* Over 1.9 million unexploded ordnance (UXO) devices have been cleared from 87,323 hectares of land from 1996 to March 2024, preventing residents from being injured or killed and making land safe for Laos' socio-economic development.
* China expressed concern on Wednesday at the European Union's "discriminatory" measures against its industries and companies, after the EU said it would investigate subsidies received by Chinese suppliers of wind turbines destined for Europe.
* Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Wednesday the upcoming trilateral summit with his Japanese and American counterparts is mainly an agreement to strengthen economic cooperation among the three countries.
* Switzerland will contribute 135 million Swiss francs ($149.39 million) over the next four years to the Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries to work towards international climate goals, the Swiss Federal Council said on Wednesday.
* Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that Israel "must be punished and it shall be" for attacking the Iranian embassy compound in Syria.
* Russia said on Tuesday that Ukraine attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for a third day with a drone but Ukrainian officials denied that Kyiv had anything to do with the attacks.
* Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday met with his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro in Caracas to discuss bilateral relations.
* The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday that it would hold an emergency meeting of its 35-nation Board of Governors on Thursday over recent attacks at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP).
* President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that he and his administration are trying to determine whether he has the authority to act on his own to shut down the U.S.'s southern border with Mexico to migrants, should it be deemed necessary.
* The commander of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Aroldo Lazaro, said on Wednesday the danger of escalation on the Lebanon-Israel border was real.
* A UN report released Tuesday underscores the urgent need for a financial lifeline to rescue the faltering Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), spotlighting the dire financing gap in the face of mounting crises.
* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday accused the governments of the United States and Canada of taking an "ambiguous" stance on Ecaudor's recent raid of Mexico's embassy in Quito.
* Norway and five other North Sea countries have inked a joint declaration on cooperation to bolster the protection of critical energy and telecommunications infrastructure in the North Sea.
* Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev on Tuesday met in Bishkek with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, with both sides agreeing to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various fields.
* Palestinian statehood is the only solution to end the cycle of violence in the Middle East, Australia's Foreign Minister has said.
* Iraq and the United States held talks on ending the presence of U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, the Iraqi military said on Tuesday.
* Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz if necessary, but it won't do so, said Alireza Tangsiri, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) naval forces, on Tuesday.
* U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power acknowledged on Tuesday that humanitarian aid into Gaza had risen sharply in the past few days, and said the higher level of aid should be sustained and increased further.
* At least 14 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Palestinian medical sources and eyewitnesses said Tuesday
* The U.S. military said on Tuesday that it had destroyed an inbound anti-ship ballistic missile over the Gulf of Aden that was launched by Iranian-backed Houthis and likely targeting the MV Yorktown.
* More than 96,000 people have been evacuated in Kazakhstan since the start of floods which affected its western, northern, central and eastern regions, the Kazakh emergencies ministry said on Wednesday.
* The number of people evacuated due to flooding in Russia's Orenburg region has grown to 7,700, state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday citing local government.
* China will remove foreign ownership restrictions on some value-added telecom services in four pilot areas, according to a circular released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday.
* Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Wednesday announced a major revamp in the country's merger laws, intending to speed up the merger approval process and beef up competition in the Australian economy.
* Cambodia exported products worth 6.26 billion USD in the first quarter, up 18 percent from 5.3 billion dollars over the same period last year, said General Department of Customs and Excise (GDCE) in a report released on Wednesday.
* Russian energy giant Gazprom GAZP.MM said it would send 42.4 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Wednesday, the same volume as on Tuesday.
* France's finance ministry will raise its deficit target for 2024 to the equivalent of 5%-5.1% of GDP on Wednesday, up from an original target of 4.4% due to a rapid deterioration of state finances, financial daily Les Echos reported.
* The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported an increase of 3.034 million barrels of crude oil in U.S. inventories for the week ending April 5. Analysts were expecting a hike of 2.415 million barrels for the week.
* Singaporean authority registered 9,783 e-commerce scam cases in 2023, more than doubling the 4,762 cases in 2022, according to a report issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday.
* The number of livestock deaths caused by the extreme wintry weather known as "dzud" has risen to 6.3 million so far this winter in Mongolia, the country's State Emergency Commission (SEC) said Wednesday.
* The EU has given Uganda a 40 million euro ($43 million) grant to help Africa's largest coffee exporter comply with a new EU policy that bars imports of commodities whose production resulted from forest destruction, the Ugandan presidency said.
