MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The governor of an island province in the central Philippines said Sunday at least 72 people died in the devastation wrought by Typhoon Rai in more than half of the towns that managed to contact him, bringing the death toll in the strongest typhoon to batter the country this year to at least 146.
HANOI, Dec 18 (NNN-VNA) – Vietnam reported 15,236 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, including 15,215 locally transmitted and 21 imported, according to its Ministry of Health.
Most of the community cases were recorded in southern localities, including 1,246 in Ben Tre province, 1,071 in Ca Mau province and 1,040 in Ho Chi Minh City.
The infections brought the country’s total tally to 1,508,473, with 29,103 deaths, said the ministry. Nationwide, 1,095,518 COVID-19 patients have so far recovered, up 31,057 from Thursday.
TASHKENT, Dec 18 (NNN-XINHUA) – Uzbekistan sent specialists to Afghanistan, to help restore the Mazar-i-Sharif airport, in the north of the country, an Uzbek official said, yesterday.
“Currently, our specialists are engaged in the repair of navigation equipment and the reconstruction of the runway,” Ismatulla Irgashev, Uzbek president’s special representative for Afghanistan, told reporters.
“Most of the repair work has already been completed. I think it will continue for a maximum of another month,” he added.
BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The approved quotas of the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) program, a scheme that allows Chinese investors to access foreign assets, totaled 157.52 billion U.S. dollars as of Wednesday, said the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
The QDII quotas were granted to 174 financial institutions, including banks, securities firms, insurers, and trust companies, according to the SAFE's official website.
HONG KONG (AP) — Elections for Hong Kong’s Legislative Council on Sunday mark the culmination of Beijing’s campaign to rein in the body that had once kept it from imposing its unrestrained will over the semi-autonomous territory.
Since the city was handed over from British to Chinese rule in 1997, with a promise by Beijing to keep Western-style freedoms for 50 years, demands for expanded democracy inspired protest movements in 2014 and 2019. But they were largely ignored and subsequently crushed by security forces.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian authorities raised the alert level for the highest volcano on Java island, saying Mount Semeru could blow up again after a sudden eruption earlier this month left 48 people dead and 36 missing in villages that were buried in layers of mud.
Indonesia’s geological agency said Saturday it picked up increasing activity that could trigger an avalanche of lava and searing gas, similar to the Dec. 4 eruption, which was preceded by heavy monsoon rains that partially collapsed a lava dome on the 3,676-meter (12,060-foot) mountain.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A powerful typhoon left at least 19 people dead, knocked down power and communications in entire provinces and wrought widespread destruction mostly in the central Philippines, officials said Saturday. A governor said her island province has been “leveled to the ground.”
Typhoon Rai blew away Friday night into the South China Sea after rampaging through southern and central island provinces, where more than 300,000 people in its path were evacuated to safety in advance in a pre-emptive move officials say may have saved a lot of lives.
OSAKA, Japan (AP) — Japanese police on Saturday searched the house of one of the patients at a mental clinic where a fire gutted an entire floor in an eight-story building, killing 24 people trapped inside.
An Osaka police investigator told The Associated Press that the man is a possible suspect. A small fire broke out about half an hour before the building fire at the man’s house, where a patient registration card was found, the investigator said.
Hong Kong, Dec 17 (AP) Alibaba this week revealed an ambitious vision to grow its Southeast Asian e-commerce business to 100 billion in transacted sales as well as a pledge to reach carbon neutrality in its operations by 2030.
ULAN BATOR, Dec 17 (NNN-XINHUA) – Mongolia’s Health Ministry reported today that, no COVID-19 related deaths have been recorded in the country, over the past 24 hours, for the first time since Apr 4.
So far, the viral disease has claimed a total of 1,968 lives, since its first case was confirmed in Mar last year, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, 262 new COVID-19 cases have been reported across the country, in the past day, bringing the national tally to 387,708, the ministry said.
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