Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

BEIJING, Dec 23 (NNN-XINHUA) – Chinese President, Xi Jinping, today (Monday), met with President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing.

China and South Korea should deepen and develop their strategic cooperative partnership, accommodate each other’s core interests and major concerns, and lift bilateral ties to a higher level, Xi said.

Moon is in China to attend the Eighth China-Japan-South Korea leaders’ meeting, which will be held in China’s southwestern city of Chengdu on Tuesday (tomorrow).

TOKYO (AP) — Shares were mixed Monday in quiet trading ahead of Christmas holidays for many markets.

Concern over the possibility of a North Korean missile test was leavened by signs of further progress in cooling trade tensions between Washington and Beijing as China announced plans to further open its financial markets to private business.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s government promised Monday to open its oil, telecom and power markets wider to private competitors as the ruling Communist Party tries to shore up growth in the slowing, state-dominated economy.

The Cabinet also promised to give private companies equal treatment with state-owned enterprises in more industries. The statement gave no indication whether the changes apply equally to foreign companies.

HONG KONG (AP) — The Hong Kong seller of luxury watches looked on in horror as masked men wielding the biggest sledgehammer he’d ever seen smashed through the door of a neighboring watch store, held a machete to the owner’s throat, scooped up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of timepieces, and then scattered into the city’s maze of streets.

Less than two weeks later, armed robbers attacked again. This time, the watch merchants of Kowloon fought back.

JAKARTA, Dec 22 (NNN-ANTARA) – Sailors on Saturday, helped a whale get back into the sea, after being stranded in a river, in Indonesia’s Central Java province, an official said.

The whale with some injuries, was said to have swum into a river, in Ujungmanik village of Cilacap district, when the level of sea surface rose, and failed to return to the sea, when sea waters receded, head of the village, Sugeng Budiyatno, said.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong riot police pepper sprayed protesters to disperse crowds in the heart of the city’s financial district on Sunday after a largely peaceful rally in support of China’s ethnic Uighurs turned chaotic.

Dozens of police marched across a public square overlooking Hong Kong’s harbor to face off with protesters who hurled glass bottles and rocks at them.

Earlier in the afternoon more than 1,000 people had rallied calmly, waving Uighur flags and posters, as they took part in the latest demonstration in over six months of unrest.

QINGDAO, China/BEIJING (Reuters) - China should introduce a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence in the finance industry, and enhance technology used by regulators to strengthen industry-wide supervision, policy advisers at a leading think tank said on Sunday.

“We should not deify artificial intelligence as it could go wrong just like any other technology,” said the former chief of China’s securities regulator, Xiao Gang, who is now a senior researcher at the China Finance 40 Forum.

TOKYO, Dec 22 (NNN-NHK) – Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, held a phone conversation with U.S. President, Donald Trump, late Saturday night, to brief him about the outcome of the Japanese prime minister’s talks with Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, local media reported.

During the conversation, which lasted about 75 minutes, Abe told Trump that Japan will continue diplomatic efforts to ease tensions in the Middle East by working closely with the United States, according to local media reports.

PYONGYANG, Dec 22 (NNN-KCNA) – The Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), on Saturday, lashed out at the U.S. criticism of its “human rights” issues, saying, Washington was “pouring oil over burning fire.”

An unnamed foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying that, the U.S. State Department’s “reckless” remarks against the DPRK, on its human rights issues were “a grave political provocation” against Pyongyang.

PYONGYANG, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- The top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un presided over a meeting of top military officials in an effort to enhance the country's military capability, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday.