Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics on Tuesday as the United States said Beijing's surprise decision to let the virus run free was a concern for the world.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday she will push China to lift trade sanctions and for consular access to two detained Australians during a trip to Beijing that's aimed at mending strained diplomatic ties.

Thai military frigates and helicopters kept up the search late Monday for more than 30 sailors missing after a naval vessel sank, with dozens of others already hauled from the choppy waters.

Wong will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and hold the sixth Australia–China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte is giving a speech on slavery in The Hague in what he has called a "meaningful moment" while Dutch ministers are travelling to seven former colonies in South America and the Caribbean for the event.

Indonesia has dug its heels in at the UN to push for dialogue as a means toward resolution, criticizing Wednesday's resolution expelling Iran from a women's commission as premature.

The reinstatements came after the unprecedented suspensions evoked stinging criticism from government officials, advocacy groups and journalism organizations from several parts of the globe on Friday, with some saying the microblogging platform was jeopardizing press freedom.

The landslide in Selangor state bordering the capital, Kuala Lumpur, occurred before 3 a.m. (1900 GMT), tearing down a hillside into an organic farm that officials said was operating the campsite illegally. 

Macron watched France's semi-final victory over Morocco before flying to Brussels overnight to attend an EU summit.

A landslide killed at least 12 people while they slept at a campsite in Malaysia early on Friday, officials said, as search teams scoured thick mud and downed trees for more than 20 people still missing.

Twitter suspended Thursday accounts of more than a half-dozen journalists who had been writing about the company and its new owner Elon Musk.

The thorny issue of how much money wealthy countries are willing to pony up to protect the world's remaining biodiversity took center stage Wednesday at UN talks in Montreal aimed at creating a "peace pact with nature."

A Twitter account that tracked flights of Elon Musk's private jet was grounded on Wednesday despite the billionaire's talk of free speech.

Fires scorched almost two million acres of territory in Brazil in November, according to data released by an NGO group Wednesday, nearly 90 percent more than in the same month last year.

President Jokowi is likely to leverage Indonesia's position as ASEAN chair during the upcoming ASEAN-EU Summit in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday, experts say, amid disagreements on trade policies.

As "good stewards of APEC", the United States will invite Russia, which is a member of the 21-country bloc, Matt Murray, a senior US official for APEC, told a media briefing in Singapore.

The talks -- involving top US diplomat for East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink, National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Laura Rosenberger and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng -- took place on Sunday and Monday in the northern province of Hebei, Beijing said.

Biden will make the announcement during a three-day US-Africa Summit that opens Tuesday in Washington, where the administration will make a case for US commitment to the continent amid inroads by China and Russia.

The House of Representatives approved the legislative overhaul on Tuesday, part of a decades long process to replace its colonial-era penal code. 

The incident comes amid worries that power blackouts could cripple infrastructure in France as the first cold snap of the winter tests the resilience of the power network. 

This year, the Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) was held during a turbulent time for democracies globally, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling on countries to defend and invigorate democracy.

The vote in the House of Representatives saw 39 Republicans join a united Democratic majority in a rare show of bipartisanship, provoking loud cheers on the floor less than 10 days after the Senate passed the same bill.

Panelists at an Asia-Pacific security cooperation forum have urged middle powers like Indonesia in ASEAN to assert influence amid the heated United States-China rivalry.

As the world embraces life with COVID-19 entering the third year of the pandemic, countries in the Indo-Pacific seek commonalities for further collaboration to establish vaccine security as an anticipation for future plagues.

"We commend Peruvian institutions and civil authorities for assuring democratic stability and will continue to support Peru under the unity government President Boluarte pledged to form," a US State Department spokesperson said in a statement. 

Putin has rarely spoken about the duration of a war that he began more than nine months ago but told loyalists in a televised meeting on Wednesday it could go on for some time yet.

Umar Patek was a member of an Al Qaeda-linked group that detonated two bombs outside a Bali bar and nightclub in October 2002, killing 202 people -- including 88 Australians.