Asia Pacific

More than 100 days into the Iran conflict, 20 percent of the world’s energy flows remain disrupted, with the scenario described as the biggest supply shock in history.

For now, the nightmare scenario has been avoided. Oil prices are still at approximately $100 a barrel.

Many analysts have warned that a prolonged disruption to the Strait of Hormuz could send oil above $200 a barrel, triggering a global economic crisis.

Various countries have released their strategic reserves, exporters have found alternative routes and weaker demand has helped contain prices. But the buffers are thinning.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warns the economic impact could linger well into 2027, even if the conflict ends tomorrow.

Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, condemns designation, calling it ‘discriminatory’.

The United States has designated Chinese corporate giants Alibaba, BYD and Baidu as companies that support China’s military, expanding its blacklist to some of the country’s best-known commercial brands.

The Pentagon included the firms in an update on Monday that is likely to complicate the fragile detente under way between Washington and Beijing after years of rocky relations.

China’s embassy in Washington, DC, condemned the listing as “discriminatory” and an example of the US government “overstretching” the concept of national security.

“Chinese companies that do business overseas have been strictly observing laws and regulations of their host countries,” an embassy spokesperson said.

“The US should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies.”

Alibaba, BYD and Baidu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Pentagon’s list of “Chinese military companies,” which is updated annually, now includes 188 firms, up from 134 in 2025.

Firms included on the list, which was created in 2021, will be barred from consideration for US defence contracts from later this month.

The Pentagon defines “Chinese military companies” as entities owned or controlled by the Chinese military, or that contribute to China’s “military civil fusion”, referring to Beijing’s strategy of melding civilian and defence-related research and innovation.

Companies must also carry out some of their operations in the US to be designated.

The expansion of the blacklist comes less than a month after US President Donald Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing for a two-day summit aimed at lowering the temperature in their countries’ years-long trade war and tech rivalry.

Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD are among China’s most prominent brands, claiming the top spots in the e-commerce, internet search and electric vehicle markets, respectively.

The addition of several household brands not normally associated with the defence sector mirrors last year’s designation of tech firm Tencent, the owner of the ubiquitous messaging app WeChat.

Other additions to the list include RoboSense Technology, an AI and robotics company with headquarters in Shenzhen, and Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics.

RoboSense Technology and Unitree Robotics did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dennis Wilder, a national security expert who worked on China at the CIA and the White House’s National Security Council, expressed scepticism about the feasibility of implementing such a “broad-brush” blacklist.

“Although it may make some US firms wary of engaging with the labelled entities, in fact, many US firms already have deep relationships with these entities, that they are not going to give up unless there are real penalties attached to working commercial deals with them,” Wilder told Al Jazeera.

“Sanctions that range this widely are sanctions that don’t work. Unless the US is willing to decouple from the Chinese economy altogether, these sanctions are simply performative,” Wilder said.

An offshore earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 has struck the southern Philippines, killing at least 35 people and injuring more than 200.

The quake on Monday is the strongest to hit the country this year, according to Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

Several low-rise buildings collapsed or sustained heavy damage in the hard-hit city of General Santos.

Tsunami damage was reported in at least one southern coastal village, while smaller waves were recorded in Indonesia, Palau and as far away as southern Japan.

The quake also triggered a landslide in Glan, a municipality in the province of Sarangani, that killed 13 villagers, provincial disaster-mitigation official Rene Punzalan told the DZBB radio network. Four other villagers died in Sarangani, he added.

The United States, an ally of the Philippines, said it was coordinating with Manila and was ready to support Philippine response efforts. France, Japan and New Zealand also expressed support.

The epicentre was offshore near Mindanao, the second most populous island in the Philippine archipelago. Bacolcol said the quake struck at a depth of 33km (20 miles), about 32km (20 miles) southwest of Maasim town in Sarangani province.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr ordered the cancellation of classes and directed disaster-response agencies to immediately get to work in quake-hit provinces, saying “the national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind”.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat of a tsunami had largely passed about five hours after the quake. Philippine officials also lifted a tsunami warning by mid-afternoon. Six shanties on stilts were damaged in a coastal village in Zamboanga del Sur province due to the quake and higher waves, officials said.

