Top Asian News 3:52 a.m. GMT

Cyclone floods coastal villages and cuts power in Bangladesh, where 800,000 had evacuated

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A cyclone flooded coastal villages and left hundreds of thousands of people without power Monday after making landfall overnight along India’s West Bengal state and Bangladesh, where nearly 800,000 residents had evacuated. Cyclone Remal started lashing Bangladesh’s southern coast late Sunday and was expected to take five to six hours to cross the vast coastal region, Bangladesh’s Meteorological Department in Dhaka said early Monday. TV stations reported that dozens of Bangladeshi coastal villages were flooded as many flood protection embankments were either washed away or damaged by the force of the storm surges. Authorities gave no casualty figures yet, but Dhaka-based Somoy TV reported that at least two people died.

Leaders of South Korea, China and Japan to resume trilateral meeting to revive cooperation

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Leaders of South Korea, China and Japan were set to meet Monday for their first trilateral meeting in more than four years as they seek to improve long-complicated relations that are key to regional peace. No major breakthrough was expected during the gathering in Seoul. But experts said just restarting the countries’ highest-level annual meeting was a positive sign for cooperation among the three Northeast Asian neighbors. On the eve of the meeting, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had rounds of bilateral meetings among themselves to discuss how to boost economic and other cooperation.

Australia plans to send aid to Papua New Guinea as rain raises safety fears at deadly landslide site

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia prepared on Monday to send aircraft and other equipment to help at the site of a deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea as overnight rains in the South Pacific nation’s mountainous interior raised fears that the tons of rubble that buried hundreds of villagers could become dangerously unstable. Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said his officials have been talking with their Papua New Guinea counterparts since Friday, when a mountainside collapsed on Yambali village in Enga province, which the United Nations estimates killed 670 people. The remains of only six people had been recovered so far.

North Korea informs Japan of satellite launch plan, a likely bid to put 2nd spy satellite into orbit

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has revealed plans to launch a satellite by early next week, Japan said Monday, an apparent effort to put the North’s second military spy satellite into orbit in yet another violation of U.N. bans. The launch notification came as leaders of South Korea, Japan and China gathered in Seoul for their first trilateral meeting Monday. Japan’s coast guard said it was notified by North Korea about its planned launch of a “satellite rocket,” with safety cautioning in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China and east of the Philippine island of Luzon beginning Monday and running through midnight June 3.

France to lift state of emergency in efforts to allow political dialogue in riot-hit New Caledonia

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron decided Monday to lift the state of emergency in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia in a move meant to allow political dialogue following the unrest that left seven people dead and a trail of destruction, his office said. The president’s office said in a statement the state of emergency won’t be extended “for the moment” and will therefore end Monday at 8 p.m. in Paris, which is 5 a.m. Tuesday in New Caledonia. The decision aims at “enabling meetings of the various components” of pro-independence movement FLNKS, the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, and allow elected officials and other local leaders “in a position to call” for lifting the barricades to go there and meet with protesters, the statement said.

Not possible to search for British climber and his Sherpa who went missing on Everest, official says

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A Nepali official said Sunday it wasn’t possible to search for a British climber and his Sherpa guide who went missing after reaching the top of Mount Everest six days ago because both fell on their way down from “a very high altitude” on the Chinese side of the mountain which will require further coordination to form a search party. Daniel Paul Paterson, 40, and his local guide Pas Tenji, 23, were reported missing Tuesday on the world’s highest peak which is on the border between China and Nepal. This climbing season, which started in March and is expected to end in a few days, saw four climbers — two Mongolians, one Nepali and one Kenyan — die.

Bodies of 27 ‘burnt beyond recognition’ after a massive fire in Indian amusement park, relatives say

RAJKOT, India (AP) — Giriraj Singh waited for hours on Sunday to recover the body of his nephew but was told to head home as the remains were “burned beyond recognition.” “The bodies are unidentifiable and authorities asked me to wait for the DNA tests,” Singh, a retired army officer, told The Associated Press. His 24-year-old nephew was with three friends when a massive fire broke out Saturday at an amusement park in the city of Rajkot in western India, killing 27 people, including children, during the busy weekend coinciding with schools’ summer vacation in the state. Local police officer Raju Bhargav said that while the owner Yuvraj Singh Solanki bought some fire extinguishers and was in the process of installing a water fire impression system, he ran the two-storey place without authorization from the fire department.

Renewed flash floods due to unusually heavy seasonal rains kill at least 15 people in Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Renewed heavy rains have triggered more flash floods in Afghanistan, killing at least 15 people, including 10 members of the same family in the northeast, officials said Sunday. The unusually heavy seasonal rains have been wreaking havoc on multiple parts of the country, killing hundreds of people and destroying property and crops. The U.N. food agency warned that survivors were unable to make a living. The floods Saturday night hit northeastern Badakhshan and northern Baghlan provinces, with the latter already having suffered the brunt of the rains earlier this month. The family — a set of parents and their eight children — was reported dead in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan, said Mohammad Akram Akbari, director of the provincial natural disaster management department in the province, adding that rescue teams were only able to recover the mother’s body.

South Korean, Chinese and Japanese leaders discuss thorny topics and ways to boost cooperation

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The Japanese and South Korean leaders raised sensitive topics like Taiwan, North Korea and the South China Sea as well as ways to boost cooperation when they individually met China’s premier Sunday on the eve of a fuller trilateral meeting. It was unclear how serious discussions the three leaders had on those thorny issues, which are not among the official agenda items for Monday’s three-way gathering in Seoul, the first of its kind in more than four years. No major announcement is expected from the meeting, but observers say that just resuming the highest-level talks among the three Northeast Asian neighbors is a good sign and suggests they are intent on improving relations.

Fire at a baby care center kills 7 infants in India’s capital, a fire officer says

NEW DELHI (AP) — A fire broke out in a baby care center in India’s capital Saturday night, killing seven infants, a fire service officer said. Rescuers carried 12 newborns from the center to a nearby hospital but five of them died due to smoke inhalation, fire officer Atul Garg said. The five others survived and are being treated for smoke inhalation, he added. The fire on the first floor of the center was extinguished in about an hour, said Suresh Kumar, another fire officer. The cause of the fire in Vivek Vihar district of east Delhi was being investigated. Earlier Saturday, at least 27 people were killed in a big fire at a crowded amusement park in the city of Rajkot in Gujarat state in western India.