The bodies of 31 men and eight women were discovered in a refrigerated lorry in an industrial state in Essex, east of London, on October 23.
A South African official has found herself in trouble after denying a visa to a would-be teacher, despite the application being riddled with errors
The normally sleepy Vietnamese border station of Dong Dang spruced itself up for Kim’s arrival after the leader’s 4 000km odyssey through China
Hanoi enjoys friendly ties with both countries and is considered ‘neutral’ territory
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/ 4 November 2008
Rain continued to lash Vietnam on Tuesday as the official death toll climbed to 74 after more than a week of heavy downpours.
An Australian low-cost airline and a Canadian luxury resort and casino developer have launched two ambitious projects that aim to revolutionise Vietnam’s fast-growing tourism industry. Jetstar, the budget offshoot of Australian carrier Qantas, teamed up with Vietnam’s Pacific Airlines to launch Jetstar Pacific on Friday.
An unidentified flying object exploded in mid-air over a southern Vietnamese island, state media said on Wednesday, a day after Cambodia’s air force retracted a report of a mysterious plane crash. Residents of Phu Quoc Island found shards of grey metal, including one 1,5m long.
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/ 21 January 2008
Burma is going ”downhill on all fronts”, a senior United States diplomat said during a visit to Vietnam on Monday, urging regional neighbours to pressure the junta running the country. ”The regime in Burma is absolutely refusing to take any positive steps at all,” said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel.
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/ 21 November 2007
Vietnam has asked nearby countries to give shelter to thousands of its fishermen from a tropical storm now nearing the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea, the government said on Wednesday. Nearly 74 000 fishermen were working off Vietnam’s coast in the path of Tropical Storm Hagibis on Wednesday.
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/ 13 November 2007
New floods triggered by heavy rains in central Vietnam have claimed 11 more deaths and paralysed traffic, trapping thousands of tourists in popular resort areas, officials and local media reported on Tuesday. The remnants of Typhoon Peipah dumped heavy rains on to already flooded areas of the centre of Vietnam.
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/ 5 November 2007
Floods have killed at least 46 people in central Vietnam in the past 10 days, and a typhoon making its way across the South China Sea is forecast to dump more rain this week, reports said on Monday. The region, which includes the Central Highlands coffee belt, has been hit hard by storms and floods since early October.
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/ 17 October 2007
Vietnam’s Communist Party plans to switch its 20 000 desktop computers nationwide to open-source software next year, avoiding problems with copyright infringement, state media said on Friday. In Vietnam, an industry group has estimated more than 90% of all software is counterfeit.
Floods and landslides triggered by a typhoon that struck Vietnam’s central coast earlier this week have claimed 23 lives and left nine others missing, disaster officials said on Saturday. Three more deaths reported in three northern provinces and confirmed reports of three people drowning in the central province of Quang Binh have raised the death toll to 23.
Typhoon Lekima lashed Vietnam and southern China with torrential rains and high winds, killing at least seven people, damaging hundreds of homes and disrupting air, sea and train travel. The storm, which killed at least five people in the Philippines at the weekend, swept into Vietnam from the sea on Wednesday night
China and Vietnam evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from low-lying coastal areas on Wednesday as Typhoon Lekima lashed the region with torrential rains and heavy winds. The storm passed over the central Vietnam province of Quang Binh on Wednesday night and blew westward toward Laos, officials said.
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/ 26 September 2007
At least 27 workers were killed and about 100 others feared dead or missing after a bridge they were building in Vietnam’s southern city of Can Tho collapsed on Wednesday. Vietnam TV showed footage of the damage to the collapsed structure and reported that people were still believed to be trapped in the rubble.
South Africa supports Vietnam’s bid to be a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2008/09, President Thabo Mbeki said on a visit to Hanoi on Thursday. Mbeki and Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet agreed to broaden friendly relations, which stretch back to the 1970s when Mbeki’s then-exiled African National Congress was fighting apartheid and the communists unified Vietnam.
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/ 15 January 2007
A Vietnamese pig farmer says he has found a novel way to boost productivity, by exposing his 3 000 hogs to the melodies of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert while they have their snouts in the trough. Nguyen Chi Cong (44) said he started playing recordings of classical symphonies over loudspeakers six years ago for the benefit of his workers.
