Biden had "appeared to imply his uncle was eaten by cannibals after his plane was shot down over PNG during WWII", Marape's office said in a statement late on Sunday.

Despite being in a disadvantaged area on the battlefield, Brigadier-General Soe Min That never yielded to the enemy after withdrawing from the Pha Song camp. He was killed by drones on the battlefield.

Junta sends in airstrikes to support 200 junta troops trapped along a river across from Mae Sot, Thailand.

The sea should not be an arena where countries can flex their "gunboat muscles", added Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and China's second-highest-ranking military official.

"Sometimes you have loose moments," James Marape said in an interview after Biden's contentious remarks, adding that the relationship was stronger than "one blurry moment".

Nigeria's regulator recalled a batch of Benylin paediatric syrup last Wednesday, having found a high level of diethylene glycol in the product during routine testing.

The three-way AUKUS agreement runs counter to a South Pacific treaty banning nuclear weapons in the region, says Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Mainland China has some of the world's most extensive internet censorship, with web users unable to access everything from Google to many foreign apps without workarounds such as a virtual private network (VPN).

Suu Kyi has been detained by the Myanmar military since it overthrew her government in a 2021 coup. The 78-year-old Nobel laureate was held under house arrest for a total of 15 years under a previous junta.

Prabowo thanked Beijing for a “very pleasant reception” earlier this month, a trip analysts believe was motivated by China seeking to more closely align with Indonesia in a contest of influence with the US.

In a statement issued late Thursday, the foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations urged "all parties for an immediate cessation of violence" in Myanmar, which has been roiled by conflict since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup.

Wang arrived at around 11 a.m. at the Defense Ministry's headquarters in Central Jakarta shortly after wrapping up his session with Foreign Minister Retno.

The meetings come after Prabowo visited Beijing this month where Chinese President Xi Jinping praised relations with Jakarta, laying out a vision for regional peace as tensions rise in Southeast Asia.

Wang Yi is scheduled to attend the China-Indonesia High-Level Dialogue Cooperation Mechanism meeting in Labuan Bajo on Friday to discuss further bilateral cooperation in more detail.

US President Joe Biden hosted Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington last week where the three leaders jointly expressed their "serious concerns" over China's actions in the South China Sea. 

During his visit to Jakarta, Wang is also scheduled to chair the fourth meeting of the China-Indonesia High-Level Dialogue Cooperation Mechanism.

The bulk of the new spending, part of a A$330 billion decade-long budget, will only kick in after five years, and ultimately take defense spending to 2.4 percent of GDP by 2034 from just over 2 percent today.

The United States and the Philippines will conduct joint naval drills beyond the 12 nautical miles of the Philippines' territorial waters for the first time since the annual exercise started in 1991, in areas of open sea that are claimed by China, the newspaper reported. 

"Since the weather is extremely hot, it is not only for Aung San Suu Kyi ... For all those, who need necessary precautions, especially elderly prisoners, we are working to protect them from heatstroke," junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun said in comments reported by four media outlets. 

Often dubbed the world's largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef is a 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long expanse, home to a stunning array of biodiversity including more than 600 types of coral and 1,625 fish species.

Wong is due to take over from Lee on May 15.

Wang's trip will kick off on Thursday, April 18 and wrap up on April 23, foreign ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said.

The cycle between the two is hugely important for farmers worldwide. El Nino generally brings hotter, drier weather to eastern Australia and Southeast Asia and wetter conditions to the Americas, while a La Nina has the opposite effect.

The 51-year-old will succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on May 15, making him just the second non-member of Singapore’s founding family in nearly six decades to lead the affluent city-state.

Scholz touched down in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing on Sunday morning, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said, accompanied by a large delegation of ministers and business executives.

At least four people were wounded in the attack, including Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church, when a man lunged at him with a knife during a service live-streamed on Monday.

Thousands of people have been killed in the anti-narcotics campaign started by Duterte in 2016 and continued under Marcos.

Wong, 51, is currently the deputy prime minister and finance minister of Singapore, and has been prime minister-in-waiting since 2022.

The epicentre of the quake, which hit at 0656 local time (2056 GMT), was roughly 110 kilometres (68 miles) east-southeast of Kimbe on the island of New Britain, at a depth of 64 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said. 

The Asia and Oceania trip has been on the papal agenda for some time, but there had been doubts on whether the 87-year-old pontiff would embark on it given his increasing frailty and a record of skipping engagements due to health problems.