Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

YANGON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar authorities have seized 1.7 tons of illegal hardwood timbers in the outskirts of Yangon city, according to the Forest Department Sunday.

The seizure was made by the forest officials in Htaukkyant township, northern Yangon on Friday when a suspected car was intercepted with 35 pieces of illegal Pyingadoe hardwood being found.

However, the driver and his passenger fled the scene.

Township police is investigating into the case to arrest the suspects and charge them under the Forest Law.

TOKYO, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Voters across Japan began casting their ballots on Sunday in the upper house election, which is expected to be a barometer of public opinion on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's six and a half years in power.

In most parts of the country, polling stations will close at 8:00 p.m. local time and vote counting will start as soon as the voting ends.

Members of the upper house serve six-year terms, with about half the seats up for grabs every three years.

In Sunday's election, 124 seats are up for grabs, including three that are newly added.

HONG KONG (AP) — Police in Hong Kong discovered a stash of a powerful homemade explosive as the semi-autonomous Chinese city readied for another major pro-democracy protest on Sunday following a pro-Beijing rally that attracted thousands.

Police said they found about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of TATP and arrested a man in a raid on a commercial building late Friday night. TATP, or tri-acetone tri-peroxide, has been used in terrorist attacks worldwide.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The United States said it’s concerned by reports of China’s interference with oil and gas activities in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, where Vietnam accuses Beijing of violating its sovereignty.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that China’s “repeated provocative actions aimed at the offshore oil and gas development of other claimant states threaten regional energy security and undermine the free and open Indo-Pacific energy market.”

Beijing, Jul 19; GANASHAKTI: China's experimental space lab Tiangong-2 will have a "controlled re-entry" into the earth's atmosphere and a small amount of its debris is expected to fall into the South Pacific Ocean on Friday night, the country's space agency said.

The re-entry would take place at a "proper time" tonight, China's Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) said in a press release.

20 July 2019; AFP: The death toll from a huge explosion that rocked a gas plant in central China rose to 10, state media said Saturday, with five people still missing.

Friday's blast at the Henan Coal Gas Group factory left another 19 people seriously injured and more with light injuries, said state broadcaster CCTV.

The blast shattered windows and doors of buildings in a three-kilometre (1.9-mile) radius.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s foreign minister said Tokyo will take “necessary measures” against South Korea if interests of Japanese companies are harmed in an escalating dispute over World War II forced labor.

The neighboring countries and U.S. allies are quarreling over South Korean court decisions ordering Japanese companies to compensate victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

TOKYO (AP) — The man suspected of setting ablaze a beloved Japanese animation studio, killing 34 people, was raging about theft and witnesses and media reported he had a grudge against the company, as questions arose why such mass killings keep happening in the country.

Police only have said the suspect Shinji Aoba, 41, who is hospitalized with severe burns and unable to talk, is from near Tokyo and did not work for the studio, Kyoto Animation.

19 July 2019; AFP: Singapore is returning almost $40 million to Malaysia seized in connection with a massive financial scandal that played a major role in the toppling of the corruption-plagued government of Najib Razak, police said.

The city-state is one of several countries that launched probes into allegations that billions of dollars were misappropriated from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB in an elaborate ruse that stretched from Asia to the United States.

19 July 2019; AFP: Beer-loving South Koreans angered by a trade row with Tokyo are boycotting Japanese brews in a surge of patriotism that has even seen popular beauty bloggers targeted.

Japan this month unveiled tough restrictions on exports crucial to tech titans like Samsung, fuelling fears about the impact on the global tech sector, while South Korea's central bank warned it could have "no small impact" on the economy.