ASEAN Summit

At the invitation of current Asean host Laos, the meeting will talk about ways to approach the crisis which has gripped Myanmar since a 2021 military coup

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will visit Australia and Singapore from November 3 to 8 during which he will meet leaders of the two countries and address the 8th Roundtable of ASEAN, an official statement said on Saturday. Jaishankar will co-chair the 15th Foreign Ministers' Framework Dialogue (FMFD) with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Canberra, the statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. "EAM will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural session of the 2nd Raisina Down Under to be held in the Australian Parliament House. EAM is also scheduled to have interactions with Australian leadership, parliamentarians, members of the Indian diaspora, business community, media and think tanks," it said. During the visit, Jaishankar will travel to Brisbane and inaugurate India's fourth consulate in Australia, it added. At the second India-Australia 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Dialogue held in Delhi in November last year, both sides had ..

Prime Minister Modi underscored that the Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) is at the centre of India's Indo-Pacific vision and Quad cooperation

Following that, he interacted with the Indian diaspora in Vientiane. He greeted Indian community members as they were excited to meet him outside the hotel in Laos

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday arrived in Laos on a two-day visit to attend the ASEAN-India and East Asia summits to further deepen engagement with countries in the groupings. Modi is visiting Lao PDR on the invitation of Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone. Laos is the current chair of the ASEAN. During the visit, Modi will participate in the 21st ASEAN-India and the 19th East Asia summits. In his departure statement, Modi noted that India is marking a decade of Act East policy this year. "I will join the ASEAN leaders to review progress in our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and chart the future direction of our cooperation," the prime minister said. The East Asia Summit will provide an opportunity to deliberate on the challenges to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, he said. Modi said India shared close cultural and civilisation ties with the region, including with the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), which is enriched by a shared .

PM Modi said that he looks forward to his meetings with Laos leadership to further strengthen bilateral ties and expressed confidence that the visit will further deepen engagement with Asean countries

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a two-day visit to Laos beginning Thursday to attend the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit where improving connectivity and expanding digital public infrastructure are expected to be the key issues on the table. Modi's visit also commemorates 10 years of the Act East Policy that has seen India build convergences with ASEAN's own outlook for the Indo-Pacific region that has seen China's expansive activities in the South China Sea. Modi is also expected to meet the newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who will be attending the East Asia Summit his first overseas visit since assuming office on October 1. Territorial tensions in the South China Sea and the civil war in Myanmar will also be on the table. ASEAN has proposed a peace plan that calls for a ceasefire and mediation among the warring factions in Myanmar. Briefing the media about the prime minister's visit, Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East) in the External .

Southeast Asian leaders gathered in the capital of Laos on Wednesday for an annual regional forum that will focus on tackling the prolonged civil war in Myanmar and territorial tensions in the South China Sea. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit will also be followed by meetings with global powers including China, the US and Russia, which are contending for influence in the region. The timing of the meetings in Vientiane makes it likely that talks will also touch on the escalation of violence in the Middle East, although Southeast Asia has faced only indirect fallout. ASEAN's influence has historically been limited even among its own members, but the forum has often served as a platform for dialogues among superpowers looking to engage with the region. The 10 member states of ASEAN Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos will also hold talks with their dialogue partners from elsewhere in the region including

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a two-day visit to Laos on October 10 and 11 during which he will attend the 21st ASEAN-India Summit and the 19th East Asia Summit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday. Laos is the current chair of ASEAN. On the invitation of his Laos counterpart Sonexay Siphandone, Prime Minister Modi will visit Vientiane on October 10-11, the MEA said in a statement. During the visit, Modi will attend the 21st ASEAN-India Summit and the 19th East Asia Summit being hosted by Laos as the current chair of ASEAN, it said. Modi is also expected to hold bilateral meetings on the margins of the two summits, according to the MEA. "India is marking a decade of the Act East Policy this year. Relations with ASEAN are a central pillar of the Act East Policy and our Indo-Pacific vision," the MEA said. The ASEAN-India Summit will review the progress of India-ASEAN relations through "our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" and chart the future direct

Southeast Asian economies are gaining ground as tourism and exports recover from the shocks of the pandemic, but geopolitical tensions and volatile commodity prices still pose serious risks, regional financial leaders said on Friday. Laos' Finance Minister Santiphab Phomvihane read out a joint statement following meetings among finance ministers at a hotel in the Laotian city of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO heritage site, but he made no other remarks and took no questions. Estimates for economic growth in members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations vary but are generally near a robust 5 per cent for 2024. Nevertheless, there are still challenges due to adverse financial spillovers from geopolitical tensions, volatility in global commodity prices, Phomvihane said, also pointing to climate change, aging populations and rapid development of digitalization as key factors for the region. He did not elaborate, but the repercussions of the war in Ukraine and tensions betwee

