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President Joe Biden announced Monday in Tokyo that 13 countries have joined a new, US-led Asia-Pacific trade initiative touted as a counterweight to China's aggressive expansion in the region.

"The United States and Japan, together with 11 other nations will be launching the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, or IPEF," Biden said at a press conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

"This framework is a commitment to working with our close friends and partners in the region on challenges that matter most to ensuring economic competitiveness in the 21st century," he said.

Biden was due to make a formal rollout of the framework later Monday.

He did not say what countries had already signed up to IPEF, which the White House is billing as a framework for what will ultimately become a tight-knit group of trading nations.

Unlike traditional trade blocs, there is no plan for IPEF members to negotiate tariffs and ease market access -- a tool that has become increasingly unpalatable to US voters fearful of undermining homegrown manufacturing.

Instead, the programme foresees integrating partners through agreed standards in four main areas: the digital economy, supply chains, clean energy infrastructure and anti-corruption measures.

Biden has pushed to rapidly rebuild strategic military and trade alliances weakened under his predecessor Donald Trump since taking office in 2021.

IPEF is intended to offer US allies an alternative to China's growing commercial presence across the Asia-Pacific.

However, there is no political will in Washington for returning to a tariffs-based Asia trade deal following Trump's 2017 withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a huge trading bloc that was revived, without US membership, in 2018 as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

China has criticised IPEF as an attempt to create a closed club. Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, rejected this, telling reporters "it is by design and definition an open platform".

Sullivan said that Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that China claims sovereignty over, has not been brought into the initial line-up -- despite being an important link in microchip supply chains.

Sullivan said nevertheless that the United States is "looking to deepen our economic partnership with Taiwan, including on high-technology issues, including on semiconductors and supply chains."

This will happen, however, only "on a bilateral basis".

CPN (Maoist Centre) mayoral candidate Renu Dahal is leading by 10, 314 votes in Bharatpur Metropolitan City.

She has secured 44, 710 votes against her closest contender Bijay Subedi of CPN-UML who garnered 34, 396 votes.

Independent candidate Jagannath Paudel received 13, 613 votes.

It has been learnt that 111, 274 votes have been counted so far.

Similarly, deputy mayoral candidate Chitrasen Adhikari got 45, 849 votes while Himala Gurung of Rastriya Prajantra Party secured 27, 181 votes.

Anthony Albanese has been sworn in as Australia's new leader and will fly immediately to an international summit, BBC reported.

Mr Albanese's Labor Party defeated Scott Morrison's conservative government in an election on Saturday.

It remains unclear whether Mr Albanese will form a majority or govern with the support of crossbenchers.

The prime minister left for Tokyo on Monday to meet the leaders of the so-called Quad nations - the US, India and Japan.

Earlier in the day, he was sworn in with four key cabinet members, including new Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who is travelling with him to Japan.

Richard Marles is the new deputy prime minister and employment minister, Jim Chalmers is treasurer, and Katy Gallagher is attorney-general and finance minister.

It is Australia's first Labor government in almost a decade. The party has won 72 lower house seats but counting continues to determine whether they can get the 76 needed to form a majority.

But the primary vote for both major parties fell - almost a third of Australians put the Greens, independents and other minor parties as their first preference, according to BBC.

The Quad group is seen as largely aiming to counter growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

It will meet on Tuesday following recent diplomatic tensions in the Pacific, after the Solomon Islands last month signed a security pact with China.

The US and Australia hold fears the deal could allow China to build a naval base there.

In a statement ahead of the meeting, Mr Albanese said: "The Quad Leaders' Summit brings together four leaders of great liberal democracies - Australia, Japan, India, and the United States of America - in support of a free, open and resilient Indo-Pacific."

Ms Wong - Australia's first overseas-born foreign minister - signalled they would bring "new energy and much more to the table" on climate action, after "a lost decade".

Climate change played a huge role in the election result, with a surge in support for candidates wanting urgent action.

Mr Morrison's government had committed to a 2030 emissions reduction target of 26%-28% - about half that of the UK and US. Mr Albanese's government has a target of 43%.

The Greens are expected to pick up four lower seats, adding to seven climate-focused independents. They could put pressure on Labor to take even stronger action, especially if it fails to reach a majority.

