Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

MAMUJU, Indonesia (AP) — Damaged roads and bridges, power blackouts and lack of heavy equipment on Saturday hampered Indonesia’s rescuers after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake left at least 45 dead and hundreds injured on Sulawesi island.

Operations were focused on about eight locations in the hardest-hit city of Mamuju, where people are still believed trapped following Friday’s nighttime quake, said Saidar Rahmanjaya, who heads the local search and rescue agency.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 (NNN-Bernama) — Registration for the COVID-19 vaccination for Malaysians will be opened soon, said Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.

However, he did not say when actually the registration would be opened, but that Malaysians would receive two doses of COVID-19 vaccine for full protection against the virus.

“Those who receive the vaccine will have to keep the card that will be given to them when they are given the first injection.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong’s security chief said on Friday that police surveillance of communications can come under the city’s national security law, potentially giving officers broader powers of interception.

John Lee, speaking at an online Legislative Council meeting on security, said the Committee of Safeguarding National Security would have oversight over such surveillance operations.

“If it involves crimes endangering national security, they will be dealt with the rules and mechanisms established under the National Security Law,” Lee said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The Communist Party of Laos on Friday elected Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith as new secretary general, replacing retiring party chief Bounnhang Vorachit, state media reported.

Thongloun was elected to a five-year term as head of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Central Committee – the top post in the party, the state-run Vientiane Times reported.

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah met with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi here Thursday, and both sides pledged to carry on joint fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and promote bilateral cooperation in all areas to new high.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, both countries have joined hands in fighting the virus and deepened mutual trust and friendship, demonstrating the real nature of the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership, Wang said.

JAKARTA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian authorities have downloaded the flight data recorder (FDR) belonging to the Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed into Jakarta waters last week, the National Transportation Safety Committee said on Friday.

"There are 330 parameters (in the FDR) and all are in good condition. We are currently studying it," said the committee's chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono.

The search and rescue team retrieved one of the black boxes on Wednesday and has to clean first the memory from dirt and residual sea salt before downloading it.

MAMUJU, Indonesia (AP) — A strong, shallow earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sulawesi island just after midnight Friday, toppling homes and buildings, triggering landslides and killing at least 15 people.

More than 600 people were injured during the magnitude 6.2 quake, which sent people fleeing their homes in the darkness. Authorities were still collecting information about the full scale of casualties and damage in the affected areas.

There were reports of many people trapped in the rubble of collapsed homes and buildings.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea rolled out developmental ballistic missiles designed to be launched from submarines and other military hardware in a parade that punctuated leader Kim Jong Un’s defiant calls to expand his nuclear weapons program.

State media said Kim took center stage in Thursday night’s parade celebrating a major ruling party meeting where Kim vowed maximum efforts to bolster his nuclear and missile program that threatens Asian rivals and the American homeland to counter what he described as U.S. hostility.

BEIJING, Jan 14 (APP): China on Thursday reported its first local COVID-19 fatality in about eight months since May17, a female patient from North China’s Hebei Province who had an underlying disease and had been extremely ill before she died on Wednesday afternoon.

Experts say the case is not a direct indication that the virus has become more pathogenic, according to Global Times.

JAKARTA, Jan 14 (NNN-Bernama) — Indonesia has recorded the highest daily number of new COVID-19 infections, with more than 11,000 new cases reported in the past 24 hours.

The death toll due to the virus is also the highest, at 306 cases, bringing the total death toll across the republic to 24,951.

According to data published on the Indonesian government’s official website regarding COVID-19, covid19.go.id on Wednesday, the number of new positive COVID-19 cases for the past 24 hours was 11,278, bringing the cumulative cases to 858,043.