Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

SEOUL, Oct 21 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea reported 24,751 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight, compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 25,244,255, the health authorities said today.

The daily caseload was down from 25,431 the previous day, but it was higher than 23,574 tallied a week earlier, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

For the past week, the daily average number of confirmed cases was 24,031.

Among the new cases, 60 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 69,123.

JAKARTA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Indonesia's health minister said on Friday that the number of children who had died from acute kidney injury (AKI) rose to 133 from the previously reported 99.

The deaths were among a total of 241 cases in 22 provinces, Budi Gunadi Sadikin said, adding that most patients were children under the age of five.

Budi on Thursday said some medicinal syrups available in Indonesia contained ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, ingredients that have been linked to fatal AKI in children.

BEIJING, Oct 20 (APP): China on Thursday voiced support for the expansion of BRICS membership after reports about Saudi Arabia showing its intention to join the group that presently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

“As the BRICS chair for this year, China has actively supported the BRICS in starting the membership expansion process and advanced the ‘BRICS Plus’ cooperation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Wang Wenbin said during his regular briefing.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia will hold the general election on Nov. 19, the country's election commission said on Thursday.

The nomination of candidates will be held on Nov. 5, providing two weeks for official election campaigning, commission chairman Abdul Ghani Salleh told a press conference.

There will be 363,515 election workers who will operate 8,958 voting centers across the country to serve a total of 21,173,638 registered voters, the official said.

BEIJING (AP) — While Xi Jinping is primed to receive a third term as head of China’s ruling Communist Party on Sunday, it is unknown who will join him for the next five years on the party’s leading bodies, the Central Committee and the Politburo.

Analysts will scrutinize who joins, and who leaves, for any clues about the future direction of policy as well as just how much power the 69-year-old Xi has been able to amass as one of China’s most influential figures in the country’s modern political history.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired about 100 more artillery shells toward the sea Wednesday in response to South Korean live-firing drills at border areas as the rivals accuse each other of dialing up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with weapons tests.

The drills conducted by both sides come amid heightened animosities over recent North Korean missile tests that it calls simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and U.S. targets.

19 October 2022; MEMO: Hamas said yesterday that Israel's targeting of Palestinian students abroad is a type of "organised crime" and called for international sanctions on Israel.

Commenting on the Israeli Mossad's failed attempt to kidnap or assassinate Palestinian programming students in Malaysia, Hamas praised the Malaysian police's efforts to capture the spy agency's operatives.

BEIJING, Oct 18 (APP): The Communist Party of China (CPC) has effectively contained the spread of corruption in China and investigated over 74,000 officials who were suspected of corruption and bribery during past decade.

The CPC has made unprecedented efforts to tackle corruption in the past decade, senior Party officials said at a news conference.

TOKYO, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Japan's industry minister on Tuesday said restarting Japan's idled nuclear reactors would help prop up the economy as the yen's recent weakness is further inflating energy imports.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a press conference that pressure to sell the yen for the U.S. dollar could be eased as the rebooting of each reactor would mean 1 million tons less of liquified natural gas would need to be imported to resource-poor Japan.

"This would become a countermeasure against yen depreciation," Nishimura said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An Iranian competitive climber left South Korea on Tuesday after competing at an event in which she climbed without her nation’s mandatory headscarf covering, authorities said. Farsi-language media outside of Iran warned she may have been forced to leave early by Iranian officials and could face arrest back home, which Tehran quickly denied.