Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

ALMATY, Dec 28 (Reuters) - An Iranian chess player on Wednesday took part in an international tournament in Kazakhstan without a hijab for the second day running, according to a Reuters journalist present.

A Reuters witness at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan, saw Sara Khadem competing without a headscarf, a violation of Iran's laws governing female dress code.

HANOI, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The capitalization of Vietnam's stock market has reached nearly 5.3 quadrillion Vietnamese dong (223 billion U.S. dollars) so far this year, down 32 percent against the same period last year, according to the State Securities Commission of Vietnam on Wednesday.

The capitalization in the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE), the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) is equivalent to 62.2 percent of Vietnam's GDP, Vietnam News Agency cited the commission which announced the statistics at a conference on Wednesday.

TOKYO, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Wednesday posted a record 415 COVID-19-related deaths as the country faced the eighth wave of infections during the holiday season.

The number, exceeding 400 for the second successive day, marked the highest daily figure since the pandemic began in Japan, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Among prefectures, Hokkaido on Wednesday reported the highest number of new COVID-19 deaths with 31, followed by Kanagawa with 28, and Tokyo with 23.

TOKYO, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday that he has no plans to immediately dissolve the lower house of parliament and call a snap election, although he said the move is "possible", according to local media reports.

Kishida's remarks come amid a slump in approval ratings for his cabinet triggered by a series of scandals and gaffes leading to the sacking of four ministers in two months, and ahead of unpopular planned tax hikes.

LAGOS, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed and 29 others injured after a car rammed into a crowd of people at a carnival gathering in southern Nigeria's Cross River state on Tuesday, an official said.

The accident happened during the annual Calabar Carnival, a large street party in the state capital city of Calabar, when a Toyota Camry car lost control and rammed into the crowd of onlookers, Maikano Hassan, head of the Federal Road Safety Corps in Cross River state, told Xinhua on the phone.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Heavy rains and floods that devastated parts of the Philippines over the Christmas weekend have left at least 29 dead and 25 missing, the national disaster response agency said Wednesday.

More than 86,000 people were still in emergency shelters after bad weather disrupted Christmas celebrations in the eastern, central and southern Philippines.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presented new plans to further bolster his military power next year at a meeting of top political officials, state media reported Wednesday, in an indication he’ll continue his provocative run of weapons displays.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mostly lower in Europe and Asia on Wednesday as markets were counting down to the end of a painful year for investors, with no end in sight to uncertainties stemming from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Shares fell in Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul but rose in London and Hong Kong as the Chinese government took further steps to reopen to foreign travel after relaxing its stringent “zero-COVID” policies.

Oil prices fell back and U.S. futures inched higher.

BEIJING (AP) — China says it will resume issuing passports for tourism in another big step away from anti-virus controls that isolated the country for almost three years, setting up a potential flood of Chinese going abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday.

BEIJING, Dec 27 (APP): Deputy Secretary-General, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Sohail Khan said that banking sector representatives needed to seek and assess optimal and mutually acceptable mechanisms for financing project activities within the SCO.