Top Asian News 4:13 a.m. GMT

A 41-year-old pelican and other animals wait for their food at Nepal’s only zoo

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — At the stroke of 10 every morning at the only zoo in Nepal, a 41-year-old pelican arrives at the entrance of the animal kitchen, waiting patiently for program officer Ganesh Koirala to arrive. The pelican knows that with Koirala will come breakfast — a one-kilogram (2-pound) fish. Inside the busy kitchen, zookeepers wash vegetables and cut meat and fish for the zoo’s residents. The Central Zoo in Kathmandu is home to more than 1,100 animals and 114 species, including Bengal tigers, snow leopards, red pandas, one-horned rhinos and Asian elephants. More than 15 of 38 local endangered species reside in the zoo, which welcomes around 1 million visitors per year.

Military’s Ospreys are cleared to return to flight, 3 months after latest fatal crash in Japan

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Osprey, a workhorse aircraft vital to U.S. military missions, has been approved to return to flight after an “unprecedented” part failure led to the deaths of eight service members in a crash in Japan in November, Naval Air Systems Command announced Friday. The crash was the second fatal accident in months and the fourth in two years. It quickly led to a rare fleet-wide grounding of hundreds of Ospreys across the Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy. Before clearing the Osprey, which can fly like an airplane and then convert to a helicopter, officials said they put increased attention on its proprotor gearbox, instituted new limitations on how it can be flown and added maintenance inspections and requirements that gave them confidence it could safely return to flight.

Behind the doors of a Chinese hacking company, a sordid culture fueled by influence, alcohol and sex

BEIJING (AP) — The hotel was spacious. It was upscale. It had a karaoke bar. The perfect venue, the CEO of the Chinese hacking company thought, to hold a Lunar New Year banquet currying favor with government officials. There was just one drawback, his top deputy said. “Who goes there?” the deputy wrote. “The girls are so ugly.” So goes the sordid wheeling and dealing that takes place behind the scenes in China’s hacking industry, as revealed in a highly unusual leak last month of internal documents from a private contractor linked to China’s government and police. China’s hacking industry, the documents reveal, suffers from shady business practices, disgruntlement over pay and work quality, and poor security protocols.

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

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong unveiled a proposed law that threatens life imprisonment for residents who “endanger national security” on Friday, deepening worries about erosion of the city’s freedoms four years after Beijing imposed a similar law that all but wiped out public dissent. It’s widely seen as the latest step in a crackdown on political opposition that began after the semi-autonomous Chinese city was rocked by violent pro-democracy protests in 2019. Since then, the authorities have crushed the city’s once-vibrant political culture. Many of the city’s leading pro-democracy activists have been arrested and others fled abroad. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded, and outspoken media outlets like Apple Daily and Stand News have been shut down.

China trumpets rising car exports to Russia as its envoy holds talks in Ukraine

BEIJING (AP) — In Beijing and Kyiv, the divide between China and Europe over the war in Ukraine was on display this week. As a Chinese envoy crisscrossed Europe for talks on ending the war, his boss, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, trumpeted a sharp rise in China-Russia trade — which the West sees as providing an economic lifeline to Moscow that undermines the sanctions it has imposed to try to pressure Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. “Russian natural gas has entered thousands of households in China, and Chinese cars are driving in the streets of Russia, which fully demonstrates the strong resilience and broad prospects of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said at an annual news conference on Thursday.

France enshrines abortion as a constitutional right as the world marks International Women’s Day

PARIS (AP) — France inscribed the guaranteed right to abortion in its constitution Friday, in a world first and a powerful message of support to women around the globe on International Women’s Day. A woman from Argentina, a couple from Miami and a man from Czechia were among those gathered on the polished cobblestones of Place Vendome in Paris to watch the historic event unfurl in an outdoor ceremony open the public. Women in the crowd recalled their own abortions, or lifelong battles for reproductive rights. While abortion is a deeply divisive issue in the United States, it’s legal in nearly all of Europe and overwhelmingly supported in France, where it’s seen more as a question of public health rather than politics.

UNICEF: 230 million females are circumcised globally, 30 million more than in 2016

CAIRO (AP) — Over 230 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation, most of whom live in Africa, according to a report issued on Friday by the United Nations children’s agency. In the last eight years, some 30 million people have undergone the procedure, in which external genitalia are partially or fully removed, UNICEF estimated in the report, which was released on International Women’s Day. The percentage of women and girls who experience female genital mutilation is declining, UNICEF said, but it warned that efforts to eradicate the practice are too slow to keep up with fast-growing populations. “The practice of female genital mutilation is declining, but not fast enough,” the report said.

China’s top court, prosecutors report surging cyberscams, stress protecting national security

BEIJING (AP) — China saw large increases in arrests and cases of phone and internet scams last year, according to reports presented Friday to the National People’s Congress that stressed the ruling Communist Party’s determination to safeguard national security and public order. A report issued by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said the number of cases of computer crimes including social media fraud jumped 36.2% in 2023 and involved 323,000 people. The sharp increase likely reflects a doubling down on cross-border computer fraud that has resulted in thousands of people, some of them victims of human traffickers who forced them to work for crime rings in remote areas of Myanmar and other neighboring countries, being returned to China.

What is Ramadan and how do Muslims observe the Islamic holy month?

CAIRO (AP) — Observant Muslims the world over will soon be united in a ritual of daily fasting from dawn to sunset as the Islamic holy month of Ramadan starts. For Muslims, it’s a time of increased worship, charity and good deeds. Socially, it often brings families and friends together in festive gatherings around meals to break their fast. Ramadan is followed by the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr. This year, Ramadan comes as the latest Israel-Hamas war has killed thousands of Palestinians, left much of Gaza in ruins and created a humanitarian catastrophe, with many Palestinians there, especially in the devastated northern region, scrambling for food to survive.

10 years on, parents of Chinese passengers on MH370 are still asking: What happened to my child?

BEIJING (AP) — Ten years on, the families of Chinese passengers who disappeared on board a lost Malaysia Airlines flight still are searching for answers. On Friday, a few dozen relatives of the passengers met officials at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing as part of their long journey for answers. They also visited the Malaysian Embassy to present their demands. Even after such a long time, the wound remains raw for many of the families. Friday is the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of flight MH370. The Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, but took a sharp turn south and fell off the radar.