A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever.

HOUSTON (Reuters) -Oil prices edged higher on Monday, rebounding from early losses, as investors weighed Russia's plans to cut crude production and short-term demand concerns ahead of U.S. inflation data this week.

Federal Reserve policymakers expect to raise U.S. interest rates further, and keep them high for longer, than they had earlier anticipated, signaling Wednesday that squashing high inflation will likely take a bigger toll on the economy and the job market than they had hoped.

California-based non-governmental organisation CTrees launched on Tuesday a data service to help countries limit deforestation and monitor the number of trees they have.

Wall Street ended sharply lower on Monday as investors fretted about a U.S. Federal Reserve gathering later this week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that is expected to reinforce a strong commitment by the central bank to stamp out inflation.

Major Chinese financial institutions will have to lead the way in maintaining the stable growth of total loans and protecting the reasonable financing needs in the real estate sector, China's central bank said in a statement on Monday.

Two Congolese, who were earlier arrested in the United States and indicted by a federal grand jury, have pleaded guilty to trafficking elephant ivory and white rhinoceros horn from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Seattle, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.

ZURICH (Reuters) -International drug regulators have said the benefits of using COVID-19 vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca outweigh risks as they investigate reports of extremely rare, but potentially fatal blood clots.

New cases of COVID-19 in the United States fell 0.4% last week after rising for four weeks in a row, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.

(Updates April 10 story with additional information from researchers)