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The United States sees Vietnam as a key partner in expanding green energy sources and building more resilient supply chains, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a speech to be delivered in the country's capital of Hanoi on Friday.

Yellen, continuing her travels in Asia, told the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council that trade between the two countries had been growing at nearly 25% a year for the past two decades, and reached a record high last year.

"There is no sign that this momentum is slowing," Yellen said in a text of her prepared remarks released late on Thursday in Washington, noting that investment in Vietnam's semiconductor sector was also accelerating.

Yellen's visit is part of a push by the United States to upgrade its formal ties with Vietnam as it works to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains by expanding manufacturing at home and boosting trade with trusted partners. But its efforts have met some resistance in Hanoi, over what experts see as concerns that China could view the move as hostile.

The United States and Vietnam normalized relations in 1995, two decades after the end of the Vietnam War, and signed a bilateral trade agreement five years later.

Yellen noted that Vietnam had become a critical node in the global semiconductor supply chain, and cited big investments made by U.S. companies in Vietnam, including Arizona-based Amkor (AMKR.O) and Intel (INTC.O), which has its largest assembly and testing facility in the world in Saigon.

Yellen's speech did not mention China, which she visited earlier this month. She underscored that Washington's "friendshoring" drive was not meant for "an exclusive club of countries. It is open and inclusive of advanced economies, emerging markets and developing countries alike."

She said Washington was looking to strengthen ties with emerging markets and developing countries, including through the Group of Seven's pledge to mobilize $600 billion in infrastructure investments, which experts see as a deliberate counterweight to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The United States is also working to help countries address the worsening climate crisis, Yellen said, citing U.S. support for Vietnam's Just Energy Transition Partnership that is working to mobilize $15 billion in public and private funds to help Vietnam transition to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050

"Now, it is vital to intensify our cooperation to build momentum for these efforts in Vietnam, evaluate project opportunities with the multilateral development banks, and deliver a Resource Mobilization Plan that provides a roadmap for implementation," she said. (Reuters)

The United States on Thursday voiced mounting concern over Army Private Travis King, who dashed into North Korea two days ago, saying Pyongyang had a history of mistreating captured Americans.

U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, in her first public comments on the case, said Washington was fully mobilized in trying to contact Pyongyang, including through United Nations communications channels.

But North Korea had yet to offer any response, officials said.

"I worry about him, frankly," Wormuth told the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. She cited the case of Otto Warmbier, a U.S. college student who was imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months before dying shortly after he was returned to the United States in a coma in 2017.

"I worry about how they may treat him. So, (we) want to get him back."

At the White House, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby also expressed concern: "This is not a country that is known for humane treatment of Americans - or frankly anybody else for that matter."

American officials remained stumped about why King ran across the border into North Korea. But Wormuth acknowledged he was likely worried about facing further disciplinary action from the Army upon his return home to the United States.

She said she was not aware of any information demonstrating the 23-year-old was a North Korea sympathizer, and the Pentagon played down suggestions he might present an intelligence liability.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the U.S. Army's counter-intelligence office and U.S. forces in South Korea were carrying out an investigation into what drove King to make such a puzzling decision.

STILL ALIVE?

Singh declined to directly respond to a question about whether the Pentagon believed King was still alive. She said the U.S. military could not offer any information at all about King's status.

"We don't know his condition. We don't know where he's being held. We don't know the status of his health," Singh said, describing his formal status in the military as "AWOL," or absent without leave.

North Korea has remained silent about King and U.S. officials say Pyongyang has not responded to communication from the American military about the soldier. North Korea's state media, which has in the past reported on the detention of U.S. nationals, has not commented on the incident so far.

Speaking in Japan, U.S. special envoy for North Korea Sung Kim said the United States was "working very hard" to determine King's status and well-being and is actively engaged in ensuring his safety and return. Kim did not provide any details.

King was on a civilian tour of the Panmunjom truce village on Tuesday when he dashed across the Military Demarcation Line that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953.

King had been fined for assault while stationed in South Korea and had been detained for more than a month before being escorted to Incheon International Airport by the U.S. military for a commercial flight to Dallas, Texas, according to U.S. officials.

Once past security checks, he told airline staff at the departure gate he had lost his passport and returned to the terminal, an airport official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Wormuth said King "may not have been thinking clearly, frankly."

