A Vietnamese blogger who vanished in Thailand earlier this year is being held in a Hanoi prison, his friend and wife confirmed Thursday.
Truong Duy Nhat wrote weekly posts about politics and current affairs for Radio Free Asia (RFA) and last posted about the prospects for change in Vietnam in light of major anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.
All independent media is banned in Vietnam and bloggers, activists and rights lawyers are routinely jailed.
The one-party state has seen an uptick of arrests under a hardline leadership in charge since 2016, with nearly 60 put behind bars last year according to an AFP tally.
Nhat, 55, fled to Thailand in January and applied for refugee status with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, according to RFA.
His employer and family lost contact with him soon after and he has not been heard from since.
The UN said does not comment on individual cases.
Nhat's friend Pham Xuan Nguyen said he visited Hanoi's T-16 jail on Wednesday and received ...

Vietnamese blogger who vanished in Thailand jailed in Hanoi

PTI Automatic

A huge explosion rocked a chemical plant in eastern China on Thursday, killing at least six people and injuring dozens as it knocked down factory buildings and sent a huge plume of smoke skyward, officials and state media said.
The blast occurred at around 2:50 pm (0650 GMT) at a facility run by Tianjiayi Chemical in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, city officials said on their official Twitter-like Weibo account.
It is the latest industrial incident to rock China in recent years.
Around the time of the explosion, China's earthquake administration reported a 2.2-magnitude tremor in Lianyungang, a city near the Yancheng blast.
Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed windows of nearby houses blown out from the force of the explosion.
An aerial view of the blast area showed a large swath of destruction in an industrial park, where multiple fires still raged.
A CCTV reporter on the scene said that toxic fumes were coming from the blast site.
At least six people were killed and 30 seriously .

Six dead, dozens injured as blast rocks China chemical plant

Denmark's Joachim Persson has been banned for 18 months for offences linked to betting and match-fixing, the Badminton World Federation said on Thursday.
The 36-year-old former world number six was found guilty of "four violations of the code of conduct in relation to betting, wagering and irregular match results".
The violations include failing to disclose details of an approach and not cooperating fully with investigations conducted by the BWF.
Persson was also ordered to pay costs of $4,500, the world governing body said in a statement.
Last May, two Malaysian badminton players received career-ending bans of 20 and 15 years respectively after being found guilty of corruption and match-fixing.

Former top-10 badminton player banned over 'irregular results'

The number of people in Zimbabwe affected by a devastating cyclone and flooding has jumped to 200,000, with most of the damage occurring near the Mozambique border, the UN said Thursday.
The initial estimate of those hit in Zimbabwe was 15,000 but World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Herve Verhoosel told reporters in Geneva that the numbers had surged following an overnight assessment.
The situation in Zimbabwe's eastern district of Chimanimani on the Mozambique border "is very bad," Verhoosel said.
"Some 90 per cent of the district has been significantly damaged," he added.
Zimbabwe's state broadcaster ZBC has also raised the death toll to 139, up from 100 on Wednesday.
Five days after tropical cyclone Idai cut a swathe through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, the full extent of the devastation is not yet clear.
In hardest-hit Mozambique, an estimated 400,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN.
As of now, the number of people in Mozambique affected by the storm and ...

200,000 people in Zimbabwe affected by floods, cyclone: UN

Police arrested several people in Kazakhstan's capital Thursday protesting a decision to rename the city in honour of Nursultan Nazarbayev who stepped down as president after three decades in office.
Career diplomat and political loyalist Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was sworn into office Wednesday less than 24 hours after Nursultan Nazarbayev, the only leader an independent Kazakhstan had ever known, suddenly announced he was stepping down.
Tokayev immediately proposed changing the name of the Central Asian nation's capital from Astana to Nursultan, or "Sultan of Light" in Kazakh, and parliament approved the change within hours.
On Thursday at least a dozen demonstrators protesting the name change close to the capital's mayoral office were arrested by police, one of the protesters told AFP.
They were subsequently released.
"There were around a dozen of us," Askhat Akhmedyarov, who is an artist, told AFP.
"They put us in a police van and took us to the police station where they checked our ..

