After being closed for the weekend, South Korea's Kospi opened the trading week on Monday at a new record - 8,094 points. However, the rise has slowed slightly to 3.2 percent by lunchtime.
The Hong Kong-based Hang Seng is also up 0.3 percent.
In both China and Japan, markets are down. Shenzhen and Shanghai are both down 0.6 percent. The Tokyo Stock Exchange's main index, the Nikkei 225, is down 0.4 percent and the broader Topix is down 0.1 percent.
