Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

KUMAMOTO, Japan (AP) - Soldiers and emergency workers combed through a badly damaged shopping mall and collapsed houses looking for trapped survivors Wednesday after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 18 people, including a foreigner, in southwestern Japan. The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit a day earlier in the Kumamoto area on the southern main island of Kyushu also left at least 62 people injured, six of them seriously, the prefectural government said. The tally has been steadily growing, fanning fears it may continue to rise. Some of the most serious damage was at the Aeon Mall shopping center in the town of Kashima, which was bustling with thousands of people when the quake happened.

KUMAMOTO, Japan (AP) - A powerful earthquake struck the Kumamoto area on Japan's southern main island of Kyushu on Tuesday. A shopping mall, a factory and multiple homes were heavily damaged, and Self Defense Forces personnel joined rescue workers to look for survivors. ____ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

BANGKOK (AP) - Courts in Myanmar have sentenced nine activists to up to 37 years in prison for involvement in a protest calling for a boycott of the elections last December, an activist group said Wednesday. May Hnin, a spokesperson for the Anti-Junta Forces Coordination Committee-Mandalay, said eight members including prominent activist Htet Myat Aung were sentenced to 37 years on Tuesday by two courts in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, after being convicted under the electoral law and counterterrorism Law. A ninth activist was sentenced to 27 years after being convicted under the counterterrorism law, she said. Htet Myat Aung and the others were arrested days after staging a flash protest in downtown Mandalay on Dec.

NEW DELHI (AP) - In an affluent neighborhood in Delhi, electric vehicle charging stations near a popular shopping area were busy with drivers powering up their scooters, trucks and cars. India's capital city is in dire need of more charging facilities, EV drivers say, to implement an ambitious plan to phase out gas vehicles in one of the world's most polluted cities. "Charging facilities are not up to the mark yet," said Shyam Singh, a marketing executive who owns a two-wheel electric scooter, adding that it is hard for long-distance drivers to switch to EVs because the current battery range is not enough.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A man's body has been recovered from the site of a landslide at a gold mine in Solomon Islands, officials said. The body was found Tuesday, a day after the landslide at the open pit mine on Guadalcanal, the largest island of the South Pacific nation. It wasn't known if other people were still buried and a search operation would continue at the site, police said in a statement. The slip spanned 100 meters (328 feet) on an access road leading to the pit, the statement said. The cause of the landslide wasn't known, Prime Minister Matthew Wale told reporters on Monday.

HONG KONG (AP) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is banning imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters, citing national security risks, in a move that targets China. Beijing quickly accused the U.S. of protectionism. The measures are likely to test relations with Beijing ahead of a planned U.S. visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in September. China dominates the global market for humanoid robots with an estimated market share of roughly 85%. The FCC's ban also includes new imports of quadruped robots, often referred to as four-legged robot dogs. The agency said imports of advanced robots pose cybersecurity and other national security risks.

LHASA, Tibet (AP) - This year marks the 75th anniversary of what China calls the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet in 1951, which critics describe as an invasion that has widely curtailed the rights and culture of Tibetans. Foreigners face tight restrictions on traveling to Tibet, a remote, high-altitude region also known for its Buddhist faith and snow-capped mountains. The Associated Press last week joined a government-organized trip to the autonomous region, where journalists visited palaces, temples, tourist sites, an eldercare center and local businesses. Government officials accompanied AP journalists during the media trip to sites that authorities selected in advance. AP journalists were not free to move around or conduct reporting independently.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnam's biggest conglomerate, Vingroup, is moving into global markets as business at home slows, planning nearly two dozen projects in at least 15 countries, from a "Vietnam Town" in Uzbekistan to smart cities in India and a riverfront development in Congo. Profits from Vingroup's flagship real estate business have long funded its investments in diverse industries including automaking and technology. But Vietnam's once sizzling property market is cooling, while its electric vehicle company VinFast is losing money. As opportunities for large developments at home become harder to find, Vingroup, Vietnam's largest privately owned company, is looking overseas to generate the money needed to fund its ambitions in EVs, artificial intelligence and robotics, industries central to Vietnam's goal of becoming Asia's next tiger economy.

TOKYO (AP) - Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Japanese director known as "the master of horror," was a bit nervous about how viewers might react to his first samurai film. He needn't have worried. "The Samurai and the Prisoner," opening in New York and Los Angeles on July 31, followed by a rollout in major U.S. cities through August, received an enthusiastic response when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It's turning out to be Kurosawa's most popular film to date, if its reception in Japan, where it opened earlier this year, is any indication. That's saying a lot for a director who counts to his credit dozens of respected works, including the 2020 Venice Film Festival 's Silver Lion-winning "Wife of a Spy." His 2008 "Tokyo Sonata," about heartbreaking family conflict, won Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Officials in Pakistan administered Kashmir on Tuesday accused an outlawed political group of attempting to sabotage elections for the region's constitutional assembly, while also alleging that militants from the Pakistani Taliban infiltrated weekslong protests. The accusations came a day after clashes with security forces killed one paramilitary officer and wounded several others. The violence erupted when armed, masked protesters at a sit-in opened fire on police and security personnel deployed to secure polling, the regional government and police said. There were unconfirmed reports that several protesters were killed or wounded, but officials did not immediately confirm any civilian casualties.