Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

BEIJING (AP) — More Chinese cities eased some anti-virus restrictions as police patrolled their streets to head off protests Thursday while the ruling Communist Party prepared for the high-profile funeral of late leader Jiang Zemin.

Guangzhou in the south, Shijiazhuang in the north, Chengdu in the southwest and other major cities announced they were easing testing requirements and controls on movement. In some areas, markets and bus service reopened.

BEIJING, Nov 30 (APP): Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that China firmly supported the Palestinian people in establishing an independent state and asked the international community to unswervingly adhere to the two-state solution.

Yesterday, President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to the commemorative meeting of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

TOKYO, November 30. /TASS/: Nearly 40% of Chinese citizens consider the Russian special military operation in Ukraine as an act of self-defense in response to NATO's eastward expansion, according to the results of a survey conducted by Japanese Genron NPO and China International Communication Group (CICG) among its residents.

PHNOM PENH, Nov 30 (NNN-AKP) – Cambodia attracted more than 1.57 million international visitors, in the first 10 months of 2022, according to a tourism ministry’s report today.

During the Jan-Oct period, Thailand topped the chart of international tourist arrivals to Cambodia, the report said.

It added that, 35.5 percent of the visitors entered the kingdom by air, 63.8 percent by land and 0.7 percent by waterways.

BANGKOK, Nov 30 (NNN-TNA) – A bus accident has killed at least three people and injured more than 40 others, in Thailand’s northern province of Tak, local media reported, today.

The bus was carrying migrant workers from Myanmar, to a factory in Thailand’s Songkhla province, when it crashed through the middle barrier of the road, and plunged into the roadside ditch, last night, according to the Thai national daily, Matichon.

The injured have been rushed to a local hospital, and the cause of the accident was still under investigation.–

SEOUL, Nov 30 (Reuters) - South Korea's military said it scrambled fighter jets as two Chinese and six Russian warplanes entered its air defence zone on Wednesday.

The two Chinese H-6 bombers repeatedly entered and left the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) off South Korea's southern and northeast coasts starting at around 5:50 a.m. (2050 GMT Tuesday), Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

TOKYO, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Japan's industrial output in October fell for the second straight month with a 2.6-percent decline from the previous month, official data showed Wednesday.

The seasonally adjusted index of production came in at 95.9 against the 2015 base of 100, according to a preliminary report issued by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The decline came after a decrease of 1.7 percent registered in September which was downwardly revised.

BEIJING (AP) — A campaign to vaccinate the elderly has sparked hopes China might roll back severe anti-virus controls that prompted protesters to demand President Xi Jinping resign, but the country faces daunting hurdles and up to a year of hard work before “zero COVID” can end.

HONG KONG (AP) — Jimmy Lai broke into Hong Kong’s rambunctious media world 30 years ago armed with the belief that delivering information equates with protecting freedom.

Lai’s own freedom is at stake as he fights charges of endangering national security as former publisher of his now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

BEIJING (AP) — Former President Jiang Zemin, who led China out of isolation after the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989 and supported economic reforms that led to a decade of explosive growth, died Wednesday. He was 96.

Jiang died of leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai, where he was a former mayor and Communist Party secretary, state TV and the official Xinhua News Agency reported.