The Hanoitimes – The northern province of Bac Giang held a ceremony on March 20 to receive the certificate recognising Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in Yen Dung district as a Special National Relic.

The Prime Minister approved the decision to grant Vinh Nghiem Pagoda as a Special National Relic on December 23 last year.

Addressing the event, Deputy Prime Minister (PM) Nguyen Xuan Phuc stressed that the locality should develop a plan to preserve Vinh Nghiem Pagoda soon.

Deputy PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc grants the title of Special National Relic to Vinh Nghiem Pagoda.

Deputy PM Phuc also proposed that Bac Giang province should implement further studies on its value in connection with the Complex of Yen Tu Monuments and Landscape, which is necessary to ask for UNESCO recognition as a World Heritage item.

During the ceremony, arts performances recreated the life of King Tran Nhan Tong, the third king of the Tran Dynasty and the first master of Truc Lam Zen Buddhism, who became a monk in Vinh Nghiem Pagoda.

Vinh Nghiem Pagoda is located 20 kilometres southeast of Bac Giang city. Constructed at the beginning of the Ly Dynasty in the 11th century, the pagoda was expanded during the Tran Dynasty (13th – 14th centuries). Then it became a training centre for Truc Lam Zen followers for nearly eight centuries.

Vinh Nghiem Pagoga

Many types of sacred Buddhist statues, including a valuable collection of woodblocks used to print Buddhist Sutras, were safeguarded here.

The pagoda was named a national relic in 1964. Besides, the festival of Vinh Nghiem Pagoda, held annually on the 12th of the second lunar month, was recognised as a national intangible cultural heritage item in 2013.

Thu Minh

(Cient)- Heritage Space will hold a series of events of Visual Arts, Architecture and Music from March 27 to April 24.

A series of events of Visual Arts, Architecture and Music will take place from March 27- April 24.

To start the activities of the year, in the afternoon of 27 March 2016, Heritage Space will hold a series of events of Visual Arts, Architecture and Music. For architecture, there shall be the film “Great Expectation” (director: Jesper Wachtmeister) provided by the Club of Architecture Cinema and implemented by Ashui.com. For Visual Arts, there shall be an exhibition of painting, installation, multimedia and concept works and entitled “Heritage Space +”. It presents the selected products of artists who have been cooperating with Heritage Space last time. For music, there is a show of New Music by Vu Nhat Tan, composer, and his collaborators. The product is Cõi Vắng (Empty World) that shall last about 50 minutes.

The mentioned activities are twofold important.

The first is that Heritage Space introduces new projects and targets to support the contemporary arts development and to become a center for the performance, shows, education, exchanges in plastic arts, music and architecture.

The event was organized to contribute more to the development of new colors of contemporary art, put new works or art projects closer to the public.

Travel website TripAdvisor has named Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, as one of the world’s top destinations in its 2016 Travelers’ Choice Destination awards.

The Temple of Literature in Hanoi

Hanoi dropped four spots this year but managed to remain in the top ten, ranking eighth after London, Istanbul, Marrakech, Paris, Siem Reap, Prague and Rome. The UK capital jumped five spots to become the world’s top destination in TripAdvisor’s 2016 Travelers’ Choice Destination awards. In TripAdvisor’s words, the charming Vietnamese capital has aged well, preserving the Old Quarter, monuments and colonial architecture, while making room for modern developments alongside. Hanoi may have shrugged off several former names, including Thang Long, or “ascending dragon,” but it hasn’t forgotten its past, as sites such as Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum and Hoa Lo Prison attest. Lakes, parks, shady boulevards and more than 600 temples and pagodas add to the appeal of this city, which is easily explored by taxi. According to newswire CNN, TripAdvisor processed millions of user reviews over the course of a year to select its Travelers’ Choice winners for the world’s top destinations. TripAdvisor chief marketing officer Barbara Messing was quoted by CNN as saying the awards recognised the world’s most beloved travel spots, based on feedback and booking interest from the TripAdvisor community.

Chinese police have detained 37 people linked to a vaccine scandal and are investigating three pharmaceutical companies, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

The case involves nearly $90 million worth of illegal vaccines, against meningitis, rabies and other illnesses, that are suspected of being sold in dozens of provinces around China since 2011.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the incident had exposed many regulatory loopholes and ordered authorities to undertake a thorough investigation, according to a statement posted on the government’s website late on Tuesday.

