Vietnam President Quang, 61, dies

Vietnamese

President Tran Dai Quang, the country’s No. 2 after the ruling Communist Party’s leader, died yesterday after a serious illness, the government said. He was 61.

Quang passed away despite “utmost efforts to treat him by Vietnamese and foreign professors and doctors and care by the party and state leaders,” the statement said. It said Quang died at a military hospital in Hanoi but did not elaborate on his illness. The state-run online newspaper VnExpress quoted a former health minister, Nguyen Quoc Trieu, as saying that Quang had contracted a rare and toxic virus last year. (AP)