* Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 14 in Beijing, his office said on Friday, rescheduling a visit that was postponed last week after Lula was diagnosed with a mild pneumonia.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin approved on Friday a new version of the Foreign Policy Concept, in which Russia expressed the country's intention to end US hegemony.
* On the first anniversary of the start of the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict, Hungary has adopted a peace resolution expressing concern over the potential for the situation to escalate into a global war.
* Russia has protested to the American-led coalition against the Islamic State militant group about "provocative actions" by US armed forces in Syria, Tass news agency said on Friday.
* Turkey has summoned the Danish ambassador in Ankara to express its strong condemnation and protest over recent attacks on the Koran and the Turkish flag, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
* The foreign ministers of Cyprus, Israel and Greece on Friday agreed to cooperate more closely on issues including energy, defense, economy and tourism.
* Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned on Friday recent comments by Israel's foreign minister regarding an agreement with Azerbaijan on "forming a united front against Iran."
* The French navy on Friday escorted a tanker to port in the Gulf of Guinea after pirates abandoned the vessel and kidnapped some of the crew, the ship's owner told Reuters.
* The retirement age for national and local civil workers in Japan was raised Saturday from the current 60 to 61 as the new fiscal year begins.
* People in the North Pole will have access to the Internet in 2026 thanks to the Russian spacecraft Skif, TASS news agency reported on Friday.
* US President Joe Biden on Friday consoled families of victims and toured scenes of devastation in a Mississippi town after storms last week killed 26 people and destroyed homes and property in Mississippi and Alabama.
* Most of India will likely experience above-normal high temperatures between April and June, the national weather forecaster said on Saturday.
* Pakistan's army said on Saturday that attackers from Iran killed four of its border patrol soldiers.
* The Republic of Korea's export kept falling for the sixth consecutive month amid sagging demand for locally-made semiconductors, leading to trade deficits for 13 months in a row, government data showed on Saturday.
* Russia's Gazprom said that it would ship 37.4 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Saturday.
* Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has inaugurated the Karbala oil refinery which has a production capacity of 140,000 barrels per day (bpd), his office said in a statement on Saturday.
* Chinese car brands are gaining a strong foothold in the Spanish market, with exports to Spain 20 times higher in 2022. Figures published this month by the Spanish association of automobile manufacturers (ANFAC) show that Chinese vehicles worth 1.39 billion euros (1.51 billion USD) were sold in Spain in 2022, up from 68 million euros a year before.
* Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday he was pleased to see inflation retreating in Australia, but cautioned that cost of living pressures remained nationwide.
* Pakistan's inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), increased to 35.4 percent in March as compared to the same month a year ago, official statistics showed Saturday.
* Slovenia's budget deficit fell to 3.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, from 4.6 percent a year before, the country's Statistical Office said on Friday.
* The gross domestic product (GDP) of the Czech Republic fell by 0.4 percent quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data published by the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) on Friday.
* Zimbabwe, facing perennial power shortages, received the bulk of its electricity imports from South Africa and Zambia in the fourth quarter of last year, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) said Friday.
