Top Asian News 12:53 a.m. GMT

India’s steel expansion threatens climate goals and global efforts to clean up industry: report

BENGALURU, India (AP) — India’s plans to double steel production by the end of the decade could jeopardize its national climate goals and a key global target to reduce planet-heating gas emissions from the steel industry, according to a report released Tuesday. The report by Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks energy projects around the globe, said efforts to decarbonize steelmaking are gaining traction around the world. However, in India, which is the world’s second largest steel-producing nation, overwhelming reliance on coal-based technologies presents a big challenge. “India is now the bellwether of global steel decarbonization,” said Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, project manager of the Global Iron and Steel Tracker at GEM and report co-author.

Thailand and Indonesia announce strategic partnership, vow to boost economic and defense ties

BANGKOK (AP) — Indonesia and Thailand agreed Monday to elevate their relationship to a strategic partnership, during the first state visit by an Indonesian president in 20 years and agreed to push for greater trade and investment. President Prabowo Subianto, who took power last year, was welcomed by Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra in intermittent rain at Government House in Bangkok. As is traditional, the two leaders reviewed an honor guard before heading inside to hold bilateral talks on the future shape of their relationship. Subianto’s visit also coincided with the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Car bomb explodes near a market in Pakistan’s southwest, killing 4

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A car bomb exploded near a market in Pakistan’s restive southwest, killing four people and wounding 20 others, a government official said Monday, as violence intensifies in the region. The attack occurred Sunday night in Qillah Abdullah, a city in Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan, said Deputy Commissioner Abdullah Riaz. The blast damaged several shops and the outer wall of a building housing paramilitary forces, he said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. However, suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in Balochistan and other parts of the country.

One dead in apparent shooting in rare case of gun violence in China

BEIJING (AP) — One person has died in an apparent shooting at an outdoor restaurant in the city of Wuhan in what would be a rare case of gun violence in China. A police statement said Monday that two other people were injured on Sunday night in what it called a case of “deliberate injury” resulting from a dispute. Social media posts described what happened as a shooting and shared images of a person slumped in a chair and another person lying on the ground. The statement from the Qiaokou District police branch in Wuhan didn’t say what weapon had been used.

Pakistani police search for the suspect in the killing of an Ahmadi minority doctor

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police stepped up their search Monday for the suspect in the killing of a doctor from the country’s tiny Ahmadi minority, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting the community. The physician was gunned down at a private hospital where he worked in the eastern city of Sargodha on Friday; the gunman fled the scene. The Ahmadi religion is an offshoot of Islam but Pakistan declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. There are about 500,000 Ahmadis in Pakistan, a nation of 250 million. No one claimed responsibility for Friday’s killing but supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, a radical Islamist party, have carried out many of the attacks on Ahmadis, accusing them of blasphemy.

3 killed in lightning strike at Cambodia’s Angkor Wat UNESCO site

BANGKOK (AP) — Three people were killed and several others injured when they were struck by lightning while visiting Cambodia’s famous Angkor Wat temple complex. They had been seeking shelter around the main temple of the UNESCO site when the lightning struck late Friday afternoon. Video posted on social media showed two ambulances arriving in the aftermath and onlookers and site officials carrying out some injured people and helping others out on foot. Other images showed multiple people being treated in the hospital. The day after the incident, Cambodia’s Minister of Tourism Hout Hak issued a statement telling people to take down online posts about it, saying the spreading of “negative information” could harm the country’s tourism sector.

Indian space agency’s satellite mission fails due to technical issue in launch vehicle

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian space agency’s mission to launch into orbit a new Earth observation satellite failed after the launch vehicle encountered a technical issue during the third stage of flight, officials said Sunday. The EOS-09 Earth observation satellite took off on board the PSLV-C61 launch vehicle from the Sriharikota space center in southern India on Sunday morning. “During the third stage ... there was a fall in the chamber pressure of the motor case, and the mission could not be accomplished,” said V. Narayanan, chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation. Active in space research since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014.

Building fire kills 17, injures others in southern India

HYDERABAD, India (AP) — At least 17 people were killed and several injured in a fire that broke out at a building near the historic Charminar monument in southern Hyderabad city, officials said Sunday. Several people were found unconscious and rushed to various hospitals, according to local media. They said the building housed a jewelry store at ground level and residential space above. “The accident happened due to a short circuit and many people have died,” federal minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader G Kishan Reddy told reporters at the site of the accident. Director general of Telangana fire services Y Nagi Reddy told reporters that 21 people were in the three-story building when the fire started on the ground floor early on Sunday.

British climber scales Everest for 19th time, breaking own record for most climbs by a non-Sherpa

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A British mountain guide has scaled Mount Everest Sunday for the 19th time breaking his own record for the most ascents of the world’s highest mountain by a non-Sherpa guide. Kenton Cool, 51, from southwest England, scaled the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak on Sunday along with several other climbers and he was doing well and on way down from the summit, said Iswari Paudel of Himalayan Guides Nepal, which equipped his expedition. Cool first climbed Mount Everest in 2004 and has been doing it almost every year since then. He was unable to climb Everest in 2014 because the season was canceled after 16 Sherpa guides were killed in an avalanche, and again in 2015 when an earthquake triggered an avalanche that killed 19 people.

AP PHOTOS: Clashes between India and Pakistan upend lives in a Kashmiri village

GINGAL, India (AP) — Mohammad Younis Khan was among 40 residents seeking shelter in a cowshed when shelling began in Gingal, a scenic mountain village in north Kashmir on the Indian-controlled side of the de facto border with Pakistan. Men, women and children sought refuge in the 3-meter-by-4.2 meter (10-feet-by-14 feet) space, which they felt offered greater safety than their brick and cement homes. Huddled together, they heard the swoosh and thunder of the projectiles being fired from both sides of the border. When they heard a very loud sound from just outside the shelter, they held their breath and expected the worst.