Asia News Wrap: China-Thailand visa waiver to be extended, and more

Here are a few stories from around Asia you may have missed this week.

Thailand and China will waive visa requirements for each other's citizens from March. This was announced by Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Tuesday. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that it hopes "relevant arrangements will be implemented at an early date." 

Southeast Asia's second-largest economy heavily relies on tourism. In September, Bangkok waived entry requirements for Chinese tourists until February this year. It is reported that 3.4 million tourists from China visited Thailand in 2023. It is understood that searches for Thailand jumped by around 158 percent on a Chinese travel website within half an hour of the announcement, compared to the same period the day before.

More than 2,000 people were moved to temporary shelters after increased volcanic activity at Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province on Tuesday. The volcano has erupted several times in recent weeks, including an eruption on January 1 that ejected volcanic ash 1.5 kilometers into the sky, according to the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. 

The ash caused the closure of the Maumere Frans Seda Airport Airport, about 80 kilometers away. The Southeast Asian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of intense volcanic and seismic activity. Indonesia has nearly 130 active volcanoes.

India launched its first satellite to study black holes on January 1. The spacecraft, named X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, took off from India's spaceport of Sriharikota. The Indian space agency said it wanted to help scientists improve their "knowledge of black holes.”

"We will have an exciting time ahead," Indian Space Research Organisation chairperson S Somanath said after the launch. A black hole is a region of space where matter has collapsed in on itself. The gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

A court in Bangladesh on Monday sentenced Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to six months in prison for labour law violations. Yunus, an economist, and three employees from Grameen Telecom, a company he founded, were convicted on Monday of failing to create a welfare fund for its employees. 

Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 peace prize for their work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh, pioneering a global movement now known as microcredit. "The court granted their bail, giving them one month to file an appeal against the verdict of the court," prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan said.

Following a horrendous crash on Tuesday between two aircraft on Tokyo's Haneda airport's runway that caused the death of four, transcripts of traffic control instructions released by authorities appear to show the Japan Airlines plane had been given permission to land but the Coast Guard aircraft had been told to taxi to a holding point near the runway. 

Japan Times reported that, "An official from Japan's civil aviation bureau told reporters that there was no indication in those transcripts that the Coast Guard aircraft had been granted permission to take off."

(Cover: A file photo shows Chinese tourists dressed in traditional Thai costumes taking a selfie at the Wat Arun temple in Bangkok, Thailand on January 12, 2023. /CFP)