BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific

Former Vietnamese leader dies

Officials in Vietnam say the former Communist Party chief, Nguyen Van Linh, has died at the age of eighty-two.

As a young man he joined the movement opposing French colonial rule and spent two periods in prison.

He entered the Politburo in nineteen-seventy-six and was given responsibility for the south after the reunification of Vietnam.

Linh was dropped from the Politburo six years later, but was soon reinstated, becoming party general secretary in nineteen-eighty-six.

He introduced extensive reforms to revive the country's stagnant economy - a policy known as doi-moi.

Linh stepped down as General Secretary of the Party about seven years ago.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service