Hanoi, Jan 5 - Vietnam protested a Chinese proposal to begin tourist visits to the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, local media reported Tuesday.

The Chinese State Council announced the proposal Thursday as part of a plan for development of the tourism industry in the Chinese island province of Hainan.

Vietnamese government spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga denounced the Chinese proposal for the islands, which both countries claim, the official Vietnam News reported.

Hanoi, Dec 30 - Vietnam has protested a new Chinese law aimed at protecting the nation's islands, including the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, local media reported Wednesday.

"Vietnam has time and again affirmed its sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos," Vietnam News quoted government spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga as saying.

Hanoi, Dec 7 - A Hanoi restaurant owner has been detained for making medicinal paste from the bones of rare wild animals, including tigers and monkeys, police said Monday.

Tran Trong Binh, head of Hanoi's environmental police department, said police had detained two men Sunday evening at a Hanoi restaurant.

Officers found an 80-litre cooking vat containing monkey bones, as well as horns and antlers belonging to unidentified animals.

Hanoi, Dec 3 : Authorities have discovered a mass grave containing the remains of at least 25 Vietnamese soldiers killed in combat 41 years ago, an official said Thursday.

"They belonged to a commando company killed in 1968 while trying to liberate Quang Ngai prison," said Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Trong Luyen, commander of the military forces in Quang Ngai City. "We have not determined how many remains are there, but I think there will be more."

Hanoi, Nov 27 -Territorial disputes in the South China Sea are likely to drag on for decades, and mounting demand for resources could intensify them, experts said at a conference on the region that closes Friday.

The conference addressed one of the most sensitive political topics for Vietnam and other South-East Asian countries. Territorial disputes between China and several South-East Asian countries over the Spratly and Paracel Islands and wide areas of the ocean floor have led to diplomatic protests, seizures of fishing vessels and other conflicts.

Hanoi, Nov 27 - There are only 80 elephants left in the wild in Vietnam and they are in danger due to illegal hunting and deforestation, state media reported Friday.

The state-run newspaper Lao Dong quoted experts at a Vietnam Forest Management Agency workshop on elephant preservation as saying the population was dropping fast.

Vietnamese press have reported several cases of elephants attacking humans in recent years. Elephants become more aggressive when their territory shrinks.

Hanoi - At least nine people were killed and twenty were seriously injured after a train and a bus collided on the outskirts of Hanoi, police said Monday.

Hanoi traffic police said the collision occurred Sunday at an intersection in Hanoi's Thuong Tin district. The crossing signal at the intersection was broken.

The train threw the bus to one side, where it hit and killed a motorcyclist. Six passengers on the bus were killed immediately, and two more died later in hospital.

Bhubaneswar, Nov 20 - Orissa has verified to Goa the identity of 14 people, who had gone missing last week in Cyclone Phyan that hit the Arabian sea, an official said Friday. They were working as fishermen in Goa.

"On Wednesday, Goa's fishery department asked us to verify details of 16 people and if any of them have returned home," Sundergarh sub-collector Bimalendu Ray told IANS.

"We have collected information about 14 of them. They belong to different villages under Subdega and Balisankara block," he said.

Hanoi  - Employees at Vietnamese internet providers confirmed Thursday that the government had ordered their companies to block the social networking site Facebook.

Vietnamese Facebook users had complained of being unable to access the site for days, but officials refused to confirm it had been blocked. Deputy Minister of Information and Telecommunications Do Quy Doan said Tuesday his ministry had not blocked the site.

Hanoi - Two people were killed and 15 injured when two buses collided on the main national highway in southern Vietnam's Ninh Thuan province, a traffic policeman said Thursday.

Officer Pham Van Bay of the Ninh Thuan provincial traffic police said a bus travelling from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi swerved to avoid a motorbike Wednesday evening and hit an oncoming bus. A passenger on the first bus was killed, and a motorcyclist was killed when the bus ran over him before plunging off the road into a rice field.

Fifteen passengers were being treated at Ninh Thuan Province's General Hospital.

Hanoi  - Four men were killed in the province of Tay Ninh while trying to remove the explosives from a Vietnam War-era bomb for use in fishing, a local policeman said Wednesday.

The men, two pairs of brothers in their mid-20s, were attempting to cut open the bomb when it exploded, said Phan Anh Tuan, deputy police chief of the commune of Hung Thuan, where the men lived.

Hanoi  - Two Vietnamese Air Force pilots were killed when their fighter jet crashed into a hill in northern Vietnam, a military source said Friday.

An official at Yen Bai military airfield, who declined to be named, said the Russian-built MIG-21 fighter crashed during a routine exercise Thursday in the mountainous province of Thanh Hoa.

The accident killed Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Vinh, head of Air Force Regiment C31, and another pilot. Both pilots' bodies were recovered from the wreckage.

Hanoi  - Vietnam Airlines has suspended three flight attendants after they were seized by South Korean customs authorities while trying to smuggle undeclared gold jewellery out of the country, a company spokesman said Friday.

Vietnam Airlines spokesman Le Hoang Dung told the German Press Agency dpa the company had not yet received the customs authorities' report, but had suspended the flight attendants while waiting for clarification.

Hanoi  - Vietnamese police have arrested a woman who allegedly tried to kill the baby of her husband and another woman by driving a sewing needle into his brain, a police official said Thursday.

Hanoi resident Nguyen Thi Kim Duan, 35, was officially arrested Wednesday in the province of Thai Nguyen, after being detained informally since November 6, said district police chief Diep Van Cao.

Hanoi - The US dollar and gold prices dropped sharply Thursday in Vietnam after the State Bank lifted a ban on gold imports in a bid to end a huge run-up in prices in recent days.

The State Bank had banned imports of gold since May 2008 to limit the country's trade deficit, but on Wednesday, it lifted the ban because of a rising gap between domestic and international gold prices. The gap had led to speculation and driven up the black-market exchange rate for the dollar.

As of 11 am Thursday, the black market exchange rate offered at gold shops in Hanoi had fallen to 18,600 dong to the dollar, from up to 20,000 on Wednesday.

Hanoi  - The US dollar rose sharply against the Vietnamese dong Tuesday on the country's black market as the central bank failed to keep up with demand for the foreign currency.

Gold shops and black market traders were selling dollars at 19,000 dong each, while the government's reference rate remained at 16,936 and commercial banks asked 17,872 dong to the dollar. Banks are allowed to trade within a band of 3 per cent on either side of the reference rate.

In Ho Chi Minh City, some shops were asking 19,100 dong to the dollar.

Hanoi - A jailed Vietnamese dissident who was reportedly near death after a monthlong hunger strike has begun eating, his wife said Monday.

Vu Van Hung, a 43-year-old high school teacher, was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation on October 7 for hanging a banner advocating multiparty democracy from a Hanoi overpass in August 2008.

Hung had declared he would not eat until authorities reversed the verdict and ceased placing him in cells with common criminals.

Hanoi - A jailed Vietnamese dissident who was reportedly near death after a monthlong hunger strike has begun eating, his wife said Monday.

Vu Van Hung, a 43-year-old high school teacher, was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation on October 7 for hanging a banner advocating multiparty democracy from a Hanoi overpass in August 2008.

Hung had declared he would not eat until authorities reversed the verdict and ceased placing him in cells with common criminals.

Hanoi  - The death toll from Tropical Storm Mirinae in central Vietnam has risen to 109, the country's Steering Committee for Storm and Flood Control reported Friday.

The authority said 16 people remained missing, and local media were reporting death figures as high as 119.

Flood waters were beginning to recede across much of Phu Yen and Binh Dinh provinces, but remained as high as 1 metre in some towns.

Hanoi  - The death toll from Tropical Storm Mirinae has risen to 98 in central Vietnam, the country's Steering Committee for Storm and Flood Control said Thursday.

The authority said 20 people were missing and it expected the death toll to continue to rise.

"Most people were killed by flash floods and some by landslides, collapsing houses or falling trees," said Dang Thi Lanh of the Storm and Flood Control Committee in Phu Yen province. "In mountainous areas, the floods rose too fast, and many people did not have time to escape."