Hanoi - The Vietnamese Communist Party has suspended an official accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from a Japanese company while in charge of Ho Chi Minh City's largest infrastructure project, a party official said Friday.

The accused official, Huynh Ngoc Si, had already been relieved in late November from his government posts as director of Ho Chi Minh City's East-West Highway Project and deputy director of the city's Department of Transportation.

On Thursday, Si was suspended from his Communist Party posts as well.

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.

Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam - Two teenage girls were severely injured at a coffee festival in the central Vietnamese town of Buon Ma Thuot when a helicopter carrying a giant coffee cup hit a tree, witnesses said Thursday.

The helicopter was carrying a 6-ton stainless steel coffee cup suspended on ropes Wednesday, bearing the logo of the Vinacafe Bienhoa company. Buon Mat Thuot Coffee Festival organizers claimed the 2.3-metre-wide coffee cup was the largest in the world.

"The helicopter was flying too low," said Nguyen Thi Dung, a witness at the scene.

The helicopter's tail rotor clipped a large branch off a tree, which fell on the heads of two 16-year-old students.

Hanoi - Accidental injury is a leading cause of death among children in underdeveloped countries, killing some 2,000 children every day, according to a UN report released Wednesday.

But the report says efforts to reduce injuries among children are underfunded and have been too often ignored.

The report, released by the World Health Organization and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) at a press conference in Hanoi, uses Vietnam as an example of how efforts to prevent injuries in children can be unexpectedly complex.

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.