Tag: Vietnam

Read about this topic in Vietnamese In less than a year as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam has made moves likened to the drastic cuts that U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have implemented to U.S. federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). To Lam has merged ministries and central government agencies, reduced the number of provinces and cities by half, and dismantled district-level administrative units. Why did To Lam move so fast with reforms, and what are the political, social, and…

Independent journalist Le Huu Minh Tuan, who is serving 11 years for “conducting propaganda against the state,” has told his family that he is facing serious health problems in prison. A human rights group says his treatment is “a disgrace to Vietnam.” Tuan, a member of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, is incarcerated at Xuyen Moc Prison in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. According to his family, on April 19, Tuan made his monthly phone call home and reported that he had been suffering from prolonged rectal…

Lawyers across Vietnam are voicing concern over a new government decree regulating the issuance and revocation of law practice licenses, with many taking to social media to publicly express their grievances. Decree 121, issued on June 11, shifts the authority to grant, revoke, and renew law practice licenses from the Minister of Justice to provincial chairpersons — a move seen as part of a broader agenda to restructure Vietnam’s state apparatus. Government officials have not offered a direct explanation for the decree. However, law professionals have raised alarms over the…

To Long, believed to be the only son of Vietnam’s top leader To Lam, has been promoted to a senior position at the Ministry of Public Security, online posts showed, in a move that may be intended to cement support for Lam from police. Information and images circulated on social media platform TikTok showed Col. To Long had been appointed as director of the ministry’s Department of External Security at a June 4 ceremony. Experts said Long’s promotion is the latest in a series of appointments by Lam to consolidate…

Images of deserted markets and shuttered shops are circulating across Vietnamese social media – not the result of a pandemic, but as the visible impact of a government policy. In recent weeks, the Vietnamese government has rolled out a sweeping campaign to crack down on counterfeit goods and to enforce a new tax collection regime. The primary targets have been small businesses. The prime minister issued a directive on May 24 urging all levels of government to “step up the fight against counterfeit goods.” The government also introduced Decree 70,…

Vietnamese asylum seeker An and his family had one foot in the door to resettlement in the United States — until President Donald Trump issued an executive order that closed it. The Jan. 20 executive order was just the beginning of his problems. On May 27, his wife Ngoc got a phone call from her husband. “I’ve been arrested by the police,” An told her. He’d been arrested by Thai police in Bangkok where his family of four had sought asylum seven years earlier and were waiting patiently for resettlement.…

Read about this topic in Vietnamese. VietJet Air, Vietnam’s biggest private commercial airline, has asked the mayor of Hanoi to take action against people spreading “false information” about the company online. And the mayor is doing just that. In a statement published by the Vietnamese government on Monday, the Mayor Tran Sy Thanh ordered relevant agencies to investigate and handle Facebook accounts responsible for disseminating “false information” about Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, the billionaire CEO of VietJet. The post on the government’s official Facebook account, however, was later edited to…

Read about this topic in Vietnamese. Since becoming general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam has drawn international attention with his aggressive plans for cost-cutting within the government but he’s been quiet about another drain on the state budget – the ruling party itself. After taking office last August, he has moved this year to eliminate and merge ministries and central government agencies, reduce the number of provinces and cities by half, and dismantle district-level administrative units. Tens of thousands of civil servants have already lost their…

Updated May 23, 2025, 6:00 p.m. ET Vietnam’s government has instructed telecommunications companies to block the Telegram messaging app after the Ministry of Public Security concluded it was being used to disseminate “anti-state” contents, state media reported Friday. The Telecommunications Department under the Ministry of Science and Technology issued the order on Wednesday. Telecommunications service providers were instructed to take measures to block the app and report to the ministry by June 2, Vietnam News Agency said. If nothing changes, Telegram will become the first encrypted messaging app to be…

Read reporting on this topic in Vietnamese here. Many weeks after they were rescued from scam centers inside Myanmar, more than 200 Vietnamese workers are still stranded in a squalid camp near the Thai border because they can’t afford their passage home, two of the workers told Radio Free Asia. “Life here is very hard. The accommodation is like a chicken coop. You have to sleep on the floor on mats,” said a 31-year-old woman from the northern Vietnamese province of Son La, adding that conditions were “miserable” and infections…