US President Donald Trump predicted a swift end to the war with Iran as Tehran considered a US peace proposal that sources said would formally end the conflict while leaving unresolved key US demands that Iran suspend its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

A cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak will reach the Spanish island of Tenerife "within three days", with the evacuation of passengers to start from May 11, Spain said Wednesday.

Conflicts far beyond Southeast Asia are expected to dominate discussions of leaders of the regional ASEAN bloc meeting in the Philippines, with the Middle East crisis posing significant challenges for its fuel import-dependent economies.

Indonesia has expressed deep concern over reported missile and drone strikes targeting oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates, urging all sides to exercise maximum restraint as stability in the Middle East hangs on a fragile ceasefire.

The Pakistani source said a report earlier by the US media outlet Axios on the proposed memorandum was accurate. The Axios report had cited two US officials and two other sources familiar with the discussions.

Three people -- two crew members and one other person -- thought to be infected with the virus were being taken off the MV Hondius, anchored off Cape Verde, the WHO said.

The two countries' shared grievances over Chinese territorial claims have seen them draw increasingly close in recent years, including the signing of a reciprocal access agreement allowing for the deployment of troops on each other's territory.

Araqchi's visit, announced by state news agency Xinhua, is his first trip to China since the US-Israeli war on Iran set off the most severe global oil supply shock in history and undermined the energy security of China, the world's top crude importer.

The ship, the MV Hondius, was preparing to travel from Cape Verde towards Europe on Wednesday after the Spanish government gave permission for it to dock in the Canary Islands.

A man accused of murdering 15 people in an antisemitic mass shooting at Australia's Bondi Beach is facing a raft of fresh charges, court records released Wednesday showed.

Jakarta cites UNCLOS as Iranian-linked vessels pass through its waters amid United States blockade and rising regional tensions.

Malaysia's antigraft agency vowed on Wednesday to recover more high-value artwork linked to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal after putting four recently retrieved works on display at its headquarters.

Two seriously ill crew members on a cruise ship stricken by a deadly hantavirus outbreak will be evacuated via Cape Verde to the Netherlands, allowing the vessel to sail on to Spain's Canary Islands.

The US will pause escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz barely a day after it began doing so, US President Donald Trump said Tuesday, citing a desire to reach a peace deal with Iran.

Topping the agenda for the ASEAN Summit in Cebu, the Philippines, are joint regional responses to the United States-Israeli war on Iran and its impacts, focusing particularly on energy security and food supply resilience for member states.

Around 150 people are still stuck on the Hondius that was carrying mostly British, American and Spanish passengers on a trip that set off from Argentina in March and is now off the coast of West Africa.

The Thai cabinet's cancellation of the 2001 agreement, which seeks to develop a framework to jointly explore hydrocarbons in parts of the Gulf of Thailand where the claims of Thailand and Cambodia overlap, had long been expected and follows two rounds of armed conflict between the two countries last year. 

Trump gave scant details about his new effort, which he called "Project Freedom," to help stuck ships to travel through the strait when he announced it on social media, two days after a legal deadline under US law had passed for him to get authorization from Congress for the war.

Indonesia and Japan on Monday hailed a “historic milestone” in their security relations with the signing of a new defense cooperation agreement (DCA), reaffirming their commitment to maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific amid heightened anxieties over an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape. 

Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said he would ink an agreement with his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi, although details of the pact were not shared publicly and there was no official confirmation that they had signed it.

After signing a landmark defence deal last month, the two nations agreed to strengthen energy, food and critical minerals supply chains. 

Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, and Iran's stranglehold on the strategic strait following US-Israeli attacks on Tehran has been a main point of contention.

"Gas plays a role in all our discussions because it fundamentally underpins the shared energy security between our countries," Australian top diplomat Penny Wong said before the talks.

Royal Commission due to deliver final report on Dec. 14, exactly one year after the Bondi Beach attack.

The purchase includes a squadron of F-35 multi-role stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin and another of F-15IA warplanes from Boeing, Israel's defence ministry said.

The Philippines' northernmost province, with about 20,000 residents, sits around 100 miles south of Taiwan, along the Luzon Strait, a strategic corridor on the frontline of the great power competition between the US and China for dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. 

The Pentagon announced the 5,000-troop reduction on Friday, but Trump told reporters Saturday "we're going to cut way down, and we're cutting a lot further than 5,000." He did not elaborate.