Top Asian News 3:30 a.m. GMT
HONG KONG (AP) — China on Sunday reported two additional deaths from COVID-19 as some cities move cautiously to ease anti-pandemic restrictions following increasingly vocal public frustrations. The National Health Commission said one death was reported each in the provinces of Shandong and Sichuan. No information was given about the ages of the victims or whether they had been fully vaccinated. China, where the virus first was detected in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan, is the last major country trying to stop transmission completely through quarantines, lockdowns and mass testing. Concerns over vaccination rates are believed to figure prominently in the ruling Communist Party’s determination to stick to its hard-line strategy.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s highest volcano on its most densely populated island released searing gas clouds and rivers of lava Sunday in its latest eruption. Monsoon rains eroded and finally collapsed the lava dome atop 3,676-meter (12,060-foot) Mount Semeru, causing the eruption, according to National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari. Several villages were blanketed with falling ash, blocking out the sun, but no casualties have been reported. Several hundred residents, their faces smeared with volcanic dust and rain, fled to temporary shelters or left for other safe areas. Thick columns of ash were blasted more than 1,500 meters (nearly 5,000 feet) into the sky while searing gas and lava flowed down Semeru’s slopes toward a nearby river.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Calista Anderson was at a sleepover when the email from a friend arrived. She was 12 years old and had just experienced the worst moment of her life: Her mother had been killed while working overseas. The email offered a further jolt. It linked to a news article revealing that, contrary to what she had been told, her mother hadn’t worked for the State Department. She was a CIA officer. “I called my dad and I was like, ‘Come get me from the sleepover. We need to talk,’” she said. Losing a parent is painful for any child.
BEIJING (AP) — Three Chinese astronauts landed in a northern desert on Sunday after six months working to complete construction of the Tiangong station, a symbol of the country’s ambitious space program, state TV reported. A capsule carrying commander Chen Dong and astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe touched down at a landing site in the Gobi Desert in northern China at approximately 8:10 p.m. (1210 GMT), China Central Television reported. Prior to departure, they overlapped for almost five days with three colleagues who arrived Wednesday on the Shenzhou-15 mission for their own six-month stay, marking the first time China had six astronauts in space at the same time.
GUWAHATI, India (AP) — Anilya Boro may not have won the crown at India’s Miss Trans NE pageant this year, but having her parents there in support was a validation in its own right. “I must prove to my parents that I can do something as a girl,” said the 22-year-old. “I didn’t win a title, but I am very happy that my parents were at the show to support me. Now they have accepted my decision to live as a girl and undergo surgery, but they don’t want me to rush through.” Twenty transgender women sashayed on a stage dressed as ethnic and tribal characters in the beauty pageant, drawing rounds of applause from the audience.
SHANGHAI (AP) — The mourners in Shanghai lit candles and placed flowers. Someone scrawled “Urumqi, 11.24, Rest in Peace” in red on cardboard — referring to the deadly apartment fire in China’s western city of Urumqi that sparked anger over perceptions the country’s strict COVID-19 measures played a role in the disaster. What started as a small vigil last weekend by fewer than a dozen people grew into a rowdy crowd of hundreds hours later. One woman defiantly shouted for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to resign, emboldening others. Then, before dawn, police swept in and broke up the gathering and prevented more from happening.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for last week’s shooting at the Pakistani embassy in Afghanistan in which the head of the mission escaped unharmed but a guard was wounded. In a brief statement late Saturday, IS claimed two of its fighters attacked “the renegade Pakistani ambassador and his guards” while they were in the Pakistani embassy’s yard, wounding a guard and inflicting damage to the building. It gave no further details. Friday’s assault in the Afghan capital Kabul wounded Pakistani guard Israr Mohammad, who belongs to the military’s commando unit. But the mission’s chief, Ubaid-ur-Rehman NizamaniIt, was unharmed.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s former national security director was arrested Saturday over a suspected cover-up surrounding North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official near the rivals’ sea boundary in 2020. Suh Hoon’s arrest early Saturday came as President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government investigates his liberal predecessor’s handling of that killing and another border incident the same year, cases that prompted criticism Seoul was desperately trying to appease the North to improve relations. Former President Moon Jae-in, who staked his single-term on inter-Korean rapprochement before leaving office in May, has reacted angrily to the investigation into Suh’s actions.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators representing organized labor marched in South Korea’s capital on Saturday denouncing government attempts to force thousands of striking truckers back to work after they walked out in a dispute over the price of freight. There were no immediate reports of injuries or major clashes from the protests near the National Assembly in Seoul. The marchers, mostly members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, accused President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government of labor oppression and ignoring what they described as the truckers’ harsh work conditions and financial struggles, worsened further by rising fuel costs.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong earthquake shook parts of Indonesia’s main island of Java on Saturday, causing panic but only minor damage just two weeks after an equally powerful quake killed hundreds. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 5.7 quake was centered about 18 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Banjar, a city between West Java and Central Java provinces, at a depth of 112 kilometers (70 miles). One resident was injured in Selaawi village of West Java’s Garut district, and at least four houses and a school were damaged, said Suharyanto, the National Disaster Management Agency head who goes by a single name.