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Never underestimate a women. She is apparently not a friend of Steve Bannon. Nor Donald Trump. she has grown up since her family arrival in the United States from Vietnam in 1979. Stephanie is the infant.

she is elected to the Congress, representing Florida’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. in addition she is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the legislative body that oversees the US armed forces.

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Philippines: Vietnamese ship attacked; 1 dead, 6 abducted

TERESA CEROJANO
Associated PressFebruary 20, 2017 https://www.yahoo.com/news/philippines-vietnamese-ship-attacked-1-dead-6-abducted-095408873.html

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Gunmen attacked a Vietnamese cargo ship off the Philippines' southern tip, killing a Vietnamese crewman and abducting six others including the vessel's captain, the Philippine coast guard and the ship's owner said Monday.

Coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo said the Vietnamese coast guard reported that the MV Giang Hai, with 17 crewmen on board, was attacked by pirates Sunday night about 20 miles (31 kilometers) north of Pearl Bank in Tawi-Tawi, the Philippines' southernmost province.

Personnel of the Philippine coast guard, police and marines found the ship had drifted near the province's Baguan Island. Upon boarding the vessel, they found 10 Vietnamese sailors alive and one dead.

Pham Van Hien, head of the safety department of Pham Hai shipping company, the owner of the cargo ship based in Vietnam's northern port city of Hai Phong, said the captain was among those abducted. The attack occurred while the vessel was transporting 4,500 tons of cement from Indonesia to the Philippines, he said.

The gunmen destroyed some of the ship's equipment, but the 10 remaining crew members managed to sail the ship, Hien said.

He said the company had informed the IMB Piracy Reporting Center in Malaysia to seek its help in securing the return of the kidnapped crew members.

Balilo said pursuit operations are underway, but the location of the abducted crewmen and the identity of the attackers remain unknown.

Abu Sayyaf militants and allied gunmen are suspected of being behind previous sea assaults in the area, including an attack last November on another Vietnamese cargo ship whose captain and five crewmen were also kidnapped. They are believed to be held by the militants in the southern province of Sulu, where the kidnappers are holding at least 20 foreign and local hostages in different jungle locations.

An Abu Sayyaf commander known as Albhasy Misaya has been suspected of leading the kidnapping of the Vietnamese crewmen last year, but the military has not monitored any sign so far indicating the Vietnamese abducted late Sunday were also targeted by the Sulu-based militants.

Ransom kidnappings of Malaysian, Indonesian and Vietnamese crewmen have continued despite heightened coastal and border security.

___

Associated Press writer Tran Van Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam, contributed to this report.
 
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By Dale A. Dye
“Good Morning (Again), Vietnam.”
02/20/2017 01:35 pm ET
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PHOTO CREDIT: JOHN RIEDY
(l to r) E.Grimm, R.Lavers, R.Bayer, M.Stokey, F.Wiley, D.Dye, Missing: S.Berntson


An emergency room physician circulated among the survivors. His diagnosis was quick and easy: Terminal culture shock. If the moment had been some jangled parsec in the psychedelic sixties he’d have called it a bad acid trip, but the Doc knew where and when he was even if the shocked Veterans kept claiming it couldn’t be Vietnam, the war-ravaged turbulent country they’d left behind nearly 50 years before.

It started the moment they began to unwind from 17 hours jammed inside a turbo-jet tin can that roared out of Los Angeles, through Hong Kong and into Danang, headquarters of their old 1st Marine Division where most of them served as Combat Correspondents in the bloody gut of the Vietnam War, at various times ranging from 1965 to 1970. Giving them the bored bureaucrat stare at passport control were guys in familiar olive-green uniforms festooned with red collar tabs.

The last place most of them had been so close to uniforms like that was up on the Demilitarized Zone—at places like Con Thien, The Rockpile, and Khe Sanh. Back then, the uniformed Vietnamese were carrying AK-47s rather than rubber immigration stamps.

On the bus ride through throngs of mini-bikes and motor scooters toward a five-star resort, most of the returning vets kept their greying heads on a swivel, unable to completely relax despite constant reassurances that they were safe from ambush. “Traffic still sucks,” commented former Corporal Rick Grimm, one of the Combat Correspondents who often navigated Danang streets choked with cyclos and military convoys, “but at least they now have traffic lanes and some drivers actually pay attention to them.”

