Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Morning Edition

BANGKOK (AP) - A military airstrike this week on a village in Myanmar sheltering displaced people from the northern township of Bhamo, where a final round of the country's three-phase election is to be held this weekend, killed 21 people, an ethnic rebel group and local media said Friday. The strike on Hteelin village, west of Bhamo in the state of Kachin, took place on Thursday afternoon, also left 28 people wounded, according to Col. Naw Bu, the spokesperson of the ethnic Kachin Independence Army or KIA. Naw Bu said a jet fighter bombed a compound where mourners had gathered for prayers for the deceased, a camp for displaced persons, as well as a school and a village market.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - An avalanche killed nine members of a single family in northwestern Pakistan on Friday while a heavy snowstorm the day before in neighboring Afghanistan left 11 people dead, officials said. Winter storms also stranded thousands of tourists and blocked roads near Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. In Pakistan, workers for the country's emergency services struggled for hours before they pulled all nine bodies, including four women, from under the snow in the district of Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, according to Bilal Faizi, a spokesperson. Separately, the season's first heavy snowfall blocked multiple roads leading to Murree, a hill station about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Islamabad.

TOKYO (AP) - Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved the lower house of parliament on Friday, paving the way for an early election on Feb. 8. The move is an attempt to capitalize on her popularity to help the governing party regain ground after major losses in recent years, but it will delay parliamentary approval for a budget that aims at boosting a struggling economy and addressing soaring prices. Takaichi, elected in October as Japan's first female leader, has been in office only three months, but she has seen strong approval ratings of about 70%. Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party could still face some challenges as it reels from a series of scandals about corruption and the party's past ties to the Unification Church.

HONG KONG (AP) - A prominent activist who organized Hong Kong's decades-old vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square military crackdown on democracy protesters said Friday that her group's demand for "ending one-party rule" was a call for democratization, not for an end to the Communist Party's leadership in China. Chow Hang-tung, a former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, stated in court Friday during a trial brought under a national security law that virtually silenced dissent in the city. She was charged with inciting subversion in September 2021 under the law Beijing imposed following massive anti-government protests in 2019.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - To Lam was reelected Friday as general secretary of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party and appears poised to become the country's most powerful figure in decades, with analysts expecting him to assume the presidency in a break from Vietnam's tradition of collective leadership. Lam, 68, pledged to accelerate economic growth and was reappointed unanimously by the 180-member Central Committee at the conclusion of the National Party Congress that ran from Monday through Friday. No formal announcement was made about the presidency. But the composition of the newly elected 19-member Politburo, the party's top decision-making body, "strongly suggests" Lam will further concentrate his power with the presidency, said Le Hong Hiep, a fellow at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Police urged people in a small Australian town to stay indoors Friday as they looked for the man suspected of killing three people in a domestic violence-related shooting. Julian Ingram, 37, was out on bail after being charged with domestic violence-related crimes, and a restraining order had been issued in December to protect one of the victims in Thursday's shooting, Sophie Quinn, who was 25 and pregnant. The others shot to death in the isolated town of Lake Cargelligo in New South Wales state were Quinn's friend, John Harris, 32, and her aunt, Nerida Quinn, 50. A 19-year-old man who also was shot was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signaled that U.S. President Donald Trump should apologize for his false assertion that troops from non-U.S. NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, describing Trump's remarks as "insulting" and "appalling." Trump said that he wasn't sure NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested, provoking outrage and distress across the United Kingdom on Friday, regardless of individuals' political persuasion. "We've never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them," Trump said of non-US troops in an interview with Fox News in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - A former chief of Malaysia's armed forces was charged Friday with four corruption offenses, becoming the second former general hauled to court this week as the government intensify a crackdown on graft in defense contracts. Mohamad Nizam Jaafar, 59, pleaded not guilty to two counts of abusing his position, one count of criminal breach of trust and another count of accepting gifts. The charge sheet alleged he abused his position as chairman of the Armed Forces Welfare Fund's executive committee in 2024 by steering contracts for festive gift supplies to five companies in exchange for over 550,000 ringgit ($118,000).

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea placed overseas travel bans on three people as part of an investigation into alleged drone flights over North Korea that have deepened animosities between the rivals, authorities said Friday. North Korea threatened retaliation earlier this month after accusing South Korea of launching a surveillance drone flight in September and again in January. The South Korean government denied operating any drones during the times specified by North Korea and began probing if civilians sent them. The development threatens to further dampen prospects for a push by South Korea's liberal government to resume long-stalled talks with North Korea.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were returned to South Korea on Friday to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won ($33 million), according to a South Korean government statement. Upon arrival in South Korea's Incheon airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects - 65 men and eight women - were sent to police stations. The suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, were escorted by police officers and boarding buses.