Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui

HANOI - Vietnam's highest-profile religious detainee has sent a letter of support to the Dalai Lama after a series of self-immolations by Tibetans, saying China's crackdown on Tibetan areas was a challenge to all humanity, a Buddhist group said on Thursday.

HO CHI MINH CITY - Emerging from the anterooms of the Thanh Minh Zen monastery, Thich Quang Do nodded and smiled, extending a handshake firm enough to belie his 83 years.

HANOI – A senior Vietnamese Buddhist monk, previously detained in an alleged plot to finance disorder against the communist regime, is in custody again, the spokesman for his banned church said late Friday.

HANO — One of the world's most famous Zen masters made a plea Monday for religious freedom in his homeland, saying Vietnam's communist leaders have lost touch with their revolutionary ideals and Buddhist traditions.

Hanoi - A Vietnamese gem company Monday began sculpting what it said will be the world's largest jade Buddha statue, carved from a 35-ton chunk of jadeite from Myanmar.

Thich Nhat Hanh says mobs were sent in to clear monasteries and calls on regime to restore religious freedom

HANOI — Followers of an "illegal" Buddhist group in communist Vietnam have dispersed ahead of a Thursday deadline to leave a temple where they had sought shelter, the head of the pagoda said Wednesday.

Followers of radical leader Thich Nhat Hanh claim they are not safe in Vietnam after standoff with authorities turns violent

HANOI — The forced expulsion of more than 300 followers of one of the world's most influential Buddhists highlights Vietnam's suppression of religious freedom, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

Hanoi - Thich Quang Do, the dissident monk who heads the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), is calling for a Vietnamese boycott of Chinese goods, UBCV sources said Tuesday. The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau, which handles press for the UBCV, said 80-year-old Do had sent a letter calling for the boycott from the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City, where he has been under intermittent house arrest for over two decades.

Four years ago the Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, a monk who popularised Buddhism in the West, was invited by the Vietnamese government to return home after 39 years in exile.

A recent attack on a monastery practising a non-traditional brand of Buddhism is just one of a number of incidents that have raised concerns about curbs on religious freedom in Vietnam. The BBC's Krassimira Twigg looks at the events at Bat Nha monastery.

HANOI — A dissident Buddhist monk has joined scientists and intellectuals in opposing a government plan to mine bauxite in Vietnam, according to a statement received from his overseas spokesman.