Aside from the Sarangani landslide, most of the other deaths were caused by collapsing buildings and falling debris, including in a damaged mosque, in the southern provinces of South Cotabato and Davao Occidental and on Balut Island, according to disaster-mitigation official Ednar Dayanghirang.

The Philippines frequently experiences earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults encircling the ocean.

North Korea has released photos of Kim Jong Un inspecting huge munitions at a weapons factory ahead of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit. Pyongyang has ordered missile production capacity to be doubled in the next five years.

Tsunami warnings have been issued across Asia following an 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the Philippines.

Authorities in Indonesia, Philippines and Japan early on Monday issued warnings of tsunami waves following the powerful quake.

The quake struck off the island of Mindanao shortly before 7:40 am local time, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The US government agency advised people in affected areas to get out of the water and move away from beaches and harbours.

More to follow…

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Sunday is significant for one reason.

It’s not that they are meeting: The two men met in Beijing just a year ago when China held a massive military parade to mark 80 years since Japan surrendered unconditionally to Allied forces, bringing an end to the second world war.

What’s surprising is that Xi is travelling at all.

The Chinese leader has not travelled to Pyongyang since 2019, having steadily cut down his travel in recent years, and world leaders like US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin generally come to him these days.

“We need to remember that Xi Jinping has not really travelled abroad that much,” William Yang, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Northeast Asia, told Al Jazeera. “The growing trend is foreign leaders heading to Beijing to meet with him.

“For Xi Jinping to be the one who decides to travel to Pyongyang, it shows the level of significance that China attaches to this trip.”

Xi averaged about 14 trips a year between 2013 and 2019, but dropped to approximately six a year between 2022 and 2025, according to the Asia Society. In 2020, he made just one overseas trip, and in 2021, he made none, as China grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic.

He may be travelling now, though, amid concerns about North Korea’s relationship with Russia, Yang said.

Senior partner no more?

Traditionally, Beijing played the role of senior partner in the China-North Korea relationship, with North Korea heavily dependent on China for as much as 95 percent of its trade, according to one 2022 estimate from the National Committee on North Korea, a US-based nonprofit.

That dynamic has been changing since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however. North Korea has provided Russia with critical weapons, artillery and manpower and is credited by observers with helping to keep Moscow’s war machine going.

South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy, a government-funded research institute, estimates that since 2023, Moscow has paid North Korea as much as $14.4bn for troop deployments and the export of “artillery, shells, and guided and ballistic missiles”.

The report said that North Korea may only have received between $580m and $1.5bn of that in the form of “goods”, which means there is a “significant possibility that the majority of the payment from Moscow was in the form of ‘sensitive military technology or related precision parts and materials that are difficult to observe via satellite’,” according to a translation.

Although China shares a mutual defence treaty with North Korea, it is still wary of North Korea acquiring new military technology, Yang said.

“Beijing has always been very careful about providing military assistance to North Korea because they do not see a militarily stronger North Korea as necessarily in its favour,” he said. “A North Korea that is militarily emboldened through its relationship with Russia could be a potential source of disruption to the balance of power and status quo on the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea has already carried out eight missile launches since the start of the year, and in May unveiled a new AI-guided tactical cruise missile, according to North Korean media and the US Naval Institute.

Earlier this week, North Korean state media also released photos of Kim touring a new “weapons-grade nuclear materials” factory, which would be used to expand Pyongyang’s nuclear capability at an “exponential rate”.

Fluctuating tensions

North Korea has technically been at war with South Korea since 1950, with the conflict suspended by a 1953 armistice agreement. The two countries are divided by a 250-kilometre-long (155-mile-long) Demilitarized Zone, splitting the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions have fluctuated dramatically over the years, reaching a recent low point in 2024 when Kim abandoned the long-term goal of Korean unification.

He has largely cut off communications ever since, according to observers. On Friday, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it hopes that Xi’s trip will “play a constructive role in addressing issues related to the Korean Peninsula” – suggesting that Seoul may have lobbied the Chinese leader to try to smooth over relations.

South Korean Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young separately told reporters last month that he expects the two leaders to discuss a possible meeting between Kim and Trump later in the year.

Xi may also be alarmed by other security developments in East Asia, including news of a possible military-logistics ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌support pact between South Korea and Japan, which was raised at the Shangri-La Dialogue of regional defence officials in Singapore last weekend.

