Vietnam's hidden wonder

Just after sunset during our second week in Vietnam, my husband and I found ourselves wandering through the side streets behind the battle-scarred emperor's palace in Hue, the former imperial capital in the center of the country. Everything about the setting intrigued us: the pockmarked stone walls that encircled the old fortress, the candlelit shrines displayed along the sidewalks, the cries of street food vendors wheeling carts of savory steamed buns. But we would get to those later.

At that moment, we were focused on finding a moped to rent. We thought riding through the city as the locals do would give us the most comprehensive sense of the place we could manage in our short time there – we had only a day and a half on this the shortest stop of our three-week journey through Vietnam and Cambodia. As was the case almost everywhere we went, we would end up with a much deeper experience than we expected. Every inquiry we made ended in hilarity as people on the street ― most unable to speak English and unfamiliar with the sight of tourists away from the city center ― tried to guess what we might want. Taxi? No. Food? No. Beer? No. Moped. And we would gesture as if we were holding handlebars. "Vroom! Vroom!"

We were in the middle of one such absurd pantomime when a slight, smiling woman appeared from a store. "You are American?" she said in practiced English. "I will help you. Wait. I have to buy candy for my children." Before we knew it, we were in the woman's living room, a modest, tiled box that, like most Vietnamese homes, opened like a storefront to a side street. We sat, dazed, at a diminutive table as she and her husband, who spoke only Vietnamese, served us cold cans of light Vietnamese beer, plates of rice with stir-fried cabbage, and one of the buns we had seen earlier – she flagged down the vendor from her living room window.

Soon her father, a mostly toothless man in his 80s, appeared and began regaling us in broken English with stories of his time serving as a driver for American generals during the Vietnam War, when Hue was not far from the no man's land known as the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ. Her sister arrived with a moped for us to borrow and an invitation to dinner and a dance club the following night. Her 9-year-old son curled up next to my husband and showed off his boyish biceps, then giggled as my husband flexed his own. As the street grew darker, our host changed the plan: She and her father would give us a guided tour that evening. And so we went, still astonished at the turn of events. I rode on the back of her bike as my husband rode with her father – who grew increasingly jovial with each beer he had taken for the road.

There has always been tension between France

Will the economic reforms outlined by Francois Hollande really revive the French economy? Well, they just might. We have had only the barest sketch of the new business-friendly programme and the market response so far has been pretty muted. But the package comes at the right time, for as the measures feed in over the course of the year they will support what already looks like a modest recovery.

There is always tension between the UK and France – socially, culturally and politically, as well as in economic terms. So here, the strong recovery now evident in Britain is being contrasted with the flat performance in France; while there, our deep recession and the reliance on domestic demand to pull us out is contrasted with what was until recently a reasonable recovery.

You can catch some feeling for this in the graph, which shows published GDP figures for the two countries, together with those for the US and Germany. Initially they did much better than we did, but recently we have been closing the gap. On the basis of this, France has had a better overall performance than the UK – though anyone familiar with the data will be aware that the UK official figures are suspect, as they are undercounting the recovery.

However there are two broad strands helping France. One is that the eurozone is at last picking up a little pace. To over-simplify, the fringe economies that have been pulling down the entire edifice are, with one exception, now showing signs of a turnabout. The exception is Italy, where there is really no evidence of growth at all. But Spain, Portugal, Ireland, even Greece, are all increasing their exports, the sign that they have regained some competitiveness. As for Germany – well, it continues to plod forward slowly, pulling along the others with it.

The second strand is that the structure of the French economy is stronger than many outsiders appreciate. There are well-known weaknesses, such as the country's mass car producers, with Peugeot in particularly serious trouble, but less attention has been paid to the country's commercial success stories, which include the luxury sector.

Part of the reason why Paris has been more successful than London at attracting Chinese visitors is the difficult of getting UK visas, whereas a Schengen visa gives the visitors access to nearly all the continental EU, but part is the reputation of up-market French brands. As a result France exports a slightly higher proportion of its total exports to China than the UK, though we are both quite a lot lower than the proportion of exports that go there from the US and Germany.

Indeed, if you look at the overall structure of the French and British economies, they are really very similar. They include a not very big manufacturing sector, massive private sector services, a large public sector, strong overseas investment… and so on. French agriculture is a bit bigger than ours but is still only 3 per cent of GDP. The rhetoric is that we are very different; the reality is that we are much the same.

Picture of uncertainty as China tourism figures tumble

Australian Bureau of Statistics data for the month revealed Chinese arrivals plummeted 9.4 per cent compared with November 2012 -- after years of solid growth. "If this is a trend it is of some concern," said Accor's honorary chairman, David Baffsky, commenting yesterday on the drop in Chinese visitors.

Chinese visitors spent $4.6 billion in the year to September, according to government figures, the second-largest figure after New Zealand tourists. China Eastern Airlines general manager Kathy Zhang said Chinese tourist arrivals had been dropping since October when the Chinese government cracked down on the operators of illegal shopping tours that make up more than half of the tours between China and Australia.

Tourism groups also blamed the new China Tourism Law which is aimed at stamping out cheap Chinese tour operators who offer very low prices and very low quality. Tourism Australia flagged the expected impact on the inbound tourism sector last year.

