Hanoi- The head of the Hanoi chapter of the Communist Party has apologized for controversial comments he made while visiting people in flooded areas on Sunday, a senior Hanoi Party official confirmed Thursday.

On Sunday, Hanoi Party boss Pham Quang Nghi told a reporter from the news website VietnamNet that while out checking the situation on the ground, "I found that unlike in the old days, people rely a lot on the state. They just wait for the government to supply this, support that, they don't try their best to do it themselves."

Hanoi - Vietnamese health authorities have found the industrial chemical melamine in powdered milk imported from Australia and three brands of cookies imported from Malaysia, raising the number of melamine-tainted products found in the country to 29, health officials said Thursday.

Nguyen Thi Khanh Tram, deputy director of Vietnam's Food Hygiene and Safety Agency, said the importers were cooperating with the agency's request to recall the milk and cookies.

The tainted Gold 1-10 milk powder was produced in Australia in May. The cookies - known as Lexus Cheese Cream, Lexus Chocolate Cream and Lexus Peanut Cream - were produced in Malaysia in May and August.

Hanoi- Vietnamese businesses are having trouble getting loans from banks despite the State Bank's decision to cut the benchmark rate from 13 per cent to 12 per cent effective November 5, executives said Wednesday.

"We find it really hard to ask for loans from banks at this time," said Truong Thai Son, of Hoang Quan Real Estate in Ho Chi Minh City. "We have to cancel or delay about
30 to 50 per cent of our planned projects due to lack of cash."

Hanoi - The former warden of the "Hanoi Hilton," the prison where John McCain was held as a POW during the Vietnam War, expressed his condolences Wednesday morning for his former captive's loss in the US presidential elections.

Retired colonel Tran Trong Duyet said he would have liked to vote for McCain as president.

"I share in McCain's loss, and I sympathize with him very much," Duyet said. "I would like to advise him that as a senator, he should still do his part to boost relations between Vietnam and the US."

Hanoi - Vietnamese in the city where Republican candidate John McCain was held captive during the Vietnam War were tuned to international news channels Wednesday morning to see whether the former pilot once shot down over their city would become the next US president.

Several dozen Vietnamese and over a hundred Americans turned up for an election party hosted by the US Embassy at the Hanoi Hilton - the hotel, that is, not the prison where McCain was held which was mockingly called the same by American prisoners of war.

Hanoi - Floods and heavy rains in Vietnam have killed three more people and left two missing, disaster centres reported Tuesday, bringing the toll of dead and missing since the current round of storms began October 24 to at least 86.

The National Committee for Storm and Flood Control said the worst flooding in almost three decades has left at least 20 people dead and two missing in Hanoi since November 3. Up to 835 millimeters of rain fell on the city between Friday and Tuesday morning.

Victims have drowned or been struck by falling trees and collapsing buildings. Several were electrocuted by live power lines.