Top Asian News 1:55 p.m. GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A search resumed Monday for 17 people reported missing after a ferry fire off the coast of Indonesia's capital that left at least 23 dead, officials said. The victims died Sunday when the vessel, Zahro Express, carrying more than 260 people from a port near Jakarta to Tidung, a resort island in the Kepulauan Seribu chain, caught fire, officials said. Most of the passengers were Indonesians celebrating the New Year holiday, according to local media reports. Denny Wahyu Haryanto, head of the Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency, said the report about the 17 missing was received before the burned ship was towed to the port, where rescuers found 20 bodies inside.

BANGKOK (AP) — A van and a pickup collided and caught fire on a highway in eastern Thailand on Monday afternoon, killing 25 people, authorities said. The public transit van lost control and crossed the grass median, colliding with the pickup truck going in the opposite direction Monday afternoon, according to Thai Road Accident Data for Road Safety Culture, which compiles electronic insurance reports. Twenty-five people were killed and two survived the crash, said police Col. Dusadee Kunchorn Na Ayutthaya, superintendent of the Ban Bung district police station in Chonburi province. "An accident like this shouldn't happen but it did," Dusadee said.

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing and other cities across northern and central China were shrouded in thick smog Monday, prompting authorities to delay dozens of flights and close highways. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau extended an "orange alert" for heavy air pollution for three more days. Beijing's smog had initially been forecast to lift by Monday. The "orange alert" is the third level, preceding a "red alert," in China's four-tiered warning system. On Sunday, 25 cities in China issued "red alerts" for smog, which triggers orders to close factories, schools and construction sites. Air pollution readings in northern Chinese cities were many times above the World Health Organization-designated safe level of 25 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5, the tiny, toxic particles that damage lung tissue.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's government has vowed to take action against police officers shown beating villagers in a video that has circulated on the internet. A front-page story on Monday in the state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper about the Nov. 5 incident was a rare official acknowledgment of abuses taking place in the western state of Rakhine. The authorities have been conducting counterinsurgency operations there since an attack in October by unidentified armed men killed nine border guards. Human rights groups accuse security forces of abuses against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Rakhine, including rape, killings and the burning of more than 1,000 homes.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court on Monday ruled that election candidates cannot use religion or caste to seek votes, describing them as corrupt practices under electoral laws. India has a Hindu-nationalist government, and most political parties select candidates in various districts based on caste and religious considerations to influence voting. The ruling on Monday is considered significant as it comes months before elections in Uttar Pradesh state where dominant campaign issues are caste affiliations and the building of a Hindu temple in place of a 16th century mosque demolished by Hindu hardliners. Legislature elections are also due in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur states.

BERLIN (AP) — German police say that a 19-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker has suffered serious burns after setting himself on fire at a supermarket warehouse in Bavaria. Police said that the man poured gasoline over himself and set himself ablaze early Monday in Gaimersheim, a town between Nuremberg and Munich. He had bought the gasoline shortly before at a filling station. The blaze was extinguished swiftly by other people at the scene, but the man was seriously injured. The man's motives weren't immediately clear. Police say he was carrying a knife but didn't use it.

After returning from a visit to Pearl Harbor last week, Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada visited a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. Inada had accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit to Pearl Harbor, where he offered condolences to those who died in the Japanese attack there in 1941. In other images from the Asia-Pacific region last week, South Korean opposition politicians called for nullifying a settlement reached between Seoul and Tokyo on compensation for South Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japan's military during World War II. The move came on the anniversary of the deal, and amid growing efforts to erase some of the key policies of impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani health official says a special five-day anti-polio drive is being launched in the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province after traces of polio virus were found in the sewer system. Syed Faisal Ahmed, the coordinator for Emergency Operation Centre in Quetta, said Monday that some 400,000 children under age five will be immunized against the deadly virus. He said decision to launch the special drive was made after environmental samples in Quetta confirmed the presence of the virus. Ahmed said 1,345 teams will cover 39 local councils of the city amid tight security. Multiple anti-polio drives enabled Pakistan to announce last year that the virus had largely eliminated.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan official says that at least one police officer has been killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Logar province. Salim Saleh, spokesman for the provincial governor in Logar, said Monday that four other people including a district police commander and three road construction engineers were wounded in the blast. Meanwhile at least six people were wounded in another explosion near the western city of Herat Sunday evening. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks in Logar and Herat provinces.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean prosecutors said Monday that the daughter of the confidante of impeached President Park Geun-hye has been arrested in Denmark, and that authorities were working to get her returned home in connection with a huge corruption scandal. Park was impeached last month by lawmakers amid public fury over prosecutors' allegations that she conspired to allow her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, to extort companies and control the government. Denmark police arrested Choi's daughter, Chung Yoo-ra, over the weekend on charges of staying there illegally. South Korea had asked Interpol to search for Chung because she didn't return home to answer questions about the scandal.