VN News 31/07/97

[Dam Son <son@u.washington.edu>]

Cuba's Castro helps launch crocodile farming in northern Vietnam 
Vietnam scrambles to prepare for annual flooding onslaught 
Viet Nam Expects to Promote Coop with S. Africa 
Woman Jailed in Vietnam for Showing Porn Videos 
Vietnam, France Sign Military Pact To Expand Cooperation 
Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - July 30, 1997 
Vietnam strikes barriers in integration with Asean 
Los Angeles Times Opens Hanoi Bureau in Vietnam - David Lamb Named

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Cuba's Castro helps launch crocodile farming in northern Vietnam 

Hanoi (dpa) - Vietnam's budding crocodile farming industry received a
boost this week from Cuban leader Fidel Castro who donated a batch of
150 of the reptiles for research and breeding purposes, officials said
Thursday.

It was the second time that Cuba donated crocodiles to help develop
the industry in Vietnan which is now trying to cross-breed the Cuban
crocodiles with the native Vietnamese variety.

In 1985 Havana sent Hanoi 100 crocodiles which have now multiplied to
840 and are the base of a modest industry involving just over 200
families throughout the country, said local experts.

"We can not say we really have a crocodile farming industry in
Vietnam yet but we are gradually becoming more successful with this
effort," said Pham Van Nuoi, the country's solitary crocodile expert
who trained in Cuba.

Most of the families raising crocodiles are in the south, where the
climate is warm for the entire year.

Crocodiles lay their first eggs after their seventh year and can lay
more than 20 eggs annually of which 80 per cent will survive in Cuba -
less than half that in Vietnam.

Families raising crocodiles for meat and their skins can earn between
2,000 and 6,000 dollars per year - princely incomes in Vietnam where
the annual per capita income is just over 200 dollars.

Those specializing in baby crocodiles can earn up to 10,000 dollars a
year for their skins.

"We are now trying to cross-breed the two varieties because the
Vietnamese crocodiles are quite small but are better acclimatised,"
explained Nuoi.

The latest batch of crocodiles - presented Tuesday by Cuban Ambassador
Tania Maceira Delgado to Hanoi's deputy minister of agriculture and
rural development, Ngo The Dan - will be domiciled the Thuy Phuong
Fowl Research Center, just outside of the capital.

The centre provides a readily available supply of the reptiles
preferred food of chickens and ducks, said an officals there.

There are reported to be just several thousand crocodiles left in
Vietnam and by encouraging farming officials also hope to protect the
remaining wild stocks which have been seriously depleted.

Castro enjoys immense popularity among Vietnam's Communist Party
leaders and most ordinary Vietnamese for his high-profile support to
Hanoi during the Vietnam war.

In recent years the assistance is more often going from Hanoi to
Havana, especially in the form of annual campaigns to raise donations
of rice to send to Cuba.

  _________________________________________________________________


Vietnam scrambles to prepare for annual flooding onslaught 

Hanoi (dpa) - Tens of thousands of Vietnamese peasants across the
country are working overtime to shore up dykes and dig canals to
protect homes and rice fields from the annual onslaught of flooding,
which officials warn is coming early this year.

Rivers across the country have already risen to hazardous levels in
recents days as heavy rainfalls continue in upriver regions, including
neighbouring countries.

There are already reports of flooding in scattered parts of the
country but the biggest concerns focus on Vietnam's two biggest river
systems, the Red River Delta in the north and the Mekong River Delta
in the southern part of the country.

Officials are particularly worried that major flooding in the Mekond
Delta could wreck havoc on rice producion in the country's main
rice-growing area.

The ministerial-level Central Committee for Flood and Storm Ccontrol
warned Thursday that flooding in this area could hit days before a key
drainage canal is completed.

The new 36 kilometre-long canal is meant to drain the Plain of Reeds,
a large swampy area that is the first area to flood in this region,
into the Gulf of Thailand.

Bulldozers and workers are working overtime to finish the canal in
southern Kien Giang province before the August 15 deadline but
flooding is predicted to start August 10.

Last year's flooding killed nearly 200 people in the Mekong Delta -
mostly primary schoolchildren - and destroyed homes and crops worth an
estimated 630 million dollars, the official Vietnam News reported.

Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet on Monday made a tour by boat of the canal
system in An Giang and Kien Giang provinces which border Cambodia.

The new canal is one 20 high-priority irrigation projects Kiet ordered
officials in the 12 Mekong Delta provinces to carry out ahead of this
year's flood season.

Flooding in the Mekong Delta area used to occcur once every five or 10
years but because of degraded forest cover in neighbouring Cambodia,
Laos and China, flooding has become an annual phenomena in recent
years, experts explain.

"The same amount of water is coming down but it is coming down faster
and at a higher level," said Dr. Marshall Silver, an American expert
assisting the Vietnamese government's flood control efforts.

Farmers in the area are scrambling to harvest their summer-autumn rice
crop before the flooding.

In northern Hai Duong province 20,000 hectares of rice paddy fields
are already under water, other reports said Thursday.

  _________________________________________________________________


Viet Nam Expects to Promote Coop with S. Africa 

JOHANNESBURG (July 31) XINHUA - Viet Nam is ready to sign agreements
with South Africa on economic, scientific and technological
cooperation, local daily Business Report today quoted Vietnamese
Ambassador Tu Nguyen as saying.

Nguyen said the Vietnamese government had decided to open its formal
embassy in South Africa next year.

Vietnam established diplomatic relations with South Africa in 1993.
However, instead of opening an embassy in Pretoria, the ASEAN country
has been managing its Southern Africa representation from Luanda,
Angola.

Nguyen said that Viet Nam's decision to move its embassy in the region
to South Africa reflects this country's increasingly important role in
the area, citing specifically South Africa's presidency of the
Southern African Development community (SADC) and its pending
presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement.

As a member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN),
Viet Nam is interested in improving and increasing ties between this
successful regional group and the SADC, Nguyen said.

He said Viet Nam has its eye on South African mining technology,
equipment and expertise.

The trade balance reportedly falls in Viet Nam's favor. Last year
South Africa bought 7.86 million U.S. dollars worth of goods, mainly
rice and footwear, from Viet Nam and exported 4.27 million U.S.
dollars worth of machinery, electrical equipment and base metals to
the Asian trading partner. Enditem

  _________________________________________________________________


Woman Jailed in Vietnam for Showing Porn Videos 

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) A coffee shop owner in central Vietnam was
sentenced to three years in jail for showing pornographic videos to
customers, official media reported today.

Nguyen Thi Kim Hoa also was fined $180 for violating government
regulations on the control of cultural items, the state-run Vietnam
News reported.

Pornographic videos are classified as "depraved cultural products" by
the Vietnamese government, which discourages people from watching them
at home and bans public showings and distribution.

Hoa was arrested in May after police raided her home in the coastal
province of Khanh Hoa and found 20 pornographic videos, Vietnam News
reported.

Vietnam's ruling Communist Party started a campaign last year to fight
drugs, gambling, pornography, and prostitution.

  _________________________________________________________________


Vietnam, France Sign Military Pact To Expand Cooperation 

Hanoi (Dow Jones)- Vietnam's normally secretive military establishment
is expanding ties with former colonial ruler and battlefield enemy
France, a French embassy spokeswoman said Thursday.

Vietnamese Defense Minister Doan Khue this week signed a military pact
that aims to expand cooperation between the two countries over the
next several years, the spokeswoman said.

It was a rare move by Vietnam's highly secretive military
establishment, which typically provides little information on its
operations, training and size.

Khue, in France for meetings with his counterpart, signed the
agreement during a ceremony Tuesday, the state-controlled Vietnam News
reported. He also met with French President Jacques Chirac.

Khue is touring several European countries to discuss military ties.
Before France he was in Bulgaria, a former close ally in the Soviet
bloc.

Although few details of the agreement were provided, the deal expands
on modest bilateral military ties between France and Vietnam
established in the early 1990s.

France was given permission to post a military attache to Hanoi in
1991 and has since been offering linguistic training for the
Vietnamese military and technical assistance in medicine, the French
embassy said.

The new agreement will not include direct army links between the two
countries, similar to France's joint defense agreements in several of
its former colonies in Africa, the embassy said.

Vietnam, constantly on guard against China, maintains a veil of
secrecy over its military.

The Institute of Strategic Studies estimates Vietnam spends close to
$1 billion, or one-seventh its annual budget, on defense.

