In a ceremony at the Kremlin, and on the second day of Chinese leader's Xi Jinping's visit, Putin and Xi kicked off formal talks which will focus on the Ukraine crisis. They shook hands and stood side by side as their respective national anthems played, aired on state television. Following the meeting, they held a joint press conference, to be followed by a state dinner at the Kremlin. 

The leader of Indonesia says the country must reduce its dependence on foreign payment systems, to negate potentially disastrous economic consequences should the country ever find itself in the crosshairs of Western sanctions.

Addressing a business forum in Jakarta this week, President Joko Widodo argued that Indonesia must shield itself from geopolitical disruptions, citing the sanctions attack on Russia’s financial sector by the US, EU, and their allies over the conflict in Ukraine.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar on Monday called on the international community to coordinate sanctions to counter the abuses perpetrated by the southeast Asian country's military.

Since a junta seized power in February 2021, Myanmar has been plunged into chaos, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts following a bloody crackdown on opponents.

For many years, the successive leaders of Kyrgyzstan could not capitalize on their country’s strategic location along the shortest route connecting China to Central Asia and further onward to the Middle East and Europe. Now, hopes are cautiously mounting that this might be changing.

Kazakhstan is the United Kingdom’s primary trading partner in Central Asia, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the UK James Cleverly said during his meeting with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana as part of his first visit to the nation on March 18.

Concurrent to rumblings of a color revolution in Georgia earlier this month, a plot attributed to Ukraine’s notorious SBU “national security service” against officials of the “breakaway” republic of Transnistria unfolded in central Tiraspol, according to prosecutors. The foiled assassination attempt targeted Transnistria’s leader, Vadim Krasnoselsky.

Granting the United States greater access to Philippine military bases will drag the Southeast Asian nation into “geopolitical strife,” China’s embassy here has warned, claiming the move is part of a plot to contain its growing regional influence.

The embassy issued the statement a day after MaryKay Carlson, the American ambassador to Manila, said in an interview on Philippine television that the expanded access to local military facilities was meant to allow U.S. forces to respond quickly to humanitarian needs in the region.

Thousands of workers at hospitals, schools and railways across Sri Lanka have gone on strike to protest against high costs of living, including increased taxes imposed as a precondition for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, amid the country’s worst financial crisis in decades.