Taiwan's China-friendly Nationalist Party has elected its first female leader after ousting her as its presidential candidate ahead of January elections that were won by pro-independence rivals.

The Kuomintang had ditched Hung Hsiu-chu as her abrasive style and strongly pro-China positions were seen as alienating voters. The veteran legislator and former teacher was elected as leader over three other candidates Saturday and likely faces a difficult time rebuilding the party after its January electoral defeat.

A fire started by rioting prisoners at a penitentiary in western Indonesia has killed five inmates, police said.

The fire at Malabero prison in Bengkulu on Sumatra Island began Friday night after officers of the anti-narcotics agency entered the facility and took away a drug kingpin, said regional police chief Brig. Gen. M. Ghufron.

For decades, Hong Kong thrived as an Asian business hub thanks to its killer combination of Western freedoms, independent courts and closeness to mainland China's booming market. Now political and economic ills from the mainland are eroding that edge.

Swedish-Chinese author Gui Minhai was counting on Hong Kong's freedoms when he chose the city as the base for the publishing empire he has built up over the past decade, churning out exposes on elite Chinese politics that were snapped up by visitors from mainland China, where they are prohibited.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited on Friday the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon that was destroyed in fierce battles against al-Qaida-inspired militants almost a decade ago.

He urged the international community to provide necessary funding to help finish the rebuilding of the camp.

After struggling in the final three months of 2015, the U.S. economy is thought to be rebounding in the current quarter, though not as strongly as most analysts had once expected.

On Friday, when the Commerce Department issues its third and final estimate of growth for the October-December quarter, it's expected to say the economy expanded at a 1 percent annual rate. That would be the same estimate it made a month ago and would amount to just half the 2 percent annual growth in the July-September period.

Helicopters dropping money in the streets: it's a vivid metaphor for a drastic form of central bank stimulus that is gaining attention as a possible way to help the global economy out of its malaise.

The idea of "helicopter money" is straightforward: central banks would create new cash and give it to people, like an air drop of supplies. As people spend or invest it, economic growth and inflation would rise.

Prospects of jumpstarting peace talks with the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents in Afghanistan, an embattled government in Kabul and growing suspicions of Pakistan's good intentions in facilitating such negotiations.

Even if Pakistan wanted to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table, its leverage as a safe haven for the Taliban has weakened as the insurgents' southern Afghan heartland has expanded, providing them with more places to hide at home.

North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness."

To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. Bright red flags and propaganda posters have gone up around the country to emphasize the importance of meeting or exceeding production targets.

Pakistan says Iran's Hassan Rouhani is expected in Islamabad on a two-day visit, his first as president of Iran.

The foreign ministry says Rouhani is due to arrive later on Friday. The visit is expected to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two counties.

The family of a 20-year-old Egyptian arrested two years ago for wearing a T-shirt with a slogan against torture says he has been released.

Tarek Mohammed Ahmed says his brother Mahmoud was freed early on Friday from a police station in Cairo, more than 12 hours after a court in the Egyptian capital upheld another court's order to free him. The prosecution had appealed the earlier ruling.