* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday welcomed an operation led by Qatar and France to deliver additional and much-needed medicines and medical supplies to the civilian population in Gaza and to deliver vital medicines to hostages currently held in Gaza.
* The UN Security Council on Thursday released a statement reiterating its "full and unanimous support for the peace process in Colombia."
* The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is set to hold its largest exercise in decades, with approximately 90,000 forces slated to participate, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli said on Thursday.
* The Kremlin on Friday said there was no prospect of reviving the Black Sea grain deal and that alternative routes for shipping Ukrainian grain carried huge risks.
* The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted a test of its underwater nuclear weapon system in the eastern waters, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday.
* Russia called for restraint and diplomacy on Friday after Iran and Pakistan this week carried out drone and missile strikes on militant bases on each other's territory.
* The Kremlin said on Friday that it regretted Argentina's decision not to join the BRICS bloc, and that it hoped that Buenos Aires would reconsider.
* Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar has summoned a meeting of top civilian and military leaders on Friday for a national security review following the standoff with Iran, Information Minister Murtaza Solangi told Reuters.
* The Philippines and Canada signed a memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation on Friday, a move which Manila's defence minister said could later lead to a troop pact between the two countries.
* A total of 24,762 Palestinians have been killed and 62,108 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.
* In a pressing appeal issued on Thursday, a senior United Nations (UN) humanitarian official urged the international community to increase support for Niger, a nation grappling with a severe multifaceted crisis.
* Lawmakers in Britain voted in favor of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill, designed to confirm that Rwanda is a safe third country for relocating individuals there.
* Alper Gezeravci, a 44-year-old fighter pilot and colonel in the Turkish Air Force, on Friday began his two-week journey on the International Space Station (ISS) with a lift-off at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in the U.S. state Florida at about 00:49 a.m. local time in Türkiye (2149 GMT Thursday).
* New Zealand saw 249,500 migrant arrivals and 122,100 migrant departures in the one year to November 2023, the highest on record for an annual period, the statistics department Stats NZ said on Friday.
* Japan's core consumer prices rose 3.1 pct in 2023 from the previous year, marking the fastest growth in 41 years, the government said in a report on Friday.
* The Philippines' overall balance of payments (BOP) posted a surplus of 642 million USD in December 2023, higher than the 612 million dollars recorded in the same month 2022, the country's central bank said Friday.
* Spain received more than 84 million foreign tourists in 2023, a 1% increase compared to the pre-pandemic, Tourism Minister Jordi Hereu said on Friday.
* Germany's hospitality industry increased its real turnover in 2023 by 2.6 percent year-on-year, according to an estimate published by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Thursday.
* Three Boeing 737 Max 9 planes belonging to Indonesia's budget airline Lion Air have been allowed to fly again after having been temporarily grounded following the Alaska Airlines incident earlier this month.
