Full coverage: Vietnam

05.02.2008 This year the vote goes to My World and Viet Tech founder Nguyen Minh Tri from Vietnam. The runner-up in the annual competition to find the best entrepreneur age 30 or under in the Asia-Pacific region is Saloni Malhotra, founder and CEO of DesiCrew Solutions, an outsourcing business that taps IndiaÂ’s workforce in small towns and rural areas.

31.05.2006 A new cheap laptop trademark produced by an alliance of some local computer hardware companies in Viet Nam has been introduced to public.

31.05.2006 Northern Bac Ninh province has become Viet Nam's first e-government province with the application of electronic monitoring systems at its agencies and organisations.

20.02.2006 VietnamÂ’s communicative signals dictionary for the hard-of-hearing won first prize on Sunday at a regional information and communication technology (ICT) contest held in Thailand.

10.01.2006 Journalists at the government-run Voice of Vietnam (VOV) will get some additional training in February, courtesy of Sweden.

10.06.2005 International Rice Research Institute will be piloting a radio soap opera to educate Vietnamese farmers about the negative environmental impact of use excessive amounts of fertilizer, pesticide and water, and other practices that lead to environmental pollution and degradation.

22.12.2003 A report indicates that recent actions by the Vietnamese government have left online "freedom of expression under threat." The Amnesty International survey cited a number of reasons to be "increasingly concerned about human rights in cyberspace for people in Vietnam, especially the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, information, peaceful assembly and the right to privacy."

28.11.2003 Stakeholders in the field of ICTs in Vietnam came together at a roundtable recently held in capital Hanoi to share views on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and on the shape of the country’s future information society. The roundtable, organised by UNESCO, was part of Vietnam's preparation for the WSIS.

28.08.2003 A Vietnam court has reduced the 13-year prison sentence of cyber dissident Dr Pham Hong Son to five yearsÂ’ detention and three yearsÂ’ house arrest at an appeal hearing. He was charged with espionage after translating an article What is Democracy? from the Website of the United States embassy in Vietnam, and sending it over the Internet to both friends and senior party officials.

26.06.2003 Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is organising an e-awareness seminar for Asian parliamentarians in July 2003. To be held in three phases, at different locations, the series is aiming at sensitising the parliamentarians to the use of ICTs by highlighting policy issues, sharing ideas and experiences and discussing gender issues with regard to access and use.

18.06.2003 A Hanoi court has sentenced physician and cyber dissident, Pham Hong Son, to 13 years in prison followed by three years of house arrest on charges of 'spying'. The judgment has evoked strong reactions from all quarters, which describe it as extremely unfair. Pham was detained by authorities in March 2002 for posting a pro-democracy article on the Internet.

17.06.2003 Pham Hong Son, an online critic has been charged with spying under the Vietnamese penal code. Pham's trial, which takes place this week, comes at a time when five other cyber critics have already been arrested over the past one year.

06.05.2003 Journalists, Webmasters and students who have been jailed by their governments for simply expressing their views via the Internet should be freed immediately, Human Rights Watch has said, while launching an online campaign on Internet arrests.

02.04.2003 The UNDP is launching a series of multi-stakeholder round tables to bring together policy-makers, donors, the civil society and private sector to identify constraints and provide policy options for harnessing digital opportunities in Vietnam.

04.02.2003 The explosion of Internet use in Vietnam has prompted a mixed reaction in Hanoi. While the government plans to invest $100 million in the IT sector in next two years, it also retains tight control over Internet use and content.

28.01.2003 The Human Development Resource Centre in India and UNDP's Asia-Pacific Information Development Programme have jointly launched a multinational study that aims to assess the ways in which ICTs can be harnessed to best address the key critical concerns and sectors of human development. China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam will participate in the study.

06.01.2003 Vietnam has sentenced cyber dissident Nguyen Khac Toan to 12 years in prison after a sham trial on charges of spying, Reporters Without Borders has said. Three other cyber dissidents are in prison in Vietnam.

13.11.2002 Human rights activists around the world were dismayed when Vietnamese Internet activist Li Chi Quang was recently jailed for four years after spending three years in house arrest. The charges against him included "communicating with overseas elements via the Internet."

25.08.2002 Vietnam's communist government is proposing severe penalties for Internet cafe owners who allow customers to visit anti-government or pornographic Websites, officials and state-controlled media have said. Internet cafe owners will also need to obtain special licenses requiring checks into their personal history.

08.08.2002 A multilateral collaboration is proposing the development of ICT programmes that will address the growing problems and incidence of HIV/AIDS in the cross-border areas of the Greater Mekong Sub-region. A regional workshop and consultation recently undertook a situational analysis for the purpose. The Greater Mekong Sub-region constitutes Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.