Top Asian News 4:59 a.m. GMT

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A Canadian prosecutor urged a Vancouver court to deny bail to a Chinese executive at the heart of a case that is shaking up U.S.-China relations and worrying global financial markets. Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei and daughter of its founder, was detained at the request of the U.S. during a layover at the Vancouver airport last Saturday — the same day that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China agreed over dinner to a 90-day ceasefire in a trade dispute that threatens to disrupt global commerce. The U.S. alleges that Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of U.S.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it has "every confidence that the Canadian and U.S. legal systems will reach the right conclusion" over the arrest of one of its top executives in Canada. Huawei released a brief statement Saturday in China following a bail hearing in Vancouver for Meng Wanzou, its chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder. She faces possible extradition to the U.S, where officials allege that Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Meng will spend the weekend in jail after a Canadian judge said Friday that he needs to weigh her proposed bail conditions.

BEIJING (AP) — China launched a ground-breaking mission Saturday to land a spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon, demonstrating its growing ambitions as a space power to rival Russia, the European Union and the U.S. A Long March 3B rocket carrying a lunar probe blasted off at 2:23 a.m. from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province in southwestern China, the official Xinhua News Agency said. With its Chang'e 4 mission, China hopes to be the first country to make a soft landing, which is a landing of a spacecraft during which no serious damage is incurred.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese lawmakers early Saturday approved government-proposed legislation allowing hundreds of thousands of foreign laborers to live and work in a country that has long resisted accepting outsiders. The contentious legislation passed only months after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed the plan despite opposition groups' demand for more thorough debate to address concerns about a drastic change of policy. It's seen as an unavoidable step as the country's population of about 126 million rapidly ages and shrinks. Many short-handed industries, especially in the services sector, already rely heavily on foreign "trainees" and language students. Japan also selectively grants visas to white-collar professionals, often from the West.

BEIJING (AP) — North Korea's foreign minister said his country remains committed to ending its nuclear weapons program in talks Friday with his Chinese counterpart, according to China's foreign ministry. The talks in Beijing between Ri Yong Ho and Wang Yi came amid a lack of progress in international efforts to persuade North Korea to reverse its drive to build a nuclear arsenal. China is North Korea's most important ally, but has agreed to increasingly strict United Nations economic sanctions over its programs to develop nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Ri told Wang that North Korea is "committed to realizing denuclearization and safeguarding the peace and stability of the (Korean) peninsula," ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters at a daily briefing.

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.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban staged a coordinated attack overnight on two Afghan army outposts in western Herat province, killing 14 Afghan soldiers and taking 21 captive, a provincial official said Friday, the latest in a series of daily attacks by insurgents on the country's beleaguered national security forces. Herat provincial council member Najibullah Mohebi said the assault began late on Thursday in Shindand district. Fighting lasted for six hours before reinforcements arrived and repulsed the insurgents — but not before they captured 21 troops. However, the Defense Ministry's spokesman, Ghafor Ahmad Jaweed, put the number of army dead and wounded at 10.

TOKYO (AP) — The U.S. Marines have identified a fighter pilot who died after his jet collided with a refueling aircraft during training off Japan's coast, leaving five other Marines missing and one rescued. Two pilots were flying an F/A-18 Hornet that collided with a KC-130 Hercules about 2 a.m. Thursday. The other pilot was rescued and the crew of the refueling plane is missing. The Marine Corps identified the dead crew member as Capt. Jahmar Resilard, 28, of Miramar, Florida. He served with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242, stationed on Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi, Japan.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Rebels in Indonesia's Papua province demanded that the government hold negotiations on their territory's self-determination and warned of more attacks following a raid on a construction site that left at least 16 dead. An insurgency has simmered in Papua since the early 1960s, when Indonesia annexed the region that was a former Dutch colony. It was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was seen as a sham by many. Sebby Sambom, spokesman for the West Papua National Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Movement, said in a telephone interview Friday that they attacked a government construction site last weekend because they believe the project is conducted by the military.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand has set itself apart from neighboring Australia by declaring climate change a top priority. But despite some lofty goals, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in the South Pacific nation and could do so for years to come. And the country faces some unusual challenges with half of those emissions coming from farm animals. New Zealand Climate Change Minister James Shaw, who will travel to Poland on Sunday to attend U.N. climate talks, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he expects emissions to peak by 2025 and only then start to decline.