While China and South Korea’s relationship fluctuates, its ties with Japan are acrimonious due to longstanding grievances dating back to Imperial Japan’s occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s. Beijing has also objected to recent moves by Tokyo to expand its de facto military.

The man was fishing when he was bitten by a shark, police say.

A man has died after he was bitten by a shark off the south coast of Michaelmas Island in Western Australia.

The 35-year-old was attacked while spearfishing with his family close to the town of Albany, police said.

The man was treated by paramedics but died of his wounds.

Police said a 4.5metre (15ft) shark of an unknown species was spotted by a witness near Michaelmas Island, which does not receive many visitors.

The state’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development urged people to take “additional caution” in the area and to stay abreast of shark sightings.

This is the fourth shark killing this year in Australia.

Last month, a man died after being attacked by a great white off Rottnest Island near the city of Perth, and another man died in a shark attack off the coast of Queensland in northeast Australia.

In January, a 12-year-old boy was killed by a shark in Sydney Harbour.

Australian scientists believe increasingly crowded waters and rising ocean temperatures are shifting sharks’ migratory patterns, which may be contributing to a rise in attacks.

The majority of shark attacks occur along Australia’s east and southeast coasts, with an average of about 20 incidents recorded each year, according to the Institute of Health and Welfare.

The last 100 years have seen a boom in trade, prosperity and wealth across the world, at unprecedented rates in human history. As a species, we are now more wealthy, healthy, and less likely to be killed in conflict than ever before, despite the many horrors we see in the daily news cycle.

This golden age we live in has run in tandem with an ever-expanding population; in the 1920s, there were only two billion people on the planet. A century later, that number has skyrocketed up to eight billion. Yet the increase of prosperity and people has come at a devastating price – global warming, the melting of the ice caps, an epidemic of plastic pollution and the mass destruction of the planet’s biodiversity are all intrinsically connected to population growth. More recently, however, the trend has been bucking. The watchful eyes of demographers have been drawn to data that reveal a world of ageing societies, plummeting birth rates, and dwindling populations. Surely this must be a good thing for the planet and therefore humanity … right? Armed with a file full of “population bomb” headlines – the explosion will happen mid-century, when humans will peak around 8.5 – 9 billion people, followed by drastic falls – we embark on a worldwide exploration with a very unique purpose. What truths and human stories can we discover behind the red flag statistics? What are the population tipping points of fertility, birth and death rates? And how, among the other culprits of climate change, conflict, global health and over consumption, might they make or break the future of our life on earth?

Episode 1: Baby Doomers

Benchmark Nikkei 225 tops 68,000 for first time as AI-driven buying frenzy shows no signs of slowing down.

Japan’s stock market has hit an all-time high as a global buying frenzy driven by AI shows no signs of slowing down.

The Nikkei 225 rose nearly 3 percent on Wednesday, lifting the benchmark index above 68,000 for the first time.

The latest surge continues a banner year for Japan’s stock market, which is up nearly 33 percent so far in 2026.

“Investor enthusiasm over the AI boom is helping drive Asian equity markets higher,” Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ, told Al Jazeera.

“While strong demand for high-end chips has seen the top semiconductor companies in Taiwan and South Korea rally strongly, this is also benefiting Japanese markets, which are also getting some tailwind from a weak yen.”

Japanese firms involved in the semiconductor business led the gains.

Tokyo Electron, Japan’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor equipment, soared as much as 14 percent in morning trading.

Advantest, which supplies testing equipment to the semiconductor industry, rose more than 5.5 percent.

Shin-Etsu Chemical, a supplier of silicon wafers used in integrated circuits, gained about 4 percent.

Softbank, which is heavily invested in AI models, chips and data centers, fell about 3 percent, after overtaking auto giant Toyota on Monday to become Japan’s biggest company by market capitalisation.

Ferocious demand for AI chips has been driving record-breaking rallies in stock markets across the globe, taking key indexes in the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan to record highs.

During the past month, three memory chip makers – South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, and US-based Micron – entered the elite club of firms with a market capitalistion of at least $1 trillion.

Only 17 companies have hit the milestone, all but five of which are based in the United States.

