Vietnam's Communist Party was set yesterday to elect its elite Politburo and a new set of leaders who will face the task of reining in corruption while driving the country's economic growth.
The country's ruling regime was likely to see a shake-up in the top leadership, with Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, 72, and President Tran Duc Luong, 68, widely expected to step down to make way for younger leaders.
General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, 65, who was chosen during the last party congress, was expected to retain his post as the head of the Communist Party.
But party insiders have said the positions of president and prime minister -- which must be formally confirmed by the National Assembly -- were likely to be filled by two emerging leaders from the southern part of the country.
The 160 members of the Central Committee, newly elected on Sunday, were scheduled to vote for the 15 to 17 members of the Politburo, the party's innermost circle of leaders, as well as the general secretary later in the day.
State-run newspapers yesterday ran front-page photos of the nearly 1,200 delegates to the congress lining up to drop ballots for committee members into glass boxes. It was the first time that delegates were allowed to nominate candidates for general secretary.
Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, 56, from southern Ca Mau province, has long been seen as Khai's heir apparent for the job of prime minister. A 20-year veteran in the army and a former head of Vietnam's State Bank, he has been in his current post since 1997.
The leading candidate being talked about for the post of president is Nguyen Minh Triet, 64, of southern Binh Duong Province, who has been the Communist Party chief in southern Ho Chi Minh City since 2000.
Triet has widely been seen as a reformer who has nurtured booming growth in the country's economic engine.
The new leadership will be formally announced today at the closing of the eight-day party congress, held once every five years.
If the two southerners are chosen, it would mark the first time that Vietnam has strayed from a longtime formula that kept the top three positions evenly distributed between the north, central and southern parts of the country. Manh is from northern Bac Can Province.
Vietnam's new leaders will face the challenge of keeping the country on its path of economic reforms while uprooting the deep-seated corruption that threatens to derail it.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS