* Thailand's parliament will convene next week for another vote to select a new prime minister, National Assembly President Wan Muhamad Noor Matha said on Wednesday.
* Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday he discussed with U.S. President Joe Biden efforts to fight climate change, as well as the outcome of a summit of rainforest nations held in Brazil last week.
* A U.S. summit with Japan and South Korea on Friday will include an ambitious set of initiatives to lock in progress between the allies, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Wednesday.
* Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said on Wednesday that GCC member states support "peaceful efforts" aimed at resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
* West African army chiefs will meet on Thursday in Ghana's capital Accra to discuss a possible military intervention in Niger if diplomacy fails to reverse a military coup.
* Abdul-Hamed Dbeibah, the Libyan prime minister, voiced his opposition on Wednesday to the "return of fighting" in the country shortly after the end of violent clashes between two armed factions in its capital Tripoli.
* Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday unveiled a list of cabinet ministers after taking office roughly three months ago. The cabinet will be sworn in on a yet-to-be-announced date, Ajuri Ngelale, spokesman for the Nigerian president, told the media in Abuja.
* The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said Wednesday it is ready to conduct the Aug. 23 general elections and encouraged all registered voters to cast their ballots.
* Two senior United Nations (UN) officials emphasized on Wednesday the urgent need for progress toward peace in Yemen, given the persistent political, economic, and humanitarian challenges the nation faces.
* Iranian Foreign Minister said on Wednesday that the recent prisoner swap and assets release deal between Tehran and Washington will once again put U.S. promises to the test.
* Israeli forces killed a Palestinian gunman during a raid that set off clashes in the flashpoint town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, medical officials and militant groups said.
* Pakistan had persuaded Google and Apple successfully to remove 120 illegal personal loan apps from their respective stores, which were tricking Pakistani people into loan traps, said an official statement on Wednesday.
* The People's Bank of China, the central bank, announced Wednesday that it decided to provide 35 billion yuan (4.86 billion USD) in new loans to commercial banks to support small and micro-sized enterprises and agriculture and rural areas affected by disasters.
* Japan booked a trade deficit in July as exports dropped for the first time in over two years, the government said in a report on Thursday.
* The United States is preparing to escalate its complaint that Mexico's ban on genetically modified corn violates the neighbours' free-trade deal, Bloomberg News said on Thursday.
* South Korea's automotive export kept a double-digit growth for the 13th straight month due to robust demand for eco-friendly vehicles, government data showed Thursday.
* The Mexican government temporarily increased import tariffs on countries without a trade agreement with Mexico.
*Hungary's gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 2.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter (Q2), based on preliminary unadjusted data, the country's Central Statistics Office (KSH) said on Wednesday.
* Norway's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 4.0% on Thursday to curb inflation, as widely expected, and said it would likely hike again in September.
* The non-oil domestic exports (NODX) in Singapore declined by 20.2 percent year-on-year, marking a contraction for the 10th straight month, government agency Enterprise Singapore announced Thursday.
* Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) of Azerbaijan is gearing up to introduce direct flight connections to Pakistan starting from Sept. 20, Pakistan's state news agency said on Wednesday.
* A small aircraft crashed in Malaysia's Selangor state with eight people on board on Thursday, the country's civil aviation authority said.
* Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of the largest Turkish city Istanbul, Wednesday called on residents to save water amid the current drought and subsequent water shortage.
* Over 50,000 families in eight out of nine provinces in Sri Lanka have been affected by the prevailing dry spell, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said in its latest situation report on Thursday.
* The death toll over the past three days from rain-related incidents in India's northern state of Himachal Pradesh has risen to 71, confirmed a senior disaster management official of the state on Wednesday.
* A wildfire that broke out in a mountainous national park on the Spanish island of Tenerife on Wednesday spread to 1,800 hectares (4,450 acres) in 24 hours as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze amid difficult terrain conditions.
