Chinese tourist hit by Thai airport guard

BANGKOK • A video clip of a Chinese tourist being hit by an airport guard in Bangkok has created a stir in Thailand.

The clip taken last Thursday at Don Mueang airport shows a guard scuffling with and then hitting a man. The tourist, identified as Mei Ji, had arrived on a flight from Jakarta. The airport authority said he had refused to wait inside a room. Government spokesman Sunsern Kaewkumnerd said yesterday that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was "upset" by the incident.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Vietnam seizes a tonne of pangolin scales, ivory

HANOI • Vietnam has seized around a tonne of pangolin scales and ivory hidden inside airline cargo packages, state media reported, as the country struggles to rein in wildlife smuggling across its borders.

Both the ivory and pangolin trades have been banned in Vietnam but weak law enforcement in the communist state has allowed a black market to flourish.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Macedonia votes on name change for country

SKOPJE • Macedonians went to the polls yesterday to decide whether to change their country's name to Republic of North Macedonia, urged by a pro-Western government to pave the way for membership to Nato and the European Union.

The referendum is one of the last hurdles for a deal reached between Macedonia and Greece in June to settle their decades-old quarrel, which has prevented Macedonia from joining major Western institutions since it broke away from then Yugoslavia in 1991.

REUTERS