* Moscow has brushed aside remarks by U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo George Glass recognizing Japanese sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands.
* Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday completed a swap of 103 prisoners of war each, both sides confirmed.
* U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing aides for a meeting as soon as this fall with Kim Jong Un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. officials.
* Australia and Thailand have pledged to crack down on scam centers and criminal networks following a meeting between the two countries' prime ministers in Canberra on Wednesday.
* The Philippine military has killed 72 domestic rebels this year, according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Wednesday.
* U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said there were no conversations taking place or scheduled with Iran, noting that the Hormuz Strait is open.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said late Tuesday that the 50 percent tariffs on some Canadian goods scheduled to take effect Wednesday were paused for three days. Canada and the United States had reached a deal, subject to the finalization of documents, Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
* EU leaders on Wednesday voiced firm support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), a day after the United States imposed sanctions on the court's president and a senior lawyer.
* France will expel two Iranian diplomats posted in France in response to the detention and questioning of two French diplomats by Iranian security services, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday.
* Iran on Tuesday declared two employees of the French embassy in Tehran, whom it had previously accused of engaging in "illegal" activities, persona non grata.
* An oil tanker belonging to the United Arab Emirates that had been seized by Iran a few days ago in the Strait of Hormuz is moving toward the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
* Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Wednesday rejected the United Arab Emirates' claim that Iran had launched a missile toward the country. The denial came after the UAE said on Tuesday that it had detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran earlier that day.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has suspended all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran until further notice, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said early Wednesday, a few hours after the country said it detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran.
* Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud stressed the importance of containing regional escalation and returning to dialogue and negotiations during a phone call on Tuesday, according to the Iraqi foreign ministry.
* Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Tuesday the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened unless the United States fulfills its commitments under the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU), the official news agency IRNA reported.
* Air defense systems of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have detected a missile threat towards the country, the UAE Ministry of Defense said Tuesday, urging citizens to follow warnings and updates issued through official channels.
* Yemen's Houthi group said Wednesday that it had targeted eight Saudi oil tankers and turned back 48 others over the past month, outlining the scale of its maritime campaign against Saudi-linked shipping in and around the Red Sea.
* At least nine Palestinians, including a woman, were killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a Hamas-run municipal police headquarters in central Gaza City, according to Palestinian sources.
* Syria on Tuesday pledged greater transparency and cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reaffirming its right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology.
* The increasing suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank due to stepped-up Israeli military and settler activity is alarming, said a UN spokesman on Tuesday.
* Singapore has introduced new and enhanced codes of practice requiring major online platforms to strengthen safeguards against scams and malicious cyber activities, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said on Tuesday.
* Cambodia has further downgraded its 2026 GDP growth forecast to 4.1 percent, down from a 4.2 percent projection in May and an initial estimate of 5 percent. The revised figures were published in a mid-year review report released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Wednesday.
* Pakistan's exports increased 10.4 percent year-on-year to 2.96 billion USD in July 2026, the first month of the new fiscal year, according to provisional trade data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). Exports also rose 32.11 percent month-on-month from 2.24 billion dollars in June, the data showed on Tuesday.
* Malaysia's manufacturing capacity utilization rose 1.2 percentage points year on year to 83.7 percent in the second quarter of 2026, compared with 82.5 percent a year earlier, official data showed on Wednesday.
* Indonesia will reopen tourism activities in the Mount Bromo area in East Java province on Thursday after a forest and land fire was fully extinguished following a 13-day firefighting operation, the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park Office said Wednesday.
* Belarus' gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 2.1 percent year on year in the first seven months of 2026, the National Statistical Committee said on Tuesday.
* More than 100 miners were killed Tuesday after a gold mine caved in at a border village between Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR), officials and local media said.
* Cambodia on Wednesday urged residents along major waterways to exercise extreme vigilance as the country braces for the impacts of tropical storm Saudel.
* Thailand has declared a disaster zone in Nan and put two other northern provinces on alert as heavy rain and flash flooding cut off roads and forced evacuations, the government said on Wednesday.
* Indonesia has identified around 9,000 hectares of state-owned land and reservoirs as potential sites for solar power plants under its 100-gigawatt (GW) solar power program, Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Yuliot Tanjung said Wednesday.
* Fiji's sugarcane farmers should prepare for a worst-case scenario, as the crop could be severely impacted by the El Nino phenomenon, Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Sugar Industry Tomasi Tunabuna said on Wednesday.
* A head-on collision between a minibus and a semi-truck early Wednesday morning has left 23 people dead and five others injured in the southern Brazilian state of Parana.
* Residents of two towns in the southwestern Madrid region were ordered to remain indoors on Wednesday after a wildfire broke out near a regional road, local emergency services said.
