Vietnam state media say a Vietnamese-American pro-democracy activist has been arrested and accused of terrorism for planning a protest to disrupt the April 30 celebrations commemorating the end of the Vietnam War.

State media said Sunday Nguyen Quoc Quan was arrested April 17 after arriving at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

Quan, who has a doctorate degree in mathematics and lives in California, is a member of the U.S.-based Viet Tan Party, which is banned in Vietnam. The Viet Tan website describes its organization as “committed to peaceful, non-violent struggle” for the “democratic transition of Vietnam.”

Viet Tan says the Vietnamese communist government's accusations of terrorism against Quan are “completely fabricated.”

Quan was previously detained in Vietnam in 2007 and held for six months for distributing materials promoting non-violent tactics for civil resistance. He was deported in 2008.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague says he has been discussing a smoldering dispute over sovereignty in the South China Sea during a rare visit to Vietnam.

Hague told reporters Wednesday the dispute — which pits China against several of its neighbors — was just one of several issues in his talks with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

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“In addition, in our strategic dialogue we are now able to discuss – and in our meeting today – regional and global security, including tensions on the Korean peninsula, the global importance of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and our shared objective with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to help reform and progress in Burma.”

Trade issues also were high on the agenda for Hague, the first British foreign secretary to visit Vietnam in 17 years. The German news agency quoted British Ambassador Antony Stokes as saying Hague was interested in opportunities for arms procurement and sales.

British exports to Vietnam rose by 18 percent last year, while Vietnamese exports to Britain were up 37 percent.

Hague travels Thursday to Singapore for a speech of international affairs and then to Brunei for a meeting of foreign ministers.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague says he has been discussing a smoldering dispute over sovereignty in the South China Sea during a rare visit to Vietnam.

Hague told reporters Wednesday the dispute — which pits China against several of its neighbors — was just one of several issues in his talks with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

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“In addition, in our strategic dialogue we are now able to discuss – and in our meeting today – regional and global security, including tensions on the Korean peninsula, the global importance of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and our shared objective with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to help reform and progress in Burma.”

Trade issues also were high on the agenda for Hague, the first British foreign secretary to visit Vietnam in 17 years. The German news agency quoted British Ambassador Anthony Stokes as saying the minister was interested in opportunities for arms procurement and sales.

British exports to Vietnam rose by 18 percent last year, while Vietnamese exports to Britain were up 37 percent.

Hague travels Thursday to Singapore for a speech of international affairs and then to Brunei for a meeting of foreign ministers.

Vietnamese police have detained 20 people involved in a protest outside the capital, Hanoi.

The dispute began Tuesday when hundreds of villagers clashed with as many as 3,000 riot police and other security forces. The villagers say the authorities were engaged in an illegal attempt to evict farmers from their land to make way for a new satellite city.

The villagers camped out Monday night in anticipation of the eviction, which was the culmination of a six-year land dispute in the Hung Yen district of Van Giang.

Officials say police used tear gas and fired warning shots to disperse the crowd, which was reportedly attacking police with rocks and bricks.

Land disputes have become increasingly common in Vietnam, a communist country where all land is owned by the state and usage rights are not always clearly defined.

A Chinese provincial official says the country is planning for tourism development on a set of islands in the South China Sea that are claimed by both China and Vietnam.

The tourism plan, announced by Hainan provincial Vice-Governor Tan Li, comes as tensions continue to rise across Southeast Asia over competing maritime claims to vast areas of the sea thought to be rich in oil and gas reserves.

China and Vietnam lay claim to the cluster of islets, known in China as the Xisha Islands, and elsewhere as the Paracels. To the south, China and five other nations hold competing claims to another area of the South China Sea.

Details of the tourism plan were not reported, and Vietnam has not commented on Tan's announcement. But China's official Xinhua news agency quotes Tan as saying “Xisha must be opened for tourism within this year.” He also said that plans are built around that timetable.

Five nations – the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan – claim parts of the South China Sea, while China insists the entire 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea is an indisputable part of its territory.

The competing claims have triggered recent faceoffs between Chinese naval and Philippine research vessels, and a series of confrontations involving fishing trawlers and naval craft from the competing countries.

