* Cameroonian President Paul Biya on Wednesday evening signed a decree postponing municipal elections scheduled for February next year. The decree extended the mandate for current municipal councilors for a year from its expiry date of Feb. 25, 2025 to May 31, 2026.
* A Japanese government panel has agreed to raise the country's minimum hourly wage by 50 yen (about 32 U.S. cents) for fiscal 2024, the sharpest hike ever, local media reported.
* The Lao central bank, the Bank of the Lao PDR (BOL), has sought cooperation and support from ministries overseeing sectors such as tourism, mining and agriculture to implement measures to boost revenues in foreign currencies.
* Cambodia's banking and financial industry continued modest growth in both loans and deposits in the first half of 2024, said the biannual report of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on Thursday.
* The Thai government is banking on a digital wallet handout scheme to boost the Southeast Asian country's sluggish economy due to low incomes and high household debts, a senior official said on Wednesday.
* At the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will pay an official visit to China from July 27 to 31, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced on Thursday.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Kremlin, the president's press service said on Thursday.
* China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday expressed major concern over planned protectionist measures by the European Union (EU) in the biodiesel industry, and warned that such measures will backfire.
* Statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on potential negotiations with Russia lack credibility, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday.
* U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday night addressed the nation from the White House Oval Office to explain his decision to withdraw from the presidential race, with the election less than four months away.
* Britain said on Wednesday it had launched a new technology security initiative with India aimed at boosting economic growth, fostering collaboration on telecoms security and unlocking investment in emerging technologies.
* Slovakia's President Peter Pellegrini said on Wednesday that his country might take retaliatory measures against Ukraine for its recent decision to cut off oil supplies from the Russian company Lukoil to Slovakia.
* The European Union (EU) should create an infrastructure for the diversification of crude oil supplies, Bulgarian caretaker Minister of Energy Vladimir Malinov said on Wednesday.
* The Netherlands and Denmark are ready to deliver 14 refurbished Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, the Dutch defence ministry said on Thursday. Both countries in April last year said they would buy the tanks from a third party and get them ready for battle in Ukraine.
* Norway has aligned with the European Union (EU) in imposing sanctions against Israeli extremist settlers in the West Bank, a government statement said Wednesday.
* An Indian army trooper and a militant were killed Wednesday in a fierce gunfight in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said.
* Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will travel to Tehran on July 30 to attend the inauguration of Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, Pakistan's foreign ministry said on Thursday. Pezeshkian is due to be sworn in as Iran's ninth president in the parliament complex in Tehran on Tuesday.
* The world is not on track to end malnutrition, with 733 million people suffering from hunger last year -- an average of one in every 11, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned in a report unveiled on Wednesday.
* The United Nations and its partners have launched a flash appeal seeking more than 136 million USD to assist people impacted by Malawi's devastating drought.
* The Arab League (AL) on Wednesday welcomed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity.
* People in the Gaza Strip have become exhausted by ongoing displacement and unlivable conditions, and are trapped in increasingly small and overcrowded areas, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Wednesday.
* Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to U.S. Congress about intensified efforts to return the hostages is "a complete lie and misleading Israeli, American and international public opinion," said Hamas, the Gaza-ruling Palestinian faction, on Wednesday.
* Eritrean authorities have suspended all flights by Ethiopian Airlines to the East African nation effective Sept. 30, the airline said on Wednesday.
* Turkish authorities have detained 72 people suspected of having ties to the militant group Islamic State in operations across 13 provinces, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media platform X on Thursday.
* Suspected Islamist rebels killed at least 17 people in an attack on civilians working fields in east Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, a local official and a hospital worker said on Wednesday.
* A boat with at least 45 refugees has capsized off the coast of Yemen's Taiz on Wednesday night, and there are only four survivors, the U.N. refugee agency in Yemen said on Thursday.
* The population of Japanese nationals fell by 861,000, or 0.70 pct, in 2023 from a year earlier to 121,561,801, dropping for the 15th year in a row and marking the steepest decline since the survey began in 1968, government data showed Wednesday.
* Italy's overall population will decline by around 4 million by 2050, reaching 54 million compared to a current level of 58.87 million, the country's National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) predicted on Wednesday.
* U.S. economic growth likely picked up in the second quarter, spurred by solid consumer spending and inventory building, but the pace of expansion should still leave expectations of a September interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve intact.
* South Korea's economy unexpectedly shrank in the second quarter, clocking the sharpest contraction since 2022 as slumping consumer spending undermined an export boom, reinforcing expectations that an interest rate cut could be imminent.
* The Philippine government's budget deficit decreased to 209.1 billion pesos (roughly 3.57 billion USD) in June from 225.4 billion pesos (3.85 billion dollars) a year ago as revenue collection grew faster than the government expenditures, according to the recent data of the country's Bureau of the Treasury.
* Fitch downgraded Ukraine's credit rating further into default territory at "C" from "CC" on Wednesday, citing a recently concluded in-principle agreement with a group of creditors to restructure $20 billion of international bonds.
* Malaysia's inflation rate remained at 2 percent in June, official data showed Wednesday.
* The German two-year yield dropped to its lowest in six months on Thursday, while longer dated debt held steady as investors grow more confident about substantial global rate cuts this year, while the outlook for the economy further out is less certain.
* The Bank of Canada on Wednesday reduced its policy rate to 4.5 percent.
* Egypt raised the prices of a wide range of fuel products on Thursday, the official gazette said, four days before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducts a third review of its expanded $8 billion loan programme for the country.
* Kuwait's Ministry of Finance on Wednesday announced the 2023-24 fiscal year ending March 2024 had concluded with a deficit of 1.6 billion Kuwaiti dinars (about 5.2 billion USD) against a surplus of 6.4 billion dinars in the previous fiscal year.
* A Russian Mi-28 helicopter crashed during a routine flight in the Kaluga region, killing its crew onboard, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Thursday.
* Fifteen people were killed and more than 150 were missing after a boat carrying 300 passengers capsized near Mauritania's capital Nouakchott on Monday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.
* A drone attack on a soccer field in southwest Colombia's