Top Asian News 2:57 a.m. GMT
SYDNEY (AP) — More than 30,000 residents of Sydney and its surrounds have been told to evacuate or prepare to abandon their homes on Monday as Australia’s largest city braces for what could be its worst flooding in 18 months. Parts of the city of 5 million people are facing a fourth flooding emergency in a year and a half after torrential rain since Friday caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks. “The latest information we have is that there’s a very good chance that the flooding will be worse than any of the other three floods that those areas had in the last 18 months,” Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Sunday extended school closures for one week because there isn’t enough fuel for teachers and parents to get children to classrooms, and the energy minister appealed to the country’s expatriates to send money home through banks to finance new oil purchases. A huge foreign debt has left the Indian Ocean island with none of the suppliers willing to sell fuel on credit. The available stocks, sufficient for only several days, will be provided for essential services, including health and port workers, public transport and food distribution, officials said. ”Finding money is a challenge.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan policeman opened fire on us with his AK-47, emptying 26 bullets into the back of the car. Seven slammed into me, and at least as many into my colleague, Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus. She died at my side. Anja weighed heavy against my shoulder. I tried to look at her but I couldn’t move. I looked down; all I could see was what looked like a stump where my left hand had been. I could barely whisper, “Please help us.” Our driver raced us to a small local hospital in Khost, siren on. I tried to stay calm, thinking over and over: “Don’t be afraid.
HONG KONG (AP) — China’s famed Palace Museum began displaying artifacts in Hong Kong on Sunday amid a drive to build loyalty to Beijing in the former British colony that reverted to Chinese rule 25 years ago. Works of calligraphy and paintings on silk dating back more than 1,000 years feature heavily in the exhibition, housed in a seven-story building in a newly developed harborside arts district. The delicate artworks will be returned to Beijing for safekeeping after 30 days, but China’s Communist Party leaders want the exhibition’s cultural and political impact to linger for far longer. Despite that background, museum director Louis Ng stated that the Hong Kong space was not simply a branch of the Beijing Palace Museum.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Sunday slammed the United States, South Korea and Japan for pushing to boost their trilateral military cooperation targeting the North, warning that the move is prompting urgent calls for the country to reinforce its military capability. North Korea has long cited what it calls hostility by the United States and its allies as a reason to pursue a nuclear program. Sunday’s statement comes as North Korea’s neighbors say the country is ready for its first nuclear test in five years as part of its provocative run of weapons tests this year. “The prevailing situation more urgently calls for building up the country’s defense to actively cope with the rapid aggravation of the security environment of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement, without elaborating how it would boost its military capacity.
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A passenger bus slid off a mountain road and fell into a deep ravine in heavy rain in southwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing 19 people and injuring 12 others, a government official said. Mahtab Shah, assistant administrator for the district of Shirani in Baluchistan province, said about 35 passengers were traveling in the bus. He said rescue workers were searching for survivors in the wreckage of the destroyed vehicle and surroundings. Shah said apparently the bus slid on the wet road amid heavy rain and the driver lost control of the vehicle, which fell about 200 feet (61 meters) into the ravine.
HONG KONG (AP) — An industrial support ship operating in the South China Sea has sunk in a storm with the possible loss of more than two dozen crew members, rescue services in Hong Kong said Saturday. Authorities dispatched planes and helicopters to aid in the rescue, with at least three people from the crew of 30 brought to safety as of 5:30 p.m. (1030 GMT) Saturday. Photos released by the Hong Kong Government Flying Service showed one crew member being winched up to a rescue helicopter as big waves lashed the sinking vessels, which had broken up in two parts.
GAUHATI, India (AP) — Fresh rain and falling boulders on Saturday hampered rescuers who have so far pulled out 26 bodies from the debris of a mudslide that wiped out a railroad construction site in India’s northeast, officials said. Rescue work is expected to continue for a couple of days in rugged hilly terrain with little hope of finding survivors among 37 people still missing since Wednesday night. Pankaj Kavidayal, a rescue official, said 21 of the confirmed 26 dead were members of the Territorial Army. Army personnel had been providing security for the railway officials because of a decades-old insurgency seeking a separate homeland for ethnic and tribal groups in the area.
BANGKOK (AP) — China’s top diplomat on Saturday arrived on his first visit to Myanmar since the military seized power last year to attend a regional meeting that the government said was a recognition of its legitimacy and opponents protested as a violation of peace efforts. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will join counterparts from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group in the central city of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The grouping is a Chinese-led initiative that includes the countries of the Mekong Delta, a potential source of regional tensions due to an increasing number of hydroelectric projects that are altering the flow and raising concerns of ecological damage.
NEW DELHI (AP) — A Pulitzer Prize-winning Kashmiri photojournalist said on Saturday that she was stopped by Indian immigration authorities from flying to Paris without giving any reason. In a tweet, Sanna Irshad Mattoo said she was scheduled to travel from New Delhi to Paris for a book launch and photography exhibition as one of 10 winners of the Serendipity Arles Grant 2020. “Despite procuring a French visa, I was stopped at the immigration desk at Delhi airport,” she said. She said she was not given any reason but was told by immigration officials that she would not be able to travel internationally.