Department of Press and Information Sets up Website

The Department of Press and Information (DPI) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has set up DPI’s webpage contained in the MOFA’s website. It contains important speeches/statements as well as interview answers given by leaders of the Party, the Government, the National Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to foreign and national correspondents; statements of the MOFA and by MOFA’s Spokesman; interview answers given by the MOFA’s Spokesman to foreign and national correspondents; and some major information on foreign activities of the Party, the Government, the National Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The webpage is in both Vietnamese and English and is updated daily: http://www.mofa.gov.vn

IBM Helps Develop Information Technology

The US computer company, IBM, pledged to continue investing in Vietnam’s education sector and social work, said Radne Bryant, General Director of IBM Vietnam and Indochina at a seminar on information technology held in Nha Trang on July 24. At the seminar, IBM presented IT solutions to help Vietnam integrate into IT global development. IBM granted US $500,000 to a child education assistance project in Vietnam over the past two years. IBM was the first information technology company to be granted a licence to establish a 100% foreign-invested company in Vietnam in 1996. The company has provided computer-related services and transferred technology and experiences to Vietnam’s IT sector. (VNA)

FPT to Open Second Office in US

Vietnam’s Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT) will open its second office in the United States in October this year. The company has signed a contract worth US $300,000 to develop web-based software and two other contracts worth US $1 million on wireless communication and investment and insurance. FPT is a Vietnamese-State-run information technology business under the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment. (VNA)

Joiner Center Announces Rockefeller Awards

The William Joiner Center and its collaborative institutions and programs at the University of Massachusetts Boston have announced the selection of the Rockefeller Fellows in the Humanities for the academic year 2000-2001 in the initiative “(Re)Constructing Identity and Place in the Vietnamese Diaspora”.

Ms. Michel Janette, a professor of English at Kansas State University, will collect diasporic writings, conduct interviews and write literary essays for her forthcoming work -”Twentieth Century Vietnamese American Narratives in English”. Ms. Caroline Kieu Linh Valverde, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, will use the residency to edit, expand and transform her dissertation on “Elemental Change and Continuity: Vietnamese American Transnational Identities in the New Millennium” into an alternative text that “offers a fresh look at the identity processes and transnational issues of culture, economics and politics in contemporary Vietnamese diasporic history”. Mr. Hoang Ngoc Hien will study the styles, themes, and sources of overseas writings, with particular emphasis on the treatment of love and the attachment to the land. Mr. Nguyen Hue Chi will collect and analyze overseas critical writings on classical Vietnamese culture - its continuity, change, and transformation in the overseas environment.

Contact Kevin Bowen or Nguyen Ba Chung, William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125-3393. Phone 617-287-5850, Fax 617-287-5855, E-mail chung.nguyen@umb.edu. Website http:/omega.cc.umb.edu/~diaspora.

The Vietnam Red Cross has launched a Website

Constructed with the assistance of Vietnam Datacommunication Company, the site is at http://www.vnrc.org.vn