Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Morning Edition

BEIJING (AP) - China said it hopes this year will be a "landmark year" for its relationship with its biggest competitor, the U.S., striking a largely positive tone ahead of an expected summit between the leaders of the two countries later this month. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking Sunday at a press briefing on the sidelines of an annual meeting of China's ceremonial legislature, said that it was a "big year" for the relationship between the two world powers. He said that while there are many differences, "the two heads of state have personally maintained good exchanges at the highest level," providing a level of "strategic guarantee" for the bilateral relationship.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) - A Nepali political party led by an ex-rapper is set for a landslide victory in the country's first parliamentary election since Gen Z protests ousted the old leadership that has ruled the Himalayan nation for decades. The Rastriya Swatantra, or National Independent Party, formed only four years ago, had already won 117 of 165 directly elected seats and led in eight other constituencies in the results published Sunday morning by Nepal's Election Commission. Other political parties and independent candidates had won 36 seats in total so far. Officials were still counting the votes Sunday and final results were expected later in the week.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Twelve years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished with 239 people aboard, a renewed deep-sea search in the southern Indian Ocean has so far failed to locate the missing aircraft, Malaysian authorities said Sunday, as families pressed for the effort to continue. The Air Accident Investigation Bureau said in a statement that a seabed search conducted by marine robotics company Ocean Infinity between March 2025 and January 2026 surveyed thousands of square kilometers of ocean floor but has not produced any confirmed findings of the aircraft wreckage. Malaysia gave the nod to the Texas-based company last year to renew the search for Flight 370 under a "no-find, no-fee" contract at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the southern Indian Ocean where it was believed to have crashed.

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) - India won the T20 World Cup for a record third time with a 96-run victory over New Zealand on Sunday to the delight of more than 100,000 fans at the largest cricket ground in the world. India scored an imposing 255-5 in the final after losing the toss and batting first at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium. Opener Sanju Samson hit a brilliant 46-ball 89 with eight sixes, in his third straight 50. New Zealand never posed a threat in its chase and was all out for 159 in 19 overs. Jasprit Bumrah took 4-15 in four overs and Axar Patel picked up 3-27 in three overs.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Sri Lanka transferred more than 200 sailors from an Iranian naval vessel to shore Friday after it sought assistance while anchored outside the country's waters, as tensions mounted in the Indian Ocean following the sinking of an Iranian warship by a U.S. submarine. Sri Lankan navy spokesperson Cmdr. Buddhika Sampath said 204 sailors of the IRIS Bushehr were brought to Welisara Naval Base near the capital, Colombo. They underwent border control procedures and medical tests, but none were found to have health issues. About 15 others have been left aboard the ship with Sri Lankan naval personnel for assistance because they had reported a fault with the ship.

BEIJING (AP) - China's President Xi Jinping on Saturday said political loyalty in the military must be ensured and called for resolutely pushing forward the fight against corruption as a military purge widened. "There must be no one in the military who harbors disloyalty to the (ruling Communist) Party," Xi said in remarks published by the official Xinhua News Agency. Xi was speaking at a plenary meeting of the delegation of China's People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police Force as China holds its annual "two sessions" meetings of its top legislature and its top political advisory body. An anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi shows no sign of letting up after more than a decade.

HONG KONG (AP) - A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking $2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its "illegal" takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Company, a unit of Hong Kong's CK Hutchison Holdings, said in a Friday statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. Panama's government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, a crucial waterway for maritime trade, after the country's Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing the Panama Ports Company to run the pair of ports was unconstitutional.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - A roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle killed four people, including two officers, and wounded about two dozen others in restive northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, police said. The blast occurred in Wana, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police official Asghar Shah said. The dead included two police officers and two passersby, he said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The group is separate from but allied with Afghanistan's Taliban government and has intensified its campaign against Pakistani security forces in recent years.

TOKYO (AP) - A second Japanese national has been detained in Iran, Japan's Foreign Ministry said Friday and demanded the early release of both people. The ministry confirmed the second person had been detained before the Feb. 28 military strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel. The ministry said the detainee is safe and in good health but gave no other details such as the timing of the detention or whether it is related to the detention of a Japanese journalist reported last month. Japanese officials had confirmed the first person's detention though they refused to give the detainee's identity.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistani and Afghan forces launched multiple strikes at each other in cross-border clashes on Friday, and each side claimed to have killed dozens more enemy troops in what has been the deadliest fighting yet between the two neighbors - a conflict that Islamabad has declared to be an "open war." Repeated appeals from the international community for restraint have had no effect as the fighting, now in its ninth day, continued unabated. Also on Friday, a suicide car bomber struck a security post in the district of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. One civilian was killed and 18 were wounded, several of them seriously, a local doctor, Mohammad Asif, said.