Top Asian News 4:56 a.m. GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and the U.S. are eliminating their massive springtime military drills and replacing them with smaller exercises in what they call an effort to support diplomacy aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. The decision announced by both countries Sunday came after President Donald Trump complained about the cost of joint drills even as his high-stakes second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam collapsed last week. The drills' cancellation is an olive branch to North Korea, which has viewed them as an invasion rehearsal. But it will likely raise worries about how the allies will maintain their readiness in the event that military tensions erupt again in the wake of the failed nuclear summit.

BEIJING (AP) — In an unusual step, China's ceremonial legislature is due to endorse a law meant to help end a bruising tariff war with Washington by discouraging officials from pressuring foreign companies to hand over technology. The battle with China's biggest trading partner is overshadowing the National People's Congress, the country's highest-profile event of the year. It brings 3,000-plus delegates to the ornate Great Hall of the People in Beijing for two weeks of speeches, meetings with senior leaders and political ritual to endorse the ruling Communist Party's economic and social welfare plans. A gathering of noncommunist groups held at the same time brightens Beijing's drab winter, drawing tech billionaires, movie stars and ethnic minorities in distinctive traditional dress.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Indian and Pakistani soldiers have again targeted each other's posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at least six civilians and two Pakistani troops, officials said Saturday. But in a sign that tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals could soon ease, a Pakistani Cabinet minister said a key train service between Pakistan and neighboring India would resume on Monday. Tensions have been running high since Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistan this past Tuesday, carrying out what India called a pre-emptive strike against militants blamed for a Feb. 14 suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops.

DONG DANG, Vietnam (AP) — Smiling and holding up his clasped hands in a victorious pose, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday boarded his private train at the Vietnam-China border for a 60-plus-hour ride home, ending a trip to Vietnam that saw a summit breakdown with President Donald Trump. He spent his last day in Hanoi laying large red-and-yellow wreaths at a war memorial and at the mausoleum of national hero Ho Chi Minh, surrounded by Vietnamese soldiers in crisp white uniforms and his own entourage of top North Korean officials. At the border, he got out of his armored limousine and clasped his hands, waving to a crowd of people cheering his departure.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid his respects Saturday to Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, whose embalmed body is on permanent display, just like Kim's own father and grandfather in North Korea. Kim's visit to the mausoleum in Hanoi was part of a two-day official visit to Vietnam that began Friday. Earlier in the week, he met President Donald Trump in Hanoi for their second nuclear summit , which collapsed without agreement. Ho's massive granite-and-marble mausoleum, built with help from the Soviet Union, is one of Hanoi's most famous places. Streams of Vietnamese wait in long lines to pay homage to their beloved former leader, who died in 1969 at the age of 79.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An official overseeing a grueling rescue at a collapsed Indonesian gold mine said that the voices of dozens of trapped miners are no longer being heard as the effort to reach them continued for a fourth day Saturday. Rescuers are currently not entering the mine in North Sulawesi's Bolaang Mongondow district while an excavator and other heavy equipment are working on it, Abdul Muin Paputungan said. No one has been saved from remote mine located in steep terrain since Friday when the death toll stood at eight with 20 people rescued. Authorities believe about three dozen miners remain trapped.

TORONTO (AP) — Canada said it will allow a U.S. extradition request for an executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei to face charges over possible dealings with Iran to proceed. The Department of Justice said Friday officials made the decision after a diligent review of the case against Meng Wangzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Ltd., the biggest global maker of network equipment for phone and internet companies. A department statement stressed that Canada was following its laws. Meng's Dec. 1 arrest at the Vancouver airport set off a diplomatic furor and strained Canadian relations with China. Beijing has accused Washington of a politically motivated attempt to hurt a potential competitor to U.S.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — President Donald Trump said he walked away from his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un because Kim demanded the U.S. lift all of its sanctions, a claim that North Korea's delegation called a rare news conference in the middle of the night to deny. So who's telling the truth? In this case, it seems that the North Koreans are. And it's a demand they have been pushing for weeks in lower-level talks. Trump's much-anticipated meeting with Kim, held in the Vietnamese capital Wednesday and Thursday, ended abruptly and without the two leaders signing any agreements.

CINCINNATI (AP) — Unlike President Donald Trump, Otto Warmbier's parents don't believe North Korea's leader. The parents of the American college student who was sent home from North Korea in a vegetative state spoke out Friday, after Trump's comment this week that he takes Kim Jong Un "at his word" that he was unaware of any mistreatment during the young man's 17 months of captivity. Warmbier died at age 22 soon after his return in June 2017. Fred and Cindy Warmbier, who have expressed appreciation of Trump in the past and were guests at his 2018 State of the Union address, said in a statement Friday they had been respectfully silent while Trump and Kim met in Vietnam.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — More than 30 Muslim Rohingya women and children were found stranded along a beach in Malaysia's northernmost state, and are believed to have been dropped off by human traffickers, authorities said. A police official in Kangar, the capital of northern Perlis state, said villagers early Friday found the 34 people, including nine children, weak, hungry and covered in mud as they made their way through the coast. A Myanmar welfare group said the group is believed to have been trafficked into Thailand from Bangladesh, before heading to Malaysia, whose dominant Malay Muslim population makes it a sympathetic destination.