* Bolivia's President Luis Arce arrived in Caracas on Thursday to sign bilateral cooperation agreements with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro.
* The global trend towards multipolarity will intensify, and those who choose to resist this shift will ultimately lose and face new challenges, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
* US President Joe Biden reportedly will announce his decision to run for reelection as soon as next week. Multiple US media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Associated Press and Bloomberg, reported the news on Thursday.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the OPEC+ deal to cap oil production with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, in a telephone call on Friday, the Kremlin said.
* Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday that recent actions and rhetoric from Ukraine show that Russia needs to continue what it calls the "special military operation" in Ukraine.
* Ukraine pressed allies for long-range weapons, jets and ammunition as the United States hosted a meeting at the Ramstein air base in Germany on Friday to discuss stepped up support to fight against the conflict with Russia.
* The Kremlin on Friday said that it was monitoring reports of a possible ban on exports to Russia by Western countries, and that new sanctions would hit the global economy.
* The first trucks carrying Ukrainian food products including corn and eggs were bound to start transit via Poland to the Netherlands on Friday morning, a Polish customs official said, as rules allowing the shipments took effect overnight.
* Romania will not unilaterally ban the import of Ukrainian grain and will wait for the European Commission to enforce measures to help central and eastern European farmers, Agriculture Minister Petre Daea said on Friday.
* Hungary's Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy called on the European Union (EU) on Thursday to introduce progressive subsidies for the transportation of Ukrainian grain in the EU to protect farmers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
* UN agencies on Thursday expressed concern over the impact of fighting on civilians in Sudan, where the humanitarian situation was already dire.
* Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) declared a 72-hour truce on Friday, despite continuous skirmishes with the Sudanese Army.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for a three-day ceasefire in Sudan to allow trapped civilians to flee.
* The World Health Organization said on Friday that 413 people had been killed and 3,551 injured in Sudan since intense fighting broke out there six days ago.
* Germany's first priority at the moment in Sudan is for both sides to agree a ceasefire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr so people can be evacuated, said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Berlin on Friday.
* Spanish military airplanes are on standby and ready to evacuate some 60 Spanish nationals and about 20 civilians from other countries from Sudan's capital Khartoum amid armed conflict there, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told a news conference in Berlin on Friday.
* The foreign ministers of Jordan and Iran agreed on Thursday via a phone call to soon hold a meeting to discuss ways to improve their bilateral relations, said the Jordanian foreign ministry.
* South Africa would like to increase its cooperation with Namibia in various areas, including the energy sector, to grow the economy of both countries, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
* Yemen's government on Thursday called for an international investigation into the deadly stampede in the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa, as the death toll has grown from 80 to at least 87.
* British businesses reported their busiest month in a year and consumers turned more confident, according to surveys published on Friday that added to signs of a recovery in the economy that has so far defied forecasts of a recession.
* Kazakhstan ramped up oil exports bypassing Russia in the first quarter of 2023 as it seeks to reduce its dependency on its vast neighbour, data from industry sources and Refinitiv showed.
* A 7 billion euro (7.7 billion USD) deal to connect offshore wind farms in the North Sea to the German energy grid has been signed by Siemens Energy and Spain's Dragados Offshore, the two companies announced Thursday.
* Hungary has extended price caps on staple food products until June 30 as part of its efforts to combat inflation and alleviate the impact of rising food prices on its citizens, announced Gergely Gulyas, head of the Prime Minister's Office, at a press conference on Thursday.
* Turkey on Thursday started the delivery of natural gas from its Black Sea field, as part of its flagship project aiming at reducing the country's dependence on energy imports.
* Rail workers went on strike across Germany on Friday, mostly bringing national operator Deutsche Bahn's services DBN.UL to a halt in the morning hours, as protests over pay in Europe's largest economy widened.
* The United Nations children's fund UNICEF said on Friday that 76 percent of children under one in Cambodia had received childhood vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
* Valid immunization coverage in Bangladesh remains high, with almost 84 percent of children receiving their vaccines by 12 months of age, according to a new report published in Dhaka Thursday by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
* A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off North Sulawesi province in central Indonesia on Friday, the meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency said.
* Europe experienced the hottest summer on record in 2022 with several extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and extensive wildfires, according to a report published by the Bonn-based Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) on Thursday.
* Unknown gunmen stormed a homestead in the South African city of Pietermaritzburg and ambushed a family, killing ten people, police said. Police did not give a motive for the shooting.
