Vietnam floods kill 12, capital Hanoi under water

HANOI (AFP) — Floods have killed at least 12 people in central Vietnam, emergency services said Friday, as heavy rains lashed the capital Hanoi and left many streets under one metre (three feet) of water.
Worst-hit central Ha Tinh province — where muddy waters inundated dozens of homes and hundreds of hectares of rice and other [...]

World Bank lends Vietnam 60 mln dlrs to modernise central bank

HANOI (AFP) — The World Bank Friday said it was lending communist Vietnam 60 million dollars for a project to modernise its central bank with better training and technology.
The credit would help the State Bank of Vietnam and other institutions “to reform and modernise the financial sector by improving delivery of their main functions in [...]

Vietnam Communist party takes tough stand against critical journalists

Hanoi: Vietnamese Communist Party authorities are to fire two editors at a national newspaper that published articles critical of the government’s policy, sources at the paper said yesterday.
“We have received the Party’s decision to punish us,” said Dang Ngoc, vice editor-in-chief of the newspaper Dai Doan Ket (Great Unity). “The decision said that we had [...]

Vietnam halts plan to ban short and flat-chested motorists

HANOI (AFP) — Communist Vietnam has suspended a much-criticised plan to ban very short, thin and flat-chested people from driving, state media reported on Wednesday.
The new draft guidelines on motorcycle and car drivers had drawn widespread criticism and ridicule from motorists, newspaper readers and bloggers since they were published by the health ministry two weeks [...]

5 killed in Vietnam floods

HANOI – AT LEAST five people have been killed in floods triggered by heavy rains in central Vietnam, emergency services said on Wednesday.
The dead included two children who were swept away when they tried to cross swollen rivers on their way home from school.
Three deaths were reported from Ha Tinh province and one each [...]

Crackdown in Hanoi

BY SIMON ROUGHNEEN
Register Correspondent
Posted 10/28/08 at 9:55 AM
SINGAPORE — Vietnam’s communist authorities have upped the ante in an ongoing dispute with the Catholic Church. Now, they’re calling for the removal of Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi.
According to the state-run Vietnam News Agency, Nguyen The Thao, chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee, told foreign [...]

Vietnam to ban small-chested drivers

In Vietnam, the skinny and the petite can look forward to getting more exercise after proposed new regulations set a minimum chest size for licensed drivers.
By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:58AM GMT 29 Oct 2008
Anyone with a chest under 28 inches will be banned from driving a motorbike – which make [...]

Vietnam might ban small-chested from driving

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is considering banning small-chested drivers from its roads — a proposal that has provoked widespread disbelief in this nation of slight people.
The Ministry of Health recently recommended that people whose chests measure fewer than 28 inches (72 centimeters) would be prohibited from driving motorbikes — as would those who are [...]

In the country of ‘Uncle Ho’: Persecution of Catholics

By Lorenzo Fazzini
10/27/2008
Chiesa
If I were to tell you openly everything that they are doing against the Church, tomorrow they would arrest me and put me in prison
ROMA (Chiesa) – “You don’t know the communists. If I were to tell you openly everything that they are doing against the Church, tomorrow they would arrest me [...]

Education has become a means to make money, and Vietnam grows poorer

Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) – Education in Vietnam has become a system for making money: there is no freedom of thought in the schools and universities, and the only concern is for making a profit, not for forming young people, and this is impoverishing the country.
Everyone is conditioned and guided by the policies of [...]