☕ Afternoon briefing on November 7

Hanoi, (VNA) – The following is a brief review of the day’s events as reported by the Vietnam News Agency.

– Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will pay an official visit to Cambodia from November 8-9 and attend the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits and related Summits from November 10-13, at an invitation of his Cambodian counterpart Samdech Techo Hun Sen – the ASEAN 2022 Chair.

On the occasion, Standing Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu granted an interview to the media on the significance of the visit as well as Vietnam’s role, position in ASEAN and its contributions to the ASEAN Community building.Read full story

– Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hosted a reception  in Hanoi on November 6 for the new-appointed Belgian Ambassador to Vietnam Karl Van Den Bossche, during which the host affirmed that Vietnam always treasures its ties with Belgium.

PM Chinh said that he hoped during his working tenure, the Belgian diplomat will make contributions to the growth of the Vietnam-Belgium friendship and cooperation, especially when the two countries will celebrate the 50th founding anniversary of diplomatic relations, and the 5th anniversary of bilateral strategic partnership in agriculture in 2023.Read full story

– By successfully implementing people-centred policies, Vietnam has obtained remarkable achievements in ensuring human rights, thus winning recognition and valuation from the international community.

It is not hard to identify those who are plotting to drive a wedge into the great national solidarity bloc and sabotage the Party and State of Vietnam. They are hostile organisations or short of poor sympathy to Vietnam but give themselves the right to comment on or judge the human rights situation in the country. They also include extremist forces in political circles of some Western nations or overseas reactionary Vietnamese organisations which made hostile and discontented allegations aimed at denying Vietnam’s achievements in human rights promotion and protection.Read full story

– Progress has been made in building and perfecting institutions and laws over the past time, contributing to promoting socio-economic recovery and development, maintaining political stability, ensuring national defence and security and expanding international integration, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at a meeting held on November 6 to celebrate Vietnam's Law Day.

Over the two years of fighting against COVID-19, pandemic prevention and control policies have been effectively disseminated in many forms, he said, adding that many contests on learning about the constitutions and laws have been held, attracting a large number of people.Read full story

– The addition of "place of birth" information to the Vietnamese passport will ensure stable and long-term legitimate rights and interests for Vietnamese citizens when conducting immigration activities in other countries, according to Chairman of the National Assembly (NA) Defence and Security Committee Le Tan Toi.

Delivering a verification report at the 15th NA’s fourth session in Hanoi on November 7 on the implementation of the Law on Exit and Entry of Vietnamese Citizens related to the birthplace information on passports, Toi said that from July 27, a number of countries in Europe announced to suspend the issuance of visas to the new passport of Vietnam for the reason that it does not contain the "place of birth" information of the holder.Read full story

– On the sidelines of the ongoing 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha had a working session on November 6 with President for COP26 Alok Sharma, who represents the United Kingdom, the European Union and the Group of Seven (G7), on the support for Vietnam in energy transition.

Speaking at the meeting, Ha said that energy transition is a key factor for Vietnam to realise the goal of bringing the net gas emissions to zero by 2050 that it committed at COP26 last year. However, in this work, Vietnam is still facing many difficulties as it is home to a lot of coal-fired power plants built a long time ago.Read full story

– The Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) has fulfilled crude oil exploitation target set for the whole year, 70 days ahead of schedule.

The information was revealed by Petrovietnam General Director Le Manh Hung at a meeting on November 5.
The group’s crude oil output reached 9.03 million tonnes in the first ten months of this year, exceeding the yearly plan by 3%, and equivalent to 99.4% of the figure in the same period last year.Read full story./.