Vietnam Detains Blogger Over Anti-State Criticism

HANOI — Vietnamese police have detained a former journalist who ran a blog containing anti-state views, authorities said on Monday, part of a widening crackdown on dissent in the Communist-run country.

Truong Duy Nhat, 49, was taken into custody on Sunday and police searched his house in the central city of Danang. He complied with an urgent warrant issued against him, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on Monday. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in jail.

Online dissent has grown in the past year as Vietnam wrestles with deep economic woes that have shattered its image as one of Asia's hottest emerging markets. Some bloggers have harshly criticized Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, accusing him of cronyism and economic mismanagement - which he denies.

The ministry said Nhat violated a clause of the penal code on abusing democratic freedoms with acts against the state. It did not elaborate on his actions.

Nhat, a former journalist at state-run newspapers, including one run by the Danang police force, was moved to Hanoi for further investigation, state media said.

He quit his journalist job in 2010 and ran a blog titled "Truong Duy Nhat - a different viewpoint" that was known for criticism of top government officials including the prime minister.

He also conducted an online opinion poll just weeks before the National Assembly's first-ever confidence vote on top officials, scheduled for early June. 

Source: voanews.com

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Posted in: Society

Blogger Truong Duy Nhat arrested

Blogger Truong Duy Nhat is pictured at 3:10 pm at Da Nang Airport on May 26, 2013

Police from the Ministry of Public Security have arrested the owner and chief writer of the blog “Một góc nhìn khác” (“Another viewpoint”), for his illegal actions. 

The site’s owner, Truong Duy Nhat, 49, was arrested yesterday, May 26, on charges of “abusing rights to freedom and democracy to infringe upon State interests and the legitimate interests of organizations and/or citizens,” under Article 258 of the Penal Code, police said.

The arrest was made at about 9 am at his home in Hoa Cuong Bac Ward, Hai Chau District, in the central city of Da Nang. Police also searched his home for hours.

At 3:30 pm, police escorted Nhat to the Da Nang Airport to board a flight to Hanoi for investigation.

The arrest and house search were carried out in accordance with applicable laws, and investigators are continuing to look into Nhat’s actions and handle them according to law, the ministry said.

After graduating from the Philology Department of Hue University, Nhat worked as a journalist for Cong an Quang Nam Da Nang (Quang Nam Da Nang Police) newspaper for years before joining the Dai Doan Ket (Great Solidarity) newspaper in Da Nang.

In mid-2010, Nhat left Dai Doan Ket and opened his own blog, Mot goc nhin khac.

The blog has not been accessible after Nhat’s arrest.

Source: tuoitrenews.vn

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Posted in: Society

52% of homosexual-heterosexual marriages end in divorce

52% of marriages between homosexuals and heterosexuals in Vietnam end in divorce, the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSEE) announced on May 14.

Titled “Same-sex relationships in Vietnam,” the study was carried out with the participation of 2,500 people, 23% of whom were homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender and people of unknown gender from 2012 to early 2013.

Homosexuals seen in a photo of the collection
The Pink Choice of Vietnamese photographer
Nguyen Thanh Hai, aka Maika Elan

According to the study, most homosexuals agree to marry heterosexuals due to pressure from their family, their wishes to have a marriage like other people, and to have children, or their filial duty. Half of the 52% who divorced said their marriages were unhappy, 17% said their partners did not accept that their wives/husbands are homosexuals, 21% were rejected by family members, and the rest divorced for some other reasons.

Though the homosexual couples involved in the study are young, they have had a long and stable relationship, especially between lesbian couples. 37% of lesbians in the study and 38% of homosexuals shared that their relationships have lasted from two to five years. Most of them have lived together to spiritually support each other with the hope of a long life together.

The study showed that none of the homosexual couples involved said they have asset disputes since they place a high priority on love. 28.9% of homosexual couples living together co-own valuable assets such as cars and bank accounts, 18.40% run a business together, and 7.9% have signed co-ownership agreements over their houses and properties.

Also according to the study, 61% of homosexuals and transgender of a marriageable age want to have children. However, the social stigma and legal impossibility are big challenges for them.

In addition, 63% of homosexuals taking part in the research shared that they have been discriminated against through vulgar language, disdain and physical abuse.

Vietnam has about 1.6 million homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender who are facing difficulties in identification, cohabitation, birth-giving and adoption, iSEE said early this month. 73% of the nation’s homosexuals live in Ho Chi Minh City and southern provinces.

source tuoitrenews.vn

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Posted in: Society

IRS targeting of conservative groups intolerable - Obama

US President Barack Obama has said the federal tax agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny was "intolerable and inexcusable".

