Southeast Asian foreign ministers will hold emergency talks in Jakarta next week to discuss strife-torn Myanmar ahead of November's ASEAN leaders' summit in Phnom Penh, diplomatic sources confirmed Friday.. Another diplomatic source told AFP that article seven of the ASEAN charter, which allows the 10-country bloc's leaders to address an emergency situation, would be the basis for action.
Two neighbours are desperately avoiding each other in a queue for food in the ruins of Svyatogirsk, a spa town whose monastery was recently re-captured by Ukrainian forces.. - 'They support Russia' - In Svyatogirsk, the Holy Dormition Lavra monastery has become a focus for tensions.
Kremlin proxy officials said Friday they were building up defences and turning Ukraine's southern city of Kherson into a "fortress" as Kyiv's forces advance and Russia pulls residents from the region.. "The city of Kherson, like a fortress, is preparing for its defence."
A Hong Kong screening of Batman film "The Dark Knight" has been scrapped after government censors intervened, organisers said on Friday while denying that the cancellation was political.. Other movies rated by OFNAA with the same classification as "The Dark Knight" have not been pulled from the outdoor screening calendar.
Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was disqualified Friday from running for political office for five years, after the country's election commission ruled he misled officials about gifts he received from foreign leaders while in power.. "The ECP (Election Commission of Pakistan) has declared Imran Khan was involved in corrupt practices," Gohar Khan, one of his lawyers, told reporters, adding he had been disqualified for five years.
A senior Chinese diplomat's scuffle with protesters in Britain as well as a recent victory at the United Nations have put the spotlight back on China's more assertive foreign policy under President Xi Jinping.. China's foreign policy is devised by elite groups within the Communist Party -- groups that "unlike his predecessors, Xi directly controls", said Jennifer Hsu from the Australian think tank Lowy Institute.
Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni was set to be named Italian prime minister on Friday after her party's historic election win, becoming the first woman to head a government in Italy.. Following two days of cross-party talks the 45-year-old from Rome is now all but certain to be asked to form a government and become the country's first woman prime minister.
ut In the deeply divided Kosovo city of Mitrovica, the fighting in Ukraine has added another wedge between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, where the conflict has stirred bitter memories of their own war. . Miodrag Milicevic -- the director of Aktiv, a nonprofit in Serb north Mitrovica -- believes that the current conflict has only further reinforced the "two very different realities" in the divided city that is a result of "the absence of any dialogue" between the communities.
Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan could be barred from political office Friday when the election commission rules on charges he misled officials about gifts he received from foreign leaders while in power.. "In our opinion the Election Commission of Pakistan is not a court, therefore they can't give a declaration to disqualify anyone," PTI senator Syed Ali Zafar, a barrister representing Khan, told a press conference Friday ahead of the ruling.
Chinese censors on Friday scrubbed reports that a teenager had died in a quarantine facility, after the case sparked anger and prompted citizens to question the country's zero-Covid policy.. The reports caused renewed anger, at a sensitive time for the country's rulers.
