* Chinese President Xi Jinping said in Johannesburg (South Africa) on Wednesday that China will continue to firmly support Cuba in defending national sovereignty and opposing external interference and blockade.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BRICS summit in South Africa on Thursday that Moscow intends to deepen ties with African countries, and that it would remain a reliable partner for food and fuel supplies.
* China's relationship with India is very important despite border and trade issues, a Chinese foreign ministry official said on Thursday.
* BRICS leaders agreed on Thursday to invite six countries, namely Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to join the group.
* Ethiopia aims to be a hub of connectivity on the African continent and can offer the BRICS grouping a link to East African markets, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Thursday at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, after the country was invited to join the group of emerging economies.
* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday thanked the BRICS for inviting Egypt to join in as a new member state, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
* Saudi Arabia's foreign minister told Al Arabiya TV on Thursday that the kingdom appreciated the invitation by BRICS to join the group and would study the details before the proposed Jan. 1 joining date and take "the appropriate decision".
* The debate on the investiture of center-right People's Party (PP) leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo as Spain's new prime minister will be held on Sept. 26-27, Francina Armengol, speaker of Spain's Congress (lower house of Parliament) said in Madrid on Wednesday. Feijoo was nominated to the post by King Felipe VI.
* Latvia's President Edgars Rinkevics on Thursday tasked Welfare Minister Evika Silina, candidate of the ruling New Unity party for the position of prime minister, with forming the Baltic country's next government.
* South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo said Thursday that the country will keep its import ban on Japan's fishery products in place, in an address made after Japan started dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean earlier in the day.
* Russia's Federal Agency for Air Transport has confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner military group, was on the passenger list for a plane that crashed near Moscow on Wednesday.
* Ukraine's intelligence units landed in Crimea on Thursday for a special operation, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a Telegram post.
* Poland plans to raise spending on defence, health, social benefits and public sector pay in 2024, the prime minister said on Thursday, after the government approved the budget for next year with an eye on elections scheduled for Oct. 15.
* The World Trade Organization said on Thursday that global goods trade picked up between April and June amid strong auto demand although voiced uncertainty about a sustained recovery.
* Global subsidies for fossil fuels rose by $2 trillion over the past two years to reach a record $7 trillion in 2022, according to new estimates from the International Monetary Fund.
* Turkey's central bank hiked its key interest rate by a larger-than-expected 750 basis points to 25% on Thursday, sparking a rare lira rally and signalling a new determination to address rebounding inflation as part of a broader policy U-turn.
* Senior officials of the African Union, Somalia, and the United Nations have started consultative meetings to deliberate on the upcoming second phase of the troop drawdown in September, the AU mission said.
* Israel planned to ramp up annual natural gas exports from the Tamar field to Egypt to 3.5 billion cubic meters, said the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure on Wednesday.
* The Libyan state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) on Wednesday said that the country's daily oil production is currently 1.208 million barrels.
* The World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, has delivered vital medicine to Ethiopia's conflict-affected Amhara region.
* Thunderstorms and heavy rain accompanied by wind gusts will continue in parts of Laos from Aug. 23 to Aug. 27, bringing further risk of flooding and landslides, the weather bureau of Laos has warned.
* Human-caused changes to an atmospheric flow in the Pacific Ocean could be responsible for longer El Nino and La Nina events, an Australian study has found.
* Pakistan's Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said that effective measures are compulsory to mitigate the ills caused by climate change and urged the international community to play its part in this regard.
* A fire that burned about 15 hectares (37.07 acres) of an Indonesian landfill last weekend in the country's most populous province was still raging on Thursday, as the local government declared a state of emergency.
