Hanoi  - Vietnam's government found buyers for 555 billion dong (33.5 million dollars) in new bonds Friday, out of a planned bond issue of 1 trillion dong.

The Hanoi Stock Exchange announced Friday evening that the government had sold 500 billion dong in three-year bonds at a yield of 17.5 per cent. It sold 55 billion dong in five-year bonds at a yield of 16 per cent.

The sales were seen as a sign of measured confidence in the dong and in the government's efforts to tame the country's runaway inflation, which hit 27 per cent year-on-year in July. This spring, when analysts spoke of a possible currency crisis, government bond issues sometimes failed to find any buyers.

Hanoi - Vietnamese government officials said Wednesday they would punish anyone spreading rumours of upcoming gas price hikes, after such hearsay caused panic buying at Ho Chi Minh City gas stations on Tuesday.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Thanh Bien said his ministry had asked city authorities to investigate what organizations or individuals had started the rumours.

Word that retail gasoline price would rise from 19,000 dong (1.10 dollars) to 25,000 dong per litre started at about 4 pm in Ho Chi Minh City's Binh Tan district and quickly spread to the rest of the city, according to city vice chairwoman Nguyen Thi Hong.

Hanoi - Police in Vietnam arrested four people for smuggling weapons into the country from Cambodia, an official said Tuesday.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Tram, 21, was arrested in the Mekong delta province of An Giang Saturday, carrying two Russian-model K59 handguns and 15 bullets, according to Bui Be Nam, the province's head of the Social Crime Investigation Department.

Tram confessed she had bought the guns and bullets in Cambodia for 2,100 dollars, the official said.

Nam said three other members of the ring, Le Minh Quang, To Viet Hung and To Thanh Hung, were arrested the following day after Tram told police they were involved.

Hanoi  - Police in Vietnam arrested a man on charges of forcing his 7-year-old son to drink rice wine until he died, an official said Monday.

Nguyen Van Tien, 34, was arrested Thursday at his home in Ha Tinh province, 350 kilometres south of Hanoi, said Phan Thanh Giap, director of the district's Police Department.

Hanoi  - North Korean Foreign Minister Park Ui Chun met with his Vietnamese counterpart in Hanoi Saturday, with outside countries hoping Vietnam would voice issues of international concern in its talks with the reclusive, nuclear-armed communist nation.

During an effusive exchange of greetings with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem, Park complimented Vietnam on its "cleanliness."

Hanoi - Police in Vietnam have seized more than 800,000 methamphetamine tablets illegally brought into the country from Laos, local media said Friday.

The pink tablets, weighing nearly 54 kilograms, were seized Tuesday when anti-narcotics forces in Quang Binh province, 488 kilometres south of Hanoi, found four people illegally crossing the border between Vietnam and Laos, the newspaper Nhan Dan reported.

Police arrested Tran Khanh Toan while the other three people escaped through thick mist into Laos, leaving three large bags of methamphetamine pills behind, the newspaper said.