* Cambodian Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak said in Siem Reap on Wednesday that the economy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is projected to grow 5 percent this year, up from 3 percent last year.
* Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Samarkand on Wednesday evening to pay a state visit to Uzbekistan and attend the 22nd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
* Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said 105 Armenian service personnel had died in clashes with Azerbaijan over the last two days, the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday. Armenia and Azerbaijan blame each other for the latest flare-up in the South Caucasus.
* Syria's simmering 11-year war is at risk of boiling up once again with a return to large-scale combat after several frontlines across the country flared up in recent months, the United Nations warned on Wednesday in a new report.
* A second day of air strikes against the capital of Ethiopia's northern Tigray region killed 10 people on Wednesday, hospital officials said, while local forces accused troops from neighbouring Eritrea of again joining the war against them.
* Taliban and Pakistani security forces exchanged fire along the after Pakistani soldiers tried to erect a military structure on the Afghan-Pakistani border, causing multiple casualties on both sides, the Taliban said on Wednesday.
* Kenya's new President William Ruto said Tuesday that advancing economic vitality, transforming the civil service, and promoting regional integration, trade, peace and stability will be key priorities of his administration.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ambassador to Iran Saif Mohammed Al Zaabi, who has returned to Tehran six years after ties were downgraded, on Tuesday met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
* Asian stocks tumbled on Wednesday as U.S. data dashed hopes for an immediate peak in inflation, although the dollar paused its relentless run against the yen as Japan gave its strongest signal yet it was unhappy with the currency's sharp declines.
* Malaysia's property market has shown improvement in the first half of this year with more than 188,000 transactions worth 84.40 billion ringgit (18.64 billion USD) recorded, the National Property Information Center said in a report on Wednesday.
* Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka must start agricultural modernization in 2023 to feed its growing population and become a net exporter of food, the President's Media Division (PMD) said on Wednesday.
* India's wholesale price index (WPI) eased to 12.41 percent in August, the federal ministry of commerce and industry said on Wednesday.
* The White House released new details on Wednesday on how it plans to invest more than 2 billion USD in the U.S. biotechnology sector as it hosts a meeting of government leaders to discuss the emerging industry.
* Venezuela's oil production rose in August by between 6,000 and 94,000 barrels per day (bpd), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said in a monthly report released Tuesday.
* The European Commission proposed a set of new measures on Wednesday to mitigate the effect of the roaring prices of energy and electricity.
* The United Kingdom (UK)'s consumer price index (CPI) rose by 9.9 percent in the 12 months to August 2022, a slight easing of the inflation rate and the first decline in nearly a year, official statistics showed Wednesday.
* Sweden's inflation rate hit a new three-decade high in August, according to official statistics released on Wednesday. The CPIF (consumer price index with fixed interest rate) 12-month inflation reached 9 percent in August, up from 8 percent in July.
* The Slovenian Parliament on Tuesday approved state guarantees totaling 1.6 billion euros (1.6 billion USD) for loans to the country's main energy firms to provide them with sufficient liquidity to purchase electricity and natural gas amid rapidly rising energy prices.
* Inflation in Europe's largest economy soared to a record level of 7.9 percent for the second time this year in August, the country's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Tuesday.
* Lower fuel prices caused an unexpected fall in British consumer price inflation in August, official figures showed on Wednesday, offering some relief to households and the Bank of England after the CPI rate hit a 40-year high.
* The European Union's securities watchdog will set out temporary market fixes by Sept. 22 to ease a liquidity crunch faced by energy firms, the bloc's executive body said on Wednesday, as the prospect of winter fuel rationing, company insolvencies and recession loomed.
* Portugal's government will continue to support families and companies hit by rampant inflation, but not at any cost as public finances must remain on a sound footing, the finance minister said on Wednesday.
* The International Water Association (IWA) on Tuesday convened a high-level summit that brought together prominent figures from the water industry with government and municipal politicians to discuss water's role in advancing climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN).
* An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 jolted 203 km off Isangel, Vanuatu, at 11:04:08 (GMT) on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicenter, with a depth of 124.0 km, was initially determined to be at 21.196 degrees south latitude and 170.139 degrees east longitude.
* Powerful gales and torrential rains battered Zhoushan in eastern China on Wednesday as Typhoon Muifa made landfall at the port city in what local media called the strongest tropical cyclone to hit the populous Yangtze River Delta in a decade.
* Singapore's Health Sciences Authority (HSA) has granted interim authorization for use of a bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine in Singapore, the first of its kind approved in the country.
* People in Europe should take whatever COVID-19 booster is available to them, although there may be a choice in the coming months, Emer Cooke, Executive Director of the European Medicines Agency, said in a Reuters Next Newsmaker interview.
* Sweden's government said it would donate 500,000 vaccines developed by Pfizer PFE.N and BioNTech 22UAy.DE to Ukraine.
* Novavax NVAX.O and Serum Institute of India announced full product registration in South Africa of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine.