The treasury department's inspector general
 will release a report on the matter this week

He said those who carried out the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) actions would be held responsible.

Mr Obama spoke after a treasury department report placed the blame on "ineffective management" at the agency.

The US attorney general earlier ordered an FBI inquiry into the IRS conduct before the 2012 presidential election.

Eric Holder told a news conference that agents would determine if any laws had been broken.

The actions of tax officers, if not criminal, were "certainly outrageous and unacceptable", Mr Holder added.

'Inappropriate criteria'

The IRS had used key words such as "Tea Party" and "Patriot" to subject applications by groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny.

On Tuesday evening, Mr Obama said in a statement on the treasury department's investigation: "The report's findings are intolerable and inexcusable.

"The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity. This report shows that some of its employees failed that test."

He spoke as a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report found that senior IRS officials had told inspectors the decision to focus on Tea Party and other groups based upon their names or policy positions was not influenced by any individual or organisation outside the agency.

But it found managers had allowed "inappropriate criteria" to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, resulting in "substantial delays" in processing applications for tax-exempt status, and requests for "unnecessary information", such as lists of past and future donors.

Of the 296 total applications reviewed by TIGTA, 108 were approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicants, and 160 were still open, the report said.

In response, the acting IRS Commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities, Joseph Grant, said: "We believe the front line career employees that made the decisions acted out of a desire for efficiency and not out of any political or partisan view point."

'Targeting political enemies'Continue reading the main storyMr Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, said earlier that no-one at the White House had known about the matter until lawyers were told several weeks ago TIGTA would publish a report.

This is big brother come to life”

At least three Congressional committees are planning hearings into the matter.

The House Ways and Means committee will hold a hearing on Friday. The Senate finance and investigations committees have also said they will hold hearings.

"This was a targeting of the president's political enemies, effectively, and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn't discovered until afterwards," senior Republican Congressman Darrell Issa told CBS on Tuesday.

Two high-profile Republican governors called on President Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether any laws were broken.

"This is big brother come to life and a witch hunt to prevent Americans from exercising their first amendment [free speech] rights," Governors Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin wrote.

Ahead of the 2012 presidential election, conservative groups complained to the IRS and to members of Congress that their applications for tax-exempt status were being held up.

Some groups have said they were asked to provide lists of donors and volunteers, statements of their activities, and lists of legislators they had contacted.

Source: bbc.co.uk

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Posted in: Business

Money-mad teens will do anything for money

Suggestive pictures are seen on a community page on Facebook

Imagine you are a father or mother relaxing at home believing that you are safe in the knowledge that your two teenage girls are upstairs, having harmless fun with friends on social networking sites.

But you have had a nagging doubt for a while and decide to keep an eye on them once in a while. They are impressionable young girls after all who can get themselves into trouble with amorous young males, if they are not careful.

You have managed to secretly join their friends’ list and decide to see what is going on. You log on to your smartphone and there standing before you is your worst nightmare.

Your daughter - nude. Now that is bad enough but not only is she naked but she is offering herself for sale to any bidder able to come up with VND4 million. Two hundred dollars to go in a cheap hotel room with your little angel. Two hundred dollars. You can just imagine how they would feel.

This is not just scaremongering, though, this is happening in Vietnam right now. So come back from behind the curtains parents, wake up to the reality of social networking and real life. You might think you know what your sons and daughters are doing online but you don’t know the half of it. I shudder to think how I would cope with bringing up teenagers, some even younger these days, desperately wanting mobile phones, Ipads and with them comes access to the internet and the awaiting beasts, lurking behind the personas of similar aged boys as they get ready to groom young boys and girls.

In some ways, I am actually glad I am not a parent when you see headlines like the ones that rocked a nation to its core recently when a 20-year-old Facebook madam was revealed to Vietnam.

Hanoi police arrested Do Thi Huyen who was charged with running a prostitution ring on Facebook – the first case of its kind on the social networking site in this country.

Huyen, the young madam, uploaded sexually explicit images of herself and her business associates on the site. According to Tien Phong, customers were given a price after they chose a girl they like and the only stipulation is that they take the girls to at least a three-star hotel. These girls are not that cheap.

The girls allegedly charged VND4 million (US$200) for sexual services, one million ($50) of which went to Huyen for her advertising services, not bad eh, according to police.

