The Malaysian government's insistence on holding a snap general election next month during a monsoon season that's expected to bring devastating floods risks putting politics above people's lives, opposition lawmakers and political analysts say.

Two air force fighter jets escorted a Singapore Airlines plane traveling from San Francisco to Changi Airport after a passenger made a hoax bomb threat.

North Korea fired at least one unidentified ballistic missile on Thursday, that Japan said flew over its main island, landing in the Pacific Ocean, and South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said landed in waters off the east of the peninsula.

North Korean state media has released images purporting to show last week's missile launches with a warning that the so-called "reckless military hysteria" of the United States and its allies is moving the Korean peninsula towards "unstable confrontation."

President Joe Biden held a three-hour talk Monday with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, their first in-person encounter since Biden took office and an opportunity that both sides appeared to hope would lead to an improvement in rapidly deteriorating relations.