Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Pakistan launched deadly new airstrikes on Afghanistan early Wednesday, ending a month of calm following what Islamabad previously described as "open war" between the neighbors that has defied international efforts to bring a lasting peace. Afghanistan said the strikes hit the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika, and government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said 13 people were killed - 11 children, one woman and an older man - with 14 other civilians wounded. Pakistan confirmed it carried out strikes, saying it targeted militant hideouts and infrastructure linked to recent attacks inside Pakistan and that 26 militants were killed.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - A Pakistani army MI-17 helicopter crashed because of a technical fault in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Wednesday, killing all military personnel on board, the military said. The military didn't immediately disclose how many people were aboard the helicopter. The crash occurred near Muzaffarabad, the regional capital, during an ongoing protest and strike called by the Joint Awami Action Committee, a recently banned alliance of various groups. The military didn't suggest any link between the protest and the crash. Witnesses said that the helicopter crashed shortly after takeoff from a helipad. Ambulances arrived at the scene and transported the victims to a nearby hospital.

HONG KONG (AP) - Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday charged seven people and two building companies with offenses including manslaughter and conspiracy to defraud over the city's deadliest fire in decades. The massive blaze engulfed seven apartment buildings and killed 168 people on Nov. 26, 2025. Former residents and relatives of the dead have been waiting for answers for months after the fire shattered the close-knit community of Wang Fuk Court, which housed thousands of people in the suburban district of Tai Po. In a statement on Wednesday, authorities said police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption charged the suspects with 25 counts including money laundering, attempting to pervert the course of public justice and tax evasion.

A violent crackdown on a protest in western Afghanistan against the arrests of women for allegedly violating dress code regulations has left at least one person dead, the United Nations' mission in Afghanistan said Wednesday. Eyewitnesses said they saw Taliban police open fire during a protest on Tuesday by about 100 to 150 people against the arrests of women over the weekend in the western city of Herat. The U.N. mission said Wednesday it had "confirmed that at least one person, a boy, was killed by gunfire, while several others suffered injuries including from being beaten with sticks." It said it was also verifying reports of a second fatality.

NEW YORK (AP) - Scientists have unearthed communities of marine life - including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars - thriving on a millions-year-old whale graveyard. These graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, located up to 23,000 feet (7 kilometers) below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area and is so far the deepest and oldest found. A whale's sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Xikun Song, a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering.

TOKYO (AP) - Yohei Kono, a veteran Japanese politician who as top government spokesperson offered a historic apology to Asian women over sexual abuses by Japan's wartime military, has died, officials said. He was 89. Kono had placed great importance on promoting friendly ties with China, South Korea and other Asian countries that suffered Japanese atrocities before and during World War II. He died of old age Monday, according to the office of his son, former Foreign Minister Taro Kono. As chief Cabinet secretary in 1993, Yohei Kono apologized to tens of thousands of so-called "comfort women," acknowledging Japanese military involvement in forcing them into work at frontline brothels.

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines (AP) - Dozens of rescuers in hard hats scrambled out of a partially collapsed grocery in a southern Philippine city Wednesday as it was rattled by an aftershock from a powerful earthquake that left at least 45 people dead and 17 others missing in the region. A safety officer blew his whistle and others screamed to warn about 30 firefighters and coast guard personnel to dash to safety as concrete debris crashed down from the leaning three-story building in General Santos city in a frantic scene witnessed by an AP video journalist. The coastal city, a bustling commercial hub and the country's tuna capital, was devastated by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Monday and left a trail of destruction across southern Mindanao, the Philippines' second-most populous region.

NEW YORK (AP) - A massive underground detector aimed at understanding the mysterious ghost particles in our universe released its first major results on Wednesday. The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in China started collecting data in August with the goal of understanding neutrinos: tiny cosmic particles that date back to the Big Bang and whiz harmlessly through our bodies by the trillions every second. Yet they weigh almost nothing, making them difficult to sniff out. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the JUNO team unveiled its initial findings from two months of data collection - including some of the most precise measurements to date of how neutrinos switch between three varieties, or flavors, as they zip through space.

BANGKOK (AP) - An American diplomat was found dead in Myanmar's largest city, the U.S. State Department said, and members of the diplomatic community in Yangon say a Thai woman has been detained by police in connection with the investigation. American officials in Thailand and the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar referred questions on the case to the State Department, which confirmed the "death of a U.S. government employee" assigned to the embassy in Yangon but gave no other details. "Out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones, we have no further information to provide at this time," the State Department said in an emailed reply to questions from The Associated Press.

TAICHUNG, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwan's military fired rockets in China's direction from "shoot-and-scoot" mobile launchers on Wednesday in a demonstration of how it might try to repel a Chinese attack. While the U.S.-supplied system known as HIMARS has been tested before, the latest live-fire exercise was the first time its rockets were fired into the waters of the narrow Taiwan Strait that separates the self-governing island from China. "Due to the current enemy threat, we will continue HIMARS training with unwavering determination to protect Taiwan as the nation's strongest force," army Sgt. Wang Ming-hui said. The military said it used reduced-range practice rockets that don't fly very far from the coast before falling into the water.