Advertisement

Top Asian News 4:55 a.m. GMT

BEIJING (AP) — People across Asia are poised for a potentially dramatic change in relations with Washington under President Donald Trump after decades with the United States as a major military and economic presence. The clues Trump has given about his foreign policy are a break with former President Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia," which re-emphasized American engagement in the region. In one of his first actions in office, Trump withdrew the United States from the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement negotiated by the Obama administration and 11 Pacific Rim countries. He has talked about requiring allies Japan and South Korea to pay more for U.S.

BEIJING (AP) — The number of births in China has risen nearly 8 percent in the year after the government loosened its unpopular one-child policy. China's National Health and Family Planning Commission said this week that 17.86 million children were born last year, an increase of 1.31 million from 2015. Nearly half of the children born were to couples who already had a child, the commission said. China enacted its one-child policy in 1979 to control population growth, enforced with fines and in some cases state-mandated abortions. But it now faces a rapidly aging workforce and the prospect of not having enough younger workers to support them.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The end is coming, though admittedly it may not look that way at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, when dozens of young Indians have arrived for morning classes at Anand Type, Shorthand and Keypunch College, and every battered Remington is clattering away. Looking around the cramped classrooms, you might think that the typewriter still has a future in India. But in one of the last places in the world where it remains a part of everyday life, twilight is at hand. Even Sunil Chawla will tell you that, and he's kept Chawla Typewriter going long after the profits disappeared.

BEIJING (AP) — China has launched a renewed crackdown on golf, closing 111 courses in an effort to conserve water and land, and telling members of the ruling Communist Party to stay off the links. The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Sunday the courses were closed for improperly using groundwater, arable land or protected land within nature reserves. It said authorities have imposed restrictions on 65 more courses. China banned the development of new golf courses in 2004, when it had fewer than 200. Since that time, the number of courses more than tripled to 683 before the new crackdown, Xinhua said.

BEIJING (AP) — State media cite a senior Chinese official as saying China and the Philippines have agreed on $3.7 billion worth of projects to boost cooperation. The official Xinhua News Agency cited Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng as saying after a Monday meeting with a Cabinet delegation from the Philippines that the projects are aimed at "improving people's living standards." No specific details on the projects were released, though Xinhua cites Gao as saying a formal agreement on how to implement the projects would be signed before the Philippine delegation left Beijing. Under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in June, frosty relations between the Asian neighbors over longstanding South China Sea territorial disputes have undergone rapid improvement.

BEIJING (AP) — China is beefing up a campaign to root out services that circumvent the government's internet censorship with a 14-month-long "clean-up" of the internet industry. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a directive that it forbids the operation of virtual private networks (VPNs) or leased lines that allow users and businesses to access blocked overseas websites without government permission. Between now and March 2018, authorities will enforce the regulations with inspections of cloud-hosting and content-delivery services, an industry that has shown signs of "disorderly development," the ministry said Sunday. The new enforcement measures are the latest steps in the Chinese government's efforts to cement its grip over the domestic internet and closely control what information may be accessed by the country's 731 million internet users.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Fans of a traditional bull-taming ritual in southern India went on a rampage on Monday, attacking a police station with stones and setting dozens of police vehicles on fire Monday in anger at being forcibly evicted from the beach where they been protesting for the past week in support of the sport. Jallikattu involves releasing a bull into a crowd of people who attempt to grab it and ride it. It is popular in southern Tamil Nadu state, but India's top court banned it in 2014 on grounds of animal cruelty. Jallikattu events were held Sunday after being allowed to resume under an executive order, but the protesters remained at their campsite to demand the ban be lifted permanently.

The inauguration of President Donald Trump drove many in Asia to the streets, with Filipino protesters burning a mock U.S. flag bearing Trump's image and thousands of Australians joining in a march in Sydney. In other images from the Asia-Pacific region last week, relatives of those lost aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were devastated by news that the search for the airliner had been called off, nearly three years after it disappeared in the Indian Ocean. Malaysia, Australia and China have agreed not to resume the search unless they get information about the plane's specific location. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a two-day official visit to Vietnam, where Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc appealed for greater investment in the Southeast Asian country.

TOKYO (AP) — A government panel studying a possible abdication of Japanese Emperor Akihito released an interim report Monday in favor of enacting special legislation that would apply to him but not to future monarchs. The panel is looking at how to accommodate Akihito's apparent abdication wish, which he expressed last August when he cited concerns that his age and health may start limiting his ability to fulfill his duties. Akihito turned 83 last month. The report paves the way for a parliamentary discussion. The panel's final report is expected in the spring, while the government is reportedly eyeing an abdication bill adopted in several months.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivered a speech without sex jokes and expletives Monday, telling a gathering of Miss Universe contestants that he was told to be careful with his language. Duterte told pageant contestants at the Malacanang presidential palace he had never been in a "roomful of beautiful women," adding "I hope that this day will never end." Eighty-six women will vie for the Miss Universe crown on Jan. 30 in Manila. The president known for his expletives-laden impromptu speeches said he read prepared remarks for the beauty pageant contestants "because they told me that I must behave in my language, in the adjectives that I would be using to characterize or define your beauty, all of you." Duterte, 71, has been criticized for a number of his remarks on women, including a comment in November about the length of Vice President Leni Robredo's skirt in a Cabinet meeting and a rape joke about an Australian murder victim during the presidential campaign last year.