Top Asian News 4:38 a.m. GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The assault on the Chinese Consulate in Karachi was the latest in a series of attacks on China's growing influence in Pakistan, where Beijing is financing tens of billions of dollars' worth of megaprojects that critics fear will plunder the country's resources and leave it with crippling debt. Friday's attack, which killed two police and two Pakistani civilians, was claimed by ethnic Baluch separatists who have long accused the federal government of unfairly exploiting the oil and mineral-rich Baluchistan region. But concern about China's growing involvement in Pakistan is more widespread. The relationship has come to be defined by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, a sprawling package that includes everything from road construction and power plants to agriculture — and has an estimated cost of up to $75 billion.

HONG KONG (AP) — A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world's first genetically edited babies — twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life. If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. A U.S. scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes. Many mainstream scientists think it's too unsafe to try, and some denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Tens of thousands of hard-line Hindus rallied Sunday to demand a Hindu temple be built on a site in northern India where hard-liners in 1992 had attacked and demolished a 16th century mosque, sparking deadly Hindu-Muslim violence. The Hindu hard-liners are building pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to move quickly on the issue. Modi had promised to build the temple in 2014 elections that brought him to power. The next national elections are due before May. Thousands of police and paramilitary forces were deployed in and around Ayodhya, 550 kilometers (350 miles) east of New Delhi, to prevent any attacks on Muslims, who comprise 6 percent of the town's more than 55,500 people.

BEIJING (AP) — Don't mess with China and its growing cadre of powerful luxury consumers. Dolce&Gabbana learned that lesson the hard way when it faced a boycott after Chinese expressed outrage over what were seen as culturally insensitive videos promoting a major runway show in Shanghai and subsequent posts of insulting comments in a private Instagram chat. The company blamed hackers for the anti-Chinese insults, but the explanation felt flat to many and the damage was done. The Milan designers canceled the Shanghai runway show, meant as a tribute to China, as their guest list of Asian celebrities quickly joined the protests.

TOKYO (AP) — The board of Mitsubishi Motors is meeting Monday to decide whether to oust Carlos Ghosn as chairman at the Japanese automaker, which is allied with Renault-Nissan. Ghosn was arrested a week ago on suspicion of under-reporting his income by millions of dollars for five years. Nissan Motor Co., which already ousted him as its chairman, has said that an internal investigation found Ghosn abused company money and assets. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said the seven members of its eight-member board will meet later in the day. Ghosn's arrest on Nov. 19 marked a stunning fall for an executive who dominated the Japanese auto industry for two decades and spearheaded Nissan's alliance with Renault SA of France.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Voters in Taiwan passed a referendum asking that marriage be restricted to one man and one woman, a setback to LGBT couples hoping their island will be the first place in Asia to let same-sex couples share child custody and insurance benefits. The vote on Saturday, organized by Christian groups that make up about 5 percent of Taiwan's population and advocates of the traditional Chinese family structure, goes against a May 2017 Constitutional Court ruling. Justices told legislators then to make same-sex marriage legal within two years, a first for Asia, where religion and conservative governments normally keep the bans in place.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Formerly conjoined twins from Bhutan were released from an Australian hospital on Monday more than two weeks after they were separated in a delicate surgery. The 15-month-old girls Nima and Dawa were joined from the lower chest to just above the pelvis and shared a liver. They were separated during an operation at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital on Nov. 9 that lasted almost six hours. A major challenge had been to reconstruct their abdomens. "Thank you, everyone," their grateful mother, Bhumchu Zangmo, said as she wheeled her daughters from the hospital where their lives have been transformed since their arrival on Oct.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Three Chinese nationals will be charged by the country's anticorruption authority for paying a bribe to influence the outcome of fraud investigations, Kenya's director of public prosecutions said Sunday. The three Chinese men work for the China Roads and Bridge Corp. at the Standard Gauge Railway in the coastal city of Mombasa, Noordin Haji said in a statement. Haji said the three will be charged with giving a bribe of $5,000. Part of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative, the majority-Chinese financed Standard Gauge Railway is Kenya's largest infrastructure project since independence from Britain in 1963. Critics say the 610-kilometer (380-mile) project is overpriced and isn't value for money.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North and South Korea are making a first joint bid for an international recognition of Korean traditional wrestling. South Korean culture officials on Monday said a UNESCO committee is set to determine whether to add the Korean wrestling to its list of "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" this week. The Koreas had earlier pushed separate bids for the sport's UNESCO recognition, but the cooperation follows an easing of tension on the divided peninsula amid a flurry of exchanges this year. The Koreas were originally a single country before their 1945 separation. They now use different English Romanization rules.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Police said they have mapped the area of a remote Indian island where tribespeople were seen burying the body of an American adventurer and Christian missionary after allegedly killing him with arrows this month. But before they can even attempt to recover the body of 26-year-old John Allen Chau, authorities have to learn from experts "the nuances of the group's conduct and behavior, particularly in this kind of violent behavior," said Dependra Pathak, the director-general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where North Sentinel Island is located. During their visit to the island's surroundings on Friday, investigators spotted four or five North Sentinel islanders moving in the area from a distance of about 500 meters (1,600 feet) from a boat and studied their behavior for several hours, said Pathak.