Solomon Islanders began voting on Wednesday in a crucial election that will decide China's foothold in the Pacific region. Polling booths opened at 7 a.m. local time on Wednesday (2000 GMT on Tuesday), with almost 420,000 registered voters to elect 50 members of the national parliament. There are more than 1,000 polling stations scattered across the Solomons archipelago, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) off Australia's coast.

As South Koreans head to the polls for a parliamentary election, the country's worsening ties with North Korea are high on the agenda. The small South Korean island of Yeonpyeong is located about 12 kilometres from the North Korean coast. In January, Pyongyang fired live artillery into nearby waters, forcing islanders into air raid shelters. The island could be first in the line of fire if conflict breaks out between the North and South.

China and Nauru re-established diplomatic ties on Wednesday, after the tiny Pacific island nation unexpectedly severed relations with its now former ally Taiwan in a move the United States described as "unfortunate".

The island's defense ministry said the number of Chinese military aircraft was a "recent high."

The defense ministry in Taipei reported dozens of Chinese jets and 10 naval ships near Taiwan.

William Lai is in Paraguay to attend the presidential inauguration. Beijing, which claims the island of Taiwan as its own, has slammed his foreign trip.

Although youth gang wars affect all of Indonesia, Yogyakarta, a city of 400,000 inhabitants on the island of Java, has become the epicentre of a worrying new phenomenon. There, teenage boys clash in the streets at night. They travel on motorbike, armed with truncheons or rusty swords. Their victims are rival gang members, but sometimes also innocent passersby.