* Indonesia and the Philippines have agreed to expedite revising existing agreements on joint border patrol and crossing, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday, after meeting his Filipino counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
* The top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) called the Republic of Korea a "principal enemy" and asked his country to bolster up self-defense capabilities, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Wednesday.
* Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League (AL) party, which clinched a landslide victory in general elections, will form its new cabinet on Jan. 11, a senior Cabinet Division official told Xinhua Tuesday.
* The People's Democratic Party (PDP) led by former Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay has won Bhutan's general elections, results released by the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) showed on Wednesday.
* The Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday officially confirmed the re-election of President Felix Tshisekedi following the Dec. 20 polls.
* Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander De Croo will visit China from Jan. 11-12 at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
* President Vladimir Putin has arrived for his first-ever presidential visit to Chukotka in Russia's Far East, Russian state media reported on Wednesday.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to Lithuania on Wednesday and will continue on to Latvia and Estonia in the coming days, he said in a post on social media X, formerly known as Twitter.
* Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday exchanged views on the Red Sea situation amid escalating tensions across the region.
* Israel must make "hard choices" if it wants to normalize relations with more of its neighbors and should support Palestinian leaders who are willing to live side-by-side with Israelis, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday in Tel Aviv.
* The exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah escalated Tuesday on the Israel-Lebanon border, with Israel claiming the killing of the Lebanese militant group's two senior commanders.
* Yemen's Houthi group Ansarullah targeted a vessel in the Red Sea, a Yemeni military source told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
* The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday urged protection for medical facilities and workers in the Gaza Strip, as they were facing a severe lack of security amid persistent Israeli attacks.
* UN humanitarians said on Tuesday they are extremely concerned about the tens of thousands of refugees and returnees fleeing the Sudan conflict into South Sudan.
* 2023 has been recognized as the warmest year since 1850, as per a report released on Tuesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) of the European Union (EU).
* The Spanish government has imposed the mandatory use of facemasks in hospitals and health centers from Wednesday, following a sharp rise in COVID-19 and flu infections in recent weeks.
* The Republic of Korea's employment growth slowed down last year on the manufacturing industry's slump and the faltering real estate market, statistical office data showed Wednesday.
* The Philippines' total external trade in goods declined by 5.4 percent in November 2023 to 16.95 billion USD from 17.92 billion dollars in November 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Wednesday.
* The outlook for Germany's construction sector is grim for 2024, according to two prominent research institutes on Wednesday, a further bad sign for the nation's struggling property industry as it suffers its worst crisis in decades.
* Mongolia exported 80,400 tons of meat and meat products in 2023, hitting a historic high, local media reported on Wednesday, citing the country's Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
