Hanoi - Vietnam will closely monitor imported pigs and imported pork products in an effort to prevent an outbreak of swine flu, government officials said Wednesday.

"We will apply several measures, including tightening control over pig imports and pork products," said Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of the Animal Health Department. "We may ban imports if we find swine flu strains."

Hanoi - A court in Vietnam Friday convicted 29 people of stealing dozens of ostriches, porcupines, pythons and other animals from enclosures at animal centres and selling their meat to restaurants.

"They confessed and repented for their crimes, so the court gave them reduced sentences," said Le Thi Huong, chairwoman of the People's Court of the southern province of Dong Nai.

The leader of the group, Huynh Van Khau, was sentenced to five years in prison, while 28 other defendants got one and two years in prison.

Hanoi - Police in Ho Chi Minh City have arrested a stockbroker and two accomplices on charges of kidnapping the man's girlfriend to pay for his stock market losses, a police official said Thursday.

"He lost a lot of money on the stock market, so he kidnapped his girlfriend for ransom to pay his debts," said Mai Van Tan, director of Ho Chi Minh City's Department of Social Order Crime Investigation.

Hanoi - Vietnamese officials Monday said rising numbers of Chinese workers in the country may be costing some Vietnamese jobs.

But some officials and economic experts said there were good reasons for Chinese firms carrying out projects in Vietnam to employ Chinese workers, even though many such workers lack proper visas.

Hanoi - Vietnam's efforts to resettle villagers displaced by the massive Son La hydroelectric project have been slow and inadequate, government officials said Thursday.

Most of the villagers displaced by the dam in the mountainous northern province of Son La belong to ethnic minorities. National Assembly member Ksor Phuoc, an ethnic Jarai who heads the assembly's Committee on Nationalities and its Group for Resettlement and Supervision of the Son La Hydroelectric Plant, said those resettled felt insecure in their new homes.

Hanoi - Vietnam's prime minister cancelled the construction of a luxury hotel inside a popular Hanoi park, local media reported Wednesday. The online newspaper Tien Phong said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Monday ordered Hanoi's People's Committee, the city's governing body, to find another spot for the project and to compensate investors for expenses.

The cancellation came after months of criticism from a broad-based citizens' coalition that said the hotel violated zoning rules and would degrade one of Hanoi's few large parks.