HANOI - VIETNAM on Friday removed rape and several other offences from the list of crimes punishable by death, an official said, but deputies maintained capital punishment for drug trafficking and murder.
DENPASAR (Indonesia) - INDONESIAN police called off a raid on a prison known to be rife with drugs when inmates armed themselves with stones and prepared to defend themselves, a police spokesman said on Friday.
MANILA - CANADIAN electronics firm Celestica Inc. is shutting down its factory in the central Philippines, with the loss of about 1,000 jobs, the government said on Friday.
The company, which manufactures telecommunications equipment at the plant on Mactan island, just off the central island of Cebu, has informed the Mactan Economic Zone of its plans to shut down, officials of the zone said.
KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S ruling party, whose popularity has declined in recent years, invited Islamic opposition leaders on Friday to set aside decades of acrimony and consider forming an alliance.
The call by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin could intensify a rare factional dispute in the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, over whether it should seek rapprochement with its longtime rival, the governing United Malays National Organisation, Umno.
