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Asia and Australia Edition

North Korea, China, Afghanistan: Your Tuesday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning. North Korea continues missile programs, China postpones a controversial move and Michelle Obama tells her story. Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

North Korea’s weapons deception

President Trump has said that the North Korean nuclear threat is over.

But a new study by a major Washington think tank has identified 16 hidden missile bases in the North. One is only about 80 miles away from the South Korean capital of Seoul and American troops there.

At the same time, sanctions against Pyongyang are collapsing as the country resumes trading with Russia and China.

The revelation comes as Mr. Trump’s signature piece of diplomacy — based on his meeting with Kim Jong-un — appears in peril. Publicly, the U.S. president remains optimistic. But talks with the North hit another snag last week, as it canceled a meeting between its chief negotiator and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York.

→ Today: Vice President Mike Pence meets with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to discuss North Korea’s denuclearization.

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Credit...Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

China reinstates a ban on animal parts. For now.

Faced with mounting pressure from environmentalists, the Chinese government made a rare concession and postponed ending a 25-year ban on the use of rhino horns and tiger bones in medicine. Above, a store selling traditional medicine ingredients.

“The Chinese government has not changed its stance on wildlife protection,” a top official said.

In recent years, Beijing has tried to cast itself as environmentally responsible, banning ivory and cracking down on the sale of endangered animals.

The government didn’t mention when it would revisit the ban.

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Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

Afghanistan’s “safe” haven turns deadly.

The rural district of Jaghori was famous for being a peaceful oasis in a war-torn country: People couldn’t remember the last time there was a murder or robbery, and schooling was nearly universal for boys and girls.

Then last week, the Taliban attacked the district from three sides. The Afghan government sent in its Special Forces to combat the threat.

When a small team of our journalists made the trek to the isolated area, they expected to find a defiant stand against the insurgents.

Instead, they found an overwhelmed government force, the bodies of commandos lined up outside the governor’s office, and a scene so dangerous that they had to flee by the end of the day. Above, a dejected commando returns from the front lines.

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Credit...Reed Saxon/Associated Press

• Superhero of Marvel Comics dies.

Stan Lee, a creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and many other superheroes, has died. He was 95.

Mr. Lee, the chief writer and editor for Marvel Comics, revolutionized the comic book world by humanizing its characters, giving them flaws and insecurities shared by mere mortals.

In the 1980s, he moved to Los Angeles to bring his superheroes to the big screen and ended up often making cameo appearances in the Hollywood spin-offs.

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Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

• Amazon seems set to open a major headquarters in New York City. It would neighbor the nation’s largest public housing project where a mostly black and Hispanic population is worried it will be left behind. Above, the neighborhood.

• “Nanoinfluencers” are the next frontier in corporate branding. They’ve got relatively lean followings — but will typically say whatever companies want in exchange for free products or (small) commissions.

• President Trump’s plans to revamp the Nafta trade agreement with Mexico and Canada could be upended, now that Democrats are taking control of the House and promising to extract greater protections for American workers.

• U.S. stocks were down. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Mass Communication Specialist 2Nd Class Kaila V. Peters/U.S. Navy, via Associated Press

• A U.S. Navy warplane crashed into the Philippine Sea, the second aircraft to crash from the carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, above, in less than a month. No one was injured. [The New York Times]

• China is planning to let people sue drug makers for punitive damages when faulty vaccines cause death or serious illnesses, its latest response to a string of scandals involving tainted pharmaceuticals. [The South China Morning Post]

• The police in Australia arrested a 50-year-old woman for spiking strawberries with needles, a crime that spurred a nationwide scare and copycat acts. [The New York Times]

• Palestinian militants in Gaza launched intense rocket attacks into Israel in retaliation for an apparently botched covert Israeli operation that killed seven Palestinian fighters. [The New York Times]

• The Sudanese capital of Khartoum is running out of cash amid rising inflation and a currency crisis. [Reuters]

• A couple in Britain who named their baby after Adolf Hitler have been convicted of being a part of a banned neo-Nazi terrorist group. [BBC]

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

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Credit...Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

• Know your squash, both how they look and how they cook.

• Get better TV sound without a load of wires.

• Recipe of the day: You’ll need fresh paprika to make chicken paprikash (it’s worth it).

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Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

• A Russian village, Shoyna, was a thriving fishing port in the years after World War II. Today, the town is being swallowed up by sand dunes, most likely because of overfishing that ruined the ecosystem and the seabed. Above, a house covered in sand.

• Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” is on sale today around the world. She writes about suffering a miscarriage, the challenges of being the first African-American first lady and how President Trump’s “birther” conspiracy threatened her family’s safety. “For this I’d never forgive him,” she writes. Read our critic’s review.

• A vacation among the stars: For a series on science tourism, our writer visited three observatories in Chile, Hawaii and Los Angeles to stare at the skies and get a peek of the cosmos.

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Credit...Dick Marquette

In 2016, The Times debuted its secure, multichannel tip line.

Within 24 hours, the line proved its worth. We received the audio of a closed-door speech in which Hillary Clinton asserted that Vladimir Putin’s “personal beef” with her explained some Russian hacking. News of the F.B.I. raid of Michael Cohen’s office came via a tip.

By now, we’ve received thousands of communications on everything from corporate fraud to sexual harassment.

But sometimes, the focus is different.

Dick Marquette, 91, recently sent photographs he’d taken as a G.I. in the Philippines during World War II, including the one above. “The fellow was my best friend Abbie Cohen,” he wrote, to whom he’d promised to send copies. But life got in the way.

“I have no way to find if he is still alive,” Mr. Marquette wrote, “but I hope he is and perhaps the pictures could be put in the paper and boy, wouldn’t his kids be surprised.”

Grace Ashford, a researcher for investigations, wrote today’s Back Story.

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Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. You can also receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights.

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