Simmering tensions in the South China Sea between China and several Southeast Asian nations now regularly spark direct confrontation. Fighting in Myanmar against the military government that seized power three years ago has grown to the point that most say the country is now in a civil war. Hopes were high that Indonesia might be able to make significant inroads on both issues during its 2023 chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, using its clout as the bloc's largest country, but little progress was made. Now Laos, the bloc's poorest and one of its smallest countries, has taken over the rotating chair. As foreign ministers gather in Luang Prabang for this year's first top-level meetings over the weekend, many are pessimistic that ASEAN can keep its biggest challenges from festering and growing. There were so many expectations when Indonesia started its presidency and some of those expectations fell short, said Shafiah Muhibat, an expert with the Centre for ...

India and the 10-nation bloc Asean are expected to formally launch the review exercise for the free trade agreement (FTA) in November, an official has said. They have agreed to fast-track negotiations for the review of the existing agreement in goods between the two regions and conclude the talks in 2025. It was agreed during the twentieth AEM (Asean Economic Ministers)-India Consultation meeting held at Semarang, Indonesia, in August. "We will do stakeholder consultations with the industry soon before starting the review formally. Most probably, we will have the first round in November," the official said. Participating in the 20th ASEAN-India Summit in Jakarta, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the need to complete the review of the ASEAN-India FTA (AITIGA) in a time-bound manner. The FTA was signed in 2009 and implemented in January 2010. The review of the AITIGA was a long-standing demand of Indian businesses, and the early commencement of the review would help in making

Dili is the capital city of Timor-Leste, or East Timor, on the country's north coast. The city holds importance as it recalls the nation's struggles for independence from Portugal as well as Indonesia

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"It is a cold, calculated decision to reinforce the ongoing stress on consolidating individual allies and partners like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and now Vietnam," says Michael Vatikiotis

Vice President Kamala Harris will deepen her outreach to Southeast Asia this week at an international summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she'll try to erase doubts about U.S. commitment to the region stirred by President Joe Biden's absence. It's Harris' third trip to Southeast Asia and fourth to Asia overall, and she's touched down in more countries there than any other continent. The repeat visits, in addition to meetings that she's hosted in Washington, have positioned Harris as a key interlocutor for the Democratic administration as it tries to bolster a network of partnerships to counterbalance Chinese influence. This latest journey is another opportunity for Harris to burnish her foreign policy credentials as she prepares for a bruising campaign year. She's already come under attack from Republican presidential candidates who say she's unprepared to step up if Biden, the oldest U.S. president in history, can't finish a second term. John Kirby, a White House national security

Southeast Asian leaders led by Indonesian host President Joko Widodo are gathering in their final summit this year, besieged by divisive issues with no solutions in sight: Myanmar's deadly civil strife, new flare-ups in the disputed South China Sea, and the longstanding United States-China rivalry. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings will open Tuesday in the Indonesian capital Jakarta under tight security. The absence of U.S. President Joe Biden, who typically attends, adds to the already somber backdrop of the 10-state bloc's traditional show of unity and group handshakes. After discussions Tuesday, the ASEAN heads of state would meet Asian and Western counterparts from Wednesday to Thursday, providing a wider venue that the U.S. and China, and their allies, have used for wide-ranging talks on free trade, climate change and global security. It has also become a battleground for their rivalries. Chinese Premier Li Qiang was set to join the meetings, including the ...

South Korea's president says he'll tell world leaders about the need to faithfully enforce U.N. sanctions on North Korea and block the country's illicit activities to fund its weapons programmes when they converge in Indonesia and India for annual summits this week. President Yoon Suk Yeol is to visit Jakarta for four days starting Tuesday to attend a series of summits scheduled on the margins of a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders. On Friday, he'll travel on to New Delhi for a summit of the leading rich and developing nations. At the upcoming ASEAN-related Summits and the G20 Summit, I intend to urge the international community to resolutely respond to North Korea's ever-escalating missile provocations and nuclear threats and to work closely together on its denuclearization, Yoon said in written responses to questions from The Associated Press. As long as the U.N. Security Council sanctions currently in place are faithfully implemented, North Korea's

PM Modi will be in Jakarta at the invitation of the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo

In a statement, the White House said Biden and G20 partners will also discuss clean energy transition and combating climate change increasing the capacity of multilateral development banks