Despite concerns about the sustainability of the sky-high valuations in the sector among some investors, tech companies are continuing to commit huge sums to AI-related infrastructure.

US tech giants are expected to spend about $800bn on AI-related capital investment in 2026, according to Goldman Sachs.

Google parent company Alphabet on Monday became the latest Silicon Valley giant to outline its AI-related investment plans, announcing that it would sell $80bn worth of shares to help fund expected capital expenditures of $180-190bn in 2026.

A swarm of drones lit up the evening sky near Taiwan’s Taipei 101 skyscraper in a dazzling display depicting a giant robot, a sports car, and Earth. The light show was part of Computex Taipei, one of Asia’s largest technology exhibitions.

Suggestions that criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic in Australia risk hardwiring a dangerous confusion. Questioning the behaviour of a foreign state is not the same as denigrating or attacking a people who may have links with that state. The State of Israel is represented by its embassy in Canberra, not by the Jewish community in our cities and suburbs.

But the knee-jerk reaction to the attack on a Jewish celebration in Sydney is solidifying that confusion. On December 14, 2025, as Jewish families gathered near Sydney’s Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah, two gunmen opened fire, killing 15 people and injuring many others in one of the worst attacks in Australia’s history. In response, the federal government set up a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, led by former High Court justice Virginia Bell. On April 30, 2026, the commission delivered its interim report, raising serious concerns about how we define anti-Semitism.

The commission has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. The IHRA offers examples that include criticism of Israel as evidence of anti-Semitism. But such a broad definition collapses critical commentary on Israel’s policy in Gaza, its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli officials’ dehumanising comments about Palestinians into a racist attack on Australia’s Jews. How does that make sense to anyone?

This is not an abstract question. The blurring of these categories acts as a brake on public debate. It narrows the range of permissible language used to describe Israel’s conduct in Gaza, where Australians have watched entire neighbourhoods destroyed and tens of thousands of civilians killed.

The official line from governments in relation to Israel is that Israel has a “right to exist” and an obligation to defend its citizens, which appears to give Israel carte blanche to decimate the entire Gaza Strip and kill tens of thousands of Palestinians. But no other state enjoys this exceptional treatment. No other state can do what it wishes simply because it has a “right to exist”. Australia has that right, but that right has never shielded governments in Canberra from fierce criticism, whether over First Nations dispossession, offshore detention or climate inaction. When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations in 2008 for the wrongs past governments had done to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Australia’s legitimacy as a state was not under threat. Rudd was reflecting the public mood by distancing his government from the policies of the past. It was not seen as challenging Australia’s right to exist.

Yet in debates about Israel, the invocation of the “right to exist” and anti-Semitism operates as a conversation stopper. It closes the door to a frank discussion about the State of Israel and its behaviour. We cannot talk about occupation, apartheid and war crimes because that is anti-Semitic. This is a troubling precedent that insulates Israel from moral and political accountability.

The commission was established in response to a real and deeply upsetting surge in anti-Semitic violence. But its framework could cast suspicion on genuine inquiry into the behaviour of Israel. It entrenches a form of exceptionalism that actually weakens Australia’s democratic norms.

A liberal society must be able to draw a clear line: hatred, discrimination or violence against Jews is anti-Semitic and unacceptable; criticism of a foreign government is not.

There is also a cost to Jewish Australians when that line is blurred. Public debate routinely treats “the Jewish community” as a single, pro-Israel bloc, represented by a handful of bodies. This is simply not true. Many Australian Jews are alarmed to see the destruction of Gaza in their name. Some have mobilised against Israel’s actions.

To assume unanimous Jewish support for Israeli actions is to deny Jewish Australians their agency. Worse, it risks casting Jewish dissenters as inauthentic. If the policy settings shaped by this commission casts such voices as anti-Semitic, they will be erased twice over: excluded from the definition of the community and penalised for speakingup. This is silencing dissent, masquerading as protection.

If public institutions reinforce the idea that criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews, they risk feeding anti-Semitism.

