Top Asian News 4:35 a.m. GMT

Cambodian police detain a Thai man suspected of gunning down Cambodian ex-lawmaker in Bangkok

BANGKOK (AP) — Cambodian police said Wednesday they apprehended a Thai man suspected of gunning down a former opposition politician from Cambodia in a popular Bangkok tourist area. Lim Kimya, an ex-lawmaker from the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, was shot dead near a temple close to Khaosan Road on Tuesday evening. He had reportedly just arrived at the scene with his wife by bus from Cambodia, said the New York-based Human Rights Watch. In a statement released to the media, the Cambodian National Police said the suspected gunman, identified as Ekkalak Pheanoi, fled to Cambodia shortly after he shot the victim and was detained Wednesday in Battambong province, which shares borders with Thailand.

Impeached South Korean president’s lawyers slam detention efforts as acting leader warns of clash

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Lawyers for impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol denounced efforts to detain him over his short-lived imposition of martial law, while the country’s acting leader expressed concern Wednesday over a possible clash between law enforcement agents and presidential security personnel. As anti-corruption officials and police prepared another attempt to detain Yoon following last week’s failed effort, the presidential security service fortified Yoon’s compound with barbed wire and rows of tightly placed vehicles blocking the path to his residence. The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials and police say they will make a more forceful effort to detain Yoon, warning that they could arrest members of the presidential security staff if they obstruct efforts to seize the embattled president.

Tents arrive for survivors of a quake that killed 126 in freezing, high-altitude Tibet

BEIJING (AP) — Relief teams in western China shifted their focus to resettling survivors after a search Wednesday for any remaining victims of a deadly earthquake that struck a day earlier near a holy city for Tibetan Buddhists. Tents, quilts, stoves and other relief items were being delivered to people whose homes were uninhabitable or unsafe. State media said that more than 46,000 people had been relocated following the quake, which killed 126 and injured 188 others. Tibetans, many of whom have fled persecution in China, held vigils for the victims in neighboring India and Nepal, both of which have sizeable communities.

Japan’s Ishiba heads to Malaysia and Indonesia to strengthen defense and economic ties

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Thursday began a trip to Malaysia and Indonesia as part of an effort to strengthen defense and economic ties with Southeast Asia as China’s threats grow in the region. The visit, his first for bilateral talks outside of international meetings, shows Japan’s commitment to further those ties even as the U.S. presence in the region may decrease after President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month. Malaysia and Indonesia are maritime regional powers near vital shipping lanes and are key to Japanese and global security and the economy, and they share concerns over China’s increasing assertiveness, officials say.

Wild weather halted ferries between New Zealand’s main islands again. Why isn’t there a tunnel?

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Wild weather during New Zealand ’s peak summer holiday period has disrupted travel for thousands of passengers on ferries that cross the sea between the country’s main islands. The havoc wrought by huge swells and gales in the deep and turbulent Cook Strait between the North and South Islands is a recurring feature of the country’s roughest weather. Breakdowns of New Zealand’s aging ferries have also caused delays. But unlike in Britain and Japan, New Zealand has not seriously considered an undersea tunnel beneath the strait that more than 1 million people cross by sea each year.

South Korean court clears government, adoption agency of liability in adoptee’s deportation from US

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court on Wednesday cleared the government and an adoption agency of all liability in a lawsuit filed by a 49-year-old Korean man whose traumatic adoption journey led to an abusive childhood in the United States and ultimately his deportation to South Korea in 2016 after legal troubles. In exonerating the South Korean government over the case of Adam Crapser, whose U.S. adoptive parents never secured his citizenship, the Seoul High Court overturned a 2023 lower court ruling that ordered his adoption agency, Holt Children’s Services, to pay him 100 million won ($68,600) in damages.

Thai police say Chinese actor was trafficked to Myanmar to work in a scam operation

BANGKOK (AP) — A Chinese actor who disappeared after traveling to Thailand and was found near the border of Myanmar in an area where online scam networks operate was a victim of human trafficking, Thai police said Wednesday. Chinese state-owned newspaper The Global Times reported Monday that the family of Wang Xing requested help from the Chinese Embassy in Thailand after the actor went missing at the Thailand-Myanmar border. Authorities found Wang on Tuesday in Myanmar and brought him to Thailand for questioning, Thai police said. Photos and videos showed Wang sitting with the police in the Thai border town of Mae Sot with his head shaved.

Hiker found 2 weeks after he got lost in a remote Australian mountain range

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A hiker survived on two muesli bars, foraged berries and creek water for two weeks while lost on a remote Australian mountain range, police said on Wednesday. Hadi Nazari, a 23-year-old medical student from Melbourne, went missing on Dec. 26 when he separated from two hiking companions to take photos in the Kosciuszko National Park in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales state. He was rescued after he approached a group of hikers on Wednesday afternoon, telling them he was lost and thirsty, Police Insp. Josh Broadfoot said. Nazari had traveled more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) across steep and densely wooded terrain from where he was last seen.

At least 6 die in a stampede at a temple in southern India, a report says

NEW DELHI (AP) — At least six people died and dozens were injured in a stampede Wednesday among hundreds at the entry of a temple in southern India, the Press Trust of India news agency said. The stampede occurred as police opened the temple gates, the agency cited temple Chairman B.R. Naidu Naidu as saying. Devotees had congregated from across India for a 10-day festival at Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirupati town in Andhra Pradesh state. Deadly stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with shoddy infrastructure and few safety measures. In July at least 116 people died, most of them women and children, when thousands at a religious gathering in northern India stampeded at a tent in Hathras town.

Leader of Japanese crime syndicate pleads guilty to conspiring to traffic nuclear materials to Iran

NEW YORK (AP) — The purported leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges alleging that he conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons. Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, of Japan, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court to weapons and narcotics trafficking charges that carry a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and the possibility of life behind bars. Sentencing was set for April 9. Prosecutors say Ebisawa didn’t know he was communicating in 2021 and 2022 with a confidential source for the Drug Enforcement Administration along with the source’s associate, who posed as an Iranian general.