Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

MANILA, March 27 (Reuters) - A small but restive volcano near the Philippine capital Manila ejected two more plumes on Sunday, indicating continued eruption and prompting authorities to urge residents to stay out of harm's way.

Located in a scenic lake in Batangas province south of Manila, the 311-metre (1,020-foot) Taal volcano spewed an 800-metre-tall plume followed by one of 400 metres. This followed a phreatomagmatic eruption - the result of super-hot magma interacting with water - from its main crater on Saturday.

BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) -- China's cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-2 has separated from the core module of the country's space station Sunday afternoon, announced the China Manned Space Agency.  

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s leader vowed Sunday to intensify action against homegrown militia groups fighting the military-run government, saying the armed forces would “annihilate” them.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, speaking at a military parade marking Armed Forces Day, also urged ethnic minorities not to support groups opposed to army rule and ruled out negotiations with them.

BEIJING (AP) — The second “black box” has been recovered from the crash of a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 that killed all 132 people on board last week, Chinese state media said Sunday.

Firefighters taking part in the search found the recorder, an orange cylinder, on a mountain slope about 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground, state broadcaster CCTV said. Experts confirmed it was the second black box. The impact of the crash scattered debris widely and created a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep pit in the side of the mountain.

MANILA, March 26 (Reuters) - A small but restive volcano south of the Philippine capital spewed a 1.5 km plume on Saturday, prompting authorities to raise an alert level and evacuate more than a thousand residents.

The alert for the Taal volcano, about 70 km (45 miles) south of central Manila, was increased to level 3 from level 2 on the 5-level scale, which the seismology and volcanology agency said meant "there is magmatic intrusion at the main crater that may further drive succeeding eruptions".

MANILA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines is reaping fruits of its agricultural collaboration with China in increasing food supply and safeguarding food security in the country, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said on Friday.

Dar made the remarks at a ceremony marking the inauguration of new breeding laboratories at the Philippine-Sino Center for Agricultural Technology (PhilSCAT) in Munoz city in Nueva Ecija province, north of Manila.

NANNING, March 26 (Xinhua) -- All 132 people on board China Eastern Airlines' plane that crashed Monday in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were dead, official sources said Saturday night.

BEIJING, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland on Friday reported 1,280 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, down from 1,301 on Thursday, according to the National Health Commission.

Of the new local infections, 1,122 were reported in the province of Jilin, 38 in Shanghai, 35 in Tianjin, 19 in Hebei, and 14 in Liaoning.

The rest of the cases were reported in 15 other provincial-level regions, including Heilongjiang and Gansu.

A total of 55 imported COVID-19 cases were reported Friday, said the commission in its daily report.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States called Friday for tougher U.N. sanctions after North Korea said it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile to date, with Kim Jong Un vowing to expand his country’s “nuclear war deterrent” while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.

The launch Thursday extended a barrage of weapons demonstrations this year that analysts say are aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and remove crippling sanctions against its broken economy.

SEOUL, March 25 (Reuters) - North Korea's latest launch was a big, new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), state media reported on Friday, a test leader Kim Jong Un said was designed to demonstrate the might of its nuclear force and deter any U.S. military moves.

Thursday's launch was the first full ICBM test by nuclear-armed North Korea since 2017. Flight data indicated the missile flew higher and longer than any of North Korea's previous tests before crashing into the sea west of Japan.