General Mya Tun Oo is the most senior Myanmar official to attend a ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) since the junta was sidelined late last year over its failure to honor a peace plan agreed with ASEAN.

Claiming gas giant Woodside Energy's Scarborough project would generate 1.37 billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions and likely harm the World Heritage-listed reef, the Australian Conservation Foundation applied on Tuesday for an injunction to halt the work.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi, 77, a diplomat turned politician said he had declined the request of the 17-party alliance to be their nominee for the largely ceremonial role.

The giant freshwater stingray, which measured four metres (13 feet) from snout to tail, was caught last week and released back into the wild after being fitted with a tag to track its behaviour.

The downpours have dangerously swelled waterways in the low-lying Pearl River basin in recent days, threatening manufacturing, shipping and logistics operations at a time when supply chains are already stressed because of China's strict Covid-19 controls.

The junta said on June 3 it would execute a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi's party and a prominent democracy activist, both convicted of terrorism, in what would be the country's first judicial executions since 1990.

Three same-sex couples had filed the case in the Osaka district court, only the second to be heard on the issue in Japan. As well as dismissing their claim the ban contravenes Japan's constitution, the court rejected their claim for 1 million yen ($7,414) in damages.

China has been ramping up research into all sorts of missiles, from those that can destroy satellites in space to advanced nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, as part of an ambitious modernisation scheme overseen by President Xi Jinping.

The passengers aboard the domestic flight, operated by commercial carrier SpiceJet, were evacuated safely once the pilot returned to Patna airport shortly after take-off.

The Foreign Minister has told the Delhi Dialogue that ASEAN's regional outlook is the "vaccine" against the global "trust deficit" that was in danger of spilling over into the Indo-Pacific.

In the annual deployment that began last Monday and will run to Oct. 28, the MSDF fleet will make port calls in the Pacific island nations of the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Fiji for the first time, according to the Defense Ministry.

Launched in a Shanghai shipyard to great fanfare, the People's Liberation Army "Type 003" warship is the "first catapult aircraft carrier wholly designed and built by China", reported state broadcaster CCTV. 

The influential club of BRICS emerging economies formed in 2009 is home to more than 40 percent of the global population and accounts for nearly a quarter of the world's gross domestic product.

When he takes up the post later this month, Faustino will have to balance the Philippines' relations with Washington, a treaty ally, and Beijing, which continues its assertive stance in claiming almost all of the South China Sea.

Under prime minister Anthony Albanese’s leadership, Australia is poised to shift its priorities toward relations with close neighbors such as Indonesia, some analysts say, in a possible departure from the previous government’s focus on fellow anglophone states.

The June 28-30 gathering is seen as a crunch moment for the 30 North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, four months into Russia's war in Ukraine.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD reiterated Indonesia’s commitment to protecting human rights at a recent United Nations conference, but critics have noted that he failed to address the country’s own ongoing rights issues.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a news release that she would travel to the Solomon Islands and New Zealand, in her third visit to the Pacific since being sworn in last month.

Myanmar's military seized power on February 1 last year, ousting the civilian government and arresting its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta has since waged a bloody crackdown on dissent.

In a three-day nationwide telephone poll conducted from Saturday, a total of 77.3 percent said rising prices of food and other daily necessities have affected their lives to a varying degree, up 8.6 percentage points from the April survey.

The Foreign Minister has urged "concrete cooperation" as per the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific to build security and stability in the region, as well as a means to resolve the impending global food crisis.

China is Australia's largest trading partner and the biggest customer for its iron ore - its largest export earner - but diplomatic relations have been strained in recent years.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has lived in France since 2016 to avoid jail for convictions he says are politically motivated, had another eight years added to his existing sentence.

Sullivan's meeting with Yang Jiechi in Luxembourg lasted about four and a half hours, a senior White House official told reporters, and it followed up on a May 18 phone call.

"As my term as High Commissioner draws to a close, this Council's milestone fiftieth session will be the last which I brief," Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council as it opened a four-week sitting.

The outbreak of nearly 200 cases linked to the city centre Heaven Supermarket Bar, which had just reopened as curbs in Beijing eased last week, highlights how hard it will be for China to make a success of its "zero COVID" policy as much of the rest of the world opts to learn how to live with the virus.

The 35-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, youngest of billionaire tycoon Thaksin's three children, is now launching herself into the country's deeply divided political scene ahead of a national election due by March 2023.

"It's hard to see today how they could realistically think they can win," said Derek Chollet, the State Department counsellor. "They're losing territory. Their military is taking serious losses."

Amid intensifying big power rivalry and minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto told Asia's premier security meeting on Saturday that Southeast Asia already has “Asian ways” of resolving regional security challenges.

"It was an opportunity to have a very frank and full exchange in which I raised a number of issues of concern to Australia," Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said, confirming the meeting to journalists in Singapore.