Australia on Sunday activated disaster relief for residents impacted by wildfires that have burnt properties, infrastructure and thousands of hectares of bushland in the country's most populous state.

Hong Kong's citizens votes on Sunday in an election where the focus is on turnout, with residents grieving and traumatized after the city's worst fire in nearly 80 years and the authorities scrambling to avoid a broader public backlash.

The government has confirmed 607 deaths, with another 214 people missing and feared dead, in what President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has called the country's most challenging natural disaster.

A total of 129 Indonesian citizens have been confirmed as survivors of the fire, according to the ministry’s latest data, with nine dead and one still receiving hospital treatment. 

Even when US President Donald Trump made a landmark visit to China early during his first term in 2017, and Xi lavished him with a private dinner within Beijing's Forbidden City, the trip was confined to the Chinese capital. 

Closer military engagement among the three neighboring countries will carry meaningful weight for regional stability. They pledged to broaden cooperation on shared security priorities and maintain regular dialogue to advance their “collective vision” for the Indo-Pacific.

President Donald Trump's administration said in June it had launched a formal review  into the AUKUS defence deal - worth hundreds of billions of dollars - that will allow Australia to acquire US nuclear-powered submarines, and also involves Britain.

Twenty-two Indonesian nationals remain unaccounted for following the massive fire that tore through the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district, the Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday, as authorities race to identify victims amid widespread devastation.

The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people vanished from radar screens on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of aviation's greatest enduring mysteries.

Police have arrested 13 people for suspected manslaughter in a criminal inquiry into last week's tragedy, and 12 people have also been arrested in a corruption probe. It is unclear if any of those people were arrested on both counts.

Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia's Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week. Climate change is producing more extreme rain events and turbocharging storms in the region.

Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia's Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand faced large-scale devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait fuelling heavy rains and wind gusts for a week. There were 336 dead in Indonesia, 170 in Thailand, and two deaths reported in Malaysia.

Indonesia must step up as a key architect of the next world order rather than be a bystander, foreign policy experts said on Saturday as the world enters a period of unprecedented change, marked by shifting power dynamics and the need for new multilateral solutions to global challenges.

Anwar's Pakatan Harapan coalition won just one of the 20 seats it contested in Sabah, down from the seven it held previously in the eastern state on Borneo island.

Among people who died in the Wang Fuk Court housing complex fire are some of the city's 368,000 foreign domestic helpers, mostly women contracted from low-income Asian countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, who live with their employers, often in cramped spaces.

The fire started on Wednesday afternoon and rapidly engulfed seven of the eight 32-storey blocks at the complex, which were wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh and layered with foam insulation for the renovations.

At least two other Indonesians have been identified among the hundreds of people injured in the fire that engulfed the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in Tai Po district, Hong Kong, one of whom has been discharged from the hospital, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.

Heavy rains across Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand have inundated cities, trapped thousands and caused deadly landslides.

The toll from floods and landslides rose to 19 in North Sumatra, which has been battered by heavy rain for days, with dozens still missing.

Indonesia has called for stronger collaboration among the Developing 8 (D8) nations in the media and strategic communications in the digital ecosystem, as the developing world faces increasingly complex global challenges just months before Jakarta assumes the bloc’s leadership.

The remarks come amid the countries' worst diplomatic crisis in years, after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said this month a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Over 24 hours after fire broke out in the eight-building housing estate with 2,000 units, flames were still visible in some windows as crews sprayed water on the blackened exteriors.

The Japanese government will issue around 11 trillion yen (US$70 billion) in additional bonds to help fund an economic package, even as its tax revenue for this fiscal year is expected to rise to a record high.

This year’s visit comes as Indonesia aims to reach high-income status by 2045 amid global tensions and trade disruptions.

The growing popularity of Jeju Island’s haenyeo may not be enough to save the fate of a centuries-long tradition, which has seen the number of its practitioners dwindling over the years. Yet, the female divers march on to save it from extinction.

The digital economy, including the development of artificial intelligence and cooperation to bolster the fight against transnational crimes surrounding online scams, is among the sectors to be prioritized in the expansion of cooperation between South Korea and Southeast Asian nations.