Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

HONG KONG (AP) — Service on the express train to Hong Kong’s airport was suspended Sunday as pro-democracy protesters gathered there following a day of violent clashes with police.

Trains from the airport on Chek Lap Kok island into the city still were running, MTR Corp. said.

Several hundred protesters have gathered at the airport, one of Asia’s busiest, following online calls to disrupt travel. Many carried umbrellas, a symbol of the protest movement.

HONG KONG (AP) — Protesters in Hong Kong threw gasoline bombs at government headquarters and set fires in the streets, while police stormed a subway car and hit passengers with batons and pepper spray in scenes that seem certain to inflame tensions further in a city riven by nearly three months of pro-democracy demonstrations.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Aug 31 (NNN-AKP) – A Cambodian court has sentenced an Israeli man to three years in prison, for sexually abusing underage boys, an anti-pedophile organisation said, in a press statement.

Ezra Balfour, 60, was convicted of “indecent act against a minor under 15 years” by the Siem Reap Provincial Court, said the statement, released by NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), which assisted the police in a probe leading to the arrest and conviction of the man.

TOKYO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government on Saturday protested to South Korea over a visit by South Korean lawmakers to the disputed islands in the Sea of Japan controlled by Seoul and claimed by Tokyo.

A group of South Korean lawmakers landed on the islands known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan at around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. According to the lawmakers, their purpose is to protest Tokyo's removing South Korea from its list of trading partners entitled to preferential export procedures and its handling of the issue of wartime labor.

HONG KONG, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's Commissioner of Police Lo Wai-chung on Saturday strongly condemned the knife attack on an off-duty police officer, pledging a comprehensive investigation into the incident.

The officer, 45, was attacked by three males with a knife when he was walking past Kwai Yi Road around 11:15 p.m. local time on Friday, sustaining injuries on his arms and back. He was then sent to the Princess Margaret Hospital.

HONG KONG (AP) — About 1,000 people were taking part in a Christian march through central Hong Kong on Saturday as a 13th straight weekend of pro-democracy protests got underway.

After gathering at an athletic field, they marched to a Methodist church and then police headquarters. The crowd alternated between singing hymns and chanting the slogans of the pro-democracy movement that has taken to the streets of Hong Kong for more than two months.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A senior North Korean diplomat on Saturday berated U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over his comments describing North Korean behavior as “rogue” and said Pyongyang’s hopes for talks with Washington are fading.

In a statement carried by state media, North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said Pompeo’s “thoughtless” comments increased North Korean people’s animosity toward Americans and made it harder for working-level nuclear negotiations between the countries to resume.

HONG KONG (AP) — The Latest on the protests in Hong Kong (all times local):

7:40 a.m.

President Donald Trump says he thinks the situation in Hong Kong would have been much more violent if not for the U.S. trade war with China.

Trump says he sees a connection between Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests and the trade negotiations. He says the talks are “keeping down the temperature.” Trump says China wants to make a deal “and they know it puts us in a very bad position if there’s not a humane way of handling the problems” in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong and another core member of a pro-democracy group were granted bail after being charged with inciting people to join a protest in June, while authorities denied permission for a major march Saturday as they took what appears to be a harder line on this summer’s protests.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s greenhouse gas emission targets are at risk as a result of the trade war with the United States, which has put Beijing’s coal-reliant economy under heavy pressure, a senior climate official said on Friday.