VN news (June 15)

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

Vietnam counts cost of US war, 22 years on
Corrupt officials lose Communist Party membership in Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam and Israel pledge telecoms cooperation
Australian wheat and Vietnamese rice arrives in Iraq
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Vietnam counts cost of U.S. war, 22 years on

HANOI, June 15 (Reuter) - Vietnam catalogued on Sunday the appalling cost
of its war against the United States and said the conflict, which ended
more than 22 years ago, was still exacting a toll in lives and suffering. 

The official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said that when the war ended in
1975 three million Vietnamese had been killed, 4.4 million wounded, and
two million affected by toxic chemicals including the defoliant Agent
Orange. 

It said some 50,000 children were born with deformities in the first
decade after the war, and added that a recent survey of areas around the
central city of Danang had found nearly 41 percent of the population were
either dead, missing or wounded by the time the conflict ended. 

"The war with the Americans may have ended 22 years ago, but its
conseqences are still visible everywhere, leaving a heavy burden on
society and a lot of human suffering," it said. 

The report went on to detail how people were still being killed by
ordnance, including a recent incident in which a cluster bomb exploded in
a schoolyard killing seven children, wounding 37 others and a teacher. 

It said 50 percent of all war-victim families were poor and added that
despite domestic and international efforts to alleviate the suffering,
more help was needed. 

VNA gave no reasons for releasing the figures, but the report was released
ahead of a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. 

Albright is expected to arrive in Hanoi on June 26 to discuss a range of
issues including efforts to account for missing U.S. personnel from the
war as well as human rights. 
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Corrupt officials lose Communist Party membership in Ho Chi Minh City

HANOI, June 15 (AFP) - Ho Chi Minh City officials were kicked out of the
Communist Party of Vietnam for their role in Vietnam's biggest corruption
scandal, a report said Sunday. 

Several senior local officials from Tan Binh district in the southern
city, including its former mayor, lost their party membership in the wake
of the 40 million dollar Tamexco scandal in which four people were
sentenced to death for corruption in March, the Tuoi Tre, or Youth daily
newspaper reported. 

The action taken by the communist party is seen as an attempt to purge its
ranks at the local level and salvage its besmirched reputation in the case
involving Tamexco trading company, which had direct links to the Party. 

Among those who were forced to relinquish their party membership were Le
Thi Van, former vice party secretary of Tan Binh and former mayor of the
district. 

Nguyen Chi Phuong, secretary of the district party office was also forced
to resign, while the entire department of commerce and investment in the
city district was reproached by the party, the paper said. 

Meanwhile, investigations into a potentially bigger scandal involving
fraud of up to 350 million dollars involving Minh Phuong Garment Co and
EPCO Ltd in Ho Chi Minh City were still ongoing, police said. 
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Vietnam and Israel pledge telecoms cooperation

HANOI, June 15 (AFP) - Israel and Vietnam have signed a memorandum of
understanding pledging cooperation in the field of telecommunications, a
local report said on Sunday. 

Israeli Minister of Telecommunications Limor Livnat signed the document
with Mai Liem Truc, general director of the telecoms authority, Department
General of Posts and Telecommunications (DGPT) on Saturday evening the
official Vietnam News Agency reported. 

Earlier on Saturday Livnat told AFP that Israel was looking for a niche
business in Vietnam and was particularly keen to cooperate with the
telecoms authorities to develop Vietnam's first telecoms satellite. 

"We specialize in small commercial satellites and Vietnam is interested in
building a communications satellite," she said. 

Livnat said financing such a project was a big consideration, adding that
representatives from the government-backed Israeli Foreign Trade Risks
Insurance Company and the Israeli branch of Citibank were in Hanoi to
discuss financing. 

She said that Israeli companies cannot compete with international giants
like Alcatel of France and Telstra of Australia hankering for a stake in
Vietnam's fast growing telecoms market. 

Livnat was visiting Vietnam at the request of the DGPT and the main state
telecoms provider, Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications. However Israeli
companies are also interested in doing business with a competing service
provider controlled by the military, an embassy official said. 

Livnat's delegation of government officials and businessman will leave on
Monday for the Philippines. 

Israel has been forging stronger ties with Vietnam in recent years, though
trade and investment flows are still small. Last year two way trade was
less than 15 million dollars. 
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Australian wheat and Vietnamese rice arrives in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq has received more than 23,000 tons of Australian
wheat and 12,000 tons of Vietnamese rice within the framework of the
oil-for-food humanitarian deal with the UN, the official INA news agency
said Saturday. 

The agency said an Indian ship delivered a cargo of 23,631 tons of wheat
from Australia on Thursday at the Gulf port of Umm Qasr where a Chinese
ship began unloading the cargo of Vietnamese rice on Friday. 

The oil-for-food deal, renewed by the United Nations on June 4, allows
Iraq to sell two billion dollars of oil every six months to buy food and
medicines, defray UN costs and pay reparations for its August 1990
invasion of Kuwait. 

The deal, which came into effect on December 10, is the first easing of
the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq following the invasion. 

According to UN officials in Baghdad, by the beginning of June Iraq had
received a total of 720,000 tonnes of food under the deal. 

The Iraqi health ministry released a report on Saturday saying a total of
841,676 Iraqis, including more than 320,000 children aged less than five,
have died between 1990 and May 1997 because of illnesses and a lack of
medical supplies caused by the embargo. 
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