Vietnamese dissident freed

A Vietnamese jailed for 16 years after trying to publish newspaper articles critical of the Communist government has been released and has joined his wife and daughter in Australia, AP reports from Hanoi. Quach Vinh Nien is the first known political prisoner to be freed in recent times. But Human Rights Watch-Asia said that Doan Viet Hoat, a prominent intellectual jailed for advocating democratic reforms, was ill from kidney stones and a hunger strike that he began in protest against his treatment.