World

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security will start issuing passports with electronic chips beginning March 1. The passports, to be issued by the Immigration Department under the ministry, will be a useful improvement for Vietnamese citizens as over 100 countries have already been using passports with chips, the department said. There …

South Korea will increase the number of flights into the country from China to 80 from 62 per week by the end of this month, South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said on Friday, in Seoul’s latest step to ease curbs on travellers from China. “We will gradually expand the …

President Joe Biden was declared “fit for duty” by his doctor Thursday after the final annual medical check-up before he is expected to declare he’s running for re-election in 2024, when he will be 82. The keenly awaited report after extensive testing found some relatively minor issues, but said Biden …

The death toll from the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria exceeded 41,000 on Friday as the United Nations appealed for $1 billion to address a growing humanitarian crisis. Eleven days after the quake — now one of the 10 deadliest in the past 100 years — …

After winning bids to run downtown parking lots in the resort town of Da Lat, operators have more than tripled their prices in some cases by charging every 30 minutes. At a parking lot outside the Hoa Binh Theater, cars are now charged VND15,000 every 30 minutes during the day, …

Four tons of cat meat and 480 live cats were found at a slaughterhouse in the Mekong Delta’s Dong Thap Province on Thursday. Inspectors found that the facility in Lai Vung District, owned by Nguyen Huy Quyen, had been collecting and transporting animals without veterinarian hygiene certificates. The origins of …

Catastrophe modeling firm Karen Clark & Company (KCC) said on Thursday it expects insured losses of $2.4 billion from the devastating dual Kahramanmaras earthquakes that hit Turkey earlier this month. The number of people killed by the deadliest earthquake in Turkey’s modern history has risen to 36,187, authorities said. Total …

The release of waste water from Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant would have a negligible effect on South Korean waters, according to a government study published on Thursday. “That change would be too small to detect,” an official at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology said. The …

Two Vietnamese men have finally been compensated after they were wrongly accused of murder 39 years ago. The People’s Procuracy of the northern Vinh Phuc Province paid over VND1.068 billion (US$45,341) to Tran Ngoc Chinh, 82 on Wednesday and VND1.668 billion ($70,500) to a representative of Tran Trung Tham, Chinh’s …

A group of eight male youths aged 15-20 committed 31 robberies, targeting women traveling alone at night in almost each of the cases. A group of male youths are held at a police station in Dong Nai Province for robberies. Photo by police Police in the southern Dong Nai Province …