Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

SEOUL, June 28 (Reuters) - South Korea approved plans on Monday to pursue a $2.6-billion artillery interception system, similar to Israel's "Iron Dome", designed to protect against North Korea's arsenal of long-range guns and rockets, the defence acquisition agency said.

A large part of the area surrounding Seoul, the capital, is home to about half the population of 52 million, and lies within range of the neighbour’s long-range guns and multiple rocket launchers.

GUANGZHOU, June 28 (Xinhua) -- China's top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan said in an interview with Xinhua that building an immune barrier is urgently needed to combat the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.

Zhong said the resurgence of the virus in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, was the first time that China had to cope with the delta variant spreading in the community.

The variant, which was first identified in India, has a shorter incubation period than other variants and the infected individuals experience longer recovery periods.

BEIJING (AP) — The first two generating units of the world’s second-biggest hydroelectric dam were officially turned on Monday in southwestern China, the government announced.

The Baihetan Dam on the Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze, is part of Chinese efforts to curb surging fossil fuel demand by building more hydropower capacity at a time when dams have fallen out of favor in other countries due to environmental complaints.

The announcement comes ahead of the ruling Communist Party’s celebration this week of the official 100th anniversary of its 1921 founding.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga pledged Monday to strengthen health controls at airports after a Ugandan Olympic team member tested positive for COVID-19 at the town hosting their training camp, triggering concerns that the upcoming games will spread infections.

A Ugandan team member, reportedly a coach, tested positive on Saturday at Tokyo’s Narita airport and was quarantined there. But the rest of the nine-person team was allowed to travel more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) on a chartered bus to their pre-Olympics camp in the western prefecture of Osaka.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Heartbroken North Koreans have been worrying tearfully about leader Kim Jong Un’s “emaciated looks,” state media quoted a local resident as saying, in a rare acknowledgement of foreign speculation about his weight loss.

The comments were seen as an effort to boost domestic support for Kim’s efforts as he grapples with deepening economic hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, mismanagement, U.N. economic sanctions and natural disasters, some experts said.

HONG KONG (AP) — An editorial writer of the now-defunct Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was arrested at the airport on Sunday night while attempting to leave the city, local media reported.

Local newspaper South China Morning Post and online news outlet Citizen News cited unidentified sources saying that editorial writer Fung Wai-kong was arrested on suspicion of foreign collusion to endanger national security.

HONG KONG, June 27 (Reuters) - A fire swept through a marina in Hong Kong in the early hours of Sunday, igniting fuel tanks as it passed along a line of closely moored cabin cruisers, and resulting in at least 10 sinking before firefighters extinguished the blaze.

Authorities in the Asian financial hub said at least 16 vessels were set ablaze, including those that sank, but there were no serious casualties.

The fire at the shelter in the city’s Aberdeen district began 2.30 am (1830 GMT Saturday) and took firefighters more than six hours to put out.

June 27 (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces punched, slapped and beat a U.S. journalist and kept him blindfolded for more than a week of interrogation, he said after being deported to the United States following over three months in detention.

Nathan Maung, 44, editor-in-chief of the online news platform Kamayut Media, was detained on March 9 in a raid and freed on June 15. He said his colleague Hanthar Nyein, who remains in detention, had been tortured more harshly, as had other people he met in prison.

SEOUL, June 27 (Reuters) - Everyone in North Korea is heartbroken over leader Kim Jong Un's apparent weight loss, said an unidentified resident of Pyongyang quoted on the country's tightly controlled state media, after watching recent video footage of Kim.

The rare public comment on Kim's health come after foreign analysts noted in early June that the autocratic leader, who is believed to be 37, appeared to have lost a noticeable amount of weight.

TOKYO, June 27 (Xinhua) -- More American opinion leaders consider China as the United States' most important partner in Asia given the countries' trade relations, a survey by the Japanese Foreign Ministry revealed.

When asked to pick "the most important partner of the United States" among Asian and nearby countries, 35 percent of 200 opinion leaders from a range of fields picked China, while 33 percent picked Japan, according to the survey conducted between December 2020 and January 2021, local media reported Saturday.