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A fire erupted at a fast-food restaurant by the entrance of the Lotte Mart shopping center in District 7, HCMC, causing widespread panic among staff and customers. Thick smoke engulfs Lotte Mart’s floors in HCMC’s District 7, Dec. 22, 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Bang A fried chicken eatery on the …

A Chinese businessman kidnapped by a compatriot for a VND4.5 billion (US$185,700) ransom has been rescued by Vietnamese police. Officers in the southern province of Binh Duong said Friday that they tracked down the alleged kidnappers from information from their calls demanding the ransom. The Chinese kidnapper Zhao Xin, 37, …

Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health has set a target to reduce road accidents during the upcoming New Year holidays by 5%, by emphasising the message: no drinking and driving. Minister of Public Health Cholnan Srikaew noted that there is a possibility that road accidents during the festive period may increase, …

Boeing’s first direct delivery of a 787 Dreamliner to China since 2019 landed in Shanghai on Friday, a step that could hasten the end of China’s freeze on deliveries of the firm’s profitable 737 MAX after more than four years. Privately owned Chinese carrier Juneyao Airlines on Thursday took delivery …

The former head manager of the Carina apartment building in HCMC, where a fire killed 13 people in 2018, was sentenced to eight years in jail Friday. The HCMC People’s Court decided that Nguyen Quoc Tuan, as head of the management board of the building, held the main responsibility for …

A primary school’s principal in the northern Lao Cai Province has resigned as police launched an investigation following footage of students having reduced meal portions, with plain instant noodles soup. Tran Ngoc Ha, the principal of Hoang Thu Pho 1 Primary School in Bac Ha District, said in the resignation …

Two of four wallabies that were abandoned by traffickers and sent to a rescue center in northern Vietnam last week have died there. La Van Toi, director of Hoang Lien Rescue and Conservation Center in Lao Cai Province, said one died on Dec. 8 and the other on Dec. 12. …

A state-owned company in the central Quang Ngai Province has suspended an employee for three months after police arrested him for assaulting a 14-year-old boy on the street. Quach Pham Cuong, director of the Quang Ngai Power Company, said Wednesday that the decision to suspend Phan Thuong My, 44, was …

Thai lawmakers on Thursday overwhelmingly passed four draft bills on same-sex marriage in their first reading, moving the country closer towards its legalization in a country with one of Asia’s most open and visible LGBT communities. Thailand’s laws and institutions still do not reflect changing social attitudes and still discriminate …

The peak of Mau Son Mountain in Lang Son Province saw temperatures dropping to minus 2 degrees Celsius Friday morning as Hanoi recorded temperatures at 10 degrees. During the sixth day of the latest cold wave in northern Vietnam regions, average daytime temperatures in the plains were below 15 degrees, …