Vietnam: underground Buddhists show solidarity with Hanoi Catholics

http://www.indcatholicnews.com/buddhi325.html
A leader of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) has shown his support to Hanoi Catholics, in their quest to regain confiscated church property. He said the state-approved Buddhist leaders, who claimed the property was theirs, were: “tools of the Communist Party”.
Hanoi Catholics who earlier this month won a government promise to restore [...]

Vietnamese inflation up 15.67 percent in February

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/02/28/afx4707229.html
HANOI (Thomson Financial) – Vietnamese consumer prices rose more than 15 percent year-on-year in February, according to official figures released Thursday, heightening inflation concerns especially for the poor.
The General Statistics Office (GSO) said the consumer price index (CPI) for February rose 15.67 percent compared to the same period last year.
The figure was the highest registered [...]

Getting dong for dollars is tricky in Vietnam

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/28/business/dong.php
HANOI: Instead of heading to the bank to change U.S. dollars into Vietnamese dong, a travel agent searches for another businessman to act as his counterparty.
Shortages of the dong are causing ripples through Vietnam’s banking system, businesses and the country’s fledgling stock markets after measures by the central bank to dry up liquidity to fight [...]

Vietnam’s currency crisis causes headache

A severe shortage of dong, Vietnam’s currency, has been causing headaches for foreign businesses in the country as the government tries to control inflation by reining in the supply of notes.
In one sign of the currency crunch, last week Hanoi was forced to give special permission to Morgan Stanley to pay $217m in dollars for [...]

Vietnam urged to improve infrastructure

 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/187968,vietnam-urged-to-improve-infrastructure.html
Hanoi – Singapore President Sellapan Rama Nathan, arriving in Vietnam on an official visit, urged his hosts to take advantage of Singaporean expertise to unclog the country’s congested ports and transportation infrastructure. “One of your problems is infrastructure,” Nathan said in a meeting with his counterpart, Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet. “You need to address [...]

Holy row over land in Vietnam

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7262411.stm
The Vietnamese government is often embroiled in complex disputes over land rights.
But there is one particular row that is currently making the headlines – pitting the government against the country’s strong Catholic Church, and now the Buddhist community as well.
For the whole of January, thousands of Catholics gathered outside the building that [...]

Buddhists enter Catholics’ property dispute with Vietnamese government

 http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11877
Hanoi, Feb 23, 2008 / 01:29 pm (CNA).- A Buddhist leader in Vietnam is now asserting a claim to disputed land that once belonged to the papal nuncio but was confiscated by the Vietnam government in 1959.
After a month of Catholic protest and prayer seeking the return of the former nunciature, Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang [...]

Vietnam’s largest city starts building 1.1 billion US dollar urban rail system

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/02/21/afx4679505.html
HANOI (Thomson Financial) – Vietnam’s largest city started construction Thursday of the country’s first urban railway system, a project worth nearly 1.1 billion dollars and financed mostly with Japanese loans, officials said.
Workers in Ho Chi Minh City broke ground on the system set to carry 526,000 people per day by 2014 along 19.7 kilometers (12.2 [...]

Vietnam’s Trade Goals Open Door for Religion

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120356200396282029.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
TAY NINH, Vietnam — Vietnam’s Communist leaders, partly in an effort to boost trade with the U.S., are loosening state constraints on religious freedom. That is helping revive a once-fading religion that reveres Joan of Arc, Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat Sen and French author Victor Hugo as saints.
The white-robed followers of Caodai, or the Supreme [...]

Vietnam on high bird flu alert after new poultry outbreaks: govt

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i2MC3hRz6HGs_gLQ6t3HR2Oy5HpQ
HANOI (AFP) — Vietnam is on high alert over bird flu after the virus killed thousands of birds in three provinces, having claimed its third human victim of the year last week, the communist government said Wednesday.
The north of Vietnam has been in the grip of a cold snap that has lasted for over a [...]