Top Asian News 4:55 a.m. GMT

South Korean investigators seek to question reluctant president over martial law

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators on Friday again sought to question impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his Dec. 3 declaration of martial law, summoning him for questioning on Christmas Day despite his repeated refusal to cooperate. The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities into the ill-conceived power grab that lasted only a few hours, said it plans to question Yoon on charges of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion. Yoon, whose presidential powers have been suspended since the opposition-controlled National Assembly impeached him on Dec.

US repatriates 3 Guantanamo Bay detainees, including one held 17 years without charge

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has transferred two Malaysian detainees at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison to their home country, after they pleaded guilty to charges related to deadly 2002 bombings in Bali and agreed to testify against the alleged ringleader of that and other attacks, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The transfers, and the repatriation Tuesday of a Kenyan man who’d been held at Guantanamo for 17 years without charge, come as rights groups and others push the Biden administration to end the detention of more than a dozen other men held there without charge, and amid uncertainty over the incoming Trump administration’s plans for Guantanamo.

A massive fire kills 9 people at a building under construction in Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Nine people died Thursday in a massive fire in central Taiwan at a huge food-processing building that was under construction, news reports said. Video posted on social media showed a wall of dark gray smoke and orange flames billowing out of one end of the five-story building in the city of Taichung. The cause of the fire was undetermined but the Taichung government said it spread rapidly because of a large quantity of foam panels on site. One person died after jumping from the third floor and the other victims were found by firefighters in a search that extended into the evening, Taiwanese media said.

‘Raygun: The Musical’ won’t use the name of the notorious Australian breaker

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Australian breaker Rachael “Raygun” Gunn has tried to be a good sport about the jokes and criticism that poured in from around the globe after her controversial performance at the Paris Olympics. But maybe “Raygun: the Musical” was a bridge too far. Comedian Stephanie Broadbridge called off the show just hours before it was set to premiere in Sydney, after Gunn’s lawyers contacted its comedy club venue and threatened legal action. Broadbridge told her social media followers that the lawyers had trademarked the poster for the musical and told the comedian she could not do Gunn’s notorious kangaroo dance because the Olympian who went viral for her performance in Paris owns it.

Australia announces $118 million deal to enhance policing in Solomon Islands

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia announced on Friday it will pay for more police in Solomon Islands and create a police training center in the South Pacific island nation’s capital Honiara, where Chinese law enforcement instructors are already based under a bilateral security pact with Beijing. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia would spend 190 million Australian dollars ($118 million) over four years on funding and training new Royal Solomon Islands Police Force recruits with a package that would “reduce any need for outside support.” “My government is proud to make a significant investment in the police force of the Solomon Islands to ensure that they can continue to take primary responsibility for security in the Solomons,” Albanese told reporters in Australia’s capital Canberra.

Number of dead and missing still unclear as first aid arrives in quake-hit Pacific nation of Vanuatu

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Amid the havoc wrought by a violent earthquake two days earlier, Ivan Oswald and his staff prepared for lunchtime service Thursday at Nambawan Cafe, on an idyllic stretch of Vanuatu’s waterfront. The menu for the usual lunchtime rush was replaced with defrosted sausages for emergency workers sifting through rubble in search of those trapped alive or killed in flattened buildings when the massive, 7.3 jolt hit Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital 48 hours earlier. Search crews were joined Thursday by specialists arriving in waves from Australia, New Zealand and France. Earthquakes are normal for the South Pacific nation made up of 80 islands and home to 330,000 people, but Tuesday’s terrifying shake was like nothing residents had felt before.

Japanese newspaper boss who influenced the nation’s postwar politics died at 98

TOKYO (AP) — Tsuneo Watanabe, the powerful head of Japan’s largest newspaper who had close ties with the country’s powerful conservative leaders, has died, his company said Thursday. He was 98. Watanabe, the editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun for over 30 years, died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital on Thursday, the Yomiuri said. Watanabe joined the newspaper in 1950 and covered politics throughout his career, attending editorial meetings until last month. He was still checking copy in his hospital room days before his death, the newspaper said. Watanabe cultivated close ties with conservative leaders who governed the country across decades, like Yasuhiro Nakasone and Shinzo Abe, and to helped form Japan’s conservative public opinion.

Thailand hosts regional talks to find solutions to Myanmar’s bloody civil war

BANGKOK (AP) — Two days of meetings on Myanmar ’s violent political crisis began Thursday in the Thai capital Bangkok, the latest in a long series of regional talks that have made no headway in restoring peace to the war-torn Southeast Asian nation. Myanmar has been wracked by violence since its army in February 2021 ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and violently repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests, leading to the establishment of an armed resistance movement. The military government has used harsh tactics, including air strikes, to suppress its opponents, but the war has only became fiercer, especially in the past year.

Two highway crashes in southeastern Afghanistan kill 50 people and injure 76

Two highway crashes in southeastern Afghanistan have killed a combined total of 50 people and injured 76, a government spokesman said Thursday. One was a collision between a passenger bus and an oil tanker on the Kabul-Kandahar highway late Wednesday, said Hafiz Omar, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province. The other was in a different area of the same highway, which connects the Afghan capital with the south. “The injured have been taken to hospitals in Ghazni and authorities are in the process of handing over the bodies to families,” said Omar. Patients in a more serious condition were transferred to Kabul.

5 suspected militants killed in Kashmir fighting, Indian military says

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Government forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed five suspected militants in a gunbattle on Thursday, the Indian military said. Soldiers and police launched a joint operation after receiving a tip that rebels were hiding in a village in southern Kulgam district, the military said in a statement. The militants opened “indiscriminate and heavy volumes of fire” at the raiding troops, leading to a gunbattle, it said. Five militants were killed in the fighting, the statement said, adding that two soldiers were also injured. Troops continued to search the area. There was no independent confirmation of the battle. India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.