Top Asian News 2:39 a.m. GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong's High Court refused to allow three transgender men to be recognized as males on their official identity cards because they have not undergone full sex-change operations. The ruling Friday was seen as a blow to the fledgling LGBT movement in the semiautonomous Chinese city of 7.4 million people, which is preparing to host the 2022 Gay Games. The three, identified as Henry Tse, Q and R, are shown on their ID cards as having been born female, but are undergoing hormone therapy. A full sex change would require the removal of female sexual organs, making them sterile.

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong customs officers have intercepted a record 8.3 tons of pangolin scales and hundreds of elephant tusks worth more than $8 million combined, underscoring the threat to endangered species from demand in Asia. Acting on a tip from mainland Chinese authorities, local officials found the haul in mid-January in a refrigerated container labeled as frozen meat from Nigeria, officials said Friday. They said the smugglers kept the temperature low to better disguise the smell of the illicit cargo. Police arrested two people in connection with the seizure. It was the largest-ever seizure of pangolin scales in Hong Kong, representing the product of some 14,000 animals, and one of the largest of ivory in a decade, the officials said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — One North Korean defector in Seoul describes her family back home quietly singing Christian hymns every Sunday while someone stood watch for informers. A second cowered under a blanket or in the toilet when praying in the North. Yet another recalls seeing a fellow prison inmate who'd been severely beaten for refusing to repudiate her religion. These accounts from interviews with The Associated Press provide a small window into how underground Christians in North Korea struggle to maintain their faith amid persistent crackdowns. The North's treatment of Christians could become a bigger issue if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's expected second summit with President Donald Trump produces significant progress, and if Pope Francis follows through on his expressed willingness to take up Kim's invitation to visit North Korea.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Christianity is virtually outlawed in North Korea, where dictator Kim Jong Un is the subject of a personality cult that treats him like a god. The possession of Bibles, open religious services and any attempt to build underground church networks could mean torture, lengthy prison terms or execution. The following is what North Korean defectors, a Christian activist and a South Korean Catholic bishop with previous links to the North told The Associated Press about the ways North Koreans maintain their beliefs: ___ LEE HANBYEOL Lee, 35, is a North Korean refugee in Seoul whose Christian father prayed whenever his wife slipped into China to borrow money from relatives in the mid-1990s.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh's central bank has filed a lawsuit in a New York court against a Philippine bank, seeking damages and the return of $81 million stolen from its account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2016, an official said Friday. Abu Hena Mohd. Rajee Hassan, head of Bangladesh Bank's Finance Intelligence Unit, confirmed that the case was filed in the Southern District Court of New York against Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., or RCBC. "Yes, we have done it online through a firm there and it has been accepted," Hassan said. "Our next procedures will follow accordingly as we want our money back.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ The funeral procession of a woman sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers as a girl during WWII concluded Friday near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, where Kim Bok-dong had protested for decades against what she called Japanese failure to come to terms with its wartime brutality. Hundreds of mourners, many dressed in black and holding paper cutouts of yellow butterflies that the 92-year-old had adopted as a symbol, crowded around a bronze statue of a girl representing the thousands of Asian women experts say the Japanese military forced into front-line brothels as it pursued colonial ambitions.

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — A lawyer for two Reuters journalists sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of violating Myanmar's Official Secrets Act filed an appeal Friday with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn their convictions. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in December 2017 for having government documents in their possession. They contend they were framed by police, and their supporters say they were targeted because of their reporting on a crackdown by security forces on members of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority in Rakhine state. The appeal says lower court rulings involved errors in judicial procedure.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan official says the Taliban have attacked an army checkpoint in one of the country's northern provinces, killing at least six soldiers. Zabihullah Amani, the provincial governor's spokesman, says seven soldiers were also wounded in the attack on Thursday night in Sozma Qala district in Sari Pul province. Amani says nine Taliban fighters were killed and 13 were wounded in a gunbattled that followed the attack. He added that reinforcements were dispatched to the area and that it is now under control of Afghan forces. The Taliban didn't immediately say they were behind the attack but the insurgents have been carrying out near-daily attacks on Afghan forces.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police have fired tear gas and wielded batons to disperse a rally by Islamic radicals in the southern port city of Karachi against the acquittal of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy. But despite the Karachi violence, nationwide rallies the extremists had called for on Friday against Aasia Bibi's freedom mostly fizzled. Bibi had spent eight years on death row on charges of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, which petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse its Oct. 31 acquittal of Bibi, had called for new rallies after the top court this week threw out its petition.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump works out the details of a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (kim jawng oon), he's thinking about adding a possible meeting with China's president to his itinerary. The White House hasn't released details on when Trump might meet Xi Jinping (shee jihn-peeng) as the leaders try to settle a trade war between the economic powers. Trump tells reporters he's considering trying to see Xi when he's in Asia later this month for expected denuclearization talks with North Korea's Kim. Trump says the time and date of his summit with Kim will be announced next week.