Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Morning Edition

BEIJING (AP) - The Chinese military's top general is being investigated for suspected serious violations of discipline and law the Defense Ministry said Saturday, Zhang Youxia, the senior of the two vice chairs of the powerful Central Military Commission, is the latest figure to fall in a long-running purge of military officials. Analysts believe the purges are designed both to reform the military and to ensure loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who also chairs the military commission. They are part of a broader anti-corruption drive that has punished more than 200,000 officials since Xi came to power in 2012. Another member of the commission, Liu Zhenli, has also been placed under investigation by China's ruling Communist Party, a Defense Ministry statement said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A predawn landslide triggered by torrential rains on Indonesia's main island of Java killed at least eight people on Saturday and left 82 missing as rescuers struggled through deep mud, searching for survivors. Days of torrential rains had caused rivers to burst their banks, tearing through Pasir Langu village in West Bandung district of West Java province. Mud, rocks and trees tumbled down mountainside hamlets, burying some 34 houses. Rescuers were searching for the 82 residents feared buried under heaps of mud and debris, while 24 people managed to escape the disaster, said spokesperson Abdul Muhari of the National Disaster Management Agency.

REAM NAVAL BASE, Cambodia (AP) - The USS Cincinnati arrived at Cambodia's Ream Naval Base on Saturday, marking the first time a U.S. Navy warship has docked at the facility since its Chinese-funded renovation was completed early last year. The completion of a new pier and dry dock at Ream has fueled concerns in Washington that China - Cambodia's close ally and main provider of aid and investment - may have been granted exclusive access to the base. Controversy has persisted since 2019 over reports of a potential 30-year agreement for Chinese military use of the site on the Gulf of Thailand.

BANGKOK (AP) - A military airstrike this week on a village in Myanmar sheltering displaced people from the northern township of Bhamo, where a final round of the country's three-phase election is to be held this weekend, killed 21 people, an ethnic rebel group and local media said Friday. The strike on Hteelin village, west of Bhamo in the state of Kachin, took place on Thursday afternoon, also left 28 people wounded, according to Col. Naw Bu, the spokesperson of the ethnic Kachin Independence Army or KIA. Naw Bu said a jet fighter bombed a compound where mourners had gathered for prayers for the deceased, a camp for displaced persons, as well as a school and a village market.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - A Pakistani court on Saturday sentenced two human rights lawyers to 17 years in prison each over social media posts the authorities claimed were hostile to the state and its security institutions. Judge Afzal Majoka announced the verdict a day after Zainab Mazari and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha were arrested in Islamabad, according to court documents. The couple appeared briefly via video link but boycotted the hearing, prompting the court to conclude the trial and deliver the verdict. Family and friends denounced the ruling. The couple denied all the changes. The court verdict said Mazari had posted multiple tweets in recent years that "portrayed the agenda" of the outlawed Baloch separatist group and Pakistani Taliban.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - An avalanche killed nine members of a single family in northwestern Pakistan on Friday while a heavy snowstorm the day before in neighboring Afghanistan left 11 people dead, officials said. Winter storms also stranded thousands of tourists and blocked roads near Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. In Pakistan, workers for the country's emergency services struggled for hours before they pulled all nine bodies, including four women, from under the snow in the district of Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, according to Bilal Faizi, a spokesperson. Separately, the season's first heavy snowfall blocked multiple roads leading to Murree, a hill station about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Islamabad.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) - A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest among guests at a wedding ceremony in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least seven people and wounding 25, police said. The attack took place at the home of Noor Alam Mehsud, a pro-government community leader in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said local police chief Adnan Khan. He said officers transported the victims to a hospital, where some of the wounded were listed in critical condition. The ceremony was underway, with guests dancing to the beat of drums, when the bomber struck. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

TOKYO (AP) - Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved the lower house of parliament on Friday, paving the way for an early election on Feb. 8. The move is an attempt to capitalize on her popularity to help the governing party regain ground after major losses in recent years, but it will delay parliamentary approval for a budget that aims at boosting a struggling economy and addressing soaring prices. Takaichi, elected in October as Japan's first female leader, has been in office only three months, but she has seen strong approval ratings of about 70%. Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party could still face some challenges as it reels from a series of scandals about corruption and the party's past ties to the Unification Church.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - A fire in the basement of a hotel in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore on Saturday killed at least three people and injured eight others, rescue officials said. About 180 guests and staff were evacuated when the blaze broke out at the Indigo Hotel, the Punjab Emergency Services said in a statement. The search and rescue operation has been completed and the fire extinguished, it added. Fire officers are investigating whether a gas leak was the cause. Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif wrote on X that she is personally monitoring the situation following the incident in the Gulberg neighborhood of the city.

HONG KONG (AP) - A prominent activist who organized Hong Kong's decades-old vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square military crackdown on democracy protesters said Friday that her group's demand for "ending one-party rule" was a call for democratization, not for an end to the Communist Party's leadership in China. Chow Hang-tung, a former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, stated in court Friday during a trial brought under a national security law that virtually silenced dissent in the city. She was charged with inciting subversion in September 2021 under the law Beijing imposed following massive anti-government protests in 2019.