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VN News May 17-20
Headlines:
u.n. sounds alarm on child sex abuse in vietnam
as mias go home, vietnam says u.s. could do more
vietnam to sell 50 bln dong t-notes on wednesday
women still suffering despite reform in vietnam
two die, dozens hurt in vietnam army camp blast
uncle ho brings revolution to karaoke in vietnam
indian rice exports dull as buyers turn to vietnam
vietnam's do muoi to visit burma
vietnam leaders in foreign relations offensive
U.N. sounds alarm on child sex abuse in Vietnam
HANOI, May 20 - The United Nations said on Tuesday
that drastic measures were needed to protect Vietnam's children
from the rising tide of sexual exploitation.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a
statement that although the government had demonstrated a strong
commitment to tackling child prostitution and sexual abuse of
children, the implementation of measures remained weak.
UNICEF said some 20,000 children under the age of 18 are
estimated to be victims of prostitution in Vietnam.
"Although this number is lower than in some Southeast Asian
countries, the rapidly increasing trend is very alarming," it
said. "In 1991, child prostitutes made up 11 percent of all
prostitutes in Vietnam, while today they represent 15 percent."
It said many families were reluctant to denounce the rape of
their children because they were ashamed, and child prostitutes
were still considered by public opinion as "guilty and depraved
adolescents instead of victims".
UNICEF welcomed recent revisions by the National Assembly to
the criminal code that stipulate heavier penalties for child
rape and a coming National Plan of Action to protect vulnerable
children from sexual abuse, exploitative labour and drug abuse.
"However, the deteriorating situation requires even more
drastic measures," UNICEF said, adding that it would step up its
efforts with the government and others to tackle the problem.
"Sexual exploitation of Vietnamese children should not be
tolerated and demands urgent action," it said. "All sectors of
society should cooperate to eradicate this plight."
German beer maker taps into Vietnam's market
HANOI, May 20 - Germany's Brauhaase Holding
(Pacific) Ltd and two local partners have been granted a licence
to build a $120-million beer factory in central Vietnam, a
Ministry of Planning and Investment official said on Tuesday.
He said the brewery, which will be located in Nghe An
province, would have an annual production capacity of 100
million litres.
An official at one of the local partners, Huu Nghi Company,
told s that Brauhaase would have a 49 percent stake in the
joint venture and that Huu Nghi and Saigon Brewery Company would
hold 25.5 percent each.
Before the latest licence, 11 foreign-backed brewing
ventures -- with total capital of some $370 million -- had been
approved in Vietnam.
Their combined production capacity is about 400 million
litres a year, equivalent to 55-60 percent of the country's
total capacity and just over 50 percent of its annual
consumption.
Reu
As MIAs go home, Vietnam says U.S. could do more
By John Chalmers
HANOI, May 20 - Washington's new envoy to Vietnam
underlined his commitment to the missing-in-action issue on
Tuesday, attending a routine repatriation ceremony for remains
of American servicemen just 11 days after his arrival.
Douglas "Pete" Peterson, himself a fighter pilot and
prisoner of war in the conflict that ended 22 years ago, stood
to attention with military personnel as American flags were
draped over seven, body-length aluminium caskets at Hanoi
airport.
Nguyen Xuan Phong, director of the Vietnamese Foreign
Ministry's America Department, stood at a polite distance on the
tarmac as the hour-long ceremony played out.
"We have always cooperated sincerely with the effort and we
will continue to do so until the last American family requires
us to do so," Phong told reporters as the caskets were carried
ceremoniously through the tailgate of a U.S. Air Force plane.
Peterson proclaimed a "new era" of constructive relations
between the two former enemies when he arrived on May 9.
But he stressed that the fullest possible accounting of the
2,124 American servicemen and civilians still listed as missing
in Indochina would remain Washington's priority in Vietnam.
Communist Vietnam has cooperated with the United States in
the exhaustive hunt for remains, especially since the two
countries normalised relations in 1995.
However, Hanoi occasionally expresses frustration over
Washington's emphasis on the MIA issue.
Reiterating a comment made by the foreign ministry when
former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake visited Vietnam
last year, Phong said Washington could do more to make up for
the past.
"We hope to see a greater effort by the American side to
solve the consequences of the war in Vietnam," Phong said. "The
effort made by the American side is very modest so far in
comparison with its great material potential."
Vietnamese officials say Hanoi wants to see the United
States join other Western nations at an annual aid pledging
session and some talk of reviving the question of war
reparations.
More than three million Vietnamese people lost their lives
in the conflict, countless others were maimed and huge tracts of
the country's land were wrecked by U.S. spraying of defoliants.
An estimated 58,000 Americans died in the war.
