* Bulgaria will hold early parliamentary elections on April 19, Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova said on Wednesday, adding that she will issue a decree for the appointment of a caretaker government proposed by the prime minister-designate Andrey Gurov. Iotova made the statement immediately after Gurov proposed the lineup of a caretaker government to her at a live televised meeting.
* India's Federal Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said Tuesday that his country expects over 200 billion USD of investment in AI during the next two years. The minister made the comments during a press conference on the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi.
* A new round of trilateral talks among Ukraine, the United States and Russia concluded on Wednesday. Russia's presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky told reporters that the second-day talks lasted about two hours. The two-day negotiations, held behind closed doors, were the third round of trilateral talks this year.
* The second round of the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks "made progress" in Geneva on Tuesday, though "there are still a lot of details to discuss," U.S. online media outlet Axios reported, citing a U.S. official.
* The U.S. military struck three vessels in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean on Monday, killing 11 people, the U.S. Southern Command said Tuesday.
* Georgia remains committed to a pragmatic, multi-vector foreign policy focused on safeguarding peace and independence, Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili said Tuesday.
* Russian Minister of Energy Sergei Tsivilev said on Wednesday that Moscow and Tehran are considering the construction of new nuclear power plant blocks in Iran, according to Iran's official news agency IRNA.
* The naval forces of Iran and Russia are scheduled to hold a joint exercise in the Gulf of Oman and northern part of the Indian Ocean on Thursday, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.
* Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi said that the second round of indirect nuclear talks between Iran and the United States concluded in Geneva on Tuesday with "good progress."
* Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said the country would not abandon its "peaceful" nuclear technology, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday.
* The foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Tuesday jointly condemned Israel's decision to designate lands in the occupied West Bank as so-called "state land."
* Israel's military said on Wednesday that one of its soldiers was killed "during combat" in the southern Gaza Strip, while Israeli media reported he was apparently killed by friendly fire.
* Iran has temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz to hold its military exercise, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday.
* Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained 88 suspects in two separate investigations over their alleged links to the Gulen movement, which Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed coup attempt in 2016, officials said.
* Hundreds of people took to the streets in Beirut on Tuesday to protest against a rise in fuel prices and value-added tax (VAT) approved by the government to help finance public sector wage hikes.
* The Slovak government declared a state of emergency in relation to oil supplies on Wednesday, the News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR) reported.
* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Japan should continue tightening monetary policy and avoid lowering the consumption tax.
* France's consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.3 percent year on year in January, down from 0.8 percent in December 2025, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) reported on Tuesday.
* Britain's annual inflation rate fell to 3.0 percent in January amid easing price pressures, official data showed on Wednesday.
* Poland's economy is expected to enter a "year of faster growth" in 2026, with investment projected to rise by nearly 10 percent as the government focuses on sustaining growth through infrastructure spending, innovation, and advancements in science and technology, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday.
* Kazakhstan's oil refining capacity will increase from the current 18.4 million tons to 40 million tons annually by 2033, the Energy Ministry said on Tuesday. Vice Minister of Energy Kaiyrkhan Tutkyshbayev said the phased expansion of existing refineries by 2030 will help resolve diesel fuel shortages in the Central Asian country.
* Afghanistan's Minister of Industry and Commerce Nooruddin Azizi announced on Tuesday that the country's exports soared by 230 percent in 2025 compared with the previous year.
* The number of road fatalities in Cambodia dropped to 1,467 people in 2025, a decrease of 2.78 percent from 1,509 in the year before, said a National Police report on Tuesday. Besides the death toll, the road traffic accidents injured 3,213 others last year, down 13.6 percent from 3,720 in the year earlier, the report said.
* A heavy snowstorm hit southern and southeastern Romania overnight, prompting a red alert in Bucharest and disrupting road, air and maritime traffic, authorities said on Wednesday.
