Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 26 (NNN-Bernama) — The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) should vote to suspend Israel for its ongoing war on Gaza and the decades long Apartheid policies against the Palestinian people, an analyst said.

Director of Hashim Sani Centre for Palestine Studies at Universiti Malaya Assoc. Prof Dr Mohd Nazari Ismail said the UNGA had taken a similar decision to suspend the South African Apartheid regime in Nov 1974.

BEIJING, Dec 26 (Reuters) - President Xi Jinping vowed on Tuesday to resolutely prevent anyone from "splitting Taiwan from China in any way", the official Xinhua news agency reported, a little more than two weeks before Taiwan elects a new leader.

China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, and has ramped up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.

MANILA, Dec 26 (Reuters) - The Philippines is not provoking conflict in the South China Sea, its military spokesperson said on Tuesday, responding to China's accusation that Manila was encroaching on Beijing's territory.

It was the latest salvo amid rising tension as the two have traded accusations in recent months over a series of maritime run-ins, including China allegedly ramming a ship this month carrying the Philippines' military chief.

"The Philippines is not provoking conflict," Medel Aguilar told state broadcaster PTV.

BEIJING, Dec 26 (Reuters) - China warned that remnants of a rocket would hit an area in the South China Sea on Tuesday, following the sixth deployment of its most powerful launch vehicle eleven days ago.

Rocket debris, which generally burns up in the atmosphere on re-entry, is expected to fall off the coast of China's island province of Hainan between 11:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) and noon (0400 GMT), said the China Maritime Safety Administration.

JAKARTA, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR), the first HSR in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, has handled more than 1 million passenger trips since its commercial operation was officially launched on Oct. 17, according to the China State Railway Group Co. Ltd. on Monday.

The railway's passenger trips hit the 1-million mark in number on Sunday.

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing recorded the most hours of sub-freezing temperatures in December in more than seven decades as a cold wave has enveloped northern and central swathes of China, bringing snowstorms and record-breaking temperatures.

A weather observatory in the Chinese capital as of Sunday had recorded more than 300 hours of sub-freezing temperatures since Dec. 11 – the most since records began, in 1951, according to the official newspaper Beijing Daily.

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet will participate in the fourth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders' Meeting via video conference on Monday, the country's foreign ministry said in a press statement on Saturday.

Myanmar and China will co-chair the virtual meeting, the statement said.

The LMC consists of six countries, namely China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet will participate in the fourth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders' Meeting via video conference on Monday, the country's foreign ministry said in a press statement on Saturday.

Myanmar and China will co-chair the virtual meeting, the statement said.

The LMC consists of six countries, namely China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

BEIJING (AP) — The strong earthquake that hit northwest China this week, and killed at least 148 people, has caused economic losses estimated to be worth tens of millions in the agricultural and fisheries industries, state media reported Saturday.

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (APP): “As a new business model, ‘Silk Road e-commerce’ provides global consumers with a wealth of goods and services with its convenient, efficient and low-cost features, and we would like to ride the wave of it to boost bilateral trade,” noted Aqeel Ahmed Chaudhry, director of the Pakistani national pavilion located in the Silk Road e-commerce cooperation pilot zone center, Pudong, Shanghai, China.