Questing for gear in hopping Ho Chi Minh City

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam--Last December, I visited Ho Chi Minh City and discovered that while Wi-Fi was ubiquitous and the Internet was fast, it was incredibly hard to get across town.

Seven months later, the traffic here is still terrible. This time, however, I found that if you are in the right place, dealing with traffic isn't necessary at all.

The right place is District 1. Other than being the center of tourism with lots of hotels, famous landmarks, restaurants, and bars, D1 is also the site where you can get pretty much anything you need, especially when it comes to technology and digital entertainment. And it's all within a short walking distance.

I actually heard about this area during my last trip here. Jasper Waale, owner of Skeye, a GPS- and GSM-based tracking company operating in Vietnam and Laos--and an avid listener of the Inside CNET Labs podcast--insisted I check it out. I took a rain check till now.

We met at Cafe Centro, a trendy yet casual coffeehouse located in the middle of D1's most bustling section. According to Jasper, this is a popular place for ex-pats to hang out for both fun and business. It offers reasonably priced refreshments and, of course, free Wi-Fi.

(By the way, there are lots of cafes in Ho Chi Minh City, and pretty much all of them offer free Wi-Fi. My other favorite is Cafe Da on Alexandre De Rhodes Street. Also in D1: the best ice milk coffee and smoothies I've ever had. If you go there, make sure you try the "Dong Tim" fruit shake. It's so good, it has my name on it!)

"You'll find me at Centro at least a couple of times a week," Jasper said. Then, in a slightly show-offy manner, he pulled out his brand-new-looking Nikon D300 camera.

"I just got a good deal on this one. I traded in my D80 and got about 80 percent of new value to put toward this new one. You'll have to come see this place," he said.

I was intrigued, partially because next to his D300, my 4-year-old D80 looked somewhat pathetic. I've considered upgrading my camera for a while, but anticipating the whole hassle of selling my D80 on eBay or Craigslist has stopped me.

He then took me to Thuong Xa Tax, a mini shopping mall that's just a five-minute walk from the cafe. "Mini" here, by the way, is according to American standards; this is actually one of the bigger trading centers here in Vietnam, and it is indeed very large.

As in most shopping malls here, you can find pretty much everything, but we walked straight to the Vinh Hung Camera shop. The owner, Hung, a friendly 40-something man, greeted Jasper like an old friend. He then took a quick look at my D80 and said, "I'll give you $600 for this one, body and lens." Now that's a very good deal, as mine is rather scratched up and dirty since I regularly carry it around in open air. It also comes with a low-end non-VR Nikkor DX 18-135mm lens. On eBay, the best I could get is probably $500 (minus all the fees).

Asked how he could evaluate the camera so quickly and what would happen if it turned out to be bad later, Hung said he generally only needs a minute with a camera to know how much it's worth. "I've been doing this so long. I can tell if there's something wrong with the body via the shutter sound," he said. "The lens, I can just see."

Hung also revealed that his business was going well because digital SLRs are getting more popular and that so far he has been able to fulfill all customer requests, whether for new purchases or exchanges. "We have a good connection, so the most you have to wait for a rare model is just a few days," he said.

I wouldn't have to wait at all since he had a brand new D300 in stock, reasonably priced at almost $1,500. What I didn't have was $900 in cash. The shop accepts Visa, but I would have to pay another 3 percent. That, plus the incredible fees Bank of America charges me for using the card abroad, would end up making it not such a good deal. So I decided to let Jasper stick with the lead in the camera competition, and he seemed very happy about it.

On the way out of the Tax mall, we stumbled upon an interesting shop selling bootleg movies. Now this is nothing new to me. However, unlike the modest-looking bootleg stores in Hanoi, this one is quite upscale. First, it takes a good amount of money to have a booth in this shopping mall, and second, the shop employs uniformed women to tend to your every movie need.

The shop has virtually any movie title you can think of, including those still out in theaters and not yet released on disc. They come in stacks organized by genres. I spotted a DVD of "Angels and Demons," which I didn't have time to see in a theater before the trip. And, no, I didn't buy it.

Cuc, one of the women in uniform, told me her job is selling and she has no idea about the legality or illegality of these movies. "All I know they are 15,000 dong (about 90 cents) per DVD and 40,000 dong (about $2.25) per Blu-ray. Anything else you will need to talk to my manager," she smiled. She wasn't so happy when I wanted to take her photo, though.

