* The United Nations' humanitarian action is on the brink of collapse, with needs higher than ever and funding for the UN system's humanitarian operations shrinking, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said to the UN General Assembly on the UN80 Initiative on Wednesday.
* The U.S. government's partial shutdown has hit day 14 on Tuesday, with no signs of abating. The main issue is the deadlock between Congressional Democrats and Republicans over healthcare funding, and neither side is willing to cave.
* China took export controls on rare earths and related items in accordance with the law, which are consistent with international practice, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Wednesday.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin met Syrian interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Moscow to discuss bilateral relations and the Middle East situation, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
* Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Belgrade on Wednesday to discuss Serbia's path towards joining the European Union (EU).
* Russia is ready to increase gas supplies to Europe if requested, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday. Speaking at the Russian Energy Week, Novak said Europe's rejection of Russian gas has negatively impacted the region's economy.
* Russian natural gas deliveries to Hungary have reached a new record this year, exceeding 6 billion cubic meters so far, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Wednesday in a post on Facebook. He said the volume amounts to more than 21 million cubic meters per day and is "critical for Hungary's energy security."
* U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he has authorized the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, a move that was decried by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
* Norway aims to provide 2 billion Norwegian kroner (198 million USD) to a NATO-coordinated aid package for Ukraine, the Norwegian government said in a press release on Wednesday.
* Lithuania plans to allocate 5.38 percent of its gross domestic product to defense next year, Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said on Wednesday.
* Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday that Brazil and the United States will hold their formal bilateral meeting on Thursday to discuss additional tariffs imposed by Washington on Brazilian products.
* Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned on Wednesday that if Hamas does not demilitarize and return all bodies of hostages it holds, Israel will return to fighting. The threat came on the sixth day of a fragile ceasefire, as Hamas handed over the remains of two more hostages and said they were the last bodies in its custody.
* Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said Wednesday that the current ceasefire in Gaza remains fragile and warned of complex challenges ahead in implementing the next phase of the peace plan.
* Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met on Wednesday in Cairo with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council, to discuss the latest developments in Sudan and ongoing regional and international efforts to end the conflict, the Egyptian Presidency said in a statement.
* Repairs are expected soon to restore off-site power to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday.
* The world is in the throes of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution," driven by a surge in artificial intelligence (AI) investment expected to top 500 billion USD this year, World Economic Forum (WEF) President Borge Brende said on Wednesday.
* Twenty-six major agreements worth about 3.12 billion USD were signed on the first day of the "Dushanbe Invest 2025" International Investment Forum, the Khovar news agency reported Wednesday, citing Tajikistan's State Committee on Investments and State Property Management.
* Foreign nationals made 7.246 million visits to China in the third quarter of 2025 under visa-free policies, marking a 48.3 percent year-on-year increase, the National Immigration Administration (NIA) said on Thursday. Visa-free entries accounted for 72.2 percent of all entries made by foreign nationals, the NIA said.
* The number of foreign visitors to Japan between January and September rose to around 31.65 million, marking the first time on record that the number surpassed 30 million in the first nine months of the year, official data showed.
* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate from its earlier estimates of 6.4 percent to 6.6 percent for the financial year 2025-2026.
* Kyrgyzstan's economy grew by 10 percent in the first nine months of 2025, according to data released Wednesday by the National Statistical Committee of the country.The country's gross domestic product (GDP) totaled over 14.2 billion USD in January-September 2025, up 10 percent compared with the same period of 2024.
* Portugal recorded three consecutive years of economic growth alongside declining pollutant emissions between 2021 and 2023 for the first time since 1995, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported Wednesday.
* Australia's unemployment rate rose to the highest level in almost four years in September, according to official data published on Thursday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised its economic forecast for Bangladesh, projecting a lower growth rate of 4.9 percent for FY26 (July 2025 to June 2026), down from its earlier estimate of 5.4 percent.
* Pakistan's textile exports in the first quarter of the current 2025-26 fiscal year went up by 5.62 percent as compared to the corresponding period of last year, officials from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Wednesday.
* The Port of Los Angeles (POLA) handled 883,053 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in September, down 7.5 percent year on year, the port authority said Wednesday.
* The cargo volume of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) reached approximately 37.9 million tonnes in 2024, with a projected growth of around 20 percent in 2025, Alexei Likhachev, director general of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, said Tuesday.
* Australia faces an escalating bushfire threat as climate change is driving extreme wildfire events worldwide, said a new global report released Thursday. According to the second annual State of Wildfires report, climate change has increased areas burnt by wildfires by a magnitude of 30 times in some regions in the world.
* No casualties or major damage have been reported after a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia's Papua province on Thursday. According to the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the quake's epicenter was located about 32 km southeast of the Sarmi district at a depth of 18 km.
* The number of influenza cases in Japan during the week of Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 was 1.5 times higher than the previous week, data from the Japan Institute for Health Security (JIHS) showed.
