Bangkok – Laos’ new leaders took office Tuesday, according to state media, as the secretive communist nation prepares for a period of unusually frenetic diplomacy culminating in a landmark visit by a US President.

One of Asia’s least developed nations, Laos has been tightly ruled by its communist leaders since the 1975 end of the Vietnam War, which saw it blanketed by bombs in secret missions led by the CIA.

Leadership reshuffles take place every five years in carefully choreographed gatherings by the country’s politburo and rubber stamp National Assembly.

In late January, vice president Bounnhang Vorachith was elected to the presidency and party secretary general, replacing 79-year-old Choummaly Sayasone.

Thongloun Sisoulith, a Soviet Union-educated politburo member and former foreign minister, was elected Prime Minister.

Both apparatchiks were officially appointed to their positions on Tuesday at a ceremony in Vientiane, the state-run Lao News Agency reported.

The internal operations of the powerful party are largely kept secret under a regime that bars a free press, rarely grants access to international media and severely restricts freedom of expression.

But analysts predict the current politburo is unlikely to loosen the government’s repressive grip or open its economy.

A foreign diplomat in Vientiane told AFP they expected “no major changes”.

“The speeches from Bounnhang and Thongloun promised the same policies. Thongloun appears to be a good choice in terms of Laos balancing its foreign relations,” the diplomat said, requesting anonymity.

Laos is currently chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc, hosting a slew of diplomatic meetings that could open the hermetic nation up to greater scrutiny.

Barack Obama will also be the first US president to visit Laos when he attends an ASEAN summit in the capital this summer, an arrival tinged with historical significance given the CIA’s secret carpet bombing of the landlocked nation.

Leaders from China and Japan are also expected to attend.

Though for many years neighbouring Vietnam was the most powerful foreign player in Laos, China has poured money into the country recently, becoming its largest foreign investor in 2014.

But Washington is also increasingly courting the isolated state as part of President Barack Obama’s so-called “pivot” to Asia.

Rights groups have urged ASEAN and the US to pressure Laos this year over its poor human rights record.

On Tuesday, Reporters Without Borders released its annual report, ranking Laos one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom at 173 out of 180.

BANGKOK – Thai police cannot find 15 suspects in connection with a bomb at a shrine in Bangkok last year that killed 20 people, an officer said on Wednesday, as two ethnic Uighur Muslims from China accused of involvement appeared in a military court.

No group claimed responsibility for the Aug. 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine, a central tourist spot popular with visitors from China and elsewhere in Asia. Five of the dead were from China and two from Hong Kong. More than 120 people were wounded.

Analysts, diplomats and even officials suspected the attack was linked to Uighur sympathisers angered by Thailand’s deportation of more than 100 Uighurs to China the previous month.

But police ruled out “terrorism” and said the attack was retaliation for a crackdown on human-smuggling.

The two suspects who were arrested – Yusufu Mieraili and Adem Karadag – are Uighur Muslims, a minority from western China who speak a Turkic language. They have denied all charges.

Police have issued arrest warrants for 15 other people, eight of whom are thought to be either Turkish or in Turkey, according to the warrants and police statements. “We don’t know where they are,” deputy police spokesman Major General Songpol Wattanachai told Reuters. “The perpetrators have done their utmost to escape.” Shaven-headed and barefoot, Mieraili and Karadag – who is also known as Bilal Mohammed – were led in handcuffs and leg shackles into a cramped court in Bangkok’s old city.

Mieraili spoke briefly to Reuters saying he expected the trial would take “a very long time”. The men had marks on their foreheads which Mieraili said came from coming into contact with the floor during prayer.

Three judges heard evidence laid out in 25 thick files on a table beneath them. There was no jury.

The defendants’ lawyers said more than 500 witnesses could be called for the prosecution and defence, and that the high-profile trial could last a year or more.

Proceedings were laboriously translated through two interpreters from Thai to English to the Uighur language.

Police say Karadag was the man caught on CCTV footage at the shrine, sitting on bench, slipping off a bulky back-pack and walking away, just before the blast.

Most Uighurs live in China’s violence-plagued Xinjiang region, where exiles and human rights groups say Uighurs chafe under government policies that restrict their culture and religion.

China denies this and blames Islamist militants for the rising violence.

Thai National Security Council secretary Anusit Kunakorn said on Wednesday Thailand had received a security warning from Singapore about three Uighurs who had entered Thailand.

He did not give details.

On April 9, Thailand stepped up security because two Chinese Uighur men linked to “foreign terror groups” had overnighted on the resort island of Phuket, police said. They were later arrested in Indonesia.