Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

TOKYO, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Japan's government is planning to waive tourist visa requirements from some countries as part of a further easing of border controls enacted to stop the spread of COVID-19, Fuji News Network reported on Monday.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may decide as early as this week on the easing, which would also allow individual travellers to visit Japan without travel agency bookings, FNN reported. Japan did not require tourist visas for 68 countries and regions before the pandemic.

BISHKEK, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Five people were killed in a traffic accident in Kyrgyzstan on Sunday after three cars crashed into each other as a horse ran onto the road, highways authorities said on Monday.

The accident occurred on the Balykchy-Ananyevo-Karakol highway in the northeastern Kyrgyz region of Issyk-Kul, said the Main Directorate for Road Traffic Safety of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs.

JAKARTA, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government has called on the Group of 20 (G20) members to collect a global fund initiative for the recovery of art and culture as an effort to develop the cultural economy.

The initiation was put forward on Monday by Hilmar Farid, director general of culture of the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry during the G20 Culture Ministers' Meeting (G20 CMM) in Magelang Regency, Indonesia's Central Java Province.

TOKYO, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Typhoon Muifa has brought heavy downpours and gale-force winds to islands in the southwest of Japan's Okinawa, Japan's weather agency said Monday.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), as of 11 a.m. local time, Typhoon Muifa was over waters 30 kilometers south of Ishigaki Island with an atmospheric pressure of 955 hectopascals at its center and maximum wind speeds of up to 216 kilometers per hour.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is extending a state of calamity declared by his predecessor more than two years ago to deal with continuing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, an official said Monday.

Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles also said a previously announced plan to lift the compulsory wearing of masks outdoors will take effect immediately throughout the country, except in crowded areas where people cannot observe social distancing.

BEIJING (AP) — The death toll from a major earthquake in western China rose to 93 as the search for survivors continued, authorities said.

A magnitude 6.8 quake hit Sichuan province last week, with much of the damage concentrated in Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Region in the province.

Another 25 people remain missing as of Sunday evening, rescuers said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The search for survivors and recovery of bodies were complicated by heavy rains and the risks of landslides, which forced some residents to move to temporary shelters.

HONG KONG, Sept 11 (Reuters) - In Hong Kong, stringent COVID-19 curbs have long made life for school students extremely hard. Now, a new rule requiring higher vaccination levels could upend what progress has been made towards resuming full-day in-person classes.

Further delays to normal school life are likely to exacerbate youth mental health problems as well as give more people reason to leave the city, further undermining its status as an Asian financial hub, educators and business leaders warn.

TOKYO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Voters in Japan's Okinawa re-elected Denny Tamaki as governor on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK and other media said, backing an independent candidate who wants a smaller U.S. military footprint on the chain of islands near Taiwan.

The anticipated re-election of Tamaki, who was supported by a coalition of opposition parties, is a sign of pushback against Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's ruling party, which has been hit by scandal over members' ties to the Unification Church.

LONDON/BEIJING, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Xi Jinping will leave China for the first time in more than two years for a trip this week to Central Asia where he will meet Russia's Vladimir Putin, just a month before he is set to cement his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

The trip, Xi's first abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shows just how confident he is about his grip on power in China and just how perilous the global situation has become.

JAKARTA, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A powerful earthquake struck off Indonesia's western province of West Sumatra on Sunday, but did not leave casualties, officials and an agency said.

Earlier, the country's meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency released a 6.1-magnitude earthquake and then revised it to a 6.2 Richter scale, Head of the Quake and Tsunami Division of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency named only Daryono said.

"The 6.1 magnitude is fast information, the 6.2 is an accurate figure," he told Xinhua via phone.