Early in the morning of their first full day as Combat Tourists, the loose gaggle of eight Marines and one lonely former dogface who did his time far to the south in the Mekong Delta with the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division, found themselves in full flashback mode as they rode up to Monkey Mountain in a convoy of six salvaged American military Jeeps.

Danang metropolis, or what they could see of it through a blanket of morning fog, spread below them. In deep water harbors and offshore in what the U.S. Navy used to call Dixie Station, there was not a warship in sight. Sampans and a few of what rural Vietnamese fishermen called basket boats bobbed sedately in the South China Sea. Atop the mountain, famed for rampaging hordes of rock apes, they searched in vain for remnants of the AFVN station that used to broadcast from the heights of Monkey Mountain, while retired Captain Dale Dye entertained with impromptu lines from “Good Morning, Vietnam.”

It was all a little too civilian, a little too civilized for the Combat Correspondents who came expecting to see…well, expecting to see at least a remnant or two of the war they fought and wrote about for the Marine Corps. “Don’t these people realize we fought a war here?” asked retired Sergeant Steve Berntson who was badly wounded in Hue during the Tet 1968 fighting. Well, no. Actually, they don’t, as most of the current Vietnamese hustling and bustling through the streets of Danang were born after the war in their country ended.

In desperation, the tour group, sponsored on the return to their battlefields by The Greatest Generations Foundation out of Denver, Colorado, hustled to a local Vietnamese military museum, where a diminutive female—in a crisp uniform and unsoldierly western eye shadow and lip gloss—invited them to view exhibits of captured American (running dog imperialist) and South Vietnamese (puppet army) equipment. Naturally, the lights were out in the sector of the museum that contained information on American forces who were based in or around Danang. And nobody could find the switch to remedy that.


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PHOTO CREDIT: JOHN RIEDY
MIG21 outside the Danang Museum


So, it was time to retire to the hotel bar for stories about the war, the way we remember it. Plans are firm for tomorrow’s expedition south to what little remains of the An Hoa combat base, Go Noi Island, and the infamous Arizona Territory. More from there soonest.
 
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'Iron Skin' police recruits in Vietnam take a hammering and have concrete slabs smashed on their bodies in world's most gruelling training exercises
  • Police recruits in Vietnam have been filmed taking part in training exercises
  • Some of the gruelling tests include having slabs smashed over their bodies
  • Aspiring officers are then told to walk over glass carrying huge bottles of water

Published: 09:12, 21 February 2017 | Updated: 09:18, 21 February 2017

Some of the world's toughest police officers have been filmed taking part in a series of shocking tests - including walking over glass and having giant slabs smashed over their bodies.

The gruelling training exercise, called 'Iron Skin Performance', sees the recruits embark on a number of frightening challenges. But aspiring officers were filmed bravely stepping up and taking everything which was thrown at them at the national Police Training Centre in Hanoi, Vietnam.

One man was seen lying down on a bed of nails before having a giant slab smashed over his body by an officer using a sledgehammer.

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A young man was lying across two chairs when he had four bricks smashed over his body by an officer who was using a sledgehammer

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Two female recruits were filmed having bricks and concrete slabs smashed over their bodies. Other men had piles of bricks placed on their necks before they were smashed during the intense training exercise. During the video, a young man was lying on a bed nails when an officer dropped three knives onto his body.

Some officers had to walk over shards of glass placed on the ground while they were holding giant bottles of water. Others had to carry fellow recruits on their shoulders as they walked across the glass.

3D79C27B00000578-4244542-image-a-10_1487667136868.jpg



3D79C26C00000578-4244542-image-a-11_1487667145883.jpg



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Another recruit was laying on top of a bed of nails and had knives dropped on top of his stomach

Meanwhile, female recruits had concrete bollards smashed over their bodies after they were placed on top of their legs and arms.

Towards the end of the clip, a young man bent a metal bar around his neck to show the watching officers his strength.

If successful, the young men and women will go on to become Vietnamese police officers - who pride themselves on being some of the toughest in the world.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4244542/Recruits-Vietnam-hammering-walking-glass.html#ixzz4ZL0KWuCp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
 
.
'Iron Skin' police recruits in Vietnam take a hammering and have concrete slabs smashed on their bodies in world's most gruelling training exercises
  • Police recruits in Vietnam have been filmed taking part in training exercises
  • Some of the gruelling tests include having slabs smashed over their bodies
  • Aspiring officers are then told to walk over glass carrying huge bottles of water

Published: 09:12, 21 February 2017 | Updated: 09:18, 21 February 2017

Some of the world's toughest police officers have been filmed taking part in a series of shocking tests - including walking over glass and having giant slabs smashed over their bodies.

