Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will go ahead with a planned trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman from the weekend despite heightened tensions in the Middle East, while Tokyo also dispatched a warship and patrol planes to the region.

TV Asahi had reported the trip would be canceled following the U.S. killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and a retaliatory missile attack by Iran on U.S. forces in Iraq.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - The world is watching what choice Taiwan makes as the only Chinese-speaking democracy, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday, the eve of elections in which Tsai said a vote for her would be a vote for freedom.

Taiwan holds presidential and parliamentary polls on Saturday in the shadow of both a ramped up effort by China to get the democratic island to accept Beijing’s rule, and anti-government protests in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong.

9 January 2020; AFP: China believes a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that struck 59 people is caused by a new strain of virus from the same family as SARS, which killed hundreds of people more than a decade ago.

Lead scientist Xu Jianguo told the official Xinhua news agency that experts had "preliminarily determined" a new type of coronavirus was behind the outbreak, first confirmed on December 31 in Wuhan, a central Chinese city with a population of over 11 million.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - President Joko Widodo visited an island in waters disputed by China on Wednesday to assert Indonesia’s sovereignty amid a standoff between Indonesian and Chinese vessels.

The confrontation began in mid-December when a Chinese coast guard vessel and fishing boats, entered waters in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, off the coast of the northern Natuna islands, prompting Jakarta to summon Beijing’s ambassador.

Widodo told reporters on Natuna Besar island that the disputed waters belong solely to Indonesia.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s justice minister launched a rare and forceful public takedown of auto executive-turned-fugitive Carlos Ghosn after he blasted the country’s legal system as allowing him “zero chance” of a fair trial as he sought to justify his escape to Beirut.

After his dramatic flight to Lebanon last month, Ghosn spoke in public for the first time on Wednesday, saying he had been treated “brutally” by Tokyo prosecutors. He said they questioned him for up to eight hours a day without a lawyer present and tried to extract a confession out of him.

BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets and oil prices rebounded Thursday as anxiety over potential U.S.-Iranian conflict eased.

London and Frankfurt opened higher and Tokyo gained more than 2%. Shanghai and Hong Kong also advanced.

Markets sank Wednesday after Tehran launched missiles at bases housing Americans in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of an Iranian general. Anxiety subsided after reports indicated no Americans were killed and President Donald Trump said Iran “appears to be standing down.”

BEIJING (AP) — China’s economy czar will visit Washington next week for the signing of an interim trade deal, the government said Thursday.

Vice Premier Liu He, Beijing’s chief envoy in talks with Washington over their tariff war, had been expected to attend the signing but the Commerce Ministry’s statement was the first official confirmation.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A year ago, Taiwan’s leader was on the ropes. Then she got a boost from an unexpected corner: Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Polls indicate that President Tsai Ing-wen is poised to win a second four-year term on Saturday, a remarkable turnaround for a leader whose future was in doubt after voters dealt her Democratic Progressive Party a major loss in November 2018 local elections.

HONG KONG (AP) — Trump signs, Pepe the Frog graffiti and British and American flags have become a common sight at Hong Kong’s anti-government protests — and an unsettling one to longtime democracy activists on the left.

Beijing has seized on the images to portray the movement as a coddled, westernized middle class incited by foreign organizations and governments to rebel against the world’s largest communist country, China.

“Why does the American flag appear at every violent scene in Hong Kong?” state broadcaster CCTV asked.

TOKYO, Jan 8 (NNN-NHK) – Tokyo prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Carole Ghosn, wife of former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman, Carlos Ghosn, for making a false statement last Apr, at her husband’s trial for alleged aggravated breach of trust.

Prosecutors suspected that during an examination of a witness last Apr, at the Tokyo District Court, Carole Ghosn denied knowing one of Ghosn’s acquaintances, whom she had previously contacted.