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SEOUL, South Korea —

 North Korea on Friday presented to media a man it alleges is a South Korean spy who tried to enter the North to kidnap children. During a Pyongyang news conference attended by The Associated Press and other foreign media, detainee Ko Hyon Chol said he apologized for a crime he called "unforgivable." Ko, 53, said he was born in North Korea but fled the country in early 2013 to resettle in the South. He said he was later recruited by South Korea's spy service for a mission to abduct children from the North. He said he was arrested May 27 on an island in the Amnok River which runs along the border between North Korea and China.

SEOUL, South Korea 

Angry residents in a rural South Korean town threw eggs and water bottles at the prime minister and blocked him for more than six hours Friday to protest a plan to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system in their neighborhood. Earlier this week, South Korea announced that the missile system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, will be placed in the southeastern farming town of Seongju by the end of next year to better cope with North Korean threats. Seongju residents launched protests, saying they fear possible health hazards from the missile system.

SRINAGAR, India—

 Widespread anti-India protests and clashes erupted in dozens of places in divided Kashmir, even as authorities prevented tens of thousands of people from offering Friday prayers in big mosques with a lockdown in place for a seventh straight day. Government forces armed with automatic rifles and in riot gear ordered residents to stay indoors around the region, but protests started after people prayed in smaller, neighborhood mosques. Troops fired live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas to disperse rock-throwing crowds who chanted pro-freedom and anti-India slogans. At least one teenage boy was killed and two others injured after army soldiers fired guns to stop hundreds of villagers who attacked their camp with rocks in northern Kupwara area, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

BEIJING

A human rights lawyer and three activists have been indicted on subversion charges, Chinese prosecutors said Friday, signaling that an unprecedented crackdown on legal activism that began one year ago continues despite international criticism. The prosecutors' office of the municipality of Tianjin posted on its microblog that Zhou Shifeng, a lawyer who heads a Beijing-based firm seen as being at the center of the security sweep, has been charged with subversion of state power. Three activists were indicted on the same charge, the prosecutors' office said. The vaguely defined charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. China launched its largest-ever crackdown against human rights lawyers and activists on July 9, 2015, seizing and questioning hundreds of people nationwide in a campaign that sent a chill through the country's legal system.

TOKYO 

 A U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced Friday to two and a half years in prison for raping a Japanese tourist in Okinawa, the southern island that is home to about half of the 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan. Justin Castellanos, 24, was sentenced Friday in district court in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, according to Japanese media reports. The sailor took the woman to his hotel room and raped her after finding her asleep in the hallway in the early hours of March 13, Kyodo News service said, citing the ruling. His arrest, and that of an American military contractor on charges of raping and killing a 20-year-old woman, have inflamed anti-U.S.

YANGON, Myanmar 

Myanmar's government has denounced an influential Buddhist nationalist group after failing earlier to speak strongly against it though others were accusing it of using hate speech and inspiring violence against Muslims. The Ma Ba Tha organization's charismatic leader, the monk Wirathu, responded Wednesday by calling the country's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a "dictatorial woman." The Sangha Council, a state institution that oversees Buddhist monastic discipline, declared Tuesday that it did not recognize Ma Ba Tha as a member of the country's Buddhist order. Last week, the government's minister for Yangon, Phyo Min Thein, said the group shouldn't exist, rejecting Ma Ba Tha's demands on official policy toward the Muslim Rohingya minority.

MANILA, Philippines 

 The Philippines will fight for its landmark arbitration victory to be upheld when it talks about resolving its South China Sea disputes with China, which has refused to recognize the ruling, the government lawyer said Friday. The Philippine position disclosed by Solicitor General Jose Calida runs against that of China, which opposes use of the tribunal ruling as basis for any negotiations. New President Rodrigo Duterte has sought talks with China to resolve the territorial row and revive relations, saying Chinese officials have promised to finance railway projects he has envisioned for the country. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a briefing that China welcomes Duterte's willingness to start talks.

ISTANBUL 

The U.N. cultural agency on Friday placed nine new sites on its World Heritage List, including a medieval Armenian city located in northeast Turkey. UNESCO added the old city of Ani, in the Turkish province of Kars to its prestigious list during a meeting in Istanbul. Ani, near Turkey's now closed border with Armenia, once served as the capital of the Armenian kingdom in the 10th century. Mostly abandoned after a devastating earthquake in the 14th century, the ruins include a relatively well-preserved cathedral and hold major significance for Armenians. Other sites announced Friday include China's Zuojiang Huashan rock art cultural landscape, Iran's ancient aqueducts known as Qanat, and India's archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara.

BEIJING

 China's Cabinet said Friday that 53 people are in custody in an investigation into a landslide that killed 73 people and left four others missing in the southern city of Shenzhen last year. The State Council's investigation report said the landslide in which a mountain of construction waste that had been piled up against a hill collapsed during heavy rains onto an industrial park was an "extraordinarily serious production safety accident." The report did not detail the accusations against those who were detained or who were awaiting prosecution. The Dec. 20 landslide destroyed 33 buildings and resulted in "direct economic losses" of $132 million, the report said.

BEIJING 

The U.S. Navy's top admiral is making a three-day visit to China and meeting with his Chinese counterpart at a time when Beijing has rejected an international tribunal's ruling that invalidated its expansive claims in the South China Sea. Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, will meet the commander of the People's Liberation Army's Navy, Adm. Wu Shengli, during his trip to the Chinese capital of Beijing and the port city of Qingdao starting Sunday. Richardson is scheduled to visit the Chinese navy's headquarters in Beijing and meet with other senior defense officials. He will visit the navy's submarine academy and tour the aircraft carrier, Liaoning, when he is in its home port of Qingdao.