Top Asian News 3:54 a.m. GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean prosecutors said Monday that they want a court to issue a warrant to arrest former President Park Geun-hye on corruption allegations. The announcement came about one week after prosecutors grilled Park for 14 hours over suspicions that she colluded with a jailed confidante to extort from companies and committed other wrongdoing. The Seoul Central District Court had no immediate comment. The court is expected to bring in Park for questioning before it determines whether to issue the arrest warrant. The arrest is the next step before Park can be formally charged with crimes such as extortion, bribery and abuse of power.

BEIJING (AP) — At first blush, the plight of former Chinese police official Zhao Liping might not win much sympathy. When a court sentenced Zhao, who'd wielded enormous power over his fellow citizens, to death for murder and corruption, state media hailed the ruling as evidence of equality before the law. Reports called it a milestone in the country's crackdown on misbehaving officials. Yet Zhao's brother is now questioning the verdict, saying the ex-official was abused in police custody and sentenced in a show trial — raising issues of justice that are rarely aired in politically sensitive, often tightly scripted cases.

TOWNSVILLE, Australia (AP) — Thousands of people began evacuating low-lying areas of Australia's tropical northeast on Monday as a powerful cyclone bore down on the coast. Cyclone Debbie was expected to cross the Queensland state coast along a sparsely populated 100-kilometer (60-mile) stretch between the towns of Ayr and Bowen early Tuesday, Australian Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Michael Paech said. The cyclone was churning over the Pacific Ocean as a Category 3 storm on Monday, with wind gusts up to 165 kilometers per hour (100 mph). It was expected to intensify to a Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 260 kph per hour (160 mph) when it crosses on to land, Paech said.

HONG KONG (AP) — The candidate favored by China's Communist leadership was chosen as Hong Kong's new leader on Sunday, in the first such vote since huge pro-democracy protests erupted over the semiautonomous Chinese city's election system in 2014. A committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites selected Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's former No. 2 official, as the financial hub's chief executive even though she was far less popular than her main rival. Lam received 67 percent of the votes cast by the 1,194-member committee. Her victory was hardly a surprise. China's leaders had lobbied heavily behind the scenes for the 59-year-old Lam, who will become Hong Kong's first female leader and its fourth since British colonial control ended in 1997.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. counterterrorism airstrike earlier this month in Afghanistan killed an al-Qaida leader responsible for a deadly hotel attack in Islamabad in 2008 and the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, the Pentagon said Saturday. In confirming the death of Qari Yasin, U.S. officials said Yasin was a senior terrorist figure from Balochistan, Pakistan, had ties to the group Tehrik-e Taliban and had plotted multiple al-Qaida terror attacks. The airstrike that led to his death was conducted March 19 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. Yasin plotted the Sept. 20, 2008, bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed dozens, officials said.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines military says they have rescued three more Malaysian tugboat crewmen held hostage by Muslim militants for eight months in the south of the country. A brief military report Monday said troops rescued Zulkipli Bin Ali, Mohammad Ridzuan Bin Ismail and Fandy Bin Bakran late Sunday in southern Sulu province. They were taken to a hospital for check-ups. Two other Malaysian crewmen from the same group, who were kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in July off Malaysia's Sabah state near the southern Philippines, were rescued last week when they were abandoned by their captors as a naval patrol closed in.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan says it has started building a fence along the Afghan border in areas where it says militants have launched cross-border attacks, a move that could worsen tensions with Afghanistan, which has never accepted the colonial-era frontier. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the head of Pakistan's armed forces, announced the construction of fencing in "high threat zones" Saturday during a visit to tribal regions along the border, saying it was in the interest of both countries. The two countries share a 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) internationally recognized border known as the Durand Line, which was drawn in the 19th century, when the British dominated South Asia.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Two suspected militants were killed Sunday in an ongoing military raid on a building where armed militants were holed up in eastern Bangladesh, police and army officials said. Six people, including two policemen, were killed in explosions near that building a day earlier. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Fakhrul Ahsan told reporters that the government operations were not yet over and that one or more militants were still inside the building Sunday evening. Army and paramilitary troops have been trying since Friday to flush out Islamist radicals who have holed up in a building in the city of Sylhet with a large cache of ammunition.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — China's premier has arrived in New Zealand for high-level talks at a time that both countries are pushing to expand free trade. Premier Li Keqiang arrived at Wellington Airport on Sunday, where he was greeted at the military terminal by New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English. The premier stepped off his plane, gave a quick wave toward media and then stepped into a waiting car. His motorcade left for Premier House where he was attending a dinner. As the motorcade left the airport, the premier was greeted by Chinese well-wishers wearing red shirts and holding banners and the flags of both China and New Zealand.

BEIJING (AP) — An academic at an Australian university has been prevented by Chinese authorities from returning to Sydney because he's suspected of endangering national security, his lawyer said Sunday. Border officials at an airport in the southern city of Guangzhou refused to let Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, catch his flight home on Friday and Saturday, according to Feng's lawyer, Chen Jinxue. "He has no way of leaving China right now," Chen said. Officials have not said why they suspect Feng of "endangering national security," Chen said, but it could be related to his research on human rights lawyers.