Bali welcomed its first foreign tourists under relaxed coronavirus rules that no longer require arrivals to quarantine, part of a broader easing of curbs in Indonesia after infections declined. (Photo: Bloomberg)   

Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Council President Charles Michel discussed humanitarian issues in Ukraine during a phone conversation on Monday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

* The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine will meet in Turkey's southern province of Antalya on Thursday, on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday.

* Humanitarians' top priorities are allowing civilians to leave areas under fire in Ukraine and getting desperately needed aid to these areas, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Monday.

* Germany will host a virtual meeting of agricultural ministers from G7 countries on Friday to discuss the impact of Russia-Ukraine crisis on global food security and how to best stabilize food markets, the government said.

* Market turmoil continued on Monday with investors dumping risk assets and moving to safe havens, on fears about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the potential economic fallout.

* Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi spoke on the phone with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday about energy cooperation and the crisis in Ukraine.

* Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) met US shale oil company executives on the sidelines of the CERAWeek conference in Houston on Monday as energy prices soared over supply concerns.

* Turkey and Israel will seek to overcome years of animosity and insults when their presidents meet for the first time in more than a decade this week, expanding a recent Turkish charm offensive with regional rivals.

* Gunmen ambushed and killed at least 62 members of a volunteer vigilante group in Nigeria's northwestern Kebbi state, the head of the group and a police spokesman said, in the worst violence to hit the state since mid-January.

* The Chinese mainland saw another 4.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered on Monday, according to the National Health Commission's Tuesday report. It added that the total number of doses administered has reached over 3.165 billion.

* India's COVID-19 tally rose to 42,971,308 on Tuesday, as 3,993 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data. Besides, 108 deaths from the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 515,210.

* Malaysia will reopen its borders from April 1 and allow entry without quarantine for visitors vaccinated against COVID-19, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on Tuesday.

* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged Americans to avoid travel to Hong Kong (China), New Zealand and Thailand over COVID-19 cases.

* Pakistan's daily new COVID-19 cases have dropped below 500 after more than two months, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Tuesday.

* Scientists have pinpointed 16 new genetic variants in people who developed severe COVID-19 in a large study published on Monday that could help researchers develop treatments for very sick patients.

* The Mexican government will have to revise its gross domestic product growth forecast for this year after the "not so favorable" performance of the country's economy, a deputy governor of the central bank said on Monday.

* Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has successfully put a second military satellite, the Noor 2, into orbit, the semi-official news agency Tasnim said on Tuesday.

Xinhua/Reuters/VNA