"These movies' quality really sucks, even the supposedly high-def ones," Jasper said. "If you want true high-def movies, you have to come with me here."

We got out of Tax and after a 10-minute walk, we arrived at Paster Street. This street runs from D1 to District 3 (Quan 3). However, the D1 part is where it's at. There are a lot of electronics and computer stores--the two Jasper wanted to show me are Minigame and Halo.

These two stores focus on console games and offer virtually any title. Most of these games, of course, are not original copies but bootleg versions. To play these games, the consoles themselves need to be hacked, and the shop takes care of that too.

Jasper said he once mistakenly upgraded his Wii's firmware and re-locked his console. He brought it back to Halo, and 400,000 dong later, his Wii was unlocked again. The process involved removing and reordering a memory chip. It's much like the work on the iPhone 3G that I mentioned last year.

The most popular service these two stores offer is games on thumbdrives. The shop will modify a console to make it accept game stored on portable USB drives. After that, you can just bring your thumbdrive over and buy a game for the common price of 10,000 dong (56 cents) per game, regardless of how big (in megabytes) the game is. So now, instead of having to store DVDs or game cartridges, you just have to have a big external hard drive.

Apart from games, true high-def movies in Matroska format (also known as MKV) are also on sale here for the same price: 10,000 dong per movie. You will need a computer to play these movies--or a portable media player such as the WD TV.

Though not a console gamer, I felt excited about what you can get here and how much you can get it for. Legalities aside, in a way, these stores offer much better service than GameStop or any other retailer or repair store I've run into in the U.S.

After a couple of hours hanging out with Jasper, my perspective on Ho Chi Minh City completely changed. Traumatized by its traffic, I used to compare this city of some 12 million people to Los Angeles. Now, it seems somewhat like Manhattan, where you can get virtually anywhere on foot.

What I found most interesting, however, are those people like Denmark-native Jasper--foreigners who weren't born in Vietnam and don't speak the local language very well, if at all, yet who can relate to the place better than a lot of Vietnamese including myself.

Jasper made up his mind about the place long ago. "You are not allowed to have a dull moment here," he said. "If you are bored, it's your fault. This is the most exciting place in the world."

Vietnamese American returns to homeland to help disabled

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Some wounds never heal.

At age 15 in 1968, Do Van Du lost a leg and part of an arm while serving as a combat interpreter for the U.S. Special Forces near the Cambodian border. He moved to the United States in 1971 and became a successful software engineer and systems analyst. Then, seven years ago, Du returned to his homeland to help found a college-level program run by Catholic Relief Services to train disabled young people to be software engineers and tech workers — a first for Vietnam.

"People with disabilities don't have a voice in Vietnam," said the veteran, whose fashionable black slacks and sports coat fail to disguise a perpetual sadness in his eyes.

You are basically thrown away. You are not 'normal.' You can't work. You are a leech on society," the former Bay Area resident said before walking with a slight limp into a classroom full of eager students on crutches and in wheelchairs. "In Asia, because of the belief in reincarnation, people think you have done something in a prior life and now you are paying for it."

Grim evidence of the harsh treatment of Vietnam's disabled citizens is easy to find among the students in Du's program.

Duong Anh My was peppered by rocks because his leg was deformed.

When Ha Mau Xuyen applied for work at a telecom company, her field of study, she knew as soon as human resources representatives saw her crippled leg the job interview had effectively
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ended. "I knew by their look they rejected me," said the 27-year-old polio victim.

Tay Duong Thi Ngoc Hoa is confined to a wheelchair in a country in which access to buildings, buses and schools for the disabled is rarely provided. "I had nothing to hope for," the 25-year-old said, her thin legs dangling from her wheelchair.

An estimated 5.6 million people of Vietnam's 90 million citizens are disabled, according to the government, though the World Health Organization places that figure at nearly 9 million. Vietnam has its own version of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but enforcement is rare. "There is no penal code to punish those who violate it," Du said.

For a small number of disabled young people enrolled in the tech training programs Du founded in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, that is changing.

"IT allows them to connect to the outside world in a way they haven't before," said Andrew Wells-Dang, deputy country director for Catholic Relief Services. "It also demonstrates that people with disabilities can do all kinds of jobs, including high-tech ones."

In all, 175 students have received tech training over the past two years, including 75 as software engineers who earn international software engineering certificates. The others get six months' training in business process outsourcing — which includes image processing, data entry and general office IT work that companies outsource to countries like Vietnam.

