AUSTRIA: Talks on forming a new three-party government collapsed today as the smallest of the prospective coalition partners pulled the plug on the negotiations.

The talks had dragged on since President Alexander Van der Bellen tasked conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer in October with putting together a new government. That decision came after all other parties refused to work with the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which in September won a national election for the first time.

SOUTH KOREA: Around 240 people were rescued or evacuated after a fire broke out at a large commercial building in the city of Seongnam today.

More than 260 firefighters and 80 vehicles were deployed to the scene of the blaze, which was extinguished about an hour-and-a-half after it was first reported during the late afternoon, according to the Gyeonggi provincial fire department.

MYANMAR: The military rulers have enacted a new cybersecurity law imposing wide-ranging controls on the flow of information, according to a text of the measure published by local media today.

The legislation, which came into force on Wednesday, mainly targets means of communications and providers of services such as virtual private networks that can help evade network blockages. 

MONTENEGRO: A top-level meeting looked for ways today to curb illegal weapons after a a gunman shot dead 12 people.

An emergency session of the National Security Council was expected to call for a new gun law and urgent actions to confiscate what are believed to be abundant illegal weapons in possession of Montenegro's 620,000 citizens.