Images of Gaza’s destruction on the news have galvanised global public opinion. Many young Australians have marched for an end to Israeli policies and freedom for Palestine. The message that such protests against Israel are anti-Semitic could not be any more counter-productive and harmful for Australian democracy. That will only breed resentment against the Australian political system for ignoring what everyone sees on their TV screens, and, dangerously, feed the very anti-Semitic narratives the commission should be challenging. Those who already hold anti-Semitic views will feel confirmed in their belief that Jews act collectively through Israel. The commission cannot afford to fall into this trap.

To the credit of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), they have avoided the conflation of Israel and Jewish people and have not adopted the IHRA definition. The interim commission report has not embraced the most heavy-handed proposals in circulation; there is no rush to ban protest slogans or criminalise political expression. There is room for optimism that the commission can still address the issue in its final report.

Here are the standards it needs to uphold to protect social cohesion in Australia:

First, an unambiguous distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. Second, a recognition of the diversity of Jewish opinion, including among those who oppose Israel’s actions, and the inclusion of those voices in efforts to combat anti-Semitism. Third, a defence of political space for Palestinians and their allies to describe their experiences of occupation, dispossession and siege in their own terms, while  rejecting any dehumanising or racist language about Jewish people.

Anti-Semitism in Australia is a threat to the Jewish community (regardless of political views) and the very foundation of our social cohesion. But seeking to address the scourge of anti-Semitism by conflating critical views of the State of Israel with hatred of Jews will only make matters worse. Such approach will suppress debate, limit freedom of speech and inquiry that has already led to self-censorship at our universities and entrench the very confusion that sustains anti-Semitism.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Nvidia is set to bring artificial intelligence to laptop and desktop computers with brands like Microsoft and Dell later this year as the US tech giant broadens its AI presence.

The Santa Clara, California-based AI chipmaker unveiled on Monday at its annual Nvidia GTC event in Taipei new powerful chips that would bring advanced AI functions to laptops and desktop computers.

CEO Jensen Huang said that the new development is “going to reinvent the PC [personal computer]”.

The changes come amid three years of collaboration between Microsoft and Nvidia and pit the latter against companies like chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices and personal computer brands Intel and Apple.

“This is going to be the new PC,” Huang said as he unveiled Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip — which combines CPU, or central processing unit, and GPU, or graphics processing unit, capabilities — that would power new Windows laptop and desktop computer models in what the company called “AI personal computers”, expected to debut in the fall of this year.

The chip, developed with Taiwan’s MediaTek, will be in compact desktops from Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Microsoft Surface and MSI, with models from Acer and GIGABYTE to follow.

Nvidia, which is already the world’s most valuable company, said the reinvention will be for creating and gaming.

“When it has an autonomous [AI] agent, an agent that’s helping you, that understands you, you could talk to it. It could look at you. You could ask it to read files, go help you do some research. It could do a lot more,” Huang said.

Microsoft said in a separate statement that the personal computers running on Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchips would be able to support “highly capable AI models” and complex workloads. With the new superchips, these personal computers can run AI agents locally, Nvidia said.

“This is the first across the lineup of PC reinvention for 40 years,” Huang said.

Nvidia’s move is significant at a time when demand is growing for the use of personal AI agents, said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

“For consumers, it means more choices, which is always a good thing,” Su said.

Neil Shah, analyst and co-founder of Counterpoint Research, described Nvidia’s announcement as a move that’s “revolutionising how PCs would look like in the next 10 years”.

The new laptops and desktop computers “will drive agentic AI applications in every home”, Shah said, with an aim of having an “AI supercomputer” in each household.

Also during Monday’s speech, Nvidia’s Huang said its new Vera CPUs for data centres are in full production and are “going to be our new major growth driver” on the boom of AI agents, with early customers including Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceXAI.

Huang also revealed a humanoid robot reference design that could act as a blueprint for future research, especially within the higher education sector. Nvidia said its “Isaac GR00T” stands nearly 1.83 metres (6 feet) tall and has the humanoid chassis of Chinese robot maker Unitree’s H2. It is equipped with five-fingered dexterous hands, made by Singapore-based robotics startup Sharpa, that are capable of finely controlled movements.

Reception for AI PCs has been mixed so far. HP reported last week that the devices helped prop up quarterly sales, but Dell said earlier this year that demand had fallen short of initial expectations. Qualcomm, looking to capitalise on AI demand, has also been offering AI PCs with Microsoft.

