Sung Kim, the Special Representative for North Korea Policy, said Washington thinks Pyongyang could be planning a big show of its growing nuclear weapons capacity on the annual holiday next week, which will celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, who founded the modern Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Beijing has throughout refused to condemn Moscow's invasion, now into its fifth week, as it treads a diplomatic tightrope between backing its close ally and maintaining ties with the West.

Indonesia's education minister suggests that the Indonesian language would be better suited as an official working language for ASEAN, as he shut down Malaysia's idea to promote Malay regionally.

Britain, the United States and Australia on Tuesday agreed to cooperate on hypersonic weapons and electronic warfare capabilities, under the AUKUS alliance the three countries established last September.

The country's "zero-COVID" strategy has come under immense strain as cases spike.

"The proposed sale will help to sustain (Taiwan’s) missile density and ensure readiness for air operations," the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.

Inflation across the vast region stretching from the Cook Islands in the Pacific to Kazakhstan in Central Asia was expected to gather pace as countries bounced back from the pandemic, and energy and food costs rose, it said.

"I have never seen so many bodies piled up together," said funeral director Lok Chung, 37, who has been working round the clock, with about 40 funerals organized in March, up from roughly 15 in an average month.

The decline was worse than expected and comes as analysts warn that the economic cost of keeping infections to a minimum is likely to soar, with sectors like tourism bearing the biggest brunt.

Unprecedented shortages of food and fuel along with record inflation and blackouts have inflicted widespread misery in the country's most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948.

The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors are instead considering having Indonesia, this year's rotating chair of the group, release the results of discussions at the meeting in Washington, the sources said.

The 20, ranging in age from 6 to 66, are not the first Ukrainians to arrive since Russia invaded their country on Feb. 24 but they were the first to come on a special government plane on a trip arranged by Japan's foreign minister.

The family of five was caught by the landslide on Monday as they hiked along a popular trail in the Blue Mountains to the west of Australia's largest city.

After originally taking a more piecemeal approach aimed at minimizing economic disruptions, Shanghai imposed a two-stage lockdown last week as authorities struggled to contain what had become the city's biggest-ever COVID-19 outbreak.

Rajapaksa's overture came as armed troops looked to quell more demonstrations over what the government acknowledges is the country's worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948.

Kim Yo Jong's warning, carried in state media, was her second angry retort in three days to comments made by South Korea's defense chief Suh Wook last week.

"Army has nothing to do with the political process," Major General Babar Iftikhar, the head of the military's public relations wing, told Reuters in response to a question about the institution's involvement in Sunday's developments.

A doctor himself, he said he did not know how the medical team managed to help him regain his health.

Ending months of speculation, Lam confirmed she would not seek a second term when a committee made up of the city's political elite chooses a new leader next month. 

More than 27 Chinese provinces and regions have recently reported coronavirus cases, mostly the highly transmissible Omicron variant, forcing the authorities to impose stringent mobility restrictions or even city-wide lockdowns.

For years, Myanmar Beer dominated bars and supermarket shelves, the Japanese backing is a sign of the economic liberalization washing into the Southeast Asian country after the military relaxed its iron grip on power in 2011. 

The South Asian nation is facing severe shortages of food, fuel, and other essentials -- along with record inflation and crippling power cuts -- in its most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948.

Some residents were asked to wake up before dawn for nucleic acid testing at their housing compounds, many queuing up in their pajamas.

Authorities last week conducted the country's first execution since 2019 when they hanged a drug trafficker. Several other death row convicts recently had appeals rejected. 

Last year Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison tore up a submarine deal with France's Naval Group, instead opting for nuclear-powered alternatives as part of a landmark security agreement with Washington and London.

Khan is facing a vote to oust him on Sunday.

In the clearest indication yet of Beijing's position on the matter, a foreign ministry official told reporters: "We are not doing anything deliberately to circumvent sanctions imposed on Russia by Americans and Europeans."

"There were 1,455 patients with symptoms .... 11,691 asymptomatic cases... and no new deaths reported," the National Health Commission said in a statement.

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob visited Jakarta ahead of Ramadan to ink a major migrant labor deal and discuss a range of other bilateral issues.

The aviation hub, a key gateway for people arriving in Asia, joins other countries in the region that have recently dropped travel curbs as they shift to living with COVID-19.