Top Asian News 4:42 a.m. GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary James Mattis will travel to Japan and South Korea next week for his first overseas visit since taking office, the Pentagon said Wednesday. A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, said Mattis would meet with his Korean counterpart in Seoul on Feb. 2 and his Japanese counterpart the following day. The U.S. has thousands of troops based in both countries. "The trip will underscore the commitment of the United States to our enduring alliances with Japan and the Republic of Korea, and further strengthen U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea security cooperation," Davis said. At his Senate confirmation hearing and in his first days in office, Mattis, a retired Marine general, has stressed the importance of maintaining international alliances.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A lawyer for the jailed woman at the center of the biggest South Korean political scandal in decades said Thursday that prosecutors threatened to "annihilate" her family and used other abusive language during questioning. The woman, Choi Soon-sil, a longtime friend of President Park Geun-hye, has been arrested for allegedly interfering in state affairs and extorting money from businesses. Park was impeached last month over the scandal and the Constitutional Court is reviewing whether to formally end her rule. Choi created a stir Wednesday by shouting out accusations about prosecutors when she was brought to the office of prosecutors.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark told her staff on Thursday that she's stepping down from her senior role at the United Nations when her term expires in April. The move comes three months after Clark failed in her bid to land the U.N.'s top job. Clark has headed the U.N. Development Program for the past seven years. The 66-year-old wrote a message to staff saying she was leaving April 19 at the conclusion of her second four-year term. "These are times of change across the UN system," Clark wrote. She said that making progress on sustainable development goals "must continue unabated." The U.N.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's "peace through strength" could mean more U.S. military power in Asia, reassuring allies about America's resolve to counter China. That is, if they're still looking to Washington for reassurance. Trump called his speedy withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership a victory for American workers hurt by multilateral trade pacts. But his reversal of years of U.S.-led efforts may mean the loss of Asian nations' trust and support in confronting an increasingly assertive Beijing after many of them, under Washington's pressure, barreled through similar domestic concerns over jobs and competition. And a weakened partnership with East Asia's key commercial powers could have wide-ranging consequences for Americans, beyond them missing out on the trade pact's potential for lower prices and additional jobs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump moved aggressively to tighten the nation's immigration controls Wednesday, signing executive actions to jumpstart construction of his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and cut federal grants for immigrant-protecting "sanctuary cities." As early as Thursday, he is expected to pause the flow of all refugees to the U.S. and indefinitely bar those fleeing war-torn Syria. "Beginning today the United States of America gets back control of its borders," Trump declared during a visit to the Department of Homeland Security. "We are going to save lives on both sides of the border." The actions, less than a week into Trump's presidency, fulfilled pledges that animated his candidacy and represented a dramatic redirection of U.S.

KAMPOT, Cambodia (AP) — A nearby sea, flanking mountains, a quartz-rich soil: It's the perfect spot on earth, devotees say, to yield a product they describe in that rapturous vocabulary usually reserved for fine wines: "aristocratic, virile, almost aphrodisiacal," with subtle notes of caramel, gingerbread and mild tobacco. Celebrity chefs from Paris to Los Angeles swear by Kampot pepper, a southwestern Cambodian spice with a tragic past that is now reclaiming its global pre-eminence. It is also proving to be "black gold" for some of its once-impoverished farmers, thanks in part to Kampot pepper last year being awarded a Protected Geographical Indication by the European Union.

BEIJING (AP) — China has released a new list of items banned for export to North Korea, following a new round of United Nations sanctions and complaints from President Donald Trump that Beijing was not doing enough to pressure its communist neighbor. A statement from the Commerce Ministry late Wednesday said the items included dual-use technologies that could aid the North's programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as the missiles to deliver them. While largely comprising specialty chemicals and rare alloys, the list also included computer software, machinery, high-speed cameras, aircraft engines and six-axle truck chassis. The ban on "dual-use measures related to weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery" takes effect immediately, the announcement said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The highest-level North Korean diplomat to defect to South Korea said Wednesday he decided to flee last year because he didn't want his children to live "miserable" lives in the North. Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, told reporters that he was lucky to have been able to bring both of his sons to London, unlike other North Korean diplomats who are forced to leave some of their children at home as "hostages." After his sons, now 20 and 27, learned about life in Britain, they began asking him questions such as why North Korea barred use of the internet and executed people without proper legal procedures, he said.

BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in China have shuttered the website and social media accounts of a prominent economics think tank amid a mounting assault on liberal academic voices. The Unirule Institute of Economics in Beijing has become the latest target of a government crackdown after the forced retirement of a professor who criticized Mao Zedong and sacking of a provincial official who called communist China's founder the "devil." Liberal intellectuals and Chinese political observers have grown increasingly alarmed by the government crackdown, which overlaps with the rise of an increasingly cohesive and confident movement both online and on China's streets dedicated to defending Mao's reputation and his hardline policies.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In a long rambling letter, the spokesman for the Taliban is telling U.S. President Donald Trump that it's time to leave Afghanistan. The letter, emailed to journalists Wednesday, was written on behalf of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's spokesman, warns Trump that peace will be elusive as long as foreign troops are on Afghan soil. He adds that independence from foreign dominance is "the only asset" that an impoverished nation like Afghanistan truly has. Written in English, as well as Afghanistan's two prominent languages Dari and Pashto, the four-page letter waxed on about Afghanistan's history, its numerous defeats of invading armies and the reported corruption widespread in Afghanistan today.