* Cambodia has spent 1.4 billion USD in assisting the poor and vulnerable people in the country since 2019, Minister of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation Chea Somethy said here on Monday.
* The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has concluded printing of 260 million ballot papers for the forthcoming general elections scheduled on Feb. 8, the ECP said in a statement late Sunday.
* The government of Kazakhstan has resigned and first deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar will serve as the interim prime minister, the press service of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Monday.
* U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, his first stop in a Middle East tour as Washington tries to advance negotiations on a normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel, and make progress on talks for postwar Gaza governance.
* Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye rejected on Monday an Israeli proposal to relocate the Rafah border crossing, the only crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
* At least 27,478 Palestinians have been killed and 66,835 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7, health ministry in Gaza said on Monday.
* An independent review group led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna will assess the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday after Israel accused some UNRWA staff of taking part in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.
* Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Monday that direct talks with the United States on regional issues were unnecessary.
* About 40 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in violence in a disputed area on South Sudan's border with Sudan over the weekend and hundreds have sought refuge in a U.N. peacekeepers' compound, a government official said on Monday.
* African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki has called for dialogue to resolve a political dispute in Senegal.
* More than 2,200 Palestinians wounded in the Gaza Strip have crossed into Egypt through the Rafah border since Nov. 1, 2023, the Egyptian presidency said Monday.
* Thailand's headline inflation fell for the fourth consecutive month, reaching a 35-month low in January due to government energy subsidies and softened food prices, official data showed on Monday.
* The Indonesian economy expanded 5.05 percent year-on-year in 2023, lower than the previous year's 5.31 percent, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Monday.
* Germany's government has agreed plans to subsidise gas power plants that can switch to hydrogen, the economy ministry said on Monday, with a price tag of $17 billion in subsidies as part of efforts to supplement intermittent renewable energy and speed up the transition to low carbon generation.
* Restructuring of South Africa's platinum group metals (PGM) industry in response to rising costs and falling prices could result in between 4,000 and 7,000 job cuts, the country's Minerals Council said on Monday.
* Argentina may see similar month-over-month price rises in January as in December when inflation clocked in over 25%, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni told reporters on Monday, dampening hopes it could come in lower.
* Global gross domestic product (GDP) growth is projected to ease to 2.9 percent in 2024 from 3.1 percent in 2023, before recovering to 3.0 percent in 2025 as financial conditions ease, according to the outlook released Monday by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
* Death toll from forest fires raging in central Chile's Valparaiso region has climbed to 99, the country's Legal Medical Service (SML) said Sunday.
* New Zealand's primary industry experts believe climate change, extreme weather events and water quality are the three biggest challenges likely to affect agriculture in New Zealand for the next 10 years.
* The Mediterranean Sea's upper layer is warming at a rate of 0.13 degrees Celsius a year because of global warming, an Israeli report said Monday.
