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Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted the invitation extended to him by Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia, to participate in the G20 summit in November. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine is set to attend the summit. Source: Interfax, a Russian news agency, quoting Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Vladimir Putin Quote from Ushakov: "Yes, we have confirmed that we will participate [in the G20 summit - ed.]. For now, they have invited us to attend in person. There’s plenty of time [until the summit - ed]. I hope that the pandemic will allow this meeting to take...

Vladimir Putin will visit two small former Soviet states in central Asia this week, Russian state television reported on Sunday, in what would be the Russian leader’s first known trip abroad since ordering the invasion of Ukraine. -snip- Pavel Zarubin, the Kremlin correspondent of the Rossiya 1 state television station, said Putin would visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and then meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo for talks in Moscow. In Dushanbe, Putin will meet Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, a close Russian ally and the longest-serving ruler of a former Soviet state. In Ashgabat, he will attend a summit of Caspian nations...

Indonesia’s parliament has approved a bill to relocate the nation’s capital from Jakarta to a jungled area of Kalimantan on Borneo island, the planning minister said on Tuesday. The new state capital law, which provides a legal framework for President Joko Widodo’s ambitious $32 billion mega project, stipulates how development of the capital will be funded and governed. The new center will be called “Nusantara”, a Javanese name for the Indonesian archipelago chosen by the president, Monoarfa announced on Monday. Plans to relocate the government from Jakarta, a bustling megacity of 10 million people that suffers from chronic congestion, floods...

The United States State Department is "seeing signs" of chemical weapons use by Syrian government forces in northwestern Syria. The State Department promising Tuesday that the US and allied nations will respond "quickly and appropriately" if the use of chemical weapons is proven.... Top US officials including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford briefed members of Congress Tuesday about Iran.... The United Nations representative for Libya says steps need to be taken to cut off arms supplies to Libya where a government ostensibly backed by the UN is...

The result was released a day ahead of schedule in the early hours of Tuesday, amid fears of unrest. Around 32,000 security personnel were deployed across the capital Jakarta, AFP news agency reports. The latest vote followed a bitter campaign in which religion played a key role, but independent observers have said it was free and fair. On Friday police said they had arrested dozens of suspected terrorists with links to Islamic State (IS), some of whom had allegedly planned to bomb political rallies when the vote result was released. The same day, the US embassy issued a travel warning...

Bambang Brodjonegoro said President Joko Widodo had chosen to relocate the capital in "an important decision"... Jakarta, home to over 10 million people, is sinking at one of the fastest rates in the world... Researchers say that large parts of the megacity could be entirely submerged by 2050. North Jakarta sunk 2.5m (eight feet) in 10 years and is continuing to sink an average of 1-15cm a year... But President Joko Widodo has achieved ambitious infrastructure building in his five years in office, so he may well be the man that finally does it.

Indonesia has toughened its punishments for child rapists to include the death penalty and chemical castration. It follows outrage over several recent violent crimes, including the gang-rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. President Joko Widodo said the regulation was "intended to overcome the crisis caused by sexual violence against children". Previously, the maximum sentence for rape, of either an adult or a child, was 14 years in jail. People jailed for sexual offences against children may also now be made to wear electronic monitoring devices after their release.

President Obama says the U.S. and the world’s largest Muslim country will merge their economies under an agreement whose terms have not been disclosed to Congress or the public. After Obama met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the White House Monday, Widodo said, “Indonesia intends to join the TPP,” referring to the TransPacific Partnership. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world with 250 million people. Obama attended elementary school in the country. “I have a very personal interest in Indonesia given the fact that I spent time there as a child and have relatives who are...

The newly-elected Chinese Christian governor of Indonesia’s capital city, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, is finding new allies in Jakarta’s influential Muslim leaders, reports MNN. Mr. Purnama, who goes by “Ahok,” reflects an “acceptance of diversity” agenda being put forth by the newly-elected President and former gubernatorial running mate, Joko Widodo. “He’s referred to as a double-minority because he’s ethnic Chinese, which is a minority in Indonesia, and he’s also Christian,” notes John Bachman of the Haggai Institute. “Given the fact that Indonesia has a very large Muslim population, there are some leaders that have been very vocal [about], ‘This is not...