Top Asian News 11:34 a.m. GMT

A suicide car bomber strikes a school bus in southwestern Pakistan, killing 5 people

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing five people — including at least three children — and wounding 38 others, officials said, the latest attack in tense Balochistan province. The province has been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, designated a terror group by the United States in 2019. A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the attack took place on the outskirts of the city of Khuzdar as the bus was taking children to their military-run school there.

Japan’s agriculture minister resigns after a rice gaffe causes political fallout

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s agriculture minister was forced to resign Wednesday because of political fallout over his recent comments that he “never had to buy rice” because he got it from supporters as a gift. The resignation comes as the public struggles with record high prices of the country’s traditional staple food. Taku Eto’s comment, which many Japanese saw as out of touch with economic realities, came at a seminar Sunday for the Liberal Democratic Party, which leads a struggling minority government. The gaffe could be further trouble for the party before a national election in July. A major loss could mean a new government or could mean Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba would have to step down.

North Korean defectors urge the UN to hold the country’s leader accountable for rights abuses

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Eunju Kim, who escaped starvation in North Korea in 1999, was sent back from China and fled a second time, told the United Nations on Tuesday that the country’s leader must be held accountable for gross human rights violations. Gyuri Kang, whose family faced persecution for her grandmother’s religious beliefs, fled the North during the COVID-19 pandemic. She told the General Assembly that three of her friends were executed — two for watching South Korean TV dramas. At the high-level meeting of the 193-member world body, the two women, both now living in South Korea, described the plight of North Koreans who U.N.

AP PHOTOS: In Pakistan, people don’t run with bulls. They race them. In spectacular style

MALAL, Pakistan (AP) — Bulls are yoked together by thick wooden frames in a sun-scorched field of rural Pakistan, while behind them, holding onto nothing more than ropes and his honor, is a man on a plank. Hundreds of spectators whoop and cheer as the animals begin to hurtle down a track, whipping up a storm of dust and imminent danger. This is bull racing, Punjabi style. The traditional sport captures the raw energy of village life and is a world away from the floodlit cricket and hockey stadiums found in many Pakistani cities. Bull racing has deep roots in the Attock district of eastern Punjab province.

Cambodia’s ‘Day of Remembrance’ marks the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge genocide

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia (AP) — About 2,000 people attended Cambodia’s annual Day of Remembrance Tuesday to mark half a century since Cambodia’s communist Khmer Rouge launched a four-year reign of terror that caused the deaths of about 1.7 million people. Some three dozen student actors from a Phnom Penh art school re-enacted brutalities under the Khmer Rouge, which held power from 1975-1979, when an estimated one-quarter of Cambodia’s population was wiped out due to tortures, executions, starvation and misrule. The official ceremony honoring the victims of what a U.N.-backed tribunal judged to be genocide was held at Choeung Ek, site of a Khmer Rouge “Killing Field” about 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of the capital Phnom Penh.

An American man is arrested in Indonesia for allegedly selling porn videos on social media

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An American man was arrested in Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali for allegedly selling pornographic videos through social media, officials said Wednesday. Taylor Kirby Whitemore was arrested on March 25 by the Intelligence and Immigration Enforcement team when he was about to leave Bali’s Ngurah Rai international airport for Malaysia, immigration official Yuldi Yusman said. Authorities said Whitemore was linked to accounts on X and the Telegram messaging app that promoted and processed transactions for paid pornographic content, Yusman said. He was moved to a detention center in the capital, Jakarta, on May 16, for further investigation.

Thailand vows to tighten control on cannabis after smuggling cases involving tourists soar

BANGKOK (AP) — Thai officials on Wednesday said they planned to tighten regulations on cannabis sales after cases of tourists attempting to smuggle the drug out of the country soared in recent months. Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis in 2022, which has boosted Thailand’s tourism and farming and spawned thousands of shops. But it’s facing public backlash over allegations that under-regulation has made the drug available to children and caused addiction. The ruling Pheu Thai Party has promised to criminalize the drugs again, but faced strong resistance from its partner in the coalition government which supported the decriminalization.

How uproar over a Māori haka, beloved in New Zealand life, sowed chaos and gridlock in Parliament

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The haka, a chanting dance of challenge, is sacred to New Zealand’s Māori people but it’s become a beloved cultural institution among New Zealanders of all races. Spine-tingling performances at sports events, funerals and graduations often go viral online, a non-partisan point of pride for the country abroad. But one haka performed in protest in New Zealand’s Parliament by three legislators last November has provoked fierce division among lawmakers about whether it was an act of peaceful dissent, or disruptive and even intimidating to their opponents. A vote to approve unprecedented, lengthy bans from Parliament for the Māori party lawmakers who enacted the protest was unexpectedly suspended on Tuesday.

Indian author Banu Mushtaq wins International Booker Prize with short story collection

LONDON (AP) — Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday for “Heart Lamp,” a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of more than 30 years and which chronicle the everyday lives and struggles of women in southern India. The award was announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter in his role as chair of the five-member voting panel, at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern. It is the first time the award has been given to a collection of short stories. Bhasthi is the first Indian translator — and ninth female translator — to win the prize since it took on its current form in 2016.

Migrant workers in Malaysia seek unpaid wages from a supplier to Japanese companies

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Around 280 Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia are demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages and other money owed to them after their former employer, a plastic parts supplier to big Japanese companies, closed down. The workers at Kawaguchi Manufacturing’s factory in Port Klang, Malaysia’s largest port city, were left stranded when the company withheld their wages for up to eight months before shutting down late last year. The workers have filed complaints in Malaysia and back home in Bangladesh. Such disputes have become a diplomatic sore point between Bangladesh and Malaysia, drawing scrutiny on a small but powerful group of recruitment agencies and middlemen who monopolize such jobs.