The gruelling training exercise, called 'Iron Skin Performance', sees the recruits embark on a number of frightening challenges. But aspiring officers were filmed bravely stepping up and taking everything which was thrown at them at the national Police Training Centre in Hanoi, Vietnam.

One man was seen lying down on a bed of nails before having a giant slab smashed over his body by an officer using a sledgehammer.

3D79C27200000578-4244542-image-m-2_1487666894246.jpg



A young man was lying across two chairs when he had four bricks smashed over his body by an officer who was using a sledgehammer

3D79C22E00000578-4244542-image-a-4_1487666947039.jpg



3D79C24600000578-4244542-image-a-6_1487666987204.jpg



Two female recruits were filmed having bricks and concrete slabs smashed over their bodies. Other men had piles of bricks placed on their necks before they were smashed during the intense training exercise. During the video, a young man was lying on a bed nails when an officer dropped three knives onto his body.

Some officers had to walk over shards of glass placed on the ground while they were holding giant bottles of water. Others had to carry fellow recruits on their shoulders as they walked across the glass.

3D79C27B00000578-4244542-image-a-10_1487667136868.jpg



3D79C26C00000578-4244542-image-a-11_1487667145883.jpg



3D79C26300000578-4244542-image-a-12_1487667204209.jpg



Another recruit was laying on top of a bed of nails and had knives dropped on top of his stomach

Meanwhile, female recruits had concrete bollards smashed over their bodies after they were placed on top of their legs and arms.

Towards the end of the clip, a young man bent a metal bar around his neck to show the watching officers his strength.

If successful, the young men and women will go on to become Vietnamese police officers - who pride themselves on being some of the toughest in the world.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4244542/Recruits-Vietnam-hammering-walking-glass.html#ixzz4ZL0KWuCp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

They should stop these circus gimmick. The whole world knows it's surface area and weight distribution.

They should invest more in actual training, ones that are useful. This is embarrassing to say the least.
 
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Vietnam Is Getting Closer To Its Rival China Because Neither Side Trusts Trump
Ralph Jennings ,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphje...he-us-sails-into-a-disputed-sea/#4b096b673349

Less than a year ago Vietnam was counting on U.S. support in building up a defense against China. Vietnam and China have clashed over land for centuries. Now the Asian neighbors bitterly dispute much of the sea closest to their shores, with China taking more control as the world’s No. 2 economy and No. 3 military power. U.S. ex-president Barack Obama, probably hoping to contain China, lifted a decades-old ban on arms salesto Vietnam last year and from 2014 to 2016 his government spent $46 million on upgrading Vietnam’s military.

U.S. President Donald Trump has not followed up with an arms-for-Vietnam policy, and last month he pulled the United States out of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal that was set to benefit Vietnam as a major exporter. Trump’s government sent a U.S. aircraft carrier to the South China Sea Saturday and that’s the one Vietnam disputes with China. America has no claim to the 3.5 million-square-km sea prized for seafood, fuel and shipping lanes. Chinese media call the carrier’s movement a "military threat."

Vietnam isn’t elated either. It doesn’t know what Trump is up to.

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An anti-China activist holds a poster saying '74 (Vietnamese) martyrs live forever' during a rally marking an anniversary of the 1974 naval battle between China and then-South Vietnamese troops over the Paracel Islands, in Hanoi on January 19, 2017. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)

So for now Vietnam is veering closer to China, Asia political observers say. And things keep looking up for the unlikely duo.

China wants to talk one-on-one with all four Southeast Asian countries with competing claims to the sea. That’s its way of appeasing countries after losing a world arbitration court verdict in July. The verdict says China lacks a legal basis to claim 95% of the sea, which stretches from Taiwan southwest to Singapore. Vietnam and China happened to do $66 billion in trade in 2015, forming one of Vietnam’s top import-export relationships as it hopes to grow the economy on added-value manufacturing.

Hanoi still sticks by its claims in the Paracel and Spratly island chains in the sea. A lot of Vietnamese resent China for reclaiming land in those chains and building up a military presence, which analysts say Hanoi will keep trying to counter over the years ahead.

