Xinhua Asia-Pacific News Summary at 0600 GMT, Dec. 20

SEOUL -- South Korean civic groups on Wednesday demanded stopping war games between Seoul and Washington as the South Korea-hosted winter sports event is scheduled for early next year.

Representatives from 169 advocacy and religious groups held a press conference at the Gwanghwamon Square in central Seoul, saying the South Korea-U.S. military exercises must be completely stopped taking the opportunity of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. (South Korea-U.S.-War games)

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KUALA LUMPUR -- MyHSR Corporation, Malaysia's project delivery vehicle for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (KL-SG HSR), and its Singaporean counterpart, on Wednesday called for a joint tender for an Assets Company (AssetsCo), which could cost more than 10 billion U.S. dollars by some estimate.

The AssetsCo, viewed as the "crown jewel" of the KL-SG HSR project, will be responsible for designing, building, financing and maintaining all rolling stock, as well as designing, building, financing, operating and maintaining all rail assets such as track-work, power, signalling and telecommunications for the project, MyHSR and SG HSR said in a joint press release. (Malaysia-Singapore-Railway)

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MANILA -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has declared a unilateral ceasefire with the leftist rebels from Dec. 24 to Jan. 2 next year in the observance of the holiday season, the presidential spokesman said on Wednesday.

"This unilateral ceasefire would lessen the apprehension of the public this Christmas season. We expect that the CPP-NPA-NDF would do a similar gesture of goodwill," Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement, referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its military wing New People's Army (NPA), and its political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF). (Philippines-Ceasefire)

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SEOUL -- Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest maker of memory chips, said Wednesday that it has mass-produced the second-generation, 10-nanometer class dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips.

The South Korean company said in a statement that it started mass-producing 8-gigabit DDR4 DRAM chips using the 10-nanometer class technology, the world's first in the industry. (South Korea-Samsung)

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SEOUL -- At least two strains of highly pathogenic bird flu were found in South Korea this winter, the country's quarantine agency said Wednesday.

The Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (APQA) announced the result of its DNA analysis of viruses discovered at duck farms in Gochang and Yeongam in the country's southwestern region. (South Korea-Bird flu) Enditem