Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

HANOI (Reuters) - A new coronavirus outbreak in Vietnam spread to two more provinces on Wednesday, the country’s health minister said, as the COVID-19 task force declared the contagion “under control” in the central city where the outbreak began.

Aggressive contact-tracing, targeted testing and strict quarantining had helped Vietnam contain earlier outbreaks, but it is now battling infections in at least 10 cities and provinces, after going more than three months without domestic transmission.

BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- China firmly opposes the U.S. side's blatant bullying of certain non-U.S. enterprises in violation of market economy rules and the WTO principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

Spokesman Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a press briefing while commenting on U.S. announcement that TikTok, a Chinese video-sharing app, will be out of business in the United States if it is not sold to a U.S. company before Sept. 15.

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets were mixed Wednesday amid investor concern about U.S. stimulus spending and a trade agreement with Beijing.

Shanghai and Hong Kong advanced while Tokyo and Sydney retreated. Gold, which has set a string of records, rose again after a deadly explosion in Beirut.

Investors are watching the stalemate among U.S. legislators over employment benefits for millions of Americans thrown out of work by the coronavirus pandemic and spending to shore up anemic economic growth.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is scheduled to visit Taiwan in coming days in the highest-level visit by an American Cabinet official since the break in formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in 1979.

BEIJING, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- The postponement of the 2020 Legislative Council (LegCo) General Election in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was a legitimate move to protect the lives and health of Hong Kong citizens, and was necessary to ensure the safety, justice and fairness of the election, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said here Monday.

(AP) --- Shares advanced across Asia on Tuesday after Wall Street closed broadly higher on encouraging economic reports, starting off August by closing within 3% of the record high it set in February.

Investors appear to be shrugging off surging coronavirus caseloads in dozens of countries.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.4% to 22,505.83 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.7% to 24,637.24. Sydney’s S&P ASX 200 jumped 1.6% to 6,022.50 and the Kospi in Seoul picked up 1.1% to 2,275.84. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% higher to 3,372.76.

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — For nearly 70 years, until he turned 85, Lee Jong-keun hid his past as an atomic bomb survivor, fearful of the widespread discrimination against blast victims that has long persisted in Japan.

But Lee, 92, is now part of a fast-dwindling group of survivors, known as hibakusha, that feels a growing urgency — desperation even — to tell their stories. These last witnesses to what happened 75 years ago this Thursday want to reach a younger generation that they feel is losing sight of the horror.

BEIJING, Aug 3 (APP): The scars of last summer remain in Soura, an enclave that became a symbol of Kashmir’s resistance to India’s central government a year ago on Wednesday.

Coils of concertina wire, remnants of makeshift road blocks, lie close to the broken tar of roads dug up to keep the security forces of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi out of this area of 15,000 people in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar, China Global Television Network (CGTN) reported on Monday.

Manila, Aug 3 (AP/PTI) The Philippine president has agreed to place the capital and outlying provinces back under a lockdown after medical groups warned that the country was waging a losing battle against the coronavirus amid an alarming surge in infections.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Monday that metropolitan Manila, the capital region of more than 12 million people, and five densely populated provinces will revert to stricter quarantine restrictions for two weeks starting Tuesday.

ALOR SETAR, Malaysia (AP) — A British woman accused of stabbing her husband to death at their Malaysian resort home entered court Monday for the start of a murder trial that could end with her sentenced to be hanged.

Wearing a mask and handcuffed, Samantha Jones, 51, was escorted by police into the courthouse in Alor Setar in the northern state of Kedah.

She was charged after police found a blood-stained kitchen knife in the couple’s home where John William Jones was found dead on Oct. 18, 2018.