* Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdelaziz Al Thani and appointed Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al Thani in the post, the state news agency said on Tuesday.
* China has not provided any weapons to either side of the Ukraine conflict, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said on Tuesday.
* Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio is hoping to hold a summit meeting with the Republic of Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol next week, the head of Japan's ruling coalition party Komeito said on Tuesday.
* Ukraine has started online talks with partners on extending the Black Sea Grain Initiative aimed at ensuring Kyiv can keep shipping grain to global markets, a senior Ukrainian government source said on Tuesday.
* Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah left for a state visit to Türkiye on Monday, aiming to strengthen bilateral relations.
* Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday held a phone conversation on the latest developments in bilateral economic cooperation.
* US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced trip to Iraq on Tuesday in a visit aimed at showing that Washington was committed to keeping its military presence there nearly 20 years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
* The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that during the recent visit by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Tehran, a new chapter was opened in the cooperation between Iran and the agency.
* An Israeli air strike on Syria's Aleppo International Airport damaged its runway and took the airport out of service early on Tuesday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported, citing a military source.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the M23 rebel group to respect the latest ceasefire in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a UN spokesman said on Monday.
* Fighters from Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist group on Tuesday recaptured a military base in the south that they had lost to the army in January, a Somali officer and a local resident said.
* Israel's former prime minister Yair Lapid and former defense minister Benny Gantz on Monday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt his judicial overhaul plan, which sparked massive protests, and open a dialogue.
* Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a high-level government meeting to review preparedness for hot weather in the upcoming summer.
* Laos recorded a trade deficit of 13 million USD in January 2023, according to a report on Monday from the Lao Trade Portal website. The total value of trade in January amounted to 935 million USD, of which 461 million USD were exports and 474 million USD were imports.
* Year-on-year inflation in the Philippines slowed to 8.6 percent in February 2023 from 8.7 percent in January after rising for five months straight as the price increase of certain food commodities and energy eased, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Tuesday.
* The Republic of Korea's revised figure for the real gross domestic product (GDP), adjusted for inflation, contracted 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the previous quarter, central bank data showed Tuesday.
* Sri Lanka expects approval from the International Monetary Fund to start the disbursal of 2.9 billion USD in the third or fourth week of this month, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Tuesday, adding that with support from China, all funding requirements had been met.
* Brazil's financial market slightly upgraded its economic growth forecast for 2023, from 0.84 percent to 0.85 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said Monday.
* The Ukrainian Economy Ministry slashed its forecast for the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year to 1 percent from 3.2 percent estimated earlier, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Monday.
* The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has decided to lift the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 3.6 percent, while the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances jumped by 25 basis points to 3.5 percent.
* Germany is set to lose up to 900 billion euros (960 billion USD) by 2050 due to climate change related damages to its economy, according to a study published Monday by Germany's Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV).
* Food prices have seen record month-on-month increases in Sweden, with baby food particularly affected, a survey showed on Monday.
* The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said Monday it urgently requires additional funding to ramp up humanitarian response in Somalia, which is facing a devastating drought in 40 years.
* A total of 3,000 Afghan refugees returned to Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan on Monday, said a statement of Afghanistan's Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation Affairs, released here Tuesday.
* A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Mindanao in the Philippines on Tuesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre said. The quake was at a depth of 8 km (4.97 miles) below the earth's surface, EMSC said.
