Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ‘submitted resignation from assigned positions, quit job and retired’, say reports
Vietnam’s president has resigned after days of rumours he was about to be sacked as part of an anti-corruption drive that has led to several ministers being fired, according to state media reports.
Nguyen Xuan Phuc has “submitted his resignation from his assigned positions, quit his job and retired”, the VNA said.
Continue reading...Accords negotiated by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in 1973 sealed US exit from war but were soon flouted by North and South Vietnam
The 1973 Nobel peace prize to top US diplomat Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, among the most disputed in the award’s history, was given in the full knowledge the Vietnam war was unlikely to end any time soon, newly released papers show.
Nominations to the Peace prize remain secret for 50 years. On 1 January, documents about the prize awarded to Kissinger and Hanoi’s chief negotiator Tho were made available on request.
Continue reading...Ten-year-old who fell into a narrow open shaft on New Year’s Eve at construction site confirmed dead
A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy who fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pillar at a construction site on New Year’s Eve has been confirmed dead, state media said on Wednesday.
Rescuers spent nearly 100 hours trying to free Ly Hao Nam from the 35-metre-long support pillar driven into the ground, but without success, online newspaper VnExpress cited a local government official as saying.
Continue reading...Ly Hao Nam, 10, fell down a narrow shaft on New Year’s Eve but there was no response from him on Monday
Rescuers in Vietnam were desperately trying to free a 10-year-old boy on Monday, two days after he fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year’s Eve.
Ly Hao Nam was heard crying for help shortly after he fell into the pile on Saturday morning, but rescuers received no response from him on Monday as they lowered a camera down to try to locate his position in the 35-metre long support pillar.
Continue reading...Dredging and landfill work creates 170 hectares of new land in Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by China and others
Vietnam has conducted a major expansion of dredging and landfill work at several of its South China Sea outposts in the second half of this year, signalling an intent to significantly fortify its claims in the disputed waterway.
Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has said on Wednesday the work in the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by China and others, had created roughly 170 hectares (420 acres) of new land and brought the total area Vietnam had reclaimed in the past decade to 220 hectares.
Continue reading...New Earth Theatre said ‘damaging tropes, misogyny and racism’ in show contradict its values
A touring theatre company has pulled a play from the Sheffield Crucible because of the venue’s decision to also stage Miss Saigon, a musical often criticised for its portrayal of the Vietnam war and Vietnamese people.
In a statement, New Earth Theatre, a company of British east and south-east Asian (BESEA) artists and co-producers Storyhouse said: “Miss Saigon remains a very contentious musical since its release over 30 years ago … The damaging tropes, misogyny and racism inherent in the show completely contradict [our] values and beliefs.”
Continue reading...Meeting with Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, is first between leaders of Australia and China since 2019
Anthony Albanese has met the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, at a gala dinner in Cambodia, opening the first leader-to-leader dialogue between the two countries since 2019.
The Australian prime minister’s office confirmed on Sunday the two leaders had a brief exchange after arriving at the dinner in Phnom Penh. The last conversation between the leaders of the two countries occurred when Scott Morrison and Li met in 2019.
Continue reading...Heavy rain and rising waters continue to take a deadly toll in countries including Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam
It has been a drenched 2022 for many parts of the world, at times catastrophically so. A year of disastrous flooding perhaps reached its nadir in Pakistan, where a third of the country was inundated by heavy rainfall from June, killing more than 1,000 people in what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, called an unprecedented natural disaster.
While floods are indeed natural phenomena, a longstanding result of storms, the human-induced climate crisis is amplifying their damage. Rising sea levels, driven by melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of water, are increasingly inundating coastal areas, while warmer temperatures are causing more moisture to accumulate in the atmosphere, which is then released as rain or snow.
Continue reading...Cost-cutting plan to move staff from London to Bangkok will put them at risk of abduction, reporters say
Journalists at the BBC World Service have said plans to move its Vietnamese service from London to Thailand pose a danger to press freedom.
Several reporters at the World Service raised concerns that the Vietnamese state had a history of abducting journalists from Thailand. They also suggested that BBC bosses failed to comprehend that just because both countries were in south-east Asia, it did not mean Vietnamese people were naturally at home in Thailand.
Continue reading...As Hurricane Ian hits the Americas, Noru has been ripping through the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand
Hurricane Ian has been in the headlines but it is not the only storm that has been causing havoc in the past week.
On Tuesday, Typhoon Noru struck south of the city of Da Nang in Vietnam, heading westwards to Thailand. Initially a tropical storm, Noru originated in the Philippine Sea on 23 September, propagating westwards while gathering moisture and strengthening.
