Top Asian News 3:14 a.m. GMT

Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy party moves to disband as freedoms dwindle

HONG KONG (AP) — When Yeung Sum co-founded the city’s largest pro-democracy party more than 30 years ago, he knew building a democratic Hong Kong would be a “difficult dream.” Still, it was not impossible. Today, his Democratic Party is moving toward dissolution, a symbolic marker of the diminishing Western-style civil liberties and high degree of autonomy that the ruling Communist Party in Beijing promised to keep intact in the former British colony for at least 50 years when it returned to China in 1997. Pro-democracy protests that paralyzed Hong Kong in 2019 led to a crackdown that has all but silenced dissent through restricted elections, media censorship and a China-imposed national security law that saw some of Yeung’s party members jailed.

Could Trump’s tariffs slow emissions? Sure, experts say, but at great cost overall

President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs have stirred widespread anxiety about a severe economic downturn -- and curiosity, for some, about how it might affect the world’s warming climate. Experts say a slowdown in international trade might have a brief and slight benefit in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which come in part from fuels like gas and oil that are used to move goods around the world via ships, planes and vehicles. But any such benefit in reducing emissions, which cause climate change, will be swamped by sharply rising costs worldwide that will hurt efforts to transition to green energies.

China hits back at US and will raise tariffs on American goods from 84% to 125%

BEIJING (AP) — China announced Friday that it will raise tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125% — the latest salvo in an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has rattled markets and raised fears of a global slowdown. While U.S. President Donald Trump paused import taxes this week for other countries, he raised tariffs on China and they now total 145%. China has denounced the policy as “economic bullying” and promised countermeasures. The new tariffs begin Saturday. Washington’s repeated raising of tariffs “will become a joke in the history of the world economy,” a Chinese Finance Ministry spokesman said in a statement announcing the new tariffs.

Worker rescued from collapsed subway construction site in South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean rescue workers on Saturday pulled a man from a collapsed subway construction site near the capital of Seoul and continued searching for another believed to be trapped inside. Im Gwang-sik, an official with Gwangmyeong city’s fire department, said the survivor was trapped about 30 meters (98 feet) underground in the rubble for approximately 13 hours, and was conscious when found and taken to a nearby hospital. Gwangmyeong city authorities had earlier withdrawn workers from the construction site and halted traffic in the area after receiving reports that a ventilation shaft was at risk of collapsing.

The UN decries ongoing combat in Myanmar as earthquake relief faces big challenges

BANGKOK (AP) — Human rights experts for the United Nations are expressing urgent concern about ongoing military operations in Myanmar’s civil war, despite ceasefires called by major parties to facilitate relief efforts after the country’s devastating March 28 earthquake. At the same time, a new U.N. report said that because of the earthquake, the Southeast Asian country is facing increased humanitarian needs while a food shortage and a health crisis appear to be looming. “At a moment when the sole focus should be on ensuring humanitarian aid gets to disaster zones, the military is instead launching attacks,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N.

Australian opposition leader says his home was the target of an alleged bomb plot

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton confirmed on Friday that his family home had been the target of an alleged bomb plot, but said concerns for his personal safety did not restrict his election campaigning. Dutton is campaigning to replace Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at elections on May 3. Both leaders are accompanied in public by Australian Federal Police security teams as they crisscross the country for weeks. “I’m incredibly grateful to the AFP that my family are kept safe. I’ve never felt unsafe one day in this job, particularly with the protection from the AFP. It hasn’t stopped me from doing anything, and it won’t on this campaign,” Dutton told reporters in Perth.

China’s Xi tells Spanish PM that partnership needed, no mention of talks with US

BEIJING (AP) — China calls on Western countries to work to support multilateralism and open cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Spain’s visiting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Friday, as Beijing woos allies for its escalating tariff fight with U.S. President Donald Trump. “The two sides should promote the building of a fair and reasonable global governance system, maintain world peace and security, and promote common development and prosperity,” Xi told Sánchez at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing, according to a readout of the meeting by the official Xinhua News Agency. The visit comes at a complex moment for Europe and China.

South Korea establishes diplomatic relations with Syria, a longtime friend of rival North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has established diplomatic relations with Syria’s new Islamist government, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Friday, months after a rebel coalition ousted President Bashar Assad, who had maintained close ties with North Korea. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul traveled to Damascus on Thursday to sign a joint communique with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani establishing formal diplomatic relations — a move the South Korean ministry said opens new opportunities for bilateral cooperation previously hindered by Syria’s “close ties with North Korea.” Cho during the talks conveyed Seoul’s willingness to support Syria’s reconstruction efforts following the 13-year civil war, a process that he said could eventually involve South Korean businesses, and to expand humanitarian aid.

Australian woman unknowingly gives birth to a stranger’s baby after IVF clinic error

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A woman in Australia unknowingly gave birth to a stranger’s baby after she received another patient’s embryo from her in vitro fertilization clinic due to “human error,” the clinic said. The mix-up was discovered in February when the clinic in the city of Brisbane found that the birth parents had one too many embryos in storage, said the provider, Monash IVF, in a statement supplied Friday. Staff discovered an embryo from another patient had been mistakenly thawed and transferred to the birth mother, a spokesperson said. Australia news outlets reported the baby was born in 2024.

A US Navy captain ordered a military funeral for a kamikaze pilot during WWII. Here’s why

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — A Japanese pilot slammed his Zero fighter plane into the USS Missouri and ignited a fireball on April 11, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa. The suicide attack instantly killed the pilot, but none of the battleship’s crew members were badly hurt. The Missouri’s captain ordered a military burial at sea with full honors, marking one of the more unusual and little-known episodes of World War II. The pilot received the same funeral that the ship would have given one of its own sailors. Eighty years later, the Missouri is a museum moored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, not far from the submerged hull of the USS Arizona, which sank in the 1941 Japanese bombing that propelled the U.S.