Top Asian News 4:53 a.m. GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — To hear a beaming Donald Trump at his June summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, the solution to North Korea's headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons, a foreign policy nightmare that has flummoxed U.S. leaders since the early 1990s, was at hand. Since the remarkable claims made during the first-ever meeting of leaders from the archrival nations, however, there have been recriminations, simmering bad blood — and very little progress. In other words, just what skeptics in Seoul and Washington have come to expect from North Korean nuclear diplomacy. So even as Trump says he's keen on another summit, possibly early next year, continuing sanctions and pressure from Washington are met with anger and foot-dragging from Pyongyang, which has bluntly stated that an "improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible." One of the problems is a matter of wording.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dramatic arrest of a Chinese telecommunications executive has driven home why it will be so hard for the Trump administration to resolve its deepening conflict with China. In the short run, the arrest of Huawei's chief financial officer heightened skepticism about the trade truce that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reached last weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On Thursday, U.S. stock markets tumbled on fears that the 90-day cease-fire won't last, before regaining most of their losses by the close of trading. But the case of an executive for a Chinese company that's been a subject of U.S.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man who deliberately rammed a car into pedestrians in a busy Australian city street, killing one and injuring another 16 people, pleaded guilty on Friday to multiple charges including murder. Saeed Noori drove his mother's SUV into pedestrians on Dec. 21 last year on a sidewalk in downtown Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city. The 33-year-old pleaded guilty in the Victoria state Supreme Court to the murder of 83-year-old man Antonios Crocaris, who died in a hospital eight days after he was struck by the car. Noori faces a potential life sentence on that conviction. He also pleaded guilty to 11 counts of recklessly causing serious injury, which carries a potential maximum of 15 years in prison, and five counts of conduct endangering life, which carries a potential 10 years in prison.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The father of a 22-year-old British tourist who has been missing in New Zealand for six days made a tearful plea for help in the case on Friday, but police say they now hold "grave fears" for her safety. Grace Millane was last seen on Saturday evening in central Auckland. She had been staying at a backpacker hostel and left some of her belongings there. Her birthday was on Sunday but she didn't contact her family. Detective Inspector Scott Beard said police have now confirmed that Millane entered the CityLife hotel with a male companion at about 9:40 p.m.

ZURICH (AP) — FIFA says it wants a soccer player who has refugee status in Australia to return to the country "at the earliest possible moment" rather than be extradited from Thailand to Bahrain. Former Bahrain international Hakeem Al-Araibi was detained at Bangkok airport last week. An Interpol warrant for his arrest was issued in apparent violation of rules protecting refugees. World soccer's ruling body FIFA says it now expects his case "to be solved in accordance with well-established international standards," and has asked Australian soccer officials to urgently "take the matter up with their government." Australian authorities said last week that embassy officials in Bangkok were working on the case.

LONDON (AP) — Investigators say the helicopter involved in a crash that killed the owner of English soccer team Leicester and four other people lost control because of a mechanical fault. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch says the mechanism linking the pilot's pedals with the tail rotor blades became disconnected, resulting in the helicopter making an uncontrollable right turn before it spun and crashed. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the Thai retail entrepreneur who owned Leicester, was among those killed when his aircraft crashed and burst in flames outside the King Power Stadium following a Premier League game on Oct. 27. The AAIB provided its update on Thursday after a detailed examination of the helicopter's control system.

An exiled Tibetan lights candles in front of her house in India as Tibetans mark the death anniversary of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism to which the Dalai Lama belongs. In other images from the Asia-Pacific region this week, a South Korean provincial governor is escorted by South Korean troops inside the Demilitarized Zone that bisects the world's most heavily fortified border on the divided Korean Peninsula. In India, people wait for free food as they mark the death anniversary of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, a prominent campaigner against social discrimination based on castes. Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra and musician Nick Jonas pose for photographs at their wedding reception in New Delhi.

TOKYO (AP) — One of two crew members recovered after two U.S. warplanes collided and crashed off Japan's coast early Thursday is dead and five others remain missing, the U.S. military said. The Marine Corps said the other recovered crew member was in fair condition. Both were in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet that collided with a KC-130 Hercules refueling aircraft collided during training at about 2 a.m. after taking off from their base in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima. The five others were in the KC-130. The Marines said in a statement that the two planes were involved in routine training, including aerial refueling, but that it was still investigating what caused the crash.

NEWCASTLE, Australia (AP) — An Australian appeal court on Thursday overturned a conviction against the most senior Roman Catholic cleric ever found guilty of covering up child sex abuse. New South Wales state District Court Judge Roy Ellis upheld former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson's appeal of his May conviction in a lower court for concealing the sexual abuse of two altar boys by a pedophile priest in the 1970s. Ellis found there was reasonable doubt that the 68-year-old cleric had committed the crime, which is punishable by up to two years in prison. Wilson has served almost four months of a year-long home detention sentence at his sister's house outside Newcastle.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine immigration authorities have arrested an American Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting altar boys in a remote central town in a case one official described as "shocking and appalling." The Rev. Kenneth Bernard Hendricks, who has been indicted in Ohio for alleged illicit sexual conduct in the Philippines, was arrested in a church in Naval town on the island province of Biliran on Wednesday, Bureau of Immigration spokeswoman Dana Sandoval said Thursday. Each count is punishable with up to 30 years in prison, said U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman said at a news conference in Cincinnati.