Several arrested in Kazakhstan protest at capital name change

Four mosques in the central English city of Birmingham have been attacked overnight, with a man wielding a sledgehammer seen smashing windows at two places of worship, the police said on Thursday.
Counter-terrorism officers are investigating attacks on the mosques in four different areas in the north of the city, West Midlands Police said in a statement.
The force added the incidents "are being treated as linked".
"At the moment we don't know the motive for last night's attacks," said Chief Constable Dave Thompson in a statement.
"What I can say is that the force and the counter terrorism unit are working side-by-side to find whoever is responsible."
Officers were first alerted in the early hours of Thursday to reports of a man smashing windows with a sledgehammer at one of the places of worship, police said.
Following reports of a similar attack at another mosque in a nearby neighbourhood, officers launched targeted patrols and discovered "further damage" at two other ...

Police probe attacks on four mosques in Birmingham

Dutch prosecutors are to charge the suspect in a gun attack in a packed Utrecht tram with "terrorist" killings, saying he will appear for the first time before a judge on Friday.
"The 37-year-old suspect will appear before a judge on Friday, charged with multiple murders with terrorist aims, as well as attempted murder and a terrorist threat," the public prosecution service said in a statement on Thursday.
Prosecutors and police are still investigating whether the suspect, previously identified as Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis "acted out of a single terrorist motive or whether from personal problems in combination with radicalised ideas," it said.
Three people were killed and seven others wounded after the shooting rampage on a tram in the central Dutch city.
Tanis was arrested after an eight-hour manhunt that virtually shut down the Netherlands' fourth-largest city and saw security stepped up at airports and key sites across the country.
Police later arrested a second 40-year-old suspect 

Dutch tram gunman to be charged with 'terrorist' killings

Saudi women held in detention for nearly a year have been charged following contact with foreign media and activists, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, after they went on trial for undermining national security.
"After nearly a year of accusations... that these brave champions of women's rights are 'foreign agents', the actual charges against them appear to be simply a list of their efforts to promote women's rights," said Michael Page, HRW's Middle East deputy director.
"This is hardly the act of a government that is carrying out reforms, as (Crown Prince) Mohammed bin Salman and his supporters keep claiming."
The trial of at least 10 women opened in Riyadh's criminal court last week after they were detained in 2018 as part of a sweeping crackdown on activists, legal authorities said, without specifying the charges.
HRW and Amnesty International put the number of women facing trial at 11.
Some of them have allegedly faced torture and sexual harassment during interrogation in ...

Saudi women on trial after contact with foreign media: HRW

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager Thursday announced her candidacy to be the next head of the European Commisssion, in an interview with a Danish newspaper.
"I'm in," she told the daily Politiken, Denmark's newspaper of record, in reference to a bid to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker.
The European parliament's liberal group ALDE is expected to announce later Thursday its team to lead the campaign for the European elections in May with Vestager in line to be its candidate for European Commission president.
"Up until the elections, I will take part (in the debate) by recalling what we have accomplished in the past five years," Vestager told Politiken.
Denmark however has not confirmed that she will be a candidate for a commission post.
Vestager, 50, was a minister in the Danish government before taking up her current post in 2014.
Her tough stance towards US firms earned her the ire of President Donald Trump, who has labelled her the "tax lady.

Denmark's Vestager to run for European Commission head

Italian police on Wednesday rescued 51 children taken hostage by their school bus driver, who doused the vehicle in petrol and set it alight apparently in protest at migrant deaths in the Mediterranean.
Some of the children were tied up during the 30-minute ordeal, which saw the bus slam into a car but was brought to an end by police after one of the children was able to call for help. No one was seriously injured.
"It is a miracle, it could have been carnage. The police were outstanding, blocking the bus and getting the children off," said Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco.
Photos showed the burnt-out shell of the bus and the car, which were travelling on a road near Milan.
Driver Ousseynou Sy -- a 47-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese origin -- explained under questioning that he wanted "to draw attention to the consequences of migration policies", according to his lawyer.
The 51 students in year two of secondary school in Crema were coming back from a sports outing accompanied ..

