VN news (Apr 8)

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

Vietnam Protests German Press Reports On Repatriation Program
N.Korea, facing famine, seeks food from Vietnam 
Vietnam's parliament studies harsher punishments for child sex offenders
China wants peaceful solution to border disputes with Vietnam 
China withdraws oil rig from disputed South China Sea waters


Vietnam Protests German Press Reports On Repatriation Program

Hanoi (dpa) - The Vietnamese foreign ministry has formally complained
to Bonn about what Hanoi considers ``ill-willed'' German press reports
concerning the bilateral repatriation program, official Vietnamese
newspapers reported Tuesday.

The formal diplomatic protest note was issued by the Vietnamese
embassy in Bonn and was prompted in particular by an article in the
Berliner Tageszeitung newspaper, the papers said.

The Vietnamese note slammed the suggestion that parts of the Hanoi
government were involved in smuggling Vietnamese into Germany as
``totally untrue and bad''.

Hanoi officials also refuted the reports' claim that Vietnam was being
discriminatory against returnees and that it was unwilling to accept
back those with criminal records.

The accusations ``seriously distort the image of Vietnam and
negatively influence the lives of Vietnamese living and working
legally in Germany'', said the reports here carried in the official
Vietnamese military and Communist Party newspapers.

The reports in the Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army) and Nhan Dan
(People) newspaper were based on a despatch from the correspondent of
Vietnam News Agency (VNA), the national news service, in Germany.

The official protest noted that more than 100 Vietnamese with criminal
records have served out their sentences in German prisons and have
since been accepted back to Vietnam.

Under a 1995 bilateral agreement Vietnam has committed itself to
accept back some 40,000 Vietnamese Bonn says are living illegally in
Germany.

After some start-up problems the pace of repatriation has picked up in
recent months but German officials acknowledge they are far behind the
original schedule that envisioned ending the program by 2000.
  ___________________________________

N.Korea, facing famine, seeks food from Vietnam 

By Adrian Edwards

HANOI (Reuter) - North Korea and Vietnam began meetings on Tuesday
expected to focus on measures to help Pyongyang prevent a major
famine, but Hanoi officials said a deal to provide food was unlikely
without repayment guarantees.

Deputy premier Kong Jin-tae, the most senior North Korean official to
visit Vietnam in several years, arrived in Hanoi late on Monday and
was formally welcomed by his counterpart Tran Duc Luong.

He was scheduled to hold a series of closed-door meetings over the
next few days with trade, agriculture and investment officials and
make courtesy calls on Vietnam's top leaders.

But beyond Tuesday's smiles and handshakes, signs of residual
solidarity between the two cash-strapped and secretive communist
states appeared to be stretched thin.

An official with Vietnam's state Southern Food Corporation told
Reuters that Kong was expected to seek an undisclosed increase in
imports of rice from Vietnam, which in 1996 were variously put at
20,000 and 40,000 tonnes.

``Their demand is very big...at least 100,000 tonnes,'' said the
official, who declined to be identified. ``But they have difficulties
with payment, and this is the main problem (in agreeing a deal).''

He added that North Korea had bought rice from Vietnam in 1996, partly
under a cash deal and partly through letters of credit. He said
Vietnam would discuss the issue with Kong but would be looking for
secure guarantees of payment.

Diplomats at the North Korean embassy in Hanoi were reluctant to
comment, saying only that Pyongyang would be buying more rice from
Vietnam this year than last. Local commodities traders said they not
aware of any imminent sale.

North Korea's food crisis follows two successive years of serious
flooding.

Last week the World Food Programme issued an appeal for food for the
country's infants, warning that without urgent action large-scale
malnutrition and deaths were likely within months.

U.S. congressman Tony Hall, in Tokyo on Tuesday after visiting North
Korea, said the country was ``descending into a hell of severe
famine.''

Vietnam and North Korea are long-standing socialist allies, but
relations are seen as having cooled following Hanoi's 1992 decision to
establish relations with South Korea.

Hanoi, following in the footsteps of China, introduced free-market
reforms in the late 1980s after years of Soviet-style central planning
had driven its economy close to the brink of collapse.

North Korea, which also received help from the former Soviet Union,
has maintained a closed system based on a home-grown philosophy of
``juche,'' or self-reliance.

On Monday, a major U.S. grains trader, Cargill Inc, announced it had
reached agreement to provide Pyongyang with an undisclosed amount of
wheat.

International food experts say Pyongyang needs to import some 2.3
million tonnes of grain this year to avoid starvation.
  ___________________________________

Vietnam's parliament studies harsher punishments for child
sex offenders

HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam's Parliament is considering toughening
punishments for child rapists in a bid to stem the country's growing
wave of sex offences against children, an official newspaper reported
Tuesday.

