"Besides, the Congolese government can adopt the most strict standards on pollution for the Chinese companies and the Chinese investors will consciously follow the rules and regulations set by the Congolese government, he said

Yingluck denied all the charges when giving her closing oral statement on Aug 1, arguing she was not responsible for the day-to-day running of the scheme and insisted she was a victim of political persecutionIn the scheme, Yingluck's government paid Thai rice farmers inflated prices for their crops, driving up global rice prices

File photo shows ousted former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra arrives at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, Sept 29, 2015[Photo/Agencies]BANGKOK - Thailand's Supreme Court on Wednesday found former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of malfeasance in a loss-ridden rice subsidy program and sentenced her in absentia to five years in jailYingluck did not show up at the court and has so far not made any public comment on the verdict

In an announcement released by the court, it read that even though the unmilled rice program was an act according to government policy that the cabinet had stated to the National Assembly, if the implementation of such policy was not in accordance with law, such acts could be inspected by the judicial processPrime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Tuesday that he knows where the ousted former prime minister is but will not disclose her whereabouts until the verdict is delivered

After a trial running over two years, the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions began reading the verdict at 11 am local time and continued for nearly four hours

The subsidy scheme did not work, costing the country 8 billion US dollars and leaving it with vast stockpiles of riceForeign Minister Wang Yi urged Pyongyang not to go further in a dangerous direction, and said there should be no new nuclear state in either of the Koreas or elsewhere

Wang said sanctions and peace talks are both part of the Security Council resolutionsThe remarks came as rhetoric and even personal name-calling has flared up in recent days between Washington and Pyongyang

He said Japan is willing to push forward denuclearization on the peninsula with China and other parties"We hope Japan will behave with caution and play a constructive role on the peninsula nuclear issue, rather than the opposite," he said