Top Asian News 4:14 a.m. GMT

Fire engulfs hospital ward in northern India, killing 10 newborn babies

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — A fire tore through a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital in northern India, killing 10 newborn babies and injuring 16 others, authorities said. The fire occurred late Friday at a hospital in Jhansi city in India’s Uttar Pradesh state. Officials said the blaze spread quickly through the ward, where 55 infants were being treated. Forty-five babies were rescued and are receiving medical care, said Bimal Kumar Dubey, a local official. It was not immediately clear what sparked the blaze. Brajesh Pathak, the deputy chief minister of the state, visited the hospital and met with families on Saturday.

Party of Sri Lanka’s new Marxist-leaning president wins two-thirds majority in parliament

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The party of Sri Lanka’s new Marxist-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake won a two-thirds majority in parliament, according to official election results Friday, providing a strong mandate for his program for economic revival. Dissanayake’s National People’s Power Party won 159 of the 225 seats, according to the Elections Commission. The Samagi Jana Balawegaya, or United People’s Power Party, led by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa had 40 seats and was in second place. The election comes at a decisive time for Sri Lankans, as the island nation is struggling to emerge from the worst economic crisis in its history, having declared bankruptcy after defaulting on its external debt in 2022.

Pakistani province declares health emergency due to smog and locks down two cities

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani province declared a health emergency Friday due to smog and imposed a shutdown in two major cities. Smog has choked Punjab for weeks, sickening nearly 2 million people and shrouding vast swathes of the province in a toxic haze. A senior provincial minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, declared the health emergency at a press conference and announced measures to combat the growing crisis. Time off for medical staff is cancelled, all education institutions are shut until further notice, restaurants are closing at 4 p.n. while takeaway is available up until 8 p.m. Authorities are imposing a lockdown in the cities of Multan and Lahore and halting construction work in those two places.

South Korean opposition leader gets a suspended jail term for violating election law

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was convicted of violating election law and sentenced to a suspended prison term Friday by a court that ruled he made false statements while denying corruption allegations during a presidential campaign. If it stands, the ruling could significantly shake up the country’s politics by potentially unseating Lee as a lawmaker and denying him a shot at running for president in the next election. But Lee, who faces three other trials over corruption and other criminal charges, is expected to challenge any guilty verdict and it remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will decide on any of the cases before the presidential vote in March 2027.

Australia’s plan to ban children from social media proves popular and problematic

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — How do you remove children from the harms of social media? Politically the answer appears simple in Australia, but practically the solution could be far more difficult. The Australian government’s plan to ban children from social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram until their 16th birthdays is politically popular. The opposition party says it would have done the same after winning elections due within months if the government hadn’t moved first. The leaders of all eight Australian states and mainland territories have unanimously backed the plan, although Tasmania, the smallest state, would have preferred the threshold was set at 14.

Myanmar airstrikes indiscriminately target civilians a rights group says in a new report

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military has consistently targeted civilians and their communities as a form of collective punishment in the country’s southeast since the army seized power in early 2021, a rights group said in a report released Friday. Documented airstrikes on villages examined by researchers from the Karen Human Rights Group based in Myanmar’s southeast, are emblematic of a broader assault on civilians across the war-torn nation, said James Rodehaver, the Bangkok-based chief of the Myanmar team of the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He spoke Friday in an online panel discussion accompanying the release of the new report.

Malaysia protests new Philippine maritime laws that it says infringe on its territory

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has protested new maritime laws in the Philippines that it says encroach on its territory, a government official said Friday. Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamad Alamin said Malaysia sent a protest note on Thursday over the Philippine laws. Experts have found that reference documents related to the laws restated Manila’s long-standing claim over the oil-rich Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo, he said. Last week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the Philippine Maritime Zones act and the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes act, which reaffirmed the country’s maritime territories and right to resources, including in the South China Sea.

Biden praises cooperation at meeting with South Korean, Japanese leaders amid North Korea worries

LIMA, Peru (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday praised the cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the U.S. at countering what he described as North Korea’s “dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia.” Biden spoke at the start of a meeting in Peru with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The talks came amid heightened concerns about North Korea’s growing military partnership with Russia and Pyongyang’s stepped-up cadence of ballistic missile tests. Biden celebrated the partnership between Japan and South Korea, two countries that have historical enmity but under Biden’s presidency are now tightening security and economic ties as their corner of the world becomes more complicated.

APEC leaders hold Lima summit as Trump prepares to return to office

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Leaders of Pacific Rim countries including the U.S. and China gathered Friday in Peru for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, the first major global summit since U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory. The annual gathering brings together 21 economies that jointly account for almost two-thirds of global GDP and half the world’s trade, according to organizers. Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden joined China’s President Xi Jinping, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and others as the world wonders how a new U.S. government might upend global dynamics.

China’s president unveils a megaport in Peru, but locals say they’re being left out

CHANCAY, Peru (AP) — On the edge of Peru’s coastal desert, a remote fishing town where a third of all residents have no running water is being transformed into a huge deep-water port to cash in on the inexorable rise of Chinese interest in resource-rich South America. The megaport of Chancay, a $1.3 billion project majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, is turning this outpost of bobbing fishing boats into an important node of the global economy. From the presidential palace in Lima, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the port inauguration ceremony, China’s President Xi Jinping watched a livestream of the ribbon-cutting alongside his Peruvian counterpart, Dina Boluarte, late Thursday.