Tet Nguyen Dan, to be celebrated on 29 January, is increasingly a source of anxiety due to financial pressures and social  expectations. Psychotherapy institutes report an increase in requests of up to 30 per cent in the weeks leading up to the holiday. Psychologists highlight the conflict between traditional values and urban lifestyles.

The pact was signed by Russian Prime Minister Mishustin on a visit to the Vietnamese capital. Cooperation agreements also in the digital economy and wireless communications. The aim is to strengthen bilateral trade, which between the two countries amounted to just .6 billion in 2023. Moscow seeks new markets to circumvent Western sanctions.

Y Hưng Ayun, pastor of a house church in Tara Puôr, shot in the knee by two men with covered faces in an ambush last Sunday. The government monitors independent churches it does not approve, seizing Bibles and equipment. In September, Y Phô Êban, 57, in Cuê village, was also threatened; he laments that they are “not allowed to gather.”

Decree 147 in force from next month strengthens restrictions on data collection and content removal. Users: the regulation is good for the government and bad for companies. Inmates can be fined for spreading false information and prosecuted for anti-state propaganda.

To meet rising demand, the Vietnamese government has announced that coal-fired plants, which still account for 48.7 per cent of total electricity production in the country, will operate for a record number of hours. In the meantime, the electric vehicle business is growing, with domestic manufacturer VinFast signing partnerships and conquering market shares.

In the town of Bando, Ibaraki prefecture, at least 20 men and women lived in a community. There was also a restaurant and a karaoke bar in the disused facilities. There are 600,000 Vietnamese working in Japan, but they are also the largest group among the nearly 10,000 trainees who have ‘disappeared’ in the country over the past year.