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VN news (Mar 7-8)
Mar 08: Cuckold Vietnamese husband beheads wife's lover with sword
Mar 08: Vietnam's party chief lambasts press for failing propaganda mission
Mar 08: U.S., Vietnam Agree In Principal To Debt Pact
Mar 08: Axe falls on 62,000 rats in rural Vietnam
Mar 08: Vietnam plans mass relocation of Saigon residents
Mar 08: Vietnam's Communist Party chief urges fight on political "venom"
Mar 07: Cambodia arrests anti-Hanoi American-Vietnamese
Mar 07: Vietnam, U.S. Initial Pact To Settle South Vietnam Debt
Mar 07: UN to spend 783,000 dollars in Vietnam anti- drug trafficking ...
Mar 07: Vietnam's only female Politburo member seeks greater role for women
Mar 07: Vietnamese American arrested for selling heroin in Vietnam: report
Saturday - Mar 08, 1997 [36]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Cuckold Vietnamese husband beheads wife's lover with sword_
Hanoi (dpa) - A Vietnamese man took the law into his own hands,
wielding a sword to behead and dismember another man whom he found in
flagrante with his wife, according to a published report Saturday.
Doan Van Tan, 35, also stabbed his wife after he returned home at 2
p.m. one day to find the two in a highly compromising situation, Lao
Dong (Labour) newspaper reported.
The couple had been married for five years and have a 2-year-old
daughter, the report said.
The incident occurred March 2 in the Chau Thanh district of southern
Can Tho province in the Mekong River Delta.
It was unclear what legal action would be taken against Tan, who
turned himself in to authorities.
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Saturday - Mar 08, 1997 [37]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Vietnam's party chief lambasts press for failing propaganda
mission _
Hanoi (dpa) - Vietnam's Communist Party chief lambasted the country's
ideological mavens for allowing the local press to become too
commercialized and failing its fundamental propagandistic task of
spreading the party line, the state-controlled press reported
Saturday.
At a national conference on cultural and ideological issues, Do Muoi
also criticized party cadre for its lack of attention to promoting
``revolutionary education,'' the papers reported.
The 79-year old leader also said the ``propagandistic organs'' were
falling down on the job of ``fighting an invsaion of outside
ideologies,'' the party's main organ Nhan Dan (People) reported.
``The fight against corruption, extravagance, bureaucratism, and the
invasion of outside ideologies and cultures has not been up to the
desired level,'' he told the conference held in the capital Friday.
Even on the more straight forward taks of explaining the ``Party's
line'' the controlled press was failing resulting in faulty execution
of the party's policies and regulations, he complained.
He said ``loose management'' of the press had resulted in excessive
commercialisation of the media, suggesting a current tightening of
ideological control over the local press will continue.
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Saturday - Mar 08, 1997 [38]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] U.S., Vietnam Agree In Principal To Debt Pact _
Hanoi (AP)--Negotiators from the U.S. and Vietnam have initialed a
draft agreement on Hanoi's obligation to repay debts incurred by its
defeated enemy, South Vietnam.
'A bilateral agreement was initialed and is subject to the review of
both governments before signature,' said a Vietnamese Finance Ministry
press release issued Saturday.
The U.S. is asking communist Vietnam to take responsibility for
upwards of $150 million in old debts from the former government of the
U.S.-backed Saigon regime.
A delegation from the U.S. State Department was in Vietnam this week
to discuss the debt. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Barbara
Griffiths arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday.
The December 1993 Paris Club agreement established and renegotiated
Vietnam's government-to-government debt obligations, some of which
were former South Vietnam's.
U.S. and Vietnamese officials still have not agreed on whether the
amount to be repaid should be calculated using the value of the dollar
based on currents rates, or those of the early 1970s, when many of the
loans were offered.
The draft agreement stipulates that Vietnam must repay Saigon's old
debt over a 25-year span, a Ministry of Finance official said.
___________________________________
Saturday - Mar 08, 1997 [39]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Axe falls on 62,000 rats in rural Vietnam _
Hanoi (Reuter) -- A provincial official in northern Vietnam said
Saturday that local villagers near Hanoi had handed in 62,629 rat
tails following a cash-for-rodent campaign.
He said 100 dong (less than one cent) had been paid for each rat or
mouse tail produced.
``It was quite successful. We burnt the tails in a large pit. No
people got hurt but a few chickens and dogs died,'' he told Reuters.
Communal purges on rats and mice, which eat staple crops such as rice
and sweet potatoes, are common in Vietnam.
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Saturday - Mar 08, 1997 [40]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Vietnam plans mass relocation of Saigon residents_
Hanoi (Reuter) -- Vietnam said on Saturday it planned to move more
than 700,000 people from central districts of sprawling Ho Chi Minh
City, formerly Saigon, between now and 2000.
