Hanoi  - On May 28, a currency analyst at Morgan Stanley released a report that hit Vietnam's financial community like a smack in the face.

With Vietnam's inflation and trade deficit soaring, the analyst wrote, its currency was under threat. Twelve-month futures on the Vietnam dong had "gapped" to 23,000 to the dollar, a 50 per cent premium on the government's official rate of 16,600. If Vietnam did not allow rapid depreciation, the dong would likely collapse by year's end.

Morgan Stanley's warning was just one of a rash of gloomy mid-year Vietnam reports. Deutsche Bank predicted a 30 per-cent fall in the dong. Merrill Lynch said Vietnam was experiencing an "inflation shock" that could prompt massive capital flight.

Hanoi - The US dollar rose sharply against the Vietnamese dong Wednesday on the country's black market, as bankers cited fears that the government's economic forecast for 2009 was too rosy.

The government set its reference rate Wednesday at 16,600 dong to the dollar for those selling dollars.

But commercial banks were selling dollars for 16,986 dong each, while gold shops and black market traders were offering 17,430 dong to the dollar.

"The rising dollar stems from people's fears that Vietnam's economic growth for 2009 will be not as good as expected," said Phan Thanh Son, vice chief executive of Tien Phong Bank in Hanoi.

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities turned over four sets of remains believed to be of US soldiers killed decades ago, at a repatriation ceremony Tuesday at Hanoi's international airport.

Dao Xuan Kinh, director of Vietnam's Office for Seeking Missing Persons, said they were believed to be of US pilots shot down over the country between 1965 and
1972.

"We found these four sets of remains in four different provinces in northern Vietnam," Kinh said.

The remains were put on a US Air Force aircraft for transport back to the United States and forensic testing.

Hanoi  - A Hanoi court Monday convicted eight parishioners of a Catholic church of damaging property and causing public disorder.

The eight parishioners, ranging in age from 21 to 63 years, took part in vigils over the past year at Hanoi's Thai Ha church, which is involved in a property dispute with the government.

Protestors erected crosses and shrines, and knocked down a brick wall on land belonging to a state-owned company adjacent to and previously owned by the church.

Hanoi - If Vietnam's farmers are unhappy that their bumper harvests are driving down the price of rice, they should direct their complaints to plant scientist Dr Bui Chi Buu, who won the a prestigious international rice science award on Wednesday.

Buu's work on improving rice strains helped turn Vietnam from an impoverished rice importer to the world's second-largest rice exporter - from basket case to breadbasket.

"Dr Buu has seen the country grow from one of the world's largest rice importers in the 1970s to one of the largest exporters now," said plant breeder David Mackill of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. "There is no doubt that his work has played a large part in Vietnam's rice success."

Hanoi  - The Vietnamese government has announced a fiscal stimulus package to compensate for the effects of the global economic recession, Vietnamese media reported Wednesday, but analysts said it remained unclear how large the package was and whether it would be spent in an effective manner.

The package includes an order to the Finance Ministry to make 1 billion dollars worth of foreign currency reserves available to high-priority development projects, many of which have been delayed by financing problems in recent months as foreign credit has dried up.