Hanoi - An abrupt decline in the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam over the past four months has nixed the country's hopes for rapid growth in the sector this year, a senior government official said Tuesday.

"We can't achieve the target we set at the beginning of the year in the context of the global economic crisis," said Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh.

Hanoi  - Despite giving more artistic freedom to filmmakers, Vietnam continues to produce films that bomb at the box office, state-run media reported Saturday.

Of the 17 films Vietnam made last year, not a single one was a commercial hit even though the industry benefits from "substantial" government investment, according to Thanh Nien newspaper.

Instead, moviegoers in Vietnam are flocking to foreign films in record-breaking numbers. Vietnam's relatively staid productions, notably "Hai Binh Builds a Hydropower Plant," are no match for blockbusters such as the James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace."

Hanoi  - A week of heavy rains and floods have left 20 people dead and thousands in central Vietnam without food and water, Vietnam's main disaster agency reported Friday.

"Heavy rains have lessened but the water levels in the rivers remain high," said Dam Vinh Loi, Deputy Head of the Committee for Flood and Storm Control in Binh Dinh province. "We are trying our best to prevent some dikes from breaking."

Loi said about 20,000 people are in need of emergency assistance. The greatest danger now is the threat of water-borne diseases because fresh water resources have been contaminated.

Hanoi  - A tanker carrying diesel fuel and a ship carrying vegetable oil collided, spilling the oils just outside one of Vietnam's busiest ports, a local official said Friday.

The Vietnamese diesel tanker was leaving the port of Saigon and heading back out to sea when the accident happened on Wednesday night, said Dang Hoang Son, the Chief of the Secretariat of Thanh An commune in Ho Chi Minh City.

"We don't know how much diesel fuel spilled into the river at night, but we used a float to surround it and sucked it into another tanker," said Son. "It took about three hours to finish."

Hanoi - The president of India, who is on a four-day state visit to Vietnam, on Thursday condemned the terrorist attacks on Mumbai that left 101 people dead and paralyzed much of India's largest city.

"This mindless attack is the work of those who have no regard for human lives and are pursuing a path of destruction," President Pratibha Devisingh Patil said at a press conference in Hanoi.

Hanoi, Nov. 26 : The Indian governement, presently being represented by President Pratibha Devisingh and her delegation in Vietnam, is likely to take up the Tata Steel project issue with the Vietnamese leadership in Hanoi.

Minister of State for Industry Dr. Ashwani Kumar, during media interaction on Wednesday, said that he would bring to the notice of the Vietnam leadership some of the outstanding issues of Indian industry, including the issue of TATA Steel with respect to the allotment of land in Vietnam''s Ha Tinh province and the need for granting visas to Indian business visitors.