Top Asian News 2:04 a.m. GMT

North Korea says it tested a multiwarhead missile. Kim covets the weapon to overwhelm US defenses

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday it had successfully tested a multiwarhead missile, a sophisticated weapon coveted by leader Kim Jong Un to overwhelm missile defenses in the continental United States. The statement contradicted South Korea’s assessment of a failed launch Wednesday of a different type of weapon. The launch tested the separation and guidance control of individual mobile warheads to ensure the capability of the Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. The separated mobile warheads “were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets” and a decoy that separated from the missile was verified by radar, it said.

Women’s rights will be raised at the UN meeting being attended by Taliban, UN official says

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. political chief who will chair the first meeting between Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and envoys from about 25 countries answered sharp criticism that Afghan women have been excluded, saying Wednesday that women’s rights will be raised at every session. Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo stressed to a small group of reporters that the two-day meeting starting Sunday is an initial engagement aimed at initiating a step-by-step process with the goal of seeing the Taliban “at peace with itself and its neighbors and adhering to international law,” the U.N. Charter, and human rights. This is the third U.N. meeting with Afghan envoys in Qatar’s capital, Doha, but the first that the Taliban are attending.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returns to Australia a free man after US legal battle ends

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet and raised a celebratory clenched fist as his supporters cheered Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concludes a drawn-out legal saga. Assange told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a phone call from the capital Canberra’s airport tarmac that Australian government intervention in the U.S. prosecution had saved his life, Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson said. Assange embraced his wife Stella Assange and father John Shipton who were waiting on the tarmac, but avoided media at a news conference less than than two hours after he landed.

Saipan, placid island setting for Assange’s last battle, is briefly mobbed — and bemused by the fuss

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — It was a peculiar setting to the final act in a legal drama that has now spanned the globe: a rural Western Pacific island, where visitors are usually tourists — attracted by laid-back resorts, snorkeling, diving and golf — and the furthermost reach of the United States. When Julian Assange stepped from a car Wednesday to enter the Saipan courthouse, from which he would emerge hours later a free man, it was against a backdrop that could have adorned a travel brochure. Palm trees waved gently and verdant hills stood against a bright blue sky.

US ambassador calls China’s tech support for Russia during Ukraine invasion a ‘major mistake’

SHANGHAI, China (AP) — China’s support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine through the provision of technology for missiles and other weaponry is a “major mistake,” U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Nicholas Burns said Wednesday. In a speech in the Chinese financial hub of Shanghai, Burns also said Russia’s invasion, now in its third year, had become an “existential crisis” in Europe. “We think it’s a major mistake to allow Chinese companies, by the thousands, to be sending so many components, technology components, microprocessors (and) nitrocellulose to Russia to reinforce and strengthen the defense industrial base of the Russian Federation for this brutal war,” Burns said.

Thai banks are the top suppliers of financial services to Myanmar’s military, UN expert says

BANGKOK (AP) — Thai banks have become the main supplier of international financial services for Myanmar’s military government, enabling it to purchase goods and equipment to carry out its increasingly bloody war against pro-democracy resistance forces and armed ethnic minority groups, a U.N. expert said in a report issued Wednesday. The report by Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, tracks how the military junta has been able to continue procuring arms by shifting suppliers of financial services and military hardware as previous sources have been blocked by sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and other states.

Sri Lanka reaches deal on debt restructuring with bilateral creditors including China and France

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe announced a debt restructuring deal with countries including India, France, Japan and China in a televised address to the nation Wednesday. The agreement marks a key step in the country’s economic recovery after defaulting on debt repayment in 2022. Sri Lanka is under an International Monetary Fund bailout program and the debt treatment deal is expected to reopen the doors to bilateral transactions and the resumption of foreign projects stalled when the island nation defaulted. “This morning in Paris, Sri Lanka reached a final agreement with our official bilateral creditors. Similarly, we signed another agreement with China’s Exim Bank today in Beijing.

Solomon Islands prime minister says his visits to Australia and China focus on creating jobs

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The new prime minister of the Solomon Islands said Wednesday that his visits to Australia and China are focussed on creating jobs in the developing South Pacific island nation. Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele met his counterpart Anthony Albanese in the Australian capital of Canberra, during his first overseas trip since being elected last month. Manele will next visit China, and then Japan. “We are keen to work with all partners, with Australia and China, (on) how we can partner together to create transformational projects and programs in Solomon Islands that create jobs,” Manele said at a joint press conference with Albanese.

Pakistan security forces have arrested 2 key Pakistani Taliban commanders, an official says

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Security forces in Pakistan have arrested two key commanders of the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s volatile southwest, an official said Wednesday. The interior minister of Baluchistan province, Ziaullah Langau, congratulated the security forces for “saving the country from possible high-profile attacks” by arresting the militants, whom he identified as Commander Nasrullah and Commander Idress. He said the arrests, seen as a significant boost for Pakistan’s government, were part of a “sophisticated intelligence-based operation.” The government announced this week the launch of a nationwide crackdown on insurgents. The arrests came during a surge in attacks by the Pakistani Taliban, who are a separate group but are allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021 as U.S.

A US officiant marries 10 same-sex couples in Hong Kong via video chat

HONG KONG (AP) — Ten same-sex couples got married in the United States over the internet from Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous southern Chinese city that does not formally recognize such unions but offers them legal protections. The event Tuesday was timed to mark Pride Month, with a registered officiant from the American state of Utah making their marriages official. Most states require the couple to appear in person to fill out paperwork and present identification, but Utah does not, and its digital application process has made it a go-to for online weddings since the COVID-19 pandemic. Family members gathered in a hotel wedding hall in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district as couples exchanged rings, then raised their glasses in a toast.