Top Asian News 1:24 am GMT

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traded barbs in speeches at a summit of world leaders Saturday, outlining competing visions for global leadership as trade and other tensions between them simmer. Pence said there would be no letup in President Donald Trump's policy of combating China's mercantilist trade policy and intellectual property theft that has erupted into a tit-for-tat tariff war between the two world powers this year. The U.S. has imposed additional tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods and China has retaliated. Pence reiterated Trump administration threats to more than double the penalties.

Four countries including the U.S. have signed up to an effort to bring electricity to 70 percent of Papua New Guinea's people by 2030. Australia, Japan, the U.S. and New Zealand on Sunday signed an agreement to work with Papua New Guinea's government on electrification. It's the latest sign of great power competition in the South Pacific, where China is vying with the U.S. and its allies for influence. Only about 20 percent of Papua New Guinea's 8 million people have electricity and for a significant proportion of them the supply is not reliable. Most of the population lives in the highlands and other remote areas.

BANGKOK (AP) — After spending nine years and more than $300 million to prosecute leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million of their countrymen, a U.N.-assisted tribunal has ended up convicting only three people for the communist group's heinous actions. Was it worth it? These kinds of proceedings don't run cheap. The longer-running tribunals covering genocide in Rwanda and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia ran up costs of as much as $2 billion — though both tried many more people than were called to account in Cambodia for crimes committed during the 1975-79 regime of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Greenpeace says six of its activists boarded a tanker transporting Indonesian palm oil in the Gulf of Cadiz and were detained by its captain after unfurling "Save our Rainforest" and "Drop Dirty Palm Oil" banners. A ship tracking website shows the Stolt Tenacity, which Greenpeace says is carrying palm oil from Wilmar International linked to tropical forest destruction in Indonesia, was bound for Rotterdam. Greenpeace says the activists from Indonesia, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and the U.S. are being detained in a cabin on the ship. Palm oil is used in a huge array of consumer goods from makeup to snacks.

NEW DELHI (AP) — A powerful cyclone in southern India has killed at least 33 people, caused massive damage to homes and roads and drove tens of thousands of people into relief camps, officials said. India's navy assigned two ships and a helicopter for relief work as state authorities rushed drinking water, food and paramedics to nearly 82,000 people who took shelter in more than 400 state-run camps. They were evacuated from areas in the path of Cyclone Gaja, which struck six districts of Tamil Nadu state on Friday with heavy rains and winds that reached 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — It's a question that nags at North Korea economy watchers: How has the country been able to maintain stable exchange rates — and avert hyper-inflation — despite intense sanctions, political tensions and a swelling trade imbalance? In a nutshell, North Korea buys a whole lot more than it sells to China and, because of the sanctions, is doing hardly any business with anyone else. Since no one in their right mind would accept the internationally worthless North Korean currency for any significant trade deal, North Korea must be burning up its foreign reserves. And when a country does that, prices generally start to rise — often dangerously so.

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Papua New Guinea hosts leaders from Pacific Rim countries, including the United States, Russia and China, this weekend in a coming-out party for the jungle-clad nation that is regarded as one of the world's last frontiers for trade and investment. The largely undeveloped South Pacific nation of more than 8 million mostly subsistence farmers hopes the rare world attention generated by its hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Economic Cooperation meetings will highlight its potential and draw more investors and aid. But its deeply entrenched troubles, including widespread poverty, corruption and lawlessness, also stand to be scrutinized.

MALE, Maldives (AP) — Ibrahim Mohamed Solih took over as president of the Maldives on Saturday following a fierce political discord caused by the autocratic rule of outgoing leader Yameen Abdul Gayoom. Thousands of people cheered Solih, from the Maldivian Democratic Party, at a swearing-in ceremony in a soccer stadium chosen to accommodate a large number of his supporters. Chief Justice Abdulla Didi administered the oath of office to the 54-year-old Solih. The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago known for its luxury resorts, became a multiparty democracy in 2008. Since getting elected in 2013, Yameen had cracked down on political dissent, jailing rivals and Supreme Court justices.

BANGKOK (AP) — Officials on Saturday recovered a boat that sank in rough weather off Thailand's southern resort island of Phuket in July, killing 47 Chinese tourists. Two tour boats sank off Phuket on July 5. Tourists from one boat were rescued, while the sinking of the double-decker Phoenix left 47 Chinese tourists dead. The accident was one of Thailand's worst tourism-related disasters in recent years. The boat was raised from the 45-meter-deep (148-foot-deep) sea floor on Saturday by a crane ship operated by a salvage company from Singapore, officials said. The recovery operation itself faced many obstacles. The first company, hired to salvage the boat, lost a member of its team during the operation and failed to lift the boat.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — "An Elephant Sitting Still" won the top prize Saturday night at the Golden Horse Awards, the Chinese-language version of the Oscars. The film, whose director, Hu Bo, committed suicide before its release, upset the highly touted martial-arts epic "Shadow," by veteran director Zhang Yimou. Zhang won best director for "Shadow." The Golden Horse Awards honor films from Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China and other parts of the Chinese-speaking world, transcending political, cultural and geographic borders. Judges were led by Gong Li, the leading actress in many of Zhang's earlier films, who was invited by Ang Lee, director of Hollywood features including "Brokeback Mountain." "Shadow," which delves into Chinese martial arts and palace intrigue, led with 12 nominations.

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