Advertisement

Top Asian News 3:37 a.m. GMT

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A high-level meeting to lay out security plans for Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary elections had just concluded when an elite Afghan guard turned his gun Thursday on the departing delegation in an attack that killed the powerful Kandahar police chief but missed the top U.S. commander in the country, Gen. Scott Miller. The audacious assassination strike, which killed at least one other senior Afghan official and was claimed by the Taliban, underscored the harrowing lack of security in Afghanistan just two days before national elections and more than 17 years after the militant group was driven from power. A Taliban spokesman said Miller was the intended target.

The U.N. Security Council has condemned several recent attacks in Afghanistan ahead of Saturday's parliamentary elections. On Thursday, an elite guard attacked a delegation leaving a high-level meeting on security plans for the elections. The gunman killed the powerful Kandahar police chief and at least one other senior Afghan official but missed the top U.S. commander in the country, Gen. Scott Miller. The Taliban claimed the attack and said Miller was the target. The Security Council's statement issued late Thursday from U.N. headquarters said the members underscored the importance of security for elections and that violence or threats intended to disrupt the elections were unacceptable.

SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday the killing of a powerful police chief in southern Afghanistan just two days before national elections is unlikely to fundamentally weaken the security situation. Mattis commented on the attack in Kandahar during a break in meetings at an Asian security conference in Singapore. Mattis called the death of Abdul Raziq a "tragic loss of a patriot." But he said he believes the Afghan security forces have matured to the point where they can continue fighting the Taliban without him. "We remain absolutely committed to an Afghan-led Afghan reconciliation," he said. "Right now, we're going toward the election and we will continue to defend the Afghan people." He said he had not spoken to the top U.S.

BEIJING (AP) — China's economic growth decelerated further in the latest quarter, adding to challenges for communist leaders as they fight a tariff battle with Washington. The world's second-largest economy expanded by 6.5 percent over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, government data showed Friday. That was down from 6.7 percent for the quarter ending in July and 6.8 percent for the year's first three months. Forecasters expected China's economy to cool after Beijing tightened credit controls last year to rein in a debt boom. But the slowdown has been sharper than expected, prompting Chinese leaders to reverse course and encourage banks to lend.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis indicated a willingness to visit North Korea during a private audience Thursday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, according to Vatican and South Korean officials. Moon "conveyed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's desire for a papal visit to North Korea," the South Korean presidential office said in a statement. A formal invitation directly from North Korea was expected to follow. The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said of the likelihood of Francis accepting such an invite: "I would say the availability to go is there." A trip that would be the first by a pope to officially atheist North Korea would need "serious preparation and consideration," Parolin said.

BEIJING (AP) — An outspoken former detainee in China's internment camps for Muslims said Thursday his application for a visa to visit the United States was rejected despite an invitation to speak at Congress about his ordeal. Kazakh national Omir Bekali was asked to travel to Washington in September by the chairs of the Congressional-Executive Committee on China. He said his application was rejected by the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 after he was questioned about his employment status. Bekali was one of the first people to speak out publicly about his experience in a camp in China's Xinjiang region, where an estimated 1 million Muslims, mostly from the Uighur and Kazakh ethnicities, are being detained.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Helicopters are dropping disinfectant on neighborhoods in the earthquake- and tsunami-stricken city of Palu to reduce disease risks from the thousands of victims believed buried in obliterated communities, Indonesia's disaster agency said Thursday. The agency said that 430 hectares (1.7 square miles) of land and nearly 3,500 homes succumbed to liquefaction in central Sulawesi when the Sept. 28 earthquake turned soft soil to mud. Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement the disinfectant is necessary for three devastated neighborhoods because of the large number of victims not recovered by the search and rescue effort that ended on Oct.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian police say a British woman has been detained on a resort island for allegedly stabbing her husband to death. Langkawi police chief Supt. Mohamad Iqbal Ibrahim says investigators found a blood-stained kitchen knife in the couple's home where John William Jones, 62, was found dead Thursday. He says police were called to the scene after Samantha Jones, 51, asked her neighbor to call an ambulance but her husband was pronounced dead by medical officers. Mohamad Iqbal says Samantha Jones told police she stabbed her husband in the chest during a heated argument. She was taken to court, which allowed her held in remand until Tuesday.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean progressives accused the government of caving to xenophobic sentiment by rejecting a plea for refugee status by hundreds of asylum seekers from war-ravaged Yemen whose arrival on a resort island earlier this year triggered outrage. Justice Party spokesman Choi Seok said South Korea was neglecting its responsibility as a member of the United Nations and letting public sentiment influence critical decisions on human rights. "The Yemeni refugees have risked every danger to come to our country, just so that they could survive," Choi said Thursday. "It's no different from the people of our own country half a century ago, when they wandered around foreign countries as refugees through war and division.

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia's anti-graft agency said Thursday it has detained former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in a case linked to misappropriation of funds in a welfare group. Zahid, who now heads the opposition Malay party, is the latest notable person after former Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife to face graft charges following the shocking ouster of their coalition in May general elections. The anti-graft agency said Zahid was detained at its office shortly after he was summoned as part of its probe into abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering at a welfare group.