Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

SINGAPORE, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The Singapore government will adjust foreign worker policies to address concerns among locals over competition for jobs, even as the global business hub remains open to talent from overseas, its prime minister said on Sunday.

"We have to adjust our policies to manage the quality, numbers and concentrations of foreigners in Singapore," Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day Message. "If we do this well, we can continue to welcome foreign workers and new immigrants, as we must.

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted Sunday on the densely populated island of Java, spewing smoke and ash high into the air and sending streams of lava and gasses down its slopes. No casualties were reported.

BEIJING, Aug 7 (APP): Three special planes of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) airlifted a fresh batch of two million doses of Sinopharm vaccines from the Beijing Capital Airport to Pakistan amid the fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Three flights of the national flag carrier, PK-6856, PK-6857, and PK-6858 have transported consignments of two million doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines to Pakistan from China, Qadir Bux Sangi, PIA Country Manager for China told APP here on Saturday.

TOKYO, August 7. /TASS/: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have no issue with observing sanctions against Russian sports at the Olympics in Tokyo, President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Stanislav Pozdnyakov told reporters.

TASHKENT, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Uzbekistan’s ruling Liberal Democratic party plans to nominate President Shavkat Mirziyoyev as its candidate in the Oct. 24 election, the party said on Saturday.

Mirziyoyev, 64, is widely expected to run for a second term, and win, but has so far made no comment on his plans. He came to power in 2016 following the death of Islam Karimov, the Central Asian nation's former Soviet leader and first president.

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The Brunei diplomat appointed by a Southeast Asian regional bloc as its special envoy to Myanmar said on Saturday he should be given full access to all parties when he visits the strife-torn country, where the military overthrew an elected government.

Speaking days after his appointment by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Erywan Yusof gave no date for his visit to Myanmar, whose civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials have been detained since the Feb. 1 coup. 

JAKARTA, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in a video released Saturday that COVID-19 infections have started to surge outside the populous Java-Bali islands, and that movement restrictions are needed to stem transmission.

"The people's mobility needs to be stemmed. For at least two weeks," he said, adding that cases are surging in provinces such as West Sumatra and East Nusa Tenggara. He did not specify where and when such restrictions will take place.

Indonesia's current mobility restrictions are in place until August 9.

BANGKOK, Aug 7 (Reuters) - More than a thousand Thai anti-government protesters clashed with police on Saturday, as they demonstrated against the government's failure to handle coronavirus outbreaks and its impact on the economy.

About a hundred police officers in riot gear sealed off a road near Victory Monument in the capital Bangkok with containers and used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to stop a march toward Government House, the office of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

Singapore, Aug 7 (PTI) Singapore's Health Minister Ong Ye Kung has warned that more people will come down with COVID-19 as the trade and financial hub opens up its economy and moves towards treating the virus as an endemic.

"Our companies cannot grow if businessmen and managers cannot travel overseas to meet clients and partners. MNCs (multinational corporations) will find it hard to invest here if their people are not able to travel in and out of Singapore," the minister stressed.

BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- China's total imports and exports expanded 24.5 percent year on year to 21.34 trillion yuan (about 3.3 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first seven months of the year, official data showed Saturday.

The volume marked a 22.3 percent increase compared with the level during the same period in 2019, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

Both exports and imports logged double-digit growth in the Jan.-July period, jumping 24.5 percent and 24.4 percent from a year earlier, respectively.