Ho Chi Minh City wishes to further develop its ties with Japan, a strategic partner and trusted friend of Vietnam.

Le Thanh Liem, Standing Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Committee, made the remarks at a ceremony to mark the two countries’ 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties in HCMC on Friday morning.

The city has established cooperative ties with 7 Japanese localities in various fields, including training and employing midwives and industrial workers. Both sides have organized diverse activities in terms of boosting bilateral cultural exchange, people-to-people diplomacy, and human resources training.

“It’s possible to say that HCMC best symbolizes the development of bilateral ties between Vietnam and Japan, with many ODA projects closely related to the city-dwellers’ living conditions such as projects on Cho Ray hospital, urban railways, and exchanges between localities of both sides. The Japanese General Consulate will do more to strengthen the fine relationship between Japan and HCMC, and with Vietnam in general”, said Japanese General Consul in HCMC Kawaue Junichi at the meeting.

Source: VOV5

The Czech Republic’s exports to Vietnam surged 580 percent to more than 45 million USD in July, according to the Czech Statistical Office.

The Vietnam Trade Office in the Czech Republic said that in July, Czech’s major exports to Vietnam included sound and image recording equipment and television sets worth about 40 million USD.

In the first seven months of this year, Vietnam’s exports of audio-visual equipment to the Czech Republic approached more than 200 million USD, followed by footwear.

Two-way trade is forecast to top 1 billion USD this year.

Source: VOV5

The North Korea-China relationship is adapting to new demands, President Kim Jong-un said while thanking Chinese President Xi Jinping for having sent Special Envoy Li Zhanshu to attend North Korea’s recent 70thanniversary celebration.

In his message, President Kim said Mr Li’s visit reflects the close North Korea-China partnership, adding that Pyongyang is ready to work with Beijing to strengthen bilateral ties. Li is the highest level Chinese official to visit North Korea since President Xi came to power in 2012.

Source: VOV5

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, was sued for defamation on Monday for falsely suggesting that a British caver who helped save 12 boys and their soccer coach from a Thailand cave in July was a pedophile and child rapist.

Vernon Unsworth sued over Musk’s reference to him in a July 15 tweet as a “pedo guy,” a comment for which Musk later apologized. The suit also claims that Musk called Unsworth a child rapist and sex trafficker in an Aug. 30 email to BuzzFeed News.

Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Musk and the company.

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles seeks at least $75,000 of compensatory damages, plus unspecified punitive damages.

The case adds to a slew of litigation against Musk, including over his running of Palo Alto, California-based Tesla, which the billionaire has said has caused him severe stress.

Unsworth became a target for Musk after cave rescuers rejected Musk’s offer of a mini-submarine created by his rocket company SpaceX to rescue the soccer team, which was finally freed after 18 days in the cave on July 10.

Though Unsworth told CNN three days later Musk’s offer was a “PR stunt” that had no chance of working and that Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts,” he said that did not justify Musk’s use of Twitter and the media to defame him.

The July 15 tweet by Musk touted the mini-submarine and then, referring to Unsworth with a shorthand description of pedophile, said, “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”

Musk apologized on July 18, referring to Unsworth in saying “his actions against me do not justify my actions against him,” and that “the fault is mine and mine alone.”

But the complaint said that in the August 30 email, Musk urged a BuzzFeed reporter to “stop defending child rapists,” and then said Unsworth spent decades in Thailand until moving to Chiang Rai, “renowned for child sex-trafficking,” to take a 12-year-old bride.

Unsworth said all of these accusations were false, and that the defamatory statements “were manufactured out of whole cloth by Musk out of a belief on his part that his wealth and stature allowed him to falsely accuse Mr. Unsworth with impunity” because he disagreed with him about the mini-submarine.

The case is Unsworth v Musk, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 18-08048.

Source: Voice of America

US President Donald Trump is going ahead with plans to impose new tariffs on about $200 billion of Chinese imports, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The paper said the tariff level will likely be set at about 10 percent, below the 25 percent announced earlier this year. The US is planned to announce the tariff level as early as Monday, the journal added.

Source: VOV5

The construction of a Vietnam Friendship House in Vanuatu’s Port Vila capital began on Saturday.

The facility, expected to be inaugurated next year, will offer cultural activities and Vietnamese language classes. Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Huong Nam attended the ground-breaking ceremony while he was in Vanuatu to submit his credentials to Vanuatu’s President. The Friendship House is located on a 1,000sqm area, which was a farm where many Vietnamese people worked under contracts with the French colonialists.

Source: VOV5

The UK’s accusation of Russia’s lying on the posoning of former spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia is unreasonable and inconvincible.

The Kremlin made the statement Friday after the interview of two suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Bosirov was broadcast on Russian TV.

The two suspects said on TV that they went to the UK just for travelling. Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the men are ordinary citizens and had nothing to do with the Russian government.

Source: VOV5