Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), Jan 11 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysian government via the Health Ministry and Pfizer (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd on Monday signed the manufacturing and supply agreement for the pharmaceutical company’s COVID-19 vaccines in Malaysia.

Monday’s agreement was an extension of the Binding Heads of Terms agreement signed on Nov 24, 2020.

The agreement was signed via a live conference by Health Minister Adham Baba, on behalf of the Malaysian government, and for Pfizer, its Country Manager (Malaysia and Brunei) Luksanawan Thangpaibool.

YANGON, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- China-aided Myanmar National Center of Disease Control (CDC) and Medical Training Center project was launched in Myanmar on Sunday, according to a release from the Chinese embassy in Myanmar.

At the ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Chen Hai said that the project after its completion will play an important role in the emergency response, epidemic prevention, scientific research and medical personnel training, which will bring benefits to the people of Myanmar.

JAKARTA, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from landslides in a village in Indonesia's province of West Java reached 13 on Sunday, local officials said.

"The rescue team found two other victims who died in the landslides, bringing the death tally to 13 until 1 p.m. (local time)," the head of provincial capital Bandung's Search and Rescue Agency, Deden Ridwansyah, told news portal Detik.com on Sunday.

Rescuers are still conducting searches for more victims in the landslides at Cihanjuang village in West Java on Sunday afternoon.

BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- The raging COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating as confirmed cases worldwide have exceeded 90 million and a new variant genome has been detected in Japan.

PASSING 90-MLN MARK

The global case count reached 90,045,410, with a total of 1,931,571 deaths worldwide as of 3:22 p.m. local time (2022 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The search for the black boxes of a crashed Sriwijaya Air jet intensified Monday to boost the investigation into what caused the plane carrying 62 people to nosedive at high velocity into the Java Sea.

The Boeing 737-500 jet disappeared minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, during heavy rain on Saturday, and the search so far has yielded plane parts and human remains but no sign of survivors.

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher Monday as bullish sentiment persisted despite continuing signs of economic damage from the pandemic.

Traders continued to be cheered by prospects that the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden will pump more aid into the U.S. economy, a move that will help Asia and other export-driven nations.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.5% in early trading to 3,230.15. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.7% to 6,714.20. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up 0.2% to 27,945.18, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.4% to 3,584.97.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was given the new title of general secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party, a designation formerly held by his late father and grandfather, state media reported Monday, in a move apparently aimed at bolstering his authority amid growing economic challenges.

Giving Kim the new title was the latest in a series of steps that North Korea has taken during its ongoing ruling party congress, the first of its kind since 2016.

BISHKEK, January 10. /TASS/: Sadyr Japarov is winning Sunday’s early presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan, with 76.87% of the vote, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said after counting ballots from 51.01% of polling stations.

It means that no runoff voting will be needed.

According to the CEC data, Adakhan Madumarov is second in the race, with slightly more than six percent of votes.

ALMATY/NUR-SULTAN (Reuters) - A party led by Kazakhstan’s powerful ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev is set to sweep Sunday’s parliamentary election, as it has done for decades, with no major opposition groups running in the vote.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, handpicked by Nazarbayev as his successor in 2019, is also a senior member of the Nur Otan political party which controls 84 of 107 seats in Kazakhstan’s lower house.

JAKARTA, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said on Sunday that a naval ship deployed to search for the Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed into the waters off Jakarta has caught a signal at the crash site.

Tjahjanto said naval ship KRI Rigela equipped with a remote-operated vehicle, which arrived at the search location at 3 a.m. local time on Sunday, detected the signal possibly from the aircraft.