Just like the Nile in Egypt and the Yangtze in China, the Mekong river plays just as big a role in the Southeast Asian region unifying six different countries throughout. It is also no surprise that the region is experiencing rapid economic growth and one main reason is due to the Mekong river itself.

A baby and a five-year-old girl were killed in an explosion east of Vietnam's capital Hanoi early Wednesday that destroyed several houses and wounded at least six other people.Authorities are investigating the cause of the blast in Bac Ninh province's Yen Phong district, which occurred at 4:30 am demolishing buildings and sending debris flying through the air.The explosion completely razed five homes and shattered the windows of surrounding buildings, according to an AFP reporter at

A fugitive Vietnamese intelligence officer wanted in his homeland for allegedly disclosing state secrets has been arrested in Singapore, his lawyers said on Tuesday.Phan Van Anh Vu, who is also a property developer, was detained on Thursday at a border checkpoint as he attempted to cross into Malaysia.

Vietnam jailed 15 people on Wednesday for a foiled terrorism plot to detonate petrol bombs at the country's busiest airport ahead of a national holiday, state media reported. Terrorism attacks are rare in Vietnam, though the conservative communist government routinely jails dissident bloggers and human rights lawyers who are critical of the state.

A former Vietnamese official allegedly kidnapped from Germany will go on trial in Hanoi in January on corruption charges, officials said Wednesday, a high-profile case that could see the ex-oil executive put to death.Vietnam's communist government has jailed or arrested scores of former officials, bankers and state executives this year as part of a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown that some observers say is driven by political infighting.

From mobile phones to furniture, Vietnam’s export boom shows no signs of losing steam, defying a gloomy outlook at the beginning of the year when U.S. President Donald Trump persisted with his trade threats.Furniture maker Xuan Hoa Viet Nam Co. is planning for a 20 percent increase in export orders next year by investing $3 million on equipment to expand production, General Director Le Duy Anh said in an interview.

During the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in November, Philippine President and ASEAN chair, Rodrigo Duterte announced that China has agreed to a binding Code of Conduct – building upon the previous non-binding Declaration of Conduct signed in 2002.The goal, in the words of Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang was to ensure that claimant countries in the South China Sea dispute would be able to ‘bolster mutual understanding and trust.’The progress was hailed as a huge milestone

It could have been a scene from a spy novel.German authorities in August accused Vietnam’s government of abducting the former chairman of state-owned PetroVietnam Construction JSC – who was in Germany seeking asylum – and whisking him back to Hanoi to face corruption charges.Berlin ordered Vietnamese intelligence officers to leave the country, even as Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said Trinh Xuan Thanh chose to surrender.

As China continues to transform disputed territory in the South China Sea into features capable of sustaining air and naval bases, Vietnam is also upgrading areas it occupies.Images taken by DigitalGlobe satellites in September show new facilities including a possible dry dock on West London Reef in the Spratly Island chain, around 680 kilometers southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, that could allow boats to stop for maintenance and patrol for longer periods.While the work is vastly outweighed by w

A Taiwanese steel firm behind a toxic spill that killed tonnes of fish in central Vietnam last year was fined for a second time for illegally burying "harmful" waste, official sources said Sunday.The deadly dump from Formosa's $11 billion steel plant in Ha Tinh province sparked one of the country's worst environmental catastrophes, decimating livelihoods along swathes of coastline and prompting months of rare protests in the authoritarian country.