Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Morning Edition

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A ferry with more than 350 people on board sank early Monday near an island in the southern Philippines, killing at least 18 people, officials said. Rescuers saved hundreds more, while a fleet of coast guard and naval ships searched for those still missing. Coast guard officials said the cargo and passenger ferry apparently encountered technical problems and sank after midnight. The steel-hulled vessel abruptly tilted to one side and took on water, hurling people into the sea in the darkness, according to a rescued passenger who lost his 6-month-old baby. "My wife lost hold of our baby and all of us got separated at sea," a distraught Mohamad Khan told a volunteer rescuer, Gamar Alih, who posted a video of Khan's remarks on Facebook.

BEIJING (AP) - China made a major announcement over the weekend, saying it was investigating the army's top general for suspected serious violations of discipline and law. Gen. Zhang Youxia was the highest military member just below President Xi Jinping. The Defense Ministry said Saturday that authorities were investigating Zhang, the senior of the two vice chairs of the powerful Central Military Commission, China's top military body, and Gen. Liu Zhenli, a lower member of the commission who was in charge of the military's Joint Staff Department. The move shakes up virtually the entire commission, chaired by Xi, leaving only one of its six members intact.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Judges at the International Criminal Court ruled on Monday that former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is fit to stand trial, after postponing an earlier hearing over concerns about the octogenarian's health. Duterte is facing charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in dozens of killings as part of his so-called war on drugs when in office, first as the mayor of a southern city and later as president. Lawyers for the 80-year old had argued Duterte was in frail health and his condition was deteriorating in the court's detention unit. Duterte was arrested in March and was set to appear in court in The Hague in September.

BANGKOK (AP) - Myanmar 's military is making increasing use of commercial paramotors and gyrocopters, low-tech flying machines that expand their capabilities to attack civilians and anti-government forces from the sky as the country's civil war rages, according to a report released Monday. The military's use of paramotors, basically a paraglider combined with a backpack motor with a propeller, was first reported in 2024, while the first incident involving a gyrocopter, an ultralight one- or two-person aircraft with helicopter-like rotating blades, was last March, the human rights organization Fortify Rights said in its report. The organization tracked an increasing number of such attacks over the course of last year where pilots would drop mortar shells by hand, and in the case of the paramotors, sometimes cutting their engines and gliding silently in their final approach to the target.

BANDUNG, Indonesia (AP) - Nineteen members of Indonesia's elite marine force are among 42 people missing after being swept away or buried by a deadly weekend landslide that tore through a mountainside in West Java province, officials said Monday. The marines were training in rugged terrain and heavy rainfall when Saturday's predawn landslide swallowed their camp and some 34 houses in Pasir Langu village on the slopes of Mount Burangrang. A search operation has grown from 500 to 2,100 personnel using bare hands, water pumps, drones and excavators. Seventeen people have been confirmed dead, National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.

BANGKOK (AP) - Myanmar's military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed Monday that it had won the country's first election since the army seized power in 2021, paving the way for a new government. The victory of the party led by a former general was widely expected after the vote excluded major opposition parties and dissent was tightly restricted. Also, 25% of parliamentary seats were automatically reserved for the military- effectively guaranteeing control by the armed forces and its favored parties. Critics say the polls organized by the military government were neither free nor fair, but an effort to legitimize its rule after seizing power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese court on Monday held North Korea responsible for the human rights violations of four plaintiffs lured to the North by Pyongyang's postwar false promise of living in "paradise on Earth," ordering its government to pay them 22 million yen ($143,000) each, a decision welcomed by the survivors and their supporters as groundbreaking. Kenji Fukuda, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said it was significant to win a court decision acknowledging North Korea's human rights violations. However, "the ruling is just a piece of paper and getting the compensation money is a challenge," he said. The Tokyo District Court ruled that the plaintiffs, both ethnic Koreans and Japanese, were forced into decades of harsh conditions without freedom to return home after moving to North Korea with tens of thousands of others under a 1959-1984 repatriation program, in which the North gave them false promises of free health care, education, jobs and other benefits.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The Philippines told China on Monday that it is alarmed about heated exchanges with Chinese diplomats in Manila over the long-standing, seething territorial dispute between the two countries in the South China Sea. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said without elaborating that it "made firm representations to the Chinese ambassador and the Chinese Embassy conveying serious concerns with the escalation of public exchanges." It warned that the bruising, tit-for-tat exchanges with China could "unnecessarily derail the diplomatic space needed to manage the tensions in the maritime domain," but, nevertheless, expressed support to Philippine officials, including some senators, who have defended their country's territorial interests in the South China Sea.

NEW DELHI (AP) - Rows of soldiers advance in lockstep, automatic rifles braced against their bodies. Behind them roll armoured columns, followed by mobile missile systems, radars, tanks and military command units. Overhead, fighter jets tear through the sky. India celebrated its 77th Republic Day on Monday with a colorful parade displaying its military might on a boulevard in the country's capital, New Delhi. Thousands of people lined the road to watch the long parade marking the anniversary of the official adoption of India's Constitution on Jan. 26, 1950, nearly three years after independence from British colonial rule. The parade took place on Kartavya Path boulevard, which is lined with expansive lawns, canals and rows of trees.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A search for six people presumed killed in a landslide at one of New Zealand 's most popular beach campsites is expected to take days, authorities said Monday. Heavy rain caused the massive slip at Beachside Holiday Park, nestled at the foot of Mount Maunganui, as a summer storm swept down the North Island on Thursday. Those missing ranged in age from 15 to 71 and included a Swedish tourist and a teenager originally from Italy. Work to find the missing was suspended at the weekend because of fears the ground remained unstable. The search resumed Monday as authorities said the recovery teams were working in dangerous conditions.