• Vietnamese veterans put faith in Scientology 'detox' for Agent Orange ailments

    Na Son Nguyen / AP

    Patients sit in a sauna room at the Scientology Health Center of the Vietnam Association of Agent Orange Victims in Thai Binh, Vietnam. The center runs a 25-day health program which, as well as massive consumption of vitamins, includes four-hour sauna sessions and a morning run.

    By Chris Brummitt, The Associated Press

    THAI BINH, Vietnam — North Vietnamese army veteran Nguyen Anh Quoc grimaces as he forces down the last of the 35 vitamins he takes each morning. After decades of suffering from illnesses he believes were caused by exposure to Agent Orange, he is putting his faith in a regime advocated by the Church of Scientology.

    "I have to take them," the 62-year-old said at a treatment center established with the help of a Scientology-funded group. "They will clean up my body."

    Na Son Nguyen / AP

    Patients at the center take a dose of 35 vitamins early each morning.

    The center, a converted mushroom farm in northern Vietnam, owes as much to Scientology's desire to expand around the world, away from scandal in the United States, as it does to pressure in Vietnam to try to help aging veterans still suffering from the effects of war.

    Many medical experts regard the treatment — a 25-day vitamin and sauna regime — as junk medicine or even dangerous. But for now at least, it has found fertile ground here. Read the full story.

    Previously on PhotoBlog: The legacy of Agent Orange

    Na Son Nguyen / AP

    Patients get their pulse and blood pressure checked by doctors at the center. While there is no medical evidence that the treatment is effective, Vietnamese authorities are supporting it as a way of relieving some of the suffering of the between 2 and 4 million people suffering from illnesses linked to exposure to Agent Orange during the war.

    Na Son Nguyen / AP

    A patient enters a sauna room.

    Editor's note: Photos taken on March 18, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • US activist released from Vietnam after 9 months

    Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

    Human rights activist Nguyen Quoc Quan (center left), seen with his wife Huong Mai Ngo and their sons Khoa, 20, and Tri, 19, speaks during a press conference after his arrival at the Los Angeles International Airport from Vietnam on Jan. 30, 2013.

    Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

    Nguyen Quoc Quan and his wife Huong Mai Ngo smile during a news conference after his arrival in Los Angeles on Jan. 30, 2013.

    The Associated Press reports — A Vietnamese-American pro-democracy activist returned to the United States on Wednesday night after a nine-month detention on accusations of conspiring to overthrow the communist government of Vietnam.

    Nguyen Quoc Quan smiled broadly as he was greeted by his wife, children and other family members, who bore balloons and placed leis around his neck shortly after 8 p.m. as he exited a plane at Los Angeles International Airport.

    "I love you a lot, and I feel very near you every minute of jail," he told his wife, Huong Mai Ngo, in Vietnamese, then repeated in broken English for reporters. He pulled her to his side. "Now even closer," he said with a smile. Read the full story.

  • Panetta visits Vietnam, exchanges soldiers effects

    Jim Watson / Pool via AFP - Getty Images

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta speaks to USNS Richard E. Byrd Chief Mate Fred Cullen while on a water taxi out to the ship docked at Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay on June 3, 2012. Panetta arrived from Singapore on June 3 to visit a major base used by U.S. forces in the Vietnam War, as Washington seeks to deepen ties with its former enemy to counter a more assertive posture from China. Panetta was to visit the naval cargo ship currently at the port, the USNS Richard E. Byrd, which moves cargo for the naval fleet with a mostly civilian crew.

    Kham / Reuters

    U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reviews the guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony at the Defence Ministry in Hanoi June 4, 2012. Panetta is in Hanoi on a three-day visit to Vietnam from June 3 to 5.

    Jim Watson / Pool via Reuters

    U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vietnam's Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh speaks at a joint news conference in Hanoi June 4, 2012.

     

    Jim Watson / Pool via Reuters

    Vietnam's Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh looks at U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at left during their joint news conference at the Defence Ministry in Hanoi June 4, 2012. Panetta returns the gaze at right.

    Jim Watson / Pool via Reuters

    Reuters reports: The Vietnamese government on Monday gave a boost to the search for missing U.S. servicemen from the Vietnam War, telling visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta they would open three previously closed sites to permit excavation for remains. 

    The announcement came as U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vietnam Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh exchanged long-held artifacts collected during the war -- including letters written by a U.S. soldier who was killed that had been kept and used as propaganda, and a small maroon diary belonging to a Vietnamese soldier. A U.S. service member took the journal back to the U.S.  Full story.

