* China was concerned and strongly opposed to NATO saying defence ministers reached an agreement on its outlook regarding China as a threat, the Chinese foreign ministry said during a regular news briefing on Thursday.
* Moscow has declared four employees of the Austrian Embassy in Russia "personae non gratae" in a retaliatory move, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
* China's President Xi Jinping and his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi, called on Thursday for the lifting of sanctions on Iran as an integral part of a stalled international agreement on its nuclear programme.
* Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Japan will invite his Ukrainian counterpart to the G7 foreign ministers' meeting to be held in Germany on Feb. 18, Kyodo reported on Thursday.
* US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States was ready to defend the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania if required, and will keep its military presence in the region.
* Armenia has sent Azerbaijan a draft proposal for the peaceful settlement of a conflict surrounding the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, the TASS news agency cited Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying on Thursday.
* Turkish Foreign Minister reiterated Thursday that his country can evaluate Finland and Sweden's bids to join NATO separately.
* Fiji and India renewed on Thursday their commitment to advancing cooperation in key areas such as economic prosperity, climate mitigation and sustainable development.
* Some 1.1 million people arrived in Germany from Ukraine in 2022, exceeding the influx of migrants from the Middle East around 2015, Germany's federal statistical office said on Thursday.
* French President Emmanuel Macron and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani praised the "quality" of relations between France and the Gulf nation in a statement on Thursday, amid a strengthening of business ties between the two countries.
* NATO wants Italy to hit a target of spending 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence as early as next year, the country's defence minister said on Thursday, a day after holding talks with allies in Brussels.
* French President Emmanuel Macron met here on Wednesday with Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.
* Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reaffirmed on Wednesday that his country will continue to build up its defense capabilities as Iran faces many threats.
* The UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Wednesday to renew Yemen sanctions measures of asset freeze and travel ban until Nov. 15, 2023.
* Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed Wednesday to increase Japan's budget for child-rearing to 4 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), in a bid to reverse the falling birthrate.
* Indonesia's central bank, Bank Indonesia, has decided to keep the benchmark interest rate at 5.75 percent after months of hikes, its governor Perry Warjiyo said on Thursday.
* The Philippine central bank on Thursday decided to raise the interest rate on the overnight reverse repurchase facility by 50 basis points to 6 percent effective Friday to tame inflation. The 6 percent rate is the highest since August 2008.
* Australia's unemployment rate has risen after the second consecutive monthly fall in seasonally adjusted employment. According to labor force data for January published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday, the unemployment rate rose from 3.5 percent in December to 3.7 percent.
* Greece and Bulgaria will consider reviving a pipeline project to transport crude oil from the Greek port of Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea to Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday.
* Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni plans to bring the management of Italy's post-COVID recovery plan under her direct control, government officials told Reuters on Thursday, seeking to make full use of some 200 billion euros ($214 billion) in EU funding.
* Italy will propose that the European Union rows back on plans to halt the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was quoted as saying on Thursday.
* Sri Lanka raised electricity prices by 66% on Thursday, in a move the government hopes will persuade the International Monetary Fund to provide a bailout for its crisis stricken economy.
* Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said on Thursday that he had given approval to the central bank to extend the deadline to turn in old banknotes by 60 days until April 10.
* Israel's economy grew 6.5 percent in 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. This is the second-highest annual gross domestic product (GDP) increase in 22 years, only second to 8.6 percent in 2021.
* Nearly 15 million birds have been culled in Japan, a record high for a single season, amid an unprecedented spread of bird flu across the country, the farm ministry said Thursday.
* An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 jolted Masbate region, the Philippines, at 18:10:10 GMT on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said. The epicenter, with a depth of 20.088 km, was initially determined to be at 12.3238 degrees north latitude and 123.8662 degrees east longitude.
* An emergency warning has been issued and a school was evacuated over a bushfire burning in South Australia (SA) on Thursday, local official said.