Five of China's holdings in the Paracel chain can hold multiple naval or civilian vessels, the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative says in a Feb. 8 report based on updated findings. Four others include smaller harbors and a fifth is being built on another islet, the think tank said. Five islands support helipads and and a full helicopter base sits on one, it said.

But the Vietnamese government is used to Chinese activity in the island chains. It has kept quiet since the think tank's report came out. China took control over the Paracel chain in a battle with what was then South Vietnam in 1974. Today's Hanoi reportedly made arrests during a demonstration last month on the 43rd anniversary of that takeover.

“The Trump administration's unpredictability introduces new variables into Vietnam's policy considerations for the South China Sea,” said Jonathan Spangler, director of Taipei-based South China Sea Think Tank. “The Vietnamese government should ensure that U.S. policymakers clearly understand Vietnam's importance for maintaining regional stability while continuing to emphasize mutual economic benefits in its discussions with Beijing.”

Compared to the still new U.S. administration, China feels comfortably predictable. It’s got unwavering one-party rule like Vietnam. Senior leaders met in September and again last month to talk about maritime cooperation. The two have exchanged defense ministry visits as well over the past three years, says Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at The University of New South Wales in Australia. They abide by a fishery agreement now, and both sides say oil exploration could follow.

That would be a big shift from the last major incident in 2014, when Vietnamese and Chinese vessels rammed one another after Beijing authorized placement of a Chinese oil rig near the Gulf of Tonkin where both have interests.


“I suspect the greatest uncertainty for Vietnam is not exactly what China is doing,” Thayer says. “It’s what the Trump Administration is doing.”
 
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Russia will Supply Two "Gepard-3.9" Frigates to Vietnam in mid-2017

21 February 2017



A pair of Gepard 3.9 of the Vietnamese Navy (photo : sputnik)

ABU DHABI - RIA Novosti. Russia will supply two "Gepard-3.9" frigates to Vietnam in mid-2017, he told RIA Novosti in the exhibition of arms IDEX-2017 CEO of the company-manufacturer data vehicles Zelenodolsk Shipyard Renat Mistahov.

"In mid-2017 we plan to complete all their trials and transfer to the customer." "The first couple in the framework of the contract we have set in 2011-2012, today we are ready to ship to the customer a couple more" Cheetahs, - he said.

Frigates "Gepard-3.9" are designed to handle air, underwater and surface adversary of surface and underwater situation, setting minefields, maintenance and protection of convoys, guarding and patrolling the state borders, the fight against smuggling, poaching and piracy, as well as assistance ships in distress, search and rescue people.

According to the Zelenodolsk Design Bureau, the frigates "Gepard-3.9" with a displacement of about 2200 tons are equipped with modern missile and artillery, aircraft, anti-submarine weapons and radio, as well as mine and anti-weapons, means of external and internal ship communication, broadcast, visual monitoring and audio communications.

Previously CEO of the Zelenodolsk Shipbuilding Plant named after AM Gorky Renat Mistahov reported that the third "Cheetah" will be sent to Vietnam in August, and the fourth - in September 2016. The first pair of frigates type "Gepard-3.9" was handed over to the Navy in Vietnam in 2011. The parties are currently discussing the construction of a third pair of ships of this type for the Vietnamese Navy.

(RIA Novosti)
 
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The Daily 202
The Daily 202: Trump’s new national security adviser literally wrote the book on Vietnam


By James Hohmann February 21 at 10:29 AM
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Donald Trump congratulates his new National Security Adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, after making the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach yesterday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

With Breanne Deppisch

THE BIG IDEA: When you don’t tell the truth about little things, you cannot be trusted to tell the truth about big things.

As a candidate, Donald Trump attacked Barack Obama dozens of times for playing too much golf. "I'm going to be working for you,” Trump told supporters at a rally last year. “I'm not going to have time to go play golf.”


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Since taking office four weeks ago, Trump has made six trips to the golf course. Sensitive to charges of hypocrisy on this issue, the White House has maneuvered to minimize coverage of these outings and to downplay how much time the president spends on the links.

A White House spokeswoman told multiple reporters on Sunday that Trump had played just “a couple of holes.” Then his partner, Rory McIlroy, told a golfing publication that they’d done a full round of 18. And there were pictures. The spokeswoman then acknowledged that she had misinformed the press corps. Trump, she said, had “intended” to golf just a couple of holes.

