* The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss Ukraine, according to a published UN Security Council schedule. The meeting will start at 3 p.m. local time (2000 GMT) on Monday, according to the schedule.
* Russian forces struck multiple Ukraine-linked military targets using operational-tactical aviation, strike drones, missiles and artillery over the past 24 hours, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday confirmed that Russia used an Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile in its attack on Ukraine overnight into Friday.
* U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday promoted his plan of securing investment of at least 100 billion USD to rebuild Venezuela's oil industry in a meeting with U.S. oil company executives at the White House.
* Venezuela has decided to initiate an "exploratory" diplomatic process with the U.S. government, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said Friday in an official statement.
* Venezuelan Communication and Information Minister Freddy Nanez said Friday that the country's acting president Delcy Rodriguez has no plan to travel abroad in the near future.
* Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodriguez on Friday held phone talks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
* Russia and Venezuela are maintaining their strategic partnership and cooperation, Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov said Saturday following a meeting with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he looks forward to having a meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro in the White House during the first week of February to address topics including drug trafficking.
* Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday that he has invited Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodriguez to work together in combating armed drug traffickers.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States would "get involved" if Iranian authorities "start killing people" during the country's current unrest, but would not deploy ground troops.
* French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Friday that France and Europe have the right to reject proposals from even their closest allies when they are unacceptable, while warning that Europe's political organization is under strain.
* Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday that she disagrees with U.S. President Donald Trump on Greenland. Speaking at her year-end press conference, Meloni stressed the need to defend international law, warning that "when the rules are broken, we're all much more exposed."
* Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday underscored the importance of strengthening cooperation with Brazil to deliver benefits to both countries and their peoples.
* The Canadian government on Friday approved the deployment of a specialized military team to the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba province to address a severe infrastructure crisis following a prolonged power outage.
* Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday discussed the Mercosur-EU free trade agreement and the situation in Venezuela, Brazil's presidential office said.
* Hungary rejects any agreement that threatens the competitiveness of its farmers, including the European Union's (EU) trade deal with South America's Mercosur bloc, Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy said on Friday.
* European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday proposed a framework for cooperation with Syria and pledged financial and economic support during talks in Damascus with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
* The crew of a Tu-142MK aircraft from Russia's Northern Fleet completed the first-ever aerial refueling operation near the North Pole, the fleet's press service said Friday. The long-range anti-submarine aviation crew of the Northern Fleet's mixed aviation corps executed this unprecedented mission as part of a naval exercise in the Arctic, it said.
* Three Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement.
* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas discussed on Saturday ways to enhance bilateral cooperation following the elevation of their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2024, according to a statement by the Egyptian presidency.
* Syrian internal security forces on Saturday began entering Sheikh Maqsoud, the last Kurdish-held neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo, to secure the area after the army declared its military clearance operations complete.
* The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that it killed two senior Hamas members in Thursday's airstrikes, while Gaza health officials reported 14 deaths across the enclave over the past 24 hours.
* Yemen's Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Saturday dismissed reports of its dissolution as "fabricated and legally void," saying the claims were made under coercion and without any legitimate authority.
* The trade agreement between the South American bloc Mercosur and the European Union (EU) will be signed on Jan. 17 in Paraguay, Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said Friday.
* China announced on Friday that it will change export tax rebates for a range of products, including photovoltaic and battery products. The announcement, jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration, said that export tax rebates for the value added tax of photovoltaic products will be canceled starting from April 1, 2026.
* The U.S. labor market ended 2025 on a noticeably soft note, with job creation in December falling short of expectations and the unemployment rate ticking down to 4.4 percent in December, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.
* Pakistan received 3.6 billion USD in workers' remittances in December 2025, up 16.13 percent year-on-year, officials from the State Bank of Pakistan said on Saturday.
* Germany's industrial production fell 1.2 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2025, official data showed Friday, putting Europe's largest economy on track for a fourth consecutive annual decline in industrial output.
* China's meteorological authority on Friday evening renewed the blue alerts for sandstorms and strong winds, warning of adverse weather conditions across multiple regions over the next 24 hours.
* Over 200,000 people in northeast Australia were on Saturday advised to prepare for damaging winds, heavy rain and flooding as a tropical cyclone approaches the coast.
