* Cambodia registered 41 landmine and explosive remnant of war (ERW) casualties in 2022, a decrease of 7 percent from 44 in 2021, according to a report released on Thursday.
* China's top economic planner has stressed efforts to properly implement the country's optimized epidemic response while better coordinating epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development in 2023.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed his country's post-conflict reconstruction with Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock, one of the world's leading investment managers, the presidential press service reported Wednesday.
* Australia's trade deal with India has come into effect, with the nation's trade minister hailing it as a major boon for both nations' economies.
* Israel's incoming government led by comeback leader Benjamin Netanyahu released its policy guidelines on Wednesday, putting settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank as its top priority.
* Palestinian authorities on Wednesday rejected the remarks of Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on strengthening Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
* Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security has authorized the deployment of the National Public Security Force to safeguard the presidential inauguration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slated for Sunday.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called on all countries to place peace at the center of all their words and actions.
* The world's demand for gas is expected to decrease by 65 billion cubic meters in 2022, with 55 billion cubic meters falling on the 27 European Union countries, head of Russian gas giant Gazprom Alexei Miller said on Wednesday.
* The defense ministers of Russia, Syria and Turkey discussed the situation in Syria during talks held in Moscow on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
* South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Wednesday bid farewell to more than 700 peacekeepers to be deployed in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
* Russia's export of mineral fertilizers may drop by 15 percent this year, better than a 20-percent reduction projected in summer, said Andrey Guryev, head of the Russian Fertilizer Producers Association, on Wednesday.
* The Republic of Korea's industrial output marked the first rebound in five months despite lingering worry about economic downturn, statistical office data showed on Thursday.
* Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said the island country's economy, guided by the government's sound economic policies and recovery measures, has successfully recovered to pre-pandemic levels this year.
* Over 2.4 million foreign tourists visited the Philippines so far this year, earning roughly 2.65 billion USD in tourism revenues for the Southeast Asian country, according to the Philippines' Department of Tourism (DOT) data released on Wednesday.
* Italy's government has approved measures to fine charities who rescue migrants at sea and impound their ships if they break a new, tougher set of rules - a move that one campaign group said could threaten lives.
* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan eliminated a retirement age requirement on Wednesday in a move that allows more than 2 million workers to retire immediately, less than six months before an election.
* The armed forces of Colombia and Ecuador on Wednesday signed an agreement to implement a plan to contain drug trafficking and organized crime on their shared border, authorities in both countries said.
* Visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday affirmed his country's keenness to support the work of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the National News Agency reported.
*The United Nations said on Wednesday that some "time-critical" aid programs in Afghanistan have stopped due to a ban by the Taliban-led administration on female aid workers and warned that many other activities will also likely need to be paused.
* India will make a COVID-19 negative test mandatory for flyers from China, Hong Kong (China), Japan, the Repulic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand from Jan. 1, the health minister said on Thursday.
* There is no need for France to impose border controls in reaction to a surge of COVID infections in China, the head of France's health risks committee said on Thursday.
* Britain has no plans to bring back COVID-19 testing for those coming into the country, a government spokesperson said on Thursday, in contrast to a growing list of countries mandating tests for travellers from China.
* The United States has officially recorded more than 100 million COVID-19 cases, according to the latest data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
* Sri Lanka's second international airport in the southern town of Mattala resumed international flight operation on Thursday after a lapse of two years.
* Uruguay's Public Health Ministry said on Wednesday that experts have detected the presence of two new Omicron subvariants in the country, amid a wave of new COVID-19 cases.
* The hottest year on record in Italy has resulted in dramatically lower output for the country's farming sector, Italy's main agricultural union said on Wednesday.
* The death toll from a gas tanker blast in Johannesburg on Christmas Eve has climbed to 27, the provincial health department said on Thursday.