China last month arrested 21 Vietnamese fishermen near the Paracels. The Vietnamese were released earlier this week, but only after Beijing said they signed pledges “not to infringe on China's maritime rights, especially fishing in its territorial waters.”

Meanwhile, as regional tensions rise, the U.S. and Philippine militaries are conducting naval drills in the South China Sea. Separately, the U.S. and Vietnamese navies are holding annual salvage and disaster training, while the Chinese and Russian navies conduct maneuvers in the nearby Yellow Sea. China state television says 4,000 Chinese and Russian military personnel are participating in the joint maneuvers, which include live-fire exercises.

All of the countries deny links between the drills and the territorial disputes.

China says it has released 21 Vietnamese fisherman who were detained more than a month ago in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

China's official Xinhua news agency reported Friday the men were released after signing a written guarantee. Xinhua said the guarantee was a pledge “not to infringe on China's maritime rights, especially fishing in its territorial waters.”

The fishermen were detained in early March near the Paracel lslands, which are controlled by China, but claimed by Vietnam.

The release of the fishermen comes as Beijing is locked in a stand-off with the Philippines in another disputed area of the South China Sea.

China has become increasingly assertive about is maritime claims in the potentially energy-rich South China Sea, regularly intercepting foreign fishing boats and oil exploration vessels.

Beijing insists the entire 3.5 million-square-kilometer region is part of its territory. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim parts of the sea.

A new World Bank report says rapid urbanization in Vietnam's main cities is driving home ownership out of reach of most residents and raising the threat of transportation gridlock.

The report, titled Vietnam Urbanization Review, notes that no country has reached high-income status without first becoming urbanized. In Vietnam, it says, urban population growth is about 3.4 percent with the fastest growth in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

But the report says only about 5 percent of residents in those cities can afford the homes now being built by large developers. The World Bank says local governments should pay more attention to developing affordable housing.

The report also warns that road systems in the two cities are not ready to accommodate growing numbers of automobiles as many Vietnamese begin to exchange their motor bikes for cars. The bank suggests that governments get ahead of the shift by developing better public transportation and integrating transit needs into land use planning.

The Vietnam Red Cross has launched a public education campaign to fight the spread of hand, foot and mouth disease in Vietnam.

The organization issued an emergency appeal Tuesday for nearly $1 million in international donations to help fund a campaign aimed at more than 750,000 people in 13 provinces.

The Red Cross says there have been more than 15,000 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease reported in Vietnam so far this year – seven times higher than during the same period in 2011 – and a more virulent strain of the disease has killed 11 children. Bhupinder Tomar, head of the Vietnam Red Cross, tells VOA the most common methods of prevention will reduce the spread of HFMD.

“The campaign is very simple, because this disease is very simple. It's an epidemic that has no medical cure to it, but it can be prevented by just washing your hands, and improving the general hygiene in the population. And so the campaign is largely targeted at caregivers and in schools, where the young kids are out of their homes, and during the day they are living with the caretakers.”

The Red Cross says it will mobilize 2,700 volunteers for door-to-door visits to homes and day-care centers, and it plans community information sessions. Tomar says the Vietnamese government has been pro-active in the public relations effort, sending out notices at its lowest government levels, including in communes and provinces, to increase preventative measures.

The campaign will continue for the next nine months, to cover the two peak periods for HFMD – between April and May, and then in August and September.

A Vietnamese court has sentenced the pastor of a banned Mennonite church to 11 years in prison for undermining national unity.

State media reported Tuesday that Nguyen Cong Chinh was found guilty of writing and spreading material that slandered government authorities and “distorted Vietnam's domestic situation.” It also accused him of having affiliations with anti-government groups.

Specifically, Chinh was reported to have repeatedly complained to outside organizations about Vietnam's alleged mistreatment of religious minorities and lack of religious freedom.

The 43-year-old pastor was arrested last year in the central province of Gia Lai. He was convicted Monday after a brief one-day trial.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Chinh's conviction is “yet another demonstration” that Vietnam disregards freedom of religion.

Analysts say Vietnamese who worship in state-sanctioned churches generally enjoy freedom of worship in communist-controlled Vietnam.

But rights groups say many unregistered minority sects, including Chinh's Mennonite group, continue to face harassment, arrest and imprisonment.