* Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday exchanged New Year greetings with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
* South Korean Acting President Choi Sang-mok called for national harmony and unity and for trust in the government in a New Year's address on Tuesday, amid an unprecedented political crisis sparked by impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived martial law declaration.
* Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has used his New Year's message to declare that the country can become stronger in 2025. In the short video message released on Tuesday, Albanese described Australia as the greatest country in the world.
* Laos' Ministry of Public Security has urged road users to strictly comply with traffic regulations to help prevent accidents and reduce fatalities during the New Year celebrations.
* The China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (CSFTA) Further Upgrade Protocol enters into force today, China's Ministry of Commerce has said.
* Russia launched missile strikes on Ukraine early Tuesday, targeting the capital Kiev and the northeastern Sumy region, local authorities said.
* Ukraine will keep fighting even if the incoming U.S. administration suspends the aid, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Monday, citing the President's Office head Andriy Yermak.
* U.S. President Joe Biden announced $2.5 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine on Monday as he uses his final weeks in office to surge military aid to Kyiv before President-elect Donald Trump takes power.
* Switzerland will chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2026, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism Ian Borg, in his capacity as chair-in-office of the OSCE, announced on Monday.
* Russia and Ukraine on Monday exchanged 150 prisoners from each side, who were captured during their ongoing conflict, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Monday that it successfully mediated the exchange of 300 captives between Russia and Ukraine, with each side freeing 150, bringing the total number of war captives released through its mediation efforts to 2,484 in 2024.
* Romania's new coalition government approved the 2025 fiscal-budgetary plan on Monday, introducing several fiscal measures aimed at reducing the budget deficit to 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2025, as agreed with the European Commission.
* Greece is advancing measures to regulate internet and social media use by minors under 15, addressing concerns over digital addiction, cyberbullying, and other harmful online behavior, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Monday.
* Russian energy company Gazprom said it would pump a reduced volume of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Tuesday, the last day before the expiry of a deal that had kept the gas flowing throughout nearly three years of war.
* Iran appointed oil ministry official Ali-Mohammad Mousavi as its new representative to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries known as OPEC, replacing Afshin Javan, the Oil Ministry's SHANA news agency reported on Tuesday.
* The Philippines' approved investments in 2024 amounted to 1.62 trillion pesos (28 billion USD), the country's Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said Tuesday.
* France carried out missile strikes last weekend in Syria, targeting Islamic State sites in the country, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Tuesday.
* Syria's interim administration on Monday pledged to build closer ties with Gulf countries, following high-level talks with a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) delegation, according to Saudi-owned Alarabiya TV.
* The Israeli military announced Tuesday that the Israeli Air Force killed Anas Muhammad Saadi Masri, commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement's rocket unit in northern Gaza, in an airstrike in early December.
* A Syrian national conference is set to take place in Damascus on January 4 and 5 to discuss the country's future after the fall of the Assad government, according to reports from various news outlets on Monday.
* Mahmoud Qomati, deputy head of Hezbollah's Political Council, said on Monday that Hezbollah would not "remain silent" if Israel fails to withdraw from Lebanese territories by the end of the 60-day ceasefire agreement.
* Yemen's Houthi group launched rockets overnight towards Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and a U.S. aircraft carrier, said the group's spokesperson on Tuesday.
* Ukraine's exports increased by about 13.4 percent this year driven largely by the normalization of sea transport operations, First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Monday.
* Cambodia earned 1.15 billion USD from the exports of raw cashew nuts in 2024, a year-on-year rise of 31 percent, according to the Cashew Nut Association of Cambodia (CAC)'s report on Tuesday.
* The provisional results of Myanmar's 2024 population and housing census show a total population of 51,316,756 on census night, Sept. 30, 2024, according to a recent statement released by the Department of Population under the Ministry of Immigration and Population.
* Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the country needed to further speed up efforts to eradicate polio, highlighting the use of technology to completely root out the crippling disease from Pakistan.
* Several Sri Lankan government institutions have faced cyber attacks, a police spokesman told local media on Tuesday. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) K.B. Manathunga said the official YouTube channel of the Sri Lanka Police Department has been hacked.
* The New Zealand government has dispatched more air force flights to support the disaster response in Vanuatu following a 7.3-magnitude earthquake which struck the Pacific nation two weeks ago.
* The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday it is facing a critical funding gap of 11.1 million USD to scale up the mpox response in Uganda where over 1,000 confirmed cases and six deaths have been registered.
* Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched its Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission, officials said.
* Mount Ibu, located in Indonesia's North Maluku province, erupted earlier on Tuesday, prompting an aviation warning, the country's Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center reported.
