Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

23 September 2019; AFP: Indonesian authorities have cited failures in the Boeing 737 MAX design and oversight as contributing to the 2018 Lion Air plane crash, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The report into the crash, which will be formally released in early November, also blames pilot error and maintenance issues for the crash that killed 189 people shortly after the flight departed from Jakarta last October, the newspaper said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Disputes in the Gulf should be resolved peacefully via talks and all sides should remain calm and exercise restraint, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Iraq’s visiting prime minister on Monday.

Riyadh is preparing to provide evidence to the U.N. General Assembly which it says will prove Iran was behind a Sept. 14 drone and missile assault on Saudi oil facilities, a view shared by Washington. The assault initially had a drastic impact on Saudi oil output.

XICHANG, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- China successfully sent two satellites of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province at 5:10 a.m. Monday.

Launched on a Long March-3B carrier rocket, the two satellites entered orbit. They are the 47th and 48th satellites of the BDS satellite family.

The new satellites and the carrier rocket were developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

DUSHANBE, September 22. /TASS/: A citizen of Tajikistan’s city of Bokhtar, who attacked two servicemen of a Russian military base, has been apprehended and a criminal investigation has been launched, Spokesman for the Central Asian state’s Interior Ministry Umardjon Emomali told TASS.

"A local citizen, who is accused of injuring two Russian servicemen of the 201st Russian military base, located in Bokhtar, in the Khatlon region, has been detained and is under investigation," the spokesman said.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police fired tear gas on Sunday to break up pro-democracy protesters who trashed fittings at a station and shopping mall, the latest in more than three months of often violent unrest.

Hundreds of protesters, young and old, had gathered in the New Town Plaza in the New Territories town of Sha Tin, chanting: “Fight for freedom” and “Liberate Hong Kong.”

Protesters called for a boycott of businesses in the Chinese-ruled city seen as pro-Beijing and made a paper chain of receipts from those stores, which were then hung across the mall.

HONG KONG (AP) — Young protesters, many wearing masks to disguise their identity, filled the open areas of a Hong Kong shopping mall Sunday and chanted slogans and held up signs calling for democracy and other demands of their months-long movement.

Backed by a few on musical instruments, they sang what has become their anthem, many lining the balustrades for several floors up overlooking where others gathered in the wide space below.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has taken fewer shipments of iron ore from Iran over August and September, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, as additional export tariffs due to be imposed by Tehran have dampened risk appetites in the world’s biggest steelmaker.

Iran’s deputy minister of industries said earlier this month that exports of all steelmaking raw materials will be slapped with a 25% tariff to meet demand in domestic steel industry, according to Iranian state-backed media Press TV on Sept. 9.

HONG KONG (AP) — Protesters in Hong Kong burned a Chinese flag and police fired pepper spray Saturday in renewed clashes over grievances by the anti-government demonstrators.

Police accused some protesters of throwing gasoline bombs after a march by several thousand people in Tuen Mun, an outlying district in the northwest of the Chinese territory.

The event was relatively small compared with previous demonstrations that have taken place every weekend since June.

BEIJING, October 25. /TASS/: The drones that attacked Russia’s Hmeymim airbase in Syria were operated from the US Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday.

"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Amnesty International accused Hong Kong police on Friday of torture and other abuses in their handling of more than three months of pro-democracy protests, but the police say they have shown restraint on the street in the face of increased violence.

Anti-government protesters, many masked and wearing black, have thrown petrol bombs at police and central government offices, stormed the Legislative Council, blocked roads to the airport, trashed metro stations and lit fires on the streets of the Chinese-ruled city.