Breakfast @ Tuoi Tre News — December 19

What you need to know today:

Politics

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh held a phone call on Thursday morning with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to discuss bilateral relations and several emerging regional and international issues, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Society

-- Vietnam’s U22 team staged a dramatic comeback to defeat Thailand 3–2 on Thursday evening after more than 120 minutes of play, clinching the men’s football gold medal at the 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Thailand. Moments after the final whistle, thousands of people poured into the streets in Vietnam to celebrate the emotional triumph.

-- Vietnamese browser Cốc Cốc on Wednesday released its 2025 Search and Browsing Trends Report, showing that local users are becoming more proactive and selective in their digital behavior, with technology, entertainment, and education remaining the top three search topics, led by a 93-percent surge in technology-related searches while entertainment searches fell 33 percent from 2024.

-- According to data released by the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control on Thursday, the city recorded 2,211 dengue fever cases from December 8 to 14, up 3.6 percent from the average of the previous four weeks.

-- At a meeting with airline representatives on Wednesday, Nguyen Thi Anh Thi, vice-chairwoman of the Da Nang People’s Committee, said the city is proposing the development of the Chu Lai airport urban ecosystem project at an estimated cost of about US$10 billion.

Economy

-- According to the Vietnam Interbank Market Research Association, on Wednesday the average quoted interest rates on the VND interbank market fell by 0.05 to 0.8 percentage points across all maturities of one month or less compared with the previous session.

-- Vietnam will pilot a crypto asset market for five years, creating a controlled testing framework while imposing stringent requirements on system security and safety.

World News

-- TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, has entered into binding agreements with three major investors to sell just over 80 percent of its U.S. assets to American and international investors in an effort to avert a U.S. government ban, Reuters cited CEO Shou Zi Chew as telling employees on Thursday.

-- Australian police said on Thursday that seven men detained in Sydney’s southwest had ideological links to the two gunmen accused of opening fire on a crowd celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people, according to Reuters.