* A Turkish minister said on Thursday that Ankara is making efforts to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative set to expire on March 18.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for action to close the connectivity gap, as an effort to realize the potential of technology to advance gender equality.
* Multiple European leaders on Wednesday spoke in favor of gender equality on International Women's Day, which falls on March 8.
* US President Joe Biden will travel to the swing state of Pennsylvania on Thursday to unveil a federal budget plan laden with spending proposals and higher taxes on the wealthy that will form a blueprint for his expected 2024 re-election bid.
* European Union (EU) defense ministers on Wednesday discussed the idea of sending further military support to Ukraine, at an informal meeting in the Swedish capital Stockholm.
* The general escape clause, which allows the member states of the European Union (EU) to temporarily deviate from parts of the Stability and Growth Pact's preventive and corrective arm, will be deactivated at the end of 2023, Paolo Gentiloni, European commissioner for economy, said in Brussels on Wednesday.
* Turkey has acknowledged that Sweden and Finland have taken concrete steps to meet Ankara's concerns over their bids to join NATO and the three will hold further meetings, Sweden's chief negotiator in the accession process said on Thursday.
* An Iranian plane carrying 20 tonnes of humanitarian aid arrived in Türkiye on Wednesday as Iran's foreign minister visited the quake-hit zone in the country, Iranian official news agency IRNA reported Thursday.
* The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Thursday that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine lost all its off-site power early Thursday morning and now runs on emergency diesel generators.
* US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he was deeply concerned about Iran's advances in uranium enrichment, while his Israeli counterpart said it was necessary to take all measures to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
* Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin told Israeli leaders on Thursday to take steps to reduce tensions in the occupied West Bank, amid growing worry in Washington that the situation could distract the allies from their effort to counter Iran.
* China remained the "most important partner" for German seaports in container traffic in 2022, accounting for more than one-fifth of the country's container throughput, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Thursday.
* Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen attended the opening ceremony of the seventh River Festival in Kampong Thom on Thursday to promote tourism potential along the Mekong River and other rivers.
* The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased by the most in five months last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a tight labor market.
* China's inflation remained tame last month with a mild year-on-year consumer price increase and a slight drop in costs for goods at the factory gate, official data showed.
* The Pakistani rupee continues to get significant pressure from the USD as the greenback was traded at 282.3 rupees in the interbank market on Thursday, according to the State Bank of Pakistan.
* The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Thursday decided to maintain the overnight policy rate (OPR) at 2.75 percent.
* Ukraine's grain production will drop by 37 percent this year, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Thursday, citing an official forecast.
* The European Commission on Wednesday transferred 52 million euros (55 million USD) to Malta under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), it said in a statement.
* Greek government announced a set of measures aimed to improve the safety of railway system on Wednesday, in the wake of the train collision last week in central Greece that resulted in 57 deaths.
* Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Thursday unveiled a homegrown ocean-going warship and 99 indigenous missile-launching speedboats of different classes in a ceremony in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
* More than 40 people were killed in an overnight incursion by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), said the army Thursday.
* The death toll from Tuesday's powerful explosion at a commercial building in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka has hit 21 and is expected to rise. Rescue workers recovered the body of another victim from the five-storey commercial building in old Dhaka's Siddikbazar area on Thursday morning.
* A powerful earthquake shook a region of central Italy close to the city of Perugia on Thursday afternoon.