H.R. McMaster, whom Trump named yesterday as his new national security adviser, understands how corrosive even half-truths can become. After graduating from West Point and fighting with distinction in Desert Storm, he went to the University of North Carolina to earn a doctorate in history. Using declassified documents and interviews to trace the origins of the quagmire in Vietnam, McMaster became convinced that the generals of that time caved to political pressure and supported a war strategy they knew could never prevail. He turned his dissertation into a book called “Dereliction of Duty,” which came out in 1997, when he was a major.

It has developed a cult following among young officers, and it merits a closer study as he takes on one of the most important jobs in the government.

McMaster’s narrative focused on a handful of key decisions that were made from 1963 to 1965. “The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field,” he concluded. “It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans … realized the country was at war. … The disaster in Vietnam was not the result of impersonal forces but a uniquely human failure, the responsibility for which was shared by President [Lyndon] Johnson and his principal military and civilian advisers. The failings were many and reinforcing: arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and, above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.


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On Aug. 10, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson speaks in the East Room as leaders of Congress stand by his desk for a ceremonial signing of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (John Rous/AP File)


Johnson was focused on winning a full term in 1964 and didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize his chances. After beating Barry Goldwater in a landslide, he feared that a public debate about Vietnam would undermine his Great Society agenda at home. “The president and the secretary of defense deliberately obscured the nature of decisions made and left undefined the limits that they envisioned on the use of force,” McMaster argued.

The book lamented that “the president’s fixation of short-term political goals” prevented the administration from dealing adequately with the complexities of the situation. “LBJ’s advisory system was structured to achieve consensus and to prevent leaks,” he wrote. “Profoundly insecure and distrustful of anyone but his closest civilian advisers, the president viewed [the Joint Chiefs of Staff] with suspicion. When the situation in Vietnam seemed to demand military action, Johnson did not turn to his military advisers to determine how to solve the problem. He turned instead to his civilian advisers to determine how to postpone a decision.”

McMaster portrays Robert McNamara, a former president of the Ford Motor Company who had become secretary of defense, as foolish. He said that he viewed Vietnam “as another business management problem” and “forged ahead oblivious to the human and psychological complexities of war.” “McNamara and his assistants in the Department of Defense were arrogant,” McMaster wrote. “They disparaged military advice because they thought that their intelligence and analytical methods could compensate for their lack of military experience and education. Indeed military experience seemed to them a liability because military officers took too narrow a view and based their advice on antiquated notions of war.”


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Soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division take shelter in a crater caused by a bomb from a B-52 in the Ho Bo Woods, 25 miles northwest of Saigon, on Sept. 29, 1967. (Dang Van Phuoc/AP)


The man in charge on the ground in Vietnam also comes across as far too pliant: Gen. William “Westmoreland’s ‘strategy’ of attrition in South Vietnam was, in essence, the absence of a strategy. The result was military activity (bombing North Vietnam and killing the enemy in South Vietnam) that did not aim to achieve a clearly defined objective,” he argues.

His book goes deep in the weeds on process. McMaster, two decades ago, described National Security Council meetings under Johnson as “pro forma affairs in which the president endeavored to build consensus for decisions already made.” Johnson, in fact, made many of his most fateful choices at Tuesday lunch meetings with three of his civilian advisers. The military brass weren’t invited, which led to communication problems.


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In the Situation Room in 1967, Lyndon Johnson met with Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk. (File)


McMaster referred to the Joint Chiefs during Vietnam as “the five silent men” because they did not challenge the president or alert congressional leaders when Johnson was not being forthcoming about what the escalation in Southeast Asia would actually entail. The chiefs recognized that the Johnson approach was fundamentally flawed, but then they failed to effectively articulate their objections or alternatives. Part of the problem was rivalry between the branches, McMaster explained. The admiral in charge of the Navy used his leverage with the White House to make sure his service retained control of Pacific Command, for example.

A watershed moment came in July 1965. McMaster documented how Johnson had misrepresented the mission of U.S. forces, understated the number of troops that the military had requested and misled Congress about the cost of actions that had already been approved. “The president was lying, and he expected the Chiefs to lie as well or, at least, to withhold the whole truth,” McMaster wrote. “Although the president should not have placed the Chiefs in that position, the flag officers should not have tolerated it when he had.” But tolerate it they did. (You can download the full book on Amazon for $3.)
 
