* Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos on Saturday strongly condemned the assassination of Negros Oriental province governor Roel Degamo, vowing his administration will bring those behind the killing to justice.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his visiting Latvian counterpart, Egils Levits, on Friday signed a joint declaration confirming Latvia's support for Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic integration, Zelensky's press service reported.
* Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu paid a rare to Russia's forces deployed in Ukraine, the country's defence ministry said on Saturday.
* Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday said her meeting with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan had gone well and the two governments would work to rebuild "excellent" ties.
* The Iranian nuclear chief said on Saturday Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have agreed to regulate their relations on the basis of the safeguards agreements.
* Twenty-two truckloads of aid from the World Food Programme and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) crossed into Northwest Syria from Türkiye on Friday, bringing the total of cross-border delivery to 557 trucks since Feb. 9 in the wake of massive earthquakes, said a UN spokesman.
* The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali commends the national transition authority for the unanimous, swift adoption of amendments to the electoral law, a UN spokesman said on Friday.
* Russia's Gazprom said it will ship 39.8 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Saturday, a volume broadly in line with recent days.
* Türkiye expected to raise its trade volume with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to 25 billion USD within five years, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday.
* The European Union has approved 110 million euros (about 116.6 million USD) for stabilization efforts in Somalia battling al-Shabab terrorists across the country.
* Arab interior ministers called for strengthening the fight against cybercrime as the 40th session of the Arab Interior Ministers Council concluded on Friday, according to an official statement.
* The Peruvian government terminated the duties of its consul general in Mexico City amid political tension between the two countries, official newspaper El Peruano reported Friday, citing a government resolution.
*Japan's space agency on Saturday postponed the launch of its flagship H3 rocket by a day to Tuesday due to bad weather, after aborting a launch last month due to technical trouble.
* Sri Lanka's decision to raise interest rates shows the crisis-hit country's commitment to reducing inflation quickly towards single-digit levels, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Saturday.
* Brunei is expected to see more than 10,000 cruise ship passengers this year, the country's Tourism Development Department under the Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism said on Friday.
* The accumulated amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ireland totaled 1.32 trillion euros (1.4 trillion USD) as of the end of 2022, the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Friday. This represents an increase of 89.2 billion euros or 7.24 percent compared with the end of 2021.
* Flooding resulting from days of torrential rain has forced almost 40,000 people to flee their homes in Malaysia's southern Johor state, bordering Singapore, and at least four people have died during the past week, officials said on Saturday.
* An earthquake of magnitude 6.9 struck Kermadec Islands region in New Zealand on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. The quake was at a depth of 152 km (94 miles). The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre earlier estimated the magnitude at 6.6 and a depth at 183 km.
* The death toll of a fuel storage explosion on Friday night in the northern part of Jakarta rose to 17, an official said early Saturday.
