MELBOURNE -- Australian states' tough internal border policies to fight COVID-19 have, at times, arguably split the nation into multiple mini-countries.

They have blocked a fully vaccinated Sydney woman from visiting her cancer-ridden daughter in the state of Victoria. They stopped a New South Wales baby from entering Queensland for a crucial brain scan. Starting Monday, Australians will be able to fly to places like London and Singapore as international travel gradually resumes, but east coast residents still cannot enter their own westernmost state

HONG KONG -- The upcoming legislative election here is strongly expected to have no pro-democracy candidates on the ballot under changes engineered by the central Chinese government in Beijing.

Hong Kong starts taking applications Saturday from Legislative Council hopefuls for the Dec. 19 vote.

But fewer than a quarter of the seats will be directly elected this time around, and each candidate must be vetted in advance as sufficiently patriotic.

The Democratic Party, the largest pro-democracy party, said Oct. 11 that it would not back

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob's government on Friday proposed the largest budget in the country's history for 2022, worth 332.1 billion ringgit ($80.2 billion), as it aims to propel the economy out of the coronavirus crisis and ease unemployment.

The spending package, Ismail Sabri's first after taking power in August, includes ambitious development outlays totaling 75.6 billion ringgit, up nearly 22% from this year'

BANGKOK -- The Thai government is trying to patch up the economy amid the COVID-19 crisis by easing restrictions such as a ban on public drinking in the capital, in order to attract more international tourists.

The government's special policymaking body, the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration, decided on Friday to allow four tourist destinations -- Bangkok, Phuket, Krabi and Pang-nga -- to start serving alcoholic beverages in public starting Nov. 1.

From next Monday, Thailand will welcome

TOKYO -- Japanese investment bank Nomura on Friday reported a 63.5% drop in pretax profit for the fiscal first half that ended last month, after booking a charge of 39 billion yen ($343 million) to provide for a possible loss from a lawsuit over a U.S. trade.

The trade took place more than a decade ago before the Lehman crisis and is unrelated to it, Takumi Kitamura, Nomura's chief financial officer, told a news conference.

Kitamura declined to

ROME -- Ahead of a visit by his Chinese counterpart to the Italian capital for G-20 meetings, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu used a virtual address to Rome on Friday to berate Beijing over recent belligerent actions toward the democratic island.

Wu called on countries friendly to Taiwan to use freedom of navigation exercises "more often, and in higher intensity" in the South China Sea to counter Chinese aggression and excessive maritime claims.

"The freedom of navigation operations by certain countries through the South China Sea is a way

BEIJING -- Businesses in China would face a national security review prior to transfers outside the country of personal information of 100,000 individuals or more, under a proposal unveiled Friday that comes as Beijing rolls out cybersecurity mandates.

The government will collect expert opinion on the draft data protection regulations through Nov. 28, said the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's top internet watchdog. The directives are expected to go into force soon after.

Companies such as U.S. electric vehicle

WASHINGTON -- China is developing hypersonic weapons at a "stunning" pace, conducting "hundreds" of tests to Washington's nine over the past five years, a top Pentagon official told reporters.

Beijing has been willing to move fast and learn from its failures, while the Department of Defense has been held back by "brutal" bureaucracy, Gen. John Hyten, the outgoing vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America's No. 2 uniformed military officer, said Thursday.

Beyond the direct threat

ROME -- Finance and health ministers from the Group of 20 economies on Friday called for increasing the supply of COVID-19 vaccines for developing nations to reach a goal of vaccinating 70% of the world's population by mid-2022.

Global disparities in COVID-19 access threaten to leave developing nations behind in an uneven and unsustainable economic recovery from the pandemic, officials warned here. They also established a new task force for finance and health authorities to cooperate on pandemic preparedness and