Wikinews Shorts: June 17, 2007

Vietnam reports first bird-flu death since 2005
A 20-year-old man from Ha Tay Province, northern Vietnam, died of H5N1 on June 10, in a Hanoi hospital, Vietnamese state-run media reported yesterday.

The death from the strain of avian flu was the first in Vietnam since 2005. Four other people are known to be infected with the virus since last month.

Sources

Protest leaders deliver message to Thai junta
Leaders of daily demonstrations against the military government of Thailand delivered a message today to the Council for National Security, calling on the junta to resign immediately and allow elections to go forward.

The protest leaders had planned a mass march of around 10,000 people yesterday from the Sanam Luang staging ground in Bangkok to army headquarters, but decided against it when heavy rains hit, reducing the demonstration's numbers.

Sources

Seven arrested in southern Thailand
Police in southern Thailand said today they have arrested seven suspects in the insurgency in a raid in Yala.

Violence was also reported in neighboring Narathiwat, where the 16-year-old son of a teacher was gunned down at a grocery shop in Tak Bai district. Also in Tak Bai, a school was burned.

Sources

468 slaves in Chinese kilns freed, boss arrested
A massive police investigation in China into the enforced labor in Shanxi province has led to the discovery of at least 468 slaves, as young as 14, press-ganged into working in brick kilns.

Yesterday, police captured Heng Tinghan, the boss of the brick kiln, who is accused of starving and beating workers.

Sources