Top Asian News Stories From Across The Continent

BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand’s parliament was dissolved Friday for a new election early next year as the country engaged in deadly fighting with Cambodia. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul dissolved the House of Representatives after getting approval from King Maha Vajiralongkorn, whose endorsement became effective Friday with its publication in the Royal Gazette. Anutin had signaled the move with a Facebook post late Thursday saying: “I’d like to return power to the people.” The election must be held 45 to 60 days after the royal endorsement, a period during which Anutin will head a caretaker government with limited powers that can’t approve a new budget.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump said Friday that Thai and Cambodian leaders had agreed to renew a truce after days of deadly clashes, even as Thai and Cambodian officials suggested there is still work to do to get the ceasefire that the U.S. administration had helped broker earlier this year back on track. Trump announced the agreement to restart the ceasefire in a social media posting following calls with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet. “They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord made with me, and them, with the help of the Great Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim,” Trump said in his Truth Social post.

SURIN, Thailand (AP) – Fighting that has flared along the Thai-Cambodian border has sent hundreds of thousands of Thai villagers fleeing from their homes close to the frontier since Monday. Their once-bustling communities have fallen largely silent except for the distant rumble of firing across the fields. Yet in several of these villages, where normally a few hundred people live, a few dozen residents have chosen to stay behind despite the constant sounds of danger. In a village in Buriram province, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the border, Somjai Kraiprakon and roughly 20 of her neighbors gathered around a roadside house, keeping watch over nearby homes.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – In the age of dinosaurs – before whales, great whites or the bus-sized megalodon – a monstrous shark prowled the waters off what’s now northern Australia, among the sea monsters of the Cretaceous period. Researchers studying huge vertebrae discovered on a beach near the city of Darwin say the creature is now the earliest known mega-predator of the modern shark lineage, living 15 million years earlier than enormous sharks found before. And it was huge. The ancestor of today’s 6-meter (20-foot) great white shark was thought to be about 8 meters (26 feet) long, the authors of a paper published in the journal Communications Biology said.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Australian accident investigators on Thursday released dramatic images of a skydiver’s parachute becoming entangled on an airplane’s tail, leaving him dangling at 4,500 meters (15,000 feet.) The skydiver, Adrian Ferguson, used a hook knife to cut himself free and sustained minor leg injuries during the incident on Sept. 20 that began at Tully Airport in Queensland state. The pilot and 16 other parachutists on board the Cessna Caravan that day were not hurt. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau released the video with its report on its investigation into the mishap. The plane had reached the desired altitude where the skydivers were planning to execute a 16-way formation jump.

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) – Retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang was recuperating from cancer on a Korean resort island when he got an urgent call: Don’t return to China, a friend warned. You’re now a fugitive. Days later, a stranger snapped a photo of Li in a cafe. Terrified South Korea would send him back, Li fled, flew to the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for asylum. But even there – in New York, in California, deep in the Texas desert – the Chinese government continued to hunt him down with the help of surveillance technology. Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases.

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) – The Chinese government is using an increasingly powerful tool to control and monitor its own officials: Surveillance technology, much of it originating in the United States, an Associated Press investigation has found. Among its targets is Li Chuanliang, a Chinese former vice mayor hunted by Beijing with the help of surveillance technology. Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases. More than 40 friends and relatives – including his pregnant daughter – were identified and detained back in China. Deep in the Texas countryside, Li has now found refuge with members of a Chinese church living in exile after fleeing from China like Li.

China will soon start collecting a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and products for the first time in over three decades, a move aligned with Beijing’s effort to get families to have more children after decades of limiting most to one child. “Contraceptive drugs and products” will not be tax-exempt as of Jan. 1, according to the country’s newest value-added tax law. Products such as condoms will be subject to the usual 13% value-added tax imposed on most products. While state-run news outlets have not widely highlighted the change, it has been trending on Chinese social media, drawing ridicule among people who joked they’d have to be fools not to know that raising a child is more expensive than using condoms, even if they are taxed.

HERAT, Afghanistan (AP) – In a tiny room in the center of Herat, Afghanistan’s westernmost city, Shahabuddin uses his hands to propel himself along the floor to a freshly-made pile of socks waiting to be sorted and packaged. A double amputee since a roadside bomb took both his legs a decade ago, when Afghanistan was mired in conflict between U.S.-led forces and Taliban insurgents, the 36-year-old father of four had struggled to find work. Unemployed for the last decade, he had been forced to rely on relatives for his family’s survival. But a new sock production workshop in Herat employing only disabled workers has given him new hope.

SURIN, Thailand (AP) – Cambodia said Thailand launched more airstrikes Thursday, as heavy fighting flared along the two countries’ border and both sides accused the other of violating their sovereignty along the contested border region. The latest large-scale fighting was set off by a skirmish Sunday that wounded two Thai soldiers and derailed a ceasefire pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump that ended five days of combat in July over longstanding territorial disputes. About two dozen people were reported killed in the fighting this week, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border. The Cambodian Defense Ministry said in a statement Thursday that a Thai military fighting jet dropped three bombs in the border area.