BANGKOK (AP) — Anti-government protesters in Thailand vowed Monday to stage larger rallies in central Bangkok and push ahead with efforts to nullify an election they disrupted, preventing millions of people from voting. Despite fears of violence, voting proceeded peacefully in 90 percent of polling stations Sunday. The protesters forced polling booths to close in Bangkok and southern Thailand, leaving some legislative seats unfilled. As a result, a series of special elections are required to complete the balloting, extending the country’s political paralysis for months.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — It’s late afternoon at the e-library in North Korea’s Kim Il Sung University, where row after row of smartly dressed students sit quietly, their faces bathed in the glow of computer displays as they surf the Internet. On the surface, it’s a familiar-seeming scene, which is exactly why officials are offering it up for a look. North Korea is literally off the charts regarding Internet freedoms. There essentially aren’t any. But the country is increasingly online. Though it deliberately and meticulously keeps its people isolated and in the dark about the outside world, it knows it must enter the information age to survive in the global economy.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — It’s a story that almost defies belief: A man leaves Mexico in December 2012 for a day of shark fishing and ends up surviving 13 months on fish, birds and turtles before washing ashore on the remote Marshall Islands some 5,500 miles (8,800 kilometers) away. But that’s what a man identifying himself as 37-year-old Jose Salvador Alvarenga told the U.S. ambassador in the Marshall Islands and the nation’s officials during a 30-minute meeting Monday before he was taken to a local hospital for monitoring. Alvarenga washed ashore on the tiny atoll of Ebon in the Pacific Ocean last week before being taken to the capital, Majuro, on Monday.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The rival Koreas have agreed to hold talks Wednesday on arranging the first reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in more than three years, officials said Monday. North Korea agreed 10 days ago to restart the reunions and asked South Korea to pick the date. The South subsequently chose Feb. 17-22 and proposed that talks be held to discuss the details. But North Korea didn’t respond for a week, drawing complaints from South Korean officials.
SYDNEY (AP) — A Japanese whaling ship and an anti-whaling protest boat collided in the remote, icy seas off Antarctica, with both sides on Monday blaming each other for the crash. No one was injured, though both ships received minor damage in Sunday’s collision — the latest drama in an annual battle between the conservationists and the whalers.
NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered the government to decide within a week whether it will invoke a severe anti-piracy law against two Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen. The marines were part of a military security team on a cargo ship in 2012 when they fired at the fishermen, saying they mistook them for pirates.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police say a bomb attack in a cinema in the northwestern city of Peshawar has killed five people. Police official Zahid Khan says the explosion on Sunday night also wounded 30 people.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Campaigning officially opened Sunday in Afghanistan’s presidential election, with 11 candidates vying to succeed President Hamid Karzai in polls seen as a crucial test of whether the country can ensure a stable political transition. The April 5 presidential vote will be held in a climate of uncertainty as NATO combat forces ready their withdrawal at the end of 2014. If successful, the election will usher in the first handover from one elected president to another in Afghan history.
MUNICH (AP) — Afghanistan’s police force and army still need more training to handle the country’s security on their own, making it critical for a new security agreement to be signed to allow international forces to remain after 2014, NATO’s top two leaders said Saturday. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has so far refused to sign the security agreement that could allow some 10,000 U.S. troops and 6,000 troops from allied nations to stay in Afghanistan after the end of this year, largely to help train Afghan forces.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka on Sunday reacted sharply to a move by the United States to sponsor a third resolution at the United Nations human rights body criticizing its post-war reconciliation, saying it could polarize the island nation. Sri Lanka has faced questions over the tactics it used to defeat Tamil rebels in 2009 to its 25-year civil war. Government troops have been accused of targeting civilians and hospitals, blocking food and medicine for civilians and deliberately under-countering civilians trapped in the war zone.
MOUNT SINABUNG, Indonesia (AP) — The death toll from an Indonesian volcano that has been rumbling for months rose to 16 Sunday after rescuers found another charred corpse and a critically injured college student died in a hospital, officials said. Mount Sinabung erupted again Saturday just a day after authorities allowed thousands of villagers who had been evacuated to return to its slopes, saying volcanice activity was decreasing. Rescuers found 14 bodies and rescued three people with burn wounds, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
Some of the leading contenders in Afghanistan’s presidential election: ABDULLAH ABDULLAH: Having gained 31 percent of the vote as runner-up to Hamid Karzai in the disputed 2009 elections, Abdullah has an advantage in name recognition and political organization. He was a close aide to the late Ahmad Shah Masood, the Northern Alliance rebel commander famed for his resistance to Soviet occupation and the Taliban. Abdullah has a strong following among ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan’s north, but his perceived weak support among Pashtuns — Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group at 42 percent — could keep him from gaining a majority of votes, even though he is half-Pashtun.
BERLIN (AP) — German conductor Gerd Albrecht, who led orchestras in the Czech Republic, Japan and Denmark and worked to bring music to children, has died, his office said Monday. He was 78. Albrecht died in Berlin Sunday evening following a serious illness, according to a statement from his office. It didn’t elaborate.
SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) — An endangered komodo dragon and a pregnant barking deer have been found dead in the latest animal deaths in Indonesia’s largest and problem-plagued zoo, a spokesman said Sunday. Zoo spokesman Agus Supangkat said a 7-year-old giant lizard was found dead Saturday in his cage at the zoo in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city and the provincial capital of East Java. A day earlier, a pregnant barking deer died shortly after a visitor reported to a zookeeper the animal was having convulsions and was foaming at the mouth.
MOHENJODARO, Pakistan (AP) — Folk dancers and singers wearing traditional multicolored dresses took the stage Saturday at one of the world’s most ancient archaeological sites in southern Pakistan for a festival that organizers say aspires to promote peace in a nation where political violence has left some 40,000 dead in recent years. The festival at Mohenjodaro aims to publicize the cultural heritage of the country’s south. But it drew controversy when some archaeologists said the event posed a threat to the site’s unbaked brick ruins dating to the 3rd millennium BC.
Top Asian News at 6:30 p.m. GMT
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