* China and India should firmly follow the right path of mutual trust and cooperation between neighboring major countries, and not go astray with suspicion and distrust nor fall back on a road of negative retrogression, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Thursday. Wang made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, stressing that the two sides should maintain the strategic consensuses reached by their leaders. * As COVID-19 transmission rates seemingly decline across the European Region, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge expressed health concerns over "long-COVID" or "post-COVID" symptoms at a virtual press conference on Thursday. * Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Armenia in a telephone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday, the Kremlin said. * The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that the US military had conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria. The Pentagon called the operation a "proportionate military response" carried out after consultations with coalition partners. * China approved two more vaccines for public use, raising the number of domestically produced vaccines that can be used in China to four. * Japan on Friday is preparing to lift the state of emergency over COVID-19 for five prefectures where the situation has improved, although the Greater Tokyo metropolitan area will likely be kept under the emergency period for the time being, according to government sources. * The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines reported on Friday 2,651 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily increase since Oct. 17 last year, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 571,327. * Leaders of the European Union (EU) called for an accelerated production and delivery of COVID-19 …
