Top Asian News 3:31 a.m. GMT

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — The 11-year-old boy set out for a stroll with a friend in the main city of the disputed region of Kashmir. It was a sunny spring day, and quiet, during a general strike and after anti-India protests and clashes had subsided with no injuries reported. But Wednesday's walk quickly became traumatic, Mir Mehran recounted, as he and his friend were stopped by Indian paramilitary soldiers who mocked them and questioned why they were out walking and then punished the boys in the street. "They asked us to hold our earlobes and do situps for 10 times. As we were doing so, they laughed at us," Mehran told The Associated Press after photographs began circulating and sparked outrage among local Kashmiris.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thousands of supporters of arrested former President Park Geun-hye were expected to gather in South Korea's capital on Saturday to call for her release. Seoul police planned to deploy more than 10,000 officers to monitor the rally near City Hall amid concerns of clashes. Opponents and supporters of Park have divided the streets of Seoul in recent months with passionate rallies. Park was jailed Friday over allegations that she colluded with a confidante to extort money from businesses, take bribes and allow the friend to unlawfully interfere with state affairs. Dozens of her supporters rallied outside the detention center Friday, some of them crying and bowing toward the facility while vowing to "protect" her.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia's police chief said Friday that three North Koreans who had been hiding out in their country's embassy for weeks were allowed to fly home after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam. Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic standoff over the Feb. 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. Although details of what led to the agreement were not released, it gave North Korea custody of the body and allowed Malaysia to question the three men who were hiding in the embassy.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A car bomb exploded Friday near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the town of Parachinar in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding over 100, officials said. The bomb was detonated near the mosque, which also is not far from the Noor Market, said Mushtaq Ghani, a spokesman for the provincial government. TV footage showed victims being taken away in ambulances and private cars. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, claimed responsibility. Spokesman Asad Mansoor said in a statement that it was carried out by one of the group's members, Abul Durda, and targeted minority Shiites, considered heretics by the militants.

LONDON (AP) — North Korea must be stopped on its path toward being able to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday in a stark expression of America's top national security concern at the moment. He emphasized diplomatic means of changing Pyongyang's "reckless" agenda. On his first visit to Britain as Pentagon chief, Mattis also took rhetorical jabs at Russia and said America's priority in Syria is defeating the Islamic State group rather than bringing down President Bashar Assad. At a joint news conference with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, Mattis was reminded by a reporter that as commander of U.S.

BOSTON (AP) — Hotels offer congee and other Chinese staples for room service. Casinos train staff members on Chinese etiquette. Restaurants, tourist sights and shopping malls translate signs, menus and information booklets into Chinese. The American hospitality industry is stepping up efforts to make Chinese visitors feel more welcome, since they are projected to soon surpass travelers from the United Kingdom and Japan as the single largest overseas demographic. And it's not just the typical tourist hubs of New York and Los Angeles, where such efforts have long been commonplace. Smaller cities like Boston, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington, D.C., are increasingly getting into the act, industry officials say.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's whaling fleet returned home Friday after killing 333 whales in the Antarctic, achieving its goal for the second year under a revised research whaling program. The Fisheries Agency said the five-ship fleet finished its four-month expedition without major interference from anti-whaling activists who have attempted to stop it in the past. Japan says the hunt was for ecological research. Research whaling is allowed as an exception to a 1986 international ban on commercial whaling. Opponents of the Japanese program say it's a cover for commercial whaling because the whales are sold for food. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 that Japan's Antarctic whaling program should stop because it wasn't scientific as Tokyo had claimed.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's embattled former President Park Geun-hye was jailed Friday in a scandal that has set off a political firestorm and led to the arrests and indictments of dozens of high-profile figures. More drama is expected in the scandal in the weeks and months ahead. Here's what is likely to happen. ___ PARK'S FATE Park was sent to a detention facility near Seoul on Friday after the Seoul Central District Court accepted a request from prosecutors to arrest her. Prosecutors can now detain her for up to 20 days before formally indicting her. After indictment, Park is likely to remain in detention, probably for several months, during her trial.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For a person whose life always seemed to revolve around South Korea's huge presidential palace, the next several months will be lived on a much smaller scale. Park Geun-hye entered the Seoul Detention Center in a black sedan before dawn Friday after a court approved her arrest on corruption allegations. The ousted president registered her name and ID number, went through a simple health checkup, and gave up her personal belongings, including hairpins that held up her signature bun. She then changed into light-green prison clothes and was locked in a solitary cell, according to a detention center official who didn't want to be named, citing office rules.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean presidencies have a history of ending badly — the latest is that of Park Geun-hye, arrested Friday in a corruption case that could send her to prison. Nearly all the country's former presidents, or their family members and top aides, have become entangled in scandals near the end of their terms or after leaving office. Besides corruption, there have been coups, an assassination and a suicide: ___ SYNGMAN RHEE (1948-1960) The U.S.-educated Rhee, who fought for Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule, became South Korea's founding president in 1948 with help from the United States.