Yearbook 2017
 Vietnam. Vietnam introduced a law in January that would
allow all adult citizens to donate blood once a month. The
reason was that there was anemia in the country's blood
banks.
According to
Countryaah.com, one of the 19 members of the Politburo, Đinh La Thăng,
was dismissed in May for suspicion of malpractice in his
role as chairman of the board of the state oil and gas
company Petrovietnam in 2009-11. As a member of the
Politburo, the country's governing body, Thăng was one of
Vietnam's highest ranking politicians. According to media
reports, he was deposed in connection with a major scare
against corrupt officials in Petrovietnam and its
subsidiaries.
In June, 37-year-old blogger Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh, known
as Me Nam or Mother Mushroom, was sentenced to ten years in
prison for spreading state-hostile propaganda on social
media. Among other things, Me Nam wrote about environmental
problems and social injustices. Almost a month later,
another blogger, 39-year-old Trần Thị Nga, was sentenced to
nine years in prison. The judges were condemned by several
human rights organizations, including the UN agency OHCHR,
who expressed concern that human rights campaigners in
Vietnam are being treated as criminals.
One of the former chairman of the oil company
Petrovietnam, Trịnh Xuân Thanh, was abducted in Germany in
July, where he was seeking asylum. Thanh left Vietnam in
2016 after allegations of causing losses in Petrovietnam of
the equivalent of US $ 150 million, according to Reuters
news agency. A little over a week after the abduction, Thanh
appeared on Vietnamese TV to tell him that he voluntarily
went home to "acknowledge his mistakes and apologize". But
in Germany, it was reported that Thanh was kidnapped by the
Vietnamese intelligence service, which according to German
authorities was contrary to German and international law.
Following the incident, in August, the Czech Republic
arrested and extradited a Vietnamese intelligence agent to
Germany, suspected of participating in the kidnapping of
Thanh.
In a comprehensive trial of Ocean Bank in September, the
bank's CEO Nguyễn Xuân Sơn was sentenced to death for fraud
and abuse of power. That was the case, both in his role as
CEO of Ocean Bank and as former chairman of the board of
Petrovietnam. Ocean Bank founder Ha Van Tham received life
imprisonment. At the same time, a dozen people were
sentenced to prison sentences of up to 22 years. In total,
51 banking and business officials were involved in the trial
of Ocean Bank, which was taken over by the central bank in
2015 after it failed to pay its debts. Since Vietnam got a
new prime minister last year, the Communist Party's fight
against corruption in the country has intensified.
As a result of heavy rains across central and northern
Vietnam, authorities reported in October that 68 people had
been killed. The weather was described as the worst in
years. Only a few weeks later, Vietnam was hit by further
flooding in the tracks of the typhoon Damrey. Over 100
people were reported dead and around 200 injured.
Several of the world's leaders gathered in November for
the APEC Economic Cooperation Summit in the Vietnamese port
city of Đa Năng. In conjunction with the meeting, Vietnam
and ten other countries agreed to continue the TPP free
trade agreement despite the US deciding to step down.
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