The 97-year-old, who nearly died when he suffered a heart attack last December, told a press conference that he will defend his parliamentary seat for the northern constituency of Langkawi, a popular tourist island.

Bernanke, together with Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, were honoured for having "significantly improved our understanding of the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises, as well as how to regulate financial markets", the jury said.

In addition to lifting the 50,000-person entry cap and ending the requirement that tourists travel on package tours, Japan will no longer require visitors to obtain a visa if they are citizens of a country with which Japan had a waiver agreement before the pandemic.

Najib began a 12-year jail term in August after being convicted in the first of several cases related to the looting of billions of dollars from state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Infections have risen this week to the highest since August, with the uptick coming afterincreased domestic travel during the National Day "Golden Week" earlier this month. 

Biden spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky and "pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems," the statement said.

A total of 202 people, including 88 Australians, were killed when a car bomb exploded on Oct 12, 2002 outside the Sari Club and from another blast less than a minute earlier at Paddy's Bar across the road.

Analysts say that the new appointment offers hope for more intense ASEAN-US interactions and is the reassurance that the region had sought from the US to prove its seriousness in engaging with Southeast Asia.

Missiles tore into Kyiv, the most intense strikes on the capital since Russia abandoned an attempt to captured it in the early weeks of the war. Explosions were also reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in Ukraine's west, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. A witness in Russia's Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border also heard a blast from the border area.

"We hope the situation will deescalate soon," ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

The election date will be announced by the election commission, Ismail said in a televised address.

Democratic Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, has come under increasing military and political pressure from Beijing, especially after Chinese war games in early August following a Taipei visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Speaking to radio on Monday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not give an exact date for the visit but said a meeting with his counterpart was planned in two weeks time.

The final gong of the year will be announced at 11:45 am (0945 GMT) on Monday.

"There is no doubt. This is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure," Putin said on Sunday in a video on the Kremlin's Telegram channel. 

Earlier this week, Fumio Kishida faced another setback as he gave a key government post to his oldest son in his early 30s, with the opposition bloc lambasting the appointment as nepotism.

The seventh plenary session of the ruling party's 19th Central Committee, which is expected to run for around four days, will discuss a draft work report to be delivered by Xi at the congress, due to start Oct. 16, and finalize plans for China's top leadership for the next five years.

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan also agreed to coordinate on responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and North Korea's repeated ballistic missile launches, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

Saturday's explosion on the bridge over the Kerch Strait prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials but no claim of responsibility. Russia did not immediately assign blame.

"About 60 hectares were affected, including some moai," according to a Twitter post by Carolina Perez, Chile's cultural heritage undersecretary.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's government last year, sparking widespread armed resistance.

The White House pushed hard to prevent the OPEC output cut, these sources said. Biden hopes to keep US gasoline prices from spiking again ahead of midterm elections in which his Democratic party is struggling to maintain control of the US Congress. Washington also wants to limit Russia's energy revenue during the Ukraine war.

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Thursday in the direction of Japan. The missile launch was the sixth in 12 days and the first since Pyongyang fired an intermediate-range missile over Japan on Tuesday.

The federal police are investigating the incident, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, adding the motive for it was unclear.

Hayashi told a press conference that he is slated to hold talks with his Singaporean and Malaysian counterparts Vivian Balakrishnan and Saifuddin Abdullah during his four-day trip through Monday. Both countries belong to the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The Nobel Peace Prize was on Friday awarded to human rights champions Ales Bialiatski of Belarus, Russia's Memorial group and Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties for their work to document war crimes and rights abuses.

Weeping, grief-stricken families gathered Friday outside a Thai nursery where an ex-policeman murdered two dozen children in one of the kingdom's worst mass killings.