Strangely shifting alliances: Vietnam today, North Korea later? - Donald Kirk

Journalist Donald Kirk, a weekly columnist at WorldTribune.com, has been covering war and peace in Asia since the 1960s.
"I still find it hard to believe, going down roads over which the war ebbed and flowed from rice paddies to dense jungle to rubber plantations, that peace prevails even if the Communist regime rules with a heavy hand, stifling criticism or opposition. The sight of the Vietnamese flag — a gold star on a red field — flying from government buildings still seems a little unimaginable. Well, at least Saigon is still called Saigon, even if it’s only the central area of sprawling Ho Chi Minh City, named after the famed North Vietnamese leader whose obituary I wrote for the Washington Star in September 1969."
Full story: Donald Kirk WorldTribune.com