Top Asian News 4:35 a.m. GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan is recalling its ambassador to South Korea in response to the placing of a comfort-woman statue in front of its consulate in the Korean city of Busan. Both Ambassador Yasumasa Nagamine in Seoul and the consul-general in Busan will be temporarily recalled, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said after a Cabinet meeting Friday. "Comfort women" was the euphemism for women in Asia forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers at front-line brothels during World War II. Suga called the placing of the statue "extremely regrettable," since Japan and South Korea had reached what was supposed to be a final agreement to resolve their differences over the issue in late 2015.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is warning about travel to Bangladesh and tightening restrictions on family members accompanying U.S. government officials posted in the South Asian country. The State Department says that "terrorist groups" there pose a continuing threat. It announced Thursday that only employed adult family members of U.S. government personnel can remain in Dhaka. The traditionally moderate Muslim nation has seen a wave of extremist violence since 2015. An attack in July last year on a Dhaka restaurant popular with foreigners killed 20 hostages, including one American. The department says the Islamic State group threatened in October to target tourists, diplomats, garment buyers, missionaries and sports teams.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea will form a special military brigade this year tasked with removing North Korea's leadership in the event of war as Seoul looks for options to counter its rival's nuclear weapons and missiles, an official said Thursday. The brigade will aim to remove the North's wartime command and paralyze its function if war breaks out, according to an official from Seoul's Defense Ministry, who refused to be named, citing office rules. The brigade was originally planned to be ready by 2019. The official refused to say whether the brigade will train to execute pre-emptive strikes.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A senior North Korean delegation left Pyongyang on Friday to attend the inauguration of Nicaragua's newly elected President Daniel Ortega. Choe Ryong Hae, a close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, is heading the delegation as a special envoy. Choe has become something of the foreign face of the North Korean government with his relatively frequent trips lately. He is vice chairman of the State Affairs Commission, one of North Korea's most powerful institutions, and is vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Korea, along with being a member of its politburo.

A man accused of biting a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant must serve three years of probation for interfering with a flight crew. Aumoeualogo Agaaoa Togia pleaded guilty in September to interfering with a flight crew during a July flight from American Samoa to Hawaii. In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors agree to dismiss an assault charge. U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi said at the sentencing Thursday that Togia was severely intoxicated when he became physically violent. She says his behavior created terror and fear. But she concludes that it wasn't his typical behavior. Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Nammar says Togia bit a male flight attendant's hand.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — More than 50 of the 158 inmates who escaped in the biggest jailbreak ever in the Philippines have been caught or killed, officials said Friday, with a manhunt underway for the others. Of the prisoners who escaped after suspected heavily armed Muslim rebels stormed a jail in the country's south, 43 have been recaptured and eight were killed. Two others are being treated in hospital for injuries, said Maria Joyce Birrey, the Cotabato provincial police spokeswoman. As well, a jail guard died in the attack on the jail and a village official who allegedly drew a gun when encountered by police was killed.

BEIJING (AP) — Seven miners were confirmed dead after a falling roof triggered a gas outburst in a central Chinese coal mine, bringing the death toll to 12, state media said Friday. The outburst occurred Wednesday night when 51 workers were underground at the mine in the city of Dengfeng in Henan province, state broadcaster CCTV said. Thirty-nine workers rose to safety while five others were killed and another seven had been trapped, the report said. Workers were doing maintenance work in a pump room when the roof fell, causing the outburst of gas, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Prosecuting lawmakers accused South Korean President Park Geun-hye of "broadly and gravely" violating the constitution as the Constitutional Court began hearing oral arguments Thursday in her impeachment trial. While the lawmakers, functioning as prosecutors in the trial, argued Park should be removed from the presidency, her lawyers said the accusations lacked evidence. Park is accused of colluding with a longtime friend to extort money and favors from companies and allowing her friend to interfere with government affairs. As the impeachment hearing was taking place, Park's friend, Choi (pronounced Chwey) Soon-sil, appeared in another court in Seoul where she told the judge she denies the allegations against her.

JE YANG, Myanmar (AP) — Every afternoon, dozens of teenage girls at the school for displaced children line up on the grounds, dressed in white uniforms with belts of various colors: yellow, blue, white. They kick high and jump with glee before settling into their exercises, shouting in Japanese as they punch into the air. The reason many of these girls are in this class is sobering: They want protection from their own country's military. Mostly between 13 and 16, they have lost their homes, and in some cases their families, to the long-running civil war in Myanmar's Kachin state — a war in which soldiers have been repeatedly accused of raping girls and women, but rarely prosecuted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea's weapons capabilities have shown a "qualitative improvement" in the past year, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat said Thursday. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with his counterparts from key U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, said the North conducted nuclear and missile tests with unprecedented intensity during 2016 and that the threat it poses grows by the day. The North Koreans learn from every single test, including failures, he said. "They apply what they have learned to their technology and to the next test, and in our assessment we have seen a qualitative improvement in their capabilities over the past year as a result of this unprecedented level of activity," Blinken told a news conference.