JAKARTA -- Indonesia recorded a deep export decline of 21.21 percent year on year to 22.00 billion U.S. dollars in August, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) on Friday.

Exports of leading commodities such as coal contracted 48.91 percent year on year, and palm oil minus 35.23 percent, as did iron and steel, although they only fell 0.96 percent.

"Cumulatively, the value of Indonesia's exports from January to August reached 171.52 billion U.S. dollars or a decrease of 11.85 percent compared to the same period last year," said acting head of BPS, Amalia Widyasanti, at a press conference. (Indonesia-Export-Decline)

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TOKYO -- The approval ratings for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's new cabinet showed no significant signs of improvement following its reshuffle this week, according to opinion polls conducted by multiple Japanese media outlets.

National news agency Kyodo found in its latest poll that the reshuffle saw a limited impact on lifting popularity, although the cabinet's approval rating slightly edged up 6.2 percentage points from late August to 39.8 percent.

Some 43.9 percent of respondents said they viewed Kishida's picks for cabinet ministers and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership negatively, against 37.6 percent who felt otherwise, according to the two-day telephone survey conducted from Wednesday. (Japan-New Cabinet-Approval Ratings)

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ISLAMABAD -- Nine members of a family, including a bridegroom, died on Friday night in a road accident in the Ghotki district of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, police said.

According to highway patrolling police, a vehicle carrying nine family members was hit by a container-mounted trailer in the Rwanti rural area at the Sukkur-Multan Motorway in Ghotki. (Pakistan-Road Accident-Sindh)

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PHNOM PENH -- The China-Cambodia joint humanitarian exercise code-named "Peace Angel-2023" kicked off on Saturday morning with an opening ceremony held here in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

Senior Colonel Hao Linyuan, leader of the Chinese guidance and coordination group for the exercise, and Gen. Eth Sarath, deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and chief of joint staff, delivered speeches at the event.

Hao said this joint exercise is an important bilateral cooperation created by the two militaries. (Cambodia-China-Peace Angel-2023)

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DHAKA -- A freight train trial run was conducted successfully Saturday on a section of the railway built under the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and via the Chinese-built Padma Bridge in Bangladesh.

Syed Ahmed, project director of Bangladesh Railway's Faridpur Rail Project, told journalists that the five wagons of the goods train carried 350 tons of stones during the trial run.

Ahead of the BRI railway's opening, the Bangladeshi government last week launched the first passenger train on a major part of the newly-constructed mega BRI rail line crossing Padma Bridge. (Bangladesh-BRI-Railway)

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DHAKA -- Over 800 people have died of dengue fever, out of 164,562 cases reported across Bangladesh so far this year, health department figures showed Saturday.

According to data released by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) under the Ministry of Health, the 804 deaths in total included 211 in September, 342 in August and 204 in July.

The June-September monsoon period is the season of dengue fever in Bangladesh, which is considered a high-risk country prone to the mosquito-borne disease. (Bangladesh-Dengue-Death Toll)