* U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel this week to India for meetings with Group of 20 finance officials and Indian officials, and then on to Vietnam for bilateral talks, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.
* Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa met with Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi on Friday on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting being held in Indonesia, the Japanese foreign ministry said.
* Thailand's parliament failed to pick a new prime minister on Thursday as the sole candidate and Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat fell short of securing the majority support from the parliamentarians.
* Poland will respond in kind if Russia closes down its diplomatic missions, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, in response to reports that Moscow had decided to close the Polish consulate in Smolensk.
* Venezuela's government will not allow election observers from the European Union to serve during its 2024 presidential elections, a top ruling party lawmaker said on Thursday.
* Russia considers the deployment of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as a nuclear threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.
* Ukraine has already received cluster munitions from the United States, the government-run Ukrinform news agency reported Thursday, citing a Ukrainian military commander.
* Visiting South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, on Thursday highlighted historic high trade volume between the two countries and pledged to jointly work on big defense and energy industry projects.
* Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish lawmakers would make the right decision on Sweden's NATO bid in line with Turkey's interests, semi-official Anadolu Agency reported Thursday.
* Hungary signalled on Thursday it could ratify Sweden's bid to join NATO in the autumn, with a ruling party lawmaker saying Turkey's decision to back Sweden's bid opened the door to strengthening the alliance at a time of need.
* The European Union's lending arm on Thursday unveiled a new fund worth 400 million euros ($447 mln) to spend on rebuilding Ukraine before the bloc's longer-term reconstruction plan kicks in.
* The Sudanese government on Thursday expressed keenness to work with all parties on finding solutions to end the conflict in Sudan.
* The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Thursday warned of a rapid escalation of the tensions on the Lebanon-Israel border, the National News Agency reported.
* Turkey is set to expediate talks with the European Union on customs union and visa liberalization, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday, adding there has been positive feedback from the bloc over Turkey's accession process.
* Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed discussed on Thursday the ways to overcome the current stalemate in negotiations on the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
* China's cross-border capital flows are basically balanced and the country will prevent sharp fluctuations in yuan, Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said during a press conference in Beijing on Friday.
* The poverty rate in Cambodia had declined to 16.6 percent in 2022 from 36.7 percent in 2014, according to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report on Thursday.
* The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday forecast the global oil demand to increase by 2.25 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024, an annual growth of 2.2 percent, as the expected "solid global economic growth amid continued improvements in China" will boost oil consumption.
* The number of dengue cases in Laos has risen to 10,871 as 343 new cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours, according to a report from the Lao Ministry of Health on Friday.
* The Tunisian coastguard said on Thursday it recovered the bodies of 13 sub-Saharan African migrants and rescued 25 after their boat sank en route for Italy.
* India's space agency made final preparations on Friday for the launch of a rocket that will attempt to land a robotic rover on the moon's south pole, a first in space exploration.
* South Korea's government on Friday saw its economy remain in a state of downturn for the sixth consecutive month due to a continued slump in the manufacturing industry.
* The Singapore economy grew by 0.7 percent year on year in the second quarter, faster than the 0.4 percent growth recorded in the previous quarter, Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) announced on Friday.
* Sri Lanka's State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said on Friday that the country has recorded a primary surplus of 53 billion rupees (167 million USD) up to May 2023.
* The South Korean government put officials on high alert for the height of the summer monsoon season as torrential rain swept across the country on Friday, causing power cuts and forcing more than a hundred people to evacuate their homes.
* Transport was disrupted on Friday in several areas of India's capital after water from the swollen Yamuna river that runs through New Delhi flowed in through a broken drain regulator, authorities said.
* A heatwave that engulfed most of Europe earlier this week has now reached Cyprus, with 41 degrees Celsius being recorded in Nicosia, the country's meteorology service said on Thursday.
* Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has declared a state of emergency in response to high inflation threatening food security in Africa's most populous country, the State House said Thursday.
* Only one out of the 23 Kenyan regions that were severely hit by drought remain in dire condition following heavy rainfall recorded during the March-May season, the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said in a report released Thursday.
* Heavy rainfall in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region has impacted more than 300,000 people, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
* An extratropical cyclone has devastated southern Brazil, leaving at least one person dead, 24 injured and some 790,000 users without power, local authorities said Thursday.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday outlined its electric vehicles policy, as the energy-rich country seeks to reduce energy consumption and cut carbon emissions in the transport sector.
