HANOI (UCAN): The Liberal Publishing House, an independent publisher said government security agencies have forced local banks to block three of its bank accounts.
“We could not make withdrawals from those accounts but our customers and donors can still make deposits into them,” the publisher said in a statement on August 2.
 
It also accused police and plainclothes security officers of entrapping and chasing its shippers to confiscate its publications.
 

HANOI (UCAN): Police in Vietnam have been accused of abducting a Nguyen Nang Tinh, a Catholic advocate for social and charitable activities.
 
His wife, Nguyen Thi Tinh, said he was seized and pushed into a truck by police officers while he and their two sons were on their way to have breakfast on May 29.
 
She said police later asked her father-in-law to fetch the sons from the police station. The eldest son is just seven-years-old.
 

HANOI (UCAN): The Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres in Hanoi, Vietnam, together with members of the laity have asked authorities to stop the illegal construction of a house on Church land.
 
On the night of May 21 workers resumed construction on the controversial 200-square-metre plot next to the sisters’ convent in Hoan Kiem District of Hanoi.
 

HANOI (UCAN): Plans were announced on April 17 to demolish the 134-year-old Cathedral of Mary Queen of the Rosary in the Diocese of Bui Chu, part of the Archdiocese of Hanoi. The wreckers ball is scheduled to bring down the historic structure on May 13, though there have been calls to conserve it rather than resort to redevelopment.
 

HO CHI MINH CITY (UCAN): Representatives acting for more than 100 households in c, Vietnam, who claim their land was illegally seized last month by city authorities, this presented their petition to the Government Inspectorate Committee on Receiving Citizens Complaints in Hanoi in late February.
 
The victims of the alleged land-grab are demanding the government punish local officials and that land seized be returned.
 

DA NANG (UCAN): Officials and police in central Vietnam intervened to stop an annual gathering of more than 260 of veterans of the Vietnam War with disabilities on January 23. 
 
The former soldiers, who fought for South Vietnam over four decades ago, came from five central provinces with many taking buses and arriving hours after midnight.
 

HO CHI MINH CITY (UCAN): More than 112 homes, demolished by state officials from Tan Binh district in Lộc Hưng, near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on January 4 and 8. Residents said they were given little or no warning. Overseas media reports stated that some 300 police took part in the operation that included the use of bulldozers.
 

HANOI (UCAN): Vatican and Vietnamese officials have agreed to upgrade relations through the appointment in the near future of a permanent papal representative to Hanoi. The agreement was reached during an 18 to 20 December 2018 visit by a Vatican delegation led by Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for Relations with States. 
 
The delegation included Archbishop Marek Zalewski, non-resident pontifical representative to Vietnam, as well as senior Vietnamese bishops.
 

HANOI (UCAN): Fifty-eight-year-old Archbishop Joseph Vu Van Thien, was installed as the sixth archbishop of Hanoi at St. Joseph’s Cathedral on December 18.
 
In attendance at the installation Mass were Archbishop Marek Zalewski, non-resident representative of the Vatican to Vietnam, and Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for the Holy See’s Relations with States, who was also visiting for official talks with the government.
 

HANOI (UCAN): Pope Francis named 58-year-old Bishop Joseph Vu Van Thien of Hai Phong, to lead the Archdiocese of Hanoi on November 17.
 
Archbishop Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam, said in a November 18 announcement that Archbishop-elect Thien would succeed 80-year-old Peter Cardinal Nguyen Van Nhon, whose resignation has been accepted by the pope. He was also named apostolic administrator of Hai Phong.