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HANOI (Reuters) - Authorities in southern Vietnam have shut down 65 Internet cafes and kiosks after finding hundreds of addresses of pornographic and anti-government websites on their computers, a newspaper has reported.

The communist government recently intensified efforts to control use of the Internet by requiring customers of Internet cafes to register their identities and making cafe owners monitor the sites customers visit.

Last month, authorities set up a special police unit to investigate online crime and curb the distribution of banned material in cyberspace.

The 65 Internet outlets were shut down over the past two weeks in the bustling commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, the city-run Phap Luat (Laws) newspaper said on Friday.

Inspectors were continuing to scour computers in Internet outlets to see what sites customers had been visiting, the newspaper quoted the deputy head of the city's science and technology department, Hoang Le Minh, as saying.

While the number of Internet users in Vietnam has been rising quickly, hitting 5.34 million at the end of July, the government curbs access to the global network through firewalls that block sites deemed inappropriate.

All media in Vietnam are state controlled.

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