HANOI: A US citizen was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in Vietnamese prison for “attempting to overthrow the state”, a lawyer and state media said, as the one-party country squeezes dissent. Vietnamese-American Michael Nguyen was detained in July last year while travelling in the country with two activists, who were
HONG KONG: More than 100 people blocked a Hong Kong government building yesterday in protest against proposed legislation allowing extraditions to mainland China that they want scrapped. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, saying she had heard the protesters “loud and clear”, this month postponed the bill that would allow criminal
TEHRAN: The new economic sanctions that the United States is preparing to impose on Iran will have no “impact”, a spokesman for the Islamic republic’s foreign ministry said yesterday. “We really do not know what (the new sanctions) are and what they want to target anymore, and also do not
BEIJING: China said yesterday it will not allow discussion of Hong Kong at the G20 summit this week even as US President Donald Trump plans to raise the city’s mass protests during his meeting with President Xi Jinping. The semi-autonomous city has been shaken by huge demonstrations this month with
RIYADH: A Yemeni rebel attack on a civilian airport in southern Saudi Arabia killed a Syrian national and wounded 21 other civilians Sunday, a Riyadh-led coalition said, in a new escalation following a series of strikes on the site. The attack on Abha airport, which the coalition said left a
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday his chances of retaining the White House in 2020 would be strengthened if Democratic lawmakers start impeachment proceedings against him. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he thought impeachment was good politics for him, Trump replied, “I think
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s President Sunday called for sweeping reforms to the country’s constitution that he introduced in 2015 to be rolled back, saying they are responsible for political instability. Maithripala Sirisena said the 19th amendment to the constitution — which notably transferred some of the president’s powers to the Prime
JAKARTA: A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck remote eastern Indonesia yesterday, forcing people to flee office buildings as far away as the northern Australian city of Darwin, officials and reports said. The deep and powerful earthquake sent shock waves around the region, with people on the tourist island of Bali as well
HONG KONG: Thousands of protesters converged on Hong Kong’s police headquarters yesterday, demanding the resignation of the city’s pro-Beijing leader and the release of demonstrators arrested during the territory’s worst political crisis in decades. The latest protest comes after the government refused to meet the demands of demonstrators who have
BEIJING: Chinese police have rescued over 1,100 women from Southeast Asia who were “sold” as wives last year, authorities said yesterday. Seventeen children were also saved in the joint operations with police from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand between July and December, the Ministry of Public Security said in