Top Asian News 3:50 a.m. GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Fifty days ago, India yanked most of its currency from circulation without warning, jolting the economy and leaving most citizens scrambling for cash. As the deadline for exchanging the devalued 500- and 1,000-rupee notes for new ones hits Friday, many Indians are still stuck waiting in long bank lines. Empty ATMs and ever-changing rules are preventing people from withdrawing money, and many small, cash-reliant businesses from cinemas to neighborhood grocery stores are suffering huge losses or going under. Despite those problems, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his Nov. 8 demonetization decree has succeeded in uncovering tax evasion and cracking down on graft.

BEIJING (AP) — One of China's top leaders has told Chinese Catholics that they need to operate "independently" of outside forces and promote socialism and patriotism through religion. Yu Zhengsheng's Thursday speech came at the end of a meeting of China's official Catholic Church that was being closely watched by the Holy See. Yu is one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body. State media reported that Yu called on Catholic churches to adhere to "socialism with Chinese characteristics." China and the Vatican have long clashed over whether the party-controlled Chinese church could appoint bishops and administer churches outside the authority of the Holy See.

TOLOTANGGA, Indonesia (AP) — A magnitude 6.2 earthquake on Friday hit a region in the eastern part of Indonesia, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The earthquake hit about 6:30 a.m. in the Sumbawa region, the agency said. The epicenter was about 33 kilometers south of the village of Tolotangga, which is 1,350 kilometers east of the nation's capital, Jakarta. The earthquake was about 72 kilometers deep, the agency said. In a statement, Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency said the earthquake was also felt in the neighboring province of East Nusa Tenggara and the tourist island of Bali. The earthquake caused many residents in the areas hit to pour out from their houses, the agency said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to name China a currency manipulator on his first day in the White House. There's only one problem - it's not true anymore. China, the world's second-biggest economy behind the United States, hasn't been pushing down its currency to benefit Chinese exporters in years. And even if it were, the law targeting manipulators requires the U.S. spend a year negotiating a solution before it can retaliate. Trump spent much of the campaign blaming China for America's economic woes. And it's true that the U.S-China trade relationship is lopsided. China sells a lot more to the United States than it buys.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, just back from Pearl Harbor, on Thursday visited a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. The visit, and one by another Cabinet minister the day before, drew rebukes from neighboring South Korea and China. Inada accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit this week to Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, where he offered condolences to those who died in the Japanese attack there in 1941. Japan's Asian neighbors harbor bitter memories of the country's atrocities before and during World War II, when it colonized or invaded much of the region.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators on Thursday summoned the country's ambassador to France as they widened their inquiry into a corruption scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye to include allegations her administration blacklisted thousands of artists for their political beliefs. The special prosecution team was planning to question Mo Chul-min over a supposed blacklist of 9,000 artists deemed unfriendly to Park's administration and allegedly denied government support. Mo served as Park's senior secretary for education and culture in 2013 and 2014. South Korea's opposition-controlled parliament impeached Park on Dec. 9, weeks after state prosecutors accused her of colluding with a longtime confidante to extort money and favors from companies and allow the friend to interfere with government affairs.

BEIJING (AP) — A top Chinese general has been placed under investigation for corruption, China's Defense Ministry said Thursday, announcing the highest-level active duty military official to be ensnared in a sweeping anti-corruption drive. Military prosecutors have been investigating Gen. Wang Jianping on suspicion of accepting bribes, ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said in a briefing, without elaborating on the case. Wang is the deputy chief of staff with the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, which is led by Xi Jinping, China's president and leader of the ruling Communist Party. Since he came to power in late 2012, Xi has launched a wide-ranging crackdown on corruption that has felled scores of mid-to-high-level officials but that has also been seen as targeting threats to Xi.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday he will insist on a ruling of an international arbitration that invalidated Beijing's claims to most of the South China Sea if China starts to extract oil or gas from the area. His statement in an interview with CNN Philippines Thursday was a departure from his earlier pronouncement that he would "set aside" the ruling because he does not want to impose on China. Duterte also criticized the United States, saying it did not do anything when China started building artificial islands in the disputed sea. Duterte, who took office in June, has taken steps to mend relations with China that grew hostile during the time of his predecessor over the long-unresolved territorial disputes.

BEIJING (AP) — Three knife-wielding assailants attacked staff at a Communist Party office in China's far western region of Xinjiang and set off an explosive device, killing two and injuring three others, an official news agency reported Thursday. The attackers were then shot dead by police. The incident Wednesday afternoon was the first such publicly reported fatal attack in months in Xinjiang, where information is strictly controlled by authorities and reporting access has tightened over the past couple of years. Authorities have blamed the attacks on radicals among the mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighur ethnic minority seeking independence from Beijing. Three "rioters" drove into Moyu County's Communist Party courtyard in a vehicle, attacked workers with knives and detonated an explosive device, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the Ministry of Public Security.

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's military-appointed parliament has granted the king absolute power in naming a supreme patriarch, the top ecclesiastical position of Thai Buddhism. The amendment approved Thursday means the king can eliminate the traditional vote of the senior monks' body, the Supreme Sangha Council. The power struggle over leadership of the Buddhist hierarchy in Thailand centers around 91-year old Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn, who has been accused of corruption in a dispute that mixes politics and religion. He has ties to the Dhammakaya sect, which has a reputation for encouraging materialism and showiness and is unpopular with mainstream Buddhists. Phra Ratchamangalacharn was nominated by the council to be the supreme patriarch in January but was never formally endorsed by the prime minister.