"Draped in red Communist banners and propaganda slogans, Vietnam’s capital turned 1,000 years old yesterday in an extravagant ceremony intended to stoke national pride and show the world that this once war-ravaged country has moved beyond its dark history....
Yeah, good thing AmeriKa never does anything like that.
Also related: Agent Orange Still Active in Vietnam
So WHEN is the U.S. and its mouthpiece media going to COME INTO the LIGHT?
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I thought these items were important given the coming of WWIII (by Martin Fackler, New York Times).
Yeah, they seem to be the guys bringing it to you again.
"Vietnam detains activists prior to Clinton visit; US Embassy concerned about arrests" by John Pomfret, Washington Post / October 29, 2010
HANOI — In the run-up to a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vietnam has arrested two bloggers, refused to release another blogger after he completed a prison sentence, and convicted three labor activists and six Catholic villagers of human rights offenses.
I'm SO GLAD to READ that she doesn't want to send BLOGGERS to JAIL; however, ABOUT the MASS-MURDER and TORTURE based on lies....
The cases, which occurred this week and which the US Embassy expressed concern about in a statement yesterday, threaten the significant progress that has been made between the United States and Vietnam in recent months.
Pushed together by a shared concern over the rise of China, officials from both countries boast that the relationship is better than ever. With her two-day visit starting today, Clinton will have been to Vietnam twice in the past four months. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates was here for talks two weeks ago, and Washington and Hanoi held their first-ever security dialogue between defense officials in August.
Analysts are split about the meanings of this week’s arrests and court cases. Some, generally Western diplomats, say they are part of a yearlong crackdown on dissent as Vietnam’s Communist Party readies for its first party congress in five years in January. Since last October, 21 people have been sent to jail for crimes involving a peaceful expression of their views.
And here I sit a rat-a-tat-tat.
Other analysts, generally Vietnamese, believe that the activity this week is part of a pattern related to an internal struggle within the Vietnamese Communist Party over its relations with the United States. Vietnam has moved closer to the United States as a hedge against aggressive behavior by China.
Are they the ones doing war games and making provocations?
But that shift is controversial within a party that remains deeply influenced by China and fears that the United States is committed to overthrowing the Vietnamese political system....
It's not as if we have ever tried that before.
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"Vietnam cultivating ties with US, others; Friendships form as relations cool with the Chinese" by John Pomfret, Washington Post / November 2, 2010
HANOI — Putting China on a par with “Western aggressors’’ marks a psychological breakthrough for Vietnam’s military and is troubling news for Beijing.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Can't you hear the war-promoting newspaper and its agenda-pushing drums?
For years, China has tried to forge a special relationship with Vietnam’s Communist government. But China’s rise — and its increasingly aggressive posture toward Vietnam — has alarmed the leadership of this country of 90 million, prompting it to look differently at its neighbor....
Prominent among its new intimates is the United States, which is equally eager for partners to help it cope with Beijing.
I don't know if you want to snuggle up to us as about now -- unless you like the smell of hulking, decayed, on-its-deathbed empire.
“It is always good to have a new friend,’’ mused Nguyen Chi Vinh, the vice minister of defense, in an interview. “It is even better when that friend used to be our foe.’’
The budding US-Vietnamese friendship was on display Friday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here for her second visit in four months....
I hope she is laying off the booze.
Vietnam and the United States are hammering out an agreement that would give Vietnam access to American nuclear energy technology.
Oh, now THAT is a BIT HYPOCRITICAL as we WAG our FINGER at IRAN!
That, Vietnamese officials say, could help Hanoi end its dependence on China for electricity.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese defense officials say they are eager to buy US military technology....
And defying Chinese pressure, three American oil companies are carrying out offshore exploration in Vietnam’s waters....
After what happened in the Gulf of Mexico this past spring and summer?
And -- as usual -- OIL is LITERALLY at the BOTTOM of it ALL!!!
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Update: Clinton calls WikiLeaks files an attack on the world
She was dipping her bill!
