* Japan will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travellers from mainland China due to the rapid spread of the virus in the country, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said on Tuesday.
* A hundred million people across the world were forced to leave their homes in 2022 and the United Nations is continuing to help those in need in a myriad of ways, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said on Monday.
* Russia does not intend to propose any new initiatives on strategic arms or security guarantees, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published by the TASS news agency on Tuesday. Lavrov also called on the West to exercise maximum restraint in the "highly sensitive" nuclear sphere.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday voiced his hope for a quick implementation of agreements with the United States reached during his recent visit to Washington, the presidential press service said.
* Cambodia had exported more than 2,600 tons of fresh longan to China within two months, Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian said on Tuesday.
* Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu moved one step further on Tuesday toward establishing a government after parliament approved divisive legislation agreed with his far-right coalition partners.
* Egypt has set a new international tender for oil and gas exploration rights in the Nile Delta and Mediterranean sea, the state news agency reported on Tuesday.
* Brazil's financial market cut the inflation forecast for 2022 from 5.76 percent to 5.64 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said Monday.
* Spain on Tuesday announced 10 billion euros ($10.65 billion) worth of measures to ease the pain of inflation in the third major package this year, bringing total aid to 45 billion euros since early 2022.
* German companies want to boost their activities in Africa next year, especially in areas such as green hydrogen and liquefied natural gas, with 43% planning to increase investment in the continent, a survey seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed.
* The number of overnight tourist stays in Israeli hotels reached 922,300 in November, the highest monthly figure since December 2019, showed the data issued by the country's Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
* Minister of Economy and Planning Samir Saied said on Monday that Tunisia's economy is expected to expand by 1.8 percent in 2023, a "modest" growth that "reflects the country's difficult economic situation."
* A senior Iranian judicial official said on Monday that 1,261 illegal weapons were discovered and seized in the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan during the "riots" in Iran starting in late September, semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported.
* The rate of suicide among the Republic of Korean children and youths rose last year on the back of the continued COVID-19 pandemic, statistical office data showed Tuesday.
* A massive winter storm stretching from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Rio Grande along the Mexican border has killed at least 57 people across the United States as of Monday, according to a tally by NBC News.
* The death toll from Christmas day rains in southern Philippines has risen to 13, authorities said on Tuesday, with the search still on for 23 people as floods started to recede.
* Low temperatures and fog in New Delhi hit air and rail movement on Tuesday morning as a cold wave gripped the Indian capital with minimum temperatures dipping as low as 5.6 degrees Celsius (42 F).
* This month has seen about 90 people killed and many others hospitalized after they consumed tainted bootleg liquor in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, according to local media reports.
* The death toll from a gas tanker explosion in Johannesburg on Christmas Eve has climbed to 18, officials said on Tuesday, as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to support people affected by the blast.
* Clashes have killed 56 people during four days of fighting in South Sudan's eastern Jonglei state, after youth from the Nuer community attacked another ethnic group, a local official said on Tuesday, with the Nuer making up most of the casualties.
* Niger has reported the highly contagious H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, among poultry in a village in the south of the country, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Tuesday.
