Top Asian News 3:26 a.m. GMT

Indian Prime Minister Modi offers to help ‘as a friend’ to bring peace to Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered “as a friend” to help bring peace to Ukraine in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a brief visit on Friday that many in the war-battered country hope will pave the way for an Indian role in peace mediation. Modi’s trip marks the most prominent wartime visit by a leader from a nation that maintains a neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. India’s support is seen as a factor that could bolster efforts toward peace negotiations. Zelenskyy and Modi discussed at length Ukraine’s peace formula, which prioritizes territorial integrity and the withdrawal of Russian troops, according to the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As more floods batter Bangladesh and India, death toll rises to 30

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Floods wreaked more havoc in India’s northeast and neighboring Bangladesh’s eastern region, raising this week’s total death toll to 30, officials and media reports said Friday. Rain stopped in many parts of Bangladesh on Friday and weather officials in Dhaka said the waters had started receding in some areas, but said the flooding would not be over for days. In India’s Tripura state, eight more people died in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 19 since Monday, said a state disaster management official on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Heavy rainstorms killed 11 people and left 14 others missing in northeastern Chinese city

BEIJING (AP) — Heavy rainstorms that swept a city in northeast China this week killed 11 people and left 14 others missing, while causing more than $1 billion in damages, state media reported Friday. State broadcaster CCTV said an officer who was trying to save lives was one of the people who died in the city of Huludao in Liaoning province. Rescuers were still trying to find the people who went missing during the “historically rare” destructive rainfall, it said. An image from the broadcaster showed roads seriously flooded. According to preliminary estimates, 188,800 people were affected by the natural disaster, with losses amounting to 10.3 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion), officials announced.

27 killed after a bus with Indian pilgrims drives off a Nepal highway and crash

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — At least 27 people were killed and 16 others injured when a bus carrying dozens of Indian pilgrims drove off a key highway and crashed on Friday in Nepal, officials said. The bus veered off Prithvi Highway and rolled toward a fast-flowing river. Its roof was ripped open before stopping on the rocky bank just shy of the Marsyangdi’s rushing, murky water. Rescue workers recovered 27 bodies from the wreckage and flew the 16 injured to the capital Kathmandu for treatment, according to Armed Police Force spokesperson Shailendra Thapa. The wreckage was found near Abukhaireni, a town about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu and the river.

UN rights chief raises alarm about Myanmar’s Rohingya civilians trapped by fighting

BANGKOK (AP) — The U.N.’s human rights chief joined a chorus of concern Friday for members of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority after many were reported killed in recent fighting between the military government and the Arakan Army, an armed ethnic rebel group. According to a statement from the Geneva office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, he “expressed grave alarm and raised profound concerns about the sharply deteriorating situation across Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine State where hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed while trying to flee the fighting.” It said his agency had documented that ”both the military and the Arakan Army, which now controls most of the townships in Rakhine, have committed serious human rights violations and abuses against the Rohingya, including extrajudicial killings, some involving beheadings, abductions, forced recruitment, indiscriminate bombardments of towns and villages using drones and artillery, and arson attacks.” The statement cited an Aug.

Pakistan flies home the injured and the bodies of 28 Shiite pilgrims killed in a bus crash in Iran

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan brought home Friday the bodies of 28 Shiite pilgrims killed in a bus crash in Iran this week while heading to Iraq for a pilgrimage. A Pakistani military aircraft also flew back 23 pilgrims injured in the accident, officials said. Earlier in the day in Iran, officials handed over the bodies of the crash victims to Pakistani diplomats. Prayer services were held in both Iran and later in Pakistan. Funeral were to take place in the victims’ home districts early Saturday. The pilgrims were from Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, according to Nasir Shah, a provincial government spokesman.

New Zealand official says Western neglect of Pacific Islands let other nations boost their influence

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Western nations, including the United States and New Zealand, failed to understand swiftly enough the geopolitical importance of island nations in the South Pacific, leaving a power vacuum that allowed other countries to increase their diplomatic influence, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said. Peters made the remark in an interview with The Associated Press in his parliamentary office in the capital, Wellington, on Thursday, ahead of an annual summit in Tonga next week of leaders of Pacific nations, including Australia and New Zealand. Crises of sovereignty, climate change and foreign influence in some of the world’s smallest and most remote nations are expected to take center stage.

South Korean hotel fire that killed 7 was likely made worse by the lack of sprinklers, officials say

BUCHEON, South Korea (AP) — A fire that killed seven people in a South Korean hotel was possibly made worse by the lack of sprinklers, fire officials said Friday as they investigated the cause of the blaze. Twelve people were being treated for injuries related to the fire that broke out Thursday evening at the nine-story property in the city of Bucheon, just west of the capital, Seoul. Officials say the fire didn’t spread broadly after starting in an unoccupied room on the 8th floor. But with the room was unprotected by sprinklers and toxic smoke quickly filled the upper floors.

For many Asian Americans, Ferguson unrest set them on a path of resistance and reflection

Like a lot of people, Ellen Lo Hoffman was shocked and disturbed by the shooting death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, at the hands of a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer a decade ago this month. Hoffman — an assistant regional director for the national campus ministry InterVarsity Christian Fellowship — held a gathering at her Seattle-area home a month later, inviting all employees of color to talk. It sparked a pivotal moment for the Chinese American progressive when a Black staff member questioned: “Are Asian Americans our allies?” “At that moment I felt caught. I felt called out in an appropriate way,” Hoffman recalled.

Woman from India disappears down a sinkhole in Malaysia’s capital

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — A woman from India disappeared in Malaysia’s capital Friday when pavement collapsed beneath her and she fell into a sinkhole where she may have been swept away by an underground water current, police said. The woman plunged into the 8-meter-deep (26-foot-deep) sinkhole in the Dang Wangi area of the Malaysian capital, where local police chief Sulizmie Affendy Sulaiman said witnesses saw the paved walkway suddenly collapse under her while she was walking. The woman was identified as a 48-year-old tourist from India. Rescuers barricaded part of the area and used an excavator to clear debris in the sinkhole, but there was no immediate sign of the victim.