A court in the Mekong Delta province of Long An Thursday sentenced a woman to life in prison for killing her journalist husband by setting him on fire. Tran Thuy Lieu, 41, was convicted of killing her husband, Le Hoang Hung, a journalist with the Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper . On January 19, 2011, Lieu set Hung on fire on fire when he was sleeping at their house in the province’s Tan An Town. [...]

A family in Hanoi is holding on to an egg their chicken laid which is 1.8 centimeters long, some 0.3 centimeters shorter than the current world recorder holder for smallest egg, VnExpress reported Tuesday. Pham Huy Tai in Ba Dinh District said his chicken laid the egg on Sunday, adding that it was the first time it laid an egg so small, the VnExpress quoted the news website Kienthuc as saying. The egg weighs 2.8 [...]

Construction has started on the first public high rise parking lot in Ho Chi Minh City, as many similar structures are expected to be built in coming years. The news website VnExpress on Wednesday said multi-story parking lots are considered by many investors to be an “optimum solution” for the city’s parking scarcity, as they cost less money and take less time to built than underground facilities. On March 23, the Saigon Transport and Mechanics [...]

Authorities in the central province of Quang Nam plan to review all its 43 hydropower dams as the largest one continues to worry residents with its ongoing leaking problem, the VnExpress newswire reported Tuesday. The report quoted Nguyen Thanh Quang, director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, as saying inspection teams will be sent to check the dams next month to suggest risk minimizing measures. Local authorities are especially concerned about the [...]

Vietnam’s export earnings from agricultural, forestry, and aquatic products in the first three months of 2012 reached nearly US$5.9 billion, approximately equal to last year’s first-quarter figure. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) attributed this to negative fluctuations in the world economy. The agricultural staples earned $3.2 billion, 14 percent lower than in the same period last year, while earnings from seafood and forestry products were estimated at $1.2 billion and $922 million, [...]

Authorities in the southern Vietnamese city of Can Tho have ordered the boss of a massively indebted seafood company to return from the US or provide medical records for her alleged cancer treatment. Pham Thi Dieu Hien is general director of Binh An Seafood Joint Stock Company (Bianfishco), which owes more than VND1.27 trillion ($61.4 million) to nine banks, a credit organization, and scores of farmers. She is thought to personally owe VND0.29 trillion (almost [...]

Expatriates who violate traffic laws in Vietnam are let off the hook by the language barrier or small bribes The traffic officer just waved Alex on after pulling him over for speeding on Ho Chi Minh City’s Hung Vuong Street. “When I got off the bike, the police officer saw that I was a foreigner and told me to continue,” said the British expat. Many foreigners like Alex do not fear being pulled over thanks [...]

Poor patients are being squeezed out of the health care system as doctors accept significant commissions from the pharmaceutical industry and more affluent patients Dang Thi Kim Oanh has been reluctant to go to the hospital to be examined and treated for a goiter she has been suffering from for more than 10 years. “The Tumor Hospital is among a few that could offer adequate treatment for this. But I have heard that patients must [...]

Public cynicism about the mystery of vehicle fires can prove ‘dangerous’, sociologists warn For around 32 million Vietnamese motorbike owners, January 9 was a black day. They woke up to realize that adulterated fuel might have been the reason behind hundreds of motorbike explosions, meaning their main means of transportation could be a time bomb set to go off anytime. That day, Vietweek ran its first exposé of unscrupulous tanker truck drivers siphoning gasoline and [...]

Inspectors from the construction ministry and the central province of Quang Nam Wednesday said cracks at a provincial hydropower dam do not pose safety risks as being concerned by locals. At a meeting with provincial authorities and the Song Tranh 2 hydropower plant’s investor that day, Bui Trung Dung, chief inspector of the Ministry of Construction, said the cracks, some of which are several millimeters long, are not remarkable, and the dam is operating safely [...]