Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

BEIJING, June 29 (NNN-XINHUA) – Nearly 8.3 million residents of Beijing have received nucleic acid tests, as of Sunday noon, since the resurgence of domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases, local authorities said, on Sunday.

Test results from about 7.69 million people have come back so far, said Zhang Qiang, deputy head of the Organisation Department of Beijing Municipal Party Committee.

Zhang said, the city’s daily testing capacity has been expanded to 458,000 samples, from 40,000 on June 11.

HEFEI, June 29 (NNN-XINHUA) – A new high-speed railway route connecting east and central China started operation on Sunday.

With a designed speed of 350 kph, the route connects the city of Shangqiu in central China’s Henan Province, and Hefei and Hangzhou, the capital cities of east China’s Anhui and Zhejiang provinces.

The northern section of the railway, from Shangqiu to Hefei, went into operation in Dec, 2019, according to the China Railway Shanghai Group Co., Ltd.

SINGAPORE, June 29 (NNN-CNA) – The Singapore Tourism Board (STB), said on Sunday that, tourism businesses in Singapore will be permitted to resume operations, at stages, from July 1, beginning with 13 attractions.

The authority said, this is part of the resumption of activities in Phase 2, after the Circuit Breaker, which was imposed by the government from Apr 7 to June 1, to reduce COVID-19 transmission.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares fell Monday in Asia, tracking losses on Wall Street as rising virus cases cause some U.S. states to backtrack on pandemic reopenings.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 1.3% in early trading. Shares also fell in Hong Kong, Sydney, Shanghai and South Korea. Investors have been banking on businesses continuing to reopen, helping to drive a recovery from the worst global downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.

(AP) --- The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.

(Reuters) - Thousands of villagers have fled their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after a local administrator warned dozens of village leaders that the army planned “clearance operations” against insurgents, a lawmaker and a humanitarian group said.

But a government spokesman said late on Saturday an evacuation order issued by border-affairs officials had been revoked. Border affairs acknowledged issuing the order through the local administrator but said it affected fewer villages.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police arrested at least 53 people on Sunday after scuffles erupted during a relatively peaceful protest against planned national security legislation to be implemented by the mainland Chinese government.

Armed riot police were present as a crowd of several hundred moved from Jordan to Mong Kok in the Kowloon district, staging what was intended as a “silent protest” against the planned law.

KOTA KINABALU, June 28 (NNN-BERNAMA) —  Another five districts in Sabah have been hit by floods as at 12 pm today, bringing the total number of districts inundated to 10 from five at 8 am this morning, following heavy rain since yesterday.

The five new districts affected by the floods are Tenom, Pitas, Beaufort, Membakut and Papar, besides the earlier affected districts of Kota Belud, Kota Marudu, Penampang, Keningau and Tuaran .

BANGKOK, June 28 (NNN-TNA) – Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Prawit Wongsuwon, was named leader of the Palang Pracharath Party on Saturday.

Prawit, who has earlier acted as head of the ruling party’s strategic campaign committee, was given overwhelming votes as the new party leader from the party’s acting executive board.

BEIJING, June 27 (Xinhua) -- China saw around 78.79 million passenger trips during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday that ends Saturday, according to an estimation of the Ministry of Transport (MOT).

Passenger trips on trains reached 17.76 million during the holiday, while trips via waterway totaled 1.61 million, data from the estimation showed.

An estimated 2.68 million trips were operated by civil airlines, with the average load factor standing at 69 percent, while 56.73 million road trips were made, according to the MOT.