Mr Morrison's unpopularity and his party's stance on climate have been blamed by some Liberal MPs for wiping out their vote, BBC reported.

Losses included senior party figures, including deputy leader Josh Frydenberg, in traditional Liberal strongholds.

Mr Morrison stepped down as party leader on Saturday and former defence minister Peter Dutton is the favourite to succeed him.

Mr Dutton - from the party's right - has been a controversial figure at times. Some question whether he could rebuild Liberal support in more progressive, metropolitan areas, according to BBC.

Buoyed by a visit from a neighbor and ally, Ukrainians were digging in to defend the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, which came under heavy bombardment from Russian forces trying to take the industrial area known as the Donbas, Associated Press reported.

Sievierodonetsk is the main city under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province, which together with Donetsk province make up the Donbas. 

Luhansk’s governor, Serhii Haidai, said Sunday that the Russians were “simply intentionally trying to destroy the city ... engaging in a scorched-earth approach.”

He said the Russians had occupied several towns and cities in Luhansk after indiscriminate, 24-hour shelling. Haidai said Moscow was concentrating forces and weaponry there, bringing in forces from Kharkiv to the northwest, Mariupol to the south, and from inside Russia.

The sole working hospital in Sievierodonetck has only three doctors and supplies for 10 days, he said.

The Ukrainian military said Russian forces had mounted an unsuccessful attack on Oleksandrivka, a village outside of the city.

While Russian and Ukrainian forces battled along a 551-kilometer (342-mile) wedge of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, Poland’s president traveled to Kyiv on Sunday to support Ukraine’s European Union aspirations, becoming the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament since the start of the war, according to Associated Press.

President Andrzej Duda received a standing ovation when he thanked the lawmakers for letting him speak where “the heart of a free, independent and democratic Ukraine beats.” Duda said Ukraine need not submit to conditions given by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Unfortunately, in Europe there have also been disturbing voices in recent times demanding that Ukraine yield to Putin’s demands,” he said. “I want to say clearly: Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its future. Only Ukraine has the right to decide for itself.”

It was Duda’s second visit to Kyiv since April. Poland has become an important ally of Ukraine, welcoming millions of Ukrainian refugees and becoming a gateway for Western humanitarian aid and weapons. It is also a transit point for some foreign fighters who have volunteered to fight the Russian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the visit “a historic opportunity not to lose such strong relations, built through blood, through Russian aggression. All this not to lose our state, not to lose our people.”

Duda credited the US and President Joe Biden for unifying the West in supporting Ukraine and imposing sanctions against Moscow.

“Kyiv is the place from which one clearly sees that we need more America in Europe, both in the military and in this economic dimension,” said Duda, a right-wing populist leader who clearly preferred the former US president, Donald Trump, over Biden in the 2020 election.

Poland is ramping up efforts to win over EU members who are more hesitant about accepting Ukraine into the bloc. Zelenskyy has urged the 27-member EU to expedite his country’s request to join, and it is to be discussed at a Brussels summit in late June, Associated Press reported.

France’s European Affairs minister Clement Beaune on Sunday told Radio J it would be a “long time” before Ukraine gains EU membership, perhaps up to two decades. “We have to be honest,” he said. “If you say Ukraine is going to join the EU in six months, or a year or two, you’re lying.”

On the battlefield, grinding, town-by-town fighting continued as Russian troops try to expand the territory that Moscow-backed separatists have held since 2014 in the Donbas.

To bolster its defenses, Ukraine’s parliament voted Sunday to extend martial law and mobilize the armed forces for a third time, until Aug. 23.

Ukrainian officials have said little since the war began about the extent of their country’s casualties, but Zelenskyy said at a news conference Sunday that 50 to 100 Ukrainian fighters were being killed, apparently each day, in the east.

In a general staff morning report, Russia said it was also preparing to resume its offensive on Slovyansk, a city in Donetsk province that saw fierce fighting last month after Moscow’s troops backed away from Kyiv. 

The conflict was not confined to Ukraine’s east. Powerful explosions were heard early Monday, for example, in Korosten, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Kyiv, the town’s deputy mayor said. It was the third straight day of apparent attacks in the Zhytomyr District, Ukrainian news agencies reported, according to Associated Press.