Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

BANGKOK (AP) - A schoolgirl died from critical wounds on Saturday after a student opened fire at a high school and his home outside Bangkok the day before, bringing the death toll from the attack to at least eight people. The 14-year-old opened fire at around 10 a.m. Friday at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi province northwest of the Thai capital before apparently taking his own life. He also appeared to have killed his two grandparents at his family home earlier in the morning, officials said. The girl, 12, died after hospitalization, the Health Ministry said. The school had posted a message on Facebook Friday seeking blood donations for two students, including the girl, who was in seventh grade.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is not aimed against Iran or any other country, Turkey's foreign minister said Saturday, describing the pact as an important step toward regional stability. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the agreement in the Saudi holy city of Mecca on Friday. It states that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all three. The "Mecca Joint Defense Agreement" brings together oil-rich Saudi Arabia and nuclear power Pakistan as well as Turkey, which has NATO's second-largest army and a rapidly growing defense industry.

Police were responding to a shooting Friday at a high school in Thailand where deaths and injuries were reported. ____ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

BANGKOK (AP) - At least seven people were shot dead on Friday by a 14-year-old student in Nonthaburi province, a northern suburb of the Thai capital Bangkok. The boy killed five members of the staff at the Debsirin Nonthaburi School and the two grandparents with whom he lived, the authorities said. Thailand has among the highest rates of gun ownership in Asia, though shootings involving indiscriminate killings are not common. Its deadliest recent mass killing of civilians took place in a village in the country's northeast in 2022, when a police sergeant who had lost his job used guns and knives to kill 37 people, including two dozen toddlers at a daycare center.

BEIJING (AP) - Authorities in eastern China shut schools and tourist sites as Typhoon Dolphin made its way toward land on Saturday. The storm's maximum sustained winds were estimated at about 162 kilometers per hour (101 mph). It will bring heavy rains, creating a risk of severe flooding as well as landslides and is expected to hit Zhejiang province and northern parts of neighboring Fujian province late Sunday. Shanghai is also in the path of the storm. Forecasters predicted that areas could see 200-400 mm (7.9-15.7 inches) of rainfall over the next few days. National authorities declared a level III emergency response, the second lowest level.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a defense agreement on Friday that would treat an attack on one as an attack on all three, officials said, solidifying cooperation between the three regional powers at a time of growing security concerns. The agreement was signed in the Saudi holy city of Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, according to statements from all three countries. The so-called "Mecca Joint Defense Agreement" between the three Sunni Muslim-majority states brings together oil-rich Saudi Arabia and nuclear power Pakistan as well as Turkey, which has NATO's second-largest army and a rapidly growing defense industry.

KOCHI, India (AP) - As the sun set over Kochi's historic Jew Town neighborhood, Keith Hallegua donned a gray kippah and began a solitary walk to the synagogue at the end of his cobbled street. It was Shavuot, the Jewish holiday commemorating God giving the Torah to Moses. Hallegua reached the 458-year-old Paradesi Synagogue where he knew he would pray alone - without a minyan, the quorum of 10 males required for a communal service there. Hallegua is the synagogue's last local congregant - the only Jew left in Jew Town. Across the city at the centuries-old Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Elias "Babu" Josephai remembered the "chukkunda" - fried dough balls his grandmother used to make for Shavuot.

KOCHI, India (AP) - The last Jews try to save their community's history in the Indian city of Kochi. ____ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

ADDU CITY, Maldives (AP) - A group of young people in the Maldives recently paddled kayaks to protest land reclamation work that was cutting through protected mangrove wetlands in a UNESCO biosphere reserve, even spray-painting "ECOCIDE" on a reclaimed patch. The nonprofit Project ThimaaVeshi, which means "self and surroundings," is part of a new generation of activists in the Indian Ocean island nation tackling issues that are part of their daily lives: coastal erosion, plastic pollution and development-damaged ecosystems. In Addu City in the south, the activists have focused on overdevelopment, documenting the impact on wetlands and reefs. In the capital, Male, others are tackling the plastic waste suffocating streets, hangout spots and swimming areas.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - An Australian air crew flew an American from an Antarctic base to a New Zealand hospital in a rare midwinter rescue. The Airbus A319 Long Range aircraft, with the call sign Snowbird 1, flew from the Australian city of Hobart to the U.S. McMurdo Station in Antarctica on July 31 in response to an "urgent request for assistance," the jet's Melbourne-based owner Skytraders said in a statement Thursday. The jet landed after a five hour and 30 minute flight at the Phoenix Airfield near McMurdo in darkness and with temperatures as low as minus 43 C (minus 45.4 F), the statement said.