"We have known about the tourism law for a while now, and always knew that it would have implications, most particularly on the group tour market, when it came into force in October," a Tourism Australia spokesperson China relents on most Western journalists' visas said yesterday. The impact was not unique to the Australian market as New Zealand and Asia reported similar trends in their Chinese arrivals, the spokesperson said.

Destinations such as NSW and Queensland, where commissioned shopping activities are more prevalent, would more likely be affected than Tasmania and South Australia.

TTF chief executive Ken Morrison said the reforms aimed at ensuring Chinese visitors had a quality tourism experience that still represented good value and that they returned home sharing their positive stories of Australia. However, China Southern said its business was not affected by the new laws.

"China Southern continued to record strong growth from China to Australia during 2013, rising by 11 per cent over 2012," China Southern's regional general manager, Henry He, said last night. "We put this down to (three) main factors -- Australia's ongoing popularity as a medium-haul destination for Chinese travellers, continued strong marketing of Australia in China by Tourism Australia and the various state tourism bodies, and continuing enhancements to our own services including a complete fleet upgrade into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth last year."

China relents on most Western journalists' visas

The country is still on track to force at least one New York Times reporter to leave for the second year in a row, however. Austin Ramzy, a journalist who previously worked for Time magazine, has not been given press accreditation or a permanent visa since he joined the Times, according to journalists in Beijing. When his journalist visa expired at the end of December, he was given a temporary visa at the last minute, which does not allow him to report from within China. Once the temporary visa expires at the end of January, he will be forced to leave, after reporting for more than six years from China. All foreign journalists in China and their families are given visas that expire in December each year, a special restriction imposed by the government. Last month, as visas were due to expire for journalists at the New York Times, Bloomberg News and other organisations, the government refused until the last moment to accept their applications for visa renewal. The government's last-minute decision to issue them press credentials and accept visa applications came after a personal appeal by Vice President Joe Biden to China's president.

By Thursday, most reporters at the Times had received visas, and many Bloomberg reporters have received their visas, as well, according to several journalists in Beijing who were not authorised to give their names. The Washington Post, which has two correspondents in China, received a visa for one journalist in December and for the second on Thursday. Visa problems at Bloomberg and the Times occurred after the two organisations published articles about corruption among top Communist Party leaders. The massive wealth acquired by "princelings" - relatives of elite government figures - is considered a sensitive issue by the government. While journalists who are already in China have been able to renew their visas, neither the Times nor Bloomberg has been able to obtain visas for journalists newly hired for positions in China, journalists say.

The Times' bureau chief, Philip Pan, has not been given a journalist visa for China after almost two years of trying. And last year, reporter Chris Buckley was forced out of the country after he left Reuters to work for the Times. Access in China to the websites of Bloomberg and the Times has also been blocked by censors since 2012, when the controversial articles were published. In addition, new Chinese-language websites for the Times have been blocked, along with the Chinese website of the BBC, which has long been blocked. But the Chinese-language websites of some foreign news services that have been sporadically blocked in the past, including those of Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, do not appear to be censored.

Lynchburg Man Trapped In Scary Overseas Court Case

Stranded overseas; the fight for one Lynchburg man to be freed from what was a dream trip that turned into a nasty nightmare. 35 year old Sherman Hughes, a Lynchburg native, and professor of international relations was spending time in the Dominican Republic, trying to set up an exchange program. A few weeks ago his trip took a turn for the worst. Among the palm trees of paradise, it was a fire that sparked it all. Hughes, a young educator, now blamed for a blaze he says he didn't start; being held against his will, with potentially 30 years in jail awaiting him. They actually ended up charging me with the fire and saying that I was the actual culprit of the fire" said Hughes. The damage is obvious inside of Sherman Hughes' condo in the Dominican Republic. He's charged with starting the fire. He faces potentially 30 years behind bars overseas, for a crime he says he didn't commit.

"Their lawyer fabricated the story. He fabricated the story that made it seem that I was the actual arson in this situation and that I deserve to be in jail for 30 years" he said. Hughes was abroad working to create an exchange program with American schools. He went to the beach one day, when he returned, his apartment was near destroyed, his valuables missing. The condo rental company blamed him; he would spend two Why Make Visiting So Hard? days in jail. Hughes says it's all a scheme to have him pay up, "The jail was just a psychological tactic on me because I'm an American, they think I'm very wealthy" he said. His options are to pay $10,000, or fight his charge, and potentially become a convicted criminal. "I knew that Sherman was probably in a situation where he could be in danger" said his father, Abe Hughes.

His parents, Karen and Abe Hughes sit 1400 miles away; helpless in their Lynchburg home. I was floored, being in another country, my son going to jail for something I know he didn't do" said Karen Hughes. The state department and embassy Sherman says have dragged their feet in helping him. He's attempting to raise the money he needs, negotiate with the legal system, and be out before the end of the month. "I don't know if they're going to accept the money I've already raised as enough, but we're going to try and see" he said. So far, Sherman has managed to raise $3,200. His lawyer negotiates with his rental company and the judge on Friday. His tourist Visa expires on the 14th, he has a flight back to the states on that date. It's then he's hoping he'll be home.