After watching her in action online for about four weeks, the police nabbed Huyen and an associate soliciting themselves at a hotel on Mai Hac De Street, Hai Ba Trung District last month.

However, according to a senior police source on Tien Phong, prostitutes only get administrative fines
for advertising or selling themselves. In this particular case, they were fined only VND100,000 ($5) to VND300,000 ($15).

Hardly a deterrent when they can make that kind of money in seconds.

I had a discussion the other day with a group of friends, when one piped up to claim that any photograph that you post online on Facebook, the company automatically owns fifty per cent of the copyright.

So what happens if one of these social networking firms has the ‘copyright’ to a nude picture of an underage girl? They are supposed to be monitoring these pages after all.

Pornography, sexual images and nudity is now rampant on Facebook in Vietnam, with most of the account users young people, including teenagers. They post nude images of themselves or with girlfriends or boyfriends to attract ‘likes’ from the online community. The likes obsession is not as weird as it sounds, as the more likes you have on your page, then you can maybe start to make money from advertising.

Some even promise that they will keep posting sex clips if they receive 30,000 ‘likes’. In another case last week a young man named Manh Tran posted pictures of himself and his girlfriend wrapped in a bath towel with the caption, “If we get 30k ‘likes’ we will post our clip, OK darling?”
After a couple of days, the image had received over 30,000 ‘likes’.

These pages are not hard to find as if you type in nguoi lon (adult) orlau xanh (brothel), hundreds of
community pages appear, with numerous sexual pictures and stories.

On a locally-based site a female user named Yen Nhi posted a linkClip nong sinh vien vao hotel (Hot clip of students in hotel). Nhi’s page has 4.5 million members.

Similar groups and communities have mushroomed on social networks, where a user only needs a few minutes to set up their own page.

This shock news again brought it home to parents whose worst fears are being realized on a daily basis. They cannot control what goes on online. They just have to hope and pray that they have brought up their children well enough to make the right decisions for themselves.

In Vietnam, though, it seems to some that money is everything and it doesn’t matter what some young people have to do, they will literally do anything for money.

TUOITRENEWS.VN

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Posted in: Society

Taxi driver sacked for fleecing Irish couple

A Hanoi taxi firm has fined and sacked a cabbie who has been found guilty of overcharging an Irish couple, said its inspector.

James Murtagh and his wife

Tran Duc Tri, inspector of Thanh Nga taxi firm, Saturday confirmed with Tuoi Tre that Pham Van Linh, 38, the accused cabbie, has been fined VND5 million ($250) and sacked.

Linh has also been summoned to local police station for further investigations, Tri added.

As previously reported, James Murtagh and his wife from Ireland were asked to pay VND480,000 ($23) for a distance of two kilometers from a hotel on Hang Bong street to a restaurant on Ma May street. The maximum fee should have been VND40,000 ($1.9).

According to Murtagh, he handed the driver a 500,000 banknote but the driver gave back only VND20,000 to him. Upon being asked why, the driver replied he received just VND50,000.

Murtagh then took a photo of the taxi’s number plate as evidence and reported this case to the Hanoi Taxi Association through its hotline. 

The association later apologized to the couple for the overcharging and required Thanh Nga to identify the driver concerned and to return the overcharged money to them as soon as possible.

Taxi scams have gone rampant in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, causing headache to local authorities.

On Apr 12, a taxi driver in the southern hub charged a Japanese passenger VND650,000 (US$31.1), ten times higher than the actual fee, and even punched the foreigner in the face when the latter refused to pay.

More recent, on Apr 28, a cabbie of Hanoi-based Trung Viet taxi firm charged two Australian tourists VND980,000 (roughly US$43), 10 times higher than the normal fare, for a distance of just 7 km, from the Military History Museum to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology.

In an effort to promote a “safe Hanoi” to international travelers, Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, deputy chairman of Hanoi’s People Committee, has pledged to impose heavy punishments on cheating taxis.

Meanwhile, Cao Bich Lan, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee of Hoan Kiem District, admitted that taxi scams have a bad influence on promotional tourism campaigns to attract more international tourists to the capital. She called on all tourism authorities to work together to deal with taxi scams.

Source tuoitrenews.vn

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Posted in: Society

National Observers Note Irregularities in Pakistan Elections

Pakistani election staff count ballots at a polling
station in Islamabad, May 11, 2013.

