Top Asian News Stories

SURIN, Thailand (AP) – Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating Wednesday, with hundreds of thousands of displaced people in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Associated Press reporters on the Thai side of the border heard outgoing fire. The fighting triggered by longstanding territorial disputes followed 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. Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has vowed to continue to fight, and Cambodia’s powerful Senate President Hun Sen promised a fierce response.

SURIN, Thailand (AP) – Amnat Meephew had just enough time to pack up his clothes and flee his home in Thailand a couple of kilometers (miles) from the border with Cambodia, the second time in four months hundreds of thousands of people like him had to escape renewed fighting between the Southeast Asian neighbors. “Sometimes when I think about it, I tear up. Why are Thais and Cambodians, who are like siblings, fighting?” the 73-year-old said. “Speaking about it makes me want to cry.” The latest round of clashes along the disputed border erupted on Monday, derailing a ceasefire pushed by U.S.

BANGKOK (AP) – Opponents of military rule in Myanmar staged a joint protest on Wednesday calling on people to stay indoors to show they are boycotting elections scheduled for late this month. They defied harsh legal penalties for attempting to disrupt the polls. The military government has announced charges against 10 pro-democracy activists who staged a rare street protest last week in Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city. Critics say the Dec. 28 polls will be neither free nor fair and are an effort by the military to legitimize its rule after seizing power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed a world-first social media ban for children younger than 16 that took effect Wednesday as families taking back power from tech giants but warned the implementation would be difficult. Many children posted farewell messages, while parents reported distraught children discovering they’d been shut out of platforms as the landmark law took effect. Some young children reported fooling the platforms’ age estimation technology by drawing on facial hair. Parents and older siblings are also expected to help some children circumvent the restrictions. “This is the day when Australian families are taking back power from these big tech companies and they’re asserting the right of kids to be kids and for parents to have greater peace of mind,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

WASHINGTON (AP) – At least two of several agreements aimed at ending global conflicts that President Donald Trump has hailed as evidence of his negotiating prowess are in trouble and at risk of collapsing. Less than a week after Congo and Rwanda signed a deal in Trump’s presence in Washington that was meant to halt fighting in eastern Congo, and less than two months after he witnessed Cambodia and Thailand sign a ceasefire pact in Malaysia to end their border conflict, fighting has surged in both places. The developments have caused international alarm, which on Tuesday resulted in urgent calls to halt the renewed violence from countries involved in the African Great Lakes region and from U.S.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) – Former Nepali ministers, officials and a Chinese company were charged with corruption over financial irregularities during the construction of an international airport. The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority filed on Sunday cases against 55 people and the China CAMC Engineering Company Limited, one of the biggest such cases in the Himalayan nation, accusing them of inflating construction expenses by more than $74 million. It remains unclear when the hearing will begin. Two officials of the Chinese company have been named in the charges filed at the Special Court in Kathmandu, which handles corruption cases related to government dealings.

Most of Bhavani Thekkada’s competitors grew up on skis. She grew up on a coffee farm – in southern India. So as a cross-country skier, she’s a little behind. Thekkada has been hitting European tracks in recent weeks trying to keep her Olympic dream alive. She’s a longshot to qualify for the Milan Cortina Winter Games, but she’s reaching some other goals along the way. “I will be really grateful and happy if even one person out there in India is inspired by my journey and wants to do skiing, which already people are – I’ve been getting a lot of messages,” the 30-year-old Thekkada told The Associated Press in an interview.

TOKYO (AP) – Japan issued a megaquake advisory Tuesday after a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Japan’s main island of Honshu, and just south of the northern island of Hokkaido. Damage from this quake was modest – 34 mostly mild injuries and some damage to roads and buildings. Officials said the advisory is not a prediction and the probability of a magnitude 8 or larger quake is only about 1%. But there’s hope the advisory will serve as a wake-up call for a quake that could have the devastation of the 2011 disaster that killed nearly 20,000 people and destroyed a nuclear plant.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – Southeast Asia is a bright spot for the embattled offshore wind industry as it reels from U.S. President Donald Trump’s push against renewable energy. The White House’s policy pivot has thrown billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. offshore wind projectsinto turmoil. Industry interest and investment are looking elsewhere, and developing regions with ample wind resources, like Southeast Asia, have the most to gain from this likely reshuffling, analysts say. Wind energy is essential to efforts to curb climate change, scientists say, as global temperatures drift perilously higher. Offshore wind, which uses turbines installed in the sea, is set to grow rapidly because it can harness stronger, steadier ocean winds to generate clean electricity, the International Energy Agency says.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea will require advertisers to label their ads made with artificial intelligence technologies from next year as it seeks to curb a surge of deceptive promotions featuring fabricated experts or deep-faked celebrities endorsing food or pharmaceutical products on social media. Following a policy meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok on Wednesday, officials said they will ramp up screening and removal of problematic AI-generated ads and impose punitive fines, citing growing risks to consumers – especially older people who struggle to tell whether content is AI-made. Lee Dong-hoon, director of economic and financial policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said in a briefing that such ads are “disrupting the market order,” and that “swift action is now essential.” “Anyone who creates, edits, and posts AI-generated photos or videos will be required to label them as AI-made, and the users of the platform will be prohibited from removing or tampering with those labels,” he said.