Justice Minister Nguyen Dinh Loc told 400 deputies meeting in annual
session in Hanoi on Monday, that stiffer penalties should be imposed
against child rapists, the the Communist Party newspaper The People
said.

"Child rapes have increased in recent years, but the struggle against
them is still limited -- that makes people worried and unhappy," the
paper quoted him as saying.

"The government plans to ask deputies to approve amendments to a
number of articles of the Penal Code, which shows how seriously the
government is taking this dangerous threat to society,"

Around a dozen child rapists have been sentenced to death in Vietnam
in recent years, a period when hundreds of child sex offences have
been reported.

Meanwhile, the Hanoi police newspaper, An Ninh Thu Do, said 60 child
rapes were recorded in March across two-thirds of the country -- an
average of two a day.

Also in Hanoi, a legal weekly said a Vietnamese man had been sentenced
to death for raping and killing a 12 year-old girl in the central Ca
Mau province.
  ___________________________________

China wants peaceful solution to border disputes with Vietnam

BEIJING (AFP) - China wants a peaceful end to its new territorial
dispute with Vietnam, a foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

"We want to solve these differences peacefully," spokesman Shen
Guofang said, adding "our two countries have very good relations."

The comments came a day after China announced it had withdrawn an oil
rig from the disputed area in the Gulf of Tonkin and a day before
experts from both sides are meet in Beijing to discuss the problem.

Shen said the Chinese side to the talks would be headed by an official
from the foreign ministry department of laws and treaties.

The expert-level talks are to be held in Beijing at Hanoi's request.

On Monday a senior official with the China National Offshore Oil Corp.
(CNOOC), Yang Chunbao, said the Kantan III exploratory oil rig had
been withdrawn "after completing its normal work."

He refused to say whether the platform had been withdrawn on
government orders.

A foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said Monday the ship "has
already come home as planned after completing its normal activities."

Earlier, the director of the maritime department in Vietnam's border
commission, Huynh Minh Chinh said the platform and its support boats
were withdrawn on April 1, following strong protests from Hanoi.

The disputed zone lies south of the Gulf of Tonkin, almost equidistant
from the central-Vietnamese coast and the Chinese island of Hainan and
is believed to be rich in natural gas.

It is not covered by regular bilateral talks on contested areas in the
South China Sea.

The dispute flared on March 7 when the Chinese oil rig moved into the
contested area prompting Vietnam to demand that China move it.

Since normalizing relations in 1991 Vietnam and China have set up
groups to negotiate three areas of disputed claims. One deals
exclusively with land border disputes.

A second deals with joint claims over the Gulf of Tonkin itself, while
the third deals with overlapping claims to the Spratly Islands and the
Paracel Islands.
  ___________________________________

China withdraws oil rig from disputed South China Sea waters

BEIJING (AFP) - China has withdrawn an exploratory oil rig in the
South China Sea in an area disputed with Vietnam, a senior official
with the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) said Monday.

"After completing its normal work, the Kantan III has been withdrawn,"
said Yang Chunbao, an official in the CNOOC general manager's office.

He refused to say whether the platform had been withdrawn on
government orders.

But a foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing also confirmed the move
saying: "The Chinese exploration ship Kantan III has already come home
as planned after completing its normal activities."

Earlier, the director of the maritime department in Vietnam's border
commission, Huynh Minh Chinh said the platform and its support boats
were withdrawn on April 1, following strong protests from Hanoi over
its deployment.

But both the Chinese and Vietnamese foreign ministries confirmed that
expert-level talks on the dispute, earlier scheduled for April 9,
would still go ahead as planned.

These expert-level talks are to be held in Beijing at Hanoi's request.

"The Chinese government always follows the fundamental principles of
international law in resolving disputes through peaceful means and it
stands for settling its disputes with the country concerned through
friendly negotiations," the Chinese spokesman said.

The disputed zone lies south of the Tonkin Gulf, almost equidistant
from the central-Vietnamese coast and the Chinese island of Hainan and
is believed to be rich in natural gas.

It is not covered by regular bilateral talks on contested areas in the
South China Sea.

The dispute flared on March 7 when a Chinese oil rig moved into the
contested area prompting Vietnam to demand that China move it.

On March 2O, Vietnam sent a request to Beijing for a meeting to
discuss the issue, and called in ambassadors from countries belonging
to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to explain its
position.

Following the meeting several ambassadors indicated they would
recommend that their governments, most of whom also have territorial
disputes with China, to throw their support behind Vietnam.

Since normalizing relations in 1991 Vietnam and China have set up
groups to negotiate three areas of disputed claims. One deals
exclusively with land border disputes.

A second deals with joint claims over the Gulf of Tonkin itself, which
separates Vietnam's northeast coast from the southern tip of China and
Hainan Island.

The third deals with overlapping claims to the Spratly Islands and the
Paracel Islands.
  ___________________________________