Top Asian News 4:47 a.m. GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's conservative ruling party is on the verge of a split following President Park Geun-hye's parliamentary impeachment last week. Kim Moo-sung, leader of anti-Park lawmakers in the Saenuri Party, on Tuesday called Park loyalists her "political slaves" in an escalation of harsh rhetoric between rival factions in the largest political party in South Korea. He told a televised conference that he and fellow lawmakers are considering leaving the party to create a new political group. The feuding has intensified after dozens of Saenuri Party lawmakers aligned with a coalition of liberal opposition lawmakers to impeach Park on Friday because of a scandal involving her longtime, shadowy confidante.

BEIJING (AP) — China's foreign minister warned that any moves to damage Beijing's core interests would be self-detrimental after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he could use the way in which America deals with Taiwan as a bargaining chip. Wang Yi's comments late Monday came a day after Trump said in a television interview that he didn't feel "bound by a one-China policy." Washington, however, reaffirmed the U.S. government's commitment to the policy that means it maintains only unofficial relations with Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory. Since recognizing the People's Republic of China in 1979, the U.S.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The minority Christian governor of the Indonesian capital, who is on trial for alleged blasphemy, sobbed in court on Tuesday as he recalled the role of Muslim godparents in his childhood and said he would never intentionally insult Islam. It was the first day of a trial that has challenged Indonesia's reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam, shaken the government and exposed religious and racial fault-lines in the world's most populous Muslim nation. It was preceded in the past six weeks by massive protests in the capital Jakarta against the governor, with hardliners demanding his arrest.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump sounds ready to use U.S. policy toward Taiwan as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from China, but both of the world powers could play at that game. China's rising economic and military clout means its communist leadership has leverage over Washington too. Beijing could erect more obstacles for U.S. companies working in China. It could ramp up tensions in the seas of East Asia. And if differences spike over Taiwan, the Trump administration could face tough choices on whether to send U.S. forces to defend the island that China regards as part of its territory.

PERTH, Australia (AP) — A lone survey vessel has left an Australian port for perhaps the final time to search for the Malaysian airliner that mysteriously crashed into the southern Indian Ocean two years ago, officials said Tuesday. The Dutch survey ship Fugro Equator left Fremantle on Monday night to continue the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 alone, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester's office said. Whether the voyage is the ship's final monthlong deployment from Fremantle before the search was completed after more than two years would depend on the weather, Chester's office said. Chester thanked China for the services of a Chinese ship that in February joined the search of a 120,000-square-kilometer (46,000-square-mile) area where authorities calculate that the Boeing 777 crashed with 239 people aboard on March 8, 2014.

SYDNEY (AP) — A staff member at an Australian nursing home was sentenced on Tuesday to 40 years in prison for murdering two elderly residents and attempting to murder a third with insulin injections. Garry Steven Davis, 29, was convicted in the New South Wales state Supreme Court in September of injecting Gwen Fowler, 83, Ryan Kelly, 80, Audrey Manuel, 91 at the SummitCare nursing home in Wallsend in October 2013. Manuel survived the injection, but died later of unrelated causes. Justice Robert Allan Hulme on Tuesday ordered Davis to serve at least 30 years of the 40-year sentence before he can be considered for parole.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who had a largely ceremonial job until President Park Geun-hye's impeachment last week, now must face off against North Korea and deal with edgy relations with Japan as the country's interim leader. Hwang visited the Joint Chiefs of Staff and told fellow Cabinet members on Monday that there are no unusual security or economic developments. But he will soon face a slew of thorny issues that will test his leadership while the Constitutional Court reviews whether to endorse Park's impeachment to formally end her rule. Here is a look at several major issues that lie ahead for Hwang: ___ NORTH KOREA Hwang's first move as interim leader was to tell his defense minister to bolster readiness for any possible provocation by North Korea.

KATHA, Myanmar (AP) — In the 1990s, Nyo Ko Naing noticed that the handful of foreign tourists who made it to his remote hometown were carrying their own maps and looked like they were searching for something. Someone, it turns out, by the name of George Orwell. Katha was Eric Blair's last posting in the Imperial Police before he sailed back to England in 1927, adopted the nom de plume Orwell and launched a writing career that would produce powerful novels and commentary. Seven years after leaving the sleepy town on the Irrawaddy River, he immortalized it as the setting of his first novel, the vehemently anti-colonial "Burmese Days," though he called it not Katha but "Kyauktada."

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Thousands of Sunni Muslims marking the Prophet Muhammad's birthday on Monday attacked a mosque in Pakistan belonging to the Ahmadi religious minority, wounding several people, officials said. The mob hurled stones and bricks at the mosque before storming the building, said Mahmood Javed Bhatti, deputy commissioner of the Chakwal district outside Islamabad, adding that gunmen opened fire on Ahmadis during the melee. Rashid Ahmad, a local police official, said the mob set fire to part of the mosque, and that Ahmadis inside the building also hurled bricks, wounding some of the attackers. Another police official, Malik Nawaz, said security forces had dispersed the crowd, taken over the mosque and sealed it.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A Syrian refugee has graduated from an Australian high school with top honors just two years after beginning to learn English. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Saad Al-Kassab earned a 96.65 on an Australian college admissions test. Al-Kassab graduated dux, the Australian equivalent of valedictorian, from one of the country's largest Catholic high schools. Al-Kassab says his initial poor English skills made it tough to get into a high school when he first arrived in Australia in June of 2014. Now, he has been offered a college scholarship and is hoping to study medicine.