Top Asian News 3:57 a.m. GMT

Two shallow earthquakes have occurred near the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba, but no tsunami warning was issued. The temblors Tuesday occurred nearly 1,600 kilometers (990 miles) south of the area heavily damaged by a powerful earthquake and tsunami Friday on central Sulawesi island. The U.S. Geological Survey said the first quake was magnitude 5.9 and the second one about 15 minutes later was magnitude 6.0. State news agency Antara reported that one bridge was damaged in Wula Waijelu, but there were no other immediate reports of damage. About 750,000 people live on the island, located in eastern Indonesia in East Nusa Tenggara province near East Timor.

PALU, Indonesia (AP) _ Desperation was visible everywhere Tuesday among victims receiving little aid in areas heavily damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami, four days after the disaster devastated parts of Indonesia's central Sulawesi island. Signs propped along roads read ``We Need Food'' and ``We Need Support,'' while children begged for cash in the streets and long lines of cars snarled traffic as people waited for fuel. Teams were searching for trapped survivors under destroyed homes and buildings, including a collapsed eight-story hotel in the hard-hit city of Palu, but they needed more heavy equipment to clear the rubble.

PALU, Indonesia (AP) — For two days, Edi Setiawan helped pull the dead and the living out of a sea of mud and debris, all of them victims of one of Indonesia's deadliest earthquakes in years. And then, half-buried in the brown sludge, he saw two motionless bodies that broke his heart. "I could see my father still embracing my sister," Setiawan said Monday, recounting the devastating moment he found the pair entombed in mud near their home in the city of Palu. "I just cried," he said. "I was able to save other people, but I was unable to save my own family." Friday's magnitude 7.5 quake killed more than 840 people and destroyed thousands of homes, triggering a humanitarian crisis with survivors now in desperate need of food, water and fuel.

TOKYO (AP) — North Korea warned Washington through its state media Tuesday that a declaration ending the Korean War shouldn't be seen as a bargaining chip in denuclearization talks — but suggested lifting sanctions might be. The North's official news agency issued a commentary claiming Pyongyang has taken significant measures to end hostile relations between the two countries but said the U.S. is "trying to subdue" it through sanctions, a not-so-subtle call for Washington to lift sanctions if it wants further progress in their stalled nuclear negotiations. The commentary said a declaration replacing a 65-year-old armistice to formally end the war "is not just a gift from a man to another," and added, "it can never be a bargaining chip for getting the DPRK denuclearized." The DPRK is short for the North's official name — the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Do Muoi, who worked against the French colonial government and became a committed communist, has died at age 101. The government said in an announcement posted on its website that Muoi died late Monday night at the National Military Hospital 108 after battling a serious illness despite efforts by Vietnamese and foreign doctors to treat him. "Comrade Do Muoi had gone through various working positions and made great contribution to the revolutionary cause of the Party and nation," the statement said. State media quoted Phan Trong Kinh, Muoi's adviser, as saying that the former general secretary was admitted to the hospital nearly six months ago after having fever and breathing difficulties.

PARIS (AP) — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday that he doesn't see the U.S. relationship with China worsening after a series of setbacks that officials said include canceling the Pentagon chief's planned visit to Beijing this month. Mattis said the U.S. has to learn how to manage its relationship with the communist nation. "There's tension points in the relationship, but based on discussions coming out of New York last week and other things that we have coming up, we do not see it getting worse," Mattis told reporters traveling with him to Paris. "We'll sort this out." U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press on Monday that Mattis had dropped plans to visit China amid rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Two bishops from China are coming to the Vatican this week for a global meeting of bishops in the first tangible sign of the breakthrough deal between the Vatican and Beijing over bishop nominations. The Vatican confirmed Monday that Bishops Guo Jincai of Chengde and Yang Xiaoting will participate, at the invitation of Pope Francis. It's the first time that bishops from mainland China have participated in a synod, the regular gathering of bishops at the Vatican to discuss pressing issues facing the Catholic Church. The three-week meeting dedicated to young people opens Wednesday. Last month, the Vatican and China inked a deal over nominating bishops.

Two researchers from the U.S. and Japan won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that have revolutionized cancer care, turning the body's immune system loose to fight tumors in an approach credited with saving an untold number of lives. James Allison of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University learned how cancer can put the brakes on the immune system — and how to release those brakes. Their work, conducted separately during the 1990s, led to the development of drugs known as "checkpoint inhibitors," first used to treat the deadly skin cancer melanoma but now used for a growing list of advanced-stage tumors, including those of the lungs, head and neck, bladder, kidney, colon and liver.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A passenger's body has been found in the Pacific lagoon where a plane crash-landed last week near an island runway in Micronesia. Air Niugini had initially said all 47 passengers and crew had survived when the Boeing 737 crashed near the Chuuk island runway on Friday. The Papua New Guinea national carrier said on Saturday one passenger had not been accounted for but was witnessed reaching a rescue dinghy as U.S. Navy sailors and locals helped people escape the sinking plane. But Air Niugini chief executive Tahawar Durrani said the man's body was found by divers Monday.

TOKYO (AP) — The celebratory crowds in Okinawa chanted the unusual first name of the southern Japanese island's newly elected governor, shouting, "Denny! Denny! Denny!" The scene highlighted one of the first and most important questions for Denny Tamaki: How will he tackle the U.S. military presence in Okinawa as someone who is half American? Tamaki, 58, the first person with an American parent to lead Okinawa, defeated a candidate backed by the conservative pro-U.S. ruling party in Sunday's election by a comfortable margin of 80,000 votes. At contention was the plan, decades in the works, for a new U.S. air base being built in Henoko on Okinawa's coast.