India's maize exports totaled 816.31 million USD in the first ten months of the current 2021-22 fiscal year beginning last April, marking an all-time high, said the federal Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Sunday.   

Japan will invest 42 billion USD in India over the next five years, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in New Delhi on Saturday, accompanied by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

* Turkey's foreign minister said Russia and Ukraine were nearing agreement on "critical" issues and he was hopeful for a ceasefire if the two sides did not backtrack from progress achieved so far.

* Russia remains open to cooperation with Western countries, but will not initiate an improvement in the relations with them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.

* Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said seven humanitarian corridors would open on Sunday to enable civilians to leave frontline areas.

* Pakistan's parliament will convene on Friday to take up a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, the lower house speaker's office said on Sunday, in what shapes up as his toughest test since coming to power in 2018.

* French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday he hoped the current energy price shock to inflation rates would last a matter of months and that he did not see a years-long inflationary spiral in European Union economies.

* The Patriot air defence system has started arriving in Slovakia from NATO partner countries and the deployment will continue in the coming days, Slovakia's defence minister said on Sunday.

* A car drove at high speed into a group of Belgian carnival performers who were preparing a parade early on Sunday, killing six people and seriously injuring 10 others, authorities said, saying the incident did not appear to be a militant attack.

* Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met Republic of Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum and the two leaders reviewed cooperation between their countries, the Qatar News Agency reported on Sunday.

* Austria unveiled a 2 billion euro (2.2 billion USD) package on Sunday to help households and businesses shoulder massive increases in energy prices in the wake of Russia-Ukraine crisis.

* Algeria has summoned its ambassador to Spain back for consultations over Madrid's recent comments on Western Sahara, the foreign affairs ministry said on Saturday.

* The International Money Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to explain how it would fund a 1.5 billion USD subsidy package announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said on Sunday.

* Mainland China reported 1,737 new COVID-19 cases for March 19, down from 2,228 cases a day earlier, the country's national health authority said on Sunday.

* Italy reported 74,024 COVID-19-related cases on Saturday, down from 76,250 the day before, the health ministry said, while the number of deaths nearly halved to 85 from 165.

* Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group fired missiles and drones at Saudi energy and water desalination facilities, causing a temporary drop in output at a refinery but no casualties, the Saudi energy ministry said on Sunday.

* At least one person died and dozens went missing after a small ferry packed with passengers collided with a cargo vessel and sank on Sunday on the Shitalakhsya River in central Bangladesh, the latest waterway tragedy to hit the nation.

* The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said on Sunday it destroyed a boat laden with explosives that belongs to the Iran-aligned group, the Saudi-owned al-Hadath TV channel said.

Xinhua/Reuters/VNA