* Zimbabwean President and Southern African Development Community (SADC) Chairperson Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday welcomed a court ruling that proclaimed Daniel Chapo the winner of the Oct. 9 general elections of Mozambique.
* Indonesian security authorities have been deploying personnel to ensure the safety of Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations. Indonesian police and soldiers are jointly conducting the "Candle Operation," which began on Dec. 21 and will conclude on Jan. 2, to ensure security during the holiday season.
* China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has pledged to continue efforts to stabilize the real estate market and reverse its downturn in 2025.
* U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he had asked the Defense Department to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, after condemning Russia's Christmas Day attack on Ukraine's energy system and some of its cities.
* China's commerce ministry said on Thursday the country has resumed regular quarantine inspections for lobsters imported from Australia.
* South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said on Thursday that the country will review a visa-free pilot project for Chinese group tourists.
* The growth of gross domestic product (GDP) of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members will reach 4.7 percent this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday at an informal CIS summit held in Leningrad Oblast.
* Egypt paid 38.7 billion USD of its outstanding debts in 2024, of which 7 billion were paid in November and December, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Wednesday.
* The Maldives has recorded the highest number of tourist arrivals in a single year in 2024, PSM News, the official State Media of the Maldives, said on Wednesday. The PSM said that by Dec. 23, the country welcomed 1.97 million visitors, a 9-percent increase over the total arrivals in 2023.
* A new ice-class patrol ship of Project 23550 dubbed "Nikolay Zubov" was launched in St. Petersburg, the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Wednesday.
* Yemen's Houthi group said they launched two drones at the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon on Wednesday, targeting "vital" and "industrial" areas.
* At least 10 people were killed, including five journalists, and more than a dozen wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza early on Thursday, medics with the Gaza health authorities said.
* Libya deported a group of migrants to Niger by land on Wednesday, the first such deportation in years, according to the Libyan Illegal Migration Control Department.
* Tunisian security forces have dismantled a drug trafficking network active in the capital Tunis, seizing 3.5 kg of cocaine, the Tunisian National Guard said Wednesday on its Facebook page.
* Over 40 square kilometers of wheat sown in November in Israel have been destroyed due to the recent severe drought in the country, Israel's state-run Insurance Fund for Natural Risks in Agriculture (Kanat) said in a statement on Wednesday.
* An Embraer EMBR3.SA passenger jet crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people. Twenty-nine survivors received hospital treatment.
* Thirteen terrorists were killed during an operation in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said on Wednesday.
* A prison riot in Mozambique's capital Maputo left 33 people dead and 15 injured, the country's police general commander Bernardino Rafael said on Wednesday. About 1,534 people escaped from the prison in the incident but 150 of them have now been recaptured.
* Fourteen officers from Syria's interim Ministry of Interior were killed and ten others injured in a "treacherous ambush" in the northwestern province of Tartus on Wednesday, the interim government's Interior Minister Mohammed Abdul Rahman announced.
* Ethiopia has reported 8.4 million malaria cases since the beginning of this year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
