Top Asian News 4:38 a.m. GMT

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Salespeople at Pyongyang's premier car dealership wait patiently beside racks of glossy brochures in a showroom filled with that unmistakable new car smell from a couple dozen Whistle sedans and Cuckoo SUVs — all bearing the distinctive, double-pigeon logo of Pyonghwa Motors, North Korea's only passenger car company. The streets of Pyongyang are more crowded than ever, but Pyonghwa, whose sole factory just south of the capital was designed to produce as many as 10,000 cars a year, appears to be stuck in neutral. Experts say pretty much everything its pigeon hood ornaments are attached to these days comes straight from China.

TOKYO (AP) — North Korea will be casting a dark — and nuclear — shadow over U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' first foray abroad. When Mattis calls on South Korea and Japan from Wednesday he will be visiting Washington's two staunchest allies in Asia. Both host tens of thousands of American troops and both will be looking for reassurances the new administration in the U.S. is not going to drop the ball on North Korea. North Korea, racing ever closer to having a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the U.S. mainland, is without doubt already one of the biggest security challenges on new President Donald Trump's plate.

HONG KONG (AP) — Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of a Chinese billionaire reportedly taken away from his Hong Kong hotel by mainland police, in a case that has parallels with last year's disappearances of five booksellers. Chinese police officers escorted Xiao Jianhua from his suite at the luxury Four Seasons hotel last Friday, according to overseas Chinese news sites that carry reports of political gossip and unverified corruption scandals. Xiao is the founder of Tomorrow Group, a well-connected financial services company. Hong Kong police say their initial investigations showed the "subject" crossed into the mainland at a border checkpoint on Friday.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's recently appointed Prime Minister Bill English announced Wednesday that the country will hold a national election in September in what will be a test of his popularity following the surprise resignation of former leader John Key. English said his conservative National Party will campaign on its strong record with the economy. He said that budget surpluses would allow the government to spend more on infrastructure as well as pay down debt and enact tax cuts. "We're in a fantastic position of having an economy generating, in the last 12 months, well over 100,000 jobs," English said.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A majority of the thousands of killings of poor suspects under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drug crackdown appear to be "extrajudicial executions," Amnesty International said Wednesday, and may constitute crimes against humanity. The London-based human rights group urged Duterte's government to adopt an approach that respects human rights in its fight against drugs and crime, and called on the police and judiciary to ensure accountability and prosecute officers involved in unlawful killings. After investigating the deaths of 59 people, and interviewing 110 witnesses, relatives of slain suspects, drug users, police officers and even hired killers, from November to December, Amnesty said it had concluded that "the vast majority of these killings appear to have been extrajudicial executions." Amnesty said it's "deeply concerned that the deliberate and widespread killings of alleged drug offenders, which appear to be systematic, planned and organized by the authorities, may constitute crimes against humanity." There was no immediate government reaction, but Duterte, a lawyer and former government prosecutor, has defended the crackdown and says that he and his top police officials have authorized law enforcers to open fire only when threatened by suspects.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine communist rebels say they are terminating their unilateral cease-fire after accusing the government of failing to release all political prisoners and encroaching on rebel-held areas. The Communist Party of the Philippines said Wednesday the cease-fire, which took effect Aug. 28, will expire Feb. 10. The rebels and the government had separately declared a cease-fire as they resumed their peace talks. The rebels say they continue to support peace negotiations. Founded in 1968, the rural-based guerrillas have unsuccessfully tried to negotiate an end to their rebellion and their inclusion in government with six Philippine presidents, including Rodrigo Duterte.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's prime minister on Wednesday would not say how many refugees from Pacific island camps would be resettled in the United States after President Donald Trump's administration said "extreme vetting" would be used to check their cases. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that Trump had agreed during a weekend telephone conversation to keep an Obama administration promise to resettle an undisclosed number of mostly Muslim refugees. Australia has refused to accept them and instead pays for them to be housed on the impoverished nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that the refugees would undergo enhanced screening designed to reduce the terrorist threat to the United States.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States is not building any weapons depot anywhere in the Philippines, the U.S. ambassador said Tuesday, denying the basis on which President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to abrogate a 2014 defense pact that allows U.S. forces to temporarily base in local camps. Ambassador Sung Kim said that nothing is being planned now that even closely resembles a weapons depot. "I think perhaps some misinformation was given to the president and that is why he made the statement expressing concerns about a possible weapons depot," Kim told a forum of business leaders. "The fact is, we are not building a weapons depot anywhere in the Philippines." Projects being pursued under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement have to do with disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, he added.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's tsunami detection system, made up of seafloor sensors that communicate with transmitting buoys on the surface, has been rendered useless by vandals and lack of funding. Now Indonesian and U.S. scientists say they've developed a way to dispense with the expensive buoys and possibly add crucial extra minutes of warning for vulnerable coastal cities. The prototype, nearly four years in the making, is designed to detect so-called near-field tsunamis and has been tested off Padang on the western coast of Sumatra. It awaits a decision on government funding to connect it to disaster agencies on land.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A Dutch tourist aboard a cruise ship near Antarctica who suffered a suspected stroke was successfully evacuated Tuesday to a U.S. base on the frozen continent. New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Centre said the 66-year-old woman was flown on the ship's helicopter to McMurdo Station and is to fly on Wednesday to New Zealand, where she will receive further medical treatment. Chris Henshaw, a senior search and rescue officer, said conditions in Antarctica make medical rescues complex and challenging. "It's a long way from anywhere," he said. "There's not a lot of support out there." He said the woman was cared for by a doctor aboard the cruise ship Ortelius, which sailed 670 kilometers (416 miles) off its normal route to get close to the base.