Top Asian News 4:27 a.m. GMT

TOKYO (AP) — China's announcement it has suspended North Korean coal imports may have been its first test of whether the Trump administration is ready to do something about a major, and mutual, security problem: North Korea's nukes. While China is Pyongyang's biggest enabler, it is also the biggest outside agent of regime-challenging change — just not in the way Washington has wanted. Judging from Trump's limited comments so far, and the gaping chasm between Washington's long-held focus on sanctions and punishment and Beijing's equally deep commitment to diplomatic talks that don't require the North to first give up its arsenal, a deal between the two won't come easily.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Sometime in the hours after poisoning the half brother of North Korea's leader, one of his two attackers began to vomit, Malaysian police said Friday. It was apparently an early indication of the immensely powerful toxin that was used in the killing: the chemical warfare agent VX. The oily poison was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, experts say, and is banned under international treaties. North Korea, a prime suspect in the case, never signed that treaty, and has spent decades developing a complex chemical weapons program that has long worried the international community.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea may have found a new use for its large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, which are meant to attack South Korean and U.S. troops in case of another war. Malaysian police said Friday that a chemical weapon — the toxic VX nerve agent — was used to kill the estranged half brother of Pyongyang's absolute leader at the Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13. If North Korea's involvement is confirmed, this would be an unusual and extremely high-profile use of its chemicals in an assassination. Much like its secretive nuclear program, outsiders struggle to nail down exact details about the North's chemical and biological weapons programs.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine senator and leading critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly crackdown on illegal drugs said she won't be intimidated by a leader she called a "serial killer" after police arrested her on drug charges. Leila de Lima said the accusations against her were part of an attempt by Duterte to muzzle critics of the clampdown that has left more than 7,000 suspected dealers and small-time users dead. She questioned why the court suddenly issued the arrest order when it was scheduled Friday to hear her petition to throw out the charges of receiving bribes from detained drug lords.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's long-running acrimony with his leading critic, opposition Sen. Leila de Lima, has set off sharp verbal exchanges as they have argued over his anti-drug crackdown, which has led to more than 7,000 deaths since last June. De Lima called the president a "sociopathic serial killer" on Friday as she was arrested on drug charges. He has called her a sex-starved "immoral woman." Here are some examples of the verbal salvos launched by Duterte and de Lima: ___ "Liars! Hypocrites!" — De Lima on the credibility of government-backed witnesses whose statements helped put her in jail Friday. ___ "Here is an immoral woman ...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Some Australians foresee trouble in their country's traditionally strong alliance with the United States because of what they see as "unpresidential" behavior from President Donald Trump, while others think outspoken businessman-turned-Australian-leader Malcolm Turnbull is a good match for him. Australians have long had an affinity with the United States and absorb American popular culture like blotting paper. The U.S. is popularly seen as rescuing Australia from Japanese invasion during World War II, after old ally Britain abandoned its Southeast Asian stronghold of Singapore. Ever since, the United States has found a staunch ally in Australia in every major conflict, including an unpopular war in Vietnam and the politically divisive invasion of Iraq in 2003.

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese religious cult that carried out a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways in 1995 also experimented with the VX nerve agent suspected in the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's half brother in Malaysia. Months before killing about a dozen commuters and severely injuring dozens more in Tokyo with sarin, another kind of nerve gas, in March 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo cult tried VX on at least three victims, killing one whom cult members believed was a police informant. In their trial, cult members said they practiced using syringes to spray the deadly chemical on people's necks as they pretended to be out jogging.

The banned chemical weapon VX is considered by some experts to be the nastiest of the nasty nerve agents known to exist. With a consistency similar to motor oil, it lingers for long periods in the environment and even a tiny amount causes victims' bodies to flood with fluids, producing a feeling of drowning before death. So when Malaysian authorities announced Friday that VX was to blame for the Feb. 13 death of the North Korean leader's exiled half brother inside a busy Kuala Lumpur airport, it raised nearly as many questions as answers. First, with a substance so potent, how is it possible that the two women who allegedly attacked Kim Jong Nam with it could have survived?

SYDNEY (AP) — Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo arrived in Sydney on Saturday on his first visit to Australia as his nation's leader. Jokowi and first lady Iriana Widodo landed in rain and clutched umbrellas as they greeted Australian officials on the Sydney Airport tarmac. Improving trade and investment will be a key focus of Jokowi's two-day state visit with plans to finalize a free trade agreement this year. Jokowi will meet with business leaders Saturday afternoon before a private dinner at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's harbor-side mansion. "Our relationship with Indonesia is growing deeper by the day but it has not yet reached its full potential," Turnbull wrote in an opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, adding that Australia trades more with Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand than with Indonesia.

SHANGHAI (AP) — Democratic senators are protesting the Trump Organization's acceptance of a valuable trademark from the Chinese government without asking Congress first if doing so is constitutional. A group of 13 senators warned President Donald Trump in a letter Thursday that they intend to hold him accountable to his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Additional Democrats signed a letter Friday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that complains about Trump getting special treatment from China. "A president must not have two masters," said Thursday's letter, led by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal. "If you continue to refuse to request and receive congressional approval before accepting favors from foreign governments, we will be unable to serve our constitutional role.