* Myanmar's State Administration Council on Wednesday pardoned 2,153 prisoners in an amnesty to mark Vesak Day.
* German police said on Wednesday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would travel to Berlin on May 13, though a security source later told Reuters that the public disclosure of the visit was premature and it was now unclear if it would go ahead.
* U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Wednesday he was working on obtaining commitments by the warring parties in Sudan to protecting humanitarian assistance to ensure it can be delivered to those in need.
* A first round of peace talks between the Ethiopian government and rebels from the Oromiya region ended with no deal, both parties said on Wednesday, amid a conflict in which hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced.
* US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Niigata, Japan next week to participate in the Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers and central bank governors meeting, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.
* United States Central Command targeted a senior al-Qaeda leader in a strike in northwest Syria, according to a statement released on Wednesday.
* German troops have started to withdraw from Mali as Berlin aims to wind up by May next year a mission that has been hampered by disputes with the ruling military junta in Bamako and the arrival of Russian forces.
* Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began talks with visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who arrived in Syria Wednesday on the first visit by an Iranian president since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, according to the state news agency SANA.
* The Sudanese Army on Wednesday said it agreed to the initiative proposed by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which includes extending the current truce for a week and naming a representative from each side to discuss the truce, according to a statement.
* The President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda discussed regional security issues with visiting Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki in Vilnius on Tuesday.
* The UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, said Wednesday it has appealed for 759 million USD to provide life-saving support to 16.6 million people, including 12.2 million children in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia in 2023.
* Israel and Georgia on Wednesday signed the first tourism agreement, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism announced in a statement.
* China's tourism business during the May Day holiday rebounded to pre-COVID levels, as the number of domestic trips rose by 70.8% from a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday.
* Thailand's consumer inflation growth dropped further to its lowest level in 16 months in April, helped by lower energy and food prices, official data showed on Wednesday.
* Sri Lanka has set up 54 organs that will provide investor facilitation services under seven task forces on the directives of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the President's Media Division (PMD) said on Wednesday.
* The Philippine national government's year-on-year budget deficit increased by 12.04 percent to 210.3 billion pesos (roughly 3.8 billion USD) in March, data from the Bureau of Treasury showed.
* Myanmar has decided to extend zero tariffs on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) for one year until March 31, 2024, according to the country's Ministry of Planning and Finance on Tuesday.
* Turkey's annual inflation slowed to 43.68 pct in April, according to statistics published by the Turkish Statistical Institute on Wednesday.
