* Political parties in Cambodia on Friday concluded a 14-day campaign for Sunday's Senate election, without any reports of violence or incidents, a National Election Committee (NEC) official said.
* Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday said that all members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should jointly pursue the organization's sound development and make it a stabilizing anchor amid the changes of the world.
* Thailand's ruling Pheu Thai Party President Paetongtarn Shinawatra will pay a visit to Cambodia on March 18-19, said a ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP)'s statement on Friday.
* President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that 95% of Russia's strategic nuclear forces had been modernised and that the Air Force had just taken delivery of four new supersonic nuclear-capable bombers.
* Indonesia and Australia hope to sign a "very significant" defence cooperation agreement within the next few months, Australian defence minister Richard Marles said on Friday after meeting his counterpart in Jakarta.
* Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday it had significantly expanded a list of European Union officials and politicians banned from entering Russia in response to the latest round of sanctions by the bloc.
* Russia will reach out to Armenia regarding the latter's statement of suspending participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the situation in Ukraine with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at a meeting on Thursday, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
* Latvian lawmakers on Thursday adopted a ban on imports of Russian and Belarusian agricultural products. The bill still needs approval from the president of Latvia before it comes into force.
* The regional grouping of Belarusian and Russian troops will hold military exercises on Belarusian territory in 2025, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said in Minsk on Thursday.
* Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministerial meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to discuss the latest development in the Gaza Strip, said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry Thursday.
* Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unveiled his post-war strategy for Gaza, the first since the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out in October last year, involving a continuous military presence in the Palestinian enclave and the replacement of Hamas, his office said in a statement on Friday.
* Public hospitals in the Republic of Korea will extend working hours, the prime minister said on Friday, while expanding use of telemedicine to alleviate growing strain on healthcare services after a mass walkout by thousands of trainee doctors this week.
* Officials from the International Monetary Fund and the Ukrainian government on Thursday reached a staff-level agreement on updated economic policies, paving the way to release about $880 million once approved by the IMF's board, the fund said.
* Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen met President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Friday, a day before the second anniversary of the Ukraine-Russia's crisis.
* China and the European Union held talks on progress and cooperation in a number of areas including automobiles and raw materials, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement.
* Algeria and Mauritania on Thursday launched a free trade zone project located in the Algerian westernmost province of Tindouf, near the two countries' border, the official Algeria Press Service news agency reported.
* Hungary said on Friday it had signed a deal to buy four Saab SAABb.ST JAS Gripen fighter jets from Sweden, as Budapest finally prepared to approve Stockholm's bid to join NATO after nearly two years of delays.
* The United Arab Emirates and Kenya have concluded a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA), UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi said on Friday.
* At least 29,514 Palestinians have been killed and 69,616 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
* Yemen's Houthi group said on Thursday it had launched attacks on an Israeli city, a British cargo ship, and a U.S. warship, in what it called a response to the "American-British aggression" against Yemen and its support of the Palestinians in Gaza.
* Iraq on Friday reopened the North Refinery in the Baiji complex, which came to symbolise the country's turbulence, after being closed for a decade, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement.
* U.S. company Intuitive Machines' first lunar lander touched down on the moon Thursday, marking the first American spacecraft to land on the lunar surface in more than 50 years.
* Singapore's core inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), fell to 3.1 percent year-on-year in January, from 3.3 percent last December, official data showed Friday.
* Brazil's financial market forecasted a 1.68-percent growth in the country's GDP in 2024 and a 2-percent growth in 2025, the Central Bank of Brazil said Thursday.
