* Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was elected as the chair of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly on Wednesday, according to local media reports.
* A ceremony to install a stalled presidential transition council in Haiti will take place Thursday morning on the outskirts of the capital Port-au-Prince, the office of outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced in a statementon Wednesday.
* Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday reshuffled his cabinet, eight months after he appointed a new cabinet following his re-election in August last year.
* China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Wednesday urged the European Union (EU) to provide an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for foreign companies in Europe.
* Russia on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution on the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in outer space. The draft resolution, tabled by the United States and Japan, won the support of 13 of the 15 members of the Security Council.
* Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that his government is committed to double the export volume during its term over the next five years.
* Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called for greater cooperation between Turkey and Germany in the defense industry.
* The Ukrainian government, further tightening regulations on mobilisation, approved rules under which passports for military-age men can be issued only inside the country.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday thanked U.S. President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress for approving a long-delayed support package for Ukraine worth about 61 billion USD.
* Ukraine has received 1.5 billion euros (about 1.6 billion USD) as the second batch of financial assistance from the European Union (EU), the country's Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.
* Belarus will enhance its military capabilities in light of growing threats, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said on Wednesday.
* The 23rd summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) opened in Caracas on Wednesday with its agenda focusing on a roadmap for 2030.
* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi held phone talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Wednesday, during which they stressed the necessity of ending the ongoing Gaza conflict and implementing the two-state solution.
* UNRWA, the United Nations agency supporting Palestine refugees, on Wednesday announced an appeal for 1.2 billion USD aimed at alleviating the severe humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip and the increasingly unstable West Bank.
* Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said on Wednesday, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
* The Philippine government Wednesday banned the deployment of Filipino seafarers on passenger and cruise ships transiting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden due to the risk of sailing in those regions.
* Yemen's Houthi group on Wednesday claimed responsibility for launching three attacks, targeting two U.S. ships in the Gulf of Aden and an Israeli ship in the Indian Ocean.
* South Africa's military will extend the deployment of its troops in conflict-hit Mozambique and Democratic Republic of Congo, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement on Wednesday.
* The number of people facing acute food insecurity rose to some 282 million in 2023, the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday. This is an increase of 24 million since 2022, the FAO stressed in its latest Global Report on Food Crisis.
* Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya on Wednesday signed an agreement in Algiers to establish a consultation mechanism for the management of shared groundwater resources in the Sahara region, the official APS news agency reported.
* Algeria and Qatar on Wednesday signed an agreement worth 3.5 billion USD to establish an integrated milk powder production project in southern Algeria, the official APS news agency reported.
* The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday said that it supported the vaccination of over 460,000 children under the age of two in Libya in 2023.
* Myanmar ranked third among ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries for its heritage parks, the state-run media Myanma Alinn reported on Wednesday. According to the ASEAN Center for Biodiversity (ACB), the ASEAN Heritage Parks program lists 55 heritage parks across the 10 ASEAN member states.
* The number of Chinese tourists to Cambodia rose 43 percent year-on-year in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, said the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism's report released on Wednesday.
* Kyrgyzstan introduced emergency situation in three of its regions due to mudflows, Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations Urmatbek Shamyrkanov told reporters on Tuesday.
