Vietnam

It's an image rarely seen in Little Saigon: the red flag of Vietnam. The last time the communist flag was displayed prominently in Orange County's Vietnamese enclave -- when a merchant displayed the banner -- it ignited 53 days of angry street protests. Today, an exhibit commissioned by a Vietnamese American arts group will open in Santa Ana, a display that purposely includes communist symbols, the flag of the fallen country of South Vietnam and artwork that has been banned in Vietnam.

Foreign banks trying to gain a foothold in booming Vietnam face a tough cultural barrier: Most people don't use banks, and many don't trust them. Instead, they stash their money at home and rely on informal lending networks of family and friends for loans. "Banks require too much paperwork, and the charges are too high," said Cao Thi Dong, 40, a housekeeper. "If I borrow from people I know, I can get a much better interest rate."

To U.S. officials, a new pact announced this week with Vietnam, allowing the government to deport illegal immigrants, was almost routine -- a straightforward matter of treating Vietnam like other nations. But for many among the tens of thousands of immigrants in Orange County, the nation's largest Vietnamese population center, nothing about their homeland is routine.

As their craft glides at high speed over the chilly waters behind the massive Haditha Dam, the U.S. sailors aboard Riverine Patrol Boat 13 spot a slow-moving rowboat that seems out of place. Navy Lt. Jeffrey Werby cannot immediately be sure whether the rowboat spells danger. "They could be just scrawny guys trying to make a living or fishing," says Werby, officer in charge of a four-boat squad based at the dam. "Or they could be something."

It is a chilling statistic: 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have been orphaned by AIDS. But the figure alone cannot begin to convey the toll of a pandemic that continues to punish vast swaths of the continent. For that, consider the stories of four children featured in an interactive exhibit -- "World Vision Experience: AIDS" -- at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles.

Angelina Jolie on Thursday adopted a 3-year-old boy she picked up at an orphanage in southern Vietnam earlier in the day, greeting him with a kiss and a hug. Nguyen Van Trung, director of the orphanage, confirmed Thursday that Vietnamese officials had approved the adoption. Jolie was expected to meet with U.S. consular officials, who must review the adoption before a passport can be issued for the boy.

Vietnamese police blocked dissidents' wives from attending a tea at U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine's house. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana), who also was invited, said police had "manhandled" the women. Sanchez said 15 police officers surrounded two women when they arrived Thursday. Marine said Friday that he had complained about the incident to Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem. Marine said he had arranged similar meetings in the past.

A court sentenced a farmworker organizer to five years in prison, making him the seventh Vietnamese political activist jailed for subversion since March. Western political analysts and diplomats have cited Sunday's National Assembly elections and President Nguyen Minh Triet's planned summer visit to the United States to explain the timing of what rights groups have described as a crackdown by the ruling Communist Party.

When federal agents took an elderly Hmong man who relies on heart medication and a cane into custody this week, Vang Pao became the latest anti-Communist leader in Southern California's suburbs to be accused of trying to rekindle a long-ago war.

News travels fast in Orange County's Little Saigon. So do rumors. The hottest one began coursing through the community a couple of months ago. Word was Nguyen Minh Triet would become the first president of Vietnam to visit the United States since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. He would meet President Bush at the White House in late June and travel to California. He might even stop in Little Saigon. This raised the collective blood pressure of a community where the war is still being fought.