* NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that he "welcomed" a call between China's President Xi Jinping and Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks by phone with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, the Kremlin said, as the two countries mark the inauguration of Turkey's first nuclear power reactor.
* US President Joe Biden will briefly visit Papua New Guinea (PNG) on May 22, officials from the Pacific island nation said on Thursday, as Washington seeks to expand its influence and redefine the current balance of power in the strategically important region.
* Amid grim conditions in Sudan, the United Nations and partners scramble to aid both those remaining and those fleeing the fighting, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday.
* Russian Deputy Prime Alexander Novak said on Thursday the OPEC+ group of leading oil producers saw no need for further oil output cuts, but that the organisation can always adjust policy if necessary.
* Japan on Thursday decided to officially downgrade the legal status of COVID-19 to the same category of seasonal influenza, with the new status coming into effect on May 8.
* Russia has declared ten diplomats working at the Norwegian embassy and military attache's office in Moscow personae non gratae, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
* The Patriot air defense system has been deployed in Ukraine, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Wednesday.
* Britain will have to bear full responsibility for its decision to supply depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday.
* India has improved in the logistics ranking, jumping six places to rank 38 out of 139 countries, as per the World Bank's seventh edition of Logistics Performance Index (LPI 2023) released recently.
* Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday stressed that the level of trade relations between Iran and Kazakhstan failed to match the two countries' capacities, calling for extra efforts to improve it.
* The Lebanese government on Wednesday tightened regulations on Syrian refugees as tension between the displaced and the local Lebanese continues to grow.
* Iran and Kazakhstan reached Wednesday five cooperation agreements in various fields.
* British train drivers will take three more days of strike action, including coinciding with the FA Cup final on June 3, after rejecting a pay offer from the 16 train companies, their trade union said on Thursday.
* Global sales of electric cars are set to soar by 35 percent in 2023, expanding their share of the overall car market to close to a fifth, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.
* The Japanese government said on Wednesday that it plans to attract 100 trillion yen (749 billion USD) worth of foreign direct investment by 2030, in a bid to promote Japan's economic growth, local media reported.
* New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Thursday that the budget to be announced next month will focus on cost-of-living support, cyclone recovery, and investments in skills, science and technology, and infrastructure to propel economic growth.
* The Slovenian government is aiming to reduce its budget deficit and public debt in the coming years, it said on Wednesday, while announcing a bigger deficit expected this year.
* The German government expects the country's gross domestic product (GDP) to increase by 0.4 percent in 2023, up from 0.2 percent projected in late January. Next year, Europe's largest economy is to grow more strongly again at 1.6 percent.
* The New Zealand government is committed to reducing spending even though severe weather events earlier this year caused asset damage of roughly 9 billion NZ$(5.51 billion USD) to 14.5 billion NZ$, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Thursday.
* The drought that has left some 4.35 million people in the Horn of Africa in dire need of humanitarian aid - with 43,000 in Somalia estimated to have died last year - would not have been possible without climate change, according to an analysis released Thursday.
* Four towns in Myanmar experienced their hottest day in nearly 60 years on Tuesday, according to the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology on Wednesday.
* The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director General Jean Kaseya on Wednesday called on African countries to cement recent gains made in Africa through vaccinations.
* AstraZeneca AZN.L on Thursday beat expectations for first-quarter profit and revenue, as buoyant sales of cancer drug Imfinzi and strong demand for its roster of drugs in emerging markets helped to offset dwindling COVID product sales.