A planning committee official in the southern city told Reuters that
local authorities were meeting on Saturday to discuss the plan.
``The responsible bodies are looking now at ways of handling this, so
it's too early to talk about details,'' he said.
The official English-language Vietnam News said the plan would see
178,000 residents moved out each year between now and 2000 with limits
imposed on the size of families who remain.
``Under this option, a natural growth rate of 1.1 percent would be
maintained in the inner city. Strict family planning measures would be
enforced, allowing only one or two children per family,'' the
newspaper said.
It added that Communist Party members, members of the Ho Chi Minh
Communist Youth Union, unemployed young people, those planning to have
families and new settlers topped the list of those to be moved out.
Incentives would be offered, but the controversial question of how
people might be classified into these groups was not yet resolved, it
said.
Ho Chi Minh City was the capital of former U.S.-backed South Vietnam
during the Vietnam war and is still widely known and referred to as
Saigon. It remains the country's economic hub, and the 12 inner
districts are home to around 70 percent of the city's five million
population.
Previous attempts by Hanoi to redistribute the city's population have
met with little success.
The movement of thousands of people to so-called new economic zones --
often remote and impoverished rural areas -- following the end of the
Vietnam war in 1975 was widely criticised by rights groups and others.
___________________________________
Saturday - Mar 08, 1997 [41]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Vietnam's Communist Party chief urges fight on political
"venom" _
HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam's Communist Party chief Do Muoi has urged
members to gird against cultural and political forces threatening the
revolutionary cause, without identifying them.
The speech by the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam
was published in full in all major newspapers on Saturday and
criticised the party for a lack of vigilance against "the invasion of
cultural and political venom."
The party chief was addressing more than 300 senior officials from
culture and ideology departments nationwide Friday at the end of a
three-day conference.
"The job of culture and ideology is to play the leading role in the
struggle to defeat the plots and sabotage of some forces that are
stirring up activities against us ... aimed at causing political
unstability and destroying the revolutionary cause of our people," he
said.
However, the 80-year-old number one in the ruling politburo, did not
identify the "hostile" forces, and the tone of his text was milder
than on previous occasions.
Conspicuously absent from his text was any mention of the word
"foreign" or "peaceful evolution" -- the term for perceived plots by
the west to take advantage of economic openness to overthrow communist
rule by stealth.
He said "the fight against corruption, waste, bureaucracy and other
social evils," had been ineffectively waged, particularly with respect
to the media.
He criticised state offices responsible for monitoring the media,
publications, information and culture for inadequate supervision.
"The fight against distortionary tones (in the media) has been very
untimely and lacks incisiveness," he said, without citing any specific
examples.
The party chief also warned against the increasing trend towards
commercialization of publications and violations of press laws which
were not being properly tackled by government offices.
He reminded his listeners that the task of cultural and ideology was
to develop a high degree of patriotism and national pride, to arouse
Vietnamese courage, and "to eradicate the shame of poverty."
Since economic reforms of "doi moi" were launched in the mid 1980s,
the party has grappled to strike a balance between market forces and
Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Earlier in the week, Muoi had made a renewed call for a strong state
sector in the economy and on Friday said Vietnam should not renew
growth at any cost.
"We can not just run after economic growth although that is very
important," he said.
"We must combine economic growth with cultural development and the
assurance of social equality," he said.
Vietnam's economy has grown at an average of 8 percent but the fruits
of prosperity have been confined mainly to urban areas. According to a
United Nations Development Programme Report, about half the rural
population lives below the poverty line.
He also called for soul searching by party cadres.
"Any comrade in any position must struggle against all signs of
political, ideological and moral erosion, particularly individualism,
opportunism and factionalism and maintain solidarity and unity in our
party," he said.
The party chief said the party, which has more than two million
members, must exclude those "degenerate elements abusing power to
oppress the people, who conceal those who seriously violate party
discipline and state laws."
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Friday - Mar 07, 1997 [42]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Cambodia arrests anti-Hanoi American-Vietnamese_
PHNOM PENH (Reuter) -- Cambodian police have arrested an ethnic
Vietnamese U.S. national expelled last year for being a senior member
of an anti-Hanoi group, Interior Ministry and municipal officials said
on Friday.
They said Charly Li, or Lam Phi Ly, was arrested in Phnom Penh on
Thursday and was being held by the immigration department for illegal
entry into Cambodia.
He was expected to face a court hearing soon and could be deported.
U.S. Embassy officials said they were following up the report and were
trying to track down his whereabouts on Friday evening.
Li was expelled in December last year after he and 28 other member of
the California-based People's Action Party of Vietnam werer detained
by the Cambodian government when they were trying to cross the border
to attend a meeting in Thailand.
