CANBERRA (AFP) -- China hailed mended ties with Australia on Monday, saying relations were “on the right track” as the trading partners moved on from a bitter economic dispute despite a duel for influence in the Pacific. Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived to a grand ceremonial welcome at Parliament House in Canberra, before talks with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The highest-ranking Chinese official to visit since 2017, Li said his trip to Australia demonstrated “that this relationship is on the right track of steady improvement and development”.  Li offered an olive branch, granting Australian citizens limited visa-free access to China, a gesture limited to a relatively small number of nations in Beijing’s good books. Australia, meanwhile, said the two countries had agreed to improve “military-to-military” communication, lowering the temperature after recent brushes in international waters. 

*** 
HANOI (Reuters) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Hanoi this week, multiple officials said, highlighting Communist-ruled Vietnam’s loyalty to Russia and triggering a U.S. rebuke. The visit follows Hanoi avoiding a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland last weekend, while sending its deputy foreign minister to a BRICS meeting in Russia earlier last week. Putin, who was sworn in for a fifth time just over a month ago, is expected to meet Vietnam’s new president, To Lam, and other leaders during the two-day visit to Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said. The United States, which upgraded relations with Hanoi last year and is Vietnam’s top trading partner, reacted harshly. “No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities,” a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi told Reuters when asked about the impact of the visit on ties with the United States.
 
*** 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- An Indian man suspected by the U.S. of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to kill a Sikh separatist on American soil has been extradited to the United States from the Czech Republic, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website and a source familiar with the matter. Nikhil Gupta has been accused by U.S. federal prosecutors of plotting with an Indian government official to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S. resident who advocated for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India. Gupta traveled to Prague from India last June and was arrested by Czech authorities. Last month, a Czech court rejected his petition to avoid being sent to the U.S., clearing the way for the Czech justice minister to extradite him. The discovery of assassination plots against Sikh separatists in the U.S. and Canada has tested relations with India, seen by Western nations as a counter to China’s rising global influence. India’s government denies involvement in the plots. Canada said in September its intelligence agencies were pursuing allegations linking India’s government to the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023 in Canada.

*** 
KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) -- A senior Ukrainian energy official has warned that scheduled power outages and emergency blackouts will intensify over the coming weeks, after a string of Russian attacks crippled Ukrainian electricity generation.  President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month the aerial bombardments have halved the country’s electricity production compared to a year ago, disrupting and limiting supplies for millions. “Over the next few weeks, the situation will be much tougher than it is today,” the head of national grid operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kydrytsky said in an interview late on Sunday. He said periods during which Ukrainians might not have power were likely to be extended by up to 12 hours per day and that outages could become more “stringent”. “This situation will continue until the end of July,” he said in the interview, broadcast on state media.  

*** 
KOLKATA (AFP) -- At least seven people were killed when an express passenger train and a goods train collided Monday in India’s West Bengal state, derailing three passenger carriages, police said. Images on Indian broadcasters showed the tangled wreckage of carriages flipped on their side, and one thrust high into the air precariously balanced on another. Police said rescuers were scouring the twisted carriages in case there were more bodies trapped beneath. The incident is the latest to hit India’s creaking rail network, which carries millions of passengers each day. India has one of the world’s largest rail networks and has seen several disasters over the years, the worst in 1981 when a train derailed while crossing a bridge in Bihar state, killing an estimated 800 people. In June last year, a three-train collision killed nearly 300 people in Odisha state. 

*** 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- An armed man shot and injured nine people, including two children, at a water-park near Detroit before shooting himself after being cornered by police, authorities said. Authorities called the incident random gunfire and said they cornered the suspect in a house nearby, where he died after shooting himself.  The local sheriff showed an image of a semiautomatic rifle from inside the house to which the unnamed suspect was tracked. A handgun was recovered from the scene of the shooting, officials added. The suspect was described as a 42-year-old man, while the motives for the shooting were not clear. An 8-year-old boy was in critical condition after being shot in the head while his 4-year-old brother was also wounded but stable. Their mother was in critical condition, too, after being hurt in the abdomen and leg, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told reporters.