Top Asian News 3:58 a.m. GMT

Australian police shoot dead a boy, 16, armed with a knife after he stabbed a man in Perth

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said Sunday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters on Sunday. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference. “But I want to reassure the community at this stage it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Cook added.

A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people. Wang Xiangnan was driving Wednesday along the highway in Guangdong province, a vital economic hub in southern China. At around 2 a.m., Wang saw several vehicles moving in the opposite direction of the four-lane highway and a fellow driver soon informed him about the collapse, local media reported. Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger, Jiupai News quoted Wang as saying.

Afghanistan’s only female diplomat resigns in India after gold smuggling allegations

ISLAMABAD (AP) — An Afghan diplomat in India, who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and said she was the only woman in the country’s diplomatic service, has resigned after reports emerged of her being detained for allegedly smuggling gold. Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X on Saturday after Indian media reported last week that she was briefly detained at the city’s airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai. According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity.

AP PHOTOS: South and Southeast Asian countries cope with a weekslong heat wave

South and Southeast Asian countries have been coping with a weekslong heat wave rendering record high temperatures that have posed a severe health risk. Umbrellas to shield against blazing sunlight are popular, air-conditioned malls are serving as urban oases, and schools in Cambodia have been cutting back their hours. In the Philippines, India and Bangladesh, officials have told students to stay home and do their lessons remotely. In April, the United Nations Children’s Fund warned that the sweltering weather could put millions of children’s lives at risk and asked caregivers to take extra precautions. A UNICEF statement said that in the Asia-Pacific region, “around 243 million children are exposed to hotter and longer heatwaves, putting them at risk of a multitude of heat-related illnesses, and even death.” The advice everywhere for everyone?

Flood and landslide hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing 14

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A flood and a landslide hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing 14 people, officials said Saturday. Torrential rain pounding the area since Thursday triggered a landslide in Luwu district in South Sulawesi province, said local rescue chief Mexianus Bekabel. Floods up to 3 meters (10 feet) have affected 13 sub-districts as water and mud covered the area. More than 1,000 houses were affected, with 42 of them swept off their foundations. A search and rescue team worked to evacuate residents using rubber boats and other vehicles. More than 100 residents have been moved to mosques or relatives’ houses outside the affected area, National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said Saturday.

Japan and India reject Biden’s comments describing them as xenophobic countries

TOKYO (AP) — Japan and India on Saturday decried remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden describing them as “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, which the president said during a campaign fundraising event earlier in the week. Japan said Biden’s judgment was not based on an accurate understanding of its policy, while India rebutted the comment, defending itself as the world’s most open society. Biden grouped Japan and India as “xenophobic” countries, along with Russia and China as he tried to explain their struggling economies, contrasting the four with the strength of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. Japan is a key U.S.

Pakistan records its wettest April since 1961 with above average rainfall

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan has recorded its wettest April since 1961, with more than double the usual rainfall for the month, the national weather center said. The country experienced days of extreme weather in April that killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts said Pakistan witnessed heavier rains because of climate change. Last month’s rainfall for Pakistan was a 164% increase from the usual level for April, according to a report published Friday by Pakistan’s national weather center. The intense downpours affected the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern Baluchistan provinces the most. Devastating summer floods in 2022 killed at least 1,700 people, destroyed millions of homes, wiped out swaths of farmland, and caused billions of dollars in economic losses in a matter of months.

Brazil’s Lula invites Japan’s prime minister to eat his country’s beef, and become a believer

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday welcomed Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on his first visit to the country, with the two meeting in the capital of Brasilia and the South American leader pushing his counterpart to buy his country’s beef. Brazil had wished to seize on the bilateral meeting to push forward an agreement to open Japanese markets to Brazilian beef, a goal the Latin American country has pursued since 2005. In an appeal to the prime minister, Lula insisted he should eat at a steakhouse during his trip. “I don’t know what you had for dinner last night,” Lula said during the press conference, looking at Kishida and the Japanese delegation, then turning his attention to Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who is also Minister of Industry, Commerce, Development and Trade.

Juro Kara, rebel playwright behind Japan’s modern underground theater, dies at 84

TOKYO (AP) — Juro Kara, who helped shape Japan’s postwar avant-garde theater, defiantly yet playfully transforming the essence of Kabuki aesthetics into modern storytelling, has died. He was 84. The playwright, director and troupe leader died late Saturday from a blood clot in the brain after he collapsed at home and was rushed to a Tokyo hospital on May 1, his theater group Karagumi said in a statement on Sunday. Kara, whose real name was Yoshihide Otsuru, rose to stardom in the so-called Japanese underground movement of the 1960s known as “un-gura,” characterized by a kitsch rebellious style also found in his contemporaries Shuji Terayama and Tadashi Suzuki.

As China’s Xi Jinping visits Europe, Ukraine, trade and investment are likely to top the agenda

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Ukraine, trade and investment are expected to dominate Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s first trip to Europe in five years, as the Asian giant rebuilds its foreign relations after a prolonged absence during the Covid-19 pandemic. Xi will start the tour in Paris on Monday, meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been stressing the idea of European strategic autonomy from the U.S. On a visit to Beijing last year, Macron courted controversy by saying France would not necessarily always align with the U.S. in foreign policy, an apparent reference to American support for the self-governing republic of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.