* Bulgaria will hold early parliamentary elections after the third and final attempt to form a new government within the current legislature failed on Friday.
* Initial results show Uganda's incumbent President Yoweri Museveni took a lead in the presidential election, the country's electoral body said on Friday. Releasing the third batch of results, Simon Byabakama, chairperson of the Electoral Commission, said that Museveni, who is seeking a seventh five-year term of office, had secured 75.38 percent of the votes counted so far.
* The World Bank has approved a project to strengthen the performance of primary education and health workers through improved staff management and training, helping Laos address long-term challenges in education and healthcare.
* The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, has renewed a bilateral currency swap agreement with the Bank of Canada, the central bank of Canada. The value of the swap is 200 billion yuan (about 28.5 billion USD), the PBOC said in a statement on Friday.
* Asian economies are projected to grow strongly in 2026 and remain a central engine of global expansion, despite geopolitical and global economic headwinds, according to a report released by the British think-tank Asia House on Thursday.
* Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez said on Thursday that the government is not afraid of engaging in diplomatic dealings with the United States, following an earlier U.S. military attack on the South American country and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
* Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodriguez on Thursday called on the legislature to approve an oil industry reform plan to attract foreign investment and promote the country's economic recovery.
* Indonesia's Minister of Forestry Raja Juli Antoni has proposed adding 21,000 forest police officers to strengthen supervision of forest areas across the country, local media reported on Thursday.
* Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Thursday that recent remarks from the White House indicate negotiations with the United States over Greenland will be "really, really difficult," while rejecting claims that Denmark has agreed to discuss a U.S. takeover of the Arctic territory.
* There exists "broad solidarity" of all European Union (EU) members with Denmark on Greenland, as well as in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), except the United States, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said Friday.
* U.S. President Donald Trump is keeping all options on the table for responding to Iran's unrest, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that the Board of Peace for Gaza has been established, urging Hamas to return the final deceased hostage to Israel and start full demilitarization immediately.
* Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi held separate phone calls on Thursday night with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Nurlan Yermekbayev, discussing the recent unrest in Iran and accusing the United States and Israel of interference.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday pledged mediation efforts for de-escalating tensions in the Middle East, said the Kremlin. Putin made the pledge during separate phone conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the day, said Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that Putin devoted much of the talks to the situation in Iran.
* Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for Russia's support at the United Nations in a phone conversation, according to the Iranian president's office.
* The U.S. Department of the Treasury is imposing sanctions on 13 more entities and 11 more individuals allegedly linked to Iran, according to a statement from the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
* Colombian President Gustavo Petro has confirmed that his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled for Feb. 3 at the White House.
* U.S. forces seized another Venezuela-linked oil tanker on Thursday morning, following a fifth seizure last week, the U.S. Southern Command said on X.
* Ukraine has imposed a state of emergency in its energy sector due to the impact of Russian attacks on energy facilities, Denys Shmyhal, first deputy prime minister and energy minister, said on Friday.
* The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel's domestic security agency Shin Bet (ISA) said jointly on Thursday evening that their strikes across Gaza on Wednesday hit operatives from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), accusing them of "serious violation" of the October Gaza ceasefire deal.
* Romania will receive 16.68 billion euros (19.36 billion USD) in loans under the European Union (EU)'s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, the Romanian government said on Thursday.
* A comprehensive inspection of the Belarusian armed forces has started, State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Alexander Volfovich said on Friday.
* Eight people were killed and nine others injured in 184 Israeli airstrikes across areas north of the Litani River in Lebanon during the first half of January, Lebanese sources said Friday.
* The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) said Friday that it has officially commenced natural gas deliveries to Austria and Germany via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the European segment of the Southern Gas Corridor, expanding its exports to Europe.
* Bangladesh's trade deficit in the first five months of the current fiscal year from July 2025 to June 2026 soared to nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars, according to recent data from the Bangladesh Bank.
* Indonesia recorded realized investment of 1,931.2 trillion rupiah (about 114.6 billion USD) in 2025, up 12.7 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in domestic investment, Minister of Investment and Downstreaming Rosan Roeslani said on Thursday.
* Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos reached 3.23 billion USD in November 2025, the country's central bank said Thursday. Cumulative personal remittances in January-November 2025 rose by 3.2 percent to 35.73 billion dollars from 34.61 billion dollars recorded in the same period of 2024, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Thursday.
* Egypt has received 1 billion euros (1.16 billion USD) in concessional development financing from the European Union under an assistance mechanism, a government minister announced on Thursday.
* NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 astronauts returned to Earth early Thursday after one of the crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) experienced a medical issue last week.
* A cold snap will hit central and eastern China from Saturday to Wednesday, leading to a large-scale spell of rain, snow and icy conditions, the National Meteorological Center said on Friday. The affected regions will experience temperature drops of up to 16 degrees Celsius.
* An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 jolted off coast of the U.S. state of Oregon at 0325 GMT on Friday, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences said. The epicenter, with a depth of 10.0 km, was initially determined to be at 43.77 degrees north latitude and 127.82 degrees west longitude.
* The number of confirmed mpox cases in Zambia has climbed to 367 since the disease outbreak in October 2024, health authorities said on Friday.
