VN news (Mar 27-28, 1997)

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

   Vietnam makers of Nike shoes deny charges of labour mistreatment
   Electric shocks for rats kill people in Vietnam province
   Vietnam sentences Hong Kong pair to death for heroin trafficking
   Fourth person this year sentenced to death for drugs in Vietnam
   China Ready to Properly Solve Problems Between China and Vietnam


   Friday - Mar 28, 1997 [38]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] Vietnam makers of Nike shoes deny charges of labour
   mistreatment_

   HANOI (AFP) - Firms making shoes here for US manufacturer Nike denied
   Friday charges they were mistreating their workforce.

   A senior executive of Pou Chen Vietnam Enterprise, a Taiwanese-owned
   factory whose 8,000 workers make shoes exclusively for Nike Inc., said
   "we obey the labour laws, and pay the minimum salary."

   Workers at the plant, in the southern province of Dong Nai, receive
   about 40 dollars a month for working a six-day week, he said.

   Vietnam Labour Watch, a labour activist group held a press conference
   in New York on Thursday charging companies making Nike shoes in
   Vietnam paid less than minimum wages and inflicted abuse and even
   corporal punishment on their local employees.

   Nike officials in Ho Chi Minh City refused to comment. The group
   reportedly buys shoes made under contract from five separate suppliers
   based in southern Vietnam employing about 36,000 workers, 80 percent
   of them women.

   Another exclusive supplier to Nike, Korean owned Taekwong Corp., built
   its 36 million dollar plant in Dong Nai in 1996 at Nike's request.
   Park Chun Taek, general director of the factory said the company had
   no problems.

   "We are trying our best to treat workers better than other companies.
   We pay them 42 dollars a month and give them free lunch," he said.

   Park said the group, whose 9,000 workers churn out half a million
   shoes for Nike a month, had initial difficulties but it was working
   with a trade union to talk through problems.

   "Anybody can come and inspect our conditions," he said.

   Pou Chen's executive admitted however, its company had experienced
   problems.

   Earlier this month Pou Chen dismissed a supervisor who reportedly
   forced 56 female workers on international women's day to run laps
   around the factory as punishment, causing 12 of them to faint.

   The executive said the female supervisor will face trial for
   mistreating her employees and "there were no more problems at the
   factory."

   Park Chan Shin, director of the Korean Trade and Development Office
   (Kotra) in Ho Chi Minh City, said labour relations between Korean
   investors and Vietnamese workers are improving.

   "Yes occasionally there are incidents, but they are becoming fewer,"
   he said.

   "This year before June our government is going to dispatch a couple of
   specialists to give on-the-spot guidance for smooth labour relations
   in the Korean investment companies," he added.

   According to figures published by the Lao Dong union newspapers, 73
   strikes in Vietnam occured in 1996, an increase of 22 percent on 1995.
   Most of them were at foreign invested firms.
                    ___________________________________

   Friday - Mar 28, 1997 [39]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] Electric shocks for rats kill people in Vietnam province _

   Hanoi (dpa) - More than a dozen Vietnamese have been been killed by
   contact with electrical wires neighbours have strung in open fields in
   order to kill an upsurge in the local rat population, local officials
   said Friday.

   The accidental deaths have taken place in the last month in the
   northern coastal province of Thai Binh, where running wires to kill
   rats is still considered a relatively modern method to deal with an
   age-old problem.

   The area is particularly vulnerable this year because of a shortage in
   the normal supply of cats, which are being shipped off to China, where
   they are considered a delicacy, especially black felines.

   As a result there is a larger-than-normal population of rats which
   particularly fancy rice seedlings, now surrounded by 220-volt wires.

   ``We have sent our people to communes to stop people from using power
   to kill rats but these peasants are so stubborn,'' complained Nguyen
   Thanh Quang, a police officer in Kien Xuong District.

   ``They say that people had better watch out or they'll get killed and
   they say if they don't do this then they will all starve to death,''
   he said in a telephone interview Friday.

   Poison and traps, previously popular methods, have proven less
   successful in recent years and in some cases have only exacerbated
   matters by catching cats as well, he added.

   The first victim, Pham Van Thanh, 33, received a fatal electrical
   shock while catching frogs, typically done wading through ponds and
   wet-rice paddies, Nhan Dan (People), the Communist Party newspaper.

   The youngest victim was an eleven-year-old boy who had gone to fetch
   his soccer ball.

