* Asian shares edged up to near three-month highs on Wednesday and global equities held steady near a record as data showing higher US manufacturing activity in May cheered investors looking for signs of a continued rebound in the world's largest economy.
* Russia's third vaccine against COVID-19, CoviVac, is more than 80% effective according to preliminary data, the Interfax news agency cited the vaccine's developer as saying on Wednesday.
* Moderna Inc on Tuesday filed for full US approval of its COVID-19 vaccine for adults, the second drugmaker to do so after Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech sought full clearance for their vaccine last month.
* OPEC+ oil producers agreed on Tuesday to stick to the existing pace of gradually easing supply curbs through July, as they sought to balance expectations of a recovery in demand against a possible increase in Iranian supply.
* Over 681.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered across China as of Tuesday, the National Health Commission said Wednesday.
* India on Wednesday reported a daily rise in new coronavirus infections of 132,788 cases over the past 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,207. The South Asian nation's tally of infections now stands at 28.3 million, while the death toll has reached 335,102, health ministry data showed.
* Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) announced its updated guidance on Tuesday to allow mixing and matching approved COVID-19 vaccines in most scenarios. Under the updated guidance, people who received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine may receive Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna for their second dose, unless contraindicated. The new guidance also advises that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can be mixed for first and second doses.
* Malaysia reported 7,703 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing its total number of infections to 587,165. Malaysia is seeing a surge in COVID-19 infections, though cases have dipped since hitting a record on Saturday.
* Britain is in talks with Oxford and AstraZeneca for more doses of their vaccine that has been modified to better target the "beta" coronavirus variant, and it will fund trials of the shots.
* Australia's economy extended its rapid recovery in the first quarter as consumers and businesses spent with abandon, lifting output back above where it was last year when pandemic lockdowns tipped the country into recession.
* Mexico's infection and death count jumped after a large number of cases was reclassified to confirmed from suspected.
* Britain recorded no new deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test on Tuesday. The last time Britain recorded no deaths was in March 2020, before the country had entered its first lockdown.
* Russia reported 8,832 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, including 2,842 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 5,090,249. The government coronavirus task force said 394 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 122,267.
* Italy's economy officially started 2021 in a positive way, according to the revised economic growth calculations from the country's National Statistics Institute (Istat) released Tuesday.
* After a bad winter season, short-term and early travel bookings are rising again in Germany, said a market analysis published by Travel Data + Analytics (TDA) on Tuesday. In April, short-term vacation bookings with May and June departures already accounted for 22 percent of monthly sales, up seven percentage points from March, according to the TDA.
* Ecuador this week launched a plan to vaccinate 9 million people in 100 days, part of recently installed President Guillermo Lasso's plan to revive the economy by battling the pandemic.
* A senior European Union (EU) official on Tuesday called on Israel to end the blockade, which has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for 15 years, to facilitate the process of reconstruction in the coastal enclave.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the security guarantees provided by the European Union and the United States could become an alternative to Ukraine's joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the president's press service reported Tuesday on its official website.
* Iraq's Ministry of Oil said on Tuesday that the country exported 89.88 million barrels of crude oil in May, bringing in revenues of about US$5.88 billion. The average selling price for crude oil last month was US$65.45 per barrel, according to a ministry statement that cited statistics of the State Organization for Marketing of Oil.
* Kuwait is committed to the Palestinian cause and supports the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said on Tuesday. Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah made the statement after talks with visiting Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye, the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said.
* The Iranian government on Tuesday said the international talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal have not reached a stalemate, semi-official Fars news agency reported.
* The African Union (AU) Commission has suspended Mali from the pan-African bloc until normal constitutional order is restored in the country following the latest military coup.
* NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) foreign and defence ministers agreed on Tuesday to continue supporting the Afghan community even after the withdrawal of forces from Kabul, according to the alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
* Two separate bomb blasts on two public transport buses killed at least 12 civilians in the Afghan capital Kabul, security officials said on Wednesday, the latest in a series of such attacks in recent weeks as foreign forces withdraw.
* Iran's large navy ship Kharg caught fire and later sank Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported. Following the spread of the fire on the vessel, the crew safely disembarked, the report said, adding that efforts to save the ship failed.
