Top Asian News 3:14 a.m. GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Both candidates vying to become Australia's prime minister in elections on Saturday are promising to stay in the job for the entire three-year term, shut the revolving door to high office and put the choice of the nation's leader back in voters' hands. Lasting the distance between elections was once a prime minister's pledge that Australian voters didn't need to question. But since an extraordinary period of political instability began a decade ago, four prime ministers have been dumped by their own parties and only one has been ousted by voters. As a result, both the ruling conservative Liberal Party and the opposition center-left Labor Party have tightened their rules to make their leader's ejector seat more difficult to activate.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Catholic officials and parents in Sri Lanka are hopeful that church-run schools will begin to reopen soon for the first time since last month's devastating Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels. All of the island nation's schools were set to reopen the day after the bombings following a two-week break, but they remained closed after the attacks, which killed more than 250 people and injured hundreds more. Government schools reopened last week, but many children stayed home, fearing another attack. Catholic schools, however, have stayed shut out worried that other Catholic properties could be targeted in further attacks.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Mob attacks on Muslim communities in Sri Lanka's northwest have left one person dead and dozens of shops and mosques destroyed, a government minister said Tuesday, as communal violence worsened in the wake of Easter bombings that killed more than 250 people. A Muslim man was hacked to death in Monday's violence in which members of the country's largely Buddhist majority ethnic Sinhalese attacked Muslim-owned shops and homes in several towns, said Rauff Hakeem, a Cabinet minister and leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. With communal violence also reported in Sri Lanka's west, the government imposed a nationwide curfew Monday and temporarily blocked social media and messaging apps.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Papua New Guinea authorities were assessing the extent of damage Wednesday from a powerful earthquake that rattled coastal towns the previous evening. The magnitude 7.5 quake struck around 11 p.m. Tuesday at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was offshore about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northeast of Kokopo, which has about 26,000 people. Chris McKee, the acting director of geohazards management, said there was some damage in Kokopo as items were shaken from shelves and the power had been cut. He said a small tsunami was generated, but the late-night darkness made an assessment difficult.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Rival political supporters on Tuesday clashed with rocks and sticks during an election rally by the Hindu nationalist party in eastern India, leaving several people injured and a university college vandalized. Police say they used sticks to disperse the rivals as West Bengal state prepared for the seventh and final round of voting for 543 parliamentary seats in India's national elections on Sunday. Several motorbikes and bicycles were set on fire, police said. A big street procession, led by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah, was greeted with black flags by rivals who chanted "Shah Go Back." That triggered clashes between the two groups.

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's newly appointed 250-member Senate, which will play a crucial role in selecting the country's next prime minister, will include more than 100 members of the police and military who have wielded power since a 2014 coup, according to the list of appointees issued Tuesday. Along with their civilian allies, virtually all of the senators represent conservative elements in Thai society that have dominated the administration since the coup ousted an elected government. They include 15 former members of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, as well as many members of the unelected parliament that served under his junta.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Rodrigo Duterte's allies appeared to have overwhelming leads in elections for the Philippine Senate, one of the opposition's last bulwarks against a brash populist leader accused of massive human rights violations. Preliminary results comprising 94% of returns from Monday's midterm elections showed at least eight candidates endorsed by Duterte were leading in races for 12 seats in the 24-member Senate. Official Commission on Election results are expected to be declared in about a week. Those leading include Duterte's former national police chief, Ronald dela Rosa, who enforced the president's crackdown on illegal drugs, a campaign that left thousands of suspects dead and drew international condemnation.

BEIJING (AP) — Diplomats have visited a Canadian think tank expert whose detention in China is believed to be an attempt to pressure Canada to release Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Canadian consular officials visited with Michael Kovrig on Monday, the country's diplomatic service said in an emailed message. No details were given in keeping with privacy rules. Chinese official media have accused Korvig, a former diplomat and Asia expert at the International Crisis Group, of acting with Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to steal state secrets. Both were arrested on Dec. 10 after Meng was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Tuesday called the U.S. seizure of a North Korean cargo ship involved in banned coal exports a "robbery" and demanded that the vessel be returned immediately. The North's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, carried a statement by an unnamed foreign ministry spokesman who accused the United States of betraying the spirit of a summit agreement last June between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump. Kim and Trump agreed then to a vague statement calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and improved bilateral ties, but a second meeting between the leaders collapsed in February over mismatched demands in sanctions relief and disarmament.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi, days after India decided to follow U.S. restrictions on buying Iranian oil. India's foreign ministry said Zarif held discussions with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on issues of mutual interest, including the evolving situation in Afghanistan. It didn't give any details. Iran is the third-largest oil supplier for India after Iraq and Saudi Arabia. India bought 23.6 million tons of Iranian oil in the financial year ending in March 2019. Put into a difficult situation by U.S. pressure, India said it would buy crude oil from other major oil producing countries to protect its interests.