VN news (Apr 21)

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

April 21: Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - April 21, 1997 
April 21: Kiet pushes highway despite open dissent 
April 21: Dozens of Chinese fishermen seized off central Vietnam coast


Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - April 21, 1997

Hanoi (VNA) - Highlights of Vietnamese Newspapers today are as
follows:

NHAN DAN:

1. Republic of Belarus President Alexander Lukashensko will make a
five-day friendship visit to Vietnam, the Foreign Ministry has
announced.

2. Tropical technologies are used in the country's industrialisation
and modernisation process.

HANOI MOI:

1. Thirty high-quality products such as electric fans, paints, locks
etc produced by the Hanoi Industry Sector have been awarded gold
medals and certificates.

VIETNAM NEWS:

1. Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet has issued an instruction designed to
make buses the major method of transport in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City. The instruction requires the People's Committees of both cities
and the relevant ministries to plan for the expansion of bus and taxi
networks by the year 2000.

2. About VND 500 billion (US$ 45 million) is needed to purchase the
cashew crop in April and May, the Vietnam Cashew Association says.
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Kiet pushes highway despite open dissent 

By GREG TORODE in Hanoi

Premier Vo Van Kiet is stepping up a huge propaganda drive to shore up
a national highway project now facing open criticism.

State newspapers describe a "confident" Mr Kiet as insisting work on
the highway "must start in 1998".

The US$5 billion (HK$38.7 billion) project will be by far the biggest
infrastructure deal ever attempted in Vietnam, and is likely to
pioneer a new "compulsory" labour scheme.

"No project so far has reached such a degree of unanimity, from
central as well as regional levels," Mr Kiet has said.

His comments follow heated closed-door debate in the National Assembly
- Vietnam's parliament. Some delegates openly questioned its viability
and environmental impact.

Others fear it would drain much-needed capital from other more
important infrastructure projects.

In unprecedented questioning by a body once seen as a rubber stamp,
some delegates demanded the right to approve feasibility studies -
giving them effective veto power, sources said.

Vietnam's existing north-south road, the dilapidated French-built
Highway One, is already being rebuilt with more than US$1 billion in
international aid.

Mr Kiet fears that even after improvements the old road will not be
enough to fuel Vietnam's continued growth.

Millions of forced labourers will be needed to carve out the new
1,800-kilometre road which will follow much of the famous "Ho Chi
Minh" wartime supply trail. The scheme will force virtually all adults
aged under 45 to "donate" 10 days of labour or pay the equivalent in
cash.

Communist Party sources see the scheme as a political "master-stroke".

"It will improve the country's infrastructure and instil the youth
with the pride their elders had during the Vietnam War," one military
source said.

Meanwhile, national elections will be held on July 20 - the first for
five years. More vigorous campaigning has been sanctioned, with
approved candidates allowed access to state television and newspapers.
-- SCMP
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Dozens of Chinese fishermen seized off central Vietnam coast

Hanoi (dpa) - Sixty-four Chinese fishermen are being questioned by
Vietnamese authorities after their five boats were seized in
Vietnamese waters off the central coast, officials said Monday.

A coast guard unit posted at the central Vietnamese city of Danang
rounded up the five boats last Sunday during daylight hours and the
fishermen apparently made no attempt to resist arrest, they said.

``They are now being held at the coast guard center and are being
questioned before they are released,'' said a senior guard official by
telephone. It was unclear if they were to be fined or what other terms
would be made for their release.

He said last month Danang authorities seized 48 Chinese fishermen in
five boats fishing in Vietnamese waters in roughly the same area.

Explosives were found on board the vessels but that the fishermen were
using nets at the time, he added.

The latest group of Chinese fishermen were being questioned by
officials from the Danang People's Committee, but authorities refused
to say anything further, or what happened to the first group.

A consular official at the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi said he had not
been informed about either group of fishermen.
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