An April survey found that a majority of voters in the country of 110 million prefer candidates who assert Philippine sovereignty in the South China Sea, where the Marcos-led administration has taken a more assertive stance in its maritime confrontations with Beijing, which continue unabated.

The fighting was touched off by an attack last month in the Indian-administered side of disputed Kashmir that killed 26 tourists, mostly Hindu men, which Delhi blamed on Islamabad.

Chinese state media Xinhua news reported that Xi expressed his country's support for Myanmar pursuing development "suited to its national conditions, safeguarding its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national stability, and steadily advancing its domestic political agenda".

In the verdant suburb of Philadelphia, locals, professors and students reveled as Cardinal Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV on Thursday.

The trade dispute, combined with US President Donald Trump's decision last month to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp global downturn.

Trump is locked in a diplomatic row with South Africa over a land expropriation act that the Republican leader says will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.

The new Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, was entrusted by his predecessor Francis to head the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Vatican department that advises the pontiff on appointments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine in the coming days but did not address a 30-day ceasefire proposal drawn up hours earlier by European allies of Kyiv, reportedly with US backing.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have hinted they are open to negotiating with each other, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says this would only be possible once a ceasefire takes effect.

Leo, the first pope from the US, told cardinals in the Sistine Chapel that he hoped to be a "faithful administrator" for the entire Church, and added that the Church should identify itself through the holiness of its members and not "the grandeur of her buildings".

President Vladimir Putin, the longest-serving Kremlin chief since Josef Stalin, stood beside China's Xi Jinping, several dozen other leaders and Russian veterans on a roofed tribune beside Lenin's mausoleum as Russian troops marched past.

Hamas said it would release a US-Israeli hostage held in Gaza as the group revealed it was engaged in direct talks with the United States towards a ceasefire in the war-battered territory.

The detained Indonesians had tried to enter Saudi Arabia for haj using a non-pilgrimage visit visa, for which they had paid around $9,000, according to the Indonesian Consulate General in Jeddah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday an expanded offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas would be "intensive" after his security cabinet approved plans that may include seizing the Gaza Strip and controlling aid.

It comes as the United Nations and aid organisations have repeatedly warned of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming after more than two months of a total Israeli blockade.