US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a defence pact with Papua New Guinea on Monday. He and Indian PM Narendra Modi also met Pacific Island leaders at a regional forum

Palau and Micronesia will sign updated security agreements with the US over the next two days, while the Marshall Islands could also agree to do the same shortly, US envoy Joseph Yun said

Global temperatures are likely to be 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels at least once over the next five years, the WMO says, and an El Niño weather pattern looks likely to occur late this year

OpenAI chief executive Samuel Altman urges Congress to draw up rules and guidelines, saying he fears that artificial intelligence could cause significant harm to society and the world

Vietnam, Laos and the Thai capital Bangkok all experienced record temperatures in recent days, and weather forecasters suspect these all-time highs may not last for long

The IMF is working on a bailout while Pakistan has assured its balance of payments gap will be fully funded, but $3 billion pledged by Saudi Arabia and UAE has yet to come through

The soybean, developed by privately-owned Shandong Shunfeng Biotechnology, has two modified genes that significantly raise the level of healthy fat oleic acid in the plant

Pledge by Korean firm follows a campaign by Greenpeace and indigenous leaders, who revealed that dozens of Hyundai excavators were being used for destructive illegal mining in the Amazon

Greenpeace says China should add more storage capacity and make its power grid flexible so it can respond better to periods of high demand, rather than building more coal plants

Rice production for 2023 is set to log its largest shortfall in two decades, a report by Fitch Solutions has warned

A severe heatwave extending across much of Asia has been described as "the worst April heatwave in Asian history" by a climatologist and weather historian

New US rules are expected to cover private-equity and venture-capital investments in advanced semiconductors, supercomputing and some forms of artificial intelligence