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South Korea approved its first domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by SK bioscience Co Ltd (302440.KS), for general public use following positive clinical data, authorities said on Wednesday.

The SKYCovione vaccine was authorised for a two-dose regimen on people aged 18 or older, with shots given four weeks apart, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

In a phase III clinical trial of 4,037 adults, SKYCovione induced neutralizing antibody responses against the SARS-CoV-2 parental strain, SK bioscience said in a statement.

It is not yet known how effective it is against Omicron and other COVID variants.

The vaccine was jointly developed by the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design, with the support of global drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

SK bioscience said it would seek authorisations for distribution of SKYCovione in other countries and through global vaccine sharing facility COVAX, and for emergency use listing at the World Health Organization.

South Korean authorities have agreed a 200 billion won ($155 million) deal to buy 10 million doses of the vaccine, which can be stored under normal refrigeration conditions, and previously said they expected it to be rolled out from the second half of the year.

SK bioscience is now looking into its possible use for booster shots, and planning trials for adolescents and children, it added.

Nearly 87% of South Korea's 52 million population are fully vaccinated, with 65% having also had a booster shot, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency data. (Reuters)

Taiwan on Wednesday rebuffed a complaint from the Philippines about live fire drills around a Taiwan-controlled island deep in the South China Sea, saying it had the right to do so and always gives issues a warning of its exercises.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, in a message on Twitter late on Tuesday, lodged a "strong objection over the unlawful live fire drills" to be carried out by Taiwan this week around the island, known internationally as Itu Aba.

Taiwan calls the island Taiping and the Philippines calls it Ligaw Island.

The department said the island belonged to the Philippines.

"This illegal activity raises tensions and complicates the situation in the South China Sea," it said.

Taiwan's foreign ministry said in a statement the island was part of the territory of the Republic of China - Taiwan's formal name - and that it enjoyed all relevant rights accorded by international law.

"Our country has the right to conduct routine exercises on Taiping Island and related maritime areas. In order to ensure the safety of maritime traffic and fishing boats operating in adjacent maritime areas, we notify the relevant regional countries in advance before each live-fire drill," it said.

Itu Aba is the biggest feature in the Spratly Islands, a grouping of islets and other features also claimed, entirely or in part, by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

The Philippines normally complains most vociferously about China's activities in the South China Sea, including what Manila says is illegal fishing. read more

The Philippines, like most countries, has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but there are close cultural and economic links and Taiwan is home to about 160,000 Filipinos, most of them migrant workers.

The maps China bases its South China Sea claims on date to when Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China government ruled China before it fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists.

Taiwan also controls the Pratas Islands at the very northern end of the South China Sea. (Reuters)

South Korea's 2019 decision to deport without legal process two North Korean fishermen suspected of murdering their shipmates violated human rights principles, a U.N. investigator said on Wednesday, after prosecutors reopened the case.

South Korean activists had called on new President Yoon Suk-yeol to reinvestigate the case, blaming the previous government of trying to curry favour with Pyongyang amid denuclearisation negotiations and efforts at rapprochement.

While the fate of the two men is unconfirmed, there was an expectation their rights would be violated when they were turned over to North Korean authorities, and therefore Seoul had an obligation to process them in the South Korean justice system rather than immediately repatriate them, Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, told reporters.

"These are extremely dramatic cases because once a person is repatriated there is no reversal," he said. "The (South Korean) government should not have repatriated these persons right away."

Former President Moon Jae-in's administration deported the fishermen, describing them "dangerous criminals" who killed 16 other colleagues aboard their vessel while crossing the sea border and said they would cause harm if they were accepted into South Korean society.

North Korea faces accusations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence and forced labour. It has denied mistreating its citizens.

South Korean prosecutors have re-opened the case, Unification Minister Kwon Young-se, who handles relations with the North, told Reuters on Monday.

An official with the ministry said on Wednesday it would cooperate with the investigation.

