* Relations between China and Singapore have set a benchmark for countries in the region, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during talks in Beijing on Friday.
* Indonesia's Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly and Russia's Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko signed an extradition cooperation agreement to fight transnational crime on Friday in Bali.
* Ukraine aims to join the European Union( EU) within a year after the start of the membership talks, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Thursday.
* The Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad will hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry on Saturday.
* Argentine President Alberto Fernandez on Saturday called for Ibero-American unity to achieve development with social inclusion.
* The new stage in Venezuela-Brazil ties is "steadily advancing," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said Tuesday. Gil made the remarks after speaking with his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira, hailing the conversation as "excellent" on social media.
* Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Friday expanded his cabinet by inducting 11 ministers from six political parties.
* The Lao government has called for in-depth preparations to welcome visitors in light of the rapidly rebounding tourism industry, to fuel its efforts to revitalize the Lao economy.
* The International Olympic Committee said there is "overwhelming support" from the Olympic community for its recommendations on the status of Russian and Belarusian athletes.
* The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) police component and the Somali Police Force (SPF) have stepped up security patrols in the capital Mogadishu as part of efforts to improve security during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
* Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said that the 1,000-strong peacekeeping force sent by Uganda will help stabilize the restive eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
* The Eurozone yearly inflation rate continued to drop in March, reaching 6.9 percent compared to 8.5 percent in February, according to a flash estimate published Friday by Eurostat, the European statistical service.
* Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Friday launched a cross-border QR code payment linkage between Malaysia and Singapore.
* China's outstanding foreign debt stood at approximately 2.45 trillion USD at the end of 2022, data from the country's forex regulator showed on Friday.
* US consumer spending rose moderately in February, and while inflation cooled, it remained elevated enough to possibly allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates one more time this year.
* The World Bank on Friday projected the Malaysian economy to grow at a more moderate pace of 4.3 percent in 2023 supported by domestic demand amid an expected slowdown in external demand.
* The World Bank expected Thailand's economy to grow 3.6 percent year on year in 2023, accelerating from 2.6 percent in 2022, supported by domestic consumption, tourism recovery and pent-up demand in China.
* Ukraine's combined harvest of grain and oilseeds will fall about 7 percent in 2023 to 65 million tons, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Thursday, citing a senior official.
* Myanmar aims to export over 2 million tons of corn in the 2023-24 fiscal year beginning in April this year, according to the Myanmar Corn Industrial Association (MCIA) on Friday.
* Croatia's tourism revenues in 2022 reached 13.1 billion euros, a new record which is 24 percent higher than the previous peak in 2019, Nikolina Brnjac, Minister of Tourism and Sports, said on Friday.
* A Russian company has developed an analogue of IMAX technology and named it Cosmax, Russian newspaper Saint-Petersburg Vedomosti reported on Thursday.
*Japan will postpone an H2A rocket launch originally scheduled for May until August or later, the nation's space agency said on Friday.
* Georgia witnessed a negative population increase in 2022, according to a report released Thursday by the country's statistics authority. The report, issued by the National Statistics Office, indicated that the number of the new-born population was about 42,300 in 2022, a decrease of 7.9 percent year on year.
* At least 36 people have been arrested in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal after violent clashes disrupted a religious procession, a senior state police official said on Friday.
