Hanoi - The Vietnamese government held an unusual press conference Friday to justify its actions in arresting up to six Catholic protestors over a land dispute at a church in Hanoi.

The government presented an eight-minute video compiled from police surveillance footage, dozens of still photos and copies of documents dating back to 1963 to make its case against the land protests, which on Thursday led to the arrests and clashes between police and roughly 100 protesting parishioners outside a Hanoi police station.

Hanoi - Landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 11 people, including three children, and injured four others in northern Vietnam, an official said Friday.

The landslides early Thursday morning killed three people in Hoang Xu Phi district, seven others in Vi Xuyen district and one in Xi Man district in Ha Giang province, 290 kilometres north of Hanoi, according to Vu Toan Thang of the province's disaster department.

"The landslides occurred suddenly, while people were sleeping, after it had been raining for days," Thang said.

Thang said the landslides also destroyed 11 houses and several irrigation works, bridges and roads.

Hanoi - Police in Vietnam launched a criminal investigation into protests over land claimed by a Catholic church parish in Hanoi, claiming protesters illegally broke into the disputed plot, officials said Thursday.

Hundreds of parishioners of the Thai Ha Diocese in Hanoi broke down a 6-metre section of a wall surrounding the 16,000-square-metre plot on August 15, erected two icons of the Virgin Mary and a crucifix, and began praying.

Both the church and the Hanoi government claim ownership of the land. A church official said the church has papers proving the land belongs to it, while the People's Committee of Hanoi said the church granted the land to the city in the early 1960s.

Hanoi  - Vietnam is to investigate cracks that appeared on concrete sections built by a Japanese contractor for an underwater highway tunnel in Ho Chi Minh City, a city official said Monday.

Cracks started to appear in early 2008 on all four of the concrete structures, which were slated for the construction of the new Thu Thiem Tunnel under the Saigon River, the Lao Dong newspaper said.

The newspaper said the cracks may ruin the structures, which cost more than two trillion dong (126 million dollars) to build.

"We don't know yet what caused the cracks," said Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, deputy chairwoman of the city's People's Committee.

Hanoi  - Gary Glitter is returning to Britain only reluctantly after his pending release from Vietnamese prison, the 1970s "glam rock" star's lawyer said Monday.

"He doesn't want to go back to the UK, because he's had so many troubles there already," Le Thanh Kinh said. "He wanted to go to another country, like Singapore or Hong Kong."

Kinh said Glitter, 64, would change planes in either Bangkok or Doha, but the location was being kept secret to discourage press coverage.

Hanoi - Flooding from heavy rains over the past two weeks has severely damaged 15,000 hectares of rice paddies in far northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese press reported Monday.

The Agriculture Ministry had sent an urgent message Sunday to farmers in northern provinces to transplant seedlings to rescue their autumn rice crop if floodwaters recede before August 25, the website VietnamNet. vn reported.

If the fields remain flooded past that date, farmers would have to wait for the winter crop in October, and the government has promised food aid.