Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s president ordered authorities to speed up the country’s vaccination campaign as the World Health Organization warned Thursday of the need to increase social restrictions in the country amid a fresh surge of coronavirus infections caused by worrisome variants.

“We need vaccination acceleration in order to achieve communal immunity, which we hope can stop the COVID-19 spread,” President Joko Widodo said in a remarks while visiting a vaccination center just outside the capital, Jakarta.

BANGKOK (AP) — Government troops have burned most of a village in Myanmar’s heartland, a resident said Wednesday, confirming reports by independent media and on social networks. The action appeared to be an attempt to suppress resistance against the ruling military junta.

Government-controlled media reported the fires were set by “terrorists” the armed troops were trying to arrest. The government and its opponents each refer to the other side as “terrorists.”

TOKYO (AP) — Japan is set to announce a decision Thursday to ease a coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo and six other areas this weekend, with new daily cases falling just as the country begins making final preparations for the Olympics starting in just over a month.

Japan has been struggling since late March to slow a wave of infections propelled by more contagious variants, with new daily cases soaring above 7,000 at one point and seriously ill patients straining hospitals in Tokyo, Osaka and other metropolitan areas.

HONG KONG (AP) — Five editors and executives at pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper were arrested Thursday under Hong Kong’s national security law, its stock was halted and police were searching its offices in moves raising concerns about the media’s future in the city.

Apple Daily is known for its strong pro-democracy stance and often criticizes and condemns the Chinese and Hong Kong governments for tightening control over the city.

Hong Kong authorities have been intensifying a crackdown on dissent following months of mass anti-government protests in 2019.

HONG KONG, June 16. /TASS/: Moscow and Beijing, both facing confrontation from the West, see no other choice but to continue enhancing their alliance regardless of the outcome of the Russian-US summit in Geneva, Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing, told South China Morning Post. 

BEIJING, June 16 (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday that there had been no leak at the Taishan nuclear power station and it had not raised the allowed radiation levels near the plant, responding to a CNN report earlier this week. 

CNN reported on Monday that Framatome, the French company that designed the reactors, had said that China's nuclear safety regulator had raised limits on permissible levels of radiation outside the plant in the southeastern province of Guangdong to avoid having to shut it down. 

BEIJING, June 16 (Reuters) - China has tripled its daily COVID-19 vaccine rollout in June, inoculating 44% of its population with at least one dose, but its health experts warn against a quick border reopening, citing an uneven rollout and the low rate of full vaccinations.

China rolled out 17.3 million doses per day in June on average, up sharply from 4.8 million in April, as it expanded the list of approved vaccines to seven by adding three more locally-developed shots, and continued to boost production.

But the rollout has been uneven.

PYONGYANG, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Kim Jong Un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), presided over a party plenary meeting Tuesday to review the execution of major state policies for the first half of this year under current international situation, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday.

Kim, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), said at the third Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of WPK that he highly appreciated the positive achievements by the party and the state work over the past six months.

JIUQUAN, China (AP) — China is set to send the first three crew members to its new space station Thursday morning and envisions growing international cooperation on the ambitious project, a space agency official said Wednesday.

Two of the astronauts flew in previous missions while the third is going to space for the first time, China Manned Space Agency Assistant Director Ji Qiming told reporters at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.

(Reuters) --- A militia group in Myanmar's conflict-torn Kayah State announced a halt to attacks on military targets on Tuesday, after appeals from local communities to cease fighting that had damaged homes and displaced more than 100,000 people.

The Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF), one of the largest of several civilian militias formed in recent weeks to oppose a Feb. 1 military coup, said it had temporarily suspended offensives but remained opposed to the military takeover.