Top Asian News 4:05 a.m. GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Early last year, a little-known Chinese researcher turned up at an elite meeting in Berkeley, California, where scientists and ethicists were discussing a technology that had shaken the field to its core — an emerging tool for "editing" genes, the strings of DNA that form the blueprint of life. The young scientist, He Jiankui, saw the power of this tool, called CRISPR, to transform not only genes, but also his own career. In visits to the United States, he sought out CRISPR pioneers such as Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University's Dr.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's president says U.S. President Donald Trump told him he has a "very friendly view" of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and wants to grant his wishes if he denuclearizes. North Korea has sought security guarantees from the U.S. and relief from international sanctions. President Moon Jae-in's office quoted Moon as saying that Trump asked him to convey those messages to the North Korean leader if he visits Seoul this year as he promised. Moon spoke to reporters on Saturday aboard his presidential plane en route to New Zealand from Argentina, where he met Trump on the sidelines of a Group of 20 Nations summit.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in greeted Korean War veterans Monday in Auckland during a two-day visit to New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the visit is a chance to reaffirm the strong relationship between the two nations, which signed a free-trade deal in 2015. Ardern is scheduled to meet with Moon on Tuesday before he leaves later that day. Ardern said New Zealand welcomes Moon's efforts to resolve the long-standing challenges on the Korean Peninsula. "Our governments have much in common, not just in terms of the international outlook, but also on the domestic policy front where we will be looking to exchange views and experiences," Ardern said in a statement.

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.

SINGAPORE (AP) — Asian markets were broadly higher on Monday after the U.S. and China reached a 90-day truce in a trade dispute that has dampened global growth and rattled investors worldwide. KEEPING SCORE: Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 2.8 percent to 27,250.48 and the Shanghai Composite index jumped 2.9 percent to 2,663.45. Japan's Nikkei 225 index climbed 1.4 percent to 22,679.19 and the Kospi in South Korea jumped 1.8 percent to 2,135.15. The S&P ASX/200 in Australia added 1.8 percent to 5,767.50. Shares rallied in Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. WALL STREET: U.S. indexes rose Friday on hopes that President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping would make progress on resolving a bruising tariffs dispute at their working dinner on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dinner-table diplomacy that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China conducted over the weekend produced something as vague as it was valuable: an agreement to keep talking. Forged over grilled sirloin at the Group of 20 summit Saturday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the ceasefire Trump and Xi agreed to Saturday night illustrated that the leaders of the world's two largest economies can at least find some common ground, however tentative and ill-defined it might be. The truce pulled the United States and China back from an escalating trade war that was threatening world economic growth and had set global investors on edge.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Leaders of the world's largest economic powers have agreed to overhaul the global body that regulates trade disputes, but they faced resistance from President Donald Trump over the Paris accord on climate change. Here are some of the main developments at the Group of 20 summit, which wrapped up Saturday: ___ WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION All G-20 leaders called for reforming the World Trade Organization and the issue will be discussed during the group's next summit in Osaka, Japan, in June. The gathering's final statement, however, did not mention protectionism after negotiators said the U.S. objected to the wording.

KATOWICE, Poland (AP) — Negotiators from around the world opened the United Nations' annual climate change conference Sunday in a Polish city built around mining coal, widely seen as a main culprit behind global warming. Arriving for two weeks of talks on tackling climate change, conference participants cast off hats, scarves and heavy coats as they entered cavernous halls in Katowice heated by coal-fired power plants nearby. Coal is center-stage at the U.N. summit, which is taking place three years after a landmark deal in Paris set a goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

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.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh's government has announced that opposition leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is ineligible to contest Dec. 30 national elections because she has been sentenced to prison in two corruption cases. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said Sunday that anyone convicted and sentenced to two years or more in jail is not eligible according to a recent Supreme Court ruling. Zia, 73, who has been in jail since February, is serving a 10-year sentence on one corruption conviction. In October, she was sentenced to seven years after being found guilty in another case. Her party has called the convictions politically motivated.