Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui

Pretty young girls, mainly around 19-20 years old, play the role of hosts at the restaurants. They are hired to receive foreign men in secluded rooms for karaoke singing and then join the men in their homes after 23:30pm.

HANOI - Buffeted by persistent double-digit inflation, slowing economic growth and rising worker unrest, Vietnam's economic reforms are at risk of coming undone. While Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung emphasized this month the need to maintain quick and sustainable growth, questions are rising whether Vietnam can have both amid global economic and financial turbulence.

HANOI — From irreverent cartoons to "depraved" short stories, Vietnam's pop culture is attracting the attention of print censors who experts say are struggling to accept an increasingly brash literary scene.

Seventeen asylum-seeker children suspected of being trafficked from Vietnam have vanished from immigration centres across the country, and authorities admit they have not been searching for them.

In recent years the Vietnamese music industry has been lit up by a new generation of emerging female artists who can write their own songs and perform them with their hearts and their talent.

Facebook may be blocked by the censors in Communist Vietnam but presumably no-one told Vuong Dinh Hue, the finance minister, who has been crowing about his desire to engage with the people through the popular website.

Hanoi - A human rights group on Tuesday urged Vietnam to follow Myanmar's example and release its political prisoners.

HANOI - Vietnam's prime minister has ordered a probe into a guerrilla-style standoff with farmers who attempted to fend off a land eviction by laying homemade land mines and firing improvised shotguns.

Vietnam has held a consistent view on peaceful and responsible use of nuclear power while ensuring power security and safety, said MST deputy minister and director of Nuclear Power Department, Le Dinh Tien.

State media say Vietnam has launched its first domestically made warship equipped with artillery and missile systems.

Coffee farmers in Vietnam, the biggest robusta grower, may sell 33 percent of this year's harvest by the start of the Tet Lunar New Year holiday, less than the usual 50 percent as they limit sales to let prices gain.

Vietnam deputy prime minister Nguyen Thien Nhan has ordered better labour policies because strikes continue to occur, with 2011 recording twice the number compared to the previous year.

Vietnamese Ministry of Transport in collaboration with People's Committee of Lao Cai province have recently announced a plan to build Lao Cai airport till 2020 and orientation till 2030 with total investment capital of over 1.3 trillion dong.

HANOI - Japanese experts are to help Vietnam build its first earth-observation satellites in an effort to help the South-East Asian country plan for the effects of climate change and natural disasters.