Asked about reparations, Phong said: "I think the
Americans...need to know the nature of the war here, the
consequences left by the war here and then they will feel more
and more of a moral obligation to do something here."
The thaw in relations between the two countries has been
slow since normalisation. Mutual suspicion remains and a trade
agreement -- which would lead to most-favoured nation (MFN)
status for Vietnam -- still eludes them.
Peterson, who spent 6-1/2 years in the euphemistically named
"Hanoi Hilton" prison during the war, has kept a low profile
since taking up his post on May 9.
After watching small boxes of bone fragments being sealed,
placed in the metal caskets and then loaded onto the plane, he
chatted with the aircrew, shook hands with Phong and drove off,
ignoring reporters' shouted questions.
Reu
Vietnam to sell 50 bln dong T-notes on Wednesday
HANOI, May 20 - Vietnam will auction 50 billion
dong ($4.28 million) worth of one-year Treasury notes on
Wednesday, an official at the State Bank of Vietnam said on
Tuesday.
At the last sale of government paper, on May 14, the central
bank sold 50 billion dong worth of one-year Treasury notes to
domestic and foreign institutions at an annual interest rate of
12 percent.
The government has held eight Treasury paper auctions so far
this year, through which a total of 279.4 billion dong worth of
Treasury stock has been issued.
(US$1=11,658 dong)
Reu
Women still suffering despite reform in Vietnam
By John Chalmers
HANOI, May 19 - Vietnam's drive to reform its
economy along market lines has left many women with lives of
toil, low pay, poor education and inadequate health care, the
influential Women's Union said in a report on Monday.
The union began its congress, held every five years, with a
ceremonial flourish in central Hanoi on Monday. It warned that
an increasing number of women were turning to "unjust activities
and social evils" -- references to prostitution and drug abuse.
"Women are overloaded, labouring at work like men but also
undertaking housework and bringing up children at home," the
report said.
"...due to their lack of training, limited education and low
professional skills, most of them are on low-paying jobs, doing
manual work and even heavy and noxious duties which affect their
reproductive health," it added.
The report also bemoaned the fact that only about five
percent of the country's top-ranking officials were women, and
said gender problems should be part and parcel of the
government's socio-economic targets.
Hundreds of women, many from remote ethnic minority
villages, lined up in a kaleidoscope of traditional dress on
Monday to pay homage at the mausoleum of the late president and
nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh before starting their two-day
conference.
Although gender equality is a basic principle of the
Marxist-Leninist thought that Vietnam embraced during its
struggle for independence, a centuries-old Confucian heritage of
female subservience remains.
The United Nations Development Programme argues that those
values have made a comeback during the past decade of reform.
It says that women carry out about 60 percent of the
agricultural workload -- on top of household jobs -- but across
the board earn just 72 percent of the average male wage.
In rural areas, where 90 percent of the country's poor live,
women's workloads are increasing as more men migrate to cities
in search of employment.
This, in turn, increases their health problems and leaves
them with less time for education and training that could give
them better jobs.
The Women's Union, with a membership of 11 million, is one
of the most potent of Vietnam's many mass organisations.
"It's powerful, that's true" said one foreign aid worker.
"But you could hardly call it progressive."
The union, whose rhetoric was reminiscent of a key report
for the 1996 Communist Party congress, stressed the importance
of its contribution to the defence and construction of the
socialist homeland and building patriotic and socialist-loving
women.
However, the report was sketchy on sensitive issues such as
the question of how to tackle the growing ranks of female
drug-abusers, HIV/AIDS victims and commercial sex workers.
Official figures put the number of prostitutes in Vietnam at
70,000. However, aid workers say the number is probably higher,
and that it will continue to rise as more women drift into
cities to escape poverty in the countryside.
Reu
Two die, dozens hurt in Vietnam army camp blast
HANOI, May 19 - Two people died and more than 40
were injured when an ammunition store exploded at a military
camp on the northwestern outskirts of Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh
City, a local official said on Monday.
A three-year-old died immediately and a teenager died on the
way to hospital after Sunday's blast, which caused extensive
damage to about 1,000 houses, a People's Committee building,
police station and school in the Cu Chi district.
The official said investigations were under way to establish
the cause of the explosion.
The Cu Chi district gained notoriety during the Vietnam War
for its network of underground tunnels, which gave the Communist
forces control of a large rural area close to Saigon, the former
name of Ho Chi Minh City.
JEC
Reu
Uncle Ho brings revolution to karaoke in Vietnam
HANOI, May 17 - Hanoi's Culture and Information
Department, a fierce opponent of the "social evils" spawned by
karaoke, has softened its stand to mark the 107th birthday of
Vietnam's late president and nationalist leader, Ho Chi Minh.
