* Polling stations opened on Saturday morning across Cote d'Ivoire for legislative elections to renew the 255 seats of the National Assembly, Xinhua reporters observed on site in Abidjan, the country's economic capital. Voting is scheduled to run until 6:00 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) in the country's 205 electoral constituencies, where polls were set to open at 8:00 a.m.
* China will continue to adopt a more proactive fiscal policy next year, expanding fiscal expenditure to maintain the necessary intensity of spending, Finance Minister Lan Fo'an said at the national fiscal work conference held from Saturday to Sunday.
* The Russian army holds control of the strategic city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, and conducted a large-scale strike on Ukrainian military-related targets overnight, Moscow said Saturday.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday stopped over in the city of Halifax, Canada, and met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney before flying to Florida to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump for talks aimed at ending the Ukraine crisis.
* Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Saturday announced new financial support for Ukraine during a meeting with visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to a news release from the prime minister's official website, the commitment of 2.5 billion Canadian dollars (1.83 billion USD) for Ukraine includes financing that will enable the International Monetary Fund to lend to Ukraine, as well as other debt service suspension and loan guarantee programs.
* Israeli forces tightened restrictions on Palestinian villages in the West Bank on Saturday following a reported shooting, while Gaza health authorities updated the death toll in the enclave from the ongoing conflict to over 71,000.
* United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg on Saturday called on all parties to exercise restraint and avoid further escalation, as tensions mount in Yemen's eastern governorates of Hadramout and Al-Mahrah.
* As 2025 draws to a close, Egypt has reaffirmed its position as a key mediator in the Gaza crisis, pairing intensive diplomacy to sustain a fragile ceasefire with a large-scale humanitarian operation that has delivered hundreds of thousands of tons of aid and winter relief supplies to the war-torn enclave.
* New Zealand will step up fishery officer patrols over summer to curb illegal gathering and illicit trade of paua, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones said Sunday.
* Police in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) arrested a 47-year-old man on Sunday after a woman was found dead and another man was stabbed in Sydney's northwest.
* Pakistani security forces killed four militants during an intelligence-based operation in the Panjgur district of the country's southwest Balochistan province, the military said on Saturday.
* Russia's wheat harvest is estimated at 91.4 million tons in net weight in 2025, up 10.6 percent year on year, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said on Saturday.
* The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has distributed 87,400 wheat cultivation packages to farming families across Afghanistan, the agency said on Sunday.
* Afghan authorities will build a new residential township to accommodate 4,000 returnee families in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, the local media outlet Tolo news reported Saturday.
* Portugal has administered more than 32 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since launching its first vaccination campaign five years ago, according to data released Saturday by the Directorate-General for Health (DGS).
* The number of livestock in Mongolia reached 58.1 million at the end of 2025, up by 0.8 percent from the previous year, the country's National Statistics Office (NSO) said Sunday. The preliminary results of the nationwide census showed that sheep accounted for 41.1 percent of all livestock, goats for 39.9 percent, cattle for 9.4 percent, horses for 8.8 percent, and camels for 0.9 percent, according to the NSO.
* Afghanistan has exported pomegranates from Kandahar province to Qatar for the first time, as a significant step in efforts to expand the country's agricultural products to new international markets, local media Tolo news reported Saturday.
* A strong winter storm slammed across the U.S. Northeast and Great Lakes regions from Friday evening to Saturday, dumping snow, crippling holiday travel and leaving tens of thousands out of power.
