Page Two	E-mail PagePrint Version

HANOI - 12/30/03 - The Vietnamese government has said it plans to turn a former American military base in central Vietnam into an international airport in hopes of attracting business and tourism to its white-sand beaches.
 
Officials in Hanoi said work was under way to add passenger reception facilities to the airstrip at what once served as the the Cam Ranh Bay US naval logistics center and air base in the province of Khanh Hoa.
 
"The new airport will be a hub to bring foreign tourists to all central regions as early as April 2004," a spokesman for the Khanh Hoa People's Committee told reporters at a recent press conference in the Vietnamese capital.
 
The US-built air base features a pair of 12,000-foot runways that could accommodate large aircraft including Boeing 747-400s, as well as future generations of larger passenger and cargo aircraft, the official said.
 
Cam Ranh Bay naval base has one of Asia's finest deep-water anchorages offering strategic access to the South China Sea.

In 1979, Hanoi leased the facility to the then-Soviet Union which turned it into the largest overseas Warsaw Pact military base outside the Soviet Union or Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe.
 
In May, 2002 Russia lowered the flag at Cam Ranh after sharp cutbacks in its military budget.
 
Both the US and China have eyed the Cam Ranh facilities, and, last year, Washington suggested an open port arrangement that would allow warships of all nations to make calls.

Go back, or read the latest Page Two stories:

MEXICO LIFTS CALIFORNIA LETTUCE BAN

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – 10/20/06 – The weeks-old ban on California lettuce shipments to Mexico has been lifted after US Department of Agriculture tests for the E. coli bacteria proved negative; California is the country’s leading producer of lettuce with an estimated 70-75% of the total US production of iceberg lettuce and between 80-85% of the leaf lettuce.