Top Asian News 3:09 a.m. GMT

Mount Everest’s highest camp is littered with frozen garbage, and cleanup is likely to take years

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — The highest camp on the world’s tallest mountain is littered with garbage that is going to take years to clean up, according to a Sherpa who led a team that worked to clear trash and dig up dead bodies frozen for years near Mount Everest’s peak. The Nepal government-funded team of soldiers and Sherpas removed 11 tons (24,000 pounds) of garbage, four dead bodies and a skeleton from Everest during this year’s climbing season. Ang Babu Sherpa, who led the team of Sherpas, said there could be as much as 40-50 tons (88,000-110,000 pounds) of garbage still at South Col, the last camp before climbers make their attempt on the summit.

Man who stabbed South Korea’s opposition leader sentenced to 15 years in prison

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A man who stabbed South Korea’s opposition leader in the neck earlier this year was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday, court officials said. The knife-wielding man attacked Lee Jae-myung, head of the liberal Democratic Party, South Korea’s biggest political party, in January after approaching him asking for his autograph at an event in the southeastern city of Busan. After being detained by police, he told investigators that he wanted to kill Lee to prevent him from becoming South Korea’s president. The Busan District Court said the man was handed the prison term after being found guilty for an attempted murder and a violation of an election law.

Post-communist generation is hoping for a new era of democracy in Mongolia

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) — Tsenguun Saruulsaikhan, a young and newly minted member of Mongolia’s parliament, is unhappy with below-cost electricity rates that she says show her country has yet to fully shake off its socialist past. Most of Mongolia’s power plants date from the Soviet era and outages are common in some areas. Heavy smog envelops the capital Ulaanbaata r in the winter because many people still burn coal to heat their homes. “It’s stuck in how it was like 40, 50 years ago,” said Tsenguun, part of a rising generation of leaders who are puzzling out their country’s future after three decades of democracy.

Fierce fighting breaks out as militias launch new attacks against regime in Myanmar’s civil war

BANGKOK (AP) — New fighting has broken out in northeastern Myanmar, bringing an end to a Chinese-brokered cease-fire and putting pressure on the military regime as it faces attacks from resistance forces on multiple fronts in the country’s civil war. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, one of three powerful militias that launched a surprise joint offensive last October, renewed its attacks on regime positions last week in northeastern Shan state, which borders China, Laos and Thailand, and the neighboring Mandalay region with the support of local forces there. Since then, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army has joined in, and by Friday, combined forces from the two allied militias had reportedly encircled the strategically important city of Lashio, headquarters of the regime’s northeastern military command.

New Zealand will radically ease zoning rules to try to relieve its stubborn housing shortage

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand will drastically ease zoning restrictions in a bid to “flood the market” with land for homes and override the powers of local councils to curb development, the nation’s housing minister said in announcing reforms to what he called one of the world’s least affordable housing markets. “It’s about allowing maximum choice and opportunity for people to build and develop,” said the minister, Chris Bishop, in a speech in Auckland this week. “Let’s get away from the idea that planners can plan our cities and let actual individuals and families decide how they live their lives.”

Afghanistan has been through everything. Now it wants to dust off its postal service and modernize

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In parts of Afghanistan where there are no street names or house numbers, utility companies and their customers have adopted a creative approach for connecting. They use mosques as drop points for bills and cash, a “pay and pray” system. Now the national postal service wants to phase this out by putting mailboxes on every street across the country, part of a plan to modernize a service long challenged by bureaucracy and war. The lofty aspirations include introducing access to shopping via e-commerce sites and issuing debit cards for online purchases. It will be a leap in a country where most of the population is unbanked, air cargo is in its infancy and international courier companies don’t deliver even to the capital, Kabul.

Former Philippine leader Duterte and aide accused of steering government contracts to cronies

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A former Philippine opposition senator accused ex-President Rodrigo Duterte of plundering state coffers in a criminal complaint filed Friday, alleging that he conspired with an aide to award government infrastructure contracts worth millions of dollars to cronies. Filed with the Department of Justice in Manila, the accusation adds to the former president’s legal worries, which include an investigation by the International Criminal Court into allegations of crimes against humanity over the widespread killings of suspects during Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs. Former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said two construction companies, owned by the father and brother of longtime Duterte aide and now Sen.

Crocodiles cannot outnumber people in Australian territory where girl was killed, leader says

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Crocodile numbers in Australia’s Northern Territory must be either maintained or reduced and cannot be allowed to outstrip the human population, the territory’s leader said after a 12-year-old girl was killed while swimming. The crocodile population has exploded across Australia’s tropical north since it became a protected species under Australian law in the 1970s, growing from 3,000 when hunting was outlawed to 100,000 now. The Northern Territory has just over 250,000 people. The girl’s death came weeks after the territory approved a 10-year plan for management of crocodiles, which permits the targeted culling of the reptiles at popular swimming spots but stopped short of a return to mass culls.

Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong asks for a lesser sentence in landmark security case

HONG KONG (AP) — Prominent activist Joshua Wong asked for a lesser sentence in court Friday after he earlier pleaded guilty in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case. Wong was one of 47 activists charged in 2021 under a Beijing-imposed national security law with conspiracy to commit subversion for their involvement in an unofficial primary. The activists were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the city’s leader by aiming to win a legislative majority and using it to block city budgets indiscriminately. Wong and 44 others admitted their liability or were convicted by the court. They could be sentenced to life in prison, though those who pleaded guilty have a better chance of receiving shorter sentences.

‘We have to be wacky.’ With suggestive poses and pets, election campaigning tests Tokyo’s patience

TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo elects a new governor this weekend, but residents say personal publicity stunts have overtaken serious campaigning to a degree never seen before, with nearly nude women in suggestive poses, pets, an AI character and a man practicing his golf swing. It’s impossible to ignore. With internet campaigning still relatively new, candidates traditionally use designated election billboards — more than 14,000 of them — to promote themselves. The makeshift billboards are set up only during the short campaign season and are valuable space for exposure in a city already crammed with advertising. But this year’s wackiness — notably from non-candidates renting the billboard space — is proving exceptional, and residents have flooded election offices with angry calls and messages.