Top Asian News 3:37 a.m. GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's Supreme Court is set to hear the final appeal Monday of a Christian on death row since 2010 accused of insulting Islam's prophet, a crime that incites mobs to kill and carries an automatic death penalty. Her lawyer Saiful Malook is optimistic Aasia Bibi will win her last legal appeal. But if not, he will seek a review, which could take years to complete. "I am a 100 percent sure she will be acquitted," Malook told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on the eve of the hearing. "She has a very good case." On a hot day in 2009, Bibi went to get water for her and her fellow farmworkers.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made "significant progress" toward an agreement for the North to give up its nuclear weapons. While significant work remains to be done, he said he expected further results after an as-yet unscheduled second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump. "It's a long process," Pompeo told a small group of reporters in the South Korean capital of Seoul where he traveled after meeting with Kim in Pyongyang on Sunday. "We made significant progress. We'll continue to make significant progress and we are further along in making that progress than any administration in an awfully long time."

PALU, Indonesia (AP) — Christians dressed in their tidiest clothes flocked to Sunday sermons in the earthquake and tsunami damaged Indonesian city of Palu, seeking answers as the death toll from the twin disasters breached 1,700 and officials said they feared more than 5,000 others could be missing. Indonesia's disaster agency said the number of dead had climbed to 1,763, mostly in Palu. Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said many more people could be buried, especially in the Palu neighborhoods of Petobo and Balaroa, where more than 3,000 homes were damaged or sucked into deep mud when the Sept. 28 quake caused loose soil to liquefy.

PALU, Indonesia (AP) — Aid has begun pouring into central Indonesia's Sulawesi island and humanitarian workers are fanning out across its countryside, more than a week after parts of the island were devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami. The official death toll from the double disasters stood at more than 1,760, but officials said the toll would climb as recovery efforts continued in obliterated neighborhoods. The military dropped supplies from helicopters in places and a large Red Cross ship docked at a port. In the dusty one-road village of Pewunu, excited children shouted "Red Cross! Red Cross!" as one of the aid group's medical teams arrived.

LYON, France (AP) — The wife of Interpol's president made an impassioned plea Sunday for help in bringing her missing husband to safety, saying she thinks he sent an image of a knife before he disappeared in China as a way to warn her he was in danger. Grace Meng detailed the last messages she exchanged with her husband, Interpol President Meng Hongwei, to reporters as part of her unusual appeal. Meng is China's vice minister for public security, and regularly traveled between Beijing and Lyon, France, where Interpol is based. His wife's plea underscored how China's system of shady and often-arbitrary detentions can ensnare even a senior public security official with international standing, leaving loved ones uninformed and in a panic.

MAJULI, India (AP) _ Their shores are protected by an embankment of sandbags and concrete barriers, but the residents of Majuli, a river island in India's northeastern Assam state, are struggling to survive in a place that has been rapidly diminished by flooding and erosion. Every year the monsoon floods the 522-square-kilometer (201-square-mile) island on the alluvial flood plains of the Brahmaputra, one of the largest rivers in Asia. In addition to fishing and boat-making, residents raise crops and cattle on the silty soil, relying on ferries to reach the nearest market for their goods, the small city of Jorhat.

HONG KONG (AP) — China has defended its decision to refuse to renew the work visa of a Financial Times editor in Hong Kong, in a case that has drawn concern over the shrinking space for free speech in the Chinese territory. The central government "firmly supports" the local government's rejection of Asia editor Victor Mallet's visa renewal application, according to a statement from the foreign ministry's office in Hong Kong issued late Saturday. "No foreign country has any right to interfere," the office said, in a response to expressions of concern from the British foreign ministry and the U.S. Consulate in the territory.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban destroyed highway bridges southwest of Kabul during a wide-ranging assault on security forces, cutting off road traffic between the capital and three provinces for most of the day on Sunday, officials said. Interior Ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said 14 police, including a district police chief, were killed as the insurgents tried but failed to capture the Sayed Abad district headquarters in the Maidan Wardak province. He said another seven security forces were wounded. The highway between Kabul and Kandahar has since been reopened, and "the route has returned to normal," he added. The insurgents burned down part of the district police headquarters and destroyed a number of checkpoints around the district, said Hekmat Durani, the provincial police chief's spokesman.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The 12 boys and soccer coach from Thailand who were found in a partially flooded cave once again found themselves capturing the media's attention on Sunday. The team played a friendly match against the prestigious River Plate youth soccer team of Argentina — which was somewhat of a dream come true for the young Thais who want to become professional soccer players. A day prior, the Wild Boars soccer team participated in the opening ceremony of the Youth Olympic Games, which are taking place from Oct. 6 to 18 in the South American country. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, called the boys "brave" and said they "showed us all the importance of sports values." They were loudly applauded by thousands of people attending the event.

BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in eastern China said 2 people were killed and 16 wounded after a knife-wielding man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians on Saturday night. The suspected assailant, identified only by his surname, Wang, was apparently enraged by a "personal conflict" when he committed the attack, the Beilun district government in the Zhejiang province city of Ningbo city said in a statement on its microblog. It said the case is under investigation and no other details were given. The incident follows an attack last month in which 11 people were killed and 44 hospitalized after a man drove an SUV deliberately into people at a plaza in the central province of Hunan, before jumping out and attacking victims with a dagger and shovel.