* Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Johannesburg to attend a summit of the BRICS group of nations this month, the Indian government said on Thursday. BRICS' current five members - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are due to convene there on Aug. 22-24.
* Malaysia and Brunei have concluded their bilateral annual leaders' consultation between Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, who is on a three-day visit to Malaysia.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of seven African countries involved in a peace mission on Ukraine agreed to continue their dialogue, a Russian official said on Thursday.
* Ukraine and the United States started talks on Thursday aimed at providing security guarantees for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff said, a follow-up to pledges by G7 countries at last month's NATO summit.
* The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that two Ukrainian unmanned boats attempted to attack the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk, a major Black Sea port, but were destroyed by Russian ships.
* Three offices meant to attend Haitian, Cuban and Venezuelan migrants hoping to reach the United States will open in Colombia, the Andean country's foreign ministry said on Thursday, the initial phase of a plan to reduce migrant flows through the dangerous Darien Gap.
* A six-month ceasefire between Colombia's government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group began on Thursday, representing the most solid progress to date for President Gustavo Petro's ambitious plans to end the country's 60-year conflict.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday hailed the new phase of the peace process between the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), said his deputy spokesman.
* The United States still considers diplomacy a viable tool of first choice in resolving the coup attempt in Niger by a junta, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) said Thursday.
* Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted in a coup last week, said in an opinion piece published Thursday in the Washington Post that he is a hostage and he called on the U.S. and the entire international community to restore constitutional order.
* Ethiopia's federal government on Friday declared a state of emergency following days of clashes in the Amhara region between the military and local militiamen.
* The heads of state of six Mediterranean countries have issued a joint declaration calling for urgent actions to tackle climate change and its effect on the region, the presidential office of Malta said in a statement on Thursday.
* Iran's foreign minister has invited his Kuwaiti counterpart to Tehran, Kuwait said on Thursday, as tensions simmer over the offshore Durra gas field.
* The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced Thursday that it has signed three agreements with Germany worth 28 million euros (about 30 million USD) to support Palestinian refugees.
* UN humanitarians have facilitated cross-border deliveries of assistance from Chad into Sudan's Darfur region despite the ongoing conflict, said a UN spokesman on Thursday.
* Islamic State on Thursday confirmed the death of its leader Abu Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi and named Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Quraishi as his replacement, the group's spokesperson said in an undated recording published on its Telegram channel.
* The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, has pledged to increase financial support for the country's private enterprises.
* Cambodia's famed Angkor Archeological Park earned 20.3 million USD from ticket sales in the first seven months of 2023, up 502 percent from 3.37 million dollars in the same period last year, said a report on Friday.
* Year-on-year inflation in the Philippines slowed for the sixth consecutive month to 4.7 percent in July, the lowest rate since March 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Friday.
* The United Nations food agency's world price index rebounded in July from two-year lows as vegetable oil markets jumped on renewed tensions over exports from war-torn Ukraine and concerns over global production.
* Norway's salmon exports to China reached 230 million Norwegian kroner (22.46 million USD) in July, marking an impressive 90 percent increase compared to the same month last year, the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) said in a press release on Thursday.
* Egypt decided to raise the interest rates by 100 basis points in a bid to contain high inflation, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced on Thursday.
* Morocco's unemployment rate rose to 12.4 percent in the second quarter of 2023, up from 11.2 percent in the same period last year, the High Commission for Planning (HCP), the kingdom's national statistics office, said on Thursday.
* Nigeria is turning to gas as an alternative fuel after it scrapped a popular but costly subsidy on petrol that has seen pump prices rise sharply, angering motorists and businesses that use petrol to generate their own power.
* Rain pelted swathes of China's biggest grain producing province on Friday, submerging farms and worsening floods that have already swamped cities around the country as rescue workers scramble to contain the havoc caused by Typhoon Doksuri.
* Typhoon Khanun weakened slightly and hovered in the East China Sea on Friday, but it is still expected to approach Japan's Okinawa islands again, and even head for the main islands, making it what forecasters said was a "very unusual storm."
* Rescuers were searching for missing pilgrims on Friday after a landslide in a northern Indian state crushed some shops on a hilly pathway and washed away structures into a river below, officials said.
* Forest fires in Canada this year have released 290 million tonnes of carbon, doubling a previous annual record, and emissions are set to rise as hundreds of flames remain active across the country, according to the EU's Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service.
* Tonga's Meteorology Department said on Friday that the Pacific island country is experiencing unusually cold weather, with cool days and cooler nights, and climate is leaning towards El Nino conditions.
* At least 18 people died in western Mexico when a passenger bus plunged off a highway into a ravine early on Thursday, state officials said, adding the passengers were mostly foreigners and some were heading for the U.S. border.
* A passenger bus plunged into a ravine in northwest Mexico's Nayarit state early Thursday morning, killing 18 people, local authorities said.
* More than 50 people were injured as violent clashes broke out Thursday at an Eritrean cultural festival in Stockholm with at least 100 detained, according to local authorities.
