Vietnam has its first female president with the appointment of Vietnamese Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh after president Tran Dai Quang died on Friday from a serious illness.
Thinh is to be the acting president until the Vietnamese National Assembly elects a new leader, according to a statement on the government Web site, which quoted National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.
Thinh has been vice president since April 2016.
Photo: AFP
Vietnam is to hold a two-day national mourning period from Sept. 26 to 27 in honor of Quang, the government announced on its Web site on Sunday.
Quang, who was 61, was one of the country’s top four leaders, along with the Communist Party general secretary, the prime minister and the National Assembly chair.
A former minister of public security who supported forging closer ties with the US and boosting the nation’s private sector, Quang last year hosted US President Donald Trump during his first state visit to the communist country.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Under Vietnam’s constitution, the vice president becomes acting president if the president dies in office until the National Assembly chooses a permanent replacement. The parliament’s second one-month session of the year opens on Oct. 22. The government’s economic policies, which include aggressively seeking trade agreements, are expected to continue.
Quang had said that the US and Vietnam were “former enemies, turned friends” during a joint news conference with former US president Barack Obama in Hanoi in 2016.
“President Quang was a great friend of the United States,” Trump said in a statement released by the US Embassy in Hanoi. “I am grateful for his personal commitment to deepening the United States-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese