Hanoi - The prosecution of two senior government officials for embezzling more than 50,000 dollars from a state-funded IT project could tarnish the reputation of former Vietnamese prime minister Phan Van Khai, a prominent lawyer said Wednesday.

Vietnam announced Monday it would try Vu Dinh Thuan, 67, former deputy head of the Government Secretariat, and his former assistant Luong Cao Son, 52, for alleged embezzlement committed between 2001 and 2007.

The two are charged with submitting inflated expenses and pocketing the difference while administering Project 112, a failed programme to set up a national electronic network for government offices.

Hanoi - Police in Ho Chi Minh City Thursday broke up a major counterfeit drug ring, officials said Friday.

"We have never broken such a big case before," said Lt Col Vu Hong Nam of the Ho Chi Minh City police.

Nam said Mai Cong Phu, 56, was arrested Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City while transporting a batch of counterfeit drugs for sale. Police found hundreds of kilograms of contraband in Phu's home, as well as drug-manufacturing equipment.

Police Lt Col Tran Si Quang, the lead investigator on the case, said agents had been tracking Phu's operation for a year to develop information. He said Phu had been selling at least 20 kilograms of counterfeit drugs a day, including pills and intravenous drugs.

Hanoi - Vietnamese officials vowed Thursday to stop dairy farmers from pouring away their unwanted milk, even though consumers frightened by the Chinese melamine scare have stopped buying it.

Vietnamese press this week have reported numerous incidents of dairy farmers pouring excess milk into rivers or onto roadways. Vietnamese milk consumption has dropped sharply since the discovery this fall that world milk supplies had been contaminated by Chinese milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

Hanoi - A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced a Mennonite Christian pastor to three years in prison Thursday for failing to repay debts owed by the company of her late first husband.

Nguyen Thi Hong, 48, had been in jail awaiting trial since her arrest in November 2007. Her second husband is the pastor, lawyer and social activist Nguyen Hong Quang, head of the Mennonite church in Vietnam.

After holding Hong for 14 months, authorities Thursday tried her for failing to repay two debts incurred in 1999 by the company of her late first husband, who died in 2003. The debts totaled 25,000 dollars.

Hanoi - About 800 workers at a Taiwanese-owned garment factory near Ho Chi Minh City went on strike Tuesday for back pay and bonuses, an employee said Wednesday.

Ho Hong Nghi, a sewing machine operator at the Chin Phong Company in the province of Binh Duong, said workers were demanding their unpaid December salaries and bonus pay for the upcoming lunar New Year holiday, or Tet.

Strikes typically intensify in Vietnam around Tet as workers feel the pinch of holiday expenses.

Hanoi  - Broken dykes due to high tides have caused the flooding of more than 400 houses in Ho Chi Minh City, a disaster official said Monday.

"The latest broken section of dyke was breached at about 4 am today, flooding more than 100 houses," said Mai Tuan Binh, head of an irrigation unit in the Thu Duc district of Vietnam's largest city.