Top Asian News 4:59 a.m. GMT
BEIJING (AP) — While a Huawei executive faces possible U.S. charges over trade with Iran, the Chinese tech giant's ambition to be a leader in next-generation telecoms is colliding with security worries abroad. Australia and New Zealand have barred Huawei Technologies Ltd. as a supplier for fifth-generation networks. They joined the United States and Taiwan, which limit use of technology from the biggest global supplier of network switching gear. This week, Japan's cybersecurity agency said Huawei and other vendors deemed risky will be off-limits for government purchases. None has released evidence of wrongdoing by Huawei, which denies it is a risk and has operated a laboratory with Britain's government since 2010 to conduct security examinations of its products.
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Indian forces who were exchanging fire with insurgents in disputed Kashmir on Saturday fatally shot at least seven civilians when large crowds descended on the site of the gunbattle in support of the militants, police and residents said. Residents accused troops of directly spraying gunfire into the crowds. Police said in a statement that they regretted the killings but that the protesters had come "dangerously close" to the fighting. Separatists who challenge India's sovereignty over Kashmir said the killings were part of India's state policy and called for three days of mourning and a general shutdown in Kashmir.
SYDNEY (AP) — Australia has decided to formally recognize west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but won't move its embassy until there's a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Saturday. Morrison said in a speech that Australia would recognize east Jerusalem as Palestine's capital only after a settlement has been reached on a two-state solution. The Australian Embassy won't be moved from Tel Aviv until such a time, he said. While the embassy move is delayed, Morrison said his government would establish a defense and trade office in Jerusalem and would also start looking for an appropriate site for the embassy.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's disputed prime minister announced Saturday that he would step aside, paving the way for his sacked predecessor to regain the position and apparently ending a political impasse that has paralyzed the government for nearly two months. Mahinda Rajapaksa's resignation signals the end of a crisis that began in October when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed Rajapaksa as his replacement. "Since I have no intention of remaining as prime minister without a general election being held, and in order to not hamper the president in any way, I will resign from the position of prime minister and make way for the president to form a new government," Rajapaksa said in a televised statement.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Police on Saturday arrested three people after at least 11 died of suspected food poisoning following a ceremony to celebrate the construction of a new Hindu temple in southern India. Police officer Musharraf said that more than 130 sick people were recovering from poisoning in various hospitals in Chamarajnagar district of Karnataka state. The area is 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of Bangalore, the state capital. Musharraf, who uses one name, said that Hindu devotees ate contaminated cooked vegetables and rice on Friday. They immediately started vomiting, complained of severe stomach pain and were taken to nearby hospitals.
MALE, Maldives (AP) — Police in the Maldives said they questioned the country's defeated former strongman president over complaints of alleged illegal financial transactions on Saturday, a day after they froze bank accounts with millions of dollars. Police said in a statement that they found transactions of big sums of money through accounts opened by Yameen Abdul Gayoom over five years of his presidency. On Friday, they said accounts with nearly $6.5 million in both U.S. dollars and Maldivian currency had been frozen pending further investigations. Speaking to reporters after the questioning, Yameen said police did not accuse him of any crime.
PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — Lawyers for the man charged with kidnapping and killing a Chinese University of Illinois scholar have argued the case should be heard in state court, where the death penalty isn't an option. Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against former graduate student Brendt Christensen. He's charged with the 2017 abduction and death of 26-year-old Yingying Zang. Authorities have not found her body. The News-Gazette reports a federal judge in Peoria is holding several days of pre-trial hearings. Defense attorney Robert Tucker said Friday he believes the main reason federal prosecutors are trying the case is to seek the death penalty.
Officials from around the world have agreed upon a set of rules to govern the 2015 Paris climate accord after two weeks of U.N. climate talks in Poland. Michal Kurtyka, a Polish official chairing the talks in Katowice, gaveled the deal Saturday after diplomats and ministers from almost 200 countries approved. The U.N. talks were meant to provide firm guidelines for countries on how to transparently report their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them. Scientists say emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide need to drop sharply by 2030 to prevent potentially catastrophic global warming. The meeting postponed decisions on pledging more ambitious action to fight global warming and on regulating the market for international carbon emissions trading.
WASHINGTON (AP) — By detaining two Canadians in an apparent act of retaliation, China is looking like the country its harshest critics say it is: one unbound by the laws, rules and procedures that govern other major industrial nations. Canada's arrest of a top Chinese technology executive at the request of the United States has set off a diplomatic furor with Beijing. And the way the countries have acted in the controversy draws a clear distinction between their political and legal systems — at a time when the United States, Canada and other advanced economies are rethinking the way they do business with China.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian authorities said Saturday that they have seized more than 3 tons of rare African ivory hidden inside an abandoned shipping container, the country's largest haul of elephant tusks in the last four years. Tipped off by the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, a total of 1,026 pieces of elephant tusks, weighing up to 3.2 tons, was found on Thursday at Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, said Sun Chhay, a director of the Customs and Excise Office at the port. He said the ivory was sent from the southern African nation of Mozambique. The elephant tusks arrived at the Phnom Penh port in July, but officials did not find them until Thursday.