Top Asian News 4:26 a.m. GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The United States and China reached a 90-day ceasefire in a trade dispute that has rattled financial markets and threatened world economic growth. The breakthrough came after a dinner meeting Saturday between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires. Trump agreed to hold off on plans to raise tariffs Jan. 1 on $200 billion in Chinese goods. The Chinese agreed to buy a "not yet agreed upon, but very substantial amount of agricultural, energy, industrial" and other products from the United States to reduce America's huge trade deficit with China, the White House said.

President Donald Trump says he'd be willing to sign a two-week government funding extension to allow for ceremonies honoring the life of former President George H.W. Bush. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump says lawmakers have asked him for an extension after Bush's death late Friday. The 41st president is set to be honored with a state funeral, including plans to lie in state in the Capitol this week, a ceremony at the National Cathedral and a national day of mourning Wednesday. Trump says: "I would absolutely consider it and probably get it." Trump had been gearing up for a showdown at the end of the week as he's sought billions for the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Leaders of the world's top economies agreed Saturday to repair the global trading system as they closed a Group of 20 summit that saw the Trump administration at odds with many allies over the Paris accord on climate change and issues like migration. The joint statement signed by all 20 member nations said 19 of them reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris climate accord, with the United States, which withdrew from the pact under President Donald Trump, the lone holdout. The official communique acknowledged flaws in global commerce and called for reforming the World Trade Organization, but it didn't mention the word "protectionism" after negotiators said that had met resistance from the United States.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — As Mars' newest resident settles in, Planet Earth is working on three more landers and at least two orbiters to join the scientific Martian brigade. NASA's InSight spacecraft touched down on the sweeping, red equatorial plains Monday, less than 400 miles (640 kilometers) from Curiosity, the only other working robot on Mars. That's about the distance from San Francisco to Pasadena, California, home to Mission Control for Mars. InSight — the eighth successful Martian lander — should be wrapping up two years of digging and quake monitoring by the time rovers arrive from the U.S., Europe and China.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A North Korean soldier fled across a heavily fortified border to defect to South Korea early Saturday, the military in Seoul said, just as the rivals began taking steps to reduce military tensions. South Korean soldiers escorted the defector to safety after finding him moving south of the eastern side of the military demarcation line that bisects the Koreas, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. South Korean authorities plan to question the defector over the details of his escape. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had not observed any unusual activity from North Korean troops in the area where the defection happened.

SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) — About 300 West Papuan demonstrators calling for independence for the restive Indonesian region faced off with counterprotesters Saturday in the country's second-largest city. The demonstrators in Surabaya chanted "Freedom Papua" and held banners demanding a referendum for independence to mark Dec. 1, which many West Papuans consider the anniversary of what they say should have been their independence. "We are demanding the truth of our history," a speaker shouted at the crowd at the rally, which was organized by the Papua Students Alliance. "Referendum for independence is the right solution for the people of Papua." The crowd, including many wearing headbands with the morning star flag as a separatist group symbol, was blocked from marching to the city center by scores of counterprotesters from several youth organizations in Surabaya, the capital of East Java province.

KOSTOLAC, Serbia (AP) — A foul smell permeates the air in this gray mining town. People rarely open their windows as thick smoke billows from the huge chimneys of Serbia's main coal-fired power station. Things are only getting worse for residents living close to the Kostolac power plant complex in eastern Serbia, which is being expanded with a $715 million loan from a Chinese state bank and constructed by one of China's largest companies. When U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly withdrew from the Paris agreement on tackling global climate change in 2017, China was seen as the champion in the battle to cut carbon emissions and prevent a global environmental catastrophe.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Justice Department official admitted his role Friday in a multimillion-dollar effort to try to get the United States to drop its investigation into a money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered billions from a Malaysian investment fund. George Higginbotham's guilty plea in federal court in Washington marked the first public acknowledgement of a secret attempt to pressure American officials to drop their probe of the fund known as 1MDB. The massive corruption investigation, which upended Malaysian politics, spanned the globe with the money from the fund gambled in Las Vegas, spent on diamond jewelry and a luxury yacht and used to finance the "Wolf of Wall Street" and other Hollywood productions.

ISTANBUL (AP) — The two women in the photograph were smiling, but Halmurat Idris knew something was terribly wrong. One was his 39-year-old sister; standing at her side was an elderly woman Idris did not know. Their grins were tight-lipped, mirthless. Her sister had posted the picture on a social media account along with a caption punctuated by a smiley-face. "Look, I have a Han Chinese mother now!" his sister wrote. Idris knew instantly: The old woman was a spy, sent by the Chinese government to infiltrate his family. There are many like her. According to the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, as of the end of September, 1.1 million local government workers have been deployed to ethnic minorities' living rooms, dining areas and Muslim prayer spaces, not to mention at weddings, funerals and other occasions once considered intimate and private.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists working on the frontiers of medicine fear the uproar over the reported births of gene-edited babies in China could jeopardize promising research into how to alter heredity to fend off a variety of disorders. Researchers are rapidly learning how to edit DNA to fight such conditions as Huntington's, Tay-Sachs and hereditary heart disease, conducting legally permissible experiments in lab animals and petri dishes without taking the ultimate step of actually creating babies. Now they worry about a backlash against their work, too. "The alarmists who claimed that scientists won't behave responsibly in the development of the next generation of gene editing now have ammunition," said a dismayed Kyle Orwig, a reproductive specialist at the University of Pittsburgh who hopes to eventually alter sperm production to treat infertility.