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Russia will Supply Two "Gepard-3.9" Frigates to Vietnam in mid-2017

According to the Zelenodolsk Design Bureau, the frigates "Gepard-3.9" with a displacement of about 2200 tons are equipped with modern missile and artillery, aircraft, anti-submarine weapons and radio, as well as mine and anti-weapons, means of external and internal ship communication, broadcast, visual monitoring and audio communications.
that is new: the Gepard will have anti radiation missiles aboard. what type can be?
 
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Vietnam's accused assassin: From keen singer to killer
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Doan Thi Huong, posted glamour-type photos on her Facebook page called 'Ruby Ruby', and many of her Facebook friends were Koreans.


Malaysia accuses N.Korean embassy in assassination
The estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un died soon afterwards.

Huong was described by police as an "entertainment outlet employee", but they did not give details of where she had been employed or what her immigration status was.

TALENT SHOW

Among the links on another Facebook account, which the family also said featured pictures of Huong, was one to the page of the Vietnam Idol talent show. This account was in the name "Bella Tron Tron Bella" - Chubby Bella. There were no posts after November.

A woman bearing a close resemblance to Huong sang on the show as contestant number 67816 on June 3, 2016.

Facial recognition tools give a match to the pictures released by Malaysian police of Huong in custody.


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The Facebook page belonging to the accused assassin shows her in an 'LOL' shirt.


The contestant gave Nam Dinh as her home town - the same as Huong's according to passport details from the Malaysian police - but her name was given as Dinh Thi Khuyen.

She left the show in the first round.

A member of the Vietnam Idol casting team declined to comment on the appearance and its spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment.

"Can I sing you a song tonight?" she wrote in a Facebook post on March 24 last year. "Reply the fastest and put your phone number in the comment. I will call and sing for you."

Family members mostly work the rice paddies around their home in Nam Dinh, in the Red River Delta southeast of Hanoi.

Huong only visited occasionally, they said, and she was vague about where she had been. She is now 28.

Her father, who fought for the North in the Vietnam War, lost part of his leg in the fighting. Vietnamese authorities had been in touch since the arrest, he said.

"They only say they will support Huong as she is Vietnamese, but did not tell me if she is really a suspect," he told Reuters.

"Even though I am her father I cannot control things that happened when she is out there. I cannot know," said Doan Van Thanh, 63, who works as a security guard in the local market.

Family members said they only found out she was abroad from the media. They had thought she was working in Hanoi.

So far, Vietnamese officials have only confirmed to media that investigations continue and they are in touch with Malaysia.

KOREAN LINK

A South Korean police official said Huong visited the holiday destination of Jeju Island in November for four days and they were looking into what she may have been doing there, but declined to provide further details.

Of 65 friends on the "Ruby Ruby" Facebook page, 27 have Korean names. Fifty six of the friends are men.

One status update on the first Facebook account was posted in the Korean language on March 23 last year, saying "I love you, I miss you", although it did not use words that would be expected for someone familiar with the language.

Most photographs in the accounts are of Huong attending parties, in hotel rooms or portraits. In many she blew kisses to the camera.


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Ms Huong of Vietnam (left) and Indonesian Siti Aisyah are accused of wiping poison on the face of Kim Jong Nam immediately before his death. (Photos via Royal Malaysian Police)


Cosmetics, clothing and fast food shops were among Huong's likes on Facebook. Her place of education was given as Harvard, although the family did not believe that was true.

On Jan 3, Huong posted a picture of a boarding pass from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur. Family members said Huong was last at home in Nam Dinh from Jan 25-29.

Huong also appears to feature in another online video. Posted last April, it is on the channel of a Vietnamese YouTuber who gets women to kiss him in the street.

The woman in that video matches the one in the latest police photo from Malaysia.

In the video she is shown giggling before a kiss with the man on a park bench.

In the photo, she wears no makeup and stares uncertainly towards the camera.
 
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FROM WAR TO PEACE AND NOW PROSPERITY IN RURAL VIETNAM
Three generations of a steel-working dynasty from Bach Ninh province illustrate how the country has changed in the past 80 years

BY KARIM RASLAN

23 FEB 2017

http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2073335/war-peace-and-now-prosperity-rural-vietnam

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Three generations of Tran Van Quy’s family celebrate his traditional Vietnamese longevity ceremony. Handout photo

Now 82 years old, Tran Van Quy speaks haltingly about the past.

