Top Asian News 4:41 a.m. GMT

South Korea’s impeached president defies warrant after hourslong standoff

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators left the official residence of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after a near-six-hour standoff on Friday during which he defied their attempt to detain him. It’s the latest confrontation in a political crisis that has paralyzed South Korean politics and seen two heads of state impeached in under a month. The country’s anti-corruption agency said it withdrew its investigators after the presidential security service blocked them from entering Yoon’s residence for hours, due to concerns about their safety. The agency said its outnumbered investigators had several scuffles with presidential security forces and expressed “serious regret about the attitude of the suspect, who did not comply with the legal process.” It said detaining Yoon would be “virtually impossible” as long as he is protected by the presidential security service.

Investigators meet in Brazil to extract data from black box of crashed Azerbaijani airliner

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Several of Brazilian air force investigators are working with colleagues from three other nations to analyze data from the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed in Kazakhstan on Dec. 25, killing 38 people. Azerbaijan claims the jet was unintentionally shot down by Russia. The Embraer 190 aircraft, made in Brazil, was en route from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny in the North Caucasus when it was diverted. It crashed while trying to land near the city of Aktau after flying hundreds of kilometers (miles) east across the Caspian Sea. Brazil’s air force said in a statement late Thursday that nine foreign investigators have gathered with its own experts at its center for investigation and prevention of air accidents in capital Brasilia to work on data extracted from the airplane’s black box and other tools.

How filmmakers and actors in Asia and the Asian diaspora are expanding representation

Twenty years after he was a young, struggling actor in Toronto, Thomas Lo is now the one giving young Asian actors their big breaks. He just had to go to Hong Kong to do it. The Chinese Canadian has been the creative director of one of the island city’s biggest TV broadcasting companies for only a few years, but is already making original English-language content to reach viewers around the world. “It was a bit of a full-circle moment for me,” Lo told The Associated Press. “You see more Asians but you’re still seeing the same Asians on screen, right? We’re looking for more opportunities on a grander scale and it’s not just in front of the camera.

Authorities suspect gang members killed 7 workers at a California marijuana farm in 2020

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — More than four years after the shooting deaths of seven Laotian workers at an illegal marijuana farm in Southern California, authorities revealed Friday that they believe the killings were carried out by gang members and pleaded with people to come forward with any information. Investigators believe the suspects were gang members of Laotian descent from the San Diego area. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said the agency faces a “major obstacle” obtaining information because at least some witnesses and victims entered the U.S. illegally and may have been victims of human trafficking. Migrants who were working at the farm may fear retribution and distrust law enforcement, Bianco said.

Taiwan says China is redoubling efforts to undermine democracy with disinformation

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan ’s government says China is redoubling efforts to undermine confidence in the self-governing island’s democracy and close ties with the United States through the spread of disinformation, especially online. The National Security Bureau said the number of pieces of false or biased information distributed by China increased 60% last year, to 2.16 million from 1.33 million in 2023. The brief report issued Friday tallied “pieces of controversial information,” but did not further define the term. Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, were the main conduits for disinformation, along with platforms that explicitly target young people such as TikTok, the report said.

Myanmar to release prisoners to mark Independence Day

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government will release more than 6,000 prisoners and has reduced other inmates’ sentences as part of a mass amnesty on Saturday marking the 77th anniversary of independence from Britain. It wasn’t immediately clear if those released would include any of the thousands of political detainees locked up for opposing army rule since the military seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. That takeover was met with massive nonviolent resistance, which has since become a widespread armed struggle. State-run MRTV television reported that Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military government, granted amnesties covering 5,864 prisoners from Myanmar, as well as 180 foreigners who will be deported.

A missing surfer in Australia is believed dead in a shark attack, police say

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A surfer missing in Australia is believed to have died in a shark attack, authorities said Friday, as they searched the waters where the man disappeared. The 28-year-old was in the sea at a popular surf beach in South Australia where another man was killed by a white shark in 2023. A witness who saw the shark attack on Thursday evening at Granites Beach, near the coastal town of Streaky Bay, rode into the sea on a jet ski and retrieved the man’s surfboard, Senior Constable Rebecca Stokes told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “But there was just no sign of this young man, there’s just been no sign of him,” Stokes told the ABC.

Myanmar’s military rulers enact cybersecurity law with wide-ranging censorship provisions

BANGKOK (AP) — Military-ruled Myanmar, already notorious for cracking down on free speech, has enacted a new cybersecurity law with wide-ranging controls on the flow of information, according to a text of the measure published Friday in state-run newspapers. Existing restrictions on freedom of expression under the ruling military have generally involved charges under broadly defined national security laws concerning online content. There have also been actions to block websites and apps at the network level, keeping end-users from accessing content the army doesn’t want them to see. Technology from China and Russia, the ruling military’s top allies, is used for monitoring and censorship purposes.

Bangladesh court again rejects bail for Hindu leader who led rallies

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A court in southeastern Bangladesh on Thursday rejected a plea for bail by a jailed Hindu leader who led large rallies in the Muslim-majority country demanding better security for minority groups. Krishna Das Prabhu, 39, faces sedition charges after he led huge rallies in the southeastern city of Chattogram. Hindu groups say there have been thousands of attacks against Hindus since early August, when the secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was overthrown. Prabhu didn’t appear at the hearing, during which Chattogram Metropolitan Sessions Judge Saiful Islam rejected the bail plea, according to Public Prosecutor Mofizul Haque Bhuiyan.

5 things we know and still don’t know about COVID, 5 years after it appeared

Five years ago, a cluster of people in Wuhan, China, fell sick with a virus never before seen in the world. The germ didn’t have a name, nor did the illness it would cause. It wound up setting off a pandemic that exposed deep inequities in the global health system and reshaped public opinion about how to control deadly emerging viruses. The virus is still with us, though humanity has built up immunity through vaccinations and infections. It’s less deadly than it was in the pandemic’s early days and it no longer tops the list of leading causes of death. But the virus is evolving, meaning scientists must track it closely.