* Lao government instructed an ad-hoc committee to consider pressing consumption issues including rising goods prices and inflation, and work with relevant authorities to come up with short and long-term scientific solutions.
* President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia needed to act quickly to counter what he called the West's "economic aggression" and that Moscow would expand ties with countries in Eurasia, Latin America and Africa.
* Japan will end its COVID-19 border controls for all people arriving in the country on Saturday, with an influx of travelers expected during the Golden Week string of holidays, the government said Friday.
* South Sudan said on Friday it hopes to use the recently extended ceasefire agreement in Sudan to push for face-to-face talks between the warring parties.
* Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with his French counterpart Catherine Colonna on Thursday, and the two sides reiterated their commitment to peace and security in the region.
* Russia plans to greatly reduce the export of crude oil and oil products to Europe and reroute the saved amount to Asia, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday.
* German troops will take part in a small European Union training mission in Niger after the parliament in Berlin gave its final approval on Friday, deploying to a country seen as at risk of violence spilling over from neighbouring Mali.
* Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday Britain's plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda was a deal between two free nations which are safeguarding the safety of the people, adding it was wrong to call it a deportation.
* EU governments agreed on Friday to extend by a year the suspension of duties and quotas on imports from Ukraine to help its economy during the conflict with Russia.
* Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva held phone talks Thursday with his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernandez on bilateral ties and their countries' rejoining the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
* Iran's permanent ambassador to the United Nations (UN) said the "illegal" presence of foreign military forces, including those of the United States, in Syria constitutes a blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter, and is the main source of insecurity in the Arab state.
* Iran and Syria on Thursday signed a comprehensive memorandum of understanding (MoU) on enhancing cooperation in various sectors, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
* Tunisia and the European Union (EU) on Thursday held discussions on issues of common interest, including the joint fight against illegal migration and human trafficking.
* Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Damascus next week, a senior regional source close to the Syrian government told Reuters on Friday.
* Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager during clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian officials said.
* Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Friday that his government would introduce new laws to establish the country as a green economy, according to a statement from the Presidential Media Division.
* Coastguards have retrieved 41 bodies from Tunisian waters, a national guard official said on Friday, raising the number of victims of migrant shipwrecks off the country's coast to 210 in 10 days.
* Thirty-three soldiers were killed on Thursday in an attack against a military detachment in eastern Burkina Faso, the military said in a statement.
* The Federal Reserve issued a detailed and scathing assessment on Friday of its failure to identify problems and push for fixes at Silicon Valley Bank before the US lender's collapse, and promised tougher supervision and stricter rules for banks.
* Cambodia has sought investment funds of some 30 billion USD to carry out 150 prioritized infrastructure development projects for 2022-2030, the country's Minister of Public Works and Transport, Sun Chanthol, said here on Friday.
* The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Friday decided to maintain its ultralow interest rates at the conclusion of its two-day policy-setting meeting, the first held under new governor Kazuo Ueda.
* The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) plays a "vital role" in supporting oil market stability, the organization's chief said on Thursday, in an apparent defense of surprise output cuts earlier this month.
* Andriy Pyshnyy, chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), said on Thursday that Kiev expects to receive 42 billion USD in international aid this year, the government-run Ukrinform news agency reported.
* Italy's government on Friday won parliamentary backing for additional borrowing, after a first attempt resulted in a major setback for nationalist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
* The number of foreign tourists visiting Portugal surpassed 2.8 million from January through March, making it the best first quarter on record despite high global inflation and interest rates, data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) showed on Friday.
* Greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity and district heating sectors in Denmark will be "almost zero" in 2030, according to a report released by the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) on Friday.
* Norway plans to nationalise most of its gas pipeline network when many existing concessions expire in 2028, the oil and energy ministry said on Friday, to tighten control over key infrastructure.
* The World Bank has discussed a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Bangladesh, spanning from 2023 to 2027, and approved 1.25 billion USD financing in three new projects, the lender said Friday.
* Sri Lanka's inflation, measured by the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI), dropped to 35.3 percent in April, data showed on Friday.
* Turkey's central bank decided to keep its interest rate unchanged at 8.5 percent on Thursday ahead of the May 14 elections.
* Mainland Spain and Portugal have broken temperature records for April, as the Iberian neighbours swelter in an early-season heatwave that has exacerbated a long drought in some regions.
