Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

TOKYO (AP) — A group of lawyers said Friday that the alleged assassin of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was one of many victims of the Unification Church, which has long cultivated ties with high-level Japanese politicians.

The church, founded in South Korea in the 1950s, has become a focus of intense attention in Japan because the suspect in Abe’s shooting, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, told investigators that he was motivated by Abe’s supposed links to the Unification Church, which he said his mother had made massive donations to, bankrupting the family and destroying his life.

BEIJING (AP) — President Xi Jinping warned against meddling in China’s dealings with Taiwan during a phone call with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, that gave no indication of progress on trade, technology or other irritants, including Beijing’s opposition to a top American lawmaker’s possible visit to the island that the mainland claims as its own territory.

BEIJING, Jul 28 (APP): In a major development, China Machinery Engineering Corp. (CMEC) started assembling heavy mining equipment for the first time in Pakistan to expand coal excavation operations at its Thar Coal Block-II project, an official said on Thursday.

CMEC is the operator and the second largest shareholder in Pakistan’s first open-pit lignite mine and 660MWs integrated mine-mouth power plant in Thar Block-II under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

TASHKENT, July 28. /TASS/: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should act as a driving force in ensuring international equity and play a stabilizing role at the international and regional level, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysia hit a historic political milestone Thursday when the amendment to the Federal Constitution to prohibit members of ‘Dewan Rakyat’ (House of Representatives) from changing parties or committing party-hopping was passed after it received two-thirds majority support from the house.

Through a bloc voting, 209 out of the 220 Members of Parliament (MPs) voted in favour of the Constitution (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) 2022, while 11 others were absent. 

BEIJING, July 27 (Reuters) - Remnants of a large, newly launched Chinese rocket are expected to streak back through the atmosphere this coming weekend in an uncontrolled re-entry the Beijing government said on Wednesday would be closely tracked but poses little risk to anyone on the ground.

The Long March 5B rocket blasted off Sunday to deliver a laboratory module to the new Chinese space station under construction in orbit, marking the third flight of China's most powerful rocket since its maiden launch in 2020.

HONG KONG, July 28 (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier and its strike group have returned to the South China Sea after a port call in Singapore, deploying in the disputed region as tensions with China rise over a possible visit to Taiwan by congressional leader Nancy Pelosi.

Officials with the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet confirmed the deployment of the USS Ronald Reagan to the vital trade route but did not comment on questions about tensions over the trip by Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

PHNOM PENH, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia will host the 55th ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers' Meeting and related meetings from July 29 to Aug. 5 in Phnom Penh, according to a foreign ministry's statement issued on Thursday.

Cambodia is the chair of ASEAN for 2022. ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

BEIJING, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak can be stopped if countries, communities and individuals take the risks seriously and take needed steps to stop transmission and protect vulnerable groups, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

TOKYO, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Thursday reported 233,100 new daily COVID-19 cases, marking a new record for a second straight day, as the highly transmissible BA.5 Omicron subvariant continues to run rampant.

Tokyo alone confirmed a record 40,406 new infections, topping the 40,000-mark for the first time, with the number of cases jumping 8,500 from a week earlier. Officials said the health system was becoming overstretched.

The case count has topped the number of the previous week for nine consecutive days, the official figure showed.