The vaccine scandal underlines the challenge the world’s second-largest drug market faces to regulate its fragmented supply chain, even as Beijing looks to support home-grown firms.

Xinhua said the arrests were made by police in Shandong, the eastern Chinese province at the heart of the scandal. One of the three firms being investigated, Shandong Zhaoxin Bio-tech Co., has been ordered to halt operations and had a license revoked, it said.

It also said China’s top court would oversee the vaccine case directly.

On Tuesday, China’s drug regulator identified nine vaccine wholesalers from six provinces suspected of filing fake reports of buyers’ identities.

Police said a mother and daughter in Shandong had illegally bought vaccines from traders and sold them on to hundreds of re-sellers around China, according to a notice from the Shandong Public Security Department.

Authorities should improve the regulatory system surrounding vaccine production and distribution, Premier Li said, and dereliction of duty related to accountability would not be tolerated.

The office building of state-controlled publishing house Savina in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem District. Photo: VNA

Real estate conglomerate giant Vingroup has received the government’s approval to buy a stake of 65 percent in state-controlled publishing house Savina for VND472 billion (US$20.89 million), local media reported on Tuesday.

The deal was approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism just a few days ahead of the publisher’s initial public offering, where it is set to sell another stake of 24.6 percent, according to news website Zing. The government will own the rest.

While Savina is slated to auction 16.73 million shares, starting at VND10,500 per share, at the IPO this Thursday, the number of shares subscribed by investors has nearly doubled the planned sale, it said.

Although its post-tax profits declined 30 percent to VND400 million last year compared from 2012, the veteran publishing house has received strong interest from investors with its six “golden” commercial properties, mostly in the city downtown, local media reported.

Savina mostly publishes children’s books and textbooks.

Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong yesterday went on an inspection tour about the progress of the new urban area of Thu Thiem New Urban Area in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 2.

Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong at the location where Thu Thiem 2 Bridge will be built (Photo: SGGP)

According to the project’s investor Dai Quang Minh Company, 65 percent of work on four main roads in the new urban area has been built. They broke ground on February 2014.

Construction has been hindered with site clearance over 1.8 hectares of 13 households in four wards and two religious establishments who have refused to hand over their land. However, removal of power and water infrastructure system has been slow.

Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong asked construction units to debate solutions to speed up the project’s progress.

Advertisements on public buses will hit Ho Chi Minh City streets from April. Photo: Thanh Nien

A Japanese advertising company has won the right to run advertisements on public buses in Ho Chi Minh City for one year.

Koa Sha Media Vietnam beat out other bidders with an offer of VND14.6 billion (more than US$650,000) for placing advertisements on the sides of 171 buses, mostly serving downtown routes. The city originally wanted at least VND10.3 billion.

Dau An Phuc, director of the city’s public transport management center, said after three to six months, the center will consider a plan to have advertisements on all 2,344 public buses in the city.

Phuc said, as cited by Tuoi Tre newspaper, that ads on all the buses can bring around VND170 billion ($7.58 million) a year and help reduce the government’s subsidy on ticket fares.

The city spent VND927 billion last year on bus services subsidies.

He said the city is going to allow onboard advertisements as well.

Pham Ngoc Phuong, deputy director of Koa Sha Media Vietnam, said bus advertisements will hit the city streets from April.

Buses are essentially the only public transport available in Ho Chi Minh City, the only city in Vietnam that has not allowed ads on the vehicles.

Each bus ticket now costs between VND5,000-10,000 (22-44 US cents), but many passengers are turning away due to the lack of investment to replace old buses and make them more friendly to disabled passengers.

The number of passengers dropped nearly 12 percent last year to 324 million.

HCMC officials at a recent meeting set a goal to raise the number to one million a day in 2020.

The city last week launched a new route without government subsidy between Tan Son Nhat Airport and the downtown area. Tickets cost VND20,000, or less than a dollar.

Two bus services using compressed natural gas that burns cleaner than gasoline and diesel fuel were launched early this month, connecting the northwestern district of Hoc Mon to Thu Duc on the east side.

A series of small-capacity hydropower plants in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak have been operating moderately, with some having to shut down because so many lakes, rivers and streams in the locality are dry.

