* India's foreign ministry said a lot of people have lost their lives in Thursday's plane crash with 242 people on board an Air India flight to London in the western state of Gujarat. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the plane crash incident as a tragedy and heartbreaking beyond words.
* The number of people forcibly displaced by war, violence and persecution worldwide has risen to 122.1 million as of the end of April this year, marking the tenth consecutive year of increase, according to the latest Global Trends Report released by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) on Thursday.
* The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), held in Nice, southern France, from June 9 to 13, emphasized the vital role of the Global South in international ocean development and governance, given its strategic geographic positioning and acute vulnerability to environmental changes.
* China has added Indonesia to its 240-hour visa-free transit program, bringing the total number of countries eligible for the policy to 55, immigration authorities announced on Thursday.
* The Indonesian government has increased the target for the share of new and renewable energy in the country's energy consumption to 17-20 percent this year, an official said on Thursday.
* Over 1,500 tons of rice donated by China and the Republic of Korea under the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR) program were handed over to Mandalay region government on Wednesday for communities affected by the earthquake in March this year, an official from the Rice Division under the Department of Agriculture told Xinhua on Thursday.
* The Indonesian government will deliver 10,000 tons of rice to Palestine, a senior minister said on Thursday. Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs Zulkifli Hasan said that the aid will be delivered by Indonesian soldiers.
* Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday met with the European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde in Beijing, where he called for enhanced opening up and cooperation between the two sides.
* China has urged the United States to adhere to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and work with China, based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, to jointly promote the stable and sustainable development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Commerce said Thursday.
* Ukraine and Russia on Thursday carried out the second phase of a prisoner exchange involving seriously ill and severely wounded captives, according to Ukrainian authorities.
* Russia and the United States, as major global powers, are destined to live in non-confrontational peaceful coexistence despite their disagreements, said Russian ambassador to the United States Alexander Darchiev on Wednesday.
* The United States may extend a self-defined deadline for the government to land trade deals with a big number of trading partners, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.
* Foreign fighter jets escorted Russian bombers during a planned flight over the Baltic Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. Russia's Tu-22M3 long-range bombers, along with fighter escort, carried out a planned flight that lasted over four hours over "the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea," the ministry said in a statement.
* A total of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian servicemen killed in the conflict with Russia have returned home, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Wednesday.
* Senior officials from the European Union (EU), Spain and the United Kingdom (UK), along with Gibraltar representatives, reached an agreement in Brussels on Wednesday on the core aspects of a future EU-UK treaty concerning Gibraltar, aimed at removing border barriers and promoting regional prosperity.
* Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that his country has signed a defense agreement with Indonesia to export 48 units of its domestically developed fighter jet, KAAN.
* Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation, the press service of the Uzbek president said Wednesday.
* Nearly 400 people in immigration protests have been arrested or detained by the Los Angeles Police Department since Saturday, media reports said. BBC News revealed that the arrested and detained include 330 undocumented migrants and 157 people arrested for assault and obstruction.
* The Australian government has launched a new five-year strategy to address declining vaccination rates. Mark Butler, minister for health, on Thursday released the National Immunization Strategy for Australia 2025-2030, saying that it comes at a "critical time" when childhood vaccination rates in Australia are falling.
* The weather bureau of Laos has issued a nationwide warning for heavy rain, urging the public to stay alert and prepare for possible flooding and landslides.
* The sixth round of indirect talks between the United States and Iran will take place in Muscat on Sunday, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi announced on Thursday.
* U.S. intelligence indicated that Israel has been making preparations to strike Iran, possibly targeting its nuclear facilities, media reported Thursday. Multiple sources confirmed that U.S. officials were informed of Israel's full preparation to launch a military operation in Iran, CBS News reported.
* Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday warned that Tehran will react strongly if France, Britain, and Germany continue to push for an "anti-Iran" resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
* Iran on Thursday vowed to take countermeasures after the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors passed a resolution formally declaring Tehran non-compliant with its non-proliferation obligations for the first time since 2005.
* The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has surpassed 55,000, health authorities in Gaza said in a statement on Wednesday.
* Jordan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates on Wednesday strongly condemned the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
* The United Nations agencies on Thursday warned of a severe hunger crisis that could lead to famine in two counties affected by conflict, insecurity, and climatic shocks in South Sudan.
* The Burundian ruling party has won all seats of the future National Assembly, the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) has said, citing provisional results of last week's legislative elections.
* Tunisian Defense Minister Khaled Sehili on Wednesday called for enhanced cooperation with Italy in areas including military training, joint exercises, medical services, hydrography, and development initiatives.
* Pakistan will inaugurate its first freight train service to Russia from Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, on June 22, marking a significant step in regional connectivity and international trade expansion, Minister for Railways Muhammad Hanif Abbasi said.
* Indonesia is considered capable of reaching its target of 8 percent economic growth by 2029 by optimizing key priority programs, said Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, chair of the National Economic Council, on Thursday.
* Cambodia's imports of diesel fuel, gasoline, and combustion gas dropped by 12.6 percent in the first four months of 2025, according to a Ministry of Commerce report on Wednesday.
* Indonesia is targeting self-sufficiency in consumer sugar by 2028 and in sugar for industrial and bioethanol production by 2030, as part of a national strategy to enhance food and energy independence, according to Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman on Wednesday.
* The Bank of Lithuania has revised down its 2025 GDP forecast by 0.1 percentage point, expecting the economy to grow by 2.8 percent this year, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported on Thursday.
* Pakistan received its overseas workers' remittances worth 3.7 billion USD in May 2025, marking a 16 percent increase compared to the previous month, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said Tuesday. The inflows also rose 13.7 percent year-on-year, the central bank said in a statement.
* The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), the country's electricity regulator, has approved a 15 percent increase in electricity tariffs, effective Thursday. In a statement, the PUCSL said tariffs for electric vehicle charging stations will remain unchanged.
* Malaysia's natural rubber production decreased by 37.3 percent to 18,008 tons in April as compared to 28,739 tons in March, official data showed Thursday.
* Brazil, one of the world's leading producers of animal protein, posted record slaughter numbers for cattle, pigs and poultry in the first quarter of 2025, marking its best first-quarter performance since records began in 1997, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) reported Wednesday.
* The death toll from floods in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province over the past two days has risen to 49, local authorities announced on Wednesday afternoon.
