Top Vietnamese Buddhist Slams Detentions Amid Ongoing Crackdown
2007.03.16
A top dissident Buddhist leader in Vietnam has spoken out against the detention in Ho Chi Minh City of a Norwegian woman who came to present him with a prestigious human rights award, amid signs of a tough new crackdown on dissent.
HIV/AIDS on the Rise in Asia
2006.12.01
Infection rates for HIV are increasing in the Asia-Pacific region, with few receiving the treatment they need, according to a U.N. report released for World AIDS Day.
Twelve Years to Free Markets, Pledges Vietnam on Joining WTO
2006.11.10
After more than 10 years of negotiations and over 200 multilateral and bilateral meetings, Vietnam has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), with top officials predicting the communist country will attain full market economy status within just 12 years.
East Asia's Mental Health Challenge
2006.10.10
Asian nations have great need for mental health services but often have least to offer those in distress, experts say, as the World Health Organization promotes suicide prevention on World Mental Health Day 2006.
Vietnam Nervous Over Emerging Pro-Democracy Voices
2006.09.29
Vietnamese authorities appear increasingly concerned over growing support for a new dissident group known as Bloc 8406, which issued an impassioned plea for democratic reform to the ruling Communist Party earlier this year. Interrogations of Bloc 8406 supporters, secret recordings of which were given to RFA’s Vietnamese service, suggest officials are taking a keen interest in the group.
Death of a Super Spy
2006.09.26
Pham Xuan An, who died in September, was honored by the Vietnamese government for his service as a spy during the Vietnam War. To many South Vietnamese, however, An was a traitor. RFA Executive Editor Dan Southerland, who knew An when he was covering the war and met him again in 2005 for the first time in 30 years, remembers him here as a perfect spy. Southerland is pictured here evacuating wounded Vietnamese civilians during a Viet Cong attack on Saigon in 1968.
50 Years On, Vietnamese Remember Land Reform Terror
2006.06.08
Vietnam this year marks the 50th anniversary of a little-publicized political campaign known by the innocuous-sounding name of “land reform”, in which hundreds of thousands of people accused of being landlords were summarily executed or tortured and starved in prison.
Vietnamese Communist Party Votes on New Leadership
2006.04.24
Vietnam’s Communist Party votes for some of its top leaders to continue the country’s current economic reform program amid growing concerns over official corruption. Key posts are expected see a shake-up, with the prime minister and president widely expected to step down to make way for younger leaders.
China Isolates Henan Fever Students As Bird Flu Fears Spread
2006.04.04
Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan are holding more than 400 university students in isolation after they contracted a mystery fever. Meanwhile, authorities in Shanghai have called for better preparedness by officials as the highly pathogenic avian influenza spreads around the world.
Vietnamese Journalist Questions 'Socialist Economy'
2006.02.22
A prominent Vietnamese journalist has called on the ruling Communist Party to do more to overhaul the country’s massive bureaucracy and “disoriented” economy and to clarify who runs Vietnam—party or state.