Hydropower plants in the Serepok river basin, which have small reservoirs, or no reservoirs at all, such as Dray H’Linh, Dray H’Linh 1, Dray H’linh 3, Hoa Phu, and Serepok 4A, are operating for only 3-11 hours a day, much lower than their designed capacity.

Meanwhile, large-capacity plants in the river basin are working at only 50 percent of design capacity.

Da Lak is home to 24 hydroelectric plants, with a total capacity of 957 MW, including 12 in the Serepok river basin, with a total power output of 841 MW.

The hydropower plants in the locality have together produced only 120 million kWh of power so far this year, less than 40 percent of target.

The Central Highlands region, comprising Dak Lak, Lam Dong, Dak Nong, Kon Tum and Gia Lai provinces, is facing a serious threat of drought as the water flow in major rivers has reduced by 20-70 percent compared to normal years. The current water volume in many reservoirs has dropped to 30-60 percent of design capacity.

The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Directorate for Standards, Metrology and Quality announced the list of 77 businesses winning the 2015 National Quality Awards in Hanoi on Tuesday.

The list of 77 companies winning the National Quality Award 2015 was announced in Hanoi on March 22 (Photo: SGGP)

The annual event is the sole state award presented by the Prime Minister and among the system of the International Asia-Pacific Quality Awards (IAPQA).

Last year, 78 enterprises from 37 provinces and cities registered to attend the program, only one was substandard for the award.

Of the winners, 20 will receive gold award and 57 win silver award at a ceremony in Hanoi on April 10 when three winners of IAPQAs will also be honored.

A total of 1,690 businesses have been awarded under the program since 1996 and 37 Vietnamese companies have obtained IAPQAs since 2000.

Vietnam Expressway Corporation (VEC) yesterday reported to the Ministry of Transport a severe shortage of funds for site clearance of national highway projects.

According to VEC, the ministry has yet to approve capital supplementation plan for 2015 in which Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway needs VND1,479 billion (US$78.43 million), Ben Luc-Long Thanh VND1,850 billion ($83 million) and Noi Bai-Lao Cai VND385 billion ($17.26 million).

VEC has so far advanced VND1,080 billion (US$48.43 million) from toll revenues of projects that have opened to traffic to meet the urgent capital demand for site clearance and removal of technical infrastructures.

The company has not received this year’s capital allocation plan for the above projects affecting their progress.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment hosted a seminar on water source protection yesterday when delegates said that clean water supply had never been under such a serious threat then with increasing saline and chemical pollution.

Experts measure salinity at Tan Hiep water plant (Photo: SGGP)

Tan Hiep water supply plant had to stop taking water for three times last week because of high salinity.

According to water quality observation results by the Southern Irrigation Planning Institute, since early February the salinity has increased 53 times over the same period last year in the lower reaches of Saigon River.

Saltwater has far penetrated into the upper reaches of the river badly affecting the supply for water treatment plants.

Besides saltwater, Saigon River has been polluting with industrial and household wastewater.

Mr. Bui Xuan Thanh from the HCMC University of Technology said that water plants supply the city with an average of 1.8 million liters of fresh water a day, wastewater volume accounts for 80 percent of that. However the city has been able to treat 150,000 cubic meters of wastewater a day at Binh Hung wastewater treatment plant.

The remaining part flows into canals and rivers. Water quality observation results have showed beyond permissible limit norms on PH, BOD5, COD and coliform at five main canals running into Saigon River including Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe, Doi-Te, Tau Hu-Ben Nghe, Tan Hoa-Lo Gom and Tham Luong-Vam Thuat.

The worst concern is that saline and chemical pollution has been increasing to threat Saigon and Dong Nai Rivers while Vietnam’s water treatment technology has not been renovated appropriately.

The currently used technology is purification, flocculation and decontamination, which suiting river water quality of standard A1 not the polluted water, said Mr. Thanh.

Water quality studies since 2011 by a group of authors from the University of Technology have found micronutrients causing sex change and plant protection substances causing cancers in raw water. The pollution of these substances in Saigon River is higher than Dong Nai River and tenfold the level in developed nations. The country’s technology is unable to treat these substances.

Moreover, fluoridation of microbiological contaminated water creates trihalomethanes (THMs), a cancer causing substance for long users.

