US President Trump said he was happy with NATO allies' rising spending on defense, hailing a "rocket-ship" increase since he took office. "Tremendous progress has been made and NATO's much stronger," Trump told reporters as he met NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg ahead of alliance's 70th-anniversary-celebrations in Washington. "It's a rocket ship up," he said of the spending. "People are paying and I'm very happy."

India will push to blacklist Pakistan over terrorism funding at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenary meeting, following the attack in Pulwama last week, as part of a number of economic punitive measures it's taking against the neighbouring country. Pakistan is currently on the FATF grey list. The meeting is taking place on February 17-22 in Paris.

The United States will stop complying with a landmark nuclear pact with Russia as soon as this weekend after last-ditch talks with Moscow to save it fell flat, a senior U.S. arms control official said on Thursday. The two sides who met on the sidelines of a P5 meeting of nuclear powers, said afterwards that the two countries had failed to bridge their differences.