* The roadmap for Bangladesh's general election due in February next year will be announced next week. Election Commission Secretary Md Akhtar Ahmed said on Thursday that the roadmap will outline several key components, including schedules for dialogues with civil society members and journalists, timelines for amendments and reforms to existing electoral laws.
* Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda on Thursday submitted to the country's parliament, the Seimas, the nomination of Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) member Inga Ruginiene as prime minister, the Presidential Office said.
* A Cambodian defense spokesperson said on Wednesday afternoon that Thai armed forces had deployed barbed wire and tyres in a Cambodian border village, violating a ceasefire and consensus reached by the two countries.
* The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has never removed loudspeakers installed along the border with the Republic of Korea and is not willing to remove them, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday, citing a senior official's statement.
* U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday estimated that his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the U.S. state of Alaska has a 25 percent chance of not being successful.
* British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday at Downing Street in London, the Prime Minister's Office said.
* Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov on Thursday held talks with the defense ministers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, member states of the Confederation of Sahel States, the Russian Defense Ministry said on its official website.
* The Belarusian army has acquired a new batch of Su-30SM2, a modern multi-role military aircraft from Russia, the country's defense ministry said Thursday.
* Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), on Thursday met with visiting Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday.
* Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday he has approved the construction of 3,401 housing units for settlers in a particularly controversial area of the occupied West Bank.
* China will introduce a new visa category for young science and technology talents, following a decision by the State Council. Premier Li Qiang has signed a State Council decree to promulgate the decision to amend the country's regulation on the administration of foreigners' entries and exits.
* The government of the U.S. state of Florida on Thursday announced the plan to open a second detention facility to house undocumented immigrants.
* New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters reaffirmed the country's commitment to Pacific regionalism on Thursday.
* Israel's intensified attacks on residential areas in Gaza are causing a high number of casualties, UN humanitarians said Thursday.
* Israel's Mossad chief David Barnea visited Doha on Thursday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on a Gaza hostage deal, Israel's state-owned Kan TV reported.
* European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Thursday urged Israel to drop plans to advance settlement construction in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank, warning the move would violate international law and irreparably damage prospects for a two-state solution.
* British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Thursday called on Israel to halt its settlement construction plan in the West Bank, warning that the move would constitute a "flagrant breach of international law" and severely undermine prospects for a two-state solution.
* The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a food distribution mechanism backed by the United States and Israel, is a "deadly tool of control" and weaponizes starvation in Gaza, 108 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said Thursday in a joint statement.
* The Finnish Defense Forces and the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration have placed a joint order for advanced high-frequency radios from Finnish technology company KNL, national broadcaster Yle reported on Thursday.
* Over 2.3 million Syrians have returned home since Dec. 8, 2024, a UN refugee agency official said Thursday, noting that returnees face critical shortages of housing and livelihoods, with many finding homes destroyed or damaged.
* Mali's transitional government announced Thursday that it had foiled a "subversive plot," detaining several military personnel, civilians and a French national.
* Japan's economy grew an annualized real 1.0 percent in the three months through June, marking the fifth consecutive quarterly expansion, the Cabinet Office reported Friday.
* Indonesia's footwear exports to Europe could surpass 10 billion USD within the next three to four years if the Indonesia-European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA) is implemented, the Indonesian Footwear Association (Aprisindo) said Thursday.
* Myanmar exported over 80,000 tons of fish in the first four months from April to July of the current fiscal year 2025-2026, earning 96 million USD, state-owned daily The Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Thursday.
* The death toll from Thursday's cloudburst in Kishtwar district in Indian-controlled Kashmir rose to at least 60. A local official confirmed that at least 60 dead bodies had been recovered till Friday morning, and over 200 people were still missing.
* Latvia's agricultural sector is facing significant losses due to this summer's extreme weather, the farmers' organization Zemnieku Saeima warned on Thursday.
* Nearly 75,000 hectares of land have burned in Portugal since the start of the year, with more than half of the total destroyed in just the past three weeks, according to provisional data released Thursday by the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF).
* The Estonian government will confirm by decree that the country experienced significantly worse-than-usual weather conditions between April and July this year, severely impacting agriculture.
