* Chad's ruling party, the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), has won a sweeping victory in the country's first Senate elections, winning 45 out of the 46 seats up for grabs, according to provisional results released Tuesday by the country's electoral body, National Elections Management Agency. Voting opened early Tuesday with a total of 124 candidates from 16 political parties participating in the elections.
* Republic of Korea's constitutional court held the 11th and final hearing of President Yoon Suk-yeol's impeachment trial on Tuesday, with Yoon being present for his final statement.
* China is willing to work with all parties to jointly address the challenges of extreme weather and climate risks, said Chen Zhenlin, head of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), at the 62nd session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in Hangzhou, on Monday.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he's "OK" with a possible visit to Washington by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the two presidents are set to sign a deal that gives the United States a cut of Ukraine's mineral wealth.
* Ukraine will need about 524 billion USD over the next decade for recovery, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Tuesday, citing a new World Bank report.
* British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday that the country will increase its defence spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he plans to introduce a "gold card" that offers a path to citizenship for 5 million USD to replace the existing EB-5 investor visa.
* Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that she expects a deal this week to prevent the United States from imposing a 25 percent tariff on Mexican exports.
* Singapore will invest 60 million Singapore dollars (about 45 million USD) over the next two years to further drive the research and development of space technologies, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong announced on Wednesday.
* Lao authorities have declared Xaysomboun province in central Laos a red zone following the detection of African swine fever cases in the province.
* Malaysia's government is in support of the resumption of the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.
* Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani discussed Tuesday with a senior UN official on strengthening cooperation to advance shared efforts toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
* The resumption of fighting in an eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) province has killed and wounded civilians and restricted aid operations, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
* Israeli and Hamas officials said Tuesday they have agreed on the exchange of the bodies of dead hostages for the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners, according to media reports on Wednesday.
* Protests broke out across southern Syria on Tuesday in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent remarks rejecting the presence of Syria's interim government forces in the area south of Damascus.
* Turkish police have detained 153 suspects in a large-scale anti-drug operation in Istanbul province, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Wednesday.
* The average price of rice at supermarkets across Japan continued to rise, reaching 3,892 yen (about 26.05 USD) per 5 kg in the week ending Feb. 16, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. This marks a 62-yen increase from the previous week and a 90-percent rise compared to the same period last year.
* Australia's headline rate of inflation remained steady at 2.5 percent in the year to January, official figures have revealed. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said on Wednesday that consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.5 percent in the 12 months to January, matching the December figure.
* Myanmar earned 342 million USD from fish exports in the past 10 months of the current fiscal year 2024-2025, which began April last year, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Wednesday.
* Argentina's economy contracted 1.8 percent year-over-year in 2024, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC).
* Cambodia is projected to attract up to 7.5 million international tourists in 2025, Tourism Minister Huot Hak said in Phnom Penh on Wednesday.
* A helicopter carrying Honduran President Xiomara Castro made an emergency landing Tuesday in a mountainous area in the northwestern part of the country. No injuries were reported.
* A tropical cyclone off northeast Australia has a high probability of making landfall on a highly-populated stretch of coast, according to forecasts.
