Vietnam's leadership resigns

Vietnam's prime minister, president and assembly chief all resigned in an expected change of leadership, Assembly sources said on Saturday.

The Assembly approved the resignations of Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, President Tran Duc Luong and National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Van An.


Vietnam's Prime Minister Phan Van Khai addresses the National Assembly in Hanoi on June 16, 2006. AFP file photo via Yahoo News.

Khai's first deputy Nguyen Tan Dung, 56, is expected to take over as the new premier.

Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in economic growth with an 8.4 percent rise in 2005, and is moving toward membership in the World Trade Organization.

WHO nixes pandemic alert in Indonesia

World Health Organization (WHO) experts meeting in Indonesia said the recent cluster of bird flu cases that killed a whole family did not signal the start of a global pandemic.

The experts meeting to decide on whether the case merited issuing a pandemic alert said that although the avian flu virus H5N1 had mutated it still was not easily transmittable among humans.


Indonesian health officials and a chicken in south Jakarta, February 24, 2006. Crack Palinggi/Reuters via Yahoo News.

Indonesian and WHO officials closely monitored 50 people who had come in contact with the family but no new cases developed.

Family members though in the north Sumatra cluster did contract the virus from each other.

Seoul insists North Korean missile launch not imminent

South Korea's defense minister reiterated his country's position that North Korea was not ready to launch a ballistic missile test.

"It is our judgment that a launch is not imminent," Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung is quoted as saying.


Protesters in Seoul carry a model North Korean missile and shout slogans on June 22, 2006. AP/Lee Jin-man photo from Yahoo News.

Experts disagree on whether fueling of the missiles indicates that a missile test is imminent. Liquid rocket fuel tends to be highly corrosive and is not generally stored in the missile. However, it is possible that the country may be practicing fueling operations.

Japan has sent reconnaissance aircraft and naval ships to monitor the situation and is preparing for a "worse case scenario" including the possibility that missile parts might fall over the nation's territory.