BEIJING (AP) — China is holding military exercises in the disputed South China Sea coinciding with U.S. President Joe Biden’s visits to South Korea and Japan that are largely focused on countering the perceived threat from Beijing.
The Maritime Safety Administration office in the southern island province of Hainan said the drills began Thursday and will continue through Monday.
BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets rose Friday after Wall Street fell closer to bear territory, China cut a key interest rate and Japanese inflation edged higher.
London opened higher while Frankfurt retreated. Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney gained. Oil prices declined.
PYEONGTAEK, South Korea (AP) — President Joe Biden is opening his trip to Asia with a focus on the computer chip shortage that has bedeviled the world economy, touring a Samsung computer chip plant that will serve as model for a $17 billion semiconductor factory that the Korean electronics company plans to open in Texas.
KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysian ringgit closed lower today, hitting RM4.40 against the US dollar on global recession concerns, said an analyst.
At 6 pm, the local note stood at 4.4030/4060 versus the greenback from Wednesday’s close of 4.3960/3975.
SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes said although the US dollar was not so much in demand due to global economic growth concerns, sentiments for emerging currencies, including the ringgit, remained weak, triggering a wide sell-off.
SINGAPORE, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Singapore reported 6,442 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total tally to 1,254,113.
Among the new cases, 6,289 were local transmissions and 153 were imported cases.
Of the local cases, 453 cases were detected through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and 5,836 through antigen rapid test (ART) tests, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health.
A total of 288 cases are currently warded in hospitals, with eight cases in intensive care units.
SEOUL (AP) — For many South Koreans, the former presidential palace in Seoul was a little-visited, heavily secured mountainside landmark. That’s now changed as thousands have been allowed a look inside for the first time in 74 years.
As one of his first acts, the new South Korean leader has moved the presidential offices from the Blue House, named after its distinctive blue roof tiles, and opened its gates to the public, allowing a maximum of 39,000 people a day to visit.
BEIJING (AP) — The locked-down Chinese metropolis of Shanghai will reopen four of its 20 subway lines Sunday as it slowly eases pandemic restrictions that have kept most residents in their housing complexes for more than six weeks.
The city will also restart 273 bus lines connecting major urban centers, airports, train stations and hospitals as it resumes cross-district public transit, Yu Fulin, director of the Shanghai Transport Commission, said at a daily pandemic briefing Thursday.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — On a recent nighttime visit to a drugstore, a double-masked Kim Jong Un lamented the slow delivery of medicine. Separately, the North Korean leader’s lieutenants have quarantined hundreds of thousands of suspected COVID-19 patients and urged people with mild symptoms to take willow leaf or honeysuckle tea.
BEIJING, May 18 (APP): The foreign ministers of BRICS countries will hold a meeting via video link on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday.
Addressing his regular press briefing here, he said, BRICS (acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) enjoys global influence as a cooperation mechanism of emerging markets and developing countries.
PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), May 18 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Kamarudin Jaffar will undertake working visits to Uzbekistan from May 19 to 21 and Kazakhstan from May 22 to 25.
The Foreign Ministry (Wisma Putra) in a statement on Wednesday said in Uzbekistan, Kamarudin is scheduled to meet the country’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Acting Foreign Minister as well as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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