* Asian shares climbed in early trade on Tuesday after Wall Street hit record highs overnight, as investors awaited the second-quarter earnings season and a batch of economic data, including key US inflation figures.
* The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Serum Institute of India (SII) announced plans on Tuesday to start producing Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in India in September.
* Seven new cabinet members named by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday were sworn in in Madrid, capital of Spain, on Monday. Sanchez announced the reshuffle with several key positions changing hands.
* Saudi Arabia and Oman on Monday released a joint statement that they will enhance economic cooperation between the two countries. It was released after the end of the two-day official visit of the Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tarik to Saudi Arabia.
* Chinese pharmaceutical companies will provide 110 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines immediately to participants of the COVAX project, announced the global Vaccine Alliance Gavi on Monday.
* Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said Tuesday that 5 million people in the Southeast Asian nation have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine so far. Cambodia launched a vaccination drive on Feb. 10, with China being the key vaccine supplier.
* Russia on Tuesday reported 780 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as 24,702 new cases nationwide.
* Cuba has seen an increase in new COVID-19 infections, deaths and hospitalizations as Delta variant spreads across the country. On Monday, the Caribbean nation logged 6,423 coronavirus cases and 42 additional deaths, taking the national counts to 244,914 and 1,579, respectively.
* COVID-19 cases rose in more than 40 US states over the past week as the vaccination rate has slowed down and the highly transmissible Delta variant continues to spread.
* Brazil's financial market upgraded its economic growth forecast for 2021 from 5.18 to 5.26 percent, while downgrading it slightly for 2022 from 2.10 to 2.09 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said on Monday.
* Thailand will use AstraZeneca's vaccine as a second dose for those who received Sinovac's shot as their first dose.
* European finance ministers are set to adopt the recovery plans of 12 EU states on Tuesday, including those of Italy, Spain and France, paving the way for the first disbursements of EU grants and loans to boost investments.
* Hundreds of thousands of people in France rushed to set up appointments to get vaccinated against the coronavirus after the president warned that the unvaccinated would face restrictions aimed at curbing the quick spread of the Delta variant.
* Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte conceded that restrictions had been lifted too soon in the Netherlands and he apologised as infections surged to their highest levels of the year.
* Spain's two-week COVID-19 contagion rate kept rising on Monday, more than tripling in two weeks as infections have soared especially among young people.
* Australia reported a slight easing in new COVID-19 cases in Sydney but left open the possibility of extending a lockdown in the country's largest city.
* New Zealand said 13 more crew members of a fishing boat quarantined in Wellington have tested positive for COVID-19.
* The Kuwaiti Cabinet decided to close all activities for children, including summer clubs, from July 25 until further notice.
* Italian biotech firm ReiThera said its vaccine candidate showed a strong immune response and no major side effects in intermediate Phase II clinical trials.
* New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson called for "an immigration reset" while outlining a road ahead for the post-COVID economy on Tuesday.
* United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that the world is "tremendously off track" to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, citing UN statistics that between 720 million and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020, some 161 million more than for 2019.
* Commercial flights in the European Union (EU) are showing an upward trend as summer begins, according to data published on Monday by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.
* The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday that 326 illegal immigrants were rescued off the Libyan coast and returned to Libya from July 4 to 10.
* The death toll in a fire at a coronavirus hospital in a southern Iraq city has risen to 66, health officials said on Tuesday, as an angry crowd gathered near the city's morgue waiting to receive relatives' bodies.
