Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Across seven countries, seven people woke up to days that no longer looked the way they once did. The war in Iran began months ago and thousands of miles away. But its effects quickly ricocheted across the world - oil markets first, sending fuel prices higher. Then the shock moved outward - into farms, factories and family budgets. Into the fabric of life. The global economy remains tethered to fossil fuels that also drive climate change. A severe shock to that system could push 45 million more people into poverty, the United Nations Development Program warned. For those far from the battlefield, the war arrived not as missiles or air raids, but through the disruptions of everyday life: businesses that no longer worked, goodbyes filled with fear, and livelihoods pushed closer to the edge.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Former South Korean President President Yoon Suk Yeol was convicted of making false statements during his presidential campaign in the latest verdict after he was removed from office last year over his brief imposition of martial law. Yoon denied the charges and appealed, with his lawyers arguing that the verdict was based on a misinterpretation of the facts and election law. If upheld by higher courts, the ruling could financially cripple the conservative People Power Party by forcing it to return around 40 billion won ($27 million) in election expenses reimbursed by the government after Yoon's narrow victory over current liberal President Lee Jae Myung in 2022.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. denounced China in a veiled rebuke Monday in his state of the nation speech, vowing that his government will defend a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing's expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea, and saying that Filipinos "do not yield" to conquerors. On domestic issues, Marcos disclosed that a special anti-graft prosecutor would soon file charges against former House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez, who has been implicated in a corruption scandal that the president exposed in his state of the nation speech last year. Marcos did not mention China by name or elaborate on his criticism of Beijing, which was applauded by many lawmakers.

BEIJING (AP) - Did the foreign ministers of China and Japan talk at last week's ASEAN regional meeting, or didn't they? Japan's Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters last week that he had briefly discussed bilateral relations with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi when they ran into each other during the meeting in the Philippines. But on Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson contradicted that. "Let me make it clear once again that during his visit to Manila, Foreign Minister Wang Yi did not have a meeting with the Japanese side on his schedule, nor did any brief exchanges take place on the site," Lin Jian said when asked at the daily briefing.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - The death toll from monsoon rains and flash flooding in Pakistan over the past month surpassed 100 on Monday as weather forecasters warned that more heavy rain is expected across the country later this week. Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority said 109 people have died nationwide since June 26. Many of the deaths were caused by collapsing houses and roofs, with nearly half reported in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along the Afghan border. The latest update came a day after the disaster management authority reviewed flood preparedness measures across the country. Officials discussed plans to issue timely warnings to communities living along rivers so residents can move to safer areas voluntarily or be evacuated before floodwaters inundate their communities.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North and South Korea remain separated by one of the world's most heavily armed borders. It's a lasting reminder that the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the countries technically still at war. More than seven decades after the conflict began, its scars and impact remain visible, not only by border area fortifications and war memorials, but also in the lives of separated families and survivors who continue to carry memories of loss and longing. Although the fighting ended with the July 27, 1953, armistice agreement, the traces the war left behind serve as enduring reminders of the past, ensuring that history is not only remembered but passed onto future generations.

BANTARGEBANG, Indonesia (AP) - Long before dawn breaks over Indonesia 's largest landfill, Nur Wencih joins thousands of waste pickers climbing mountains of garbage, searching for anything they can sell. The 35-year-old widow has worked at the site on Jakarta's eastern edge for two decades, following her parents, who still earn a living there. The Bantargebang landfill has paid for food and rent while helping her two teenage daughters living with a relative in a rural village. She hopes her daughters will never have to follow the same path. Living alone in a rented room near the landfill, Wencih earns about 200,000 rupiah ($12) on a good day collecting discarded toys, cardboard and plastic bottles before bulldozers bury them beneath fresh waste.

HONG KONG (AP) - After spending more than five years in Hong Kong's prison, former pro-democracy lawmaker Wu Chi-wai finally got to embrace his wife and son in London last week. They wept with joy. But he could be sent back to the Chinese territory this week, far earlier than planned. Wu, former chairman of Hong Kong's once-largest opposition party, was one of 47 activists charged in 2021 in the city's biggest case under a Beijing-imposed security law that crushed a previously thriving democracy movement. He was sentenced in 2024 to four years and five months in prison for conspiracy to commit subversion over his role in an unofficial primary election.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - World War II's D-Day landing beaches in northern France and the iconic Mount Olympus in Greece were among the sites added to the World Heritage List on Sunday at a U.N. committee meeting in South Korea reviewing dozens of nominations. The UNESCO committee, which meets in Busan through Wednesday, also inscribed the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara and South Sudan's Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, host to one of the world's largest land mammal migrations and the country's first addition to the World Heritage List. The French designation covers the five Normandy landing beaches - Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno - where more than 150,000 Allied troops came ashore on June 6, 1944, along with the Pointe du Hoc assault site, all central to the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - A multinational search by Vietnamese, Philippine and Chinese rescuers was underway on Sunday for 17 crew members missing after a cargo ship sank in bad weather off a Chinese-occupied shoal in the disputed South China Sea, The Vietnamese cargo vessel Khoi Nguyen 18, carrying 62 people, sank late Saturday near Fiery Cross Reef, which is a Chinese-built island and a military outpost in the hotly contested Spratly Islands. Of those on board, 45 crew members have been found and 17 others are still reported missing. The vessel "sank while operating in bad weather conditions in the East Sea," Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said.