Top Asian News 4:51 a.m. GMT

A social media ban for children younger than 16 is introduced in Australia’s Parliament

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s communications minister introduced a world-first law into Parliament on Thursday that would ban children younger than 16 from social media, saying online safety was one of parents’ toughest challenges. Michelle Rowland said TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram were among the platforms that would face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts. “This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia,” Rowland told Parliament. “There is wide acknowledgement that something must be done in the immediate term to help prevent young teens and children from being exposed to streams of content unfiltered and infinite,” she added.

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

NEW YORK (AP) — An Indian businessman who is one of the world’s richest people has been indicted in the U.S. on charges he duped investors by concealing that his company’s huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme. Gautam Adani, 62, was charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The case involves a lucrative arrangement for Adani Green Energy Ltd. and another firm to sell 12 gigawatts of solar power to the Indian government — enough to light millions of homes and businesses.

American and Australian tourists die, raising toll to 4 in Laos alcohol poisoning incident

VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — An Australian teenager has died after drinking tainted alcohol in Vang Vieng, Laos, Australia’s prime minister said Thursday, and the U.S. State Department confirmed an American also died in the same party town, bringing the death toll to four in the poisoning incident. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament that 19-year-old Bianca Jones had died after being evacuated from Laos for treatment in a Thai hospital. Her friend, also 19, remains hospitalized in Thailand. Meantime, the State Department confirmed to The Associated Press that an American tourist had also died, but said it had no further comment out of respect to the families.

Brazil’s Lula welcomes China’s Xi for state visit as ties between countries strengthen

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday welcomed China’s President Xi Jinping for a state visit at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries that analysts say may accelerate as Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025. China overtook the U.S. as Brazil’s biggest export market in 2009. Since then, the links between the two nations have strengthened in trade and investment — and on Wednesday the two leaders signed 37 agreements in areas ranging from trade and tourism to agriculture, industry, science and technology, health, energy, culture and education.

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday he would share technology for combatting seaweed infestation with Caribbean nations, as he visited Guyana in the first such visit by an Indian leader in more than 50 years. Guyana, a South American nation with many citizens of Indian origin, serves as headquarters for the 15-member Caribbean trade bloc known as Caricom, and Modi met with regional leaders Wednesday as part of the India-Caricom summit. They last met in 2019. Modi arrived with promises to help the region in areas including health, energy and agriculture. He also announced more than 1,000 scholarships over the next five years for trade bloc nations, mobile hospitals for rural areas and drug-testing laboratories as well as river and sea ferries for marine transport.

Yaks, bears and cockatoos are among the animals Russia is sending to North Korean zoo

Russia has sent a gift of more than 70 animals to North Korea for the Pyongyang Zoo, including bears, yaks, ducks and cockatoos. In another sign of the growing cooperation between the countries, the animals were flown to Pyongyang aboard a government plane, escorted by officials and experts from the Moscow Zoo, according to a government statement released Wednesday. “Historically, animals always have played a special role in relations between states. They have been given as a sign of support, kindness and care,” Russia’s Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov, who traveled with the animals, said in televised remarks. The delivery included an African lion, two bears, two domestic yaks, 25 pheasants, 40 mandarin ducks and five white cockatoos, the statement said.

New Zealanders are banned from displaying gang symbols as a new law takes effect

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A ban on New Zealanders wearing or displaying symbols of gang affiliation in public took effect on Thursday, with police officers making their first arrest for a breach of the law three minutes later. The man was driving with gang insignia displayed on the dashboard of his car, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told 1News. The prohibition on displaying gang insignia anywhere outside private homes, including on clothing or in vehicles, is among a suite of new measures intended to bolster police powers to disrupt the groups. Wearing or displaying the insignia of 35 listed gangs will now prompt a fine of up to 5,000 New Zealand dollars ($2,940) or up to six months in jail.

US defense chief regrets China’s decision not to meet during Southeast Asian security talks

VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed regret Wednesday that his Chinese counterpart chose not to hold talks with him during meetings of Southeast Asian defense chiefs in Laos, calling it a setback for the entire region. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is holding security talks in Vientiane at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China and as the transition to a new U.S. president approaches. The decision by Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun “is a setback for the whole region,” Austin said after the first day of meetings. “It’s unfortunate. It affects the region because the region really wants to see us, two significant players in the region, two significant powers, talk to each other, and that reassures the entire region,” he said.

Human smuggling trial witness says he was separated from a family hours before they froze to death

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — An Indian national who survived a treacherous trek across the U.S.-Canada border in blizzard conditions testified Wednesday that he got separated from a family of four shortly before they froze to death. Yash Patel took the stand on the third day of the trial of Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, and Steve Shand, 50, of Florida. Prosecutors say they put financial profit over human life when they attempted to smuggle Indian migrants across the border into Minnesota over a five-week period in December 2021 and January 2022. They say Patel ran part of the smuggling scheme and recruited Shand as a driver.

Pakistan reports new polio case in northwest, raising nationwide tally to 50 cases this year

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan detected one more polio case in the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, raising the country’s tally of the infectious disease to 50 cases this year, officials said Wednesday. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped. The sudden rise in cases of polio, which is an infection caused by a virus that mostly affects children under 5, has hampered the country’s yearslong efforts to make it a polio-free state. The latest case was detected in Tank, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where militants often target polio workers and police assigned for anti-polio campaigns, according to a statement by the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication.