Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

TAIPEI, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Taiwan's sovereignty and independence belong to its people, the frontrunner to be its next president said on Saturday in an often testy debate with the other two candidates dominated by arguments over China and tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan's Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections are happening as China has stepped up military and political pressure to assert its claims of sovereignty over the island, including regularly sending warplanes into the strait.

BEIJING, Dec 30 (Reuters) - China will simplify visa applications for tourists from the United States from Jan. 1, cutting the documents required, according to a notice on Friday on the website of the Chinese embassy in Washington.

The move is the latest by China to revive tourism and boost the world's second-largest economy following a slump during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourist visa applicants in the U.S. will no longer need to submit air ticket bookings, hotel reservations or an invitation letter, the embassy's notice said. 

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 30 (Reuters) - McDonald's Malaysia has sued a movement promoting boycotts against Israel for "false and defamatory statements" that it says hurt its business, seeking damages amounting to 6 million ringgit ($1.31 million).

Malaysia, a majority-Muslim country, is a staunch supporter of the Palestinians, and some Western fast-food brands in the country, as in some other Muslim nations, have been targeted by boycott campaigns over Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

BEIJING, Dec 30 (Reuters) - A sweeping purge of Chinese generals has weakened the People's Liberation Army, exposing deep-rooted corruption that could take more time to fix and slow Chinese leader Xi Jinping's military modernization drive amid geopolitical tensions, analysts say.

China's top lawmakers ousted nine senior military officers from the national legislative body on Friday, state media reported, a step that typically precedes further punishment for wayward cadres. Many of these were from the Rocket Force - a key arm of the PLA overseeing tactical and nuclear missiles.

BEIJING, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- The foreign policy of the United States is not concerned with the well-being of its citizens and is an immense waste of wealth, an article of the Pearls and Irritations, a journal platform in Australia, has argued.

Noting that U.S. foreign policy has been "hacked by big money," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in the United States, wrote in the article titled "U.S. foreign policy is a scam built on corruption" that "the American people are losing big."

YANGON, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar will participate in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Tourism Forum 2024 in Laos next year, the Myanmar Tourism Entrepreneurs Association said on Saturday.

"Until now, four travel companies registered to represent Myanmar in the forum," U Naung Naung Han, president of the Myanmar Tourism Entrepreneurs Association, told Xinhua.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s presidential candidates expressed desire for peaceful relations with Beijing, which has described Jan. 13 elections on the self-ruled island as a choice between war and peace and stepped up harassment of the territory it claims as own.

William Lai, the frontrunner and currently Taiwan’s vice president from the ruling Democratic People’s Party, said in a televised debate Saturday that he was open to communicating with the government in Beijing, which has refused to talk to him or President Tsai Ing-wen.

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (APP): ”The Chinese PLA Southern Theatre Command hosted the China-Arab states special operations and counter-terrorism seminar from December 26 to 30 in Guangzhou City of south China’s Guangdong Province.

BANGKOK, Dec 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Floods in southern Thailand have killed at least six people and affected tens of thousands of households, authorities said.

The floods, which began on Dec 22, have hit more than 70,000 homes across the provinces of Satun, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, regional officials said.

Six people including an 89-year-old woman and a toddler were killed in Narathiwat, deputy provincial governor Preecha Nualnoi said.

BEIJING, Dec 28 (Reuters) - China's defence ministry lashed out at the United States on Thursday, a week after their top military officials resumed high-level talks, criticising its continued meddling in the Asia Pacific region and saying it maintained a "Cold War" mindset.

Both sides had pledged at the talks to work towards restoration of contacts to avert miscalculation and misunderstanding, with the U.S. calling for "more work" to ensure military communications stayed open and reliable.