Vietnamese child dies from bird flu
A four-year-old child has become Vietnam's first victim of the H5N1 bird flu virus in more than a year, amid growing regional concerns about the virulent disease. The death comes as neighbouring China scrambles to contain a new H7N9 strain that had not previously been transmitted from birds to humans but has now killed eight people since February.
Trial begins of Vietnam fish farmer turned folk hero
The trial of a Vietnamese fish farmer who became a folk hero after using homemade shotguns to resist eviction began, with scores of people defying a heavy police presence to show their support.
Vietnam mourners clash with riot police: reports
Angry mourners clashed with riot police at a funeral procession in northern Vietnam at the weekend, state media said Monday, in a rare mass protest at alleged impunity for the country's communist elite.
Land-grabs in Vietnam
Vietnam’s Communist Party came to power wooing peasants on promises of sweeping land reforms. Three-quarters of the country’s 90m people still live in the crowded countryside. Though the state still formally owns all the land, in 1993 it gave many farmers 20-year usage rights on farmland. That represented a ground-breaking move following an earlier and disastrous period of state-led agricultural collectivisation.
Vietnam's state sector a 'cancer' in economy
Opaque, corrupt, inefficient -- Vietnam's state-run companies are used to criticism, but now they stand accused of creating a systemic economic crisis which the communist regime cannot fix. More than 25 years after it started a transition towards a market economy, the government is trying to unpick a web of state-owned firms, which have a stranglehold on the economy and are proving stubbornly resistant to reform.
Black market: Students in Chinese baby formula racket
CHINESE students are being recruited to buy up hundreds of tins of infant formula in Australia and ship it to be sold on the black market in China for more than twice the price.
French police dismantle Vietnamese immigration, drugs mafia
French police have dismantled a family-run network that smuggled illegal Vietnamese immigrants into Britain and France and forced some of them to work on clandestine cannabis farms, police sources said Wednesday. Thirteen people, including six from the same Vietnamese family in the Lower Rhine area of eastern France, have been arrested in an investigation into what police described as a highly-structured organisation.
Bold Vietnamese lawmaker, in rare public dissent, suggests it’s time for PM to step down
Duong Trung Quoc told Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung it was “time to take responsibility, not just apologize” for the massive losses accrued by state-owned enterprises in recent years. He suggested that Dung lead a “resignation culture” in Vietnam.
Vietnam Risks Biggest East Asia IMF Rescue Since 1990s
Vietnam risks becoming the biggest East Asian economy to seek an International Monetary Fund rescue loan since the region’s financial crisis more than a decade ago as it moves to support a faltering banking system.
Vietnam Tycoon Arrest Sends Stocks Plunging as Tensions Surface
The arrest of Kien, who has links to the prime minister, may also be related to Dung’s ongoing rivalry with President Truong Tan Sang for power within the Communist Party ranks, according to Steve Norris, a Singapore-based analyst at Control Risks Group.
Hundreds honour Vietnam War veterans
Hundreds assembled to honour Australia's Vietnam War veterans at a commemorative and wreath laying service at Martin Place in Sydney this morning. Vietnam Veterans Day, originally known as Long Tan Day, honours almost 60,000 Australians who served in the war over 13 years.
Trade official in spy sex scandal
A HIGH-RANKING Australian embassy official had a secret affair with a Vietnamese spy colonel accused of receiving up to $20 million in suspected bribes from a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Senior trade commissioner Elizabeth Masamune, who held a top-secret Australian security clearance, met Colonel Anh Ngoc Luong, a top official in Vietnam's state intelligence network, in the early 2000s when she was based in Hanoi.