The Lao Dong newspaper said on Saturday that an official
karaoke contest would be held in central Hanoi from May 25-30.
Anything goes in the capital's ubiquitous karaoke bars, from
the Beatles and Vietnamese folk songs to prostitution and drug
abuse.
But next week's official sing-along will have a special
theme: "Uncle Ho and the Revolution."
R
ndian rice exports dull as buyers turn to Vietnam
NEW DELHI, May 16 - Export demand for Indian rice
was dull with buyers opting for relatively cheaper Vietnamese
rice varieties, traders said on Friday.
"Overall export demand is dull as Indian rice prices were
higher than Vietnamese varieties," Prem Garg, managing director
of Sri Lal Mahal Overseas Ltd, a leading Delhi foodgrains
exporter, told s.
Traders said Indian rice export prices were quoted at about
$30 per tonne more than Vietnamese rice for all grades.
They said five percent broken non-Basmati rice was quoted at
$315 per tonne FOB, 10 percent at $290, 15 percent at $270 and
25 percent at $245.
"There are not very many export inquiries for rice exports,"
said Tarun Kumar of Space Group, another Delhi foodgrains
exporter. "But small shipments are going to African countries
and Sri Lanka."
Traders said Indian Basmati export prices were high due to
good export and domestic demand. A-grade Basmati was quoted at
around $1,050 per tonne compared with about $900 this time last
year.
"Basmati prices are high because of good local and European
demand," Garg said. "Basmati demand is also there from the
Middle East."
The All India Rice Exporters Association (AIREA) expects
rice exports in 1996/97 (April-March) to fall to about 2.5
million tonnes from 5.0 million in the previous fiscal due to a
sharp fall in global demand and better crops in exporting
countries.
--Sambit Mohanty, New Delhi newsroom +91-11 301 2024
Reu
Vietnam's Do Muoi to visit Burma
RANGOON, May 16 - Vietnamese Communist Party chief
Do Muoi will soon visit Burma, where he is expected to discuss
ties and Burma's membership in the Association of South East
Asian Nations (ASEAN), government sources said on Friday.
State-run media said Do Muoi would make the trip in the near
future but did not give a date. Government sources said his
delegation would likely visit Burma on May 22-25.
Burma and Vietnam have stepped up relations in recent years.
Communist Party officials in Hanoi said on Thursday that
Muoi, 80, was due to visit Rangoon and Beijing in his first
overseas trips in many months, although details of the visit to
China were not finalised.
Vietnam's Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet visited Rangoon in May
1994 and General Than Shwe, chairman of Burma's ruling State Law
and Order Restoration Council, visited Vietnam in March 1995.
Reu
Vietnam leaders in foreign relations offensive
HANOI, May 15 - Vietnam's communist leaders will
launch a foreign relations offensive next week when party chief
Do Muoi and Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet are expected to head for
China, Burma, and central Europe on separate visits.
A foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday that Kiet, 74
and his wife would visit Poland, the Czech republic, Italy and
Hungary between May 20 and 28 -- his second overseas trip this
year.
Do Muoi, 80, the most powerful member of Vietnam's
leadership troika, will visit Burma, a Communist Party official
said. Details of a visit to China, Hanoi's giant northern
neighbour, were still being finalised.
An unofficial source said Muoi's visits would take place
around May 20.
The visits are significant in that they mark the first
occasion on which the two men are likely to have been away from
Vietnam at or around the same time in many months.
Vietnam's political environment was dominated by a major
Communist Party congress last year which focused attention on
internal affairs rather than overseas relations.
The sudden illness of President Le Duc Anh, 76, who suffered
a stroke in November, is also seen by analysts as a factor which
may have held back plans for leadership travel.
Anh's condition has improved since then and he has made
occasional brief public appearances.
All three men had been expected to step down last year at
the congress, but last-minute political manoeuvring saw their
terms in office effectively extended.
Political analysts believe that Kiet and Anh will be
replaced later this year, although it is unclear who might fill
their shoes.
Vietnam's relations with eastern Europe have weakened
following the collapse of communism in former Soviet-bloc
countries, however officials say Hanoi is seeking to revitalise
its ties with these nations.
Burma is expected to join the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, possibly as soon as next July and despite U.S.
opposition to the move. Vietnam is an ASEAN member.
Vietnam's relations with China are more complex. Despite
ideological similarities the relationship between the two
countries has remained uneasy.
Muoi's expected visit will be the first by a Vietnamese
leader since the death of China's Deng Xiaoping in February and
the first since a dispute flared up in March over Chinese oil
exploration in contested waters of the South China Sea.
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