* China's President Xi Jinping will hold talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during his visit to China over the next three days, state media reported on Tuesday.
* Cambodia said on Tuesday that the shutdown of the foreign-funded VOD (Voice of Democracy) radio over broadcasting "intentionally slanderous" information does not undermine the vibrant press freedom in the Southeast Asian country.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for concrete actions to improve global cooperation to address the world's current and future challenges.
* Singapore Finance Minister Lawrence Wong presented budget proposals for 2023 in parliament on Tuesday, highlighting narrower deficits of 0.3% of GDP in 2022 and 0.1% of GDP in 2023 even as the city-state helps vulnerable households manage rising costs.
* The United Arab Emirates climate envoy and designated president of the COP28 climate summit said on Tuesday the world needed a "course correction" to limit global warming, adding that he would lay out an inclusive and innovative roadmap.
* The UN relief chief said in quake-hit Syria on Monday that as the UN relief efforts enter a humanitarian phase, the urgency is to cover such needs as shelter, food and schooling and that the plan now is to cover three months of humanitarian needs in Syria.
* Lack of needed medical and rescue equipment has limited the capabilities of the Syrian Red Crescent in its relief efforts in the earthquake-stricken areas of the country, said Mey al-Sayegh, spokeswoman of the Beirut-based regional office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
* Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday urged immediate delivery of relief aid to all areas in Syria struck by earthquakes on Feb. 6, the state news agency SANA reported.
* Israeli airlines will resume direct flights to Turkey as a mark of a continued improvement in bilateral relations, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said on Tuesday, predicting a 25% increase in tourism this year.
* Kyrgyzstan will host a Russia-led security bloc's peacekeeping drills this year instead of Armenia, which last month declined to host the exercise, the bloc's chief of staff said on Tuesday.
* French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that France was committed to working closely with India, after Air India agreed to buy 250 jets from Airbus AIR.PA.
* The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to "ramp up production" of ammunition as Ukraine's rate of usage is depleting current capacities and draining stockpiles, the alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday.
* Norway will send eight German-made Leopard 2 tanks and other equipment to Ukraine, the NATO country's defence ministry said on Tuesday. Norway, which shares a border with Russia in the Arctic, has 36 Leopard 2 tanks in total.
* A total of 105 Ukrainian soldiers undergo training in Poland to learn how to use the Leopard 2 tanks, the Ukrainian government-run Ukrinform news agency reported Monday, citing Polish military official.
* The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that Iran will take "decisive and serious" actions against security threats and those that pose them, official news agency IRNA reported.
* The peace agreement signed in August 2020 to end decades of conflict in neighboring Sudan has stalled largely due to political uncertainty and lack of international support, mediators said Monday during the opening of a five-day workshop to review the peace agreement in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
* The global oil and gas industry earned profits amounting to some $4 trillion in 2022, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, said on Tuesday.
* Japan's economy expanded in the October-December quarter, the government said in a report on Tuesday, marking a return to growth.
* Both the European Union (EU) and the eurozone should narrowly avoid a technical recession, according to the European Commission's Winter 2023 Economic Forecast published on Monday.
* Brazil's financial market reduced its economic growth forecast for 2023 from 0.79 percent to 0.76 percent, but maintained it for 2024 at 1.5 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said Monday.
* Remittances sent by overseas Pakistani workers decreased 9.9 percent in January on a month-on-month basis, the State Bank of Pakistan said on Monday.
* The United Kingdom recorded the highest number of working days lost to labour disputes in 2022 for more than 30 years, official data showed on Tuesday, as a cost-of-living crisis led employees to walk out in demand of higher pay.
* Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment on Monday published a development blueprint for the eastern part of the country, which has suffered from the closing of the border with Russia and the end of cross-border cooperation and tourism.
* Russia's Gazprom GAZP.MM said it would ship 30.8 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Tuesday.
* The Ethiopian government on Monday announced that it generated around 1 billion USD from the export of agricultural products during the first half of the current Ethiopian 2022/23 fiscal year that started on July 8.
* About 20 people, including army auxiliaries, were killed in two recent attacks by gunmen in the northwest and east of Burkina Faso, security sources told Xinhua Monday.
* Three people were killed and at least five were injured in an on-campus shooting at Michigan State University Monday night, university police said.
