* Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for more policy steps to stabilize the country's economy and bring it back onto a normal track.
* The Russian economy is withstanding the blow of Western sanctions "quite well" despite all the difficulties, as was evidenced by all the key macroeconomic indicators, President Vladimir Putin said Monday.
* US and European stocks rallied on Monday, with the S&P 500 for the moment moving away from a bear market, while the euro leapt after the European Central Bank said it was likely to lift its deposit rate out of negative territory by September.
* The Ukrainian parliament on Sunday approved a bill submitted by President Volodymyr Zelensky to extend the martial law in the country for another 90 days from May 25, lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said.
* The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced on Monday that the MAS core inflation on a year-on-year basis rose to 3.3 percent in April from 2.9 percent in the previous month. Meanwhile, the CPI-All Items inflation remained unchanged at 5.4 percent year on year in April.
* Greece reopened a 10-year bond on Monday, drawing 500 million euros (533 million USD) in a bid to expand the liquidity of this benchmark issue, and securing demand more than three times the amount auctioned.
* Bahrain expects a significantly narrower budget deficit for the first half of 2022 due to high oil prices, Minister of Finance and National Economy Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa said on Monday.
* The number of foreigners arriving in Turkey last month more than tripled from a year earlier, with sector representatives expecting tourist numbers this year to return to around 2019 levels, leaving the 2020-21 coronavirus slump behind.
* The prevailing heatwave in India particularly in the north, west and central parts, might lead to a curb in the yield of wheat crops, besides contributing to inflation and adversely affecting the overall growth, the Moody's rating agency said in a report on Sunday.
* Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday signed a decree to establish the country's state commission for the delimitation of border with Armenia.
* The World Health Organization does not have evidence that the monkeypox virus has mutated, a senior executive at the U.N. agency said on Monday, noting the infectious disease that is endemic in west and central Africa has tended not to change.
* Pakistan's central bank raised the key policy rate on Monday by 150 basis points to 13.75%, the second hike in less than two months. The hike comes as the country is going through economic turmoil, including high inflation, declining reserves and a fast-weakening currency.
* Sri Lanka increased fuel and transport prices on Tuesday, a long-flagged move to combat its debilitating economic crisis, but the hikes are bound to exacerbate galloping inflation, at least in the short-term.
* A further 14 cases of human infection with the monkeypox virus were confirmed in Portugal, bringing the total number of infections to 37, the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) reported on Monday.
* A total of 474 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery on the Chinese mainland on Monday, the National Health Commission said in its Tuesday report. That brought the mainland's total number of COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals after recovery to 214,308 as of Monday.
* Republic of Korea's daily new COVID-19 infections dropped to below 10,000 for the first time in nearly four months on Monday, as the highly contagious Omicron variant recedes despite eased pandemic restrictions.
* Singapore reported 2,751 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total tally to 1,272,386.
* More than 15,000 local and foreign tourists have visited historical monuments and cultural heritages in the western Herat province over the past nine months, head of the province tourism department Wahidullah Sultani said Monday.
* Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said Monday that preliminary clinical data showed their three-dose COVID-19 vaccine regimen was 80 percent effective for children 6 months to 5 years old at preventing illness during the Omicron wave.
* The FDA set June 14-15 as the new meeting date to review Moderna's emergency authorization request for its COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months to 5 years and Pfizer's vaccine for those aged 6 months through 4 years.
* AstraZeneca said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine has been approved in the European Union by the bloc's drugs regulator as a third-dose booster in adults.
* Drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said on Monday that three doses of their COVID-19 vaccine generated a strong immune response in children under age 5 and was safe and well-tolerated in their clinical trial.
