Top Asian News 3:07 a.m. GMT
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the U.S. on immigration. The remarks, at a campaign fundraising event Wednesday evening, came just three weeks after the White House hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a lavish official visit, during which the two leaders celebrated what Biden called an “unbreakable alliance,” particularly on global security matters. The White House welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi for a state visit last summer.
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) — Dam Chan Nguyen saves dead and dying computers. When he first started working two decades ago in Nhat Tao market, Ho Chi Minh City’s biggest informal recycling market, he usually salvaged computers with bulky monitors and heavy processors. Now he works mostly with laptops and the occasional MacBook. But the central tenet of his work hasn’t changed: Nothing goes to waste. What can be fixed is fixed. What can be salvaged gets re-used elsewhere. What’s left is sold as scrap. “We utilize everything possible,” he said. The shop he works at is one of many in a market that spreads across several streets filled with haggling customers.
BEIJING (AP) — The death toll from a collapsed highway in southeastern China climbed to 48 on Thursday as searchers dug for a second day through a treacherous and mountainous area. One side of the four-lane highway in the city of Meizhou gave way about 2 a.m. on Wednesday after a month of heavy rains in Guangdong province. Twenty-three vehicles fell down a steep slope, some sending up flames as they caught fire. Construction cranes were used to lift out the burnt-out and mutilated vehicles. Officials in Meizhou said three other people were unidentified, pending DNA testing. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had died, which would bring the death toll to 51.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s parliament on Thursday approved special legislation mandating a new, independent investigation into the 2022 Halloween crush in Seoul that killed 159 people. The single-chamber National Assembly passed the bill by a 256-0 vote. It will become law after it is signed by conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol and promulgated by his government agency — steps that are considered formalities because the president and his ruling party already agreed on the legislation. The bill is meant to delve into the root cause of the crush, and look at how authorities handled the disaster and who should be blamed for it.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Bollywood stars seldom weigh in on politics, so videos showing two celebrities criticizing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and endorsing his main opposition, the Congress party — were bound to go viral. But the clips of A-list actors Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh were fake, AI-generated videos that were yet another example of the false or misleading claims swirling online with the goal of influencing India’s election. Both actors filed complaints with police but such actions do little to stanch the flow of such misinformation. Claims circulating online in India recently have misstated details about casting a ballot, claimed without evidence that the election will be rigged, and called for violence against India’s Muslims.
April 26-May 2, 2024 Workers marched during a May Day rally in Jakarta, anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated in front of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan in Taipei, and people in India’s northeastern Assam state crossed the Brahmaputra River in a country boat to vote in the national election. This photo gallery highlights some of the most compelling images in the Asia-Pacific region made or published by The Associated Press in the past week. The selection was curated by AP photo editor Subramoney Iyer in New Delhi. ___ Follow AP visual journalism: AP Images blog: http://apimagesblog.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apnews AP Images on X: http://twitter.com/AP_Images
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Solomon Islands lawmakers elected former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele as prime minister Thursday in a development that suggests the South Pacific island nation will maintain close ties with China. Manele used his first speech as leader to promise to govern with integrity and to put his nation’s interests first. “I will discharge my duties diligently and with integrity. I will at all times put the interests of our people and country above all other interests,” Manele said in a speech outside the National Parliament of Solomon Islands. Manele won 31 votes in a secret ballot of 49 lawmakers who won general elections on April 17, Governor General David Vunagi said, while Matthew Wale, who led the opposition in the previous parliament, received the remaining 18.
PARIS (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled an international framework for regulation and use of generative AI on Thursday, adding to global efforts on governance for the rapidly advancing technology. Kishida made the announcement in a speech at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Generative AI has the potential to be a vital tool to further enrich the world,” Kishida said. But “we must also confront the dark side of AI, such as the risk of disinformation.” When Japan chaired the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations last year, it launched a Hiroshima AI process to draw up international guiding principles and a code of conduct for AI developers.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities said Thursday they have found tents and questioned three people in the case of two Australians and an American who went missing over the weekend in the Pacific coast state of Baja California. María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the state’s chief prosecutor, would not say whether the three people questioned were considered possible suspects or witnesses in the case. She said only that some were tied directly to the case, and others indirectly. But Andrade Ramírez said evidence found along with the abandoned tents was somehow linked to the three. The three foreigners were believed to have been surfing and camping along the Baja coast near the coastal city of Ensenada, but did not show up at their planned accommodations over the weekend.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia is shipping refined petroleum to North Korea at levels that exceed U.N. Security Council limits, the White House said Thursday, signaling it will impose new sanctions against those involved in facilitating the transfers. The United Nations had set an annual 500,000 barrel global cap on refined petroleum products to North Korea as part of its yearslong effort to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that in March alone, Russia shipped more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to North Korea. With the close proximity of Russian and North Korean commercial ports, Russia could sustain these shipments indefinitely, he said.