* Cuba strongly rejects the stay of a nuclear-powered submarine at the U.S. military base in the Guantanamo Bay on July 5-8, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) said in a statement Tuesday.
* Japan's Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said on Wednesday he welcomed that Japan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had agreed on a new partnership programme, ahead of his attendance at the NATO Vilnius summit.
* The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it was misguided and "potentially very dangerous" for the West to give Ukraine security guarantees, and said they would infringe on Russia's own security.
* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Australia had agreed to give Ukraine a new defence package including 30 Bushmaster armoured vehicles
* Ukraine signed a memorandum with 11 countries to create a coalition for training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Tuesday.
* Iran on Tuesday urged the officials of Sweden and other European states to take "immediate and effective" measures against the perpetrators of burning the Quran to prevent its recurrence in the future.
* Palestine on Tuesday rejected an Israeli plan to build 450 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, saying the plan has disregarded the countries that support the two-state solution.
* Iran will not negotiate over three Gulf islands disputed with the United Arab Emirates, the legal adviser to Iran's president said on Wednesday following Tehran's summoning of the Russian ambassador over a statement about the islands.
* Islamist militants armed with guns, hand grenades and rockets attacked a military base in southern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least four soldiers, army and security officials said.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is disappointed that the Security Council was not able to reach agreement on extending the authorization of UN cross-border relief operations in Syria, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday.
* Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani announced on Tuesday that Iraq and Iran signed a deal to end the Iranian gas supply crisis to support electricity production in the country.
* Britain on Wednesday imposed sanctions on businesses it said were linked to Sudanese military groups behind the ongoing conflict in the north African country.
* Tens of thousands of Israeli protesters staged rallies across the country on Tuesday, in the largest weekday protest in months against the government's plan to overhaul the judiciary.
* The European Commission (EC) on Tuesday proposed measures to make freight transport greener and more efficient.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Tuesday to raise its emission reduction target from 31 percent to 40 percent by 2030, as the country prepares to host a major climate conference later this year.
* Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol said on Tuesday that Turkey will be able to meet its growing need for solar energy by carrying out cooperation with China.
* The high temperature in Spain, as a result of the second heat wave, continued on Tuesday and will remain at least until Thursday in the south, according to the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET).
* Russian Railways (RZD) plans to invest in 2024 a record amount of about 400 billion rubles (4.4 billion USD) of its own funds in the construction of the Eastern Polygon, which includes the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and the Trans-Siberian Railway (Transsib), RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.
* Bets on a screeching slowdown in U.S. inflation data later saw traders shove the dollar to a 2-month low on Wednesday and push stocks up and bond market borrowing costs down for a third day running.
* China has rolled over $5 billion in loans to Pakistan in the last three months, helping the country avert default, Pakistan's prime minister said on Wednesday.
* The number of startups registered in Germany increased markedly during the first six months of this year, the German Startups Association said in a report published on Tuesday.
* BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, said Wednesday that it holds a positive outlook for consumer spending in Malaysia over the rest of 2023, as the economic recovery feeds into strong real consumer spending growth over the full year.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved 190 million USD in additional funding for the ongoing Rural Connectivity Improvement Project in Bangladesh.
* Myanmar earned 115.242 million USD from the exports of 69,612 tons of fishery products in the first quarter of the present fiscal year of 2023-2024, according to the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday.
* New Zealand saw a net migration loss of 13,400 people to Australia in 2022, compared with a net migration loss of 5,400 in 2021, showed estimates released by the statistics department Stats NZ on Wednesday.
* The Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Tuesday that the government has so far signed contracts worth 1.9 billion USD with the private sector to sell stakes in state-owned companies.
