* Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni said in Battambang on Saturday that the government's successful COVID-19 control has enabled the country to resume all socio-economic activities with confidence.
* US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi met on Saturday for the first in-person talks since October after attending a G20 summit.
* The Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia's parliament, on Friday barred British diplomats, including the ambassador, from entering its building.
* Germany will deploy troops with the EU's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia for the first time in a decade as concerns mount about instability from the Ukraine war spilling over to the Western Balkans, the parliament in Berlin decided on Friday.
* Sri Lanka's Prime Minister on Saturday summoned an emergency meeting of political party leaders after protesters stormed the president's house in the commercial capital Colombo amid growing anger over the government's handling of an economic crisis.
* Snap elections loom in Bulgaria amid surging inflation and a diplomatic dispute with Russia after the centrist PP party of outgoing Prime Minister Kiril Petkov failed to muster enough support in parliament to form a new coalition.
* Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas' liberal Reform Party announced on Friday it reached an agreement to form a majority coalition in the parliament, following a month of negotiations.
* Fitch Ratings on Friday affirmed Greece's credit rating at "BB" with a positive outlook, the same as the previous rating in January. That rating stands two notches below investment grade, which Greece has not achieved since 2010.
* Russia on Friday signaled an end to a long-running U.N. aid operation into northwest Syria from Turkey after vetoing a one-year extension and then failing in its own push for a six-month renewal and greater international reconstruction efforts.
* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday it had held productive discussions during a staff visit to Egypt on economic policies and reforms to be supported by an extended fund facility.
* Morocco and the European Union have agreed to cooperate more closely in combatting human trafficking after at least 23 migrants died during an attempted mass border crossing from Morocco into the neighbouring Spanish enclave of Melilla, Spain and Morocco said in a joint statement on Friday.
* The upper and lower houses of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat and Bundestag, respectively) both approved on Friday the use of more coal-fired power plants to replace gas use in electricity generation.
* The European Central Bank (ECB) on Friday published the results of a climate risk stress test of major banks in the eurozone and urged them to better factor climate-related risks into their credit risk models.
* Top trade officials of Canada, the United States and Mexico announced Friday the three North American countries will work to ensure trade flows in emergency situations.
* Ratings agency Fitch downgraded Turkey's debt rating to "B" from "B+" on Friday, citing increasing inflation and broad concerns about the economy, from a widening current account deficit to interventionist policies.
* Cyprus and the European Commission on Friday signed agreements in the context of the European Cohesion Fund worth 1.8 billion euros (1.83 billion USD) over the 2021-2027 period, an official statement said.
* A total of 13,132 new electric cars were sold in Ireland in the first half of this year (H1), up 61.8 percent when compared with the same period last year, the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Friday.
* China's commercial hub Shanghai faces a "relatively high" risk of further community transmission of COVID-19, Lei Zhenglong, an official at the National Health Commission, said.
* Russia has registered a total of 815,267 COVID-related deaths since the start of the pandemic in the country in April 2020, the state statistics service Rosstat said.
* India recorded 18,840 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 43,604,394, showed data released by the federal health ministry on Saturday.
* Italy's labour market was hit harder than those of most of its European Union peers during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 and 2021, widening the employment gap compared with the EU average, national statistics bureau ISTAT said on Friday.
* The Republic of Korea recorded 20,286 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Friday compared to 24 hours ago, taking the total number of infections to 18,491,435, the health authorities said Saturday.
* Malaysia reported 3,589 new COVID-19 infections, as of midnight on Friday, bringing the national total to 4,589,911, according to the health ministry.
* The reinfection period of COVID-19 for Australians has been advised to be reduced significantly to 28 days, according to a statement from a medical expert committee.
* An estimated 7.2 million people have been severely affected following devastating flash floods which began in May with a second wave starting around June 15 in northeastern districts of Bangladesh, the United Nations said Wednesday.
* The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday warned that the ongoing drought condition in the Horn of Africa (HOA) will worsen over July-September dry period.
* The US Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it has granted full approval to Pfizer PFE.N and BioNTech's BNTX.O COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years.
* South Africa's Afrigen Biologics Limited said that it will collaborate with US government researchers to develop mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.