Italy driver hijacks, torches school bus carrying dozens of children

US-backed forces pressed an offensive against the Islamic State group in its last redoubt in Syria on Thursday, denying reports the jihadist enclave had fallen.
"Mopping up operations continue in Baghouz camp," the command of the Syrian Democratic Forces said in a brief statement.
The SDF, which launched a final assault against the village of Baghouz in eastern Syria on February 9, denied reports that the IS enclave had completely fallen to its forces.
"The information of the total liberation of the village is unfounded," said the command.
An AFP team on the ground saw trucks carrying people out of Baghouz on Wednesday night.
Thousands of people have fled the besieged IS pocket in recent weeks and turned themselves in.
Since January, some 67,000 people have left the enclave, including 5,000 jihadists who surrendered, according to the SDF.
On Tuesday the advancing Kurdish-led SDF announced its forces had driven diehard fighters out of the main encampment where they had been confined in 

US-backed forces press offensive against IS Syria enclave

As millions of people in Asia choke under polluted skies, authorities have turned to water-dispersing drones and outdoor air purifiers to improve air quality, while companies have tried to cash in by selling everything from canned air to lung-purifying teas.
According to the World Health Organisation, 92 percent of the population in the Asia Pacific region are exposed to levels of air pollution that pose a significant risk to their health, according to UN Environment.
Here is a look at some of the ways those living under the haze try to limit minimize its effects.
As public anger rises over toxic air, authorities have turned to spraying water, which is thought to stick to pollutants and carry them to the ground, but tools such as water cannons have been criticised as having little effect and being a "band-aid" solution that distracts from root causes.
New Delhi - the world's most polluted major city - tried in 2017 to use helicopters to sprinkle water over the city, but the choppers ..

Canned air and water-spraying drones: Smog remedies

Authorities in Zambia have banned an energy drink after laboratory results showed that it contained the active ingredient of the anti-impotence drug Viagra.
SX Energy Natural Power drink, produced by Revin Zambia, is exported around the region including to Uganda, where a consumer recently complained of a prolonged erection and profuse sweating.
In a statement late on Wednesday authorities in the Zambian city of Ndola where the manufacturer is based, ordered "a product recall of natural high energy drink SX".
Ndola city spokesperson Tilyenji Mwanza said in the statement that results from Zimbabwe and South Africa correlated with those from tests conducted in Zambia which indicated "a positive presence of Sildenafil Citrate".
In December last year, the medicine regulatory authority said that the drink was adulterated with Sildenafil Citrate - a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and dispensed under the brand name Viagra.
Revin Zambia officials were not immediately available to ...

Zambia bans 'Viagra' energy drink

China on Thursday protested Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's stopover in the United States after a visit to three Pacific nations, calling on Washington to block her transit.
Following a trip to Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands, Tsai is scheduled to transit through Hawaii on March 27.
Taiwan is typically low-key in announcing its leader's specific itineraries, fearing China will use its power to disrupt her visits.
"Any attempt to create... 'one China, one Taiwan' will be opposed by all Chinese people," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular press briefing.
"China has already repeatedly stated its position and has also made solemn representations to the US," he added, calling on Washington to block Tsai's entry.
During the Taiwanese leader's last US visit, China lodged an official protest after she gave a speech in Los Angeles -- the first time in 15 years that a Taiwanese leader spoke publicly on American soil.
Beijing also protested when Tsai ...

China protests Taiwan leader's US transit

At least six people were killed by blasts in Kabul Thursday during Persian New Year celebrations in a Shiite area of the Afghan capital, authorities said, in the latest violence to hit the war-torn city.
"Twenty-three were wounded and six people were martyred (killed) in today's explosions in Kabul," health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar told AFP, with the interior ministry confirming the toll.
In a message to AFP, the Taliban denied responsibility for the attack, which police said had been caused by three remote-controlled mines -- one placed in the washroom of a mosque, one behind a hospital, and one in an electricity meter.
The blasts were near Kabul University and the Karte Sakhi shrine, where many Afghans gather every year to mark Nawrooz, which is the traditional Persian New Year holiday but considered un-Islamic by Muslim fundamentalists.
"As we celebrate this auspicious day to bind us together our fellow citizens witnessed another devastating day in #Kabul," President ...

At least six killed in blasts as Kabul marks Persian New Year

New Zealand police on Thursday admitted that the person they originally charged suspected mosques gunman Brenton Tarrant with murdering is actually still alive.
"An error was made in the charging document prepared for the first court appearance of the man charged with murder in relation to the Christchurch terror attacks," a police spokesman told AFP.
"The error saw an incorrect victim name included in the charging document." Tarrant appeared in court Saturday on the first of what were expected to be multiple murder and other charges.
Fifty people died last Friday when a gunman entered the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch, on New Zealand's South Island.
"We have spoken with the person incorrectly named on the charging document and apologised," police said.
"The charge sheet will be amended. New Zealand Police regret this error and apologise for any harm caused by the mistake.