Saigon Water Supply Company has built many measures to cope with the saline and mechanical pollution, for instance it has changed the schedule of taking water, increased raw water cistern system and built water treatment plants in different locations to reduce risks. The company has calculated removing their hydrant system to the upper reaches but it is still considered because of high expenditure.

The Southern Irrigation Planning Institute said that it necessary to count the water quality of hydropower reservoirs, where industrial and household wastewaters from industrial parks and residential areas in the upper reaches have flowed into.

Water treatment plants should soon buy membrane filtration technology to deal with polluted water quality reduction. The key solution is to treat all industrial and household wastewater before discharging these into rivers.

Wastewater treatment plants should quickly be built and put into operation including Tham Luong-Ben Cat, Nhieu Loc and Thi Nghe, Binh Tan and Tay Sai Gon. Work should be sped up to build sludge handling plants, dredge canals and install sewer grates at sluice gates.

To meet increasing travel demand during the summer, Vietjet will offer more than 5,000 flights and launch a golden week promotion from March 28 to April 3 of tickets priced from Zero USD.

Foreign clients enjoy Vietjet’s promotional program

The promotion will be applied for all domestic routes from April 1st to December 31st , 2016 (excluding holidays).

For detailed, The airline will also increase flight frequencies for a series of routes including Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, which will have 25 daily return flights in total; HCMC to the central city of Da Nang with 13 daily return flights; HCMC to Phu Quoc, a heavenly island off Kien Giang Province in Mekong delta with 6 daily return flights; HCMC – Nha Trang Town in the central province of Khanh Hoa with 5 daily return flights.

The routes from Hanoi to Da Nang will have 15 daily return flights and Hanoi to Nha Trang with 5 daily return flights.

Furthermore, the international routes from HCMC to Taipei (Taiwan-China) will also have 2 return trips per day from June 18 , up from one trip recently. HCMC-Singapore route will also have 2 return flights a day, while HCMC- Bangkok with 3 return flights and Hanoi-Bangkok with 2 return flights a day.

Tickets can be booked at www.vietjetair.com.

After five years of implementing the medicine subsidization program, around 551 drug times have been subsidized.

In 2011 just 45 medicine items were subsidized and the number of pharmacies across the city selling subsidized drugs is just 360. Currently, 3,852 drug stores have sold subsidized drugs and the program has encouraged the participation of 14 pharmaceutical enterprises.

The proportion of subsidized locally-made drugs in prescribed in hospitals increased from 20 percent to 30 percent.

Drugs in the subsidization program is domestically-made times which meet GMP-WHO standards to treat normal and chronic diseases. The number of medicine in the program can meet the demand in case that there is a fluctuation of price.

PANO – Minister of National Defence General Phung Quang Thanh hosted a reception for his Chinese counterpart Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan in Hanoi on March 27th.

The two ministers then had talks, the first activity in the framework of the third Vietnam-China Border Defence Friendship Exchange. They exchanged views on the relations of the two armies and agreed on the positive developments in the bilateral comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and China, including defence cooperation.

General Phung Quang Thanh and Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan reviewing the guards-of-honour of the Vietnam People’s Army

The two general frankly discussed issues related to existing disputes in the East Sea and underlined that the two countries should settle such sophisticated issue through peaceful means in line with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

They also agreed to fully and effectively implement agreements reached by the state leaders of the two countries and the Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and shortly finalize the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in order to build the East Sea into the waters of peace, friendship and cooperation, contributing to further consolidating the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic partnership as well as peace and stability in the region.

The two sides also emphasized that their armies should well control situation and avoid the use of force and the threat to use force for the sake of peace, stability and cooperation of each country, and in the region and the rest of the world.

At the talks

The two armies will boost the bilateral relations, as they all deem that defence cooperation is one of the pillars in the two countries’ traditional friendship and solidarity, they added.

Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan in turn thanked the host for the warm reception and invited him to visit China at an appropriate time. General Phung Quang Thanh accepted the invitation with pleasure.

On this occasion, the two defence ministers also witnessed the signing of an agreement on the UN peacekeeping operations cooperation between the Vietnamese and Chinese Ministries of National Defence.

In the coming days, General Phung Quang Thanh and Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan will co-chair activities under the third Vietnam-China Border Defence Friendship Exchange, which will take place between the Vietnamese Northern province of Lang Son and the Chinese Southern province of Guangxi from March 28th to 31st.

