Top Asian News Stories From Across The Continent

SURIN, Thailand (AP) – Fighting raged Saturday morning along the border of Thailand and Cambodia, even after U.S. President Donald Trump, acting as a mediator, declared that he had won agreement from both countries for a new ceasefire. Thai officials said they did not agree to a ceasefire. Cambodia has not commented directly on Trump’s claim, but its defense ministry said Thai jets carried out airstrikes Saturday morning. Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said Saturday that some of Trump’s remarks didn’t “reflect an accurate understanding of the situation.” He said Trump’s characterization of a land mine explosion that wounded Thai soldiers as a “roadside accident” was inaccurate, and did not reflect Thailand’s position that it was a deliberate act of aggression.

SURIN, Thailand (AP) – Fighting that has flared along the Thai-Cambodian border has sent hundreds of thousands of Thai villagers fleeing from their homes close to the frontier since Monday. Their once-bustling communities have fallen largely silent except for the distant rumble of firing across the fields. Yet in several of these villages, where normally a few hundred people live, a few dozen residents have chosen to stay behind despite the constant sounds of danger. In a village in Buriram province, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the border, Somjai Kraiprakon and roughly 20 of her neighbors gathered around a roadside house, keeping watch over nearby homes.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – In the age of dinosaurs – before whales, great whites or the bus-sized megalodon – a monstrous shark prowled the waters off what’s now northern Australia, among the sea monsters of the Cretaceous period. Researchers studying huge vertebrae discovered on a beach near the city of Darwin say the creature is now the earliest known mega-predator of the modern shark lineage, living 15 million years earlier than enormous sharks found before. And it was huge. The ancestor of today’s 6-meter (20-foot) great white shark was thought to be about 8 meters (26 feet) long, the authors of a paper published in the journal Communications Biology said.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Chinese coast guard ships used powerful water cannons and blocking maneuvers against 20 Philippine fishing boats off a disputed South China Sea shoal, injuring three Filipinos and damaging two of their boats in a life-threatening assault, the Philippine coast guard said Saturday. Chinese coast guard personnel aboard smaller rubber boats later deliberately cut the anchor lines of several of the Philippine boats Friday afternoon off Sabina Shoal, “endangering the vessels and their crews amid strong currents and high waves,” the coast guard said. Chinese officials did not immediately comment on the latest reported flare-up of the long-unresolved territorial disputes in the South China Sea, but they have vowed to defend their claimed territories at all costs.

BANGKOK (AP) – Myanmar’s military on Saturday acknowledged there was an airstrike on a hospital in the western state of Rakhine, which a local rescuer and media reports said killed more than 30 people, including patients, medical workers and children. In a statement published by the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the military’s information office said armed groups used the hospital as their base. The groups included the ethnic Arakan Army, as well as the People’s Defense Force and Bamar People’s Liberation Army or BPLA, pro-democracy militias formed after the army takeover in 2021, the statement said. It said the military carried out necessary security measures and launched a counter-terrorism operation against the hospital buildings on Wednesday.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Australian accident investigators on Thursday released dramatic images of a skydiver’s parachute becoming entangled on an airplane’s tail, leaving him dangling at 4,500 meters (15,000 feet.) The skydiver, Adrian Ferguson, used a hook knife to cut himself free and sustained minor leg injuries during the incident on Sept. 20 that began at Tully Airport in Queensland state. The pilot and 16 other parachutists on board the Cessna Caravan that day were not hurt. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau released the video with its report on its investigation into the mishap. The plane had reached the desired altitude where the skydivers were planning to execute a 16-way formation jump.

BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand’s parliament was dissolved Friday for a new election early next year as the country engaged in deadly fighting with Cambodia. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul dissolved the House of Representatives after getting approval from King Maha Vajiralongkorn, whose endorsement became effective Friday with its publication in the Royal Gazette. Anutin had signaled the move with a Facebook post late Thursday saying: “I’d like to return power to the people.” The election must be held 45 to 60 days after the royal endorsement, a period during which Anutin will head a caretaker government with limited powers that can’t approve a new budget.

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) – Retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang was recuperating from cancer on a Korean resort island when he got an urgent call: Don’t return to China, a friend warned. You’re now a fugitive. Days later, a stranger snapped a photo of Li in a cafe. Terrified South Korea would send him back, Li fled, flew to the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for asylum. But even there – in New York, in California, deep in the Texas desert – the Chinese government continued to hunt him down with the help of surveillance technology. Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases.

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) – The Chinese government is using an increasingly powerful tool to control and monitor its own officials: Surveillance technology, much of it originating in the United States, an Associated Press investigation has found. Among its targets is Li Chuanliang, a Chinese former vice mayor hunted by Beijing with the help of surveillance technology. Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases. More than 40 friends and relatives – including his pregnant daughter – were identified and detained back in China. Deep in the Texas countryside, Li has now found refuge with members of a Chinese church living in exile after fleeing from China like Li.

China will soon start collecting a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and products for the first time in over three decades, a move aligned with Beijing’s effort to get families to have more children after decades of limiting most to one child. “Contraceptive drugs and products” will not be tax-exempt as of Jan. 1, according to the country’s newest value-added tax law. Products such as condoms will be subject to the usual 13% value-added tax imposed on most products. While state-run news outlets have not widely highlighted the change, it has been trending on Chinese social media, drawing ridicule among people who joked they’d have to be fools not to know that raising a child is more expensive than using condoms, even if they are taxed.