Du's Information Technology Training Center, which receives funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, just expanded to Ho Chi Minh City, where more than 50 students are now attending daily classes at Van Lang University. They have been provided with brand-new PCs. Subsidized housing is available to those who need it. The program, which has a budget of about $200,000 a year, is free to the students.

"Some of these people had never touched a mouse before," said Du, who has also started a for-profit company, Hanoi-based PWD Soft, which employees engineers with disabilities.

Many in the program suffer from the continuing consequences from the war with the United States, even though the conflict ended more than 30 years ago. Some struggle with injuries from stepping on land mines. Others have ailments linked to Agent Orange, the highly toxic defoliant used by the U.S. military, said Van Lang University Chancellor Nguyen Dung. Some have been afflicted with illnesses, such as polio, that no longer threaten those in the West.

All too often, Vietnamese with disabilities are confined to home or work in low-skill jobs, such as making toothpicks or chopsticks. Some spend their lives begging.

"The IT industry is one of the few professional fields in Vietnam that are well-suited for people with disabilities," Chancellor Nguyen said. "They may have trouble getting around, but their minds are fine for IT."

The training, though, involves more than learning the intricacies of programming languages like C++ and Java. The students look after each other — pushing wheelchairs, carrying one another's crutches, helping to ease fellow students into a taxi. For some, it's the first time in their lives they feel accepted.

"It's not a class anymore. It's a family," said 30-year-old Nguyen Thi Xuan Thao, who is learning outsourcing tech skills.

Du said the program is modeled after one he attended in Seattle in 1987, dubbed Resources Center for the Handicapped. Sponsors included Boeing Computer Services, Microsoft and IBM. "There was probably nothing like that anywhere except in the U.S.," he recalled.

Du went on to enjoy a successful career as an engineer, pulling down a six-figure salary. He lived in Oakland during the late 1990s when he was an IT consultant for health-care services company McKesson in San Francisco.

Now 56, Du is a man haunted by the events that reshaped his life four decades ago. He was recruited to help the Americans because of his strong English-speaking abilities. "I was a kid," Du said. "The U.S. had child soldiers."

While on patrol one day in Loc Ninh, his unit found itself surrounded. The soldiers called in artillery support. The shells, though, landed on the Americans, killing a lieutenant.

"It blew up my left arm and right leg. It was very difficult for a kid at that age to go through that. I had three choices — kill myself, start begging, or not select one or two," Du grimly jokes.

Du, who moves stiffly and remains self-conscious of his artificial limbs after all these years, is a hero in the eyes of the students. He embodies all they hope for — independence.

"We've learned how to believe in ourselves," said Nguyen Thi Xuan Thao, whose left arm and leg were partially paralyzed after she contracted meningitis as a child.

"I have a heart and a mind just like everybody else," she said. "The only thing that is different about me is the way I walk."

Mercury News

Vietnam Growth Probably Accelerated in Second Quarter

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam, the first country in Asia to release second-quarter growth numbers, will probably say its economic expansion accelerated in the period, foreshadowing likely recoveries in the rest of the region.

The economy grew 3.9 percent in the first half from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Planning & Investment. That implies second-quarter growth of 4.5 percent, from 3.1 percent in the first three months, according to Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. The General Statistics Office, which compiles official economic data, is expected to release gross domestic product figures this week.

Vietnam’s economy is benefiting from an increase in construction as a government loan subsidy program spur credit growth. Other economies in the region, including Japan and Singapore, are forecast to report better second-quarter figures as some $2.2 trillion in stimulus worldwide help stabilize overseas sales for companies from Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. to South Korea’s Kia Motors Corp.

“The worst has likely passed for Vietnam as well as the rest of the region,” said Paul Gruenwald, chief economist for Asia at ANZ in Singapore. “The focus now should be on assessing the strength of the recovery and how long it will take to return to potential growth. A full recovery requires a resumption of foreign demand.”

OECD Forecast

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on June 24 raised its forecast for its 30 member nations for the first time in two years as the global recession shows signs of abating. The International Monetary Fund last week boosted its outlook for Australia for this year and next.

Japan’s economy will expand at an annual 2.3 percent pace in the second quarter, according to a Bloomberg News survey, after contracting a record 14.2 percent in the first. South Korea’s finance ministry last week forecast GDP will increase almost 2 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, when it expanded 0.1 percent.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of the region’s stocks climbed 47 percent since March 9, when it fell to the lowest in more than five years, as the outlook for corporate earnings improved. Vietnam’s benchmark VN Index has gained 60 percent this quarter. It lost 2.6 percent today.

