* APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) members have urged APEC trade ministers to leverage challenges facing the region as opportunities to place the region on a new path of economic inclusion, resilience, and sustainability.
* Leaders from the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea will hold a meeting at the time of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima this month, senior US administration officials said.
* Paraguay's top electoral court on Sunday confirmed that ruling Colorado Party candidate Santiago Pena won the presidential elections.
* Uzbekistan has passed a package of constitutional amendments in a referendum, preliminary data showed on Monday, which will allow President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to run for two more seven-year terms when his current one ends in 2026.
* Russia's defence ministry said on Monday its forces had carried out missile strikes overnight against Ukrainian military sites, including weapons depots and ammunition factories, and that all its designated targets had been hit.
* Ukrainian counterattacks have ousted Russian forces from some positions in the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut, but the situation remains "difficult", a top Ukrainian general said in comments published on Monday.
* US special envoy Tim Lenderking began a trip to Oman and Saudi Arabia on Monday in an effort to advance Yemen peace efforts, the State Department said.
* US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on Monday as part of efforts to cool tensions between the South Caucasus rivals, the foreign ministries of Baku and Yerevan said in statements.
* Syria has agreed to help end drug trafficking across its borders with Jordan and Iraq, according to a statement issued after a landmark meeting on Monday of Arab diplomats developing a roadmap to end Syria's 12-year conflict.
* The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that three Iranian diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia have resumed operations.
* Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad on Monday underlined the Arab world's leading role in finding a political solution to Syria's crisis.
* The United Nations warned on Monday that 800,000 people may flee Sudan as rival military factions battled in the capital despite a supposed ceasefire and foreign states wound down evacuations.
* In light of the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Sudan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is sending the world body's Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths to the region "immediately," a UN spokesman said on Sunday.
* Italy's right-wing government on Monday approved measures to boost job creation and workers' pay, amid hostile reactions from unions and opposition parties over accompanying welfare cuts and looser rules on short-term job contracts.
* French police clashed with black-clad anarchists in Paris and other big cities during trade union-organised protests against President Emmanuel Macron's increase in the retirement age, as workers joined Labour Day rallies across Europe.
* The Republic of Korea's online shopping grew in March due to solid demand for travel and leisure services, statistical office data showed on Monday. Shopping in cyberspace came to 18.84 trillion won (14.1 billion USD) in March, up 7.0 percent from the same month of last year, according to Statistics Korea.
* Italy's right-wing government on Monday approved measures to boost job creation and workers' pay, amid hostile reactions from unions and opposition parties over accompanying welfare cuts and looser rules on short-term job contracts.
* Afghan farmers have harvested more than 72,000 tons of cotton over the past year, the Ministry for Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said in a statement on Monday. Afghanistan collected 72,493 tons of cotton from 54,869 hectares of land last year, the statement said.
* After nearly a century, oil output in the US Gulf of Mexico is heading towards its peak with new platforms providing a last hurrah as the region becomes a hot spot for burying greenhouse gases.
* A power outage at the airport in the Philippine capital in the wee hours of Monday resulted in the cancelation of several domestic flights, airport authorities said.
* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi announced on Monday the establishment of an emergency relief fund that provides a one-time subsidy of 1,000 Egyptian pounds (32.36 USD) for irregular workers.
* Uganda has ruled out an Ebola outbreak after laboratory results of a suspected case turned negative.