On Wall Street, Nvidia stock rose nearly 4 percent on the news in midday trading. Microsoft ticked up 2.5 percent and Dell surged 9.3 percent. Competitors AMD and Intel, on the other hand, are on the decline. AMD is down 0.1 percent from the market open, and Intel is down by 2.5 percent.

India says it will continue engaging with Myanmar after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the country’s military government, in New Delhi.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters on Monday that India’s policy is “not intended to be a commentary on the internal political arrangements” in Myanmar and that New Delhi believes engagement is the best way forward.

Western nations have sought to isolate Myanmar’s military rulers since they overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup that triggered a crackdown on opponents and a brutal civil war.

The conflict began when the country’s army leader, Min Aung Hlaing, ousted the government and detained civilian leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some critics and human rights groups have said Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to India risks lending legitimacy to the military-backed government.

“We have always proceeded on the principle that sustained dialogue is what is important,” Misri said, adding that isolating Myanmar would be counterproductive.

“History has shown that disengagement doesn’t give us any results that are better than engagement.”

The visit is Min Aung Hlaing’s first to India since he was sworn in as president in April following an election that critics say was designed to cement his hold on power. His last visit to India was in 2019, when he served as Myanmar’s military chief.

He arrived in India on Saturday, first in the eastern state of Bihar, with a visit to the Buddhist pilgrimage site of Bodh Gaya, where believers say that the Buddha attained enlightenment.

India shares a 1,643-kilometre (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar and a maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal.

Strategic partnership

Myanmar is also strategically important to India’s security interests. The two countries have cooperated on border security and intelligence sharing to combat armed rebel groups.

Modi and Min Aung Hlaing did not address the media after their meeting, as usually occurs after most bilateral talks involving visiting heads of state or government in New Delhi.

But Misri said the two leaders discussed trade, defence and security cooperation, border management, and regional issues, with talks also focusing on expanding economic and technology ties. He said both sides agreed to deepen collaboration across sectors, including trade, energy and critical minerals, and to accelerate major connectivity projects.

Min Aung Hlaing is expected to hold talks with business representatives during his five-day visit, and will travel to the financial hub, Mumbai.

Bilateral trade was $1.95bn in 2025-2026, according to New Delhi.

The leaders also discussed cooperation against cybercrime and human trafficking, issues that have affected thousands of Indians lured to scam centres in the region.

Misri said India and Myanmar have worked together to rescue more than 2,400 Indian nationals over the past 18 months.

Resistance groups formed after the 2021 coup have captured swaths of Myanmar. Others sought out and fought under the leadership of ethnic armies in exchange for training and weapons with which to fight the military.

These resistance groups, known as the People’s Defence Force (PDF), nominally operate under the leadership of the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow government formed by Myanmar lawmakers removed by the military coup.

Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister of the NUG, wrote a letter to Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs for India, on May 28, expressing concern about the visit.

“Since the military coup of 2021, which overturned the democratic will of the people, Myanmar has endured prolonged conflict, instability, and immense humanitarian suffering,” she said.

“India has long championed democratic governance, the rule of law, and regional stability. We therefore urge the Government of India to weigh carefully the broader implications of formal engagement that may normalise or legitimise military rule in Myanmar.”

Rescuers face heavy rains, equipment failures in search for two people trapped in central Laos cave by flash floods.

Heavy rains have threatened to delay the search for two people who remain missing in a flooded cave in Laos, after five others were rescued after being trapped underground for more than a week.

Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, one of the first international rescuers to arrive at the site, told The Associated Press news agency that rains on Sunday had filled the cave up to the second chamber, preventing divers from entering until pumps can lower the water level.

A drainage pump also broke, making the situation even more difficult, said fellow diver Yoshitaka Isaji of Japan.

Rescue teams from Laos and neighbouring Thailand have been working together over the past week to rescue the trapped villagers, alongside divers from countries including Finland, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia.

Seven people entered the cave in a remote mountainous area of central Xaysomboun province last week to look for valuable minerals such as gold, before being trapped by a flash flood that blocked their way out, according to local media reports.

One other person escaped and alerted the authorities.

A Laotian rescue group said on Sunday it had received “substantial” information on the cave system from the five men who were rescued earlier this week. “The hope is that today’s mission will locate both remaining victims,” the group wrote on social media.

