* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday warned against the danger of the military escalation in the Middle East region on multiple fronts, the Egyptian Presidency said in a statement.
* An overnight curfew has been imposed in the Indian Ocean nation of Comoros after violent protests against President Azali Assoumani's re-election rocked the archipelago, the interior ministry said.
* New Zealand is under low level of terrorism threat, which means a terrorist attack remains "a realistic possibility," a report said on Thursday.
* The Indonesian authorities said on Wednesday that the country is accelerating the development of nuclear power plants as part of its energy transition agenda.
* The Ukrainian authorities have decided not to hold parliamentary and presidential elections during martial law, the Ukrinform news agency reported Wednesday, citing Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.
* The United Nations (UN) Security Council has adopted 50 resolutions and failed to adopt 10 draft ones in 2023, according to the Highlights of Security Council Practice 2023 published Wednesday by the world body.
* The NATO-Ukraine Council on Wednesday held its first meeting in military format at the chiefs of defense level, Ukraine's mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said on social media.
* Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar will cut short his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the country's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.
* The Arab League (AL) voiced Wednesday its full support for the sovereignty of Iraq during a virtual meeting at the level of foreign ministers.
* Israeli forces have killed around 60 Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip, the military said in a statement on Thursday summarising operations over the previous 24 hours.
* A Moscow court fined Amazon over 200 million rubles (about 2.26 million USD) for its failure to establish a representative office in Russia, the RIA news agency reported Wednesday.
* The Chinese economic growth in 2023 is good news for China and beyond, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
* Cambodia recorded 4.61 billion USD in its trade value with the European Union (EU) in 2023, down 4.9 percent from 4.85 billion dollars in a year earlier, said a report by General Department of Customs and Excise on Wednesday.
* The Philippines has banned the imports of domesticated and wild birds, including poultry meat and eggs, from the U.S. states of California and Ohio, the country's Department of Agriculture (DA) said Wednesday.
* Myanmar earned over 6.83 billion USD from the export of manufacturing goods between April 1 and Dec. 29 last year, according to the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday.
* New Zealand's food prices are 4.8 percent higher than a year ago, the lowest annual increase since December 2021, the statistics department Stats NZ said on Thursday.
* Israel's public debt-to-GDP ratio amounted to 62.1 percent in 2023, compared to 60.5 percent in 2022, the country's Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.
* Extreme weather conditions involving heavy snowfall and freezing rain hit many countries across Europe on Wednesday, causing flight cancellations and delays and disrupting road traffic.
* Heavy snowfall and icy conditions upended air, car and train travel across Germany for a second day on Thursday.
