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Kyrgyzstan reported "intense battles" with Central Asian neighbour Tajikistan on Friday and said 24 people had been killed in the latest outbreak of violence to hit the former Soviet Union.

Both of the small impoverished landlocked nations have accused each other of restarting fighting in a disputed area, despite a ceasefire deal.

In a statement, the Kyrgyz border service said its forces were continuing to repel Tajik attacks.

"From the Tajik side, shelling of the positions of the Kyrgyz side continues, and in some areas intense battles are going on," it said.

The Kyrgyz health ministry later said 24 citizens had been killed and 87 wounded, Russia's Interfax news agency said. It did not say how many of the victims were from the military.

Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of the Kyrgyz state committee on national security, was quoted by Russia's RIA news agency as saying military casualties had been high.

"The situation is difficult and as for what will happen tomorrow - no one can give any guarantees," he said.

The Kyrgyz ministry of emergency situations said more than 136,000 civilians had been evacuated from the conflict zone, Interfax said.

Earlier in the day Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon agreed to order a ceasefire and troop pullback at a regional summit in Uzbekistan, Japarov's office said.

Kyrgyzstan reported fighting in its southern Batken province which borders Tajikistan's northern Sughd region and features a Tajik exclave, Vorukh. The same area is famous for its jigsaw-puzzle political and ethnic geography and became the site of similar hostilities last year, also nearly leading to a war.

Clashes over the poorly demarcated border are frequent, but usually de-escalate quickly.

SOVIET LEGACY

Central Asian border issues largely stem from the Soviet era when Moscow tried to divide the region between groups whose settlements were often located amidst those of other ethnicities.

Both countries host Russian military bases. Earlier on Friday, Moscow urged a cessation of hostilities.

The clashes come at a time when Russian troops are fighting in Ukraine and a new ceasefire appears to be holding between former Soviet states Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Kyrgyzstan has said that Tajik forces using tanks, armoured personnel carriers and mortars entered at least one Kyrgyz village and shelled the airport of the Kyrgyz town of Batken and adjacent areas.

In turn, Tajikistan accused Kyrgyz forces of shelling an outpost and seven villages with "heavy weaponry".

Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the remote villages at the centre of the dispute were not economically significant, but that both sides had given it an exaggerated political importance.

Umarov said both governments had come to rely on what he called "populist, nationalist rhetoric" that made an exchange of territory aimed at ending the conflict impossible.

Another Central Asia analyst, Alexander Knyazev, said the sides showed no will to resolve the conflict peacefully and the mutual territorial claims provoked aggressive attitudes on all levels.

He said only third-party peacekeepers could prevent further conflicts by establishing a demilitarised zone. (Reuters)

The Chinese city of Chongqing reported one case of the monkeypox virus infection on Friday in an individual who arrived from abroad, marking mainland China's first known monkeypox infection amid the recent global outbreak of the virus.

The transmission risk is low as the individual was put in quarantine upon arrival in Chongqing, the municipal health commission said in a statement. All close contacts have been isolated and are under medical observation.

The person concerned entered Chongqing city in transit from abroad and showed symptoms such as a skin rash during their quarantine period for COVID, according to the statement.

Around 90 countries where monkeypox is not endemic have reported outbreaks of the viral disease, which the World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency. There have been more than 60,000 confirmed cases and some non-endemic countries have reported their first related deaths.

The monkeypox virus, which is transmitted through close contact with infected people, animals or contaminated materials, usually causes symptoms similar to but milder than those of smallpox, such as fever, headache and rashes. (Reuters)

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday discussed relations with Russia in a White House meeting with South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, who has resisted joining Washington's campaign against Moscow for the war in Ukraine.

Biden, who has led an international coalition to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for the near-seven month war in Ukraine, wants South Africa's help in efforts that include forcing Moscow to sell its oil at below-market rates.

After a jovial greeting before the press, the two leaders spoke privately in the Oval Office for more than an hour on topics that included trade, climate and energy, the White House said.

They committed to addressing several of "the world’s most urgent challenges over which we both share concern, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its negative consequences for food security in Africa," the White House said.

Biden also announced $45 million in funding for an $8.5 multinational venture aimed at accelerating the phasing out of coal-fired power generation in South Africa.

The additional U.S. funding for the Just Energy Transition Partnership comes at time when declining natural gas and oil exports from Russia and Ukraine have boosted South African coal and set back decarbonization goals for one of the world's most carbon-intensive economies.

In recent weeks, Biden and his aides have been ramping up engagements with African countries as they cast a wary eye on investments and diplomacy by rivals Russia and China on the continent.

Ramaphosa has resisted calls to directly criticize Russia, instead opposing the use of force generally. In March, he blamed NATO's eastward expansion for instability and said the conflict should be solved through United Nations mediation rather than Western-led sanctions that hurt "bystander countries."

South Africa was one of 17 African countries to abstain from the U.N. vote condemning Russia's assault.

"Our position on this is respected, it is known and recognized," Ramaphosa told reporters after the meeting. "Clearly the conflict has to be resolved. Our view is that it can best be resolved through dialogue and negotiations."

Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC) party, which has governed South Africa since white minority rule ended in 1994, had strong ties to the former Soviet Union, which trained and supported anti-apartheid activists.

However, South Africa still enjoys a high level of diplomatic clout among Russia's rivals in the West relative to its economic size since its peaceful transition to democracy.

Last month, during a visit to South Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would not dictate Africa's choices, after pledging to "do things differently," following former President Donald Trump's insulting remarks about African countries.

A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in April would boost U.S. efforts to counter Russian influence in Africa.

"We have expressed our discomfort and our opposition," Ramaphosa said in a video uploaded to Twitter. "We should not be told by anyone who we associate with and we should never be put in positions where we have to choose who our friends are."

Africans often resent being a theater for competition between China, Russia and the Western order. The Ukraine war exacerbated the longstanding rivalry over Africa's natural resources, trade and security ties.

War and inflation have pressured South Africa, where half of the population lived below the poverty line even before the war dried up Russia and Ukraine's grain and fertilizer exports.

Biden is due to host more leaders from the continent in December, when ANC members will also decide whether to keep Ramaphosa as their party leader. (Reuters)

Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan will attend Queen Elizabeth's funeral at the invitation of the British government, the ministry of foreign affairs said on Saturday.

The BBC reported on Friday that the Chinese delegation visiting London for the queen's Monday funeral would not be allowed to view her coffin at a lying-in-state vigil inside parliament.

Some parliamentarians had raised concerns about inviting representatives from China after several British lawmakers were sanctioned by Beijing for criticising alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. China denies any such abuses.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday she had not yet seen the report but that "the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II is an important event for the United Kingdom".

"Foreign delegations participating in the event upon invitation from the United Kingdom is a sign of respect to the queen and the importance accorded to (relations with) the United Kingdom," Mao said.

Reuters on Thursday that Wang would likely attend the funeral for Queen Elizabeth, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, according to a British foreign office source. (Reuters)