Top Asian News 3:37 a.m. GMT

Livestock ship carrying 42 crew missing off southern Japan

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese rescuers were searching Thursday for a livestock ship with 42 crew members on board that sent a distress signal during rough weather off southern Japan. The Coast Guard safely rescued a Filipino crew member from the waters late Wednesday after Japanese navy P-3C surveillance aircraft spotted the man wearing a life vest and waving while bobbing up and down in the water. The crew member is able to walk and in good health, Coast Guard officials said. The 11,947-ton Gulf Livestock 1 ship was carrying 5,800 cows west of the western coast of Amami Oshima in the East China Sea when it sent the distress call in the early hours of Wednesday.

Typhoon pummels South Korea, ship missing in rough waters

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 more than 270,000 homes and leaving at least one person dead. Japan's coast guard was searching for a livestock cargo ship in seas roughened by the typhoon. With winds blowing up to 126 kilometers (78 miles) per hour, Typhoon Maysak was offshore east of the city of Sokcho on Thursday morning and heading toward North Korea, said South Korea’s weather agency. It expected Maysak to weaken to a tropical storm within hours. 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.

Man imprisoned for life for Sydney violence targeting judges

SYDNEY (AP) — A former firefighter was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for a series of murders and bombings in Sydney during the 1980s that terrorized Australia’s legal fraternity. The targets included judges who handled proceedings between Leonard Warwick and his former wife and a church connected to her. Although Warwick was considered a suspect early in the investigation, he wasn’t arrested until 2015. New South Wales state Supreme Court Justice Peter Garling sentenced Warwick to a life sentence without possibility of parole for each of three murders. Garling found the criminality involved in each was of the highest level.

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.

Asia Today: Beijing receiving 1st int'l flights since March

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing’s main international airport on Thursday began receiving international flights again from a limited number of countries considered at low risk of coronavirus infection. Passengers flying in from Cambodia, Greece, Denmark, Thailand, Pakistan, Austria, Canada and Sweden, must have first shown a negative coronavirus test before boarding, city government spokesperson Xu Hejian told reporters. Passenger arrivals will be limited to roughly 500 per day during a trial period and all will need to undergo additional testing for the virus on arrival, followed by two weeks of quarantine. The first flight under the arrangement, Air China Flight 746, arrived from Pnom Penh, Cambodia, just before 7 a.m.

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.