Worst Over

“Most countries have passed the depths of the crisis and those with strong domestic growth drivers will benefit more and recover faster,” said Alvin Liew, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. “The economy is well supported by pro-growth government policies.”

Vietnam, Indonesia, China and India, where growth remained positive amid the global slowdown, are examples of economies that have shown more resilience than other export-dependent nations because of domestic consumption, Liew said.

“The pickup in growth in the second quarter in Vietnam was domestic based” helped by the fuels, transport and garment industries, said Gruenwald of ANZ. “Output from the state sector seems to be growing faster than the rest of the economy as well. GDP growth should rise during the rest of 2009 as the fiscal stimulus plan continues.”

Vietnam’s government is aiming for 5 percent growth this year, down from a previous target of 6.5 percent. The economy grew 6.2 percent last year, the least since 1999.

Slowest Growth

Growth in the first quarter was the slowest pace on record as overseas companies trimmed investment plans and manufacturing weakened amid the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Pledges of foreign investment into Vietnam and planned capital increases for existing projects fell 77 percent in the first half from a year earlier.

Fitch Ratings downgraded Vietnam’s long-term, local- currency credit rating today by one grade to BB-, citing a “steady deterioration” in the country’s finances. The nation relies too much on oil-related revenue and an economic recovery won’t stop the fiscal deficit from ballooning, Fitch said.

The State Bank of Vietnam said yesterday it will keep interest rates unchanged this year to support economic growth. It is also focused on keeping consumer price gains under control after the National Assembly this month set an inflation ceiling of 10 percent for 2009.

Credit Suisse Group AG last week raised its growth forecast for Vietnam, predicting the economy will expand 4 percent this year, from an earlier estimate of 2 percent.

“Poor foreign direct investment and exports will weigh on fixed investment this year, but we are revising up our 2009 GDP forecast on signs of early global demand stabilization,” said Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong-based economist at Credit Suisse Group AG. Last quarter, the economy “probably hit its low point, but growth recovery will likely be relatively moderate.”

Nissan to start Vietnam production, sales by 2010

HANOI, June 30 (Reuters) - Nissan Vietnam Co Ltd, part-owned by Japan's Nissan Motor Co (7201.T), said on Tuesday it would start production in Vietnam and market the first locally assembled vehicle by 2010.

"Vietnam is a strategic market for Nissan with tremendous opportunities," Shinya Hannya, Nissan's corporate vice president for Asian markets, said in a statement without giving production details.

The Southeast Asian country's economy is forecast to grow 4.5 percent this year, compared with just 0.7 percent for the whole of Southeast Asia, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Nissan cars will be assembled at a domestic automobile firm, Vietnam Motor Corporation, and distributed by Nissan Vietnam, a venture established in December 2008 by the Japanese car maker and Denmark's Kjaer Group A/S, the statement said.

January-May sales by the 16 car makers operating in Vietnam fell 35 percent from the same period last year to 58,860 units, industry reports said.

Dealers say demand could slow significantly in the rest of 2009 as consumers put off big-ticket purchases such as cars and houses.

Last year, car sales rose 37 percent to a record 110,186 units.

Laptop gets (overly) warm welcome in Hanoi

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending several weeks in his homeland of Vietnam and will file occasional dispatches chronicling his adventures. To read stories from Dong's last visit, in December, click here.

HANOI, Vietnam--A word of advice for travelers: turn off your laptop when you leave the room.

This isn't the first time I've been back to Vietnam, but it's the first time since I left the country some 10 years ago that I've come back during summer. It's really hot in Hanoi during the day, often 100 degrees or more. And as it has always been the case with me when traveling, stuff happens.

After about 48 hours of traveling and coming to terms with the jetlag, I turned my laptop on for the first time. There were so many things to download: new episodes of podcasts, RSS feeds of different news sources, videos--and of course the 3.0 firmware for the iPhone.

As the Wi-Fi I got hooked up to was running at just around 60Kbps, these essential updates of my digital life (though most of them I can't find time to enjoy) would require hours to download. Like usual, I had a huge urge to download all of the data right away and decided to leave the computer running and go out for a jog. After all, it was almost midday and sunny outside.

