* The Lao government has instructed all departments and local authorities to resolve the ongoing economic and financial difficulty and ease people's hardship.
* Myanmar's National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) on Wednesday extended the state of emergency in the Southeast Asian country for six more months, the council's information team said.
* The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday warned that halting funding to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency would entail "catastrophic consequences" for people in war-torn Gaza.
* Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have confirmed they are joining the BRICS bloc after being invited last year, South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said on Wednesday.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit NATO-member Turkey to meet with President Tayyip Erdogan on Feb. 12, a Turkish official said on Wednesday.
* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will visit Egypt next month in a bid to restore ties after more than a decade of fractured relations, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday citing Turkish officials familiar with the matter.
* All states have an obligation to stop funding and facilitating Israel's military actions in Gaza after the World Court made clear those actions could be genocidal, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said on Wednesday.
* India has deployed at least a dozen warships east of the Red Sea to provide security against pirates and has investigated more than 250 vessels as Western powers focus on attacks by Yemen's Houthi group, Indian officials said.
* EU member states want to launch a Red Sea naval mission by mid-February to protect ships from attacks by Yemen's Houthi militia and could decide its command structure on Wednesday, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
* Norway, a top donor to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), is urging countries that have cut funding to the agency to consider the consequences of their actions on the population in Gaza, its foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday.
* A Hamas delegation will visit Egypt on Wednesday to discuss the framework agreement on a truce in the Gaza Strip issued by the recent Paris meeting, a Palestinian source said on Tuesday.
* Iran will respond to any threat from the United States, Tehran's Revolutionary Guards' chief Hossein Salami said on Wednesday, as Washington prepares its response to the killing of American servicemen by presumed Tehran-aligned militants.
* Yemen's Houthi group said on Wednesday it would keep up attacks on U.S. and British warships in the Red Sea in what it called acts of self defence, stoking fears of long-term disruptions to world trade.
* At least 26,900 Palestinians have been killed and 65,949 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7, the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement on Wednesday.
* The Lebanese army said Wednesday in a statement that it foiled the attempt by around 900 Syrian nationals to enter Lebanon through illegal land crossings in January.
* An Iranian consular official said on Wednesday that 28 countries' citizens planning to visit Iran as tourists will not need a visa as of Feb. 4.
* Greece rescued 57 migrants and recovered the bodies of two people, a woman and a man, close to a rocky shore on the island of Lesbos, the coastguard said on Wednesday.
* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday that its projections assumed that the Gaza war would continue with "high intensity" through the first quarter of 2024, and that hostilities would then slowly decline.
* Sweden said on Tuesday it has temporarily halted funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees following Israel's allegations that its staff participated in the Hamas's attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
* Thailand's economic growth slowed in the final quarter of 2023, weighted down by softening tourist expenditures and merchandise export value due to muted global demand, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) said on Wednesday.
* Italy's economy grew by 0.7 percent year-on-year in 2023 after calendar and seasonal adjustment, according to Italy's National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on Tuesday.
* The Spanish economy grew by 2.5 percent in 2023, according to data released by the Spanish National Statistics Office (INE) on Tuesday.
* Egypt's cabinet approved on Wednesday a 15% reduction in the state budget's investment plan for the fiscal year 2023/2024, according to a governmental statement.
* The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday it had made progress in discussions with Egypt of the policy and financing package that would back a resumption of disbursements of its $3 billion loan with the country.
* The number of foreign tourists visiting Portugal hit a record of over 18 million in 2023 as it rose 19% from the previous year and 11% when compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, official data showed on Wednesday.
* The International Monetary Fund has cut its 2023 GDP growth forecast for the oil and gas exporters of the Gulf Cooperation Council to 0.5%, it said in a report on Wednesday, down from 1.5% projected in its October outlook.
* Sri Lanka expects to pull in nearly 50% more tourists this year, a minister said on Wednesday, as the tropical island nation, famous for its ancient temples and golden beaches, pins its hopes on tourism to emerge from a long financial crisis.
* A temperature of 48.8 degrees Celsius recorded on the Italian island of Sicily two years ago is the hottest ever seen in Europe, the United Nations' weather agency said Tuesday
