* Sao Tome and Principe's President Carlos Vila Nova issued a presidential decree on Sunday appointing Americo D'Oliveira dos Ramos as the country's new prime minister. Before the appointment, Americo Ramos served as the governor of the country's central bank.
* Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico admitted to local media on Sunday that there would be early elections or reconstruction of the coalition government if the current coalition issue could not be solved.
* The Republic of Korea's Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) said Monday it has requested the defense ministry and the presidential security service to cooperate ahead of the second attempt to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol.
* A delegation from the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army is set to visit Japan in mid-January, following a mutual agreement, China's Ministry of National Defense announced Monday.
* China and the United Kingdom pledged to build an open world economy during their latest round of economic and financial dialogue, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
* Russia will seek measures to minimize the consequences of new U.S. sanctions targeting Moscow's energy sector, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.
* Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has said the Canadian government is not ruling out any countermeasures to fight U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's tariff threat.
* Ukrainian drones attacked the Russkaya compressor station, which supplies gas through the TurkStream pipeline -- a natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Turkey, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Monday.
* Russia will honor its commitment to deliver natural gas to Slovakia in the coming months, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico told local media on Sunday.
* Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have reiterated the resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from their country, official statements said.
* Egypt is stepping up diplomatic engagement with African nations as it seeks to bolster security in the strategically vital Horn of Africa and Red Sea region, where ongoing conflicts have sharply cut into its crucial Suez Canal revenues.
* Australia's Prime Minister has promised a funding injection to "finish" the country's National Broadband Network (NBN) and boost internet speeds. Anthony Albanese on Monday promised a three billion Australian dollar (1.84 billion USD) equity injection in the NBN to improve access to fiber internet connections.
* The Palestinian presidency on Sunday urged the international community to step up efforts to end the bloody conflict in Gaza, accusing Israel of massive "killings, destruction, and displacement."
* Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden discussed over phone progress in negotiations aimed at securing the release of hostages in Gaza on Sunday, Netanyahu's office said.
* Negotiators have made "substantial progress" in talks in Qatar on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, though no agreement has been achieved yet, an Israeli official said Monday.
* Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on Sunday night, targeting areas surrounding Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon for the first time since the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024.
* Iran's Culture Minister Seyyed Abbas Salehi said on Sunday that Iran and Saudi Arabia could promote relations in the fields of culture, art and media. He made the remarks at a press conference in the capital Tehran while answering a question about Iran's possible cultural cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
* China does not pursue a trade surplus, and the country's trade balance is shaped by broader international market forces rather than deliberate intervention, an official said on Monday.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has successfully doubled its clean energy capacity from 3.1 gigawatts to 6 gigawatts between 2022 and 2024, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment Amna bint Abdullah Al Dahak announced on Sunday.
* Uzbekistan exported cherries worth 70.3 million USD from January to November 2024, local media reported on Monday, citing the country's statistics agency.
* The Maldivian government's usable reserves stood at 63.2 million USD at the end of 2024, PSM News, the official state media of the Maldives, reported on Sunday.
* Myanmar earned over 1.6 million USD from exporting over 1,100 tons of honey in the first nine months of the current 2024-25 fiscal year starting April last year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation said on Monday.
* An oil spillage temporarily disrupted traffic at the Woodlands Checkpoint, a major border crossing between Singapore and Malaysia, on Monday morning, according to Singapore's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).
* The death toll from the ravaging wildfires in Los Angeles has risen to 24, local authorities confirmed on Sunday. Eight of the deaths resulted from the Palisades fire, while 16 were caused by the Eaton fire, according to the County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner.