Sharon Behn

May 12, 2013

ISLAMABAD- Pakistan’s Election Commission on Sunday endorsed the country’s landmark elections that will see the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power via the ballot box in the country's history. It declared the country’s elections for a new national assembly and government leadership as “largely free and fair.” But Pakistani non-governmental observers noted voting irregularities and terror attacks in parts of the country meant that not everyone’s voice was heard.

Free and Fair Election Network CEO Muddassir Rizvi says there were serious incidents of voting irregularities, fraud and intimidation in areas such as in the southern city of Karachi.

"In general, we are not questioning the legitimacy of the process in most parts of Pakistan except for certain constituencies in Karachi, and perhaps some constituencies in Baluchistan where the anti-election campaign was so active that in many instances the election commission could not even set up polling stations," said Rizvi.

The Election Commission said due to threats, the vote in 43 polling stations in the city would have to be re-held.

The FAFEN network deployed 41,000 observers across the country for the May 11 poll, including high-risk areas that international observers could not reach.  But the group said the level of terror threats in the northwestern tribal areas and the adjoining Khyber-Patunkhwa province made it difficult to determine how fair the elections were in those regions.

Prior to voting day, Taliban and other militant attacks killed more than 100 people, targeting political candidates and supporters of parties they perceived as secular and anti-Islamic.

Jinnah Institute director of policy and programs Raza Rumi says the attacks skewed the political playing field.

“Whatever happened, happened before the polls, because the Taliban had very clearly stated that they would not want the PPP,  the outgoing government, and the liberal ANP and MQM to form the next government or even to campaign, so they had severe campaign challenges.  They could not freely campaign.  There were only two parties that vigorously campaigned, Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and Imran Khan’s PTI - so we can see the results, that you know, both these parties have done well," said Rumi.  

Initial, unofficial, results show veteran politician and two-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Party far in the lead, and Sharif looks set to lead the country once again.  Former cricketer Imran Khan’s party, that made its political debut in the elections, had a stronger than expected showing, and handed him a strong regional foothold, but not enough to challenge Sharif’s party.

Accountant Abdul Qadeer says although he did not vote for Sharif, he feels the elections were a success.

"I am proud that I casted my vote and that was the indication of my vote. My whole family voted. We voted for Imran Khan, but my full sympathies and full support is for Nawaz Sharif and he should come up and take this nation with him, and he should leave his faults in the previous governments and he should come up with new ideas and new things that will make us a proud nation," said Qadeer.

The challenges for any new government are considerable. Pakistan has a weak economy, major energy shortages, and powerful extremist and militant groups that the past government was unable to control

The hope appears to be that Sharif, a protégé of Pakistan’s powerful military until he challenged them and found himself in jail, will draw upon his past political experience to tackle these problems.

With expectations running high, Sharif and his party could quickly come under pressure to show effective leadership.

Source: voanews.com

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Posted in: Politics

Vietnam Politburo Selects First U.S.-Educated Member

Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan (L) shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a meeting at the Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing, May 10, 2013.

Reuter- 12 May 2013.
HANOI — Vietnam's ruling Communist Party has appointed for the first time a U.S.-educated official to its powerful politburo, a landmark decision as pressure mounts to reform an economy stagnating after years of boom growth.

The top decision-making body of the party that has ruled Vietnam since 1975 voted to increase its membership and bring in Nguyen Thien Nhan, a deputy prime minister overseeing education, health and technology, it said on its website (dangcongsan.vn).

Nhan, 59, has a master's degree in public policy from the University of Oregon and joins an elite group long dominated by politicians educated locally or in the former Soviet Union.

Vietnam's ruling party is facing its toughest economic challenges in years and has vowed reforms to tackle crippling debt in its banking system, and mismanagement at scores of cash-sapping state-owned firms.

Economists say policymakers have acted effectively to rein in inflation but have been too slow, or reluctant, to implement the sweeping structural changes needed to revive what was a promising ``tiger'' economy now growing at its slowest pace in 13 years, and put Vietnam back on foreign investors' radar.

Vietnam's economy is hamstrung by weak credit growth and consumer demand that has forced 113,000 businesses to close since 2011, when inflation soared to over 20 percent and foreign investors delivered only a sixth of the $64 billion pledged.

The politburo also picked its second female member, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, a deputy chairwoman of parliament. Ngan, also 59, is a former deputy minister of trade and finance. The two appointments will increase the politburo's size to 16 members.