    Photos at right: Top: A picture is seen next to the diary which belonged to Vietnamese soldier Vu Dinh Doan, which was originally taken from Doan's body by U.S. Marine Robert Frazure following Operation Indiana in 1966, on a table at the Defence Ministry in Hanoi June 4, 2012. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta presented the diary to Vietnam's Defence Minister General Phung Quang Thanh during a news conference at the ministry.
    Bottom: The personal letters of U.S. Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty, who was killed during the Vietnam war in 1969, are seen  on a table at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hanoi June 4, 2012. Vietnam's Defence Minister General Phung Quang Thanh presented the letters to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during a news conference at the Defence Ministry. Panetta is in Hanoi on a three-day visit to Vietnam from June 3 to 5.

    More about the letters by Sgt. Flaherty

    Vietnam has given U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta the personal letters of a soldier who was killed in the Vietnam war in 1969. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

  • Reuters

    Rescuers search for victims inside a bus that crashed in Vietnam's central highland province of Daklak on May 18, 2012.

    Vietnam passenger bus crash kills 34, dozens injured

    Reuters reports — A passenger bus plunged into a river in Vietnam's Central Highlands at night killing 34 people and injuring at least 25 others, state-run newspapers reported on Friday.

    The bus slammed into Serepok River on Thursday night while passing a bridge between Daklak and Dak Nong provinces, crushing many to death, the news website VNExpress quoted Daklak's Deputy Chairman Dinh Van Khiet as saying.

    Traffic accidents killed more than 3,100 people nationwide in the first four months of 2012, down 30 percent from the same period last year, Vietnam News cited government data as showing. Read the full story.

  • Farming rice, sugarcane and cassava in Vietnam

    Kham / Reuters

    Farmers cut cassava to dry while harvesting on a field in Hoa Binh province, outside Hanoi on Friday.

    Kham / Reuters

    A farmer dries cassava while harvesting on a field in Hoa Binh province.

    Kham / Reuters

    Farmers load cut sugarcane onto a truck during harvest season in Thanh Hoa province.

    Kham / Reuters

    A farmer loads cut sugarcane onto a truck during harvest season in Thanh Hoa province, 124 miles south of Hanoi on Friday. Vietnam will export 100,000-150,000 tonnes of sugar this year to help offset a domestic surplus as supply is expected to outstrip demand, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.

    Kham / Reuters

    Farmers plant rice on a paddy field in Hoa Binh province.

    See more images related to Vietnam in PhotoBlog. And if you're not familiar with cassava root, you may be familiar with tapioca, one of the products derived from it.

  • Nguyen Hung / VnExpress via AP

    Nguyen Thi Thuong stands by the ruins of her house in Tien Lang District, northern Vietnam, on Feb. 4, 2012. On Jan. 5, Thuong returned home from dropping her kids off at school to find a mob of armed police in riot gear surrounding her farm house.

    Farmer hailed as hero in Vietnam after shooting cops

    The Associated Press reports from HANOI, Vietnam — When local police arrived in riot gear to evict the Vuon clan, family members were ready with homemade land mines and improvised shotguns. In a guerrilla-style ambush reminiscent of a Vietnam War battle, they wounded six officers.

    But instead of drawing public condemnation, last month's rare violence by fish farmers trying to hold onto leased land in the northern port city of Hai Phong has made a national hero of family ringleader Doan Van Vuon and ripped open a debate about heavy-handed seizures by local governments.

    Many Vietnamese see Vuon as a symbol of the country's millions of farmers, many of whom are fed up with losing property or anxious about how new land rights laws will affect them as the government debates 20-year land grants that are due to expire next year. Read the full story.

  • Bears rescued from a bile farm in Vietnam

    There's a market in Asia for the digestive fluids of bears for use in traditional medicine. To feed the demand, thousands of black bears in Vietnam and China are held in small cages and drained of their bile via catheter or a hole in the abdomen.  

    Animals Asia via Reuters

    Veterinarians conduct a health check on a moon bear at a bear bile farm before it was transported to a rescue center in Vietnam's southern Binh Duong province in this handout photo taken November 29 and released on Monday. According to Animals Asia, 14 bears had been rescued from the bear bile trade in a farm in southern Vietnam and transported to a bear rescue centre in Tam Dao, near Hanoi. The bears show significant health problems including missing and maimed limbs, indicating that they may have been captured with bear traps in the wild. One of the four owners, Mr Nguyen Ngoc Tien, decided to give up his share of the farm to Animals Asia. This is the first time in Vietnam that a bear farm has given up a significant number of bears without any demand for compensation. Across Asia, an estimated 14,000 moon bears are being held in captivity on farms and milked for their bile because it's believed to be effective in the practice of traditional Asian medicine despite the availability of inexpensive and effective herbal and synthetic alternatives.

