[Vnbiz] Bush welcomes Vietnam's steps on religious freedom

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080624/pl_nm/vietnam_usa_bush_dc

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Bush welcomes Vietnam's steps on religious freedom

Tue Jun 24, 6:45 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Tuesday welcomed steps by
Vietnam toward permitting greater religious freedom after meeting with the
communist government's prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung.

"We talked about freedom, religious and political freedom, and I told the prime
minister that I thought the strides the government is making towards
religious freedom is noteworthy," Bush told reporters after the Oval Office
meeting.

He did not elaborate. Religion remains under state supervision in the mostly
Buddhist country of 85 million.

A White House spokesman pointed to the State Department's International
Religious Freedom report for 2007 which said new religious congregations
were registered in Vietnam and citizens were allowed to practice religion
more freely.

However, last month the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
urged the State Department to put Vietnam back on a religious
rightsblacklist, two years after it was removed from the list. The
State
Department said such a move was not merited.

Separately, several U.S. companies, including Alcoa Inc and Motorola, signed
deals to invest in Vietnam in a bid to further expand business between the
two countries. U.S. exports to Vietnam grew by close to 73 percent in 2007.

Dung also said the two countries had agreed to begin negotiating a bilateral
investment treaty.

"When concluded, this agreement will provide U.S. investors in Vietnam with
key legal protections and enhanced market access with important direct and
collateral benefits for U.S. exporters and consumers alike," said U.S. Trade
Representative Susan Schwab.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and Missy Ryan; editing by David Storey)


-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC
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