Top Asian News 1:08 a.m. GMT

Typhoon pummels South Korea with flooding, damaging winds

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A powerful typhoon ripped through South Korea’s southern and eastern coasts with tree-snapping winds and flooding rains Thursday, knocking out power to thousands of homes and leaving at least one person dead. Packing winds with maximum speed of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour, Typhoon Maysak was offshore east of the city of Gangneung on Thursday morning and heading toward North Korea, South Korea’s weather agency said. North Korea’s state TV showed widespread flooding in the eastern coastal cities of Wonsan and Tanchon, but the country didn’t immediately report any casualties. More than 2,200 South Koreans evacuated their homes due to the storm that toppled scores of trees, utility poles and lampposts, ripped off signboards, and damaged or flooded dozens of homes and vehicles.

Students in Inner Mongolia protest Chinese language policy

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Ethnic Mongolians, including students and parents, in China’s Inner Mongolia region are demonstrating their anger in rare public protests against a new bilingual education policy that they say is endangering the Mongolian language. A high school student in the city of Hulunbuir said students rushed out of their school on Tuesday and destroyed a fence before paramilitary police swarmed in and tried to return them to class. “We senior students were talking and we thought we had to do something,” said the student, Narsu, who like most Mongolians has only one name. “Although this doesn’t directly affect us now, this will have a huge impact on us in the future.” The policy, announced on Monday ahead of the start of the new school year, requires schools to use new national textbooks in Chinese, replacing Mongolian-language textbooks.

UN atomic watchdog: N Korea still enriching uranium

BERLIN (AP) — There are no signs that North Korea has been reprocessing fuel from its main nuclear reactor into plutonium over the past year, but Pyongyang appears to still be enriching uranium, which could potentially be used in a nuclear weapon, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog said Wednesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency has not had inspectors in North Korea since they were expelled in 2009, but said in a report dated Sept. 1 that it continues to prepare them to return, should leader Kim Jong Un decide to re-admit them. Meanwhile, it said it has intensified its open source information collection and expanded its collection and analysis of satellite imagery to monitor the country's nuclear program.

US further restricts Chinese diplomats travel, meetings

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday stepped up its battle with China by further restricting the ability of Chinese diplomats to travel, hold meetings with academics and host cultural events in the United States. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that senior U.S.-based Chinese diplomats will now be required to get permission to visit American universities or meet with local government officials. Previously, under rules announced last fall, Chinese officials had been required only to notify the State Department of plans for such meetings. Pompeo also said that Chinese diplomats will have now to get permission to host cultural events of more than 50 people outside of their diplomatic missions.

Abe's assistant and spokesman seen as favorite successor

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, a longtime loyal assistant and the public face of outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in daily media briefings, has emerged as a favorite to succeed him in an upcoming internal party vote. Suga formally announced his candidacy Wednesday, pledging “to succeed policies that Prime Minister Abe has devoted his body and soul and to push them forward.” Suga said that he, as a politician who worked with Abe, decided to run to take over the prime minister's unfinished work. Abe, who has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager, last week announced he would resign after setting a record of 2,799 consecutive days in office.

Facebook India grilled over hate speech, allegations of bias

NEW DELHI (AP) — Facebook India executives were grilled Wednesday by members of a parliamentary committee on information technology over allegations of political bias and a role in spreading hate speech in India. The closed-door hearing followed accusations in newspaper reports that Facebook was allowing anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform and that its top policy official in India had shown favoritism toward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. The social media giant has denied the allegations. After a hearing that lasted three and a half hours, the committee “agreed to resume discussions later, including with representatives of Facebook," chairman Shashi Tharoor said in a tweet.

Thailand hits 100 days with no local virus transmissions

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s prime minister on Wednesday congratulated the nation for having achieved 100 days without a confirmed locally transmitted case of the coronavirus, even as security along the border with Myanmar is being stepped up as a measure against the disease. Health officials did not highlight the achievement, but Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha described it as a “good accomplishment” toward making the country safe. He used the occasion to urge the government and people to work together to bring the country out of the COVID-19 crisis. “If we don’t help each other, none of us can move forward and the country can’t move forward, and the people will suffer more than they already have,” he said.

5 things to know about Japan's World War II surrender

TOKYO (AP) — World War II ended 75 years ago, but not all countries commemorate it on the same day. Wednesday is the anniversary of the formal Sept. 2, 1945, surrender of Japan to the United States, when documents were signed officially ending years of bloody fighting in a ceremony aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. It's known as V-J Day in some countries. But some nations mark Aug. 15 as the war’s end, the day Japan's emperor made a speech announcing the surrender. Five questions and answers about Japan's surrender: Q: WHAT IS V-J DAY? A: An abbreviation for Victory over Japan Day, marked by the United States and its allies in the war and by the Asian victims of Japan who won their liberation from years of atrocities and oppression.

75th anniversary of end of WWII is mostly virtual amid virus

HONOLULU (AP) — When Japanese military leaders climbed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945, the battleship was packed with U.S. sailors eager to see the end of World War II. On Wednesday, the 75th anniversary of the surrender, some of those same men who served the United States weren't able to return to the Missouri in Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor because of the world’s new war against the coronavirus. The commemoration initially was supposed to be a blockbuster event with parades, movie premieres, galas and thousands of people honoring the veterans in their 90s or beyond, some who may be marking the milestone for the last time.

Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer, guilty of war crimes, dies at 77

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer, who admitted overseeing the torture and killings of as many as 16,000 Cambodians while running the regime’s most notorious prison, has died. Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was 77 and had been serving a life prison term for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He died at a hospital in Cambodia early Wednesday morning, said Neth Pheaktra, a spokesperson for the tribunal in Phnom Penh that handled the trials over the regime's crimes. Duch was admitted to Cambodian Soviet Friendship Hospital after developing difficulty breathing Monday at the Kandal provincial prison, said Chat Sineang, chief of the prison where Duch had been transferred from the tribunal's prison facility in 2013.