Top Asian News 4:17 a.m. GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese are heading to temples and fairs to wish for an auspicious start to the Lunar New Year. Thousands gathered at Beijing's major temples on Saturday, the first day of the Year of the Rooster. Wearing heavy winter coats, they lit incense sticks and bowed as they prayed for good fortune and health. Beijing's sprawling temple fair opened at Ditan Park, where empty tree branches were festooned with red lanterns and traditional goods and foods were for sale. Other New Year's traditions include the eating of dumplings in northern China and the lighting of fireworks. Local media reported air pollution levels in Beijing and several other cities shot up Friday night and early Saturday morning.

HONG KONG (AP) — Saturday marks the start of the lunar Year of the Rooster and families in China will reunite for festivities, fireworks and food. While tradition calls for feasting on "auspicious" foods, many will also munch on staple snacks like "phoenix claws," the Chinese name for chicken feet. With reptilian looks and lowly status from scratching around farmyards and coops, humble chicken paws are considered a throwaway in the West, where farmers often grind them into feed for pets and livestock. But across much of Asia, where diners prefer eating meat on the bone, they're a considered a delicacy.

LIUMINYING VILLAGE, China (AP) — Four men in traditional yellow costumes bang large drums to announce the start of the New Year's Eve banquet in Liuminying village. Inside the meeting hall, 100 tables are set with a dozen plates, bearing sausages, nuts and fruit. Sitting in a storage shed outside are thousands of half-moon shaped dumplings, made by hand the day before, ready to be boiled and served. Villages and cities across China are preparing this weekend to celebrate Lunar New Year, though few feasts are as elaborate as the one in Liuminying, a hamlet in Beijing's suburbs. Festivities in recent years have been more muted as China's economy has slowed down — hitting its lowest level of growth in three decades last year — and its top political leadership has issued calls for austerity.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine troops have launched airstrikes and ground assaults that reportedly wounded one of Southeast Asia's most-wanted militant suspects who is trying to establish a new base for an alliance backing the Islamic State group, officials said Friday. Intelligence reports showed the assaults killed at least four militants, possibly including a Malaysian, and reportedly wounded the main target, Isnilon Hapilon, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told The Associated Press. He said Hapilon apparently managed to flee from a camp in the mountainous hinterlands of Butig town in southern Lanao del Sur province. "Army troops are still in hot pursuit," Lorenzana said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian man arrested in Bali this week for suspected links to the Islamic State group after traveling to Turkey was an Australian-educated former Finance Ministry official, authorities said Friday. The Ministry of Finance said Triyono Utomo resigned from his job in the ministry's fiscal policy office in February last year because he wanted to focus on managing an Islamic boarding school in West Java. At the time he was in line to be appointed as a division head within the office. National Police spokesman Martinus Sitompul said Utomo, aged about 40, was well educated and studied for his master's degree in Australia.

BANGKOK (AP) — A court in Thailand on Friday sentenced an opponent of the military government to more than 11 years in prison for posting material on the internet judged insulting to the country's monarchy. The military court halved the sentence for Burin Intin from an original 22 years, 8 months for two offenses because he pleaded guilty to the lese majeste charge as well as to violating the Computer Crime Act by posting illegal content. Lese majeste, insulting the monarchy, carries a penalty of three to 15 years in prison. Burin was arrested in April 2016 as he participated in a protest in Bangkok against the military regime that seized power from an elected government two years earlier.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Most Filipinos want their government to assert the country's rights in the disputed South China Sea after an arbitration tribunal invalidated China's vast territorial claims and ruled the Philippines can fish and exploit resources in the contested waters, according to an opinion poll released Friday. The Dec. 6-11 survey by independent pollster Pulse Asia showed 84 percent of 1,200 adult Filipinos polled nationwide agreed the government should uphold its rights in the disputed waters. It said 3 percent disagreed and 12 percent neither agreed nor disagreed. The survey had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — The death toll from two avalanches that struck the Himalayan region of Kashmir has risen to 14 after the bodies of four more Indian soldiers were recovered, the Indian army said Friday. Army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said rescuers recovered the bodies early Friday after digging through piles of snow in the Gurez sector near the de facto frontier that separates the Indian and Pakistani portions of the region. Separate avalanches buried a military post and swept away a patrol on Wednesday night in Gurez, burying a total of 21 Indian soldiers. Seven soldiers were rescued. Kalia said bad weather, including heavy snowfall, hampered rescue operations.

BANGKOK (AP) — Thai police said Friday they have arrested a gang of wedding crashers led by a Buddhist monk who scammed couples by pretending to be officials with royal links and demanding money for their prestigious presence at nuptials. Police Col. Phumin Pumpanmuang said eight suspects, the monk and seven relatives, have been taken into custody. The monk would attend weddings as an honored guest, with his relatives pretending to be high-ranking and respected figures presenting him with offerings. They would then press the wedding party for donations, which would be awkward to refuse. Buddhist monks in Thailand are treated with great deference as holy men, while the monarchy is the country's most revered institution.

SYDNEY (AP) — A 69-year-old seaplane that crashed, killing the pilot and his passenger, in front of thousands of onlookers during an aerial display above the city of Perth had flown from the United States to Australia in recent years, an official said Friday. Owner and pilot Peter Anthony Lynch, 52, and his Indonesian partner Endah Cakrawati, 30, were alone in the 1948 Grumman G-73 Mallard flying boat when it crashed into the Swan River on Thursday to the horror of up to 60,000 witnesses who were gathering to watch an annual fireworks display. The fireworks to celebrate Australian Day were cancelled.