Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

FUZHOU, China, April 8 (Reuters) - A Chinese warship in seas facing the Taiwan Strait began live-fire drills on Saturday as Beijing launched military exercises it calls a warning against what it considers pro-independence forces in Taiwan.

The amphibious landing ship - capable of carrying troops and vehicles - fired multiple artillery rounds in the Luoyan Bay area on the coast of Fujian province, about 50 km (30 miles) northwest of the Matsu islands near the mainland that are controlled by Taiwan.

FUZHOU, China/TAIPEI, April 8 (Reuters) - Seventy-one Chinese military aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait on Saturday as China began drills around Taiwan in anger at President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The three-day drills, announced the day after Tsai returned from the United States, had been widely expected after Beijing condemned her Wednesday meeting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese health officials defended their search for the source of the COVID-19 virus and lashed out Saturday at the World Health Organization after its leader said Beijing should have shared genetic information earlier.

The WHO comments were “offensive and disrespectful,” said the director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shen Hongbing. He accused the WHO of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others “politicize COVID-19.”

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea, the U.S. and Japan called for stronger international support of efforts to ban North Korea from sending workers abroad and curb the North’s cybercrimes as a way to block the country’s means to fund its nuclear program.

SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines (AP) — Eight Filipinos were nailed to crosses to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a bloody Good Friday tradition, including a carpenter, who was crucified for the 34th time with a prayer for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to end because it has made poor people like him more desperate.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Saturday claimed it tested this week a second known type of nuclear-capable underwater attack drone designed to destroy naval vessels and ports, adding to a flurry of weapons demonstrations this year that have heightened tensions with rivals.

The report of the four-day test came a day after the nuclear envoys of the United States, South Korea and Japan met in Seoul to discuss the growing North Korean nuclear threat and called for stronger international efforts to crack down on illicit North Korean activities funding its weapons program.

BEIJING (AP) — China sent warships and dozens of fighter jets toward Taiwan on Saturday, the Taiwanese government said, in retaliation for a meeting between the U.S. House of Representatives speaker and the president of the self-ruled island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory.

TOKYO, Apr 7 (NNN-NHK) – Security camera footage, showing a Sri Lankan woman, complaining of declining health before her death, in an immigration facility in central Japan, has been publicly released for the first time by lawyers representing her family.

Roughly seven minutes of a five-hour video taken of Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali, who died at the age of 33, while being held at the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau, in Mar, 2021, was shown at a press conference in Tokyo yesterday.

SEOUL, April 7 (Reuters) - The United States, South Korea and Japan expressed deep concern over North Korea's "malicious" cyber activities to support its weapons programmes, in comments released in a joint statement on Friday.

Crypto currency funds stolen by North Korean hackers have been a key source for financing the sanctions-stricken country's weapons programmes, officials and experts in the United States and its allies say.

BEIJING/TAIPEI, April 7 (Reuters) - China has imposed further sanctions on Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the United States, prohibiting her and family members from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, state media reported on Friday.

The sanctions announced by China's Taiwan Affairs Office also ban investors and firms related to Hsiao from cooperating with mainland organisations and individuals.

They come after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a stopover in the United States this week.