Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday condemned senators who blocked changes to a world-first social media ban for children, saying tech giants would use the delay to destroy incriminating documents that could be used as evidence against them. The government this week introduced to Parliament amendments aimed at increasing powers of the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Australia's online safety watchdog, to enforce the ban on Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube that has been in place since December. The amendments would have given Inman Grant power to demand documents as well as information from platforms about their efforts to exclude young children.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A speeding, overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine in southwestern Pakistan early Friday, killing 40 people and injuring eight others in one of the deadliest road accidents in recent years, officials said. The bus went out of control and fell into the ravine in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, Shahid Rind, a spokesperson for the Balochistan government, said. He said the bus was carrying not only its own passengers but also those from another bus that had broken down, leaving the vehicle overcrowded.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who became a symbol of resistance to Beijing's crackdown on speech freedom after he was seized by Chinese authorities in late 2015, has died in Taiwan, the island's official Central News Agency reported, citing an unnamed source. The news agency didn't give a cause of death but said the 70-year-old Lam had a cancer relapse last year and was admitted to MacKay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday. He fell into a coma on Wednesday and died Thursday evening, according to the report. Lam, who was the manager of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, moved to Taipei in 2019 over fears of legal troubles and reopened the bookstore under the same name in the Taiwanese capital in 2020.

CHALAKUDY, India (AP) - The life-size robotic elephants in Prasanth Prakashan's backyard workshop have ears that flap, tails that swish and trunks that squirt water. But that's about all they have in common with their real-life counterparts revered across India as manifestations of the divine. The animatrons, crafted from fiberglass, iron and rubber, are intended to take the place of live elephants in Hindu temples. The change pleases animal welfare activists but upsets those who passionately believe real elephants are inextricable from the temple rituals and festivals where they are bestowed superstar status. The animal welfare group PETA and other nonprofits have donated about 40 robotic elephants, costing about $6,000 each, to Indian temples to replace live elephants.

CHALAKUDY, India (AP) - In India's southern state of Kerala, robotic elephants are replacing live ones at some temple festivals. Rising concerns about elephant abuse and dangerous incidents led to the change. ____ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Like plenty of local boys before him, Neil has come home to the stretch of Australian coast where he was born. Unlike most of them, he trails fame, fans and property damage in his wake. He is also a 1,000 kg (2,200 pound) elephant seal. In June, the bellowing and blubbery 5-year-old mammal hauled himself onto land for his twice-yearly tour of beachside towns in southern Tasmania state after months of feeding at sea. That's posing problems now that he weighs as much as a small car and has a social media following more than double Tasmania's human population.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesians are trying to stop a major German cement producer from building a mine and factory under a unique supply chain law that adds to a growing number of cases legal experts say may influence European businesses in Asia. Critics say Heidelberg Materials, one of the world's largest cement companies, failed to properly assess and mitigate the potential harms of its plans to create a limestone mine and cement factory in Central Java's Kendeng Mountains. They say the project may damage a rare karst ecosystem and harm the livelihoods of Indigenous people in the area. "If the project is implemented, we face an ecological catastrophe, impoverishment, and violations of our human rights," said Bambang Sutikyo, one of the complainants.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesian security forces Friday recovered the body of an American pilot who was killed after armed separatist attacked and burned a small aircraft in the restive Papua region, a military commander said. Nicholas F. Goselin, a pilot for Indonesian aviation company PT AMA, was shot dead Thursday shortly after he landed at the Ipdeheik airstrip in Balinggama village of the Yahukimo regency in the mountainous province of Papua Highlands. The evacuation that involved 10 personnel from the Habema Operations Command was carried out after troops secured the remote airstrip in a rapid operation, said Brig. Gen. Riyanto, deputy commander of the operation.

HONOLULU (AP) - Residents of U.S. territories in the western Pacific were bracing Friday for a possible super typhoon, just months after the region was hit by the strongest tropical cyclone on Earth this year. Power still hasn't been fully restored in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands after that super typhoon, Sinlaku, brought ferocious winds and relentless rains in April. Some people are still living in tents after their homes were destroyed. "We're getting ready to do this all over again," said Edwin Propst a former lawmaker who works in the governor's office on Saipan, where it was already Friday.

BANGKOK (AP) - An 11-year-old driver crashed a truck into Buddhist monks on a pilgrimage walk in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, killing 10 of them and injuring others, officials said. A total of 35 monks from Mukdahan province, about 600 kilometers (372 miles) northeast of the capital Bangkok, were on the pilgrimage. Five monks died at the scene, while five others died at a hospital. More than 10 were hospitalized and one remained in critical condition, according to the provincial administration. The group started the 260-kilometer (161-mile) walk to Ubon Ratchathani province about 30 minutes before the crash. Security camera footage shared by a local rescue group, Ruam Jai Mukdahan Rescue Association, shows the monks walking in a single line on the side of a road before the truck crashes into them.