Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Morning Edition

BEIJING (AP) - From ancient times until today, an enormous population has been a foundational way for China to project its strength. But anxiety about managing so many mouths has always loomed. "China has a population of 600 million people, and we must never forget this fact," Mao Zedong said in 1957, shortly before setting off a calamitous famine. China's masses, though, are getting to be less massive. And that's a problem. Birth rate numbers released Monday, the lowest since Mao's Communists established the People's Republic in 1949, are the latest development in a millennia-long struggle in China, where producing children and refreshing the population of the young have been central to the national conversation since the country's earliest days.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has dismissed a vice premier over troubles in a factory modernization project, an apparent move to tighten discipline among officials and push them to deliver greater results ahead of a major political conference. The upcoming ruling Workers' Party congress, the first of its kind in five years, is one of North Korea's biggest propaganda spectacles and is intended to review past projects, establish new political and economic priorities and reshuffle officials. The Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday that Kim blamed Yang Sung Ho, a vice premier in charge of the machine-building industry, for causing "unnecessary man-made confusion" in works to modernize the Ryongsong Machine Complex in the northeast.

BEIJING (AP) - China's one-child policy, one of the harshest attempts at population control the world has seen, forced abortions on women, made sterilization widespread and led to baby daughters being sold or even killed, because parents wanted their only child to be a male. Now, experts say, the question is whether it was all necessary. China's birth rate fell to record lows last year and its population has fallen for four years in a row, official statistics showed this week. Authorities, alarmed by the prospect of a shrinking workforce and an aging population, scrapped the policy in 2015. "It's hard to escape the fact that China demographically shot itself in the foot," said Mei Fong, the author of the 2016 book, "One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment." China's leaders saw unbridled population growth as a potential threat in 1980 - to both economic development and its ability to feed what had grown into a nation of 1 billion people.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Australia's Parliament on Tuesday passed anti-hate speech and gun laws proposed after two shooters killed 15 people at a Jewish festival in Sydney last month in an attack that authorities say was inspired by the Islamic State group. The gun laws create new restrictions on gun ownership and create a government-funded buyback program to compensate people forced to hand in their firearms. Anti-hate speech laws enable groups that don't fit Australia's definition of a terrorist organization, such as the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, to be outlawed. Hizb ut-Tahrir is already outlawed by some countries. The government had initially planned a single bill, but separated the issues into two bills introduced to the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a bombing at a Chinese restaurant in Afghanistan's capital that killed at least seven people, including a Chinese national, and wounded more than a dozen others. The group said in a statement posted on its Aamaq news agency late Monday that a suicide bomber entered the restaurant frequented by Chinese nationals in Kabul and detonated an explosive vest. China has advised its citizens not to travel to Afghanistan in the near term after the bombing, and asked Chinese people and companies already in the country to strengthen security measures and evacuate from high-risk areas.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - The Association of Southeast Asian Nations will not endorse elections in military-ruled Myanmar, Malaysia's foreign minister said Tuesday, citing concerns over the lack of inclusive and free participation. Myanmar's military-backed political party appeared headed for a parliamentary majority after the second round of voting earlier this month in the country's first general election since the army ousted a civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. The takeover triggered widespread opposition that has grown into a civil war. Human rights and opposition groups say the polls were neither free nor fair and are an effort by the military to legitimize its rule.

LONDON (AP) - Britain's government on Tuesday approved a huge new Chinese Embassy in central London, despite strong criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum that it could become a base for espionage and intimidation of opponents. Local Government Secretary Steve Reed formally signed off on plans for the building near the Tower of London, after years of delays and legal challenges. Critics have long expressed concerns that the supersized embassy, set to be the biggest Chinese Embassy in Europe, will heighten risks of Chinese intelligence-gathering as well as amplify the threat of surveillance and intimidation of Chinese dissidents in exile.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - The bodies of five more people were recovered on Tuesday from the scene of last weekend's massive fire at a shopping plaza in Pakistan's largest city, bringing the confirmed death toll to 28, officials said. The search for dozens of people reported missing is continuing as rescuers reached some of the most badly damaged sections in Karachi's multistory Gul Plaza that have either collapsed or been severely weakened since Saturday's blaze. The cause of the fire, which raged for more than 24 hours before firefighters brought it under control, is still unclear, according to officials. Mobile phone data showed at least 31 of the people reported missing were inside the plaza on the night of the fire, senior police official Asad Raza said.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - The death toll from a massive fire at a shopping plaza in Karachi rose to 23 on Monday as rescuers recovered more bodies from the badly damaged building, police said. Dozens remain missing. Firefighters extinguished the blaze at the multistory plaza late Sunday, nearly 24 hours after it erupted, allowing rescue teams to enter the building. Authorities fear the death toll will rise as they look for 46 more people, according to city police chief Asad Raza. Raza told The Associated Press on Monday that only six bodies have been identified so far. The rest will need DNA testing as the "bodies were beyond recognition," police surgeon, Dr.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - A surfer had minor injuries from being bitten by a shark Tuesday in the fourth attack off the coast of Australia's most populous state in three days. The shark attacked the man's surfboard at Point Plomer, 460 kilometers (290 miles) north of the New South Wales state capital, around 9 a.m., officials said. The man was lucky to survive with minor cuts, Kempsey-Crescent Head Surf Life Saving Club captain Matt Worrall said. "The board seemed to take most of the impact," Worrall told Australian Broadcasting Corp. "He made his own way into shore where he was assisted by locals." The bystanders drove the 39-year-old man to a hospital and he was later discharged.