* Thailand is working to boost exports of agricultural and processed food products to other Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) countries, in an effort to increase business stability and income for farmers, a Thai official said on Friday.
* The United States and other top powers need to use their influence with Israel to end the ongoing "carnage" in Gaza, Jordan's Prime Minister, Bisher al Khasawaneh, said on Friday.
* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday urged the UN Security Council to press for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means.
* U.S. President Joe Biden still believes in the promise and possibility of a two-state solution in the Middle East, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday.
* Authorities at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi Friday announced that no flights will be allowed to land or take off at the airport for over two hours daily until the country's Republic Day celebrations on Jan. 26.
* U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed a stopgap funding bill that will keep the government open into early March, avoiding a partial shutdown that would have taken effect in just a few hours.
* The global economy is moving from normalization seen at the end of last year, to a new "non-normality", according to Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB).
* Almost 25,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza since Oct. 7 last year, the majority women and children, a United Nations (UN) official said Friday.
* Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Dutch counterpart Hanke Bruins Slot on Friday exchanged views on bilateral ties and Iran's recent missile strike on "a base of Israeli intelligence service Mossad" in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
* An attack targeted a residential building in the Mezzeh neighborhood west of Damascus on Saturday and was likely caused by an Israeli missile, according to the state news agency SANA.
* The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported on Friday that the United States and the United Kingdom launched airstrikes on Yemen's port city of Hodeidah late Friday night. The Houthi-run television did not disclose the specific targets or other details.
* UN humanitarians on Friday warned that the availability of water for drinking and domestic use in Gaza is shrinking each day.
* Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday that the government has decided to allocate a record 17.5 billion hryvnias (about 464 million USD) to fortify the country's defense lines.
* Poland has met the final conditions needed to gain access to 76 billion euros ($83 billion) in funds from the European Union's 2021-2027 budget, a minister said on Friday, but Brussels said it was still assessing the situation.
* The International Monetary Fund's board approved a first review of Ghana's loan programme on Friday, allowing for the immediate disbursement of about $600 million under its $3 billion bailout programme, it said on Friday.
* The weekly inflation of Pakistan, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), surged by 44.64 percent on a year-on-year basis, said official statistics.
* A total of 392 illegal immigrants stranded in Tunisia embarked on a home return in the past three days, reported the Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) on Friday.
* International tourism numbers are set to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, according to data published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on Friday.
* Sri Lanka's digital revolution is in full swing, with mobile phone penetration exceeding 150 percent and Internet usage skyrocketing to 52 percent, a state minister said on Friday.
* The first flight of NASA's commercial lunar delivery service carrying agency science and technology, as well as other customer payloads intended for the Moon, has come to an end, NASA confirmed on Friday.
* Iran has successfully launched its Sorayya satellite into orbit, Iranian state media reported on Saturday. They said the satellite, which belongs to the Iranian Space Organisation, was launched and put into a 750 kilometre orbit.
* Parts of Western Australia on Saturday were set to swelter through an "extreme" heatwave, raising the risk of bushfires in the vast state, the nation's weather forecaster said.
