Top Asia Pacific Breaking News

BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand and Cambodia signed a ceasefire agreement on Saturday to end weeks of fighting along their border over competing territorial claims. The agreement took effect at noon (0500 GMT) and calls for a halt in military movements and airspace violation for military purposes. Only Thailand has carried out airstrikes, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning, according to the Cambodian Defense Ministry. The deal also calls for Thailand, after the ceasefire has held for 72 hours, to repatriate 18 Cambodian soldiers it has held as prisoners since earlier fighting in July. Their release has been a major demand of the Cambodian side.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Indonesian rescuers searched for a Spanish soccer coach and his three children on Saturday after a tour boat carrying 11 people sank overnight near Padar Island, a popular destination within Komodo National Park, officials said. The boat was carrying a family of six, four crew members and a local guide when it went down on Friday evening after suffering engine failure on a trip from Komodo Island to Padar, said Fathur Rahman, who heads the Maumere Search and Rescue Office. He said three people were rescued by a passing vessel, and four others were picked up by a search and rescue team.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – For 10 hours a day, Rahimullah sells socks from his cart in eastern Kabul, earning about $4.5 to $6 per day. It’s a pittance, but it’s all he has to feed his family of five. Rahimullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, is one of millions of Afghans who rely on humanitarian aid, both from the Afghan authorities and from international charity organizations, for survival. An estimated 22.9 million people – nearly half the population – required aid in 2025, the International Committee for the Red Cross said in an article on its website Monday.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Officials from Myanmar’s Union Election Commission prepped polling stations on Saturday for the following day’s election. In these images from photographer Thein Zaw at one school-turned-polling place in the capital, Yangon, workers tested voting machines and made sure everything was ready. Myanmar will hold the first phase of the general election on Sunday, its first vote in five years and an exercise that critics say will neither restore the country’s fragile democracy, undone by a 2021 army takeover, nor end a devastating civil war triggered by the nation’s harsh military rule. Voting will be held in three phases, with the second on Jan.

TOKYO (AP) – A massive crash involving 67 vehicles in snowy weather killed two people and injured 26 on an expressway in Japan late on Friday as the country kicked off its end-of-year holiday season. The Gunma prefectural highway police said Saturday that the pileup on the Kan-etsu Expressway started with a collision between two trucks in the town of Minakami, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Tokyo. The initial crash blocked parts of the expressway, and cars coming from behind them were unable to brake on the snowy surface. A fire erupted at the far end of the pileup, spreading to 20 vehicles, some of which were completely burned.

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP) – Imprisoned former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was sentenced to 15 years and a hefty 13.5 billion ringgit ($3.3 billion) in fines and assets after being convicted Friday in his biggest corruption trial tied to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1MDB state investment fund. The nation’s High Court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than $700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah sentenced Najib to 15 years in prison for each charge of abuse of power, and five years for each of the money laundering charges.

BEIJING (AP) – Beijing imposed sanctions on Friday against 20 U.S. defense-related companies and 10 executives, a week after Washington annoucned large-scale arms sales to Taiwan. The sanctions entail freezing the companies’ assets in China and banning individuals and organizations from dealing with them, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. The companies include Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, L3Harris Maritime Services and Boeing in St. Louis, while defense firm Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey is one of the executives sanctioned, who can no longer do business in China and are barred from entering the country. Their assets in the East Asian country have also been frozen.

TOKYO (AP) – A man was arrested after stabbing eight people and injuring seven others with what was believed to be bleach at a tire factory in central Japan on Friday, officials said. There was no immediate explanation of his motive. Eight people were taken to hospitals after being stabbed by the man with a knife at a factory of the tiremaker Yokohama Rubber Co. in the city of Mishima, in the Shizuoka prefecture, west of Tokyo, according to the Fujisan Nanto Fire Department. The fire department told The Associated Press that five of the people who were stabbed were in serious condition but other details were not available.

TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s Cabinet on Friday approved a record defense budget plan exceeding 9 trillion yen ($58 billion) for the coming year, aiming to fortify its strike-back capability and coastal defense with cruise missiles and unmanned arsenals as tensions rise in the region. The draft budget for fiscal 2026, beginning April, is up 9.4% from 2025 and marks the fourth year of Japan’s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to 2% of gross domestic product. “It is the minimum needed as Japan faces the severest and most complex security environment in the postwar era,” Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said, stressing his country’s determination to pursue military buildup and protect its people.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea’s government said it plans to end its waning foreign adoptions of Korean children, while United Nations investigators voiced “serious concern” over what they described as Seoul’s failure to ensure truth-finding and reparations for widespread human rights violations tied to decades of mass overseas adoptions. The announcement Friday came hours after the United Nations human rights office released South Korea’s response to investigators urging Seoul to spell out concrete plans to address the grievances of adoptees sent abroad with falsified records or abused by foreign parents. The issue had rarely been discussed at the U.N.