In the face of U.N. protests, 19 of the ethnic Vietnamese were sent to
Vietnam and the rest were found to be Cambodian citizens and allowed
to stay.
The People's Action Party advocates democracy in Vietnam and says it
campaigns peacefully for an end to communist rule in Vietnam.
It is one of a handful of U.S.-based anti-Hanoi groups that tried to
operate out of Cambodia until the authorities began cracking down last
year.
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Friday - Mar 07, 1997 [43]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Vietnam, U.S. Initial Pact To Settle South Vietnam Debt_
HANOI (AP-Dow Jones)-- Vietnam and the U.S. initialed an agreement to
reschedule more than $100 million of debt owed by the former South
Vietnamese government to its war-era ally, a Vietnamese finance
ministry official said Saturday.
The agreement was initialed Friday after four days of talks between
the two nations, the official from the ministry's external financial
division said in a telephone interview.
The pact is subject the approval of the U.S. and Vietnamese
governments before it can be signed.
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Friday - Mar 07, 1997 [44]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] UN to spend 783,000 dollars in Vietnam anti- drug
trafficking ..._
Hanoi (AFP) -- The United Nations International Drug Control Programme
(UNDCP) is providing Vietnam with 783,090 dollars to help fight drug
trafficking, a UNDCP official said Friday.
The funds will be used to beef up enforcement by police and customs
officials and strengthen investigations of smuggling rings, the
official said.
Until now, most of Vietnam's efforts have focused on reducing poppy
growing by local farmers. The opium poppy is an important cash crop in
the northern province of Lai Cau and the central highland province of
Nghe An.
According to UNDCP figures, there are 200,000 drug users in Vietnam
with most people smoking opium that is grown in the highlands or
smuggled in from the Golden Triangle.
About a third of drug users inject a liquid residue of opium known as
black water. Most people use "shooting galleries" where they inject
the drugs leading to the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
Some 70 percent of all registered HIV cases are from drug use and
incidence of the virus among those in drug treatment centres is
extremely high.
Vietnam has become a transhipment point for drugs being moved from the
Golden Triangle area of Laos, Burma and Thailand through to the west.
UNDCP has provided Vietnam's drug fighting efforts with 15.9 million
dollars since 1992.
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Friday - Mar 07, 1997 [45]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Vietnam's only female Politburo member seeks greater role
for women _
HANOI (AFP) -- The first and only female member of Vietnam's ruling
Politburo said she hopes to see more women elected to the national
assembly in July's polls, a newspaper report here said Friday.
Nguyen Thi Xuan My, who was appointed to the all powerful 18-person
Politburo in July, said she hoped the number of female deputies
elected for the next national assembly, Vietnam's quasi-parliament,
would reach a "reasonable percentage."
My, 56, head of Vietnam's Communist Party Control Commission, which is
responsible for monitoring the behaviour of party members, was
speaking to Lao Dong newspaper on the eve of International Women's day
on March 8.
According to official figures the percentage of female Vietnamese
national assembly deputies has fallen to just 18.5 percent today, from
21.8 percent ten years ago.
Unlike most of its Southeast Asian neighbours Vietnam has given women
more prominence in government. Nguyen Thi Binh is Vietnam's current
vice president and was chief negotiator for the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam in the Paris
peace talks in 1973.
Five women have ministerial rank in the current government, while 26
have been appointed to vice ministerial rank.
Women have traditionally played an important role in Vietnam's
4,000-year history and the names of the most famous are enshrined
forever on Hanoi's major streets.
Two of Vietnam's greatest heros are the Hai Ba Trung (two Trung
sisters), who riding on elephants repulsed the invading army of
Chinese in the first century.
Another famous female is Ba Trieu, who led the army in battle against
the invading Chinese in the third century.
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Friday - Mar 07, 1997 [46]... Back to headlines
_[INLINE] Vietnamese American arrested for selling heroin in Vietnam:
report _
HANOI (AFP) -- A Vietnamese American has been arrested for selling
heroin in Ho Chi Minh City, a report here said Friday.
Tran Thanh Phong, 23, from Texas, was stopped with two locals while
the three were selling heroin in the city centre, the Saigon Giai
Phong newspaper said.
An official from the US embassy in Hanoi said they had not been
contacted by the police.
All the three were reported to be drug-addicts and said they had
bought the drugs from Hoang Ngoc An, a Ho Chi Minh City resident who
was later also arrested by police, the daily said.
Police confiscated 13 "pieces of heroin" from the American's rented
room, the paper said, although it did not specify the exact amount of
drugs found.
People convicted of possessing more than one kilogramme (2.2 pounds)
of heroin in Vietnam face the death sentence.
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