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Location of Vietnam in Indochina
Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about 331,000 square kilometres (128,000 sq mi) and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's fifteenth-most populous country. Vietnam shares land borders with China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City (commonly referred to by its former name, Saigon).

Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta, conquering Champa. During most of the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam was effectively divided into two domains of Đàng Trong and Đàng Ngoài. The Nguyễn—the last imperial dynasty—surrendered to France in 1883. In 1887, its territory was integrated into French Indochina as three separate regions. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the nationalist coalition Viet Minh, led by the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, launched the August Revolution and declared Vietnam's independence in 1945.

Vietnam went through prolonged warfare in the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. As a result of the treaties signed between the Viet Minh and France, Vietnam was also separated into two parts. The Vietnam War began shortly after, between the communist North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and the anti-communist South Vietnam, supported by the United States. Upon the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 1976. An ineffective planned economy, a trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country further. In 1986, the CPV initiated economic and political reforms similar to the Chinese economic reform, transforming the country to a socialist-oriented market economy. The reforms facilitated Vietnamese reintegration into the global economy and politics.

Vietnam is a developing country with a lower-middle-income economy. It has high levels of corruption, censorship, environmental issues and a poor human rights record; the country ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion and ethnic minorities. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice. (Full article...)

Buddhist demonstration, Saigon, 22 May 1966

The Buddhist Uprising of 1966 (Vietnamese: Nổi dậy Phật giáo 1966), or more widely known in Vietnam as the Crisis in Central Vietnam (Vietnamese: Biến động Miền Trung), was a period of civil and military unrest in South Vietnam, largely focused in the I Corps area in the north of the country in central Vietnam. The area is a heartland of Vietnamese Buddhism, and at the time, activist Buddhist monks and civilians were at the forefront of opposition to a series of military juntas that had been ruling the nation, as well as prominently questioning the escalation of the Vietnam War.

During the rule of the Catholic Ngô Đình Diệm, the discrimination against the majority Buddhist population generated the growth of Buddhist institutions as they sought to participate in national politics and gain better treatment. In 1965, after a series of military coups that followed the fall of the Diệm regime in 1963, Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu finally established a stable junta, holding the positions of Prime Minister and figurehead Chief of State respectively. The Kỳ-Thiệu regime was initially almost a feudal system, being more of an alliance of warlords than a state as each corps commander ruled his area as his own fiefdom, handing some of the taxes they collected over to the government in Saigon and keeping the rest for themselves. During that time, suspicion and tension continued between the Buddhist and Catholic factions in Vietnamese society. (Full article...)
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  • ... that Don Luce led a group of Americans to a secret part of a South Vietnamese prison where inmates were kept in squalor in what were called "tiger cages"?
  • ... that Nothgottes, a pilgrimage destination in the Rheingau since the 14th century, is a monastery of Cistercians from Vietnam?
  • ... that copies of the underground anti-war publication Liberated Barracks were found on ships carrying US troops to Vietnam?
  • ... that wushu athlete Nguyễn Thúy Hiền was voted the best Vietnamese female athlete of the 20th century?
  • ... that United States Air Force colonel Virgil K. Meroney flew two combat missions with his son before his son was killed in action in March 1969, during the Vietnam War?
  • ... that Charles Larson became one of the first Americans to teach African literature, after working in Nigeria for the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft?

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Vietnam News

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17 April 2024 –
Vietnam announces a $24 billion rescue for the Sai Gon Joint Stock Commercial Bank, which is currently involved in a fraud case. (Reuters)
11 April 2024 – Capital punishment in Vietnam
A court in Vietnam sentences tycoon Trương Mỹ Lan to death for embezzling $12.46 billion from the Sai Gon Joint Stock Commercial Bank. (DW)
21 March 2024 –
President of Vietnam Võ Văn Thưởng resigns after just over a year in office amid the Communist Party's anti-corruption campaign, making him the shortest-serving president in Vietnamese history. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera) (Bloomberg)

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