As Americans prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve on Saturday, millions of people in countries where the clock had already struck midnight were ringing in 2023.
Zoom out: Here's a look at celebrations across the globe.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call late Friday asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution that calls on the International Court of Justice to issue a legal opinion on the consequences of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, Ukrainian and Israeli officials told Axios.
The big picture: Ukraine had voted in favor of the resolution during a UN committee vote but did not attend Friday's General Assembly vote "in order to give a chance to the relationship with Netanyahu," the Ukrainian official said.
Driving the news: The Vatican said in a statement that Benedict died in his residence at Mater Ecclesiae Monastery after his condition worsened earlier this month.
China on Friday named Qin Gang, its ambassador to the United States, as its new foreign minister.
The big picture: The appointment of Qin, widely considered a trusted aide of President Xi Jinping, comes as Beijing appears to be softening its tone and offering some concessions to the international community, Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports.
The Biden administration plans to send national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Israel in mid-January for talks with newly sworn-in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his government's policies, according to five Israeli and U.S. officials.
Why it matters: The White House is concerned about the new Israeli government's policies on the occupied West Bank — including plans to expand settlements and legalize outposts.
A Myanmar military court found Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of five counts of corruption on Friday, per AP.
The big picture: It's the final of a series of cases that the court has convicted Suu Kyi of in closed-door trials denounced as shams by rights groups since the military overthrew her democratically elected government in February 2021.
American forces and their allies killed a total of 686 ISIS suspects operating in Syria and Iraq this year, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said Thursday.
President Biden congratulated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the swearing-in of his new government in a statement on Thursday, while stressing that the U.S. will "oppose policies that endanger" the two-state solution or "contradict our mutual interests and values."
Why it matters: Biden's congratulatory statement sets out terms for relations with the most right-wing government in Israel's history, which was sworn in Thursday with Netanyahu returning to the prime minister's post 18 months after he was ousted.
