmar on December 17.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam picked up two bronze medals at the Asian Continental Chess Championship which closed yesterday in Manila, the Philippines.