CARACAS, January 2. /TASS/: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro criticized the decision of his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei to refuse the country's accession to BRICS.

"By excluding Argentina from BRICS, he [Javier Milei] is acting against the Argentines. This is one of the most clumsy and stupid things that Miley has done against Argentina," Maduro said in a traditional interview with Le Monde diplomatique newspaper on January 1.

He added that such a decision "takes Argentina back to the 19th century."

JAKARTA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia received over 10.4 million foreign tourists in the first 11 months of 2023, marking a 110.8 percent increase compared to the same period in 2022, the Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced Tuesday.

November alone saw 917,410 foreign tourist arrivals, reflecting a 30.17 percent year-on-year growth, BPS Acting Head Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti told a press conference. However, the number represented a 6.24 percent decline compared to October 2023.

ASUNCION, Jan 2 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Paraguayan health authorities have issued an alert amid an increase in the number of Covid-19 and influenza cases that are pushing the national sanitary network to its limits, it was reported in Asunción.

According to the Health Surveillance report, there has been a sustained increase in Covid-19 cases, with 975 new infections last week, 70 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths, which represents a significant growth from 435 cases only three weeks ago.

TOKYO (AP) — A passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday and burst into flames, with five people on the smaller plane killed, officials said.

All 379 people on Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 got out safely before the plane was engulfed in flames, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed. The pilot of the coast guard plane escaped but the five crew members died, Saito said.

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. military said Sunday that its forces opened fire on Houthi rebels after they attacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea, killing several of them in an escalation of the maritime conflict linked to the war in Gaza. “We’re going to act in a self-defense going forward,” a White House official said.

LONDON (AP) — A Colorado mother suspected of killing two of her young children and injuring a third made an initial court appearance Monday in London, where she was arrested over the weekend.

Kimberlee Singler, 35, appeared in Westminster Magistrates’ Court facing extradition to the U.S. on two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, three counts of child abuse and one count of assault.

BEIJING, Jan 1 (Reuters) - China's President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulations with U.S. President Joe Biden on the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday.

Xi, in his message, said both countries have "weathered the storms and moved forward in general", which has enhanced the well-being of their peoples and contributed to world peace, stability and prosperity, according to the ministry statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In this time of war overseas, more Americans think foreign policy should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2024, with a new poll showing international concerns and immigration rising in importance with the public.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in the next year, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: Several OPEC+ countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, have begun voluntarily reducing their oil production by an aggregate additional volume of 2.2 mln barrels per day (bpd) in January. The policy will be in force throughout the first quarter and, depending on market conditions, the petroleum producers’ cartel may begin progressively returning reduced volumes to the market.

PARIS (AP) — France saw fewer of the car burnings that usually blight the arrival of a new year as the Olympic host country celebrated the start of 2024, the interior minister said Monday.

The 380 arrests made nationwide overnight was a 10% drop compared with a year ago, said Gerald Darmanin, citing preliminary early morning figures.

Authorities counted 745 vehicle fires, also 10% fewer than last year, Darmanin said.

About 40 police officers suffered slight injuries, a 40% drop on last year, he added.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John Fetterman acknowledges having “dark conversations” about harming himself before he hit “the emergency brake” and sought treatment for depression.

He remembers thinking about his three school-age kids. “I can’t be a blueprint for my children. I can’t let them be left alone or not to understand why he would have done that,” the first-term Pennsylvania Democrat told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in a deeply personal and introspective interview taped before the broadcast that aired Sunday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (Reuters) - The Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier will return to its home port, the U.S. Navy said on Monday, ending its deployment to the eastern Mediterranean, which started in support of Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.

The nuclear-powered Ford, the Navy's newest carrier with over 4,000 personnel and eight squadrons of aircraft, became a powerful symbol of American support by rushing closer to Israel after the Palestinian militant group's attack.