FRANCE24 - Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels to Paris on Friday for talks with France’s Emmanuel Macron aimed at improving relations with Europe, after a war of words in 2017.
The lunch and talks at the Elysee Palace are expected to take in Syria and EU-Turkey relations, but Macron is also expected to voice concern over Erdogan’s post-coup purges.

FRANCE24 - Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels to Paris on Friday for talks with France’s Emmanuel Macron aimed at improving relations with Europe, after a war of words in 2017.
The lunch and talks at the Elysee Palace are expected to take in Syria and EU-Turkey relations, but Macron is also expected to voice concern over Erdogan’s post-coup purges.

BBC - A hot air balloon carrying tourists has crashed near the Egyptian city of Luxor, with one person killed and several injured, officials say.

About 20 people were on board when the accident occurred on Friday. The tourist who died was South African.

Reuters - North Korea agreed on Friday to hold official talks with the South next week, the first in more than two years, hours after the United States and South Korea delayed a military exercise amid a standoff over the North’s nuclear and missile programmes.

LIVESCIENCE - The first eclipse of 2018 will be a lunar one that comes at the very end of the month, on Jan. 31. 

It will be a total eclipse that involves the second full moon of the month, popularly referred to as a Blue Moon. Such a skywatching event hasn't happened for more than 150 years.

APRNEWS - Andy Murray needed only a couple of days in Australia to realize the hip problem that has kept him out of competitive tennis since Wimbledon was not going to improve in time for the season’s first major.

Murray, a five-time finalist at the event, withdrew from the Australian Open on Thursday, two days after pulling out of a tuneup event in Brisbane before his first match.

Reuters - Former world number one Maria Sharapova cruised past Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas and into the semi-finals of the Shenzhen Open in China on Thursday.

AFP - US President Donald Trump said overnight that high-level talks set for next week between North and South Korea are “a good thing,” while also seemingly taking credit for them.

REUTERS - President Vladimir Putin authorised the resumption of regular civilian flights from Russia to Cairo, according to a document published on the government’s website on Thursday.

The order was effective as of Jan 2.