Nhan studied in the former East Germany in the 1970s before being awarded a scholarship to the United States. He also served as vice mayor of Ho Chi Minh City.
SOurce VOAnews

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Posted in: education

Former Pakistani PM’s Son Kidnapped at Election Rally

Ali Haider Gilani, son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who is contesting in the upcoming general election, speaks during a campaign meeting at a house on the outskirts of Multan, May 9, 2013, before his abduction by unidentified gunm

Sharon Behn

May 09, 2013

SLAMABAD — The son of former Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has been taken hostage by gunmen during a political rally in his home area of Multan. It's the latest incident in what has been a violence-marred election campaign in the run up to the May 11 national assembly elections.

Amid a spray of gunfire, unidentified men on motorbikes Thursday sped up to the rally and kidnapped Ali Haider Gilani, who was addressing his supporters.

Gilani had just finished speaking to his People’s Party of Pakistan supporters in the eastern town when the attack took place. Party official Malik Aamir Dogar said three men then pushed Gilani into a car and drove away.

“When he finished the meeting, he go outside. Some people came on motorcycle and straight away they start the firing, and one guard is killed at the movement, and his private secretary is injured at the movement, and there are total of three people and they pulled out to Haider Gilani into the car and they go out,” said Dogar.
Candidates have been holding their final rallies before voters head to the polls to elect a new national assembly on May 11. Gilani was running for a provincial assembly seat in Multan.
 
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari immediately condemned the attack, saying it was a “reprehensible act of a cowardly enemy.” Zardari called on the Election Commission and caretaker government to ensure the elections were not hijacked by extremist elements.
 
The kidnapping is the latest incident in what has turned out to be the most violent election campaign in Pakistan’s history.
 
Militants and extremists with differing objectives have attacked and killed candidates and party supporters in different areas of the country, targeting not only moderate and secular parties like the PPP, but also religious and nationalist parties.
 
Dogar, who called off his own political rally as a result of the attack, said the Taliban most likely was behind Gilani’s abduction.
 
Multan city Police Chief Ghulam Muhammad Dogar, who is not related to Malik Aamir Dogar, said the police were moving swiftly to find the captors.
 
He said police have sealed all the roads joining the district of Multan, and that district police officers are out in force. He also noted that they are making every effort to ensure that all vehicles crossing district boundaries are being checked.
 
Militant groups, such as the Sunni extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other pro-Taliban organizations, are known to operate in the southern Punjab area where Multan is located.
 
Despite the violence, elections are expected to go ahead as planned on May 11.

VOAnews.com

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Posted in: USA,violence

Chinese fishing boats violate Vietnam’s territorial waters

Da Lon island, part of Vietnam's Truong Sa (Spratly)
archipelago in the East Sea

As Vietnam has indisputable sovereignty over Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago in the East Sea, all activities of parties in this area without Vietnam’s approval violate the country’s sovereignty, a Vietnamese official said.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Luong Thanh Nghi made the statement at the ministry’s press conference in Hanoi on May 9 in response to reporters’ questions on Vietnam’s reaction to China’s deployment of 32 fishing boats to the archipelago area on Monday. 

He emphasized that “all activities in the East Sea must comply with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), with respect to sovereignty, sovereign right and jurisdiction right of concerned countries.”

The official said Vietnam will continue to closely monitor all developments related to the issue.

Earlier at the US-ASEAN Dialogue in Washington on May 2-3, which focused on orientations and measures to promote the bilateral cooperation, the two sides emphasized the need to settle disputes in a peaceful manner on the basis of international law and the UNCLOS in order to maintain peace, stability, security and maritime safety in the East Sea.

In order to consolidate trust and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, the dialogue’s delegates agreed that ASEAN and China need to launch negotiations on the establishment of the Code of Conduct (COC) as soon as possible.

At another press briefing in Hanoi on April 30, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nghi said Vietnam demands that China stop its wrongdoings on the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago, over which Vietnam has irrefutable sovereignty.

These wrongdoings included the cutting of the ribbon by Chinese officials to inaugurate the Xinhua bookstore on Hoang Sa’s Phu Lam island, taking tourists to Hoang Sa and preparing for a fishing competition in the archipelago area.

Vietnam has irrefutable sovereignty over Hoang Sa, so such actions blatantly violated Vietnam’s sovereignty, did not comply with the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and went against the Joint Statement of the 15th ASEAN-China Summit on the 10th Anniversary of the DOC, Nghi said.
Tuoitrenews.vn

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Posted in: Politics