Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

BEIJING (AP) — To keep his 40 employees indoors and away from China’s virus outbreak, the manager of an electronics factory in Dongguan, near Hong Kong, says he hired a cook and arranged dormitories for them.

Cjtouch Electronic Co., which makes smartphone touch screens, is one of thousands of manufacturers trying to protect employees while they gradually reopen after anti-virus controls shut down much of the world’s second-largest economy.

“We have adopted strict prevention measures,” said its general manager, Zhang Feng.

CHINA (AP) — The slowdown in coronavirus cases out of China offers a sliver of hope that the global outbreak can be controlled, but whether that can happen anytime soon without drastic measures remains to be seen, public health authorities say.

BANGKOK, March 4 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The second peace dialogue meeting between the Thai government and  Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) concluded on a positive note, where both sides discussed a number of technical and administrative issues to pave the way for long-term peace in Thailand’s violence-wracked South. 

BEIJING, Mar 4 (APP): The outbreak of novel coronavirus will affect not only China, the world’s second-largest economy, but also other countries including those associated with the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

But despite threatening to reduce China’s economic growth, the epidemic is likely to have only a temporary impact on the Belt and Road projects, according to an article published by China Daily on Wednesday.

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has allowed talks about loans and grants from countries that backed a U.N. investigation into his bloody war on drugs to resume, his office said on Wednesday.

A document dated Feb. 27 addressed to all agencies and state-owned firms signed by Duterte’s Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said the suspension on loan and grant negotiations was being lifted.

The document did not provide an explanation nor did Medialdea immediately respond to a request for comment.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Olympic minister said Tuesday the contract to hold the Tokyo Games only specifies the event has to be held during 2020.

Seiko Hashimoto’s response to a question in the upper house of parliament implies the Olympics could be held later in the year and would not have to start on July 24 as planned. The Paralympics open on Aug. 25.

BEIJING (AP) — China on Tuesday denounced a move by the Trump administration to reduce the number of Chinese state-run media journalists who can work in the United States by more than one-third as “based on the Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice.”

The State Department announced Monday that a total of 100 journalists from five outlets would be given visas, citing in part China’s increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation of American and other foreign journalists in China for the move.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s government on Wednesday opened part of the last town that had been off-limits due to radiation since the Fukushima nuclear disaster nine years ago, in a symbolic move to show the region’s recovery ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

The entire population of 7,000 was forced to evacuate Futaba after three reactors melted down due to damage at the town’s nuclear plant caused by a magnitude 9. 0 quake and tsunami March 11, 2011.

TOKYO (AP) — In these days of infection and fear, a recent propaganda photo sums up the image North Korea wants to show the world, as well as its people: Soldiers with black surgical masks surround leader Kim Jong Un, ensconced in a leather overcoat and without a mask as he oversees a defiant military drill.

As a new and frightening virus closes in around it, North Korea presents itself as a fortress, tightening its borders as cadres of health officials stage a monumental disinfection and monitoring program.

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets were mostly higher Wednesday after Wall Street sank despite an emergency U.S. interest cut aimed at defusing fears a virus outbreak might depress global economic activity.

Benchmarks in Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul gained while Hong Kong and Sydney declined.

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 index tumbled 2.8% on Tuesday despite the Federal Reserve’s surprise 0.5% rate cut. It was the index’s eighth daily decline in nine days.