Vietnam

Some diversions invite comparison more readily than others. Take "The Sapphires," the most chipper film ever set in Vietnam. Already many have taken it, and liked it. If you enjoyed "Strictly Ballroom" or "The Commitments," which is to say if you fell for the slightly pushy charms of those show-business fables (one fantasy Australian, the other Irish, though directed by an Englishman), then chances are you'll go for this true-ish story of an Aborigine singing group entertaining the American troops, enemy fire be damned, in 1968 - like Bob Hope and Raquel Welch, New South Wales division.

An attractive, appealing cast, headed by two immensely likable male leads, propels director Danny Mooney's "Love and Honor," a romantic drama set during the heady summer of 1969. The warm if soapy script by Jim Burnstein and Garrett K. Schiff concerns Dalton (Austin Stowell), an upright Vietnam War soldier who, after landing in Hong Kong for a week of R&R, impulsively grabs a flight to Michigan to reconnect with Jane (Aimee Teegarden), the hometown girlfriend who recently dumped him by mail.

WASHINGTON - Chuck Hagel, who won two Purple Hearts in the Vietnam War, survived the turbulent battle over his nomination to lead the Pentagon, where he will confront two new challenges: potentially dramatic budget cuts and tensions with congressional critics. The Senate voted largely along party lines Tuesday to confirm Hagel as the nation's 24th secretary of Defense, making the former Republican senator from Nebraska the first Vietnam veteran in the post. The 58-41 vote marked the lowest level of support for any successful Cabinet nominee since 2007, when Michael B. Mukasey won 53 votes as George W. Bush's third attorney general.

Nguyen Hoang Vi was knocked from her motorcycle in an accident she believes was no accident. The windows of a car she was riding in were smashed nine months later, gashing her arms, legs and face, she told activists . Last spring her passport was taken away, rights groups say. Then, in December, police arrested and stripped her, saying she was hiding “illegal exhibits” inside her body, she alleged . State nurses forcibly searched her...

Vietnam on Monday sentenced the head of an organization accused of “smearing the current system” and trying to topple the government to life behind bars, state media reported. The official Vietnam News Agency reported that Phan Van Thu headed the “reactionary political organization” that planned to establish a new state “led by Thu and his accomplices,” writing documents that attacked state policies and tried to erode trust in the Communist Party of Vietnam. Twenty-one other people in Bia Son Council for Laws and Public Affairs were handed jail terms ranging from 10 years to 17 years, according to state media.

The political prisoner looked ashen and bony - weary from the months of being held in his native Vietnam - as he was pulled into the tight embrace of his family. Nguyen Quoc Quan, a math professor turned democracy activist, had been detained almost as soon as he arrived in Ho Chi Minh City more than nine months ago, accused of attempting to overthrow the communist government. The government locked the 60-year-old from Garden Grove in a 9-foot-by-9-foot cell, his only company the minder assigned to watch his every move.

An American democracy activist accused of trying to overthrow the Vietnamese government was freed Wednesday and sent home to Southern California to rejoin his family, more than nine months after he was first detained in Saigon. The unexpected decision comes amid a recent rash of charges against dissidents in Vietnam that have triggered global condemnation and raised concerns about the country's increased strategic engagement with the United States. U.S. citizen Nguyen Quoc Quan was arrested last April and faced subversion charges tied to his activism with the banned political party and democracy group Viet Tan. Though the United Nations human rights office and other watchdogs say the banned party is a peaceful organization, Vietnam deems it a terrorist group.

Pham Duy, Vietnam's most prolific songwriter, who captured the strength of his people through years of turbulence and composed dozens of tunes after settling in California, died Sunday in Ho Chi Minh City. He was 91. His death was confirmed by his daughter Thai Hanh. He had been suffering from heart ailments after two operations, according to his family. Known as the "musician of 1,000 songs," Pham was revered by generations of Vietnamese, who memorized his melodies and taught them to their children and grandchildren.

Stanley Karnow, an award-winning author and journalist who combined insightful reporting with personal accounts and historical sweep in books on the Vietnam War and the Philippines and the critically acclaimed public television series that accompanied the works, died Sunday at his home in Potomac, Md. He was 87. Karnow had congestive heart failure and died in his sleep, said son Michael Karnow. A former correspondent for Time, the Washington Post and other publications, Karnow was one of the first U.S. journalists to report from Vietnam in the late 1950s, when American involvement in South Vietnam was still confined to a small group of advisors.

Re "Buried history in Hanoi," Opinion, Jan. 20 My wife and I just returned from Hanoi, my first visit since serving as a battalion surgeon in the Marines during the war. We stayed at the Metropole hotel, which Op-Ed article writer Tom Hayden visited recently, but we didn't enter the bomb shelter. Rather, we were impressed by the resilience of the Vietnamese people, who remember the "American war" but nonetheless look forward. The cities we visited were energetic and growing.