KAZAN, May 19. /TASS/: Russia and Iran have concluded all necessary bilateral agreements for the mutual use of Mir payment cards, Iranian Deputy Tourism Minister Ali-Asghar Shalbafian told TASS on Friday.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the Russia-Islamic World: KazanForum event in Kazan, Tatarstan.

"All bilateral agreements between the countries have been reached. We are waiting for confirmation from the central banks of both countries as to when the system will go live. The launch date depends on the decision of the central banks of the two countries," he said.

ADDIS ABABA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Experts and policymakers attending a high-level seminar on China-Africa cooperation on Thursday called for fostering new highlights in China-Africa ties under the umbrella of the African Union (AU).

The seminar, held in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, gathered AU Commission (AUC) officials, African diplomats, diplomats from the Chinese Mission to the AU, academia and experts, among others.

JAKARTA, May 19 (NNN-ANTARA) – The outbreak of African swine fever in Indonesia, has triggered concerns in the country, over disruption of exports to neighbouring countries.

Indonesian Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo, said that, the infections were expected to cause a temporary interruption to the exports of both live pigs and freshly slaughtered pork.

MILAN (AP) — Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was discharged on Friday from a Milan hospital, nearly a month and a half after he was admitted with a lung infection.

Berlusconi waved at journalists from behind a closed window as his car drove away from the San Raffaele Hospital. He arrived shortly later at his villa in the suburb of Arcore.

The 86-yeaer-old three-time former premier and media mogul has been treated for chronic leukemia, in addition to the lung infection that landed him in the hospital on April 5.

18 May 2023; MEMO: Legislation has been put forward at New York's state assembly which would prevent registered charities from sending tens of millions of dollars per year to help fund illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Palestinian Territories.

JEDDAH, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The 32nd Arab League Summit kicked off in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday with the participation of Arab leaders to discuss regional and global issues that are crucial to the region's stability.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended the summit for the first time since his country was suspended from the Arab League after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

HANOI, May 19 (NNN-VNA) – A string of Vietnamese banks have lowered their deposit interest rates further, in a move designed to boost lending, to shore up growth in the economy.

The country’s four biggest lenders, including state-run Agribank and partly-privatised BIDV, Vietcombank and Vietinbank, cut their interest rates between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points, on Vietnamese dong deposits with maturities ranging from six months to one year.

18 May 2023; MEMO: A new report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med Monitor) has revealed a significant disparity in the treatment of unaccompanied minors of asylum seekers compared to the accompanied ones in Europe. This included depriving the unaccompanied minors of legal protections, detaining them, and the insufficiency of services provided to them in several European countries.

ISLAMABAD, May 18 (APP): Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that Pakistan-Iran border markets would not only ameliorate the socioeconomic conditions of the border regions but also foster new opportunities for local businesses.

The prime minister, in an interview with Iran’s official news agency IRNA published on Thursday, stressed the importance of enhanced cooperation with Iran saying that the energy projects and border markets were emblematic of the vitality of Pakistan-Iran friendship.

19 May 2023; MEMO: Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales yesterday slammed Twitter over its recent decision to block certain Turkish content a day before the country's  presidential election.

Wales told BBC that his organisation has been banned in Turkiye for almost three years after it refused to delete articles that criticised the government. He stressed that the tech sector must collaborate in defending free access to information.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A 7.7 magnitude earthquake caused a small tsunami to wash ashore on South Pacific islands Friday. No damage has been reported, and the threat passed in a few hours.

Waves 60 centimeters (2 feet) above tide level were measured off Lenakel, a port town in Vanuatu, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Smaller waves were measured by coastal or deep-ocean gauges elsewhere off Vanuatu and off New Caledonia and New Zealand.

BANGKOK, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Thailand is seeing a surge in the number of flights from China, although the figures remain below pre-pandemic levels, according to Thai transport authorities.

Between October 2022 and April this year, a total of 12,805 flights were operated between Thailand and China, marking a 98 percent rise compared to the same period the previous year, as reported by the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand (AEROTHAI) lately.