China and ASEAN are already each other's largest trading partners, and Chinese exports to Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam surged by double digits in April -- attributed to a re-routing of US-bound goods.

ASEAN must rise stronger or risk being disrespected by larger powers, President Prabowo Subianto said during his debut appearance at the group’s summit in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, calling on the bloc to be more forward-looking and adaptive as it faces internal and external pressures.

The South China Sea, a conduit for about $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, remains a source of tension between China and US ally the Philippines, with ties at their worst in years amid frequent standoffs that have sparked regional concerns they could spiral into conflict.

Footage shot by the Associated Press news agency in Hanoi on Sunday evening shows Macron's plane door opening to reveal him.

Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship has piqued interest and built up expectations of tangible outcomes, especially in longstanding issues such as overlapping claims in the South China Sea among ASEAN member states and Beijing, as well as the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

The French president arrived in Hanoi late Sunday, the first stop of a six-day trip that will also take in Indonesia and Singapore.

Prabowo is in Kuala Lumpur to attend the first ASEAN summit of his presidency, during which he is also expected to attend the ASEAN-GCC-China Summit.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will also tackle pressing regional issues, attempting to increase pressure on Myanmar's military junta and iron out remaining issues with Timor Leste's application to join the bloc.

Russia and Ukraine completed the exchange of 1000 prisoners each on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in the largest such swap since the war began three years ago.

The comments were a rare rebuke to Putin, and came after a record number of Russian drones killed at least 13 people across Ukraine, despite a prisoner exchange and a US push for a truce.

Timor-Leste is a step closer to fulfilling its longstanding wish to join the Southeast Asian regional bloc and could become its 11th member state by October, Malaysia's foreign minister said on Sunday.

Indonesia reiterated the need for a peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar during an extended troika meeting on the conflict-stricken Southeast Asian country, amid a series of ministerial meetings ahead of the upcoming ASEAN summit on Monday.

Indonesia and China have agreed to strengthen their ties after President Prabowo Subianto held a meeting with China’s Premier Li Qiang that culminated in the signing of a dozen partnership agreements and marked the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang warned on Sunday that the rise of "unilateralism and protectionism" could threaten the global economic and trade order, as he  reaffirmed Beijing's ties with Jakarta on Sunday during his visit to Indonesia ahead of a regional summit in Kuala Lumpur.

US President Donald Trump defended on Sunday his administration's move to block foreign students at Harvard after a judge suspended the action, branded by the top university as unlawful.

Malaysia's foreign minister on Sunday condemned "atrocities" in Gaza, saying they reflected "indifference and double standards" on the plight of the Palestinian people.

Helicopters were being used on Sunday to drop animal feed to farmers in Australia's New South Wales state stranded by floods that have killed five and isolated tens of thousands in the country's southeast.

China's Premier Li Qiang said on Saturday that China and Indonesia will promote "true multilateralism", the official Xinhua news agency reported, as he landed in Jakarta on a two-day visit to Southeast Asia's largest economy.

President Donald Trump is furious at Harvard, which has produced 162 Nobel prize winners, for rejecting Washington's oversight on admissions and hiring amid his claims the school is a hotbed of anti-Semitism and "woke" liberal ideology.

Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, an initiative agreed in talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey last week.

Countries including Brazil and Indonesia, which have historically had among the world's highest rates of deforestation, will be labelled as "standard risk", which means they will face lighter compliance checks on goods exported to Europe.

Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, took over as interim head of the South Asian nation of 173 million last August after a student-led uprising forced then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to India.

The 55-year-old wife of President Donald Trump announced the release of the seven-hour recording -- which retails for $25 -- in a social media post on Thursday.

The school in Cambridge, Massachusetts quickly slammed the move as "unlawful" and said it would hurt both the campus and the country, while one student said the community was "panicking."

Trump's tariffs has roiled global markets and upended international commerce, and left leaders from the 10-member ASEAN bloc scrambling for ways to limit the fallout on their trade-dependent economies.

The Foreign Ministry has asserted that Indonesia, under the presidency of Prabowo Subianto, has not lost its interest in maintaining the centrality and unity of the regional bloc and will actively participate in negotiations on key issues.

Ramaphosa had hoped his talks with Trump in the White House on Wednesday would help reset relations with the United States that have nosedived since the US president took office in January.