General Ngo Xuan Lich (R) receiving Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan

* The same day, Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan met with General Ngo Xuan Lich, Director of the General Department of Politics of the Vietnam People’s Army.

Welcoming the Chinese Defence Minister, General Ngo Xuan Lich stressed that his visit to Vietnam is a good opportunity for the two sides to exchange views on issues of mutual concern, map out measures to realize instructions reached by their leaders, and roll out tasks under the bilateral defence cooperation agreement.

For his part, Senior Lieutenant General Chang Wanquan expressed his joy to visit Vietnam and co-chair the third Vietnam-China Border Defence Friendship Exchange.

He congratulated Vietnam on the success of the recent 12th National Party Congress and believed that under the wise leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the country will continue gaining more achievements in the time to come.

The Chinese officer also hoped that the two Defence Ministries would further boost cooperation with the aim of strengthening the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic partnership.

Translated by Van Hieu

PANO – The Communist Party of Vietnam online newspaper in association with relevant units held an art performance “Truong Sa (Spratly) Spring 2016″ at the Vietnam-Soviet Friendship Cultural Palace in Hanoi on March 26th.

Photo: baoquangnam.com.vn

During the event, audiences enjoyed songs in praise of the country and its seas and islands, performed by local famous artists.

In addition, the organizing panel and sponsors presented gifts including saving books and gratitude houses to naval soldiers, and Radar Station 29’s troops stationed in Son Tra peninsula in Da Nang city.

The program was to honor naval soldiers, who are protecting the national sovereignty over the seas and islands day and night, as well as served as a spiritual bridge between the islands and the mainland.

Translated by Hong Thanh

Investors from mainland China have been developing their businesses in Vietnam to take advantage of free trade agreements (FTAs), as the country is a Trans-Pacific Partnership member.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency, Chinese businesses sharply increased their investment capital from 312 million USD in 2012 to 2.3 billion USD in 2013 and 7.9 billion USD in 2014.

Currently, some 1,346 Chinese projects are in operation in Vietnam, with total registered capital of 10.4 billion USD, making China the 9^th largest investor of the 112 nations and territories investing in the country.

A section of Cat Linh – Ha Dong urban railway project, one of many projects invested by Chinese businesses. Source: Vnexpress

The Chinese projects are each worth 7.7 million USD on average, half the average value of foreign investment projects in Vietnam.

Data released by the Planning and Investment Ministry’s Foreign Investment Agency showed that Chinese businesses have been focusing on investments in processing and manufacturing industries in Vietnam, with 916 projects worth 5.38 billion USD, accounting for 68 percent of the total number of Chinese projects in Vietnam. Other Chinese projects are being conducted in production lines, electric distribution systems, gas, water and air conditioners.

The businesses have invested in 54 of the total 63 cities and provinces nationwide, concentrating on areas with good infrastructure that are close to the Vietnam-China border or where many Chinese live, such as in the northern provinces of Lao Cai, Quang Ninh and Hai Phong and in HCM City.

The southern central province of Binh Thuan has attracted the highest investment capital from Chinese businesses, with more than 2 billion USD spread over five projects. It is followed by southern Tay Ninh Province, with 36 projects worth 1.2 billion USD, and northern Ha Giang Province, with five projects worth more than 1 billion USD.

By the end of 2015, Vietnam invested in 15 projects in China, with total registered capital of more than 16 million USD, focusing on production and service. This included a 3 million USD project to construct a trade centre by Viet Trang Import-Export Joint Stock Company and a 6 million USD workshop for the production and trade of weighing scales.

Speaking at a Vietnam-China business forum held in Hanoi earlier this year, Deputy Head of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s International Relations Division Pham Quang Thinh said when the TPP agreements are fully approved, Vietnam was recognised as a gateway to enter the markets of ASEAN members and the rest of the world due to its geographic advantages and dynamic economy.

Source: VNA

More than 250 Vietnamese and French businesses gathered at a conference called “Vietnam, a new Asian dragon” and a series of round-table seminars in France on March 25 to discuss economic cooperation between the two countries.

The event, the first large-scale business conference on Vietnam held at the French Senate, was co-organised by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Vietnamese Embassy in France, the Senate of France and the French agency for trade and investment promotion (Business France).

