Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

(Reuters) --- Thai border controls will tighten after the discovery of three local cases of the South African COVID-19 variant stemming from illegal border crossings, authorities said on Sunday, as the country grapples to contain its worst coronavirus outbreak yet.

The first local case of the South African variant, known as B.1.351, was detected on May 4 in a 32-year-old Thai man after he was visited by family who entered Thailand from Malaysia through an informal border crossing, the director-general of the disease control department said.

(Reuters) --- Fighters opposed to Myanmar's military junta seized a police station in the eastern town of Mobye on Sunday and claimed to have killed at least 13 members of the security forces and captured four, local media said.

Videos shared on social media showed what appeared to be the dead bodies of security forces in the latest attack of a general upsurge of conflict in parts of Myanmar since the Feb. 1 coup that overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

(Reuters) --- The European Union on Sunday denounced a proposal by Myanmar's junta-appointed election commission to dissolve deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which overwhelmingly won the general election in November.

"If the Commission were to proceed with this proposal, it would show yet again the junta's blatant disregard for the will of Myanmar's people and for due legal process," a spokeswoman of the EU's executive Commission said in a statement.

BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- China's crude oil output rose 3.4 percent year on year to 16.41 million tonnes in April, official data shows.

The April output represents a 4.3 percent increase from the level seen in the same period of 2019, putting the annual average growth of the past two years at 2.1 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the first four months, China's oil output grew 1.9 percent year on year to 65.63 million tonnes.

BEIJING (AP) — Twenty-one people running a mountain marathon have died in northwestern China after hail, freezing rain and gale winds hit the high-altitude race, state media reported Sunday.

After an all night rescue operation in freezing temperatures involving more than 700 personnel, rescuers were able to confirm that 151 people were safe out of a total of 172 participants. Twenty-one had died, according to the official Xinhua News Agency, which said the runners suffered from physical discomfort and the sudden drop in temperature.

22 May 2021; MEMO: More than a thousand Indonesian Muslims gathered after Friday prayers outside the US Embassy in Jakarta to denounce US support of the Zionist occupation.

The demonstrators organised rallies from several mosques after the prayers and went to the main street outside the US Embassy, ​​under heavy police presence, reported the Associated Press.

(Reuters) --- Taiwan reported another rise in domestic COVID-19 cases on Saturday, but the health minister said the trend remained stable with new infections concentrated in the northern part of the island in and around Taipei.

After months of keeping the pandemic under control, Taiwan is dealing with a surge in domestic infections, and the whole island is under a heightened state of alert with people asked to stay at home and many venues shut.

(Reuters) --- The Philippines and China held "friendly and candid" talks on the South China Sea, the Philippines' foreign ministry said on Saturday, days after the minister ordered Chinese vessels out of the disputed waterway in an expletive-laced tweet.

The presence of hundreds Chinese vessels inside the Philippines 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has been the latest source of tensions between the two countries in the South China Sea, through which $3 trillion worth of goods pass every year.

(Reuters) --- China will uphold the leadership of the Communist Party in Tibet to further its economic development, and guide Tibetan society in accordance to socialism, the region's top official said on Saturday.

Chinese troops entered Tibet in 1950, and a year later, the Chinese government formally gained control over the region and its devoutly Buddhist Tibetans. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

(Reuters) --- Myanmar’s junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi was healthy at home and would appear in court in a few days, in his first interview since overthrowing her in a Feb. 1 coup.

The coup has plunged the Southeast Asian country into chaos and one of several ethnic armed groups opposed to the ruling junta advanced to attack a military post in a northwestern jade mining town on Saturday, local media said.