I started the downloads, opened a pack of Orbit gum, took a piece, and left the rest on my new loaded Dell XPS M1530 (for this trip, I upgraded from the smaller XPS M1330, mostly because my eyes are worse now). Before leaving the room, being a good citizen of the world, I turned off the air conditioning.

The moment I opened the door of the room, a wave of stifling heat engulfed me. Outside, the sky was high and pure, and it was so sunny I felt I could hear how bright it was. Or maybe it was the sound of my sweat starting to ooze out.

Unlike the dry and lovely San Francisco Bay Area or somewhat humid New York City, it's so humid in Hanoi that once outside there's no way you can escape the heat during hot days. It's hot when it's calm, and it's hot when it's windy, and fans won't do anything. The breeze actually helps the heat traverse to every corner. Once in a while a quick and so-heavy-that-you-can't-see-anything downpour comes, only to accentuate the heat when the sky is clear again.

For a lot of local people, there's no way to stay away from the heat, as air conditioners are still considered a luxurious commodity that most can't afford. (Plus, they have survived many years without one.) The water in outdoor swimming pools gets so hot that by midday you can't swim in them. During some extremely hot days, you'll even find people staying inside air-conditioned ATM booths to enjoy some free cooling.

After just about a few minutes of jogging, my glasses started to get blurred by steam and sweat and I had to take them off. Four miles later, I looked and felt like I had never worked out so hard before: my T-shirt and baseball cap were completely soaked with sweat and my forehead was dripping.

As I slowly walked back, I stopped by a familiar beer stand to enjoy a few well-deserved glasses of "Bia Hoi," under a common makeshift cooling system: a net of copper pipes that spray water mist in the air. Bia Hoi is a kind of light draft beer that the Hanoi Brewery never produces enough of during summertime. It made all of my sweating and sun-hating activities worthwhile.

A couple of hours later, I returned to my room imagining a cool shower and getting my stuff synced to my iPhone. Instead, I was greeted with a sight of horror: the computer displayed a Blue Screen of Death and I heard the CPU fan roaring to life. The worst of all, the sweet mint chewing gum had melted into some mushy and sticky substance that spilled all over part of the keyboard and completely covered the biometric reader. Some even dripped onto the bedsheet. The laptop was so hot that I couldn't touch it for more than a few seconds.

I immediately turned the thing off and wondered what would have happened if I came back an hour later and especially why the machine just didn't turn off by itself before it was hot enough to melt the gum. In most of my previous over heat experiences, the computer would just shut down.

All freaked out, I brought the machine to the repair shop I relied on during my last trip. Duy, the same man I talked to seven months ago, told me he has received quite a few calls about computer overheating since summer started. "I can't even play online games at home anymore, my computer would just poop out after 15 minutes or so," he said. He did tell me, however, that my accident was very "special" and that it was a big waste of gum.

(People in Hanoi are big fans of Orbit gum, by the way. Each trip here, I bring along a plentiful supply, mostly to give away. This time I picked up a $300 batch from Costco. That's a lot of gum.)

The sticky mess turned out to be not that difficult to clean. After leaving the laptop inside a fridge for about five minutes, the gum congealed and could be removed fairly easily, though the job was time-consuming. After about an hour, my computer was back to its previous gum-free state. Unfortunately, out of panic, I forgot to bring my camera along this time around.

Duy didn't charge me for the job, but gladly took a brand new (and unmelted) pack of gum that I offered. "You wrote about me and my shop last time. My girlfriend saw the article online and was very happy... Thank you very much! And welcome to Hanoi!"

That was indeed a warm welcome. Now I just have to download my digital fix again. Or maybe I should just skip that and leave time for some real-life interactions.

CNET

Vietnam's inflation eases to 3.9 percent

HANOI, Vietnam -- Vietnam's inflation rate eased to 3.9 percent in June, thanks to falling transportation and telecommunication costs, the government said Wednesday.

That's a sharp decline from recent months, when inflation was 9.3 percent in April and 11.3 percent in March. Last year, the country's inflation rate soared to nearly 23 percent, the highest since 1991.

Transportation prices fell 4.2 percent, while telecommunication costs fell 10.9 percent from the same period a year ago.

However, prices still rose this month for food, medicine, beverages, home appliances and garments and textiles, said the government, which issued the data ahead of the month's end based on estimates.

Overall, food prices were 3.4 percent higher compared to last year, while beverage and textile prices both rose nearly 10 percent. Prices for medicine increased by 7 percent, it said.

