Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will join the race to succeed his boss Shinzo Abe as prime minister, local media said on Sunday, as the competition heats up to succeed Japan’s longest-serving leader.

Suga, a longtime lieutenant of Abe’s in a key supporting role, had denied interest in the top job but attracted attention with a series of interviews, to Reuters and other news organisations, in the days before Abe’s abrupt resignation for health reasons.

Kuala Lumpur, Aug 29 (AP/PTI) Malaysia has extended its pandemic movement restrictions including a ban on foreign tourists until the end of the year.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said in a televised address late Friday that global cases have been rising and the country has seen sporadic virus clusters even though the situation was under control.

Malaysia has recorded more than 9,000 cases with 125 deaths.

TOKYO, August 29. /TASS/: Relations between Japan and Russia got a boost under incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2012 words about the need to reach a hikiwake (a judo term for a draw) on the territorial dispute, Senior Research Fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation Taisuke Abiru told TASS on Saturday.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Wuhan, Ground Zero for the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese city hardest hit by the coronavirus, will reopen all its schools and kindergartens on Tuesday, local authorities said.

As many as 2,842 educational institutions across the city are set to open their doors to almost 1.4 million students when the autumn semester gets underway, the local government announced on Friday. Wuhan University reopened on Monday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s ruling party will choose Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s successor around Sept. 15, Kyodo news agency said on Saturday, after Abe abruptly announced his resignation for health reasons on Friday.

The president of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is virtually assured of being prime minister because of the LDP’s majority in parliament’s lower house.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Yoshihide Suga, a longtime lieutenant of Japan’s Shinzo Abe, has emerged as a strong contender to succeed him as prime minister, an outcome that would extend the fiscal and monetary stimulus that defined Abe’s nearly eight years in office.

Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, said on Friday he was stepping down due to a worsening of a chronic illness, setting the stage for a leadership election within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Defence Minister Taro Kono said on Saturday he had agreed with his U.S. counterpart Mark Esper that both countries opposed any unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the key waterways of the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

Kono shared his view with the U.S. defense secretary at a time when the United States and China are at loggerheads over issues ranging from technology and human rights to Chinese military activities in the disputed South China Sea.

SEOUL, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korean politicians and media hoped for the improvement of relations with Japan, which some domestic media described as the worst-ever, after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's announcement of resignation.

Abe said Friday that he would step down from his post for the recurrence of the same intestinal disease that ended his first tenure, causing uncertainty over the Seoul-Tokyo ties that fell into the worst under Abe's premiership owing to historical issues from the 1910-1945 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

BEIJING, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidates have started international phase-3 clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.

Some of the phase-3 trials are expected to complete the first round of vaccinations in early September, with preliminary data expected as early as November.

Phase-3 clinical trials usually involve thousands of people to verify the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines, which are key to their market approval.

BEIJING, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Friday urged the United States "not to make an issue out of China in its election."

"We have no comment on the U.S. presidential election, which is an internal affair. At the same time, we urge the U.S. not to make an issue out of China in its election," Zhao Lijian said at a regular press conference.

Zhao said China's policy toward the United States is consistent and clear.