Top Asian News 4:22 a.m. GMT

HOTAN, China (AP) — Barbed wire and hundreds of cameras ring a massive compound of more than 30 dormitories, schools, warehouses and workshops in China's far west. Dozens of armed officers and a growling Doberman stand guard outside. Behind locked gates, men and women are sewing sportswear that can end up on U.S. college campuses and sports teams. This is one of a growing number of internment camps in the Xinjiang region, where by some estimates 1 million Muslims are detained, forced to give up their language and their religion and subject to political indoctrination. Now, the Chinese government is also forcing some detainees to work in manufacturing and food industries.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan plans its first aircraft carrier and big increases in defense spending and weapons capability in the coming years, according to new defense guidelines approved Tuesday that cite the need to counter potential threats from North Korea and China and other vulnerabilities. The guidelines approved at a meeting of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet call for refitting an existing helicopter carrier into a ship that can deploy 42 expensive, U.S.-made F-35B stealth fighters capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings. Japan plans to buy 147 F-35s over the next decade. The guidelines would replace the current defense plan halfway through and underscore Abe's push to expand Japan's military role and capability to make it "a normal country" in Abe's words.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The last time Chaudhry Javed Atta saw his wife was over a year ago — the Pakistani trader in dried and fresh produce was leaving their home in northwestern China's heavily Muslim Xinjiang region to go back to his country to renew his visa. He remembers the last thing she told him: "As soon as you leave, they will take me to the camp and I will not come back." That was August, 2017. By then, Atta and Amina Manaji, from the Muslim ethnic Uighur group native to Xinjiang, had been married for 14 years. Atta is one of scores of Pakistani businessmen __ and he says there are more than 200 __ whose spouses have disappeared, taken to what Chinese authorities tell them are education centers.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban held another round of talks with U.S. officials on Monday, this time in the United Arab Emirates and also involving Saudi, Pakistani and Emirati representatives, part of the latest attempt to bring a negotiated end to Afghanistan's 17-year war. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid offered few details of the daylong meeting except to say "discussions were held with the American side over the end to the invasion of Afghanistan." He dismissed Afghan media reports that Afghan government representatives, who are in the United Arab Emirates, had met with the Taliban. "There is no plan to meet the Kabul administration," Mujahid said.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs and two former executives on Monday for their role in the alleged multibillion-dollar ransacking of state investment fund 1MDB. Attorney General Tommy Thomas said the government is seeking several billion dollars in fines from Goldman Sachs for breaches of securities laws that involved it making false and misleading statements to investors. He said his office will seek prison sentences of up to 10 years for the former Goldman executives, Roger Ng Chong Hwa and Tim Leissner, who is married to model Kimora Lee Simmons. Malaysian and U.S. prosecutors allege that bond sales organized by Goldman Sachs for 1MDB provided one of the means for associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to steal billions over several years from a fund that was ostensibly set up to accelerate Malaysia's economic development.

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Nissan's board met Monday but failed to pick a new chairman to replace Carlos Ghosn, who was arrested last month on charges of violating financial regulations, saying more discussion was needed. Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa told reporters that the board approved a special committee of outsiders to strengthen governance at the company. A date for the selection of a chairman was not decided. "We plan to be cautious in this process, and I do not plan to rush this," Saikawa said. The recommendations for beefing up governance are due in March, and Saikawa said he was willing to wait until then to choose a chairman.

NEW DELHI (AP) — At least six people died and 129 others were injured in a fire that broke out Monday in a hospital in Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital, police said. The fire in the five-story government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital in the suburban Andheri area was believed to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, said police officer A.P. Lokhand. It took 10 fire engines to bring the fire under control, while 15 ambulances rushed the injured to hospitals, Lokhand said. The Press Trust of India news agency said most of the injured were in stable condition. A top fire official, P.S.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Soldiers and police fanned out across Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday to enforce a security lockdown for a second straight day to stop anti-India protests and foil a call by separatists for a march toward India's main military garrison in the disputed region. Government forces patrolled streets in the region's main city of Srinagar and sealed off all the roads leading to India's military garrison in the city. Three Kashmiri leaders, known as the Joint Resistance Leadership, or JRL, called for Kashmiris to march to the army cantonment to protest the killings of seven civilians and three rebels during an Indian counterinsurgency operation over the weekend.

NEW DELHI (AP) — An Indian court on Monday convicted a former politician for his role in riots that swept India in 1984, leaving thousands of Sikhs dead in bloody pogroms, and sentenced him to life in prison. The Delhi High Court reversed an earlier acquittal of Sajjan Kumar in the riots, which broke out after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards. The 73-year-old Kumar, then a leader in Gandhi's Congress party, was convicted of inciting a New Delhi mob to kill a Sikh family. He was ordered to surrender by Dec. 31 to begin serving his sentence.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly on Monday condemned North Korea's "systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights" and its diversion of resources into pursing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles over the welfare of its people. It noted "with concern" that over 10 million North Koreans are estimated to be undernourished and that there is "an unacceptably high prevalence of chronic and acute malnutrition" in the reclusive northeast Asian nation. The resolution, sponsored by Japan and the European Union, was adopted by consensus, though countries including Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela disassociated themselves from it. Many expressed opposition to assembly resolutions singling out specific countries and said the Geneva-based Human Rights Council should deal with rights issues.