* US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met bilaterally with senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Africa and Singapore on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) finance meetings in Indonesia, the Treasury Department said on Saturday.
* Argentine Economy Minister Silvina Batakis on Friday urged Group of 20 (G20) member countries to seek joint solutions to rising inflation worldwide.
* Sri Lanka's Supreme Court issued an order on Friday barring former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country without approval of the court until July 28.
* US President Joe Biden will discuss regional missile and defence capabilities on Saturday when he meets Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, where he will be seeking to integrate Israel as part of a new axis largely driven by shared concerns over Iran, said a senior administration official.
* Agreements on the export of Ukrainian grain would not lead to resumed Russia-Ukraine negotiations, said Leonid Slutsky, a Russian lawmaker who has taken part in peace talks with Kyiv.
* The EU's executive proposed new sanctions on Russia, including an import ban on Russian gold. EU governments must still sign off on the measures, expected as early as next week.
* The United States on Friday applauded efforts by Lebanon and Israel seeking to reach a decision on maritime boundaries and said it remains committed to facilitating the ongoing negotiations that will help determine oil and gas resources.
* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday stressed the need for the US government to regularize the status of Mexican migrants who have been working in the United States for many years.
* Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi discussed food security and disruptions to energy supplies with US President Joe Biden as they met for the first time on Saturday on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Jeddah, the Egyptian presidency said.
* The Met Office of the United Kingdom (UK), the country's national weather service, on Friday issued a red warning for extreme heat, the highest-level alert, that covers parts of England next Monday and Tuesday.
* Eighty-four people are known to have died from the heat wave that has struck Spain since July 10, the Carlos III Health Institute, which reports to the Spanish Ministry of Health, said on Friday.
* Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed on Friday an electric power grids deal to boost economic cooperation.
* The United Nations is talking with the Egyptian government after Cairo announced a suspension of its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, said a UN spokesman on Friday.
* The Chinese mainland Friday reported 75 locally-transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 31 in Gansu, 16 in Anhui and 15 in Guangdong, the National Health Commission said Saturday.
* India on Saturday recorded over 20,000 new cases of COVID-19 for the third straight day, officials said. According to federal health ministry data released on Saturday morning, 20,044 new cases of COVID-19 were reported during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 43,730,071.
* An estimated 3.5 million people in Britain had COVID-19 in the latest week of available data, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Friday, up nearly 30% on the 2.7 million recorded in the previous week.
* Germany's Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach on Friday recommended a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose for people under the age of 60, contradicting the advice from a relevant national commission.
* The Czech Republic will begin offering a second COVID-19 boosters from July 18, recommending the shot for people over 60 and those in risk groups, the Health Ministry said.
* The BA.5 Omicron subvariant, now the dominant coronavirus strain in the United States, is four times more resistant to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study published in Nature.
* A separatist group on Saturday attacked civilians in Nduga district of Papua province in eastern Indonesia, killing 10 people and seriously injuring two others, provincial police spokesman Ahmad Mustafa Kamal told Xinhua via phone.
* At least 14 Mexican marines were killed on Friday when their helicopter crashed during the arrest and transport of a drug lord in northern Mexico, the Mexican Navy said.
