Today’s Top Asian News Stories

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – A court in Bangladesh’s capital sentenced ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to five years in prison and her niece, British Labour Party lawmaker Tulip Siddiq, to two years in prison on Monday for corruption involving a government land project. Rabiul Alam, the judge of Dhaka’s Special Judge’s Court, said Hasina misused her power as prime minister while Siddiq was guilty of corruptly influencing her aunt in helping her mother and two siblings get a land plot in a government project. Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, was given seven years in prison and was considered the prime participant in the case.

TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s beloved Princess Aiko is often cheered like a pop star. During a visit to Nagasaki with Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, the sound of her name being screamed by well-wishers along the roads overwhelmed the cheers for her parents. As she turns 24 on Monday, her supporters want to change Japan’s male-only succession law, which prohibits Aiko, the emperor’s only child, from becoming monarch. Along with frustration that the discussion on succession rules has stalled, there’s a sense of urgency. Japan’s shrinking monarchy is on the brink of extinction. Naruhito’s teenage nephew is the only eligible heir from the younger generation.

HONG KONG (AP) – Hong Kong officials said Monday that their investigation into a deadly blaze that killed at least 151 has revealed some of the netting that covered scaffolding used in renovations was not up to fire-safety codes, as a wave of public sympathy and support was met by government moves to stifle criticism. Wednesday’s blaze, which took until Friday to fully extinguish, started on the lower-level netting covering bamboo scaffolding around one building in the high-rise Wang Fuk Court complex. It then swept inside as foam panels placed over windows caught fire and blew out the glass. Winds carried flames from building to building that all were covered in scaffolding and netting, until seven of eight were ablaze.

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) – Over 800 people remained missing Monday after devastating floods killed over 1,000 people last week in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as Indonesia’s president urged more action to confront the changing climate. The flooding and landslides killed at least 604 people in Indonesia, 366 in Sri Lanka and 176 in Thailand, authorities said. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto pledged to rebuild infrastructure while visiting affected areas. Some areas remained unreachable, with roads damaged and communications lines down. Residents relied on aircraft delivering supplies. At least 464 people in Indonesia were missing. Flooding displaced 290,700 people in North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh provinces, the National Disaster Management Agency said.

A top transatlantic security and rights watchdog warned Monday that fundamental freedoms in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan were being “increasingly restricted” as part of its report on the country’s early parliamentary election. The run-up to the election on Sunday was marred by a wave of arrests, searches, and interrogations targeting opposition figures and journalists. Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that the vote was efficiently run, but “while fundamental freedoms are protected by the constitution, they are increasingly limited in practice.” “The campaign was generally low-key and generated limited voter engagement, linked to fears of retribution for political activity,” the OSCE said in a statement.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand scaled up their responses to devastating floods that have left more than 1,000 dead in the three countries. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

BANGKOK (AP) – Thai authorities extradited a Vietnamese activist who had been detained in Bangkok since last year despite concerns from rights groups that he could be in danger if sent back to Vietnam. Y Quynh Bdap, who helped found a group that advocated for the rights of Vietnamese ethnic minorities, was handed over to Vietnamese authorities on Friday and his whereabouts are now unknown, his lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman told The Associated Press on Monday. “He disappeared from the custody of Thai authorities on Friday, and as of now, we still don’t know his whereabouts,” Nadthasiri said. “This is clearly a violation of Thailand’s anti-torture and enforced disappearance laws.” The Royal Thai Police did not immediately respond to inquiries regarding Bdap’s extradition.

HONG KONG (AP) – The death toll in Hong Kong’s apartment complex blaze rose to 146 on Sunday as investigators discovered more bodies in the burned-out buildings. A steady stream of people placed bouquets of flowers at an ever-growing makeshift memorial at the scene of the disaster, among the worst in the city’s history. The Hong Kong police Disaster Victim Identification Unit has been going through the buildings of the Wang Fuk Court complex meticulously and has found bodies both in apartment units and on the roofs, said the officer in charge, Cheng Ka-chun. The buildings remain structurally sound, but the search has been slow, he told reporters, still wearing his white coveralls with his hard hat and respiratory mask at his side.

ISLAMABAD (AP) – A suicide bomb attack near a police vehicle in restive northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan killed at least one officer on Monday and wounded several others, officials said. The attack happened in Lakki Marwat, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police official Ashfaq Khan said, without providing further details. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement condemned the attack. Separately, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a military facility overnight in Nokandi, a district in the insurgency-hit southwestern Balochistan province, according to local media reports. The Balochistan Liberation Front, a separatist group, claimed responsibility in a statement, saying its fighters targeted an office of the Frontier Corps and that an exchange of fire with troops was ongoing.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Thousands of demonstrators including from the Roman Catholic church clergy protested in the Philippines on Sunday, calling for the swift prosecution of top legislators and officials implicated in a corruption scandal that has buffeted the Asian democracy. Left-wing groups led a separate protest in Manila’s main park with a blunt demand for all implicated government officials to immediately resign and face prosecution. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been scrambling to quell public outrage over the massive corruption blamed for substandard, defective or non-existent flood control projects across an archipelago long prone to deadly flooding and extreme weather in tropical Asia.