Vietnam arrests four in Catholic land dispute, say protesters

HANOI (AFP) — Communist Vietnam’s police Thursday arrested four Catholics who have taken part in mass prayer vigils this month for the return of church land taken in the 1950s, local Catholics said.
More than 100 followers later staged a peaceful protest outside a police station in Hanoi’s Dong Da district after the arrests, which came [...]

Vietnamese Catholics complain of police violence

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Police used stun guns and beat parishioners protesting the arrest of fellow church members who have demanded the return of land they say was taken by Vietnam’s communist government in the early 1960s, a Catholic priest said Thursday.
About 300 people gathered in front of the police station to pray for the [...]

Vietnam punishes journalists over coverage of anti-corruption case

HANOI (AFP) — The Vietnamese government said Saturday that four journalists had been stripped of their accreditation because they wrote and edited false information on an anti-corruption case and had defended colleagues arrested for their coverage of the case.
They journalists “directly wrote articles… edited and approved, without checking sources, news and articles with seriously untrue [...]

Vietnam, Cambodia brace for Mekong floods, crops safe

HANOI, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Rising Mekong floods upstream may cause landslides and deep inundation in Cambodia and southern Vietnam but the seasonal floodwater would also bring farmers good crops of rice and fish, officials said on Tuesday.
The Vietnamese government said rescue forces must be ready to move people from dangerous areas in southern Vietnam, [...]

No news of Ho Chi Minh City blogger held for past four months on spurious tax charge

(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders reiterates its call for the release of Nguyen Hoang Hai, a Ho Chi Minh City blogger better known by the pseudonym of Dieu Cay, who has been held on a tax fraud charge since 19 April 2008 and who is about to begin his fifth month in detention.

“This is an [...]

Inflation soars in Vietnam and cripples economy

By Seth Mydans

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
HANOI: Even the ghosts are suffering from inflation in Vietnam this year.
August is the month when Buddhists provide the hungry ghosts of the dead with food and wine and cigarettes and paper offerings that represent the good things in life – cars, houses, motorbikes, stereo sets, fancy suits of [...]

Vietnam dissident Buddhist church appoints new leader

HANOI (AFP) — Dissident monk Thich Quang Do became the new leader of he banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) Sunday, pledging to keep up the peaceful struggle for religious and political freedom.
Do, the former deputy leader, was named supreme patriarch at a ceremony held in Houston, Texas marking 49 days since the death [...]

Vietnam Communist Party punishes official in corruption case

Hanoi – A deputy transportation minister involved in a major corruption scandal in 2006 was demoted by Vietnam’s Communist Party, the Vietnam News reported Wednesday. The demotion was the latest development in an affair that has become a touchstone for press freedom in Vietnam after two journalists who had aggressively reported the scandal were arrested [...]

Vietnam helicopters evacuate flood survivors as new storm nears

HANOI (AFP) — Vietnam used army helicopters on Tuesday to evacuate thousands stranded by tropical storm Kammuri, which has killed at least 113 people, as forecasters warned of more bad weather ahead.
Disaster relief workers kept searching for 45 people still missing since heavy rains pounded the mountainous north for three days starting last Friday, swelling [...]

Vietnam floods ‘leave 100 dead’

Flooding and landslides in northwest Vietnam have killed at least 100 people and left 50 missing, officials say.
Tropical storm Kammuri battered mountain villages in Lao Cai province over the weekend, downing power lines and cutting transportation links.
Torrents of water swept entire villages away, local officials said, while other victims were buried under mountains of mud.
Hundreds [...]