* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday welcomed the two-month extension of the nationwide truce in Yemen.
* The United Nations on Wednesday granted Turkey's request to change its name from Turkey to Türkiye, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters.
* The United States on Friday returned a part of its military base in central Seoul to the Republic of Korea, according to the Office for Government Policy Coordination.
* Croatia has fulfilled the necessary conditions and is ready to adopt the euro on Jan. 1, 2023, the European Commission (EC) has said in a conclusion in its assessment report, which will pave the way for Croatia to become the 20th member of the euro area.
* Iran vowed on Friday to show an "immediate response" to any move against it by the United States and European countries at the U.N. nuclear watchdog IAEA, Iranian state media reported.
* International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has arrived in Israel and will meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, according to a statement from Bennett's office on Thursday.
* NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the alliance was in touch with Turkey to find a "united way" forward to address Ankara's concerns over Sweden and Finland's bid to join the pact.
* More work needs to be done on the rule of law in Poland, the European Commission president said on Thursday during a visit to Warsaw after Brussels approved billions of euros in COVID-19 economic recovery funds for the country.
* Foreign investors are welcome to further expand their businesses in China and share the benefits brought by China's development, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.
* US employment increased more than expected in May, while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.6%, signs of a tight labor market that could keep the Federal Reserve's foot on the brake pedal to cool demand.
* Brazil's economic growth accelerated in the first quarter, official data showed on Thursday, as the receding impact of the pandemic boosted consumer spending and services activity in Latin America's largest economy.
* The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, on Thursday agreed to significant oil output increases in July amid calls for the alliance to help contain the surging oil prices.
* More Italians are employed using temporary labor contracts than at any other time since record-keeping began 45 years ago, the government's official data agency reported Wednesday.
* Nepal resumed selling surplus electricity to Indian buyers on Thursday through a power exchange market in India after a moratorium of nearly six months.
* Venezuela's oil exports last month fell to the lowest level since October 2020 as repairs at the country's main oil port added to delays shipping cargoes, documents from state-run PDVSA and vessel tracking data showed.
* Hungary is working to reach an agreement with the European Union by the end of the year on gaining access to billions of euros worth of pandemic recovery funding, state news agency MTI cited the country's new European affairs minister as saying.
* Turkey's annual inflation rate jumped to a 24-year high of 73.5% in May, fuelled by the conflict in Ukraine, rising energy prices and a tumbling lira -- though the figure was slightly lower than economists had feared.
* At least 647 Norwegian oil workers plan to strike from June 12 if state-brokered wage mediation fails, labour unions said on Friday, putting some crude output at risk of shutdown although gas may not be affected.
* Russian oil production C-RU-OUT including gas condensate grew 5% in May compared with April to 43.1 million tonnes, the newspaper Vedomosti reported, citing an industry source.
* More than 200 firefighters and equipment from Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Romania and Norway will be stationed in Greece to provide immediate support in the event of major wildfires during the summer, the European Commission said on Thursday.
* Turkey's consumer price index (CPI) surged by 73.5 percent year-on-year in May, hitting a record high since October 1998, the Turkish Statistical Institute announced Friday.
* The Romanian Coast Guard intercepted a fishing boat containing dozens of migrants from Turkey early on Thursday morning.
* China reported 157 new coronavirus cases on June 2, of which 37 were symptomatic and 120 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Friday.
* The Philippines has detected COVID-19 Omicron sub-variant BA.5 from two people in the same household in a province north of the capital, an official from the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) said on Friday.
* The White House expects vaccinations of young children to begin in earnest as early as June 21, if federal authorities approve their use in coming weeks, White House COVID response coordinator Ashish Jha said.
* An estimated 2 million people in Britain have lingering COVID-19 symptoms more than four weeks after their initial coronavirus infection, a latest survey showed.
* Moderna said it has agreed to push back some COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to the European Union by several months to later in 2022 or early next year.
* The European Investment Bank (EIB) has committed 75 million euros ($80 million) to finance construction of a new facility in Senegal that will produce COVID-19 and other vaccines for use across Africa.
* Deaths on the African continent from COVID-19 are expected to fall by nearly 94 percent in 2022 compared to last year, modelling by the World Health Organization (WHO) showed.
* The current monkeypox outbreak in Europe is "not a public health emergency" presently, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Thursday.
* Health authorities in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) have detected the third case of monkeypox in a man who has recently returned from Europe.
* Latvia has recorded its first confirmed case of monkeypox, the government's Center for Disease Prevention and Control said in a statement on Friday.
