Top Asian News 3:52 a.m. GMT

Seen abroad as a leader on Indigenous rights, New Zealand enters a divisive new era

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On the eve of New Zealand’s Māori language celebration week, the country’s right-wing political leaders ordered public agencies to stop affirmative action policies for Māori people, who are disadvantaged on almost every metric. The lawmakers then posted on social media about their enthusiasm for the Indigenous tongue. “In New Zealand we’re lucky to have this language and I’m glad to celebrate it,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon of the center-right National party wrote on Facebook Monday. Māori was not solely “the preserve of people who think a certain way,” said David Seymour, the leader of populist party ACT — whose detractors accuse him of anti-Māori policies — in a video introducing his followers to economic terms in the language.

Voting for local government opens in Indian-controlled Kashmir for first time after losing autonomy

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — The three-phased election for choosing a local government in Indian-controlled Kashmir opened early Wednesday in the first such vote since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the disputed region of its special status five years ago. Authorities deployed thousands of additional police and paramilitary soldiers in the region’s seven southern districts where over 2.3 million residents are eligible to cast their votes and chose 24 lawmakers out of 219 candidates in the first phase of the polling. Wearing riot gears and carrying assault rifles, troops set up checkpoints and patrolled the constituencies in the districts as locals lined up to cast their votes in villages and towns.

Australian police infiltrate encrypted messaging app Ghost and arrest dozens

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian police said Wednesday they have infiltrated Ghost, an encrypted global communications app developed for criminals, leading to dozens of arrests. The app’s alleged administrator, Jay Je Yoon Jung, 32, appeared in a Sydney court Wednesday on charges including supporting a criminal organization and benefitting from proceeds of crime. Jung did not enter pleas or apply to be released on bail. He will remain behind bars until his case returns to court in November. Australian police arrested 38 suspects in raids across four states in recent days while law enforcement agencies were also making arrests in Canada, Sweden, Ireland and Italy, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said.

Casualties in Myanmar push Southeast Asia’s death toll from Typhoon Yagi past 500

BANGKOK (AP) — Floods and landslides in Myanmar triggered by last week’s Typhoon Yagi and seasonal monsoon rains have claimed at least 226 lives, with 77 people missing, state-run media reported Tuesday. The new figures push the total number of dead in Southeast Asia from the storm past 500. The accounting of casualties has been slow, in part due to communication difficulties with the affected areas. Myanmar is wracked by a civil war that began in 2021 after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Independent analysts believe the ruling military controls much less than half of the country’s territory.

North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles in latest military display, neighbors say

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday test-fired multiple ballistic missiles toward its eastern seas, the South Korean and Japanese militaries said, adding to its military demonstrations as tensions with Washington and neighbors escalate. The launches come days after North Korea offered a rare view into a secretive facility built to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs as leader Kim Jong Un called for a rapid expansion of his nuclear weapons program. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected North Korea firing multiple short-range ballistic missiles from north of its capital, Pyongyang, and said they traveled about 400 kilometers (244 miles) while flying toward the northeast.

China says it tailed a US spy plane through the sensitive Taiwan Strait

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Chinese warplanes tailed a U.S. military aircraft through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, China’s military said. The U.S. aircraft was a P-8A Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance plane, capable of conducting long-range anti-submarine warfare, according to a statement by the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command. Chinese military forces “organized warplanes to tail and monitor the U.S. aircraft’s flight and handled it in accordance with the law,” said Li Xi, a senior colonel and spokesperson for the command. “Theater command troops will remain on constant high alert and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” he added.

Many in Indian-controlled Kashmir plan to vote this time to deny Modi total control

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — For decades, boycotting elections in Indian-controlled Kashmir was a sign of protest against Indian rule. That may change on Wednesday, when many residents of the Muslim-majority region say they’re willing to use their vote in a local election to deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party the power to form an administration in the disputed region. The vote is the first in a decade, and the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in 2019 scrapped the region’s special status and downgraded the former state to a federally governed territory. The move — which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters — was mostly opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy.

Bangladesh opposition party demands a new election after Hasina’s ouster

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Thousands of activists and leaders of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party rallied Tuesday in the nation’s capital to demand a democratic transition through an election as an interim government has yet to outline a timeframe for new voting. The supporters gathered in front of BNP headquarters in Dhaka, where they chanted slogans demanding a new election. The interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has rolled out a number of plans to reform various sectors of the country, from the Election Commission to financial institutions. But major political parties — including the BNP, which is headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia — want the new election sometime soon.

A glitch halts again Telesco the robot’s attempt to get a sample from Fukushima nuclear reactor

TOKYO (AP) — Video feed issues halted on Tuesday the mission of a robot trying to retrieve the first sample of melted fuel debris from inside one of the damaged reactors at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the managing company said. This is the second time in less than a month the mission had to be suspended. It was supposed to start on Aug. 22, but the wrong arrangement of a set of pipes used to push the robot into the reactor’s primary containment vessel held up the work for nearly three weeks. The extendable robot, dubbed “ Telesco,” needs a week to reach the designated area and another week to be pulled back out as it has to be maneuvered around various obstacles and any mistake costs time.

New Delhi’s top elected official resigns after being released on bail in a bribery case

NEW DELHI (AP) — One of India’s leading opposition figures resigned his post as New Delhi’s chief minister on Tuesday, days after he emerged from prison on bail in a bribery case. Arvind Kejriwal, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was arrested in March on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. Kejriwal has consistently denied the accusations and called them a political conspiracy. Opposition parties widely condemned Kejriwal’s arrest politically motivated, accusing Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken its political opponents. They pointed to raids, arrests and corruption investigations into key opposition figures in the months before the elections.