Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

BANGKOK (AP) - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Thailand's Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Friday during a visit aimed at strengthening the countries' strategic partnership and expanding cooperation. The two agreed to strengthen collaboration in fighting transnational crime and cyberscams and other areas, Thai government spokesperson Rachada Dhnadirek said. She said Anutin thanked China for its continued support for Thailand, while Wang congratulated Anutin on retaining his office after an election and expressed confidence that Thailand-China relations will continue to improve. Anutin greeted Wang at Government House in Bangkok. They shook hands while posing for photographs before the meeting. Wang also talked earlier with his Thai counterpart Sihasak Phuangketkeow, officials said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korean prosecutors Friday requested a 30-year prison term for ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol over allegations that he deliberately tried to escalate tensions with North Korea in 2024 by ordering drone flights over Pyongyang as he sought to create justifiable conditions for martial law at home. Yoon is charged with benefiting an adversary and abusing his powers, which are among a long list of indictments against the conservative former leader over his short-lived imposition of martial law in South Korea in December 2024. The request came in the closing stages of a trial at the Seoul Central District Court, where a team of investigators led by special prosecutor Cho Eun-suk said that Yoon and his top defense officials were responsible for alleged drone infiltrations into North Korea, about two months before he imposed martial law, while portraying the liberals as North Korea-sympathizing, "anti-state" forces.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korean prosecutors on Friday rejected a police request for an arrest warrant for music tycoon Bang Si-Hyuk, chairman of the agency behind K-pop supergroup BTS, questioning whether detention is necessary as he faces a high-profile investigation into alleged investor fraud. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency asked prosecutors earlier this week to request a court warrant to arrest Bang, the billionaire founder and chairman of Hybe. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office said that it found that the request lacked sufficient grounds to justify his detention and instructed police investigators to strengthen their case. Bang, who has been barred from leaving the country since August, isn't seen as a realistic threat to flee.

BEIJING (AP) - Atlanta will have giant pandas again. China on Friday announced it will send two giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta in the U.S. in Beijing's latest efforts of panda diplomacy despite tensions with Washington, less than a month before a much-anticipated visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing. The China Wildlife Conservation Association said in a statement that male panda Ping Ping and female panda Fu Shuang, from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, will kick off a decade-long conservation partnership under an agreement it signed with the zoo last year. The association did not specify the pandas' departure date but said the U.S.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) - A massive ice block on the route just above the Mount Everest base camp has forced hundreds of climbers and their local guides to delay their attempt to scale the world's highest peak, officials said Friday. The serac between base camp and Camp One is unstable and is risky for climbers, said Himal Gautam of Nepal's Department of Mountaineering. Officials are working with climbers and expedition organizers to assess the situation as hundreds of climbers and their guides wait at base camp unable to move up the mountain. According to the department, 410 foreign climbers have been issued permits to attempt to reach the Everest summit during the spring climbing season, which ends at the end of May.

ROJ CAMP, Syria (AP) - Four Australian families on Friday left a camp in Syria that houses people with alleged ties to militants of the Islamic State group, in a renewed attempt to return to their home country, officials said. Associated Press journalists saw 13 women and children depart Roj camp, a remote facility near the border with Iraq that houses family members of suspected IS militants, in a bus escorted by a delegation of Syrian government officials. Lana Hussein, an official with the Women's Protection Units of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which manages security at the camp, said the departure of the families was organized in coordination with the central government in Damascus.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - A law requiring Cambodian males aged 18 to 25 to serve in the military for two years has gained Cabinet approval following two spates of deadly combat last year with neighboring Thailand. The new draft law on conscription will replace an existing law dating from 2006 that was never implemented and no longer addresses current and future needs, a government spokesperson said Friday. The existing law specified 30 as the maximum call-up age. Women will be allowed to serve on a voluntary basis. Spokesperson Pen Bona said the draft law, with eight chapters and 20 articles, was adopted by the Cabinet at its meeting on Thursday.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Cheers broke out in Indonesia's capital on Friday as residents, city workers and environmental volunteers hauled bulging nets of invasive fish to the surface of a reservoir in an operation to crack down on "janitor fish." Authorities are seeking to remove at least 10 tons (9 metric tons) of the fish from Jakarta's waterways, an effort officials hope will restore balance to the Ciliwung River and renew public attention on water quality. From the polluted river to the concrete embankments and skyscraper-lined canals of the city's heart, the dark shapes of the fish cling tightly to the river walls.

TOKYO (AP) - A new book by Haruki Murakami will mark the first time a full-length novel by the Japanese author features a female main character and her pursuit of finding a way out of a bizarre world. "The Tale of KAHO," which is scheduled to be released July 3 in print and digital formats, centers on a 26-year-old picture book author named Kaho. The new novel is Murakami's first in three years. His previous novel, "The City and Its Uncertain Walls," is a story of a male protagonist searching for love, loss and the boundaries between real and subconscious worlds.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration is vowing to crack down on foreign tech companies' exploitation of U.S. artificial intelligence models, singling out China at a time that country is narrowing the gap with the U.S. in the AI race. In a Thursday memo, Michael Kratsios, the president's chief science and technology adviser, accused foreign entities "principally based in China" of engaging in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to "distill," or extract capabilities from, leading AI systems made in the U.S. and "exploiting American expertise and innovation." The administration, Kratsios wrote, will work with American AI companies to identify such activities, build defenses and find ways to punish offenders.