🇫🇷🇯🇵 — France and Japan are poised to agree to create a roadmap for diversifying supplies of rare earths (Nikkei)

🇸🇴 — Somalia’s military seized a major town in the South West State after its leader severed federal ties (Somali Guardian)

🇸🇾 — Syria’s president pledges neutrality in the regional conflict unless the country is “targeted by any party.”

🇱🇧🇸🇾 — Syria’s president calls preventing the smuggling of weapons into Lebanon his “duty.”

🇷🇺🇸🇾 — Syria’s president says two Russian military bases remaining in the country will be turned into training centers.

🇽🇰🇵🇸 — Kosovo’s defense ministry confirms it will deploy a force to Gaza as part of an international security mission.

🇷🇺 — A Russian Antonov An-26 military transport aircraft crashed into a cliff over Crimea (TASS)

🇫🇷🇹🇳 — A French judge has refused to extradite the daughter of Tunisia’s former autocrat (Tunisie Telegraph)

🇨🇺🇪🇺 — The European Commission pledges an additional $2.3 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba.

🇧🇮 — Burundi’s military says an explosion at an ammunition depot in the country’s largest city killed 13 civilians.

🇺🇦🇺🇸 — Trump threatened to stop sending arms for Ukraine unless Europe helped reopen the Strait of Hormuz (FT)

🇮🇳 — India will proceed with a sensitive population census after years of delay fueled by ethnic concerns (AP)

🇺🇸🇻🇪 — The US Treasury Department says it has removed sanctions against Venezuela’s interim president.

🇨🇳🇰🇬🇺🇿 — Construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway line has entered an active phase (TCA)

🇹🇩🇭🇹 — A new force tasked with fighting Haiti’s gangs says Chadian officers have begun arriving in the country.

🇨🇺🇺🇸 — The US embassy in Havana says a team from the FBI arrived in Cuba to investigate February’s deadly boat shootout.

🇫🇷🇰🇷 — South Korea’s president pledges to boost cooperation with France in AI, nuclear energy, and hydrogen.

🇫🇷 — France’s president says reopening the Strait of Hormuz by force is “unrealistic.”

🇮🇷🇵🇭 — The Philippines’s foreign ministry says Iran will allow Filipino vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

🇲🇩 — Moldovan lawmakers approve the country’s withdrawal from the CIS (Moldpres)

🇫🇷🇳🇨 — French lawmakers have rejected a proposed constitutional reform to change New Caledonia’s status (Le Monde)