by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
Washington : US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will spend some time one-on-one next week at their second summit in Vietnam, White House officials said on Thursday.
The summit, scheduled for February 27-28 in Hanoi, will “be similar in format to what you saw last June 12 in Singapore,” an official said in a conference call with reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“There will be an opportunity for the two leaders to see one another one-on-one, to share a meal and engage in expanded meetings of their respective delegations,” the official said, reports Efe.
The White House has not made Trump’s agenda public yet and the source did not specify whether the private meeting — accompanied only by their respective interpreters — would occur at the beginning of the summit, as was the case in Singapore.
In Singapore, the leaders spoke privately for 38 minutes before the formal talks between the full delegations, sparking speculation about the content of Trump’s conversation with Kim.
The joint statement that emerged from the Singapore talks said that North Korea pledged to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” in exchange for unspecified security guarantees from the US.
One goal for next week’s encounter is reaching agreement on a “shared definition” of what denuclearisation means in concrete terms, the US official said.
Trump has also talked lately about North Korea’s economic potential and its advantageous location between Russia and China, so he is expected to expand further on that issue when he sees Kim, according to Efe.
“President Trump is looking to — after really, in some respects, breaking the ice with Kim in June — to talk in more depth about the kind of future that North Korea could enjoy if it follows through on its commitment to final and full denuclearisation,” one of the officials said.
One of the White House officials acknowledged that Pyongyang’s intention remains a mystery.
“I don’t know if North Korea has made the choice yet to denuclearise, but the reason why we’re engaged in this is because we believe there’s a possibility that North Korea can make the choice to fully denuclearize,” the official said.
“And that’s why the president has assigned such a priority to engaging with them,” the official added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Rome : United Nations World Food Programme in Bangladesh said it welcomed a new contribution of $50,000 from Vietnam to support operations in Coxs Bazar – home to nearly one million Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar.
“We are very grateful to Vietnam for stepping up to assist people living in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps,” said Richard Ragan, WFP Representative and Country Director, in a statement.
“This remains a serious humanitarian emergency, and continued support from the international community is vital if we are to keep providing the humanitarian assistance that is so badly needed.”
Vietnam’s new aid was announced by the Special Envoy of Prime Minister, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Nguyen Quoc Dzung, during a visit to Bangladesh, according to WPF.
“Although this is a modest contribution, we are hopeful that our support will advance the response to this crisis situation,” he said.
Vietnam joins dozens of other states who have pledged their support to the Cox’s Bazar response since the August 2017 refugee influx, said WFP, which provides food assistance to more than 870,000 refugees per month at the sprawling refugee settlement.
The UN agency also provides nutritional and livelihood support to the host community at Cox’s Bazaar, with the aim of helping the most vulnerable, WFP said.
Sustained aid from nations is necessary to continue WFP operations in Bangladesh, the UN agency warned.
Over 750,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Cox’s Bazar since August 2017 to escape persecution and violence by Myanmar’s military in Northern Rakhine State. Thousands of other Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh during previous periods of repression in Myanmar.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Hanoi : Vietnam President Tran Dai Quang died on Friday after prolonged illness. He was 61.
Tran Dai Quang died in the Military Central Hospital in Hanoi, reported the presidential website, adding that he had been undergoing treatment both at home and abroad, reports Efe news.
He had been elected head of state by the National Assembly in April 2016, three months after the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the only legal party in the country, nominated him as a candidate in its XII congress.
He had also served as Minister of Public Security from 2011 until he was appointed President, one of the four most powerful positions in the country in which the general secretary of the CPV acts as de facto nation head.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Hanoi, Vietnam : Vietnam’s cashew nut exports in the first eight months of this year rose 24.9 percent year-on-year to 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday.
Specifically, Vietnam exported 223,000 tons of cashew nuts, down 1.1 percent, but with the product’s average price surging over the same period last year as well as over the whole 2016.
In August alone, about 35,000 tons of cashew nuts worth 351 million U.S. dollars were shipped abroad, reported the ministry.
The United States, the Netherlands and China continued to be the largest importers of Vietnamese cashew nuts, which consumed 36.7 percent, 15.6 percent and 11.7 percent of the country’s total export volume, respectively.
—NN-XINHUA
