The leaders of China and Japan held an ice-breaking summit Monday after two years of dangerous animosity, as world leaders including Barack Obama gathered for an Asia-Pacific meeting spotlighting intensifying big-power rivalries.

Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe met in Beijing's Great Hall of the People in what the Japanese prime minister said was a "first step" towards repairing the fractured relationship between the world's second- and third-largest economies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin promised ever closer cooperation Sunday as they met for the 10th time in less than two years.

The two men, who held talks in Beijing, have increasingly stressed their shared outlooks which mirror their countries' converging trade, investment and geopolitical interests.

Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that U.S. involvement in resolving the conflict in Ukraine would be a "step in the right direction", after meeting with his U.S. counterpart John Kerry in Beijing.

Lavrov's remarks appeared to soften Russia's line on the crisis ahead of high-level meetings between President Vladimir Putin and world leaders at an APEC summit in China and a Group of 20 summit in Australia next week.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Saturday he would have a "robust" conversation about downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet in Beijing. 

The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that Putin will meet Abbott, who last month promised to confront the Russian president over the downing of the plane, at a summit in the Chinese capital.

Portraits of President Vladimir Putin in the Ukrainian capital? Plenty -- but they're printed on toilet paper.

The Kremlin leader's stern features stare from novelty rolls sold for 20 hrvyna (1.5 dollars) in Kiev gift shops. He appears on T-shirts emblazoned with an obscene slogan. He's on doormats.

The United States is putting Hungary under "great pressure" over its energy ties to Russia because of the Ukraine crisis, Prime Minister Viktor Orban was quoted as saying for the first time Friday.

"The U.S. is putting Hungary under great pressure," Hungarian media cited Orban as saying in Munich, Germany late Thursday after a meeting with Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing on Saturday ahead of next week's APEC summit, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.

"The meeting between Lavrov and Kerry is planned for November 8 on the sidelines of the preparations for the APEC summit in Beijing," the agencies quoted a source at the foreign ministry as saying.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat held talks Thursday in Moscow with Aleksey Pushkov, head of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian Duma.

The meeting was attended by Jumblat's son Taimur, Health Minister Wael Abu Faour and PSP official Halim Abu Fakhreddine.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday warned Vladimir Putin he will not be able to avoid a "conversation" over the loss of Australian lives in the downing of Flight MH17 over Ukraine.

Last month Abbott vowed to "shirtfront" the Russian president at the G20 summit in Brisbane next week.

Tens of thousands of supporters of President Vladimir Putin and a smaller group of ultra-nationalists marched through Moscow on Tuesday to mark Russia's Unity Day.

The huge, highly organized rally of Putin backers through the center of the capital showcased the Kremlin's patriotic agenda at a time of growing international tension over the war in neighboring Ukraine.