"He had assaulted an individual in South Korea and had been in custody of the South Korean government and was going to come back to the United States and face the consequences in the Army," she said. "I'm sure that he was grappling with that."

North Korea and the United States have no formal diplomatic ties following years of international sanctions imposed on the reclusive state for its nuclear arms and missile programs that have drawn frequent U.N. condemnation.

Asked whether King might have sympathized with North Korea, Wormuth said: "I don't think we have any information that points to that clearly."

The Pentagon said it was not aware of any changes to freedom of movement to roughly 28,500 U.S. forces in South Korea.

Tensions are heightened on the Korean peninsula. The North has been conducting ballistic missile tests, the latest coinciding with the arrival in South Korea of a U.S. nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine for the first time since the 1980s.

Last week, North Korea launched its newest solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which it said had the longest flight time ever.

On Monday, North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un and a powerful ruling party official, said the United States should stop its "foolish act" of provoking North Korea and said it was putting its security at risk.

She made her comments after White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington remained concerned that North Korea would carry out another ICBM test. (Reuters)

Japan's core inflation stayed above the central bank's 2% target in June for the 15th straight month but an index stripping away the effect of energy costs slowed, data showed, suggesting the prolonged commodity-driven price pressures may have peaked.

Yet, with services price growth also slowing last month, policymakers will feel that wage pressures have yet to build up enough to warrant an imminent tweak to the ultra-loose monetary stance.

Services prices, closely watched by policymakers on whether inflation is becoming driven more by higher labour costs, rose 1.6% in June from a year earlier after a 1.7% gain in May.

The data comes ahead of the BOJ's closely-watched policy meeting on July 27-28, when the board will release fresh quarterly projections and discuss how much progress Japan is making towards sustainably achieving its 2% inflation target.

Core inflation in Japan's capital, set for release hours before the BOJ's policy announcement on July 28, also likely slowed sharply in July, according to a Reuters poll.

With inflation having exceeded the BOJ's target for more than a year, markets are simmering with speculation the BOJ could soon phase out its controversial yield curve control (YCC) policy as early as next week.

BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has stressed the need to keep policy ultra-loose until the recent cost-push inflation shifts into one driven by robust domestic demand and higher wage growth.

The key would be whether companies will continue offering higher pay next year, similar to this year, and start translating the rise in labour costs to services prices.

"If more firms hike wages and pass on the cost, services prices could overshoot," said Yoshiki Shinke, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.

"Inflation excluding food and energy will likely moderate ahead, but the pace of slowdown could be gradual."

Under YCC, the BOJ guides short-term interest rates at -0.1% and buys huge amounts of government bonds to cap the 10-year bond yield around 0% as part of efforts to fire up inflation to its 2% target. (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - A joint team of personnel from several law enforcement agencies in Aceh has succeeded in foiling an attempt by a transnational drug ring to smuggle 99 kg of crystal methamphetamine from Malaysia into Pidie District.

Three people, identified as HE, MF, and R, who were involved in the drug smuggling operation, were arrested on June 16, Head of Customs and Excise-Aceh Office, Leni Rahmasari, stated here on Wednesday.

Rahmasari attributed the success in thwarting the smuggling to the synergistic collaboration that was established by the Customs and Excise Directorate General with maritime patrol units and the National Narcotics Agency (BNN).

Community members also contributed to the success, as they gave the law enforcement personnel a tip-off about the possible smuggling of a drug package from Malaysia into Aceh, she stated.

To smuggle the drug package, the suspects placed the crystal meth in four sacks and transported them from the sea to a beach in Pidie District using a fishing boat, she revealed.

The law enforcement personnel apprehended the suspects, secured the boat used for transporting the drug package, and seized the 99 kg of crystal meth that they had concealed in a farm near a mosque in Pidie, she remarked.

ANTARA reported earlier that Indonesia remains under a serious threat from drug dealers, as several individuals from its working-age population get siphoned into a vicious circle.

According to a joint survey conducted by BNN and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in 2019, there were over 3.4 million drug users in Indonesia.

The survey conducted in 34 provinces indicated that approximately 180 out of every 10, 000 Indonesians in the age group of 15 to 64 years were addicted to drugs.

The government is well aware of this alarming threat of drug abuse and addiction. Since his first leadership term, President Joko Widodo has also kept reminding the nation of the grave impacts of drug consumption on Indonesia. (Antaranews)