“I have lived through two wars – against the French and the Americans. The fighting started when I was only eight years old so I never went to school.

“We suffered more with the French; they killed men and raped women. The Americans were different. We never saw them. They just dropped bombs.

“But the French burnt down our family home. Thirty-two people were killed by the cannons they fired into the village. Kids don’t really know anger but they know fear and I was very afraid.”

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Tran Van Quy, 82, with his wife, Pham Thi Mac, in their home in Da Hoi. They have lived through two wars – against the French and the Americans. Handout photo

Born into a well-to-do, land-owning family, Tran remembers his pre-war childhood as an idyllic time – running through his family’s large home, looking after the water buffaloes and eating rice every day.

“However, when the revolution came our lands were seized. I was very angry at that time. I wrote letters to officials but they never responded. So I became determined to buy back our properties. The first was in 1968, a piece of land close to where our workshop is now.”

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The archway of Da Hoi village located in the old town. Photo: Karim Raslan

Poorly implemented land reform in the mid-1950s was to bring terrible suffering to much of Vietnam’s fertile Red River valley, depressing harvests and wiping out granaries as farmers cut back on planting rice.

Tran shakes his head and his voice almost cracks: “There were no jobs and we were very poor. But at least our village, Da Hoi, had a tradition of metalworking even though the production was slow and laborious. “That’s why I decided to study metallic engineering.”

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The village of Da Hoi has a tradition of metalworking. Steel facilities and products are seen across the small town. Photo: Karim Raslan

Located some 20km from Hanoi, Da Hoi has long been famous for its iron workshops interspersed between rice fields and vegetable farms.

However, over the years and especially after the arrival of the mammoth Samsung manufacturing plant in nearby Bac Ninh, the entire community has boomed. Indeed, the expansion has been so rapid that the village now seems ragged, perpetually cloaked in dust and dirt. Da Hoi’s transformation has come at a steep cost.

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Tran barely acknowledges the pollution as he talks about his business: “We used to ship the final product to Hanoi. We made window bars, steel for construction and bicycle parts. We also made metal grilles for shop houses. Now, because there is so much construction, we’re all very busy.”

Though frail, he remains a determined man, as tough as the steel bars he’s been producing for the past four decades. Tran is extremely proud of his family’s journey back to prosperity, saying: “I have 14 children. They’re all rich and CEOs. The ‘merits’ have been returned to us.” Pausing, he adds: “Yes, the good has come back.”

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Tran Thi Loi in her steel production facility which produces construction materials from iron ingots. The machine beside her cost USD350,000.Photo: Karim Raslan

His daughter, Tran Thi Loi, 45, lacks the raw confidence of her father. With a slightly anxious expression, she came of age amid the deprivations of the 1980s as Vietnam struggled with the inefficiencies of a command economy. Mere survival was already a triumph. Having completed her secondary education – still a rarity in those days – she quickly returned to the family business. “I’ve never had big dreams. I’m used to a tough life. All I’ve ever wanted to do is to put food on the table.”

Electrification in the 1990s was a game-changer. Still, competition with Taiwan and China remain fierce for small Vietnamese businesses. Taiwanese and Chinese products are good, but their prices are high – this is where the Southeast Asian challenger seeks to undercut them.

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Yeen, Mrs Loi’s daughter, studies Spanish at Hanoi University and is the first in her family to attend university. Photo: Karim Raslan

In contrast, Loi’s daughter Yeen, who is 18 years old and studies Spanish at Hanoi University, is as ebullient and determined as her mother is cautious.

Speaking at a trendy coffee shop just outside the campus, Yeen brims with barely contained energy. She also has a smile so broad and infectious it’s almost heart-stopping: “I’m the first in my family to go to university. I’m very privileged and I’ve received a lot of support from my parents. My mother would like me to go home every weekend but I have other dreams. I want to complete my degree and travel. I have an opportunity to spend nine months in Valladolid [Spain] or Santiago de Chile,” she said.

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“But I love going to the workshop and watching my mother managing everything, talking to her clients and the staff. And then there’s the way the metal is cast and recast into shapes. But best of all is when they pour water onto the hot iron and it pops.”

Yet Yeen is also well aware of the suffering her mother and grandfather have endured. “We really feel the melancholy of those generations. Compared to us, they had it much tougher,” she said.

“But I think now is a good time to be in Vietnam – much better than before. I can pursue my dreams and improve myself.”
 
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