Top Asian News 2:12 a.m. GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — State officials have announced that tests of Alaska seafood continue to show no detectable amounts of radiation, five years after a deadly earthquake and tsunami set off a nuclear disaster at a Japanese power plant. More than 16,000 people were killed in 2011 after Japan's 9.1-magnitude earthquake, which led to nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Since then, U.S. and international agencies have been conducting tests to determine the health of marine life along the U.S. and Canada, KTVA-TV reported . Testing regions in Alaska include the Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea, Bristol Bay, the Gulf of Alaska and the southeast region.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean authorities said Wednesday that a Samsung scion will be questioned as a suspect in a bribery case in the massive influence-peddling scandal that led to the impeachment of the country's president. Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Electronics' vice chairman, will be summoned to face questions by investigators probing whether South Korea's largest business group bribed a jailed confidante of President Park Geun-hye to win favors, said Hong Jong-seok, a spokesman for the special prosecutor team investigating the scandal. Those possible favors include getting the government's backing on a controversial Samsung merger in 2015 that was opposed by minority shareholders, Hong said by phone.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — The killing of five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates in a bombing in southern Afghanistan marks the deadliest attack ever for the young nation's diplomatic corps, though it's too soon to tell who was behind it or if the Gulf envoys were even the targets. The federation of seven sheikhdoms, founded in 1971 on the Arabian Peninsula, said it would fly the nation's flag at half-staff for three days in honor of the dead from the attack Tuesday in Kandahar. The Taliban denied planting the bomb, even as the insurgents claimed other blasts Tuesday that killed at least 45 people.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan needs a stable security environment to prevent it from again becoming a safe haven for al-Qaida and other militants, but Afghan security forces have not yet become capable of securing all of the country by themselves, a U.S. report said Wednesday. The report, by the U.S. government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, offered a high-risk list assessment for the war-torn country, two years after NATO-led foreign combat forces pulled out at the end of 2014, leaving only a smaller training and assisting mission behind. SIGAR, which provides independent oversight of U.S. reconstruction funds for Afghanistan, also noted that despite the fact that more than half of all U.S.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban released a video Wednesday showing an American and an Australian who were kidnapped in August, the first time they have been seen since their abduction. The two men, an American identified as Kevin King and an Australian identified as Timothy Weekes, were abducted outside the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, where they worked as teachers. U.S. officials said in September that American forces had launched a rescue mission, but the captives weren't at the raided location. In the video, sent to media by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, the pair appears pale and unshaven. They say they are speaking on Jan.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — More than 3,000 people have fled airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Myanmar since the weekend as the government tries to flush out rebel positions, activists said Wednesday. The government prevented a U.N. official from visiting the area on Tuesday as waves of people crossed the border into China to escape the turmoil. The unrest in Kachin state, where rebel groups have been seeking greater autonomy for decades, is just one of the simmering conflicts in Myanmar. The military is also under fire for alleged human rights abuses against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Rakhine state. The government has denied the accusations.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea has been getting some pretty high praise lately from the stoner world. Marijuana news outlets including High Times, Merry Jane and Green Rush — along with British tabloids, which always love a good yarn — are hailing the North as a pothead paradise and maybe even the next Amsterdam of pot tourism. They've reported North Korean marijuana to be legal, abundant and mind-blowingly cheap, sold openly to Chinese and Russian tourists at a major market on the North's border for about $3 a pound. But seriously, North Korea? Baked? The claim that marijuana is legal in North Korea is not true: The penal code lists it as a controlled substance in the same category as cocaine and heroin.

BEIJING (AP) — China said Wednesday it was committed to promoting peace and stability in Asia, even as it sent an aircraft carrier battle group through the Taiwan Strait amid heightened tensions between Beijing and the self-ruled island. The statement in the preface to a Cabinet report on China's policies on Asia-Pacific security cooperation follows heated criticism from the U.S., Japan and others over Beijing's increasingly robust assertions of its maritime claims, particularly in the South China Sea. The report made no direct reference to such concerns while casting Beijing as a force for economic development and conflict reduction. "China is committed to promoting peace and stability in this region.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines won't raise its recent arbitration victory against Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea during Asian summit talks that it will host this year, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said Wednesday. Yasay said pressing last year's ruling at the annual meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations "is just simply counter-productive." The Philippines intends to raise the ruling, which invalidated China's historic claims under a 1982 U.N. treaty, in bilateral talks with Beijing in the future, Yasay said, stressing that the arbitration decision is final and won't be changed by discussions at international conferences.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The United States has designated an Indonesian radical network behind an attack in Jakarta as a terrorist group and announced sanctions on four militants in an effort to disrupt Islamic State group operations and recruitment in Australia and Southeast Asia. The announcements by the Department of State and Treasury Department come after police in Australia and Indonesia foiled IS-inspired attacks planned for the holiday season in those countries. The State Department said Tuesday it has designated the IS-affiliated Jamaah Ansharut Daulah as a terrorist group, which in practice prohibits U.S. citizens being involved with it and enables the freezing of any property in the U.S.