Top Asian News 3:49 a.m. GMT

South Korean troops fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed land border

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean soldiers fired warning shots after North Korean troops briefly violated the tense border earlier this week, South Korea’s military said Tuesday, as the rivals are embroiled in Cold War-style campaigns like balloon launches and propaganda broadcasts. Bloodshed and violent confrontations have occasionally occurred at the Koreas’ heavily fortified border, called the Demilitarized Zone. While Sunday’s incident happened amid simmering tensions between the two Koreas, observers say it won’t likely develop into another source of animosity as South Korea believes the North Koreans didn’t deliberately commit the border intrusion and North Korea also didn’t return fire.

4 Iowa instructors teaching at a Chinese university were attacked at a park

MOUNT VERNON, Iowa (AP) — Four Iowa college instructors teaching in China were attacked in a reported stabbing while visiting a public park, Cornell College and the U.S. State Department confirmed Monday. Cornell College President Jonathan Brand in a statement said the instructors were at the park with a faculty member from Beihua University when the attack occurred. Cornell spokesperson Jen Visser in an email said the private school in Mount Vernon partners with Beihua University near Jilin City in northeastern China. The State Department said in a statement that it is aware of reports of a stabbing and that it is monitoring the situation.

Indian PM Modi names Cabinet for coalition government after his party lost majority

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Narendra Modi, newly sworn in for a third straight term, named a Cabinet on Monday that retained his top ministers in crucial portfolios despite his Hindu nationalist party losing their majority in a shock election result. There was no change in the top four ministries. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who spearheaded the country’s foreign policy for the last five years, was handed back his position as the External Affairs Minister. Amit Shah will continue as India’s Home Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman will remain as the Finance Minister and Rajnath Singh will continue to be Defense Minister. India’s six-week-long election came to an end last week, in which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party failed to secure a majority on its own after it won landslide victories in 2014 and 2019.

South Korea says North Korea is installing its own loudspeakers along the border

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military on Monday said it’s detecting signs that North Korea is installing its own loudspeakers along their heavily armed border, a day after the South blared anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts over its speakers for the first time in years as the rivals engage in a Cold War-style psychological warfare. The South’s resumption of its loudspeaker broadcasts on Sunday was in retaliation for the North sending over 1,000 balloons filled with trash and manure over the last couple of weeks. North Korea has described its balloon campaign as a response to South Korean civilian groups using balloons to fly anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border.

India investigates attack by suspected militants in Kashmir that killed 9 on Hindu pilgrimage

NEW DELHI (AP) — India is investigating an attack in which suspected militants fired at a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing nine and injuring 33, officials said Monday. The attack caused the vehicle to fall into a deep gorge Sunday in Jammu province’s Reasi district. The bus was carrying pilgrims to the base camp of the famed Hindu temple Mata Vaishno Devi. A team from the National Investigation Agency has reached the site of the attack, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Security forces also were trying to track down those suspected to be responsible. Jammu and Kashmir Lt.

Australian leader tells activists to ‘turn the heat down’ after US Consulate vandalized over Gaza

SYDNEY (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged activists on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian debate to “turn the heat down” after the U.S. Consulate in Sydney was vandalized on Monday. Surveillance video showed a person wearing a dark hoodie using a small sledgehammer to smash nine holes in the reinforced glass windows of the building in North Sydney after 3 a.m., a police statement said. Two inverted red triangles, seen by some as a symbol of Palestinian resistance but by others as supporting the militant group Hamas, were also painted on the front of the building. Albanese urged people to have “respectful political debate and discourse.” “People are traumatized by what is going on in the Middle East, particularly those with relatives in either Israel or in the Palestinian Occupied Territories,” Albanese told reporters.

US and Filipino forces end drills that tested their endurance in brutal heat and volatile weather

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Hundreds of American and Filipino troops concluded Monday a new combat exercise in the northern Philippines that tested their endurance in more than a week of brutal heat and volatile weather, and braced them to respond to any threat in tropical jungles and on scattered islands, two U.S. and Philippine generals said. The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any possible confrontation over Taiwan and other Asian flash points. The move has dovetailed with Philippine efforts to shore up its territorial defenses amid escalating disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

Australia’s leader says opposition will renege on greenhouse gas emissions target if elected

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday said the opposition Liberal Party would renege on the nation’s ambitious target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if it wins elections due within a year. Albanese made Australian action on climate change an issue in elections due by next May in response to comments that Peter Dutton, leader of the conservative opposition party, made to The Weekend Australian newspaper. Dutton said in an interview with the newspaper that he opposed the center-left Labor Party government’s plan to reduce emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, saying there was “no sense in signing up to targets you don’t have any prosects of achieving.” Albanese said Australia would achieve the target despite a forecast by the CIimate Change Authority, a government agency, last November of a reduction of between 37% and 42%.

Top Canadian judge steps down from Hong Kong’s top court following other resignations

LONDON (AP) — A former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada is stepping down from Hong Kong’s top court, city officials said Monday, following a raft of other overseas judges’ resignations from the court amid concerns about Hong Kong’s judicial independence. Beverly McLachlin would end her term serving as a non-permanent overseas judge at Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s judiciary confirmed, without giving more details. Canadian media outlets reported McLachlin noted in her statement that she has reached 80 years of age and will retire from that position when her term ends in July. She said she intended to spend more time with her family and she continues to have confidence in the members of the court and their independence, the reports said.

Taiwan nighttime dragon boat racing puts a modern twist on an ancient tradition

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Across the Chinese diaspora, racing in dragon boats has been a tradition reaching back thousands of years. But change is afoot, most recently in central Taiwan where the races were switched to the evening to take advantage of cooler temperatures, a refreshing breeze and the sight of the boats lit up with LED lights running the length of the low-lying watercraft. A drummer pounds out a rhythm behind the elaborately carved dragon head in the bow, while a navigator sits in the stern, where a tail rises to complete the look of the mythical animal, a traditional Chinese harbinger of prosperity and good luck.