Asia Bahrain 394.000 visitors have been registered in state-run heritage sites in January-August 2026, with the Bahrain Fort accounting for 246.409, nearly two thirds of the total, and foreign visitors prevailed with the presence of 187.567 people
Asia Pakistan Free mobile SIM cards with roaming internet packages will be offered by the government to citizens making the Haj in 2024; pilgrims will also be given abayas, with a Pakistani flag on the back, and everyone will be given 13kg suitcases
Europe Serbia Novak Djokovic and his Serbian teammates at the Davis Cup finals sang a song seen by many as support for so-called Greater Serbia, calling for the Serbian tricolour to be flown over parts of neighbouring Kosovo and Montenegro
Europe Italy The European Commission approved Italy's €1,7 billion state aid mechanism to support photovoltaic installations, part of the Instrument for Recovery and Resilience and part of the strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions increasing renewable energy
Asia Malaysia The country will grant Chinese citizens a 30-day visa waiver from 1 December this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Malaysia and China
Europe Liechtenstein Liechtenstein and Switzerland will improve cooperation and protection of gamblers with agreement to exchange data on gambling suspensions; until now, people banned from gambling in one of the two countries could still access casinos in the other country
Europe Kosovo A group of young people from Belgrade and Pristina has created a new dictionary highlighting how much Serbs and Albanians have in common, with over 2.000 entries of shared words and surnames bridging ethnic and national divides
Europe France Smoking will be banned on all the country's beaches, in public parks, forests and near schools, after Emmanuel Macron promised to create 'the first tobacco-free generation'; 7.200 smoke-free zones already exist in France
Africa Sierra Leone Eugenia Kargbo, 35, has been appointed as Freetown's city heating manager and is one of seven women appointed worldwide to help cities adapt to extreme heat, the first on the African continent
Africa Ghana The country has declared a 46-day visa-on-arrival regime for visitors, from 1 December 2023 to 15 January 2024, part of government's ambitious 10-year 'Beyond Return' campaign designed to encourage Africans in the diaspora to reconnect with Ghana
Africa Chad The campaign leading up to the referendum scheduled for 17 December began; citizens will be asked to vote for or against a new fundamental law, between a centralised, unitary form of state and one that provides for federalism
Asia Sri Lanka Sri Lanka's garment exports continued their downward trend, falling 20% year-on-year to $330,95 million, according to data compiled by industry body Joint Apparel Association Forum
Africa Mauritius Mauritian Wildlife Foundation has signed an agreement with US-based biotechnology and genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences to help bring back to life the dodo, an iconic bird that used to live on Mauritius, extinct for more than 300 years
Africa Tunisia Nejib Guesmi, a Tunisian researcher, has developed 12 new types of transparent plastics made of non-polluting biological materials