NEW DELHI -- India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 20-million mark, reaching 20,282,833 on Tuesday, as 357,229 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, confirmed the federal health ministry.

Another 3,449 deaths were reported since Monday morning, taking the death toll to 222,408. (India-COVID-19-20 million)

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SEOUL -- South Korea's headline inflation hit a 44-month high last month on expensive farm goods and oil products, raising worry about inflationary pressure caused by the record-low policy rate to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, statistical office data showed Tuesday.

The consumer price index (CPI) came in at 107.39 in April, up 2.3 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea. It marked the fastest increase in 44 months since August 2017. (S. Korea-CPI)

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JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government has confirmed the detection of three cases of two mutated variants of the coronavirus in the country, health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said.

Sadikin said on Monday that the detected mutations were known as the B1617, first detected in India, and B1351, first detected in South Africa. Two cases of the B1617 variant were detected in the national capital Jakarta, while one case of the B1351 variant was detected in Bali Island. (Indonesia-COVID-19-Mutation)

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SEOUL -- South Korea reported 541 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Monday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 124,269.

The daily caseload was up from 488 in the prior day. The daily number of infections hovered in triple figures since Nov. 8 last year due to cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases. (S. Korea-COVID-19)