Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer told ABC Radio today that Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong had commuted death sentences pronounced on Mai Cong Thanh and Nguyen Van Chinh to life imprisonment. He said the Vietnamese leader had granted amnesty thanks to the good relations between the two countries.

Australia is a center of a number of drug trafficking. A court in Indonesia has recently sentenced two Australian citizens to death on charges of being the ringleaders of a group of drug traffickers on the Indonesian island of Bali. Seven other people were sentenced to life in prison. Australia says it plans to ask for amnesty to its citizens from the Indonesian government.