Top Asian News 4:34 a.m. GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Dozens of lawmakers split from South Korea's ruling party Tuesday over the corruption scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye in a move that could shape presidential elections that might take place in just months. The 29 anti-Park lawmakers who left the Saenuri Party planned to create a new conservative party that will likely try to lure outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as its presidential candidate. There's a possibility of more lawmakers leaving Saenuri in coming weeks over rifts with Park loyalists who continue to occupy the party's leadership. Choung Byoung-gug, one of the lawmakers who left Saenuri, accused the loyalists of "neglecting the values of real conservatism" and "shamelessly defending the infringement of constitutional values" as they continued to support the scandal-hit president.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — With somewhere around 4,000 artists and staff, the Mansudae Art Studio, a huge complex of nondescript concrete buildings on a sprawling, walled-off campus with armed guards in the heart of Pyongyang, churns out everything from watercolor tigers to mosaics so large they seem to depict a race from another, taller planet. But its statues — the really big, bronze, monumental ones on foreign shores — are what appear to have caught the attention of the U.N. Security Council. In one of the odder items on the list of things North Korea can't export under United Nations' sanctions, statues were explicitly listed for the first time last month when the Security Council approved a raft of punishments in response to Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, which it conducted in September.

BEIJING (AP) — China vowed Tuesday to speed up the development of its space industry as it set out its plans to become the first country to soft land a probe on the far side of the moon, around 2018, and launch its first Mars probe by 2020. "To explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is a dream we pursue unremittingly," read a white paper setting out the country's space strategy for the next five years. It says China aims to use space for peaceful purposes and to guarantee national security, and to carry out cutting edge scientific research.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will visit Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, wasn't even born when Japan's former leader Shigeru Yoshida went there just six years after the country's World War II surrender, by himself and feeling awkward. Yoshida is best remembered for signing the San Francisco peace treaty with the U.S. and others in 1951, allowing Japan back into international society after its war defeat. His Pearl Harbor visit, which he made on his way home from San Francisco, was largely eclipsed by the historic treaty. Archival writings and photos unearthed by The Associated Press reconstruct Yoshida's visit, from his aim to win U.S.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian court has ruled that the blasphemy trial of the minority Christian governor of the country's capital will proceed. A North Jakarta District Court judge told the court Tuesday that the panel did not accept Gov. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama's argument that the indictment is inaccurate and should be annulled. The blasphemy controversy erupted when a video circulated online in which Ahok lightheartedly said that people were being deceived if they believed his detractors who asserted that the Quran prohibits Muslims from having a non-Muslim leader. Ahok is seeking a second term as governor in elections due in February.

BATANGAS, Philippines (AP) — A powerful typhoon blew out of the northern Philippines on Monday after killing at least six people and spoiling Christmas in several provinces, where more than 380,000 people abandoned celebrations at home to reach emergency shelters and other safer grounds. Typhoon Nock-Ten cut power to five entire provinces due to toppled electric posts and trees, dimming Christmas revelries in Asia's largest Catholic nation. More than 300 flights were delayed or re-scheduled and ferries were barred from sailing, stranding more than 12,000 holiday travelers. Six people died from drowning or by being pinned by fallen trees, poles and a collapsed concrete wall in the provinces of Quezon and Albay, southeast of Manila, after the typhoon made landfall in Catanduanes province Sunday night, officials said.

BEIJING (AP) — China and Sao Tome and Principe officially resumed diplomatic relations Monday in a triumph for Beijing over rival Taiwan after the African island nation abruptly broke away from the self-ruled island last week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his counterpart from Sao Tome, Urbino Botelho, signed books at a ceremony in front of their flags at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Wang said the re-establishment of relations would bring benefits to both countries and they would hold exchanges in tourism, the media and other areas. The move is a victory for Beijing, which considers the self-governing island of Taiwan a part of China's territory and has been outraged by suggestions by President-elect Donald Trump that he could rethink U.S.

BEIJING (AP) — China's first aircraft carrier and five other warships passed by Taiwan and sailed into the contested South China Sea on Monday, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said. The ships, led by the Liaoning, sailed past the Pratas Islands, also known as the Dongsha Islands, a Taiwan-controlled atoll in the northern part of the South China Sea, according to the ministry. China's Defense Ministry said Saturday that the Liaoning had set off for a routine open-sea exercise in the Western Pacific as part of its annual training. But its entering into the politically sensitive South China Sea follows rising tensions between Beijing and Taipei over the status of the self-ruled island.

BANGKOK (AP) — Police in Thailand on Monday charged a suspect with participating in recent hacking attacks on government computers that were billed as a protest against a restrictive law governing internet use. Natdanai Kongdee, 19, was one of nine people arrested in connection with the attacks that blocked access to some websites and accessed non-public files, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said. Police said he was a low-level hacker rather than a leader and had confessed to participating in the attacks. They said he belonged to several online groups specializing in hacking activities. Natdanai was present at Monday's news conference but did not speak.

BANGKOK (AP) — A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves: ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a weekly look at the latest developments in the South China Sea, home to several territorial conflicts that have raised tensions in the region. ___ PHILIPPINES TO PUT BOTH U.S. AND CHINA ON NOTICE OVER GLIDER INCIDENT After China returned an underwater glider it seized from the U.S. Navy off the coast of the Philippines, the Philippine defense secretary said his government would put both Washington and Beijing on notice against what he called their unauthorized presence in the country's 200-mile exclusive economic zone.