Continue reading...Thaw Nandar Aung, AKA Han Lay, feared being sent home after she was stopped at Thai border last week
A Myanmar fashion model who was denied entry to Thailand and feared arrest by the military government in Yangon if she was forced back home from exile has flown to Canada, which she says has granted her asylum.
Thaw Nandar Aung, also known as Han Lay, left on a flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport early on Wednesday, according to Archayon Kraithong, a deputy commissioner of Thailand’s Immigration Bureau. He said he was not authorised to reveal her destination.
Continue reading...Letter from Goldman prize winners aims to block country’s bid to join UN’s human rights council over its jailing of campaigners
More than 50 winners of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize are calling on the UN to reject a bid by Vietnam to join the international organization’s human rights council (UNHRC) amid a crackdown on the country’s climate activists.
In a letter sent on Wednesday, 52 past winners of the Goldman prize for environmentalists have urged the UNHRC to vote against the application from Vietnam, where authorities have this year jailed four climate leaders on disputed tax charges.
Continue reading...Goldman laureates raise concerns over Vietnam’s record on suppressing environmental protest
More than 50 Goldman environmental prize laureates from 41 countries have written to the UN human rights council as it considers admitting Vietnam as a new member.
In the letter, which comes as the council meets for its 51st session (12 September – 7 October), the prize winners raise concerns over Vietnam’s human rights record, in particular the sentencing in June of Nguy Thi Khanh, a fellow Goldman prize winner and Vietnam’s best-known environmental advocate, to two years’ imprisonment for alleged tax evasion.
Continue reading...Only Singapore has imposed sanctions, while others have been receptive to Moscow’s offers of friendship
The head of Myanmar’s military junta beamed with joy as he shook hands with Vladimir Putin this week. “We would call you not just the leader of Russia but a leader of the world because you control and organise stability around the whole world,” Min Aung Hlaing said.
His remarks came as Putin claimed in a defiant speech that European efforts to isolate Russia would fail: instead, he would pivot to Asia.
Continue reading...Campaigners hail landmark decision as a ‘huge paradigm shift’ in attitudes towards sexuality
Being gay, bisexual or transgender should not be considered an illness and cannot be treated, the Vietnam government has announced in “a huge paradigm shift” in LGBTQ+ rights in the country.
The Ministry of Health said medical professionals should treat LGBTQ+ people with respect and ensure they are not discriminated against.
Continue reading...Police name four Vietnamese nationals who died in Greater Manchester in May
A 21-year-old man who arrived in Britain only eight months ago is believed to be among four Vietnamese nationals who died in a mill fire in Greater Manchester in May.
Greater Manchester police (GMP) have released the identities of the four men for the first time after the remains of three victims were recovered from the building in Oldham.
Continue reading...Phuc, pictured in 1972 running from napalm attack during Vietnam war, has final laser treatment in Miami
Phan Thi Kim Phuc, whose photograph became a symbol of the horrors of the Vietnam war, has had her final skin treatment with a burn specialist, 50 years after her village was struck by napalm.
Phuc was photographed aged nine as she ran, unclothed and screaming in agony, after napalm was dropped by a South Vietnamese Skyraider attack aircraft. Nick Ut, the photographer who captured the image in June 1972, drove her away to find medical treatment.
Continue reading...Award-winning founder of green development centre was arrested on tax evasion charges in February
The US government has said it is “deeply concerned” by the sentencing of the Vietnamese environmental advocate and activist Nguy Thi Khanh and called on Vietnam to release her.
Khanh, Vietnam’s first recipient of the prestigious Goldman environmental prize, was reported in February to have been arrested on tax evasion charges. The founder of the Green Innovation and Development Centre was detained in January.
Continue reading...Fugitive Vietnamese state company official Trinh Xuan Thanh was abducted from Berlin park in July 2017
A Vietnamese man has been extradited to Germany to face charges of taking part in a brazen cold war-style kidnapping of an oil executive ordered by Hanoi, prosecutors have said.
The suspect, identified only as Anh TL, was sent to Germany from the Czech Republic after he was detained in Prague last month on the basis of German and European arrest warrants.
Continue reading...Ho Hoang Hung set off with no navigation system after spending two years apart because of Covid restrictions
A Vietnamese man who tried to row 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) from Thailand to India to see his wife has been taken into custody after being rescued off the Thai coast.
Ho Hoang Hung set off from the holiday island of Phuket in an inflatable rubber dinghy, equipped with water and instant noodles but no navigation system, planning to cross the Bay of Bengal not long before the start of cyclone season.
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