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/ 19 November 2006
Asia-Pacific leaders promised progress on freeing up global trade at a summit in Hanoi dominated, as in previous years, by diplomatic manoeuvring over North Korea. Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet read a ”Hanoi Declaration” that detailed issues that members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum agreed on, including economic security threats and free trade.
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/ 19 November 2006
Russia and the United States on Sunday signed a deal on bilateral terms for Moscow’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), removing the last major obstacle in Russia’s 13-year-old bid to join the WTO. The agreement was signed by Russia’s Economy Minister German Gref and US trade representative Susan Schwab.
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/ 18 November 2006
Leaders from around the Pacific rim said they were ready to break a deadlock in global trade talks at a summit on Saturday. In a statement, leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum said ”major players” in the group were ready to commit to deeper cuts in trade-distorting farm support.
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/ 17 November 2006
Multinational corporations should help redress imbalances in the world economy by putting a higher priority on investing in developing countries, Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Friday. Hu said China will accelerate reforms of its economy to counter its growing and politically contentious trade imbalances.
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/ 16 November 2006
Presidents and prime ministers, kings, communists and one or two former generals — Apec brings together one of the world’s most diverse groups of leaders, who show unity with one of the world’s most unique fashion shows. After Sunday’s summit, the 21 Apec leaders will don Vietnam’s ao dai silk tunic for the closing ceremony.
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/ 15 November 2006
North Korea will have to ”demonstrate in concrete terms” a commitment to denuclearisation when six party talks on ending its nuclear programme resumes next month, Japan’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday. North Korea declared after it exploded a nuclear device on October 9 that it should be recognised as a nuclear power.
Flooding killed dozens of people in the days after Typhoon Xangsane raked the Philippines and Vietnam, officials said on Thursday as the combined death toll rose to at least 169 with 79 others missing. The Vietnam government said 59 people died and seven were missing after the typhoon hit on Sunday, but state-run media accounts indicated a higher death toll of at least 68.
A typhoon ripped off roofs, felled trees and cut power along Vietnam’s central coastline on Sunday, just days after battering the Philippines. State-run radio said at least one person was killed in the resort city of Danang, Vietnam’s fourth largest with about one million people, which was taking the brunt of Typhoon Xangsane’s heavy rains and fierce winds.
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/ 30 September 2006
Vietnam is evacuating hundreds of thousands of people along its central coast and has halted flights to the region ahead of Typhoon Xangsane’s landfall, which is expected late on Saturday or early on Sunday, officials said. The typhoon, which killed at least 31 people and left a trail of destruction in the Philippines, was forecast to pound the 1 000km coastline of central Vietnam.
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/ 25 September 2006
Three people were reported killed in central Vietnam on Monday as a tropical storm lashed the coast, officials said. Military units were on alert and fishing boats had been called to shore ahead of the storm, which was the first tropical cyclone to directly hit Vietnam this year.
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/ 12 September 2006
A Vietnamese man who once appeared on national television to demonstrate his ability to resist electric shocks has been electrocuted while repairing a generator, an official said on Tuesday. Nguyen Van Hung, aged in his early 40s, was killed in Tay Ninh province near the Cambodian border while repairing the generator without first cutting the power supply, a local official said.
Flooding, landslides and lightning have killed 15 people and left one missing since Friday night in Vietnam, bringing the country’s toll in a week of torrential rain to 42, reports said on Sunday. Thousands have been evacuated to higher ground as water levels in the northern region’s main rivers were expected to continue rising.
After nearly two decades of ridicule, a Vietnamese father has agreed to change his son’s name from ”Fined Six Thousand and Five Hundred” — the amount he was forced to pay in local currency for ignoring Vietnam’s two-child policy. Angry he was being fined, Mai Xuan Can in 1987 named his son after the amount he was forced to pay.
A Vietnamese company plans to turn catfish fat into biofuel to run diesel engines, with industrial-scale production set to start next year, an official of the firm said Tuesday. Catfish exporter Agifish said it had won government approval to build a factory in the southern Mekong delta province of An Giang in 2007 and produce about 10-million litres of the fuel per year.