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HANOI: Vietnam’s Communist Party chief To Lam is expected to visit North Korea next month, two Vietnamese officials said, marking the first visit in nearly 20 years for a Vietnamese leader to the largely isolated nation.
The two Communist countries maintain close diplomatic ties but have currently no trade relations, according to the Vietnamese embassy in Pyongyang.
The possible visit, with preparations still underway, has not been officially announced by either side. Vietnam’s ministry of foreign affairs and North Korea’s embassy in Hanoi did not respond to requests for comment.
The two officials declined to indicate a precise time frame for the visit and the issues that may be discussed, but one official said Lam would meet North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.
The last time a Vietnamese leader visited North Korea was in 2007 when the head of the ruling Communist Party Nong Duc Manh embarked on a three-day trip to the country, marking the first visit by a Vietnamese party chief since the late President Ho Chi Minh in 1957.
In a rare foreign trip, Kim visited Hanoi in 2019 as part of a visit whose highlight was a summit with US President Donald Trump, then serving his first term at the White House.
Multiple lower-ranking officials have met in either Hanoi or Pyongyang in recent years, according to a list of meetings on the website of the Vietnamese embassy in North Korea, which shows meetings resumed last year after a five-year pause.
This year the two countries celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations.

LAM VISITED SOUTH KOREA IN AUGUST
The visit would follow Lam’s trip in August to South Korea, a country with which Pyongyang has tense relations. Lam was the first foreign leader hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung since he took office in June.
Hanoi is highly reliant on investments from Seoul. Samsung Electronics and other large Korean multinationals are leading contributors to Vietnam’s economy, with existing investments exceeding $90 billion, largely in factories.
The latest year for which data on trade with North Korea is available is 2016, when Vietnam exported to Pyongyang goods worth nearly $3 million, according to the Vietnamese embassy.
North Korea has for decades faced international sanctions largely linked to its nuclear weapons program.

YANGJIANG, China: Hundreds of thousands of people in southern China were clearing up Thursday after powerful Typhoon Ragasa crashed through Guangdong Province, ripping down trees, destroying fences and blasting signs off buildings.
Ragasa churned into Guangdong, home to tens of millions of people, with winds up to 145 kilometers per hour, on Wednesday after sweeping past Hong Kong and killing at least 14 in Taiwan.
AFP journalists at the impact point around the city of Yangjiang on Thursday saw fallen trees, while road signs and debris were strewn across the streets.
A light rain and breeze still lingered as residents worked to clean up the damage, however authorities have not reported any storm-related fatalities.
On Hailing – an island administered by Yangjiang – relief workers attempted to clear a huge tree that had fallen across a wide road.
Cars drove on muddy tracks to get around the wreckage as the team worked to saw off branches.
A seafood restaurant had sustained heavy damage, its back roof completely collapsed, or in parts flown away entirely.
“The winds were so strong, you can see it completely ripped everything apart,” said restaurant worker Lin Xiaobing, 50.
“There’s no electricity (at home),” she said while helping clear up the mess inside the restaurant, where the floors were covered in water, mud and debris. “Today, some homes still have electricity and others don’t.”
The island is a popular holiday spot and many locals rely on the tourism industry to make a living.
“We can’t do business here during the National Day,” she said, referring to China’s annual holiday period centered on October 1 but that lasts until October 8.
“We were planning to do some business this National Day to make up for it,” she added. “But now we may not be able to.”
Taiwan fatalities
Ragasa’s passage in Taiwan killed at least 14 and injured dozens more when a decades-old barrier lake burst in eastern Hualien county, according to regional officials who late Wednesday revised the death toll down from 17 after eliminating duplicate cases.
Authorities initially said 152 people were unaccounted for, but later made contact with more than 100 of them and were still trying to confirm the actual number of missing.
The storm made landfall in mainland China near Hailing Island on Wednesday evening.
By that point authorities across China had already ordered businesses and schools to shut down in at least 10 cities across the nation’s south, affecting tens of millions of people.
Nearly 2.2 million people in Guangdong were relocated by Wednesday afternoon, but local officials later said several cities in the province started lifting restrictions on schools and businesses.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said Ragasa made its second landfall in Beihai, Guangxi, on Thursday morning as a tropical storm.
Chinese authorities earmarked the equivalent of about $49.2 million to support rescue and relief work in regions hit by Typhoon Ragasa, Xinhua news agency said.
Hong Kong battered
Hong Kong authorities said 101 people were treated at public hospitals for injuries sustained during the typhoon as of Wednesday evening, with more than 900 people seeking refuge at 50 temporary shelters across the city.
The Chinese finance hub recorded hundreds of fallen trees and flooding in multiple neighborhoods.
Many of the city’s tall buildings swayed and rattled in the harsh winds.
About 1,000 flights were affected by Ragasa, the airport authority said Wednesday evening, adding that they expected to return to normal operations within the next two days.
The top typhoon warning was downgraded in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon after being in force for 10 hours, 40 minutes – the second-longest on the city’s record.
Hong Kong’s weather service ranked the storm the strongest yet in the northwestern Pacific this year.