Top Asian News 4:46 a.m. GMT

Hong Kong’s new national security bill includes stiff penalties and more power to suppress dissent

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong unveiled a new national security bill Friday that proposes up to life imprisonment for offenses like treason and insurrection, a move deepening worries over further erosion of the city’s freedoms after Beijing imposed a similar law four years ago that all but wiped out dissent. The proposed law will expand the government’s power in stamping out future challenges to its rule, targeting espionage, external interference and protection of state secrets among others. Tougher punishment will be imposed on individuals who collude with external forces to carry out certain illegal acts, such as sabotage and sedition, compared to those who do so on their own.

North Korea conducts artillery firing drills in likely response to South Korea-US military training

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised artillery firing drills aimed at boosting combat readiness, state media reported Friday, days after his country vowed to take corresponding military steps against the ongoing South Korean-U.S military training that it regards as an invasion rehearsal. Thursday’s drills involved frontline artillery units, whose weapons place Seoul, the South Korean capital, in their striking range, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. Kim said artillery units must “take the initiative with merciless and rapid strikes at the moment of their entry into an actual war,” KCNA said. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said later Friday that it had detected North Korea firing artillery into the waters off its west coast the previous day.

Kyoto’s picturesque geisha district fights back against over-tourism with keep-out signs

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto, long a popular destination for tourists, is closing off some private-property alleys in its famous geisha district because of complaints about misbehaving visitors. Tourists crowd the narrow, quaint streets of the area called Gion, often following tour guides who show people around and lecture for long hours, local district official Isokazu Ota said Friday. “We are going to put up signs in April that tell tourists to stay out of our private streets,” he told The Associated Press. A sign will say in both Japanese and English: “This is a private road, so you are not allowed to drive through it,” although the keep-out warning is aimed mainly at pedestrians, not cars, as the Japanese wording refers to generically “passing through.” “There will be a fine of 10,000 yen,” the sign adds, which comes to about $70 under recent currency conversion rates.

Modi visits Kashmir’s main city for the first time since revoking region’s semi-autonomy

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made his first official visit to Kashmir’s main city since New Delhi stripped the disputed region of its semi-autonomy and took direct control of it in 2019. Addressing a crowd in a soccer stadium in Srinagar, Modi announced development projects and said previous governments had misled people over the region’s now-scrapped special status. “The success story of Jammu and Kashmir will be the center of attraction for the world,” he told the crowd, saying that the region has prospered since the 2019 move. “I have always said that the hard work I am doing is to win your hearts.

AP Week in Pictures: Asia

March 1-7, 2024 A family member of a passenger on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 attended the 10th annual remembrance event in Malaysia, Chinese leader Xi Jinping drank a cup of tea during the opening session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, and contestants of the Miss World pageant posed for photographs at an event to mark International Women’s Day in Mumbai, India. This photo gallery highlights some of the most compelling images in the Asia-Pacific region made or published by The Associated Press in the past week. The selection was curated by AP photo editor Subramoney Iyer in New Delhi.

Frozen in time: Families of those on missing Flight 370 cannot shake off their grief without answers

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Over the past decade, Grace Subathirai Nathan graduated from law school, got married, opened a law firm and had two babies. But part of her is frozen in time, still in denial over the loss of her mother on a missing Malaysia Airlines plane in 2014. There has been no funeral service, and Grace, 35, still speaks of her mother in the present tense. When she got married in 2020, she walked down the aisle with a picture of her mother tucked in a bouquet of daisies — chosen because of her mother’s name, Anne Catherine Daisy.

China accuses US of devising tactics to suppress China despite improvement in relations

BEIJING (AP) — China’s foreign minister accused the U.S. on Thursday of devising tactics to suppress China’s rise and criticized the Biden administration for adding more Chinese companies to its sanctions lists. Wang Yi, speaking to media during the annual meeting of China’s legislature, said China’s relations with the U.S. have improved since Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in November, but America has not fulfilled its promises. “If the U.S. always says one thing and does another, where is its credibility as a major power? If the U.S. gets nervous and anxious when it hears the word ‘China,’ where is its confidence as a major power?” he said.

China coast guard flexes its might against the Philippines in disputed waters as journalists watch

ABOARD BRP SINDANGAN (AP) — It was a heart-pounding moment far out in the disputed South China Sea: One of at least five Chinese coast guard ships aggressively approached and sideswiped a Philippine patrol vessel, creating a loud, jarring noise that sent its Filipino crew scrambling to lower rubber fenders to cushion the boat’s hull. As the high-seas faceoff unfolded Tuesday, two Chinese coast guard ships used water cannons against a smaller supply boat carrying a Filipino admiral and his sailors. The high-pressure spray shattered the boat’s windshield and mildly injured the admiral and four sailors with glass shards and splinters of debris.

A cryptocurrency mogul arrested in Montenegro faces extradition to South Korea after a court ruling

POGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — A Montenegrin court on Thursday ruled that cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon should be handed over to his native South Korea, the latest twist in the months-long legal procedure that followed the arrest of the Terraform Labs founder in the Balkan nation last year. The High Court handed down the ruling just days after an appeals court overturned its previous decision to extradite Kwon to the United States. Kwon, 32, was apprehended on an international arrest warrant in connection with a $40 billion crash of Terraform Labs’ cryptocurrency, which devastated retail investors around the world. Both South Korea and the U.S.

13 years after meltdown, the head of Japan’s nuclear cleanup is probing mysteries inside reactors

TOKYO (AP) — As Japan prepares to mark the 13th anniversary of its worst-ever nuclear disaster, the man in charge of cleaning it up says his team is fighting to bring a sample out of the heart of the site’s radioactive debris. A decades-long project to clean up the remains of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is preparing to remove damaged fuel debris from the plant’s reactors, but much about what’s inside them is still a mystery. The key to unlocking that mystery — and figuring out how to clean it up — is a sample of melted fuel from inside a reactor, said Akira Ono, head of decommissioning for Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, in an interview with The Associated Press.