Top Asian News 2:48 a.m. GMT
SYDNEY (AP) — A Sydney shopping mall opened to the public on Thursday for the first time since a mass stabbing i n which six people died, while the Australian prime minister raised giving citizenship to an immigrant security guard who was wounded while confronting the knife-wielding attacker. The deadly rampage through Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday was the earlier of two knife attacks by lone assailants over three days that have traumatized Sydney. The man who stabbed 18 people in Saturday’s attack was shot dead by police. A 16-year-old boy is in police custody after he allegedly stabbed a Christian bishop and priest during a church service on Monday.
BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as a health measure due to a heat wave, the military government said as it freed more than 3,000 prisoners under an amnesty to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. Those released included several political prisoners, including a member of the Kachin minority who is one of the country’s most prominent Christian church leaders. Suu Kyi, 78, and Win Myint, the 72-year-old former president of her ousted government, were among the elderly and infirm prisoners moved to house arrest because of the severe heat, military spokesperson Maj.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The U.S. 7th Fleet said a Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, a day after U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” the release said. The critical strait is 160 kilometers (100 mile) wide and divides China from the self-governing island democracy.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Every five years, the world’s most populous democracy holds a giant election for millions of Indians to cast their vote on a new parliament. And it does so in its usual flamboyance — with a spectacle of dance, drumbeats and firecrackers echoing across India as candidates march in processions to canvass for votes. Colorful convoys of motorbikes, jeeps and autorickshaws have been navigating narrow streets in cities and towns as people line up to glimpse the contestants. The six-week national election will start Friday with polling scheduled in 21 states in the first phase. From April 19 to June 1, nearly 970 million Indians — or over 10% of the global population — are eligible to vote to elect a total of 543 lawmakers in the lower house of parliament.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian authorities issued a tsunami alert Wednesday after eruptions at Ruang mountain sent ash thousands of feet high. Officials ordered more than 11,000 people to leave the area. The volcano on the northern side of Sulawesi island had at least five large eruptions in the past 24 hours, Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said. Authorities raised their volcano alert to its highest level. At least 800 residents left the area earlier Wednesday. Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.
BERLIN (AP) — German authorities conducted a large-scale raid against an international human smuggling gang early Wednesday, police said in a statement. More than 1,000 police officers searched dozens of homes, stores and offices across western and southern Germany and detained 10 suspects, including two lawyers. A total of 38 suspected gang members, as well as 147 other people who allegedly paid to be smuggled by it, are being investigated, German news agency dpa reported. The two lawyers, 42 and 46 years old and from the Cologne area, are the main suspects, federal police in nearby Sankt Augustin said. The names of the suspects were not given, in line with German privacy rules.
HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) — Voting has closed across Solomon Islands on Wednesday in the South Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiances from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats on Wednesday. For the first time, the national vote also coincides with elections for eight of the 10 local governments.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban have suspended the activities of two TV stations in Afghanistan, alleging they failed to “consider national and Islamic values.” An official from the Information Ministry’s Media Violations Commission, Hafizullah Barakzai, said a court will investigate files on the two Kabul-based stations. Noor TV and Barya TV cannot operate until the court gives its verdict. “Despite repeated warnings and recommendations, Noor TV and Barya TV did not follow journalistic principles, they did not consider national and Islamic values,” Barakzai said on Tuesday. He gave no further details on the alleged violations. Many journalists lost their jobs after the Taliban takeover in 2021, with media outlets closing over a lack of funds or because their staff left the country.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Lightning and heavy rains led to 14 deaths in Pakistan, officials said Wednesday, bringing the death toll from four days of extreme weather to at least 63, as the heaviest downpour in decades flooded villages on the country’s southwestern coast. Flash floods have also killed dozens of people in neighboring Afghanistan. In Pakistan, most of the deaths were reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in the country’s northwest. Collapsing buildings have killed 32 people, including 15 children and five women, said Khursheed Anwar, a spokesman for the Disaster Management Authority. Dozens more were also injured in the region, where 1,370 houses were damaged, Anwar said.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani security forces killed seven militants in a remote northwestern border area on Wednesday when they tried to sneak into the country from Afghanistan, the military said. The military’s statement said the insurgents had been detected near Ghulam Khan, a border town in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The statement said Pakistan has long urged Afghanistan to ensure effective border management. Pakistan often accuses Kabul of turning a blind eye to militants operating near the frontier, which the Afghan authorities deny. Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence, mostly blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.