Top Asian News 4:02 p.m. GMT

2 Malaysian military helicopters collide and crash while training, killing all 10 crew

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Two Malaysian military helicopters collided midair and crashed during a training session on Tuesday, killing all 10 people on board and injuring a swimmer in a pool, authorities said. The helicopters were rehearsing at a naval base in northern Perak state for the navy’s 90th anniversary celebration when the accident occurred, the navy said in a brief statement. “All victims were confirmed dead on site,” it said. A video circulating on social media purported to be of the incident shows several helicopters flying low in a formation. One of the helicopters veers sideways and clips the rotor of another helicopter, causing both to plunge and crash.

As Blinken heads to China, these are the major divides he will try to bridge

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week with U.S.-China ties at a critical point over numerous global disputes. The mere fact that Blinken is making the trip — shortly after a conversation between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a similar visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a call between the U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs — might be seen by some as encouraging, but ties between Washington and Beijing are tense and the rifts are growing wider.

Modi is accused of using hate speech for calling Muslims ‘infiltrators’ at an Indian election rally

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s main opposition party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using hate speech after he called Muslims “infiltrators” — some of his most incendiary rhetoric about the minority faith, days after the country began its weekslong general election. The remarks at a campaign rally Sunday drew fierce criticism that Modi was peddling anti-Muslim tropes. The Congress party filed a complaint Monday with the Election Commission of India, alleging he broke rules that bar candidates from engaging in any activity that aggravates religious tensions. Critics of the prime minister — an avowed Hindu nationalist — say India’s tradition of diversity and secularism has come under attack since his Bharatiya Janata Party won power a decade ago.

In Vietnam, farmers reduce methane emissions by changing how they grow rice

LONG AN, Vietnam (AP) — There is one thing that distinguishes 60-year-old Vo Van Van’s rice fields from a mosaic of thousands of other emerald fields across Long An province in southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta: It isn’t entirely flooded. That and the giant drone, its wingspan similar to that of an eagle, chuffing high above as it rains organic fertilizer onto the knee-high rice seedlings billowing below. Using less water and using a drone to fertilize are new techniques that Van is trying and Vietnam hopes will help solve a paradox at the heart of growing rice: The finicky crop isn’t just vulnerable to climate change but also contributes uniquely to it.

$8 billion US military aid package to Taiwan will ‘boost confidence’ in region: president-elect

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A $8 billion defense package approved by the U.S. House of Representatives over the weekend will “strengthen the deterrence against authoritarianism in the West Pacific ally chain,” Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te said Tuesday, in a reference to key rival China. The funding will also “help ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also boost confidence in the region” Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, told visiting Michigan Representatives Lisa McClain, a Republican, and Democrat Dan Kildee at a meeting at the Presidential Office Building in the capital Taipei. In the face of “authoritarian expansionism,” Taiwan is “determined to safeguard democracy and also safeguard our homeland,” Lai said.

Elon Musk accuses Australia of censorship after court bans violent video

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk accused Australia of censorship after an Australian judge ruled that his social media platform X must block users worldwide from accessing video of a bishop being stabbed in a Sydney church. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded Tuesday by describing Musk as an “arrogant billionaire” who considered himself above the law and was out of touch with the public. X Corp., the tech company rebranded in 2023 by Musk after he bought Twitter, announced last week it would fight in court Australian orders to take down posts relating to a knife attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in an Assyrian Orthodox church as a service was being streamed online on April 15.

Australia and Papua New Guinea leaders trek toward WWII South Pacific battleground

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers on Tuesday began trekking into the South Pacific island nation’s mountainous interior to commemorate a pivotal World War II campaign and to underscore their current security alliance, which faces challenges from China’s growing regional influence. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese received an elaborate traditional welcome when he arrived by helicopter at Kokoda Village with his Papua New Guinean counterpart James Marape. The pair will walk 15 kilometers (9 miles) over two days along the rugged Kokoda Track where the Japanese army’s advance toward what is now the national capital, Port Moresby, was halted in 1942 in the wilds of the Owen Stanley Range.

South Korean sentenced to 14 months in jail for killing 76 cats

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean man has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for killing 76 cats in one of the country’s most gruesome cases of animal cruelty in recent years. The man, who is in his 20s, was convicted of violating South Korea’s animal protection law last week, the Changwon District Court in southeastern South Korea said Tuesday. The court did not identify the man. The man went on a cat-killing spree between December 2022 and September 2023 due to a deep hatred of the animal that he began harboring after other cats scratched his car, according to a court verdict seen by The Associated Press.

Aboriginal spears taken by Captain Cook in 1770 are returned to Australia’s Indigenous people

LONDON (AP) — Four Aboriginal spears that were taken to England by Captain James Cook more than 250 years ago were returned Tuesday to Australia’s Indigenous community at a ceremony in Cambridge University. The artifacts were all that remain of some 40 spears that Cook and botanist Joseph Banks took in April 1770, at the time of the first contact between Cook’s crew and the Indigenous people of Kamay, or Botany Bay. The spears were presented to Trinity College, Cambridge by John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich the following year, along with other items from Cook’s voyage across the Pacific.

Qatari emir in Nepal, expected to tackle migrant conditions and Nepali student held hostage by Hamas

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — The emir of Qatar landed in Nepal Tuesday on his first-ever visit to the South Asian country, after visiting Bangladesh and the Philippines, where improving migrant workers’ conditions in the Gulf state and a Nepali student still held hostage by Hamas are expected to be on the agenda. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is set to meet Nepali dignitaries, including President Ram Chandra Poudyal and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal during his two-day visit. Qatar hosts an estimated 400,000 Nepali workers, most in construction and manual labor. Concerns about working in extreme heat — that could reach over 40 C (104 F) — inadequate living facilities and abuse have risen in recent years.