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Mộc Châu, Vietnam (AFP) — Don’t look down! Vietnam launched a new attraction for tourists with a head for heights on Friday, with the opening of a glass-bottomed bridge suspended 150 metres (490 feet) above a lush jungle. The Bach Long pedestrian bridge — whose name translates to “white dragon” — in northwest Son La province snakes around dizzying cliff faces before spanning a dramatic valley between two peaks, hitting a total length of […]
BAC NINH, Vietnam (AFP) — A Vietnamese father has spent hundreds of hours and invested thousands converting an old van into a wooden tank for his son — an unusual hobby in a country once ravaged by war. Every weekend, Truong Van Dao trundles what was once a 16-seat minibus around his neighborhood in Bac Ninh province, east of capital Hanoi, with his three-year-old son sat proudly in the turret. The wooden vehicle, based on […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Vietnam announced an end to quarantine for international travellers on Wednesday, as it seeks to restart its tourism industry after two years of strict Covid-19 restrictions. The only virus requirement for visitors will be a negative Covid test, the country’s ministry of health said in a statement. The communist state’s tourism sector was worth up to $32 billion a year before the pandemic, but it ground to a standstill during […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Vietnam will lift coronavirus restrictions on international flights for fully vaccinated passengers from Tuesday, the country’s aviation authority said in a statement. The communist nation has virtually closed itself to the world since March 2020 due to the pandemic, dealing a severe blow to its vital tourism sector. Authorities have slowly eased the curbs in recent months, with visitors trickling in under a bubble arrangement since November. Starting Tuesday (1700 GMT […]
by Allison Jackson, with Alice Philipson in Hong Kong MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — Dominic Lumabi sits on the computer in his Manila bedroom pitting his puffer fish-like cartoon NFT characters against others. But this is not just a game — he is earning cryptocurrency to support his family during the pandemic. The source of his income is Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based play-to-earn game that exploded in popularity in developing nations such as the Philippines as […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) – Vietnam on Wednesday arrested a high-profile environmentalist known for taking on the energy industry on suspicion of tax evasion, state media said. Nguy Thi Khanh, 46, has been one of the few voices in Vietnam prepared to challenge plans to increase coal power to fuel economic development. Her organisation GreenID, Vietnam’s best-known environmental NGO, convinced the government to reduce some of its coal targets and sparked a national conversation about rising […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Scientists discovered more than 200 new species across the greater Mekong region in 2020, according to a WWF report, despite the threats posed by climate change and human activities such as logging. The finds include a new primate, a colourless cavefish and an iridescent snake with an unusual non-overlapping pattern of scales. In all, 224 new species of plants and vertebrate animals were found in the region — which includes Myanmar, […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States on Wednesday laid out its most detailed case yet against Beijing’s “unlawful” claims in the South China Sea, rejecting both the geographic and historic bases for its vast, divisive map. In a 47-page research paper, the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs said China had no basis under international law for claims that have put Beijing on a collision course with […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — A rhino horn trader has been sentenced to 14 years in jail, the longest ever prison term a Vietnamese court has handed down for the crime, a local conservation group said Wednesday. Vietnam is both a consumption hub and popular transit point for the multibillion-dollar trade in animal parts. Authorities have long vowed to stem the flow of illegal wildlife criss-crossing its borders, but experts have warned the black market persists […]
YEN BAI, Vietnam (AFP) — As the morning sun finds its way through the mist over Vietnam’s terraced rice fields, local farmers lead buffalo into the paddies and pass another day without tourists in their hilly homeland. Located 300 km (around 190 miles) northwest of Hanoi, Mu Cang Chai district in northern Yen Bai province had become a hit with foreign and local tourists alike before the coronavirus pandemic. The spectacular terraces — which lie […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States is shipping another four million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, the White House said Tuesday, bringing the total of US doses donated globally to nearly 270 million. A senior administration official told AFP that 4,149,990 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are being sent, bringing the total delivered to Vietnam by the United States to 17,589,110 doses. Shipments began Tuesday. Globally, there have now been 268,472,780 doses sent […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday they had released a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker they seized last month in the Sea of Oman in a tense incident also involving the US Navy. While Iran’s Guards claimed they thwarted an attempt by the US ship to seize the MV Sothys carrying Iranian oil, US defence officials rejected that account and said that Iran seized the tanker and took it into its territorial waters. “The […]
