* Early voting in remote areas for the Russian presidential election has begun in the regions of the Far East, local media reported on Sunday.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for an end to the Ukraine crisis. He made the appeal at a Security Council meeting scheduled to coincide with the second anniversary of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine.
* Russia said on Sunday that its forces had taken more advantageous positions near Avdiivka and Donetsk after President Vladimir Putin ordered the military to push further into Ukraine after two years of Russia-Ukraine's crisis.
* Ukraine expects to receive $11.8 billion in economic support this year from the United States, its prime minister said on Sunday.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday he had signed a bilateral security agreement with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kyiv.
* Russia has no intention to withdraw from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which ensures the peaceful use of space, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Saturday.
* Argentine President Javier Milei on Friday met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Government House in Buenos Aires, where they discussed bilateral and global issues.
* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that it was important for Ukraine to maintain close relations with Poland, but that Kyiv was also ready to defend businesses that have been hurt by border blockades established by Polish protesters.
* Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen clashed throughout the Gaza Strip over the weekend, as mediators picked up the pace of talks on a possible ceasefire to free hostages held by Hamas and bring a measure of Ramadan respite to the battered enclave.
* Two rounds of talks will be held in Qatar and Egypt respectively to reach an agreement on a truce in the Gaza Strip that is currently under massive Israeli siege and bombardment, Egypt's Al-Qahera News reported on Sunday.
* At least 29,692 Palestinians have been killed and 69,879 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday.
* U.S. and British forces carried out strikes against more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, officials said, the latest round of military action against the Yemen’s group that continues to attack shipping in the region.
* The 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Saturday lifted drastic sanctions earlier placed on Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to pressure military juntas in those countries to return to constitutional order.
* The Afghan caretaker government has resolved at least 800 ethnic conflicts among tribes and clans in the war-ravaged country over the past two years, deputy spokesman for the administration Hamdullah Fetrat has said.
* Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged on Sunday to provide whatever support was needed to assist Victoria state in a days-long wildfire emergency that has razed homes after authorities warned extreme heat could fan the blazes this week.
* The International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN migration agency, and 27 partners on Friday appealed for 112 million USD to provide urgent help to over 1.4 million migrants and host communities in the Horn of Africa, Yemen and southern Africa.
* The European Commission (EC) is set to release up to 137 billion euros (148 billion USD) of funding for Poland, EC president Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.
* Venezuela and Turkey are committed to advancing towards a trade exchange of 3 billion USD, the two countries' foreign ministers said in Caracas on Saturday.
* South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, also president of the governing African National Congress (ANC), said Saturday that his party will focus on six priorities to fix the economy, including job creation, reindustrialization, investing in infrastructure and tackling the high cost of living.
* Russia's Gazprom GAZP.MM said it would ship 42 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Sunday, compared to 42.4 mcm on Saturday.
* Qatar will further raise gas production despite a steep drop in global gas prices, pushing ahead with plans to extract more of the resource amidst fierce competition with rivals such as the United States.
* Thailand's exports expanded for the sixth straight month in January, thanks to a recovery in the electronics industry and rising agricultural shipments, official data showed on Friday.
* Diving tourism contributed more than 73 billion pesos (1.3 billion USD) to the Philippine economy in 2023, nearly twice the revenue the industry earned in 2022, the country's Department of Tourism said Friday.
* The Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture and Food announced on Friday that 204.1 million euros (221.2 million USD) were paid to farmers as an incentive to adopt agri-environmental measures.
* A total of 2.2 billion afghani (about 300 million USD) has been allocated to develop agriculture sector in war-torn Afghanistan, the Ministry for Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said Sunday.
