Top Asian News 4:57 a.m. GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dinner table diplomacy that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China conducted over the weekend produced something as vague as it was valuable: an agreement to keep talking. Forged over grilled sirloin at the Group of 20 summit Saturday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the ceasefire Trump and Xi agreed to Saturday night illustrated that the leaders of the world's two largest economies can at least find some common ground, however tentative and ill-defined it might be. The truce pulled the United States and China back from an escalating trade war that was threatening world economic growth and had set global investors on edge.

BEIJING (AP) — Buy more U.S. exports? Done. Tinker with technology tactics that irk Washington and other trading partners? Maybe. But scrap those plans, seen by Beijing as a path to prosperity and influence? Probably never. The agreement by President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on a cease fire on tariffs postpones the threat of more disruption for China's exporters and their Asian suppliers. Some economists said Xi might be ready to negotiate in earnest. Still, Beijing gave no sign of a changed stance on technology ambitions that Washington says violate Chinese market-opening obligations and might threaten U.S.

SHANGHAI (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming victory in getting China to designate fentanyl a controlled substance, but China took that step against the deadly opioid years ago. What's actually on the table is a far more sweeping shift in the way China regulates synthetic opioids. The question is how China will follow through on its words. China's stated intention is to expand controls on all varieties of drugs that mimic fentanyl, a step advocated by U.S. officials eager to end the game of regulatory whack-a-mole with chemists who can manufacture novel opioids faster than they can be banned.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — South Korea's president said Tuesday no timeframe has been set for a historic visit to Seoul by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un despite both hoping it will take place this year. President Moon Jae-in said more important than the timing of the visit is that it would accelerate the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and give impetus to talks between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump. "Ever since South and North Korea were divided into two countries, this will be the first time that a North Korean leader will visit South Korea," Moon said through an interpreter.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police say gunmen have opened fire on a vehicle carrying a local TV journalist in northwestern Pakistan, killing him and wounding his cameraman. District police chief Qazi Jamil-ur-Rehman said Tuesday that journalist Noor-ul-Hassan was killed in the overnight attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province which borders Afghanistan. No one has claimed responsibility and authorities say police are still trying to determine the motive for the attack. Hassan worked for a regional TV station and is not known to have any enemies. Such attacks on journalists in Pakistan are common. In some cases the assailants have never been found.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A Sri Lankan court on Monday ordered disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his ministers to refrain from carrying out their duties as it hears an appeal against them. While the ruling by the Court of Appeal is an interim order, it is yet another setback for Rajapaksa, who has held on to the position of prime minister with President Maithripala Sirisena's backing despite losing two no-confidence votes. The parliamentary speaker announced that Rajapaksa's government was dissolved after the passage of the no-confidence motions. Parliament has also passed resolutions to cut off funds to the offices of Rajapaksa and his ministers.

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) — Three astronauts who were launched into space aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Monday entered the International Space Station nearly eight hours later, a relief to relatives and scientists months after a rocket failure aborted another mission. The hatch of the capsule carrying NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of Russian space agency Roscosmos was opened while the station was flying over the southern coast of Yemen. The three were greeted upon arrival Monday by the station's current crew members, who had waited outside the hatch after the astronauts' capsule docked and underwent safety checks.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose controversial war on drugs has cost thousands of lives, says he used marijuana to keep awake at a recent regional meeting, but later disavowed his assertion as a joke. Duterte made the comment Monday at an awards ceremony where he talked about attending last month's meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and how the schedules of such gatherings that run from morning until late at night is grueling. "I use marijuana to keep me awake," the 73-year-old Duterte said, referring to the Singapore meeting. However, he later told reporters he was joking.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's president says U.S. President Donald Trump told him he has a "very friendly view" of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and wants to grant his wishes if he denuclearizes. North Korea has sought security guarantees from the U.S. and relief from international sanctions. President Moon Jae-in's office quoted Moon as saying that Trump asked him to convey those messages to the North Korean leader if he visits Seoul this year as he promised. Moon spoke to reporters on Saturday aboard his presidential plane en route to New Zealand from Argentina, where he met Trump on the sidelines of a Group of 20 Nations summit.

HONG KONG (AP) — Early last year, a little-known Chinese researcher turned up at an elite meeting in Berkeley, California, where scientists and ethicists were discussing a technology that had shaken the field to its core — an emerging tool for "editing" genes, the strings of DNA that form the blueprint of life. The young scientist, He Jiankui, saw the power of this tool, called CRISPR, to transform not only genes, but also his own career. In visits to the United States, he sought out CRISPR pioneers such as Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University's Dr.