South Korea's players pose before their semi-final match against Iraq at the 2007 AFC Asian Cup soccer tournament in Kuala Lumpur July 25, 2007. Top row, L-R: Goalkeeper Lee Woon-jae, Kim Sang-sik, Lee Keun-ho, Kim Jin-kyu, Cho Jae-jin and Oh Beom-seok. Bottom row, L-R: Lee Chun-soo, Kim Chi-woo, Choi Sung-kuk, Yeom Ki-hun and Kang Min-soo. REUTERS/Zainal Abd Halim (MALAYSIA) 

South Korea's team pose before the 2007 AFC Asian Cup quarter-final soccer match between South Korea and Iran in Kuala Lumpur July 22, 2007. The players are (back row L-R) Lee Woon-jae, Kim Sang-sik, Lee Dong-gook, Son Dae-ho, Yeom Ki-hun, Kim Jin-kyu, (front row L-R) Lee Chun-soo, Kim Jung-woo, Kim Chi-woo, Oh Beom-seok, and Kang Min-soo. REUTERS/Tim Chong (MALAYSIA) 

A Vietnamese woman explains a map of the Cu Chi tunnel network some 70 km (44 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City April 26, 2005. The 200 km (124 miles) underground tunnel network includes sections for living, dining, meeting and fighting and was used during the resistance against the U.S. during the Vietnam War. On April 30, Vietnam will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the end of the war with the United States and its allies which reunified the country under communist rule. 

A disfigured arm of a Vietnamese boy disabled by Agent Orange strokes another victim in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital, February 25, 2005. [On Monday, a New York court will begin hearing a lawsuit brought by more than 100 Vietnamese seeking compensation and a clean-up of contaminated areas from more than 30 firms, among them Dow Chemical Co and Monsanto Co, the largest makers of Agent Orange. Agent Orange, named after the colour of its containers, is blamed for nightmarish birth defects in Vietnam where babies appeared with two heads or without eyes or arms.] 

A Vietnamese animal health inspector catches birds at a farm in Ho Chi Minh City, February 3, 2005. The 15,000 birds in this farm were slaughtered as Vietnam said on Thursday it has appealed for international help in its desperate battle against a rapidly spreading outbreak of bird flu which has killed 13 people in the past month and may have crossed into Cambodia. REUTERS/Kham Kham/LD 

The U.S. Navy frigate USS Vandegrift (R) sails up Saigon River as it
arrives in Ho Chi Minh city, November 19, 2003. USS Vandegrift, with a
crew of around 200, docked in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam's biggest city
on Wednesday, the first American warship to visit the country since the
end of their bloody conflict nearly 30 years ago. REUTERS/Guang Niu

DW/DL 

Agent Orange victim Tran Minh An, 5, waits for his lunch at the Tu Du Women's Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City November 14, 2000, a few days [before a visit to Vietnam by U.S. President Bill Clinton]. Hanoi says that the U.S. has a moral responsibility to do more to help alleviate the suffering caused by the Vietnam War including the legacy of the toxic defoliant used by U.S. forces that Vietnam blames for causing tens of thousands of birth defects. 

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright places a brick onto the foundation of a new U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City as U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson (L) looks on during a brick-laying ceremony on the former U.S. Embassy grounds June 28. Albright is the first U.S. State Secretary to visit Ho Chi Minh since the Vietnam War.

VIETNAM USA