Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Apr 11 (NNN-XINHUA) – China and Brunei saw their bilateral trade volume rise 72.5 percent last year, ranking top among China’s ASEAN partners, Chinese Ambassador to Brunei, Yu Hong said, yesterday.

During the awards ceremony of the Logo Design Competition, for the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Brunei and China, Yu said, China and Brunei enjoy a long history of friendly exchanges and good relationship that dates back to as early as 2,000 years ago when the Maritime Silk Road brought them together.

ULAN BATOR, Apr 11 (NNN-MONGOLIAWEB) – Two Mongolian soldiers were arrested today, for killing their commander and fleeing the scene, according to the country’s national police agency.

The 19-year-old soldiers fled with two guns and more than 40 bullets, after they shot dead their commander, at a border outpost in Altai soum (administrative subdivision) of Govi-Altai Province, in western Mongolia, on Thursday.

“This morning, the two soldiers were arrested 50 km from Altai soum, without any resistance and with the help of their parents,” said the police agency.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Once seemingly untouchable, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has endured a tumultuous run that saw his Chinese e-commerce giant hit with a record 18 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) antitrust fine on Saturday, resolving one key uncertainty even as others persist for himself and his business empire.

BISHKEK (Reuters) -Voters in Kyrgyzstan are likely to support handing greater powers to the presidency in a referendum on Sunday, given high public trust in populist head of state Sadyr Japarov.

The constitutional reform will make the political system of the Central Asian nation similar to that of its ex-Soviet neighbours, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, making it easier for Japarov to push through his policies.

MANILA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines and the United States will start their annual joint military exercise dubbed "Balikatan" on Monday, the Philippine military chief said on Sunday.

This year's exercise is a "scaled-down version" of the previous drills due to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Philippine defense and military authorities.

Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana, the chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said this year's "Balikatan" will only involve 1,700 troops -- 700 from the U.S. and 1,000 from the Philippines.

BEIJING, April 10 (Xinhua) -- A new COVID-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinopharm has recently been approved for clinical trials.

The new recombinant COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Vaccine & Serum Institute, a R&D center of Sinopharm's bioscience subsidiary the China National Biotec Group (CNBG), got approval from the National Medical Products Administration on Friday, the CNBG said on its official Weibo account on Saturday.

Beijing, Apr 11 (AP-PTI) Rescuers on Sunday were trying to reach 21 coal miners who were trapped by an underground flood in China's northwest, a state news agency reported.

The mine in Hutubi County in the Xinjiang region flooded at about 6:10 pm on Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency said. It said eight people were rescued.

China's coal mines are among the world's deadliest, regularly suffering explosions and gas leaks despite repeated safety crackdowns.

MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — A strong earthquake on Indonesia’s main island of Java killed eight people, including a woman whose motorcycle was hit by falling rocks, and damaged more than 1,300 buildings, officials said Sunday. It didn’t trigger a tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.0 quake struck off the island’s southern coast at 2 p.m. Saturday. It was centered 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Sumberpucung town of Malang District in East Java province, at a depth of 82 kilometers (51 miles).

YANGON (AP) — At least 82 people were killed in one day in a crackdown by Myanmar security forces on pro-democracy protesters, according to reports Saturday from independent local media and an organization that keeps track of casualties since the February coup.

Friday’s death toll in Bago was the biggest one-day total for a single city since March 14, when just over 100 people were killed in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Bago is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Yangon. The Associated Press is unable to independently verify the number of deaths.

BEIJING (AP) — In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to give them a boost.

Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.

Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses in other countries while also trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of Western vaccines.