   The Mekong Delta province of Can Tho also recently reported an upsurge
   of rats prompting authorities to offer the equivalent of 20 cents for
   ten rat tails, local papers reported.
                    ___________________________________

   Friday - Mar 28, 1997 [41]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] Vietnam sentences Hong Kong pair to death for heroin
   trafficking_

   HANOI (AFP) - Two Hong Kong men were sentenced to death on Friday
   after being convicted in Vietnam's biggest heroin trafficking case, a
   court official said.

   Sun Chi-kin, 34, and Chan Chun-hung Sam My, 24, Hong Kong residents
   holding British passports, were arrested in March last year after 18.1
   kilograms (39.82 pounds) of heroin was found concealed in two
   suitcases as they arrived at Ho Chi Minh City airport from Bangkok.

   "These two men were transiting in Ho Chi Minh City in order to
   transport drugs to the Netherlands," a court official said, adding the
   pair were carrying false Portugese passports issued from Macau.

   The trial at the Ho Chi Minh City People's court lasted one day.

   Court officials said the two men have 15 days to appeal their
   sentences, and appeals often took several months to be heard.

   Possession or transporting more than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of
   heroin is punishable by death in Vietnam.

   Four foreigners have previously received the death sentence for
   drug-related crimes in Vietnam, but to date only one has been
   executed.

   Executions in Vietnam are carried out by a firing squad of five rifles
   aimed at the body, followed by a sixth shot to the head.

   In 1993, Wong Chi-Shing, a holder of a Hong Kong British National
   passport was executed in Ho Chi Minh City for trafficking after he was
   caught smuggling five kilograms (11.2 pounds) of heroin into the
   country.

   Last week, Nguyen Thi Hiep, a Canadian woman of Vietnamese origin was
   sentenced to death for possession of 5.45 kilograms of heroin.

   Two Laotians, Sieng Pheng and Sieng Nhong, received the death sentence
   in 1995 for having imported 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of heroin.

   The conviction of the two Hong Kong men on Friday came during a
   concerted campaign by Hanoi to stamp out illegal drug use and drug
   related crimes. Vietnam has become an increasingly popular
   transhipment point for narcotics from the golden triangle of Burma,
   Cambodia and Laos.

   According to the United Nations Drug Control Programme, (UNDCP)
   Vietnam has more than 200,000 drug users.

   Most are addicted to opium, however authorities have noted an alarming
   rise in the use of an unrefined heroin-based drug called "black water"
   that is popular among young, middle class Vietnamese.
                    ___________________________________

   Thursday - Mar 27, 1997 [43]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] Fourth person this year sentenced to death for drugs in
   Vietnam _

   Hanoi (AFP) - A Vietnamese man has been sentenced to death for drug
   trafficking in Vietnam's northern Bac Giang province in the fourth
   death penalty to be handed down in the country this year.

   Luu Van Yen, 28, was arrested in December 1992 in possession of half a  
   kilogram of opium. He escaped from detention but was arrested again
   south of Hanoi last June with two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of opium.

   The number of drug trafficking cases has risen steadly in Vietnam in
   recent years, despite heavy sentencing of dealers.

   An Vietnamese Canadian woman was sentenced to death last week. In  
   total, 20 people have been sentenced to death in Vietnam for drug
   offences since the first in 1993.
                    ___________________________________

   Thursday - Mar 27, 1997 [45]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] China Ready to Properly Solve Problems Between China and
   Vietnam _

   BEIJING (Xinhua News) - China values its good-neighborly friendship
   and mutually beneficial cooperation with Vietnam, and is ready to hold
   friendly consultations with it to properly solve problems existing
   between China and Vietnam.

   Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Cui Tiankai made the statement at a
   regular news conference here today.

   In response to Vietnam's recent representations to the Chinese side on
   sea explorations by a Chinese drilling ship in the north of the South
   China Sea, Cui said that China holds the rights over the continental
   shelf and exclusive economic zones according to the international
   laws, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

   Consequently, he said, it is beyond reproach that this ship has made
   normal explorations in the continental shelf and exclusive economic
   zones claimed by China.

   He said China has always held that problems and disputes existing
   among countries should be solved through peaceful negotiations, noting
   that China cherishes its friendship and cooperative relations with
   Vietnam, and is ready to hold friendly consultations with Vietnam, in 
   order to properly solve certain problems remaining between the two
   countries.
                    ___________________________________