Vietnamese Transport Minister Dao Dinh Binh resigned yesterday amid a corruption scandal involving a crooked state construction company that reportedly skimmed off millions of dollars in government funds, an official confirmed.
Binh sent a letter of resignation yesterday morning to the ruling Communist Party's Politburo, which had been considering whether to suspend him for failing to prevent the scandal. Binh's "self-criticism" had earlier been rejected by Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai.
"Mr. Binh wrote the resignation letter yesterday, and the letter has already been sent this morning," the transport minister's secretary, Bui Nguyen Long, confirmed yesterday.
Binh's deputy minister, Nguyen Viet Tien, was removed from office last week under similar suspicion and is under police investigation.
Binh is the highest-ranking official to be caught up in controversy surrounding the state construction company known as Project Management Unit 18 (PMU18). He is a member of the party's elite 150-member Central Committee, second only to the Politburo.
PMU18 is now believed to have embezzled about US$7 million in state funds meant for road and bridge construction. Much of the money reportedly went to bet on football matches in a widespread gambling ring also involving state officials, police said.
The widening investigation marked the latest in a series of high-level corruption cases that have scandalized Vietnam, rattling the ruling Communist Party as it prepares for its national congress to be held later this month.
PMU18's director, Bui Tien Dung, was arrested in January for investigation on gambling and bribery charges.
At least two Vietnamese journalists covering the scandal have been beaten up or threatened in the case, local media reported.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
RSS