Top Asian News 11:35 a.m. GMT – The Associated Press – en Español
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States and the Philippines announced an expansion of America’s military presence in the Southeast Asian country on Thursday, with U.S. forces granted access to four more military camps, effectively giving Washington new ground to ramp up deterrence against China. The agreement between the longtime allies was made public during the visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who has led efforts to strengthen America’s security alliances in Asia in the face of China’s increasing assertiveness toward Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The allies also said that “substantial” progress has been made in projects at five Philippine military bases, where U.S.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday it’s prepared to counter U.S. military moves with the “most overwhelming nuclear force” as it warned that the expansion of the United States’ military exercises with rival South Korea is pushing tensions to an “extreme red line.” The statement by Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry came in response to comments by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who said Tuesday in Seoul that the United States would increase its deployment of advanced military assets to the Korean Peninsula, including fighter jets and aircraft carriers, as it strengthens joint training and operational planning with South Korea.
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber who killed 101 people at a decades-old mosque in northwest Pakistan this week had disguised himself in a police uniform and did not raise suspicion among guards, the provincial police chief said on Thursday. Moazzam Jah Ansari said the suicide bomber, who arrived with a motorcycle to the mosque on a police compound, had been identified. Police were close to arresting suspects in Monday’s attack, one of the deadliest ever in Peshawar, the capital in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Ansari provided no further details about who was responsible, but Pakistan’s defense and interior ministers in speeches to Parliament this week blamed the Pakistani Taliban for orchestrating the bombing.
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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia is removing the British monarchy from its bank notes. The nation’s central bank said Thursday its new $5 bill would feature an Indigenous design rather than an image of King Charles III. But the king is still expected to appear on coins that currently bear the image of the late Queen Elizabeth II. The $5 bill was Australia’s only remaining bank note to still feature an image of the monarch. The bank said the decision followed consultation with the center-left Labor Party government, which supported the change. Opponents say the move is politically motivated. The British monarch remains Australia’s head of state, although these days that role is largely symbolic.
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SYDNEY (AP) — Mourners at the Sydney funeral for Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was once the most senior Catholic convicted of sex abuse, remembered him Thursday as a victim of a campaign to punish him regardless of his guilt. Meanwhile, a few hundred protesters yelled slogans from the street denouncing Pell, a staunch conservative who had riled gay rights supporters and was among church leaders blamed for inaction on clergy sex abuse. Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher told the mourners at St. Mary’s Cathedral that the once third-highest-ranking cleric in the Vatican was the author of a dozen books including three volumes of a diary he wrote in prison before his child abuse convictions were overturned in 2000.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani police arrested a prominent political figure in an overnight raid on his home near Islamabad days after he accused the former president of the country of plotting to kill ex-prime minister Imran Khan, officials said Thursday. The latest government move is likely to deepen political turmoil at a time when the government is facing one of its worst economic crises and is in talks to convince the International Monetary Fund to revive a $6 billion bailout. Police are expected to bring Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who served as interior minister in Khan’s government, before a judge to get permission to question him for any evidence supporting his allegation against former President Asif Ali Zardari.
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Hong Kong (AP) — Hong Kong will give away air tickets and vouchers to woo tourists back to the international financial hub, racing to catch up with other popular travel destinations in a fierce regional competition. During the pandemic, the city largely aligned itself with mainland China’s “zero-COVID” strategy and has relaxed its entry rules months slower than rivals such as Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. Even after it reopened its border with mainland China in January, tourism recovery was sluggish. On Thursday, Chief Executive John Lee launched a tourism campaign “Hello Hong Kong,” saying the city will offer 500,000 free air tickets to welcome tourists from around the world in what he called “probably the world’s biggest welcome ever”.
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NEW DELHI (AP) — Embattled Indian billionaire Gautam Adani said Thursday his conglomerate will review its plans for raising capital after calling off his flagship company’s $2.5 billion share offering following the loss of tens of billions of dollars in market value due to fraud claims by a U.S.-based short-selling firm. Adani Enterprises canceled the share sale late Wednesday, citing “market volatility.” Stocks sank after Hindenburg Research, which has a track record of sending stock prices of its targets tumbling, accused the group of “brazen” stock market manipulation and accounting fraud, among other financial abuses. The share sale was seen as a crucial test of investor confidence in Adani, whose net worth had shot up about 2,000% in recent years as share prices for his listed companies soared.
TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese company embroiled in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic corruption scandal said Thursday it would strengthen oversight to prevent further wrongdoing. Kadokawa “seriously betrayed public trust,” company president Takeshi Natsuno said. He bowed deeply with two other executives to show remorse in a news conference. Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, the son of the founder, was arrested in September on suspicion of bribing Haruyuki Takahashi, a member of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, with 69 million yen ($480,000). Kadokawa Group was chosen as an Olympic sponsor and published the Games program and guidebooks. Takahashi is a former executive at the Japanese advertising company Dentsu, which played a key role in 2013 in landing the Olympics for Tokyo, and then became the Tokyo Games marketing arm.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Thursday welcomed the former head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who had warned the island could face an invasion from China this decade, as the mainland ramps up pressure on the self-governing island. Retired Adm. Phil Davidson, along with a group including colleagues from the U.S. think tank the National Bureau of Asian Research, arrived Monday in the capital Taipei following a string of delegate visits to Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, since tensions with the mainland spiked in August with the visit of then-U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi.