* The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to 3,600 lives, with 5,017 people injured and 160 still unaccounted for, the State Administration Council's Information Team reported on Monday.
* Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on the telephone on Monday night to discuss new U.S. tariffs, local media reported.
* China's Ministry of Commerce hosted a roundtable meeting with U.S.-funded companies on Sunday, reaffirming the country's commitment to reform and opening up amid global trade tensions.
* The European Union (EU) remains committed to negotiating over U.S. tariffs but stands ready to defend its interests with "proportionate countermeasures" if necessary, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday.
* The continuity, stability and certainty of China's foreign policy on the Republic of Korea (ROK) have been maintained, and China is willing to work with the ROK to promote the healthy, stable development of the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
* Russian troops have taken control of the village of Basovka in Ukraine's Sumy region during the ongoing offensive operations, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on its Telegram channel on Sunday.
* Australia's Treasurer has said that the country is well-placed to avoid a recession despite the "damage" being done by sweeping U.S. tariffs.
* The New Zealand government has launched a new defense capability plan, committing 12 billion NZ dollars (6.68 billion USD) over four years, including 9 billion NZ dollars in new funding, to modernize the New Zealand Defense Force (NZDF).
* Indonesia's national rice stock is projected to reach 3 million tons by the end of April 2025, Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman said on Monday.
* The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) settled at 106.2 billion USD at the end of March from 107.4 billion dollars at the end of February, the Philippine central bank said Monday.
* U.S. stock futures continued to plummet on Sunday night, as wary investors fear the repeat of "Black Monday" in the stock market.
* European stocks extended their decline on Monday, with all major benchmark indexes plummeting as concerns over the escalating trade standoff sparked by U.S. tariffs intensified.
* Indian stock markets fell steeply on Monday, resulting in a cumulative (single-day) loss of around 14 trillion Indian Rupees (around 16.32 billion USD), as global markets plunged following fears of a tariff-driven recession, said local media reports.
* The Philippines' Department of Agriculture on Monday said it has temporarily banned importing wild and domestic birds from Belgium after the European country reported an outbreak of bird flu.
* The Afghan interim government's National Statistics and Information Authority announced Monday that airports and border ports had processed over 34,000 inbound and outbound trips of foreign nationals in Afghanistan during the Persian calendar year of 1403.
* The total population of Sri Lanka reported in the Census of Population and Housing 2024 is 21,763,170, an increase of 1,403,731 over the total population reported in the Census of Population and Housing 2012, the country's Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) said on Monday.
* The volume of mutual trade between Afghanistan and Iran amounted to over 3.3 billion USD during the Persian calendar of 1403, official data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed.
* U.S. military forces conducted multiple airstrikes targeting Houthi positions on Yemen's Kamaran island in the Red Sea early Sunday, according to Houthi media outlets.
* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron voiced on Monday rejection of any calls for the displacement of Palestinians from their land, emphasizing the need for a just resolution to the Palestinian issue.
* Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud discussed on Sunday efforts to resume the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
* The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday that it arrested 15 Palestinians overnight in operations in several locations in the West Bank.
* The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Monday that it has targeted a Hamas militant posing as a journalist in Gaza and killed a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon.
* Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reaffirmed on Monday that disarming Hezbollah is a national and international priority, stressing that the only viable path to achieving this goal is through dialogue, a statement from the presidency said.
* A study published on Monday warned that rising sea levels could devastate Australia's coastal aquaculture, with Queensland, the country's largest aquaculture-producing state, facing the brunt of the impact.
* Uganda on Monday launched the second phase of its mpox vaccination campaign to curb the rising number of cases.
