VIETNAM: TWO DEATH-ROW AUSTRALIANS GRANTED CLEMENCY BY HANOI

two Vietnamese-Australians facing the firing squad in Vietnam after being convicted of drug charges were granted clemency. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung announced the clemency during talks with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra. "Building upon the excellent friendship between our two countries and on humanitarian grounds, I have informed the prime minister that the Vietnamese president has decided to grant clemency to two Vietnamese-Australians charged with drug trafficking," he later told reporters through an interpreter. Jasmine Luong, 34, of Sydney, was sentenced to death in March after police found 1.4kgs of heroin hidden in her shoes and luggage as she prepared to board a flight home from Ho Chi Minh City in 2007. Tony Manh, 40, of New South Wales State was sentenced to death in September 2007 after he was arrested with 0.948 kgs of heroin hidden on his body as he too tried to board a plane to Sydney from the same airport earlier in 2007.