Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thirty years after going public with her story of abduction, rape and forced prostitution by Japan’s wartime military, Lee Yong-soo fears she’s running out of time to get closure to her ordeal.

The 93-year-old is the face of a dwindling group of South Korean sexual slavery survivors who have been demanding since the early 1990s that the Japanese government fully accept culpability and offer an unequivocal apology.

BEIJING (AP) — A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in a remote mountainous area of southern China on Monday, officials said, setting off a forest fire visible from space in the country’s worst air disaster in nearly a decade.

More than seven hours after communication was lost with the plane, there was still no word of survivors.

Hong Kong, Mar 21 (AP) Hong Kong's leader Monday said that the city would lift flight bans on countries including Britain and the US, as well as reduce quarantine time for travellers arriving in the city as coronavirus infections in its latest outbreak plateaus.

BEIJING, Mar 20 (APP): Cheng Xizhong, Visiting Professor of Southwest University of Political Science and Law and Senior Fellow of the Charhar Institute on Sunday said that Pakistan has the courage to safeguard the core interests of Muslim countries and was playing a leading role in the Islamic world.

HANOI, March 20 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob arrived here Sunday for a two-day official visit to Vietnam.

The Prime Minister’s maiden official visit to Vietnam was at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Minh Chinh.

Ismail Sabri flew in from Kuala Lumpur and arrived at the Hanoi International Airport at 1.45 pm (local time). He was greeted upon arrival by Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Tran Van Son and government officials.

KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 (NNN-Bernama) — The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) needs to intensify assistance to the Afghan people whose lives are seen to be getting more and more stressful every day, said Geostrategy expert Prof Dr Azmi Hassan.

He said the assistance was necessary to prevent the people in Afghanistan from continuing to face the threat of starvation.

PHNOM PENH, March 20 (Reuters) - Japan on Sunday pledged to offer Cambodia about $428 million in aid and 1.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine-sharing programme.

The pledges were part of several agreements signed by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen during Kishida's visit to Phnom Penh.

Japan will provide a support loan of 45 billion yen ($378 million) and grant aid through contribution to international organisations of 6 billion yen ($50 million).

HEFEI, March 20 (Xinhua) -- China's position on the Ukraine issue is objective and fair, and time will prove that it is on the right side of history, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday.

Wang made the remarks when briefing journalists on the exchange of views between the heads of China and the United States on the Ukraine issue during a video call that took place on March 18.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Hong Kong’s leader said Sunday that the government would consider lifting strict social distancing measures as new COVID-19 infections in the city continued trending downward.

“I wouldn’t promise now that there’s room for adjustment,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam said. “But following a review, we have a duty to account for the findings in this review and the direction we will take.”

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired suspected artillery pieces into the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, days after the North’s latest missile launch ended in failure amid the country’s recent burst of weapons testing activity.