VietNamNet Bridge – A haiku poetry contest with self-selected topics has been launched by the Hoi An City People's Committee.

Participants are required to submit their poems in Vietnamese following haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry. The organising board is giving priority to works that express solidarity between Viet Nam and Japan as well as share the pain of the Japanese victims of the earthquake and tsunami in March.

Poems selected for the final round will be written in a calligraphy style and exhibited at the ninth Hoi An – Japan cultural exchange days in August.

* Programme to honour soldiers at Ha Noi Opera House

An arts programme will take place at 8pm next Thursday at the Ha Noi Opera House dedicating soldiers.

Well-known singers will bring the audience back to a hard but great time in the nation's history, with songs about Vietnamese soldiers and heroic mothers.

The programme is being held to commemorate the 64th year of War Invalids and Martyrs' Day (July 27). It will be broadcast live on VTV2 and VTC5.

* State spends VND14b on exterminators in Hoi An

More than VND14 billion (US$681,000) from the State budget will be spent on exterminating termites and worms in Hoi An's Old Quarter.

The project is being carried out with the aim of preserving and promoting the area's traditional values.

* High school filmmaking contest seek student entries

High school students have been invited to take part in a filmmaking contest, with the theme The Things We Need to Learn.

Entrants, who can be individuals or groups with a maximum of three members, must submit their three-minute film, subtitled in Vietnamese or Japanese, to the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union at 62 Ba Trieu Street, Ha Noi, before August 8.

Winners will have the opportunity to screen their works at the Asian Children's Film Festival in Japan in December.

The competition is being organised by the Embassy of Japan in Viet Nam to help teenage film lovers follow their dreams.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News