Two musicians in Vietnam whose topical songs are popular among overseas Vietnamese were sentenced to prison Tuesday, prompting criticism from the United States and international rights groups.

Typhoon Son Tinh blew the roofs off thousands of homes in northern Vietnam, killing at least seven people and raising its death toll over the past week to at least 32.

Vietnam's prime minister admitted on Monday that his government had made mistakes in its stewardship of the troubled economy, in the latest bout of self-criticism by the secretive Communist regime.

Vietnam's embattled premier has survived a key Communist Party meeting that exposed the regime to rare scrutiny, provoking a backlash Tuesday from the country's increasingly bold political bloggers.

Vietnam issued jail sentences ranging from four to 12 years on Monday to three bloggers who wrote about human rights abuses, corruption and foreign policy, intensifying a crackdown on its citizens' use of Internet to criticize the government.

A battered diary retrieved from the body of a Vietnamese soldier by a U.S. serviceman in 1966 was returned to the author's family Friday in an emotional ceremony.

Vietnam has intensified its repression of journalists and bloggers, using surveillance, imprisonment and the harassment of family members to muzzle critical reporting, media watchdogs said.

Vietnamese police said Tuesday they were pursuing more serious charges against one of the country's top banking tycoons.

A Vietnamese journalist who bribed a police officer as part of an undercover investigation into corruption was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, while the officer who accepted the money got a five-year sentence, state-controlled media reported.

Police have arrested the former director of one of Vietnam's largest banks as part of a widening probe into economic crimes that has spooked investors and added to doubts about the financial stability of a country once seen as an emerging Asian giant.