A "smart bandage" developed by a research team from the Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering may help diabetic patients measure their blood sugar level and other indicators without the need to prick their fingers; an innovation that could pave the way for noninvasive health monitoring.

The police chief of Rote Island told AFP the migrants landed last month in two boats they said they had been forced to board after an Australian vessel intercepted their wooden craft.

In written remarks ahead of his attendance at a NATO summit in Washington DC this week, Kishida also signaled concern over Beijing's alleged role in aiding Moscow's two-year-old war in Ukraine, although he did not name China.

"The Pacific Fleet Sovershennyi corvette, together with a detachment of PLA (People's Liberation Army) Navy warships ... conducted training to inspect a suspicious vessel during a joint naval patrol in the Philippine Sea," TASS cited the press service as saying. 

The Reciprocal Access Agreement, or RAA, provides the legal framework for the deployment of Japanese troops and equipment in the Philippines, and vice versa. 

Japan, wary about possible future US policy changes in the region, was seeking to play a larger role in security, analysts said.

Philippine defence minister Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa signed the deal in a ceremony in Manila witnessed by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, presidential communications secretary Cheloy Garafil said in a message. 

According to an official schedule published by the Vatican on Friday, the Asia voyage will include 16 speeches and three masses held in stadiums in the capital cities of Jakarta, Singapore and Papua New Guinea's Port Moresby. 

The Australian student visa has become one of the most expensive in the world after the government decided to increase the cost of student visa applications from A$710 (US$477) to A$1,600 in a bid to lower migration rates into the country in the academic field.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi on Wednesday met with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and her counterpart Mohamad Bin Haji Hasan in preparation for the annual bilateral dialogue between the two countries, with negotiations on border disputes and citizen protection at the forefront of the working visit. 

The US Army said in April it had deployed the Mid-Range Capability missile system which can fire the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile in the northern Philippines.

Putin and Xi regularly meet under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) alliance, whose latest session is being held in Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana. 

The Director General of the Australian Signals Directorate, Rachel Noble, said the national security agency would also increase its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse data under the shift, which would see top secret data centres built in Australia.

The bill is being introduced as New Zealand media companies struggle against technology firms for advertising dollars, leading them to find new ways to provide news programming. 

Climbers must pay 2,000 yen ($12) and their numbers will be limited to 4,000 a day after complaints of litter, pollution, and dangerously crowded trails flowed in last year.

The country's share of coal in electricity generation rose for the fifteenth straight year in 2023, the data showed, despite a target to cut dependence on the fuel to less than half of total power output by 2030. 

From July 1, the international student visa fee has risen to A$1,600 (US$1,068) from A$710, while visitor visa holders and students with temporary graduate visas are banned from applying onshore for a student visa.

China and the Philippines have recently traded accusations over "dangerous and illegal maneuvers" affecting their respective vessels in the area around the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed atoll in the busy waterway.

The onus is on politicians to make policy changes that are geared toward progress, said the head of a Thai parliamentary delegation during a study tour to The Jakarta Post and other Indonesian democratic institutions.

His arrival ends a saga in which Assange spent more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London battling extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations and to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns told the Wall Street Journal that Beijing was trying to scupper engagement between people from the two countries, intimidating Chinese participants in embassy events and fuelling anti-American fervour online.

Singapore conducted multiple raids last year in a S$3 billion money laundering case, one of the world's largest, which resulted in the seizure of properties, cars, and luxury goods as well as the arrest of several foreigners. 

In a draft decision, UNESCO also asked Australia to submit an update on protection efforts early next year, but stopped short of recommending the reef be placed on its list of endangered heritage sites.

Experts have encouraged Indonesia and Australia to alter their trade policies to promote the more open exchange of goods and services to help scale up climate action, as both countries continue to be among the world’s largest carbon emitters.

Her resignation affirmed what political observers had predicted all along that the alliance between their families that brought Marcos and her into power in 2022 was bound to collapse because of their political and policy differences.

Putin is scheduled to touch down on Tuesday night for his first trip to the isolated nation in 24 years, with a confrontation between North and South Korean troops on their shared border highlighting regional security tensions.

The case against the 74-year-old billionaire, twice elected premier and ousted in a 2006 military putsch, is one of four before the courts that could unleash fresh political instability in the coup-prone kingdom.

The cases involve some of Thailand's most powerful politicians, including its current prime minister, and could deepen a decades-old rift between the conservative-royalist establishment and its opponents, such as the populist ruling Pheu Thai party and the opposition Move Forward party.

The Philippines has long clashed with China over the South China Sea. But the country's proximity to Taiwan also puts it in China's area of interest, Marcos told troops at a military camp in Isabela province in northern Cagayan region facing Taiwan.

Li's four-day trip, which begins Saturday, comes after Beijing lifted most of the trade barriers it had imposed on Australian exports, including coal, timber, barley, and wine.