The rescued men were being treated at a local hospital and were doing well, Malaysian diver Lee Kian Lie, who is taking part in the operation, told AP.

“We interviewed them about how the deeper part of the cave looks like. We will continue to search based on the information we have, and perhaps we will be able to get to the other two,” he said.

Rescuers said they navigated more than 200m (650 feet) into the cave and discovered five chambers in the system. The five people rescued so far were found in the fifth chamber.

Paasi, the Finnish diver, told AP that the survivors reported a narrow crack in the fifth chamber that could be a passage leading to a deeper part of the cave system.

“This was the only place that we haven’t checked in the mine, where the two lost miners could still be,” he said in a video interview.

The five men who were rescued – identified by their first names as Khamla, Mued, Ee, Ing and Laen – were first found last Wednesday.

The first man was safely extracted on Friday, guided through a narrow flooded passage by an expert diver. The remaining four left the cave on Saturday, after the water receded enough for them to walk out on their own, rescuers said.

Videos posted online on Saturday showed emotional moments as the men emerged one by one from the cave. Some collapsed on the ground at the cave’s entrance, and were hugged by a group of workers who cried with joy.

Later moments showed them lying on stretchers, wrapped in foil blankets and fitted with oxygen masks before being transported out.

Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi accuses China of lacking military transparency and stresses the importance of dialogue for regional stability.

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has dismissed claims that Tokyo is pursuing “new militarism” and accused China of rapidly expanding its military with limited transparency.

China continues to increase its defence spending at a high level, Koizumi said on Sunday at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“China’s external approach and military activities are matters of serious concern for ⁠Japan and the international community at the same time,” he added.

“Think about it. There’s a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers. Japan has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labelled ‘new militarism’?”

Koizumi said Japan’s record since World War II “speaks for itself”, citing its adherence ‌to international law and commitment to the United Nations Charter alongside efforts to uphold a “free and open international order”.

In May, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Asia Pacific countries to be vigilant and “jointly resist the reckless actions of Japan’s neo-militarism”.

At the Singapore forum, Chinese delegate Major General Meng Xiangqing criticised Japan.

“I deeply doubt whether a country that has not thoroughly eradicated the toxic legacy of militarism is qualified to talk extensively about defence cooperation on international occasions and whether it can win the trust of the international community, especially ⁠the Asian countries it once invaded,” he said.

Ties between Japan and China sank to ⁠their worst level in years after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could draw a Japanese military response.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory over the objections of the island’s government.

Koizumi said transparency comes from “discussion and dialogue” and lamented that China had not sent its defence minister to the conference, but he insisted Japan remains open to engagement.

“We keep the door open,” he said, reaffirming Japan’s ⁠commitment to dialogue with China and other regional players to foster stability.

As China has been rapidly expanding and modernising its military, Japan has been reshaping its own defence policy. Last month, Takaichi’s cabinet scrapped a ban on lethal weapons exports, a major change in its post-war pacifist policy.

Japan pushes for unity

Separately on Sunday, Koizumi praised US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for his commitment to the Asia Pacific but at the same time stressed the continued need for strong coalitions globally.

“Division weakens deterrence. Unity strengthens deterrence,” he told the conference in Singapore.

“If gaps emerge among the United States, Europe and allies and like-minded countries, forces which take it as an opportunity will surely come in,” he said.

“We must prevent such a situation. We must keep our cooperation going on. Now is the time to make our cooperation even stronger.”

US President Donald Trump has been harsh about fellow members in NATO, and the comments at the Shangri-La conference came the day after Hegseth again chided Western European allies at the forum for not devoting enough resources to defence.

Divers in Laos have rescued four more villagers trapped in a flooded cave. The first survivor was pulled out on Friday. Two more men remain missing. They entered the cave to look for gold before flash floods blocked their escape 10 days ago.

Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman bin Hassan bin Ali Al Thani has told the Shangri-La Dialogue that his country would oppose a permanent toll for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

He added that Qatar would find a temporary fee negotiable, if it was to be used to help reopen the waterway, by removing sea mines, for example.

Videos show Indonesia’s Mount Merapi spewing a column of ash around 2 kilometres high in West Sumatra’s Tanh Datar District. Authorities have enforced an “exclusion zone” within a 3-kilometre radius around Mount Merapi since an eruption in 2023.

