Foreign News
Vietnam nominates public security minister to be new president
Vietnam’s governing Communist Party has nominated the public security minister to be the next president, state media reported, months after his predecessor stepped down as part of a anti-corruption crackdown.
On Saturday, the party’s central committee picked To Lam, 66, the Vietnam News Agency reported.
Lam has been public security minister since 2016 and has taken a hard line on human rights movements in the country.
In March, President Vo Van Thuong resigned after a little more than a year in office due to “violations” and “shortcomings”, the party said.
Thuong was the second president to quit in two years amid an anti-corruption crackdown that has seen several senior politicians fired and top business leaders tried for fraud and corruption.
When he took office, Thuong said he was “determined to fight corruption”, and was believed to be close to party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong – who is seen as the most powerful figure in the country.
Thousands of people, including top officials and senior business leaders, have been caught up the country’s “blazing furnace” campaign against corruption, which has touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics and is led by Trong.
Tran Thanh Man, 61, was also nominated as the new head of Vietnam’s National Assembly, state media said, becoming one of Vietnam’s four most powerful leaders.
Man succeeds Vuong Dinh Hue, who was asked to step down last month because of “violations and shortcomings”.
The nominations have been accepted by the party’s central committee but will be officially voted in by the National Assembly, which is due to meet next week.
All top leadership “must be truly united, truly exemplary, wholehearted and devoted to the common cause”, the central committee said.
In April, a court in Vietnam sentenced a property tycoon to death for her role in a $12.5bn financial fraud case, the country’s largest on record. Truong My Lan chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules at the end of a trial in Ho Chi Minh City.
Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in the continuing anti-corruption drive that started in 2016 and has picked up pace since 2022.
(Aljazeera)
Cissy Houston, renowned gospel singer and the mother of Whitney Houston, died on Monday morning at the age of 91, her family said in a statement.
Houston, a two-time Grammy Award winning singer, died in her New Jersey home while in hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston said.
“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We lost the matriarch of our family,” she said, adding that her mother-in-law was a “strong and towering figure” in the family’s life.
Houston enjoyed a decades-long successful singing career, where she performed alongside superstars like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin.
Born in New Jersey in 1933, Houston was the youngest of eight children. She began singing at a young age after she formed a gospel group with her siblings.
In the 1960s, she formed the R&B group the Sweet Inspirations, which sang backup for big names like Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick. They also performed on Van Morrison’s hit song Brown Eyed Girl.
After finding success with the Sweet Inspirations, Houston embarked on a solo career, where she sang with artists including Chaka Khan, Jimi Hendrix, Beyonce, Paul Simon, and her late daughter Whitney Houston, who died in 2012 at age 48.
Houston won a Grammy Award for her traditional soul gospel album Face to Face in 1997, and again the following year for her album He Leadeth Me.
She also wrote three books, including one commemorating her daughter, called Remembering Whitney: A Mother’s Story of Life, Loss and The Night The Music Stopped.
At the age of 80, Houston sang once again with Aretha Franklin during her performance on The Late Show with David Letterman, where they performed a cover of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep.
Her daughter-in-law, Pat, said that Houston’s “more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts”.
She added that the family is “blessed and grateful that God allowed her to spend so many years with us”.
“May she rest in peace, alongside her daughter, Whitney and granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other cherished family members.”
[BBC]
Ethiopia’s parliament has approved the appointment of a new president to replace the country’s first female head of state, Sahle-Work Zewde.
Taye Astike Selassie, foreign minister since February, has taken up the largely ceremonial role. In Ethiopia, political power lies with the prime minister – currently Abiy Ahmed.
Sahle-Work had reportedly fallen out with Abiy in recent years.
The prime minister’s backing of her initial appointment in 2018 was hailed as a breakthrough for gender equality in Ethiopian politics.
On Saturday, Sahle-Work posted a brief and somewhat cryptic message on X, implying she was unhappy as a result of staying silent for the past year.
Sources close to the 74-year-old told BBC Amharic she had not been happy for some time and was eagerly awaiting the end of her term, due later this month.
During her presidency, she made several calls for peace across the country, though she was criticised for not talking more about the gender-based violence during the two-year civil war in Tigray. But it is believed she was concerned about the current conflicts in Oromia and Amhara regions.
In Amhara, federal forces have been fighting a local militia, which has led to hundreds of deaths and security forces being accused of committing crimes against humanity.
President Taye, 68, an experienced diplomat having served at the UN and in Egypt, is considered close to Abiy. He was sworn in in front of MPs on Monday.
The replacement of Sahle-Work means that Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan is currently Africa’s only female head of state.
[BBC]
The Royal New Zealand Navy has lost its first ship to the sea since World War Two, after one of its vessels ran aground off the coast of Samoa.
HMNZS Manawanui, a specialist diving and ocean imaging ship, came into trouble about one nautical mile from the island of Upolu on Saturday night local time, while conducting a survey of a reef.
It later caught fire before capsizing.
All 75 people on board were evacuated onto lifeboats and rescued early on Sunday, New Zealand’s Defence Force said in a statement.
Officials said the cause of the grounding was unknown and will be investigated.
The incident occurred during a bout of rough and windy weather.
Military officials said rescuers “battled” currents and winds that pushed life rafts and sea boats towards the reefs, and swells made rescue efforts “challenging”.
Officials said the area had not been surveyed since 1987. The vessel’s crew and passengers – including seven scientists and four foreign military personnel – are being accommodated in Samoa before being flown back to New Zealand.
As of 06:40 local time on Sunday (18:40 BST on Saturday), the ship was seen listing heavily with smoke billowing from it. By 09:00 (21:00 BST on Saturday), it was below the surface.
Defence minister Judith Collins described the incident as “a really sad day for the Navy” during a news conference.
She added: “But everyone came through, and that, I have to say, is down to the professionalism [of the crew], the training and their own courage.”
Dave Poole, who witnessed the ship ablaze, told the Reuters news agency: “As we came into the bay we saw the ship and no smoke. Within 15 minutes fire and smoke were visible. It sank shortly after.”
HMNZS Manawanui is the first of New Zealand’s naval vessels to be unintentionally sunk since the nation participated in naval battles during World War Two.
Several other ships have been intentionally sunk in the intervening period for various reasons, including to serve as a diving wreck or an artificial reef.
Military officials said their efforts are now turning towards attempting to salvage the vessel and minimising the environmental impacts of the sinking.
[BBC]
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