Top Asian News 4:53 a.m. GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan's defense ministry said China's sole aircraft carrier on Wednesday was transiting the Taiwan Strait amid heightened tensions between the mainland and self-governing island it claims as its own territory. A ministry statement said the Liaoning was traveling northwest along the center line dividing the strait, along with its battle group. It said the military was closely monitoring the vessels' passage and urged the public not to be alarmed. Taiwan regularly dispatches planes and ships to keep a watchful eye on Chinese forces' movements around the island, although the ministry statement gave no details about the military's response.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The United States has designated an Indonesian radical network behind an attack in Jakarta as a terrorist group and announced sanctions on four militants in an effort to disrupt Islamic State group operations and recruitment in Australia and Southeast Asia. The announcements by the Department of State and Treasury Department come after police in Australia and Indonesia foiled IS-inspired attacks planned for the holiday season in those countries. The State Department said Tuesday it has designated the IS-affiliated Jamaah Ansharut Daulah as a terrorist group, which in practice prohibits U.S. citizens being involved with it and enables the freezing of any property in the U.S.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping's delegation to next week's World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos is open to meeting with President-elect Donald Trump's team, an official said Wednesday. Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong told reporters at a briefing that "there are open channels of communication" with Trump's team. Bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the annual gathering of business leaders, politicians and cultural icons are still being finalized, but China would look into what sort of arrangements could be made "as long as the schedule permits and if there is the wish," he said. Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices and threatened punishing tariffs and upended diplomatic protocol by speaking by phone with the president of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two large bombs — one triggered by a suicide attacker — exploded near government offices Tuesday, killing at least 38 people and wounding dozens of others in the deadliest Taliban violence in Kabul in months. In southern Afghanistan, another attack at a guesthouse belonging to the governor of Kandahar province killed five people and wounded 12. An ambassador from the United Arab Emirates and other UAE diplomats were among the wounded, authorities said. The Kabul suicide bomber struck about 4 p.m. as workers were leaving a compound of government and legislative offices, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

The United Arab Emirates says an attack on a guesthouse belonging to the governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province wounded its ambassador and "a number of Emirati diplomats." The UAE's Foreign Ministry made the statement Tuesday night, describing the attack as "heinous." It identified the wounded ambassador as Juma Mohammed Abdullah al-Kaabi. Al-Kaabi first presented his credentials to Afghan authorities in June. The statement did not say how many Emirati diplomats were wounded. It said they were there as part of a humanitarian mission. Emirati combat troops deployed to Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban. Afghan officials say two explosions inside the governor's compound killed five people and wounded 12.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Disgraced South Korean President Park Geun-hye's longtime friend at the center of a massive corruption scandal refused to testify at Park's impeachment trial on Tuesday, with lawmakers alleging that it was a stalling tactic. The Constitutional Court had expected to hear from Choi Soon-sil, a confidante of Park who's currently jailed and on trial herself for allegedly using her connections with the president to extort money and favors from companies and unlawfully interfere with government affairs. But Choi (pronounced Chwey) submitted documents to the court saying she was unable to testify because she had to prepare for her own trial.

HONG KONG (AP) — As German tanks encircled the Polish town of Katowice, rookie British newspaper reporter Clare Hollingworth picked up the phone and dialed the British Embassy. An official there didn't believe what she told him, so she dangled the phone out the window so he could hear the ominous rumbling for himself. "Listen!" she implored. "Can't you hear it?" Hollingworth was 27, and just a week into her job with the Daily Telegraph of London. She had the scoop of a lifetime: World War II had just begun. She hung up and called the Telegraph's Warsaw correspondent, who dictated to London her story about the Nazi invasion of southern Poland in late August 1939.

NAMPO, North Korea (AP) — North Korean officials and factory managers are scrambling to answer a call from leader Kim Jong Un for an all-out, nationwide effort to build up the country's economy in 2017. Along with vowing to make yet more advances with nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile, Kim called for the push to improve the economy in his annual New Year's address. Now, in something of a New Year's tradition, economic officials are rushing to make plans to fill that very tall bill. "Last year, we made many achievements in the science and technology field and we made a lot of steel," Kim Kil Nam, vice chief engineer at the Chollima Steel Complex, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

BANGKOK (AP) — At least 25 people have died in severe flooding in southern Thailand since New Year's Day, leaving businesses paralyzed, schools closed and thousands of tourists stranded, the government said Tuesday. Twelve provinces have been hit by unseasonal rains and surface runoff since Jan. 1, affecting more than 1 million people, the Interior Ministry said, adding that the main highway connecting the south with the rest of the country was swamped and impassable. One of the main airports in the region has been closed since Friday and will be shut until at least Wednesday, while train services remain suspended.

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's prime minister said Tuesday he will honor a request from the country's new king that several changes be made to a constitution that was approved in a referendum last August. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters that King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun told his royal advisers that he wished to have several articles about the monarchy amended. Prayuth did not specify what changes he desired, but said three or four points were involved. Vajiralongkorn took the throne on Dec. 2, succeeding his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in October after an extended illness. An interim constitution put in place after the army seized power in 2014 calls for the approved charter to be endorsed by the king within 90 days, and Vajiralongkorn's failure so far to do so had caused concern.