Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has commissioned a 5,000-ton destroyer that leader Kim Jong Un touts as a symbol of the country's growing naval and nuclear capabilities, state media reported Wednesday, as Pyongyang seeks to expand its ability to project military power at sea. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim told a commissioning ceremony Tuesday at the western port of Nampo that warships such as the Choe Hyon show that the nuclear armament of his navy is progressing as planned. KCNA said the Choe Hyon was formally placed into service with North Korea's navy after the ceremony and will be tasked with defending the country's western coast.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The leader of a secretive South Korean church was arrested Wednesday as authorities widened an investigation into allegations that he illegally recruited thousands of followers into the conservative People Power Party to influence elections. The Shincheonji Church has denied the accusations against Lee Man-hee, 95, a self-proclaimed messenger of Jesus who founded the congregation in the 1980s. The church says it has about 200,000 followers. Since January, a special team of prosecutors and police has been investigating alleged ties between religious groups such as Shincheonji and the Unification Church and politicians. The inquiry is part of broader investigations under South Korea's current liberal government into the presidency of former conservative leader Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted from office and convicted of rebellion over his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024.

HONG KONG (AP) - Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested two people on suspicion of selling seditious publications and receiving funds from foreign political organizations, acting under a recent national security law. The government's statement early Thursday did not identify those arrested. But local media outlets, including the Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao, quoted unidentified sources saying one was Hunter Bookstore's owner Leticia Wong. Wong, a pro-democracy former district councilor, has remained outspoken after many leading activists were jailed under a crackdown following massive anti-government protests in 2019. If confirmed, her arrest would be widely seen as the latest step to stifle dissent in the Asian financial hub.

BIBICLAT, Philippines (AP) - Hundreds of Catholic devotees wrapped themselves in dried banana leaves and covered their bodies with mud on Wednesday in the Philippine village of Bibiclat, taking part in a display of faith honoring St. John the Baptist. The Taong Putik, or Mud People, festival is held annually in this village in Asia's largest Catholic nation as devotees thank the local patron saint for miracles and fulfill vows made in prayer. Melencio Nenuda, a 39-year-old construction worker, said the mud-covered parishioners frightened him as a child and he used to hide when they passed by. But that changed when when he fell seriously ill in the sixth grade and his mother prayed to St.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan police said Wednesday they rescued a French woman and her five children after she told authorities she had been held captive by her husband for more than a decade and subjected to years of domestic abuse in the country's northwest. The woman, identified as 54-year-old Sylvie Yasmina, was rescued earlier this week from a mud-brick home in Bara, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, district police chief Waqar Ahmad said. He said Yasmina's husband, Ahmad Khan, had been arrested and investigations are underway. Domestic violence remains a significant problem in Pakistan. Human rights groups say hundreds of women report physical and psychological abuse by husbands and other family members each year, although many cases are believed to go unreported.

BIBICLAT, Philippines (AP) - Devout Catholics smeared their bodies with mud and wore banana leaves as they participated in an annual festival in Bibiclat, a village in the Philippines, on Wednesday. The Taong Putik, or Mud People, festival has been passed on from generation to generation in the community as a way of showing devotion to the village's patron saint, St. John the Baptist. Devotees come to thank the saint for miracles or fulfill vows made in prayer. Local church leaders say the tradition dates back to the 1800s, when farmers smeared themselves with mud as an expression of humility and covered themselves with banana leaves to conceal their identities.

HONG KONG (AP) - China's Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday defended the country's technological advancements as an opportunity for the world rather than a threat. Li also said the country's heavy state subsidies were not the main reason for the rapid rise of its high-tech industries, at a time when Western officials have complained that China's state support for industries from artificial intelligence to electric vehicles has provided an unfair competitive edge. China's No. 2 leader made the remarks in his speech at the opening plenary of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions, known as the "Summer Davos," held this week in the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Dalian.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Great Britain, France and Germany on Wednesday issued a rare joint statement expressing alarm over Chinese activities east of the self-ruled island of Taiwan, where China earlier this month deployed coast guard patrols. The de-facto embassies of the three European nations in the Taiwanese capital Taipei said the "novel Chinese activity," which was not specifically identified, endangered regional stability. China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to annex the island, called the maneuvers earlier this month a "maritime traffic enforcement and hydrographic survey operation." Chinese state media said the activities were "sending a pointed warning" to Japan and the Philippines over an announcement that the countries would discuss their maritime boundaries in waters that Beijing views as its own.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Philippine authorities on Tuesday warned of possible flooding in low-lying villages, landslides and rough seas in the country's two northernmost provinces as a powerful typhoon roared offshore. Typhoon Mekkhala was last tracked over the Pacific before midday, about 375 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of Aparri town in Cagayan province with sustained winds of up to 175 kph (110 mph), the country's weather agency said. Mekkhala was moving northwestward at 10 kph (6 mph) and was not expected to make a landfall, but the typhoon's wide rain and wind band could batter the eastern coasts of Cagayan and Batanes, an island province further north, Philippine officials said.

BRUSSELS (AP) - A delegation from the Afghan Taliban met Tuesday with European Union staff in Brussels for closed-door talks that focused on diplomatic services and the "dignified returns" of Afghans to the isolated and war-ravaged nation, a Taliban official said. Afghans make up one of the largest groups of migrants seeking asylum in the EU, but a growing number of governments in the 27-nation bloc want to speed up and increase deportations for those whose claims are rejected or who commit crimes in their host countries. Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesperson for the Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called the visit "historic," noting it was the first time a delegation from the Islamic Emirate held talks with the EU and EU nations in Brussels.