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Tran Thi Dong, 90, first answered her country’s call-to-arms in 1943 as a Viet Minh recruit to fight the Vichy French and Japanese. It was her first taste of wartime service, the first of three victorious fights against foreign powers.
“They called for a movement, a patriotic movement, and the young like me were very eager to join the forces,” recalled Dong at a house in Hanoi.
A veteran of the second world war, the anti-colonial war against France and the war against America…

Vietnam last year abandoned plans to build the country’s first nuclear power plants with Japanese and Russian help due to heightened concern over nuclear energy in the wake of events such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster, according to former president Truong Tan Sang.
In an interview in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday, Sang, 68, said, “The situation in the world had changed. Because of the fluctuations of the world situation, the Vietnamese people were very worried, especially the…

With one month of its two-year UN Security Council term remaining, Japan took up the rotating presidency on Friday ahead of a series of meetings to discuss the situation in North Korea.
On December 15, a ministerial-level meeting is expected to be held on the North’s non-proliferation activities, which is to be presided over by Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Kono, Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations Koro Bessho explained.
Among the high-ranking officials who are expected to…

Pope Francis wrapped up a high-stakes Asia tour on Saturday after meeting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in a highly symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Muslim minority fleeing violence in Myanmar.
The Catholic leader visited a hospital in Dhaka run by the order of Mother Teresa on the final day of a visit to Bangladesh and Myanmar that has been dominated by the plight of the Rohingya.
Pope Francis is known for championing the rights of refugees and has repeatedly expressed support for the…

Banks should update their IT systems to provide for instant payments if they want to stave off competition from new entrants to the market when new EU laws on payment services take effect, a senior official at the European Central Bank (ECB) has said.

The Investigatory Powers Act needs to be updated if it is to comply with EU law, the UK government has admitted.

Multi-employer ‘master trust’ pension arrangements will face stricter authorisation and supervision, in line with that imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on contract-based schemes, the UK government has confirmed.

Pope Francis on Friday used the word “Rohingya” for the first time during his current trip to Asia to refer to refugees who have fled in large numbers from violence in Myanmar.
“The presence of God today is also called Rohingya,” he said in an improvised remark after meeting 16 refugees brought to the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka from their camps in Cox’s Bazar near the border with Myanmar.
“In the name of all of those who have persecuted you, hurt you, I ask…

The Philippines said on Friday it had suspended use of a landmark vaccine for the potentially deadly dengue virus after its manufacturer warned it could worsen the disease in some cases.
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi announced on Wednesday that its world-first dengue vaccine could lead to more severe symptoms for people who had not previously been infected.
The Philippines has vaccinated more than 733,000 children with Dengvaxia since 2016 when it became the first country to start using it…

A number of websites that facilitate the second-hand sale of tickets have been told to improve their practices by a UK regulator after it raised concerns about their compliance with consumer protection law.