Tag: Vietnam

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…

BANGKOK – Thailand and Vietnam have agreed to raise political and economic relations to the highest level, a comprehensive strategic partnership, the two countries’ prime ministers announced on Friday. Vietnam’s Pham Minh Chinh and Thailand’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s announcement came in a news conference following their meeting in Hanoi. “This is not only a political statement, representing a symbolic milestone, but also a strategic commitment, affirming a new breakthrough in the content and depth of cooperation,” Vietnam’s Chinh said. The two leaders also pledged to lift bilateral trade to US$25 billion…

Prominent Vietnamese land rights activist Trinh Ba Phuong is facing a second charge of anti-state propaganda after prison guards found a document in his cell that said, “down with communism,” his wife told Radio Free Asia. Phuong is already serving a 10-year prison sentence related to his dissemination of information about a 2020 land dispute where police clashed with villagers outside Hanoi. Do Thi Thu, Phuong’s wife, told RFA Vietnamese that he has been charged again under Article 117 of the Criminal Code which punishes “making, storing, and disseminating” anti-state…

Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War this week, the chief of the ruling communist party To Lam struck a reconciliatory tone toward people from former South Vietnam. His lengthy commentary, published in state media two days ahead of the anniversary, won praise at home and some cautious hope, mixed with skepticism, among those who fled the country after 1975. The April 30 anniversary is most commonly celebrated domestically as the reunification of the communist North and the U.S.-allied South Vietnam, and this was the…

Vietnam marked the 50th anniversary of the end the Vietnam War on Wednesday with jubilation and a grand military parade – but also with a message of reconciliation. Flag-waving crowds teemed the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, once known as Saigon, where the decades-long conflict against U.S.-backed forces that had divided the nation came to an end April 30, 1975. vietnam-50th-anniversary-war-us Vietnamese troops march during a parade to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, April 30, 2025. (Minh Nguyen/Reuters) Vietnamese…

UPDATED 28 April, 2025, 11:15 a.m. ET BANGKOK – Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has been talking up the benefits of free trade, in the face of a China-U.S. tariff war that threatens the global economy, during a meeting with Vietnam’s top leader To Lam in Hanoi. The Trump administration’s decision to tax Chinese imports 145% and China’s 125% retaliation on U.S. goods has created what Ishiba called “a complex and multifaceted crisis,” in an article for Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre newspaper. Cooperation between Japan and Vietnam would contribute to regional…

BANGKOK – The Vietnamese government says it is expecting a sizable U.S. presence when it marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War on April 30, despite media reports that the Trump administration told diplomats to stay away from events. Ceremonies in Ho Chi Minh City will be attended by “delegations led by high-level leaders, political parties, international organizations, peace movements and anti-war movements, including those from the U.S.,” according to Vietnam’s foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang. The New York Times cited four anonymous U.S. officials…

Authorities have barred a Vietnamese Buddhist monk from continuing a barefoot pilgrimage through Sri Lanka so he’s departing instead for his final destination, India, a source told Radio Free Asia. Thich Minh Tue, who departed on a multi-nation journey from Vietnam four months ago, was stopped in his tracks by Sri Lankan police last week who cited a letter from Vietnam’s state-sanctioned Buddhist sangha – or Buddhist religious association – describing him as posing a threat to public order. His group, which also includes 10 volunteers, has since been provided…

BANGKOK – An appeals court in Ho Chi Minh City has reduced the life sentence of Vietnam’s biggest corporate fraudster to 30 years in prison after she paid millions of dollars in compensation to buyers of bogus bonds, state media reported Monday. Truong My Lan, the 68-year old chairwoman of property company Van Thinh Phat, was separately sentenced to death in April last year for embezzling US$27 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank in which she held a more-than-90% stake. Her appeal against the death penalty was rejected in December, but…