Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - A fire at an unregistered nursing home in western Sri Lanka killed 12 residents and injured eight others, police said Thursday. The fire started late Wednesday at the home in Anguruwatota town. Fifty-one residents were rescued, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler said. He said people with mental illnesses were also housed there. The director of the home was arrested on suspicion of causing deaths through negligence. He appeared before a court and was ordered to be detained for a week while an investigation is underway. Associated Press footage showed the building gutted with its charred furniture and equipment.

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago Thursday, in a further tightening in a yearslong campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution. Relatives from a group called Tiananmen Mothers visited the graves for more than 30 years, reading memorial statements while police kept watch, Amnesty International said.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese Embassy seen by The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) - A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen around May 29 descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - A Yazidi woman has alleged she shared a bedroom with a woman accused of enslaving her in Syria and was repeatedly raped and beaten by the woman's father, police told a court on Thursday. Zeinab Ahmad, 31, applied for bail in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on two slavery charges. The hearing resumes Friday. She and her mother Kawsar Ahmad, 53, also known as Kawsar Abbas, have been in custody since they returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp last month with a group of Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State group. The Iraqi-born Yazidi witness, who cannot be named, said in a police statement that Mohammed Ahmad, Zeinab's father and Kawsar's husband, bought her for $10,000 in 2017 in the then-IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, Detective Senior Constable Mark Clendenning told the court.

NEW DELHI (AP) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Thursday as New Delhi seeks to deepen ties with the oil-rich South American nation following disruptions in global energy supplies. Rudrendra Tandon, a senior official in India's foreign ministry, said the talks held in New Delhi focused on strengthening energy cooperation. He said Venezuela had become India's third-largest crude oil supplier in recent weeks. Tandon said India is "aggressively seeking new sources of crude oil and energy to strengthen its energy security," adding that Venezuela represents an "opportunity and is very much part of our plans." Modi and Rodriguez also explored opportunities for Indian companies to invest in Venezuela's sectors including mining, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and automobiles, he said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea on Thursday unveiled a new facility to produce nuclear bomb fuels, with leader Kim Jong Un announcing plans to bolster the country's nuclear forces "at an exponential rate." Some experts still question whether North Korea has functioning nuclear missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland. But the nuclear plant's disclosure implies that Kim is eager to cement his country's status as a nuclear power and has no intentions of placing his bomb program on a negotiating table. After visiting the site on Wednesday, Kim said he and other top officials "confirmed the order of priority for implementing the ambitious future plan designed to beef up our state's nuclear forces at an exponential rate," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

HONG KONG (AP) - A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city's shrinking freedom of expression. Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go.

NEW DELHI (AP) - A fire swept through a building in a New Delhi neighborhood Wednesday, killing at least 21 people and injuring several others, police said. The building in the Malviya Nagar neighborhood in the southern part of the city had a restaurant on the ground floor and a hotel above. The predominantly residential area is densely populated and is popular with students and young professionals. The blaze was extinguished with the help of eight fire engines, and more than 40 people were rescued and taken to nearby hospitals, Delhi police said in a statement. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - The Solomon Islands will review its secretive security treaty with China, the South Pacific nation's new Prime Minister Matthew Wale said Wednesday. The pact struck in 2022 with the Solomons' then-Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare created fears in the United States and among allies including Australia that it would allow the Chinese navy to build a base in the South Pacific. Before Wale became prime minister in a parliamentary vote May 15, he had called for the detail of the treaty to be made public. Wale said Wednesday he had only been provided with a copy a few days ago and after he had "removed certain people from key positions." He didn't identify those people.