* Luis Montenegro, president of Portugal's Social Democratic Party (PSD), officially took office as prime minister on Tuesday, following the legislative elections held on March 10.
* Newly-elected Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has appointed Ousmane Sonko, leader of the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) party, as prime minister, an official of the presidency announced Tuesday.
* Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden on the phone Tuesday at the request of the latter. The two presidents had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on China-U.S. relations and issues of mutual interest.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday instructed the government to change approaches to migration policy in Russia, following a deadly terrorist attack in suburban Moscow.
* The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday successfully test-fired an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile with its top leader guiding the event on the spot, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Wednesday.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill that envisages lowering the age of people eligible for mobilization from 27 to 25 years, the parliament's press service reported Tuesday. The bill was adopted by the parliament in May 2023.
* Norway's parliament received a bomb threat on Wednesday and police tightened security around the building, blocking off nearby streets.
* Indonesia currently ranks second at disaster risk in the world, said Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) on Wednesday.
* Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday declared a state of disaster due to an El Nino-induced drought threatening food security in the country.
* Venezuelan authorities have expelled more than 10,000 illegal miners from nature reserves in the south of the country, the head of the Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, Domingo Hernandez Larez, said on Tuesday.
* The United States has lifted a temporary ban on some New Zealand fish exports due to measures to meet the standards of Maui dolphin protection.
* Greece's parliament approved a draft bill on Tuesday introducing stricter regulations for the Golden Visa program, which grants five-year residence permits to non-European Union (EU) nationals investing in real estate.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday strongly denounced any efforts to destabilize Jordan's security, a stance that appeared to be a direct response to a Hamas official's call for Jordanian citizens to demonstrate in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
* The United Nations on Tuesday voiced its condemnation following Iran's allegations that Israel conducted missile strikes on its diplomatic premises in Damascus, resulting in significant casualties.
* Israel's military said Wednesday that the result of a preliminary debrief into the killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) workers by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza was the result of "a misidentification."
* U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday demanded that Israel launch an investigation into the attack by its military that killed seven members of a charity group delivering food into Gaza.
* The United Arab Emirates is pausing humanitarian aid efforts through a maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza pending further safety guarantees from Israel and a full investigation into the deaths of aid workers in Gaza, a UAE official told Reuters on Tuesday.
* At least 32,975 Palestinians have been killed and 75,577 have been injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
* Cyprus appealed on Wednesday for vigorous action from the EU to stem a recent tide of mostly Syrian refugees arriving by sea via Lebanon, saying the island's reception capacity was at breaking point.
* More than 53,000 people fled Haiti's capital in just three weeks of March as conflict between powerful armed gangs wreaked havoc for civilians, with the state largely absent and a path out of the chaos yet to be established by politicians.
* The German inflation rate fell to 2.2 percent in March, marking the lowest level since April 2021, according to preliminary figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Tuesday.
* South African policymakers are in discussions on lowering the central bank's inflation target, its governor said on Wednesday, adding that a lower target would make the country more competitive and bring the central bank in line with peers.
* India's rapeseed and mustard output is likely to rise 7% from last year to a record 12.09 million metric tons in 2024, helped mainly by a larger planting area, a leading industry body said on Wednesday.
* Myanmar's Department of Agriculture plans to expand coffee plantation to 300,000 acres nationwide within the next five years, starting in 2023-24 FY, the state-run media the Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Wednesday.
* Thailand received over 9.37 million foreign tourists in the first three months of 2024, an increase of 44 percent from a year earlier, on course to meet the year-end target of 35 million foreign arrivals, official data showed on Tuesday.
* Mongolia's central bank's growth forecast for the country's economy this year has been lowered to 3.8 percent, a senior bank official said Wednesday.
* Argentina's government on Tuesday blamed a record outbreak of dengue fever on "lack of prevention last year," and confirmed the country's strategy will be to combat the disease-carrying mosquito instead of resorting to a vaccine.