An overview of the conference. Source: Vietnam+

Speaking at the event, Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang asserted that Vietnam is considered one of the most dynamic economies in Southeast Asia, with an active open-door policy amid its international integration process.

The minister said France is among Vietnam’s top business, economy and investment partners in the EU. Bolstering cooperation in all areas between the two will have a significant influence on relations between Vietnam and the EU.

He added that the French President’s visit to Vietnam scheduled for this year will be a good opportunity to cement bilateral relations between the two nations.

According to Henri Baissas, General Director of Business France, about 2,000 French firms export goods to Vietnam. The Southeast Asian country might become a major trading partner of France, as Vietnam has a bright economic overview, promising fruitful cooperation.

Vietnamese businesses introduced their major export products, particularly farm produce such as rice, tea, coffee and cashew nut. French enterprises presented their technology and potential in the fields of infrastructural development, transport, renewable energy and pharmaceutical chemistry.

At the event, Vietnam’s Trade Promotion Agency and Business France signed an agreement to help the two sides’ enterprises intensify commercial exchange and investment in both countries.

Source: VNA

PANO – The Vietnamese physical training and sports sector has gained many encouraging achievements since the national reunification in 1975, especially since the implementation of the “Doi moi” (Renewal) process.

Physical training and sports movements hlep not only pocket more medals and certificates in international sports events but also to raise people’s awareness of cultural environment and healthy life-style.

Marking the sector’s 70th traditional Day (March 27th), Vietnamese people recalled the statement of President Ho Chi Minh: “Strong people keep the country prosperous”.

Over the past time, generations of coaches, athletes and all staff of sports sector and people interested in sports in general have made considerable contributions to the development of the country’s sports sector.

Troops in Commando Battalion 2012, Military Zone 9 training martial arts

A competition at the Vovinam (Vietnamese Martial Arts) Championships for students in Ho Chi Minh City.

Fans are always side by side with the national men’s football squad

Local people encouraging athletes in a race of the Trans-Vietnam Cycling Tournament-The Vietnam Defence Cup 2014, co-organized by the People’s Army Newspaper, the General Department of Sports, the Vietnam Motor-Bicycle Sports Federation and the military telecom group of Viettel

Swimmer Nguyen Thi Anh Vien, the pride of the country’s and army’s sport. She is now a non-commissioned Captain from the Defence Physical Training and Sports Centre No.4 of Military Zone 9 of the Vietnam People’s Army.

Translated by Van Hieu

Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing pledged to cooperate with the new government to ensure a smooth transfer of power.

The announcement came at a military parade held in the capital city of Nay Pyi Taw to honor the 71^st National Armed Forces Day.

In his remarks, the general warned of two main obstacles on the road to democracy: weaknesses in law enforcement; and existence of armed insurgencies.

He underlined that the armed forces will ensure a good foundation for the democratic transition and transfer of power.

Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing. Source: sycbyouth.org

The general highlighted that the military will safeguard the country, take care of the people and assist the government in implementing steady development. The military will not tolerate such acts as deviation from the good foundation for transition that may lead to loss of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and disintegration of the union.

He also emphasized the role of military in domestic peace efforts which resulted in the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) in November 2015 and called on the armed groups to follow the accord.

President-elect U Htin Kyaw of by the National League for Democracy (NLD) will be sworn in at a ceremony on March 30.

Retired General Myint Swe will become First Vice President and U Henry Van Thio of the National League for Democracy (LND) will become Second Vice President.

Source: VNA

The Le Te Xa Tac ceremony

The central province of Thua Thien–Hue held the Le Te Xa Tac (Worshiping the Genies of Rice and Soil) ceremony on March 27, attracting a large crowd of tourists and locals.

Le Te Xa Tac was one of the most important rituals performed by kings of successive feudal dynasties every spring to pray for abundant crops and peace.

The Xa Tac Worship Platform in Hue City, which was built in 1806 under the reign of King Gia Long, the founder of the Nguyen Dynasty, was the only one of its kind remaining intact in the country, according to Phan Thanh Hai, Director of the Hue Relics Conservation Centre.

The ritual was revived in 2008 and has been held in spring every year since as part of efforts to preserve and promote traditional cultural values in modern life.

Source: VNA