Top Asian News 3:59 a.m. GMT

SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Russia, China and other countries on Saturday against any violation of international sanctions on North Korea that could reduce pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear weapons. Speaking on the sidelines of an Asian security forum in Singapore, Pompeo told reporters that the U.S. has new, credible reports that Russia is violating U.N. sanctions by allowing joint ventures with North Korean companies and issuing new permits for North Korean guest workers. He said Washington would take "very seriously" any violations, and called for them to be roundly condemned and reversed.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says authorities have begun razing his Beijing studio. The frequent government critic says on his Instagram account the demolition began Friday without prior notice and posted videos of an excavator smashing the windows of his "Zuoyou" studio. The studio in the northeast Beijing suburbs has been Ai's primary work space since 2006, although his has mostly been based in Europe in recent years. It's unclear whether the demolition is targeting Ai. Beijing authorities have demolished large swaths of the suburbs in the past year in a building safety campaign, typically giving at least several days' notice.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States imposed North Korea-related sanctions Friday on a North Korean bank executive and company, a Russian bank, and a Chinese company and asked the U.N. to add them to its sanctions blacklist. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stressed in a statement imposing the new sanctions that "the United States will continue to enforce U.N. and U.S. sanctions and shut down illicit revenue streams to North Korea." "Our sanctions will remain in place until we have achieved the final, fully-verified denuclearization of North Korea," he said. The U.S. imposed sanctions on Ri Jong Won, the Foreign Trade Bank deputy representative in Moscow and an official of the North Korean government.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is trying to ensure that humanitarian aid doesn't face unnecessary obstacles in getting to North Korea, where the U.N. says around 10 million people need food and other aid and about 20 percent of children are stunted because of malnutrition. New guidelines proposed by the U.S. and obtained Friday by The Associated Press are expected to be adopted Monday by the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea. The council has imposed tough sanctions on North Korea in response to its escalating nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but allows for delivery of humanitarian aid.

BEIJING (AP) — China said Friday it is poised to impose retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. imports, including coffee, honey and industrial chemicals, if Washington goes ahead with its latest trade threat. China's Finance Ministry accused the Trump administration of damaging the global economy after the U.S. proposed increasing duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods in the second round of a dispute over technology. "China is forced to take countermeasures," said a ministry statement. It said retaliatory duties of between 5 and 25 percent will be imposed on 5,207 products "if the U.S. side persists in putting its tariff measures into effect." Washington imposed 25 percent duties on $34 billion of Chinese goods on July 6 in response to complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's government urged a medical university to promptly disclose the results of an investigation into its admissions process after reports alleged it had altered the test scores of female applicants for years to deny them entry and ensure fewer women became doctors. The manipulation started at Tokyo Medical University after the share of successful female applicants reached 38 percent of the total in 2010, the Yomiuri newspaper reported Thursday, citing unidentified sources. Subsequent reports said the alterations might have started even earlier. Broadcaster NHK reported that the manipulation in some years had removed as much as 10 percent of women whose true scores merited acceptance, adding up to perhaps hundreds of denials for nearly a decade due to systematic discrimination.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Five days of protests by tens of thousands of students angry over the traffic deaths of two of their colleagues have largely cut off the capital Dhaka from the rest of Bangladesh, as the demonstrators pressed their demand for safer roads. The protests began last Sunday after two college students were struck and killed by a pair of buses and eventually paralyzed the capital of 10 million. An angry mob set fire to a bus after it hit and killed a biker on Friday morning in Dhaka's Moghbazar area. No casualties were reported. The two buses involved in the Sunday accident were racing to collect passengers, a common occurrence in the city, which is regularly gridlocked by traffic chaos.

BEIJING (AP) — The whereabouts of a Chinese professor known for his critical views of the government remained unknown Friday, two days after police interrupted his radio interview with U.S. government broadcaster Voice of America. Sun Wenguang was speaking to the network on Wednesday night when he says half a dozen officers barged into his apartment in the eastern city of Jinan. He can be heard exclaiming that "I have my freedom of speech" just before the line went dead. VOA said the former Shandong University physics professor had not responded to attempts to contact him, but that sources it did not identify said he was being held in a military-run hotel in Jinan.

BEIJING (AP) — One of China's highest-ranking Buddhist monks is facing a government investigation over accusations of sexual misconduct, in what is seen by some as an indication the #MeToo movement is gaining traction across the world's most populous society. Longquan Monastery abbot Shi Xuecheng is accused of harassing and demanding sexual favors from numerous nuns in a 95-page statement compiled by two fellow monks at the storied center of Buddhist learning in Beijing. The statement including testimony from the alleged victims leaked this week on social media, prompting an outcry and unusual coverage by state media before it was censored.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers attacked a Shiite mosque in eastern Afghanistan during Friday prayers, killing at least 29 people and wounding another 81, officials said. Abdullah Asrat, spokesman for the governor of Paktia province, said the heavily armed attackers, disguised in the all-encompassing burkas worn by conservative Afghan women, opened fire on private security guards outside the mosque in the city of Gardez. Then they slipped inside and set off their explosives among around 100 worshippers. Five of the seriously wounded were small children, he said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan has targeted Shiite worshippers in the past.