Top Asian News 2:23 a.m. GMT

N Korea holds huge military parade as Kim vows nuclear might

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea rolled out developmental ballistic missiles designed to be launched from submarines and other military hardware in a parade that punctuated leader Kim Jong Un’s defiant calls to expand his nuclear weapons program. State media said Kim took center stage in Thursday night’s parade celebrating a major ruling party meeting where Kim vowed maximum efforts to bolster his nuclear and missile program that threatens Asian rivals and the American homeland to counter what he described as U.S. hostility. During the eight-day Workers’ Party congress that ended Tuesday, Kim also revealed plans to salvage the nation's economy amid U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions, pandemic-related border closures and natural disasters that wiped out crops.

Quake sets off landslides, kills at least 3 in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong, shallow earthquake shook Indonesia's Sulawesi island just after midnight, causing landslides and sending people fleeing from their homes in the nighttime darkness. At least three people had died and 24 were injured, but Indonesian officials said they were still collecting information from devastated areas. In a video released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, a girl trapped in the wreckage of a house cried out for help and said her mother was alive but unable to move out. “Please help me, it’s hurt,” the girl told rescuers, who replied that they desperately wanted to help her.

WHO team arrives in Wuhan to investigate pandemic origins

WUHAN, China (AP) — A global team of researchers arrived Thursday in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected to conduct a politically sensitive investigation into its origins amid uncertainty about whether Beijing might try to prevent embarrassing discoveries. The group sent to Wuhan by the World Health Organization was approved by President Xi Jinping's government after months of diplomatic wrangling that prompted an unusual public complaint by the head of WHO. Scientists suspect the virus that has killed more than 1.9 million people since late 2019 jumped to humans from bats or other animals, most likely in China's southwest.

EXPLAINER: What WHO researchers in Wuhan are trying to learn

WUHAN, China (AP) — The WHO team of international researchers that arrived in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday hopes to find clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. The visit has been shrouded in secrecy, with neither China nor the WHO revealing exactly what the team will do or where it will go. The search for the origins is likely to be a years-long effort that could help prevent future pandemics. ___ WHY WUHAN? The industrial and transportation hub on the Yangtze River is the first place the coronavirus surfaced in the world. It's possible that the virus came to Wuhan undetected from elsewhere, but the city of 11 million is a logical place for the mission to start.

US imposes new sanction on Beijing over South China Sea

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new sanctions on Chinese officials over Beijing's increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea. The penalties are yet another Trump administration move that may make President-elect Joe Biden's diplomacy with China more difficult when he takes office next week. In its waning days, the Trump administration put in place travel bans on an unspecified number of Chinese officials and their families for what it said were violations of international standards regarding the freedom of navigation in those waters. The administration also said it was adding China's state oil company, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, to a list of companies with which U.S.

Hong Kong internet firm blocked website over security law

HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong internet service provider on Thursday said it had blocked access to a pro-democracy website to comply with the city’s national security law. In a statement emailed on Thursday, Hong Kong Broadband Network said that it had disabled access to HKChronicles, a website which compiled information on “yellow” shops that had supported the city's pro-democracy movement and released personal information and pictures of police and pro-Beijing supporters as part of a doxxing effort during anti-government protests in 2019. “We have disabled the access to the website in compliance with the requirement issued under the National Security Law.

Lawyer, others arrested by Hong Kong national security unit

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police on Thursday said they arrested 11 people on suspicion of assisting offenders who are believed to be the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea by mainland Chinese authorities while attempting to flee the city last year. District councilor and lawyer Daniel Wong Kwok-tung posted on his Facebook page early Thursday that national security officers had arrived at his home. He was later taken to his office, where police conducted a search. Wong, a member of the Democratic Party, is known for providing legal assistance to hundreds of activists arrested during antigovernment protests in 2019.

Fire destroys hundreds of homes in Rohingya refugee camp

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A fire raced through a sprawling Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh on Thursday, destroying hundreds of homes, officials said. No casualties were reported. The UNHCR said more than 550 homes sheltering about 3,500 people as well as 150 shops were either totally or partially destroyed in the fire. The fire broke out early Thursday in Nayapara Camp in Cox’s Bazar district, where more than 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are staying. Nayapara is an old camp that was started decades ago. Mohammed Shamsud Douza, a senior refugee official, said firefighters took two hours to bring the blaze under control.

MIT professor charged with hiding work for China

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor was charged Thursday with hiding work he did for the Chinese government while he was also collecting U.S. dollars for his nanotechnology research. Gang Chen, 56, was arrested by federal agents at his home in Cambridge on charges including wire fraud, officials said. While working for MIT, Chen entered into undisclosed contracts and held appointments with Chinese entities, including acting as an “overseas expert” for the Chinese government at the request of the People's Republic of China Consulate Office in New York, authorities said. Many of those roles were "expressly intended to further the PRC’s scientific and technological goals," authorities said in court documents.

'Fake' US leg band may get pigeon a reprieve in Australia

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A pigeon that Australia declared a biosecurity risk may get a reprieve after a U.S. bird organization declared its identifying leg band was fake. The band suggested the bird found in a Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 was a racing pigeon that had left the U.S. state of Oregon, 3,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away, two months earlier. On that basis, Australian authorities said on Thursday they considered the bird a disease risk and planned to kill it. But Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said the band was fake. The band number belongs to a blue bar pigeon in the United States and that is not the bird pictured in Australia, she said.