The event was co-organised by the Youth Union of the Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Lao National University and the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in Laos.

The General Secretary of the Laos-Vietnam Friendship Association, Saikhong Sainasin, said that the event helped Lao students understand more about the natural beauty of Vietnam, including Ha Long Bay. He also called on Lao students and others to vote for Ha Long Bay as a new world natural wonders.

Mr Sainasin emphasised that the voting is a significant activity to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi and the 450th anniversary of Vientiane, as well as to strengthen friendship and solidarity between the two countries.

Ha Long Bay has been twice recognised by UNESCO as the World Heritage for its natural beauty and geology.

British Council helps improve festival management in Vietnam
 
The British Council will coordinate with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam to organise a training course on festival management in Hanoi from March 17-20.

Twenty-five arts organisers and managers from a number of cities and provinces will attend the course, the first of a three-year capacity-building programme on festival management. The programme aims to strengthen arts management skills for arts promoters and festival organisers in Vietnam, as well as creating links between festivals in the UK and Vietnam.

The programme, which is part of the British Council’s Global project entitled New Work New Audience, includes a series of training workshops on arts festival organisation led by UK festival directors and a series of wrap-around events to showcase UK and Vietnamese arts to audiences of the two countries.

Russian book: decades-long Vietnam-Soviet Union ties
 
Russia has published a book covering the 60 years of comprehensive relations between Vietnam and Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The book was written by two well-known Russian experts in Vietnamese studies - Anatoly Voronin and Evgeny Kobelev - who have been enthusiastically devoted to the two countries’ ties of cooperation in diplomacy and economics over the past six decades.

The book highlighted the concrete assistance the Soviet Union gave Vietnam during its resistance wars against the French and US occupations and later in the process of national construction.

After the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties, the Soviet Union sent the Democratic Republic of Vietnam large quantities of antibiotics for fighting malaria. The famous Katyusha rocket launchers used by the Soviet Union in the Second World War contributed considerably to the Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu.

The Soviet embassy in Hanoi opened just two weeks after Hanoi was liberated from French colonialist rule.

In the following years, the Soviet Union helped Vietnam build a series of nearly 80 power, machine, and fertilizer plants, which are still in operation today.

After 1975, the Soviet Union continued to help Vietnam economically, giving birth to the oil and petrol joint venture Vietsovpetro, which has made Vietnam one of Southeast Asia’s leading countries in oil extraction.

Soviet universities helped train over 30,000 Vietnamese cadres, including 3,500 PhDs. Many former Vietnamese students in the Soviet Union have held or now hold important positions in Vietnam.

Vietnam and Russia are poised to boost their bilateral trade revenues to US$10 billion this year.

Grammy winner to perform in Hanoi
 
The 2010 Grammy Award winner Dobet Gnahore from the Ivory Coast will perform at the Youth Theatre in Hanoi on the evening of March 18.

The singer won the Grammy Award in the category of "Best Alternative Performance for duo performances, with vocals" for the song "Pearls", inspired by Dobet Gnahoré's track "Palea", from her second album "Na Afriki".

The performance is a salute to the 40th anniversary of the Commission des Affaires Francophones on March 20.

Tickets for the show are available at L’espace, 24 Trang Tien Street, Hanoi, priced at VND50,000-70,000.

Vietnam to host world gastronomy festival
 
World gastronomy festival 2010 will be held in the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau from July 21-25.

The festival will also include markets on specialties and dishes from all 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam and more than 80 nations in the world, they added.

With five main facets – gastronomy, culture, festivities, shopping and relaxing--the event is expected to provide visitors opportunities to enjoy traditional dishes and beverages, explore different cultures and take part in a colourful parade with thousands of other people from different countries as well as areas in Vietnam.

The organising board hopes the festival will become an annual traditional event in Vung Tau province and will be recognised as a Guinness world record in terms of the largest space for a gastronomy festival.

Biggest Vietnam-US cultural project underway
 
The Vietnam National Academy of Music (VNAM) and the Southwest Symphony Orchestra is working on a joint cultural project considered the biggest ever in the Vietnam-US relations.

The Thang Long project focuses on creating opportunities for artists to exchange experiences and perform together at the Thang Long Concert Festival. It will also help introduce musical works by Vietnamese and U.S composers to Vietnamese, US and Asian audiences.

The six-week project, starting on March 27, will take place in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Pasadena and Los Angeles.

Under the project, 19 US artists will hold performances and exchanges in Vietnam in March. In return, 19 Vietnamese artists will participate in musical events in the US from April 14 – May 4.

PV