* Bola Tinubu from Nigeria's ruling All Progressives Congress party has won Nigeria's presidential election with over 8.79 million ballots, the country's electoral body said Wednesday.
* Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Beijing on Wednesday.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a law officially suspending Russia's participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the United States.
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with his Indian counterpart on Wednesday, a day before attending the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in India, which has kept a largely neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
* Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday called on fellow European Union leaders to do more to halt illegal immigration and prevent further tragedies at sea, after dozens of people were killed in a shipwreck off Italy.
* U.S. sanctions have cost Venezuela some 232 billion USD in losses, Venezuela's foreign minister said Tuesday during the 52nd regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
* Iran has declared two German diplomats to be personae non gratae and has expelled them from the Islamic republic over Berlin's "interventionist and irresponsible" measures against Tehran.
* Hungary calls for a United Nations (UN) investigation into the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which American investigative journalist has claimed were destroyed by the United States, reported Helsinki Times on Tuesday.
* Iran's nuclear chief said Wednesday that Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have discussed and finalized a number of issues at the level of experts and claimed that there had been no "deviation" from the country's peaceful nuclear activities.
* Youth and celebrities from eight countries, including China, took part in a UNICEF-supported campaign in Bangkok this week, to promote the need for healthier food environments in the Asia-Pacific.
* Myanmar extended its COVID-19 preventive measures until March 31, state-run media citing the Central Committee on Prevention, Control and Treatment of COVID-19 reported on Wednesday.
* Türkiye planned to build new buildings to replace some 1.5 million risky ones in Istanbul for possible strong earthquakes in the future, the Turkish urbanization minister said on Tuesday.
* Somali security forces have killed more than 200 al-Shabab fighters including senior leaders in a three-day operation carried out in the central and southern parts of the country, a government official said Wednesday.
* Global merchandise trade growth slowed at the end of 2022 and was likely to remain weak in the first quarter of this year, the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday.
* Demand for U.S. natural gas rose 5.5 percent in 2022 from the previous year, reaching a record high of 95.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), according to a report released on Wednesday.
* Indonesia on Wednesday began building a 2.6-billion-USD hydroelectric power plant on its second-largest island of Kalimantan.
* Thailand's business sentiment improved in February as rising tourist arrivals boosted confidence in the country's economic recovery, data showed on Wednesday.
* Myanmar's seaborne trade value with international trade partners surged to 22.7 billion USD as of Feb. 17 this year, compared to 19.145 billion dollars a year earlier, the Ministry of Commerce said.
* Indonesia' inflation rate fell to 0.16 percent month-on-month (mom) in February, compared to 0.34 percent the country recorded in the previous month, mainly contributed by the cost of transportation, the prices of food and beverages, and the higher tax on cigarettes, the Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Wednesday.
* The gross domestic product (GDP) of Cyprus grew by 5.6 percent in real terms in 2022, according to a provisional estimate published by the country's Statistical Service (CYSTAT) on Wednesday.
* Despite Finland's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 2 percent year-on-year in 2022, Statistics Finland said on Tuesday that the country has entered a recession, as GDP change was negative during the last two quarters of the year.
* Iraq exported about 92.25 million barrels of crude oil in February, generating 7.08 billion USD in revenue, the country's oil ministry announced Wednesday.
* The Bangladeshi government has taken measures to stop the menace of single-use plastics and illegal brick kilns to respond to environmental changes.
* A helicopter with five people on board has been missing in the Philippines' southwestern province of Palawan since Wednesday morning, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said.
* A Greek passenger train collided head-on with a cargo train late on Tuesday, throwing entire carriages off the tracks and killing at least 36 people, many of them students, in the country's deadliest rail crash in living memory.
* Most parts of China will likely see temperatures in March that are on a par with or higher than normal years, authorities said Wednesday.
* An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 jolted 104 km NW of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea at 05:36 GMT on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. The epicenter, with a depth of 582.6 km, was initially determined to be at 4.792 degrees south latitude and 149.58 degrees east longitude.