Wrong victim named in initial NZ gunman charge document: police

Three teenage schoolgirls in Burundi have been sent to prison to await trial for scribbling on a picture of President Pierre Nkurunziza in textbooks, activists said Thursday.
The girls, aged 15, 16 and 17, face up to five years in prison for insulting the head of state if found guilty.
Judges said the three girls should be "prosecuted for contempt of the head of state", and ordered them to a juvenile section of a prison in the north of Burundi at Ngozi to await trial, said FENADEB, a civil society umbrella group of 48 organisations.
The trio has been in custody since March 12, when they were arrested with three other schoolgirls and a 13-year old boy. The boy was released immediately because he was below the age of criminal responsibility, while the three girls were released without charge.
The girls are accused of defacing photographs of Nkurunziza in five textbooks belonging to their school, but teachers pointed out that the books are shared among all the pupils as there are not ...

Burundi schoolgirls jailed for doodling on president's photo

A leading Australian media personality faced a stinging backlash Thursday after mocking New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's accent during a moving speech in parliament about the Christchurch mosque attacks.
Ardern has been widely praised for her handling of the tragedy that saw 50 lives lost when an Australian white supremacist rampaged through two mosques.
During a speech on Tuesday she vowed never to use the name of the alleged shooter, Brenton Tarrant.
"Thank heavens NZ prime minister said she will never mention the name of the terrorist," Sam Newman, an ex-Aussie Rules football player and former co-host of the popular "Footy Show" on commercial television, tweeted on Wednesday.
"How grating is her accent?"
The comment was widely condemned for its insensitivity, with more than 1,500 replies, overwhelmingly negative, on his Twitter feed.
"Significantly better than any of the wind that comes out of your regressive racist sexist neck, Sam," said one user.
Another posted: ...

Aussie media personality slammed for mocking NZ PM's accent

Iran's supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the economic difficulties of Iranians the main and most urgent problem of the country in a message aired Thursday on state TV.
Iran has faced increased economic hardship in the last 12 months which was aggravated after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers last May.
The renewal of American sanctions, which had been eased in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear programme, sent shockwaves through Iran's economy.
"Specially in recent months the difficulties for people's livelihoods has increased," Khamenei said in a prerecorded message aired to mark the beginning of the new Iranian year (21 March 2019 till 20 March 2010).
"The economy is the country's urgent problem, it's the country's (most) serious and primary problem," he added, mentioning the devaluation of the national currency, the drop in purchasing power and the fall in production as symptoms of the issue.
Khamenei said ...

Iran leader calls economy 'urgent problem'

Aid workers raced on Wednesday to help survivors and meet spiralling humanitarian needs in three southern African countries battered by the region's worst storm in years.
Five days after tropical cyclone Idai cut a swathe through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, the confirmed death toll stood at more than 300 and hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk, officials said.
Mozambique, where the monster storm made landfall early last Friday, is reeling.
"We've thousands of people ... in roofs and trees waiting for rescue," Caroline Haga, spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said.
"We are running out of time. People have been waiting for rescue for more than three days now," she told AFP in the storm-ravaged coastal city of Beira.
She added: "Unfortunately, we can't pick up all the people, so our priority are children, pregnant women, injured people." Survivor Aunicia Jose, 24, speaking in the district of Buzi near Beira, said, "The ...

Aid agencies struggle to rescue Mozambique cyclone victims

New Zealand imposed an immediate ban on assault weapons on Thursday, taking swift action in response to the Christchurch massacre and triggering renewed calls from leading American politicians for curbs in the United States.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said assault rifles and military-style semi-automatic weapons would be banned with immediate effect, making good on a pledge to ensure that nothing like last week's slaughter of 50 people ever occurs in the Pacific nation again.
The killings by an Australian white supremacist have caused national soul-searching over New Zealand's lax gun laws.
But the tough crackdown promises to have political repercussions beyond the country's shores, including in the United States where gun control is one of the most divisive political issues.
"In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country," Ardern said.
She added that high-capacity magazines and devices similar to bump stocks - which ...

AFP

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