Vietnam PM lashes out at "slanderous" political blogs

HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has ordered those responsible for three "slanderous" blogs, which have publicised a recent string of high-level corruption scandals, be "seriously punished".

The hugely-popular Vietnamese-language websites Dan Lam Bao - or Citizen Journalists - and Quan Lam Bao have been running a series of articles detailing an intensifying factional battle within the communist country's ruling elite.

They have "slandered the country's leadership, fabricated and distorted information, agitated against the party and the state, and caused suspicion and mistrust in society," a report on the government website said late Wednesday.

The blogs are "villainous ploys of hostile forces," the report, quoting the Prime Minister, said, calling for "serious punishment" for those behind the sites and ordering civil servants not to read them.