Top Asian News 5:37 p.m. GMT

A timeline of US-China tit-for-tat tariffs since Trump’s first term

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China’s tit-for-tat duties on U.S. imports took effect Monday, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he wants to slap new duties on all steel and aluminum imports to the U.S. The rapid-fire shots of tariffs and import curbs hearken back to Trump’s first term in office, when the U.S. and China engaged in a trade war that spanned most of Trump’s first four years in office and was continued to a certain extent under his successor, Joe Biden. Less than a month after returning to the White House on Jan. 20, Trump slapped 10% duties on all Chinese imports, a move that’s expected to raise prices on goods including laptops, toys and fast fashion.

China says a visit by Cook Islands’ prime minister isn’t meant to antagonize others in South Pacific

BEIJING (AP) — China insisted on Monday that a visit this week by the prime minister of the Cook Islands to Beijing is not meant to conspire against anyone in the South Pacific, despite the trip stirring up a diplomatic spat between the tiny nation and its chief benefactor, New Zealand. The visit appears to be part of China’s campaign to woo tiny island nations in the South Pacific, where Beijing has been using its economic weight and diplomatic heft in what critics say is a push to reduce the influence of the United States and its allies and give itself access to mineral resources, fisheries and global stature.

Sri Lanka investigates deaths of 2 tourists taken ill at a hostel earlier this month

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Authorities conducted autopsies on Monday after the deaths of two foreign tourists earlier this month while they were vacationing in Sri Lanka. Police said the two women became ill with vomiting at the hostel they were staying in and were hospitalized on Feb. 1. They identified them as U.K. citizen Ebony McIntosh, 24, and German national Nadine Raguse, 26. A 30-year-old German man is being treated at a hospital. Police couldn’t immediately provide reasons for the deaths of the two tourists. Police said that the results of the autopsies would be released after laboratory tests.

They helped US order airstrikes against Taliban. Now Trump’s moves have left those Afghans in limbo

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — They helped the U.S. military order airstrikes against Taliban and Islamic State fighters and worked as drivers and translators during America’s longest war. They were set to start new lives in the United States. Then President Donald Trump issued executive orders that put an end to programs used to help Afghans get to safety in America. Now those same Afghans, who underwent a yearslong background check, find themselves in a state of limbo. “I was shocked. I am still in shock because I have already waited four years for this process, to get out of this hell and to get to a safe place and live in peace and have a new beginning,” said Roshangar, one of the Afghans whose life was upended by Trump’s action.

North Korea’s Kim slams US-South Korea-Japan partnership and vows to boost his nuclear program

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an elevated U.S. security partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to further bolster his nuclear weapons program, state media reported Sunday. Kim has previously made similar warnings, but his latest statement implies again that the North Korean leader won’t likely embrace President Donald Trump’s overture to meet him and revive diplomacy anytime soon. In a speech marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on Saturday, Kim said the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership established under a U.S.

Released Thai hostages return to Bangkok after being held for over a year in Gaza

BANGKOK (AP) — Five Thai workers released after being held hostage for over a year in Gaza arrived in Bangkok on Sunday. Sarusak Rumnao, 32, Watchara Sriaoun, 33, Sathian Suwannakham, 35, Pongsak Thaenna, 36, and Bannawat Saethao, 27, were freed on Jan. 30 as part of an exchange arrangement. They were embraced by family members, some of whom cried, in the arrivals hall at Suvarnabhumi airport. Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sagniampongsa and the Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Orna Sagiv were both at the airport to welcome home the freed hostages. “We are all very grateful and very happy that we get to return to our homeland.

Australia holds its nose for its 3rd rancid bloom of a rare corpse plant in 3 months

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A rare bloom with a pungent odor like decaying flesh has opened in the Australian capital in the nation’s third such extraordinary flowering in as many months. The corpse flower, also known by its scientific name amorphophallus titanium, bloomed for the first time in its 15 years at Canberra’s Australian National Botanic Gardens on Saturday and was closing on Monday, staff said. Another flowered briefly in the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens in late January, attracting 20,000 admirers. Similar numbers turned out to experience another rancid bloom at the Geelong Botanic Gardens southwest of Melbourne in November. The corpse flower or corpse plant, known as bunga bangkai in its native Indonesia, is endemic to the rainforests of western Sumatra.

Trump has unleashed chaos by distraction upon the international community. That’s no accident

LONDON (AP) — The Saudis are furious. The Danes are scrambling. Colombia has backed down. Mexico and Canada stand in a purgatory between tariff wars with the US and … not. China has retaliated, launching a trade war between the economic superpowers. The Brits, long proud of their “special relationship” with the United States, are leaning into their tradition of quiet diplomacy. It’s as if President Donald Trump has flung a bag of marbles across the global stage, under the feet of foreign leaders who have often stepped together through eight decades of postwar global order. Everyone, it seems, is responding to Trump — even Australia’s leader, when asked last week for his thoughts only a few hours after Trump announced the US would “take over” the decimated Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” “I’m not going to, as Australia’s prime minister, give a daily commentary on statements by the U.S.

US Marine from California identified as one of 4 people killed in Philippines plane crash

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A U.S. Marine from California was identified by military officials Sunday as one of four people killed when a plane contracted by the U.S. military crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippines. Sgt. Jacob M. Durham, 22, of Long Beach, died Thursday in the crash of an aircraft that was conducting a routine mission “providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies,” officials at Camp Pendleton, California, said in a statement. Officials said the cause of the crash was under investigation. Three defense contractors also were killed in the crash, military officials have said.

31 suspected Maoist rebels and 2 police officers are killed in forest combat in central India

PATNA, India (AP) — At least 31 suspected Maoist rebels and two police officials were killed on Sunday in the deadliest combat so far this year in central India, police said. Hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers launched an operation in the forests of the Indravati area of Chhattisgarh state based on intelligence that large number of rebels had gathered there, said state police Inspector General Pattilingam Sundarraj. Sundarraj said as the troops conducted a search operation fighting erupted in the forest, killing at least 31 insurgents and two police officials. Two other police were injured . He said search operations were continuing in the area and the troops had recovered some arms and ammunition, including automatic rifles.