  _________________________________________________________________


Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - July 30, 1997 

Hanoi, July 30 (VNA) - Highlights of Vietnam's daily newspapers today:

NHAN DAN:

- During a recent visit to the Thanh Tri Ceramics Company by Party
General Secretary Do Muoi, he said small and efficient businesses like
profitable Thanh Tri Ceramics Company could quickly earn high profits
and reinvest working capital and establish close contact with foreign
partners.

HANOI MOI: - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will help
Vietnam balance the rate of development between rural and urban areas
by assisting in building a comprehensive rural development programme.

VIETNAM NEWS: - The State Auditing Office is preparing inter-office
upgrading plans that will allow it to handle the requirements of
Vietnam's new economic conditions. The State Auditors will submit a
new auditing law to the National Assembly for approval.

- Karasawa Kasei Vietnam Co Ltd, a 100 percent Japanese-owned company
specialising in the manufacture of medical equipment, started
operations at the Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone yesterday.

(VNA)

  _________________________________________________________________


Vietnam strikes barriers in integration with Asean 

Hanoi, July 30 (Bernama) - Vietnam must strive to develop in every
field in its efforts to integrate with Asean, its Foreign Minister
Nguyen Manh Cam said.

"Joining Asean, we have met with difficulties in terms of experience
and the language barrier ... we have to work and learn at the same
time," he said in an interview published today by Nhan Dan (People's),
the Communist party daily.

Cam was interviewed in Kuala Lumpur, where he attended week-long
meetings of Asean foreign ministers, Asean Regional Forum and Asean's
dialogue partners, which ended Tuesday.

He said while most members of the nine-nation grouping had 30 years of
experience in Asean, Vietnam had joined the grouping just two years
ago in July 1995.

Asean's membership increased to nine with the admission of Laos and
Myanmar during the Kuala Lumpur meeting, while the membership of
Cambodia has been deferred following the political crisis in the
country.

(Bernama)

  _________________________________________________________________


Los Angeles Times Opens Hanoi Bureau in Vietnam - David Lamb Named
Bureau Chief 

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 30, 1997--The Los Angeles Times
will open a news bureau in Hanoi in August, which will bring to 22 the
number of foreign bureaus operated by the newspaper.

The Times Hanoi bureau will be responsible for news coverage in
Vietnam and all of Southeast Asia.

The Times is only the second U.S. newspaper to have a bureau
permanently based in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War. Hanoi
Bureau Chief David Lamb is the first American reporter who covered the
Vietnam War to return as a permanent correspondent living in the
former capital of North Vietnam.

"Vietnam and all of Southeast Asia are experiencing strong growth
that is being driven by a change to market-based economies," said
Shelby Coffey III, editor and executive vice president of The Times.
"Additionally, we're beginning to see a slow opening up of the
political process, which is highlighted by the recent arrival of the
first U.S. ambassador to Vietnam since 1975. Having a Hanoi bureau
will also further enrich our Pacific Rim reporting."

Lamb, a Times reporter and foreign correspondent since 1972, covered
the Vietnam War from Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) from 1968 to 1970
for United Press International (UPI). For the past 12 years, he has
served as a Times national correspondent. Previously, his extensive
foreign reporting experience for The Times included assignments as
bureau chief in Cairo (1982-1985) and Nairobi, Kenya (1976-1980), and
as a reporter in Sydney, Australia (1973-1975). Between each tour
abroad, Lamb was a reporter in The Times' Washington, D.C., bureau. He
has also reported for The Times in New York and for the Los Angeles
Metro section.

Before coming to The Times, Lamb was a reporter for UPI, the Oakland
Tribune, The Las Vegas Review Journal, and the Okinawa Morning Star.
Lamb, 57, earned his bachelor's degree in journalism at the University
of Maine, Orono. He is the author of five books, was a Neiman Fellow
in 1981 and received the Alicia Patterson Fellowship in 1985-1986.

The Los Angeles Times is the second-largest metropolitan daily
newspaper in the country. Winner of 20 Pulitzer Prizes, The Times
publishes four daily regional editions covering the Los Angeles
metropolitan area, the San Fernando Valley, and Orange and Venture
counties. The Times also operates nine national news bureaus and five
state bureaus in California.

  _________________________________________________________________