Five of seven men who entered cave seeking gold are now out after being trapped for 10 days.

Rescuers have pulled four more men from a flooded cave in central Laos, bringing to five the number freed from a group of villagers who became trapped while searching for gold. Two others remain missing.

The four were brought out on Saturday, a day after the first man was rescued, ending a period of about 10 days during which the group was cut off underground.

The Thailand Rescue Diver Facebook page said that “rescue officials were able to bring out four more people trapped” at about 3:10pm (08:10 GMT).

Rescuers said the water inside the cave had finally dropped low enough for the men to walk and swim out alongside the divers who had reached them.

The operation has drawn diving teams from several countries, but the danger is far from over, with two members of the group still unaccounted for deep inside the flooded passages.

Lao and Thai rescue groups posted images of the men being carried out on stretchers, caked in mud, wearing oxygen masks and wrapped in foil blankets.

Footage shared online showed some of them collapsing as they emerged, before being embraced by rescuers.

The five had been located alive on Wednesday, huddled on a rocky ledge in a chamber about 300 metres (980 feet) from the entrance. Unable to bring them out straight away, rescuers passed in water, soft food and blankets to keep them going.

“The first one is out. Safe and sound!!!” Manat Artmongkron, a technician with a Thai rescue group, wrote on Facebook after the first evacuation on Friday.

Divers described treacherous conditions in the narrow, flooded tunnels, where visibility was almost nil. One stretch was a 25-metre passage too tight to turn around in.

The group had entered the cave around May 19 or 20, to look for gold and other minerals, according to local officials, before heavy rain triggered flash flooding that sealed off their way out.

An eighth villager who escaped in time alerted the authorities to those left behind.

Rescue teams said they were now preparing to push deeper into the cave – about 20 to 25 metres beyond where the survivors were found – to look for the two missing men, though that section remained heavily flooded.

Local officials said residents of the remote, mountainous province of Xaisomboun often forage for a living and enter such caves in search of gold, despite repeated warnings about the risks.

Divers in Laos have rescued the first of five villagers trapped in a flooded cave for more than a week. The men entered the cave to look for gold before flash floods blocked their escape. Two other villagers are still missing.

Erin Patterson was found guilty of killing three family members as she served them a lunch laced with poisonous fungi.

An Australian court has confirmed that an appeal hearing for Erin Patterson, commonly referred to as the “mushroom murderer,” will be held in August.

The Supreme Court of Victoria announced on Friday that the hearing will take place on August 19 and 20. Patterson’s lawyers formally applied to appeal her life sentence in November, arguing that there had been a “substantial miscarriage of justice” during her trial.

Patterson was sentenced to life in prison in September after being found guilty of murdering three of her estranged husband’s relatives by serving them a lunch laced with poisonous fungi.

During the two-day hearing, the court will also consider an appeal from prosecutors, who argue that her sentence, which allows her to be considered for parole after 33 years, is “manifestly inadequate”.

Prosecutors unsuccessfully argued during the trial that her sentence should have been life imprisonment without parole.

In July, a jury found Patterson guilty of killing her estranged husband’s parents after serving them a lunch of beef Wellington laced with toxic mushrooms.

The case attracted worldwide attention, with more than 250 journalists registering for updates from the court, and the judge deciding to broadcast the sentencing live.

Both Gail Patterson and Donald Patterson died in August 2023. Patterson was also found guilty of murdering Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, who died that same month, and of attempting to kill Wilkinson’s husband, Ian. He spent seven weeks in hospital following the poisoning and received a liver transplant.

Patterson is appealing her conviction on seven grounds, including what her lawyers described as a “fundamental irregularity” relating to the sequestration of the jury, who stayed in the same hotel as key figures in the case, including a police witness and two prosecutors.

Patterson’s lawyers also argue that several pieces of evidence presented during the trial were either irrelevant or unfairly prejudicial, and that the prosecution’s cross-examination of her was “unfair and oppressive”.

Patterson maintains her innocence, arguing that the poisoning was accidental.

Indonesian authorities have shut down several screenings of a new documentary about alleged human rights abuses in Papua, including Indigenous land seizures. Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington explains the controversy.