Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A court in Myanmar on Friday extended the pre-trial detention period for an Associated Press journalist arrested while covering demonstrations against the military’s seizure of power last month. He is facing a charge that could send him to prison for three years.

Thein Zaw, 32, was one of nine media workers taken into custody during a street protest on Feb. 27 in Yangon, the country’s largest city, and has been held without bail. His next hearing at the Kamayut Township court will be on March 24.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s ceremonial legislature on Thursday endorsed the ruling Communist Party’s move to tighten control over Hong Kong by reducing the role of its public in picking the territory’s leaders.

ANSAN, South Korea (AP) — For the first time in years, Choi Bok-hwa didn’t get her annual birthday call from her mother in North Korea. Each January, Choi’s mother had climbed a mountain and used a broker’s smuggled Chinese cellphone to call South Korea to wish her happy birthday and arrange a badly needed money transfer.

Choi, who hasn’t sent money or talked to her 75-year-old mother since May, believes the silence is linked to the pandemic, which led North Korea to shut its borders tighter than ever and impose some of the world’s toughest restrictions on movement.

BEIJING (AP) — A Communist Party newspaper says China will soon begin trials for two Canadians, who were arrested two years ago in apparent retaliation for Canada’s detention of a senior executive for Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies.

The Global Times said Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor “will soon be tried” after they were charged with “crimes undermining China’s national security” in June 2020.

MANDALAY, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s security forces shot to death at least 10 people protesting the military’s coup Thursday, spurning a U.N. Security Council appeal to stop using lethal force and as an independent U.N. expert cited growing evidence of crimes against humanity.

BEIJING, March 11 (APP): India strongly dreams to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) but now it is wantonly violating its resolutions.

Therefore, it has no qualification to be a permanent member of it.

These views were expressed by Cheng Xizhong, Visiting Professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law and Chinese diplomat in South Asian countries in a statement issued here on Thursday.

JAKARTA, March 11 (NNN-ANTARA) – Twenty-six people were killed, and dozens of others wounded, after a bus, carrying 62 passengers, plunged into a ravine, in Indonesia’s western province of West Java, last night, a local official told the media by phone.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan central bank governor Yang Chin-long said on Thursday that the United States may label the island a currency manipulator as it has already met Washington’s three main criteria for making such a decision.

Yang, answering lawmaker questions in parliament, added that if this happens it would not be too serious and that there would be no immediate disadvantage for Taiwan and they did not expect to be subject to so-called “Section 301” measures that might lead to tariffs.

(Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday condemned violence against Myanmar protesters and called on the army to show restraint, but failed to denounce the military takeover as a coup or threaten further action due to opposition from China and Russia.

More than 60 protesters have been killed and some 2,000 people have been detained by security forces since the Feb. 1 coup against elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group said.

(Reuters) - Myanmar’s ruling military council will only be in control of the country for a certain period of time and will hold an election and hand power to the winning party, its spokesman said on Thursday.

Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun also said Myanmar’s military was helping more than 1,000 of its nationals who he said were in trouble in Malaysia by facilitating their return recently. He was referring to a recent mass deportation that human rights groups had sought to block due to concerns about their welfare.