BANGKOK -- After a botched vaccine rollout that saw a third wave of COVID-19 wash over Thailand, the country is rushing to secure supplies of the antiviral medication Favipiravir as the number of patients and fatalities spirals higher.

The Pharmacy Council of Thailand has issued a warning letter to the Public Health Ministry about a possible shortage of Favipiravir, as demand for the drug is forecast to surge as high as 30 million pills per month and could reach more than 50 million pills if the number of COVID-1

TOKYO -- SoftBank Group on Tuesday said net profit for the April-June quarter fell 39% from a year earlier to 761.5 billion yen ($6.9 billion), due to smaller gains from the sales of its investments and a lack of blockbuster IPOs.

The result marked the Japanese investor's first profit decline in five quarters and is a sign of the challenges in sustaining profits from its tech portfolio, which is heavily influenced by market conditions.

SoftBank reported a record 4.

BEIJING -- Young talent from the Communist Youth League of China has quietly risen through the Communist Party's ranks, setting the stage for a future comeback by a faction that once produced top leaders but has been largely sidelined under President Xi Jinping.

The southern province of Yunnan is home to one of these up-and-comers. Duan Ying, head of the province's investment promotion bureau, discussed one of Xi's top economic priorities -- supply chains -- in a meeting with local officials and

TOKYO -- China is overtaking the U.S. in artificial intelligence research, setting off alarm bells on the other side of the Pacific as the world's two largest economies jockey for AI supremacy.

In 2020, China topped the U.S. for the first time in terms of the number of times an academic article on AI is cited by others, a measure of the quality of a study. Until recently, the U.S. had been far ahead of other countries in AI

Boonsithi Chokwatana is the Chairman of Saha Group, Thailand's leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 17 of a 30-part series .

In the 1970s the Saha Group made great progress. Daily goods like detergents and shampoos were selling well, and the company expanded its operations to include clothing and food products. Our focus on advertising and publicity contributed to Thailand's consumption boom, and the creation of the holding company put a management structure in place to support future growth.

But

SEOUL -- Shares in South Korean game developer Krafton plunged on Tuesday, marking a disappointing market debut for the developer of worldwide hit "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," or PUBG.

Krafton's stock fell 9.9% at the open on the benchmark Kospi exchange from its initial public offering price of 498,000 won ($434) per share. It further dropped to as low as 400,500 won but later rebounded to as high as 48

SHANGHAI -- Sunday was the slowest weekend day for sales Shanghai fruit vendor Zhang Ming has seen since January.

"Our business barely had recovered to pre-COVID days and now customers are staying away because of the recent cases," he sighed.

Pandemic controls are back in Shanghai and a number of other cities around China amid the country's biggest and widest resurgence of coronavirus cases since January, with some 1,702 confirmed cases so far.

Authorities counted 143 cases on Monday, including 1

MANILA -- The Philippine economy grew 11.8%, year-on-year, in the second quarter, marking the end of a pandemic-induced recession that spanned 15 months.

The April to June rebound, announced by the Philippine Statistics Authority on Tuesday, comes on the back of a low base. In the same period last year, gross domestic product shrank by a record 17.0%, as the government fought the first wave of COVID-19 infections with strict lockdown measures

TOKYO -- Japan's younger voters are the biggest supporters of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, after growing to become the most devoted bloc for predecessor Shinzo Abe, a look at past Nikkei polls shows.

Working-age people, more likely to benefit from Abe's signature economic program, took a more positive view of him over time, the surveys show. But Japan's politically powerful seniors soured on Abe and his right-hand-man-turned-successor.

Abe's approval rating averaged 53