Neither Moon, who has kept out of the public eye since leaving office, or North Korea has commented on the case.

Quintana was among several U.N. officials who sent a letter to Seoul at the time expressing concern and asking for more information. The officials also sent a letter to Pyongyang.

During this week's visit to Seoul, Quintana also met with the family of a South Korean who went missing at sea in September 2020 while working as a fishing inspector. North Korean authorities later shot him dead and set his body on fire, shocking many South Koreans and increasing cross-border tension.

That case has also been revisited by the Yoon administration, and last week South Korea's maritime and military authorities reversed their earlier announcements and said there were no signs the official was trying to defect.

His family had refuted the defection claims, filing a lawsuit calling for the disclosure of government records.

Quintana said he supported the family's right to know more from the South Korean government, adding that ultimately, North Korea was responsible for killing the official, and should also disclose information, punish those who shot him, and provide reparations to the family.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un previously made a rare apology for the killing, calling it an “unexpected and disgraceful event”, though state media said blame lay with South Korea for not controlling its borders. (Reuters)

Doctors and bankers were among hundreds of Sri Lankans who marched on Wednesday to demand the government resolve a severe fuel shortage at the heart of the Indian Ocean island's worst economic crisis in decades or step down.

Weeks of street demonstrations against cascading woes such as power cuts and shortages of food and medicine brought a change in government last month after nine people were killed and about 300 injured in protests.

Left with just enough fuel for about a week and fresh shipments at least two weeks away, the government restricted supplies on Tuesday to essential services, such as trains, buses and the health sector, for two weeks.

The prime minister's office said in a statement a government-ordered petrol shipment would arrive on July 22, while Lanka IOC (LIOC.CM), a unit of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC.NS), is expecting a shipment of petrol and diesel around July 13. 

"The government is also attempting to secure fuel shipments at an early date. However, until those are confirmed, the details would not be released," the statement said.

Doctors, nurses and medical staff say that despite being designated essential workers, they struggle to find enough fuel to get to work.

"This is an impossible situation, the government has to give us a solution," H.M. Mediwatta, secretary of one of Sri Lanka's largest nursing unions, the All Island Nurses Union, told reporters.

The South Asian nation's most serious economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948 comes after COVID-19 battered the tourism-reliant economy and slashed remittances from overseas workers.

Rising oil prices, populist tax cuts and a seven-month ban on the import of chemical fertilisers last year that devastated agriculture have compounded the troubles.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the World Bank had agreed to restructure 17 projects it is funding in Sri Lanka. Similar support extended earlier had been used to buy fuel and medicine.

"More World Bank assistance will follow after negotiations with the IMF are finalised," he said on Twitter.

An International Monetary Fund team is in Colombo for talks on a bailout package of as much as $3 billion. Sri Lanka hopes to reach a staff-level agreement by Thursday, but even so, it is unlikely to bring immediate funds.

"UNBEARABLE"

A march to the president's house by a trade union of bankers, teachers, and the self-employed was stopped by riot police who had thrown up barricades to guard the area.

"Things have become unbearable for the common man," said an official of a teachers' union. "We want this government to go home."

More than 100 medical staff of the national hospital in Colombo marched to the prime minister's office calling for the government to ensure fresh supplies of fuel and medicines.

Public health inspectors and other health service workers are also on strike on Wednesday and Thursday.

The island of 22 million has nearly run out of useable foreign exchange reserves to import essentials such as food, medicine, petrol and diesel.

As the crisis grows, many people have been detained trying to flee the country by boat. 

The government is also looking abroad for help, to countries from the Middle East to Russia.

On Tuesday, in a bid to secure fuel, Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera met Qatar's minister of state for energy affairs and the chief executive of Qatar Energy. He is also seeking a line of credit from a Qatar development fund.

Another Sri Lankan minister will travel to Russia at the weekend in search of energy deals. (Reuters)