    AP reports: Nineteen bears were recently rescued from such an operation in Vietnam.

    In the 1980s, China began promoting bear farms as a way to discourage poaching.

    The bears were housed in small cages, and the green bitter fluid was sucked from their gall bladders using crude catheters, sometimes creating pus-filled abscesses or internal bile leakage. Many bears die slowly from infections or liver ailments, including cancer.

    The idea caught on in Vietnam and elsewhere as demand grew alongside the region's increasing wealth. Bear bile products are also illegally smuggled into Chinatowns worldwide. An informal survey by the World Society for the Protection of Animals found 75 percent of stores visited in Japan selling bear bile products, followed by 42 percent in South Korea. In the U.S. and Canada, it was about 15 percent.

     

    Animals Asia via Reuters

    A moon bear is seen inside a cage at a bear bile farm before it was transported to a rescue center in Vietnam's southern Binh Duong province.

    Animals Asia via Reuters

    A moon bear is seen inside a cage at a bear bile farm before it was transported to a rescue center in Vietnam's southern Binh Duong province.

    Last year, a farm in northern Vietnam was raided for selling bile to busloads of South Koreans, who watched it being extracted as part of their sightseeing tours. Some of the farms in Vietnam are owned by South Koreans and Taiwanese.

    "They're more organized and bigger. They're run like a business now," said Bendixsen. "It's part of a package tour."

    More information:

  • Refugee in NY reunites with son after 34 years

    Shawn Dowd / AP

    Hao Truong, Henrietta, left, embraces his son, Samart Khumkhaw during his emotion filled arrival Monday night.

    AP reports:

    "At this minute, I feel so excited and happy," Truong said as he stood next to his son at Rochester's airport surrounded by two dozen relatives and friends waving tiny U.S. flags and "Welcome Home" balloons. "We're going to have a big Thanksgiving holiday!

    U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer helped Truong obtain a visitor's visa for his son, a carpenter, to travel alone to Rochester to meet his father's family. During a four-month stay, Khumkhaw also plans to visit his 86-year-old grandfather in Texas.

    Read the full story here.

  • Kham / Reuters

    A man places a stone statue of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, commonly known as the Goddess of Mercy, on the lake at Giang pagoda, outside Hanoi, Vietnam, Nov. 19. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin which means observing the sounds, or cries, of the world, an important belief for Buddhists.

    Statue is placed at Giang pagoda outside Hanoi

    By Katie Cannon, Senior Multimedia Editor

    This is such a quiet picture for what I imagine to be a very noisy event with heavy machinery and a lot of people involved.

  • Memories of Vietnam draw tears 45 years later

    Dave Kaup / Reuters

    Amos Cortez, who fought in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Army in 1966, reacts as he finds the name of one of his five high school friends who were killed in the war, on a travelling version of the Vietnam Memorial at the Welk Resort Theater in Branson, Missouri on Wednesday, Nov. 9.

    By Jonathan Woods, msnbc.com

    As Veterans Day approaches, Americans will pause to pay tribute to those who are serving or have served their country.

    Some will celebrate at parades and ceremonies, others will grieve the loss of a loved one.

    How will you remember?

  • Stepping inside the Vietnam bomb shelter where Joan Baez sang

    Na Son Nguyen / AP

    Staff at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam explore the underground bunker which was discovered beneath the bar in the hotel's garden on Sept. 27.

    AP, file

    In this July 1972 file photo, Jane Fonda is surrounded by soldiers and reporters as she sings an anti-war song near Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

    "If these walls could talk, they would tell a lot of stories," Kai Speth, general manager of the historic Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, told the AP's Mike Ives as they toured the hotel's recently uncovered bomb shelter.

    Joan Baez and Jane Fonda, amongst others, are said to have sheltered in the dingy underground bunker during the so-called Christmas Bombings that rocked parts of Vietnam's capital in December 1972. 

    The North Vietnamese government used the French colonial-era hotel, a stately four-story building in the shadow of Hanoi's Opera House, to house foreign guests during the war.

    Fonda's visit to enemy territory ignited fury at home. She criticized U.S. policy on North Vietnamese radio and earned the nickname "Hanoi Jane" after posing for a photo atop an anti-aircraft gun — an incident that Fonda later said she regretted.

    As American B-52 bombers roared overhead Baez gave an impromptu singing performance in the bunker, according to a contemporary witness. Read the full story.

    Na Son Nguyen / AP

    A staff member at the Metropole Hotel climbs from a Vietnam war underground bunker which was discovered beneath a bar in the hotel's garden on Sept. 27.

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