In April, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung predicted that the inflation rate would fall to 6 percent in 2009.

The government also lowered its growth rate target to 5 percent from 6.5 percent. The economy expanded 6.2 percent last year, the lowest level in nearly a decade and down from 8.5 percent in 2007.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Italy's Piaggio starts to make Vespas in Vietnam

HANOI, June 25 (Reuters) - Italian scooter maker Piaggio SpA (PIA.MI) has begun production at its first plant in Vietnam, making inroads into one of the world's largest scooter markets.

Piaggio plans to sell up to 50,000 Vespas a year from its $30 million factory in the northern province of Vinh Phuc, near the capital Hanoi, the Vietnamese government said in a report.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said Piaggio should use Vietnam as a production hub for the Asian market.

The scooter maker said it planned to sell its signature Vespa LX 125 at $3,450 in Vietnam, nearly triple the price of the Japanese Honda Dream, the country's most popular two-wheeler, but about 70 percent of the cost of made-in-Italy LX 125s already widely sold in Vietnam.

Motorcycles are still the dominant means of transport in the Southeast Asian country of 86 million people.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has forecast the number of motorcycles would rise to 35 million by 2015 from 25 million now.

Total motorcycle sales in 2007 were 2.5 million units, more than 1 million of which were from Honda Motor Co (7267.T), according to data from motorcycle association VABOMA. The total was up from 2.2 million in 2006. Data for 2008 was not available.

Barbecues and baking: relief of Vietnam's Net addicts

HO CHI MINH CITY (AFP) — By 10:00 pm Phan Le Hong Duc still had not come home. His worried mother, Le Thi Hoang, knew her teenage son was playing computer games somewhere, so she set out to find him by renting a motorcycle taxi and knocking on the doors of neighbourhood Internet cafes.

"They all said that there were no children inside but actually I knew there were, because from the outside I could hear the sounds of them playing games," Hoang, 54, recalled.

At 5:00 am, his gaming finished for the night, Duc finally came home.

He was addicted.

His late nights at the keyboard had taken the place of evening classes at school, which he was skipping.

His mother felt he needed help, and she found it at Vietnam's first treatment programme for online game addicts.

Most people in Vietnam remain farmers but against this traditional background is a rapidly modernising nation confronting 21st century problems including computer game addiction.

The government says about one quarter of the 86 million people in Vietnam already have Internet access.

Asia's Internet gaming craze hit the country only about four years ago, but now online game shops can be seen even in rural villages, and the number of gamers is expected to rise.

Late last year a report by US-based Pearl Research, a consultancy specialising in games and interactive entertainment, forecast that Vietnam's online gamers will exceed 10 million by 2011.

"I don't know whether I can call myself an addict of online games," said Nguyen Nam Cuong, 15, playing in a Hanoi Internet shop during his school holidays.

Almost all of the 30 computers were occupied by youngsters engrossed in fighting or football games, the only noise coming from their keyboards.

Cuong said he plays one or two hours on school days and about double that during the holidays.

"I enjoy it. Here, I think I can live a more interesting life than my actual life," says Cuong.

Nguyen Thanh Nhan, director of the centre that runs what he called the country's first cyber addict treatment programme, did not know how many game-players need help.

"I can only say that the figure is very big," he said, noting that "thousands" of people called to ask about the course run by the Communist Youth Union, which also offers other educational programmes for young people.

"Online game addiction is something like drug addiction," says Nhan, 35, director of the Union's Southern Youth Centre.

Duc, 15, admits that he was addicted.

"When I first started, I played from around five to six hours a day and the time played just increased day by day. Sometimes the longest I played was 10 hours overnight," he said in an interview arranged by the Youth Union.

He said he favoured a game in which teams of four or five players fight each other. With 20,000 dong (1.11 US) in daily breakfast allowance from his mother, Duc said he had enough money to play for at least five hours at Internet cafes.

"No, I did not eat anything," he said.

Betting on the games also helped to fund his addiction.

"Mostly, our team won," said Duc, who failed grade eight because of his gaming.

Duc's symptoms were "not that serious" compared with others who stole, quit school or turned to violence because of their habit, Nhan said.

Duc's mother, a professor at a teachers' college, said her son eventually realised he had a problem. Unlike others, he did not have to be pushed into treatment, she said, adding the 16-day course was worth the fee of about 3.5 million dong.

"We are ready to pay to take back our children," she said.

Duc was one of 20 teenagers in the first course, run on weekends, last November.

Nhan said the organisers studied successful programmes from China and South Korea but came up with their own method which incorporates a type of group therapy, "so they can share with each other about their feelings."

The course also aims to re-establish bonds between the addicts and their families through simple activities like baking a cake or having a barbecue, he said.

"They told us about what are the precious things in life," said Duc.

A second course, which ended in early June, treated about twice as many addicts and incorporated physical training because many game players are very weak, Nhan said.

Five psychologists were among the more than 30 staff treating the addicts on Duc's course, he said.

Among their goals was to expose the youngsters to new activities and ways of expressing themselves.

"Suddenly, they discover that they like football or they like hip hop dancing," Nhan said.

About 90 percent of participants give up online gaming, and those who continue to play are more respectful of their families, he said.

While the government has, in years past, tried to control excessive computer gaming with regulations, Nhan said such efforts will not work.

"We must change the awareness, the behaviour of the children themselves," he said.

The bespectacled Duc says he now dreams of being a pop singer. He already looks the part, with a hairstyle reminiscent of a Japanese manga comic character, a black and white shirt, and a dragon pattern on his trouser leg.

The treatment programme sparked his interest in hip hop, he says, and insists on demonstrating his skills even though there is no music.

Duc twists his body, arms moving slowly, feet sliding. Then he falls to the floor, gets up, and puts his stylised baseball cap on sideways -- a dance of success.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Vietnam cuts list of death penalty crimes: official

HANOI (AFP) — Vietnam on Friday removed rape and several other offences from the list of crimes punishable by death, an official said, but deputies maintained capital punishment for drug trafficking.

"This morning, the national assembly approved some amendments to the criminal code," an official from the National Assembly office told AFP.

He said that, in addition to rape, deputies voted to remove six other offences from the list: awarding of bribes, counterfeiting of money and bonds, hijacking ships and planes, destruction of weapons and military equipment, and appropriation of property through swindling.

Seventy-five percent of deputies in the communist-dominated National Assembly endorsed the amendments to the penal code, which take effect January 1 next year, state media reported.

The amendments were controversial, with lively debate particularly about rape and drug trafficking, according to local media reports of the proceedings, which were closed to foreign reporters.

A draft amendment presented to the deputies had proposed removing eight crimes from the list, including drug trafficking, but as their month-long sitting closed on Friday deputies rejected the move.

Global human rights group Amnesty International said it "very much" welcomed the reduction in the number of capital offences.

"And we hope that this is the first concrete step in a move towards abolition, which the highest levels of the Vietnam government have indicated support for," and which is a worldwide trend, Amnesty's Janice Beanland said from London.

She said Amnesty was disappointed that drug offences were excluded from the changes, despite a recommendation from Vietnam's Ministry of Justice, but was encouraged by the National Assembly's debate of the issue.

More than 90 percent of National Assembly deputies are Communist Party members but the parliament has in recent years become more vocal over the country's major problems.

"I think the National Assembly is doing a good job in not being seen as a rubber stamp... It's a start," an Asian diplomat said before the voting.

Vietnam last reduced the number of death penalty crimes in 1999, but even with the latest amendments the country still has 22 crimes on its statutes that are punishable by death.

Dozens of people each year in Vietnam are sentenced to die by firing squad, mostly for murder and drug trafficking.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Vietnam legislature lowers growth target

HANOI (AFP) — Vietnamese legislators agreed on Friday to lower the country's economic growth target to around five percent in the face of an economic slowdown, the government said.

Ninety percent of deputies in the communist-dominated assembly agreed to lower the target from 6.5 percent, as the government requested, it said.

Production, trade, investment, job creation and revenues have been hit by the slump, leaving most targets unattainable, the government said, quoting a resolution passed by the Assembly at the end of its month-long session Friday.

"Difficulties and challenges remain huge," it said.

When the legislature opened its sitting, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said that because of the downturn state revenues have fallen while spending demands have risen.

The government said deputies approved a maximum budget overspending of seven percent of gross domestic product to allow for expenditure needs.

They also approved an exemption of all personal income tax for the first six months of the year, the government said.

Vietnam's economy grew by 6.18 percent last year, its lowest level in almost a decade, and Hanoi said first-quarter growth was 3.1 percent, the lowest on record.

But Vietnam was one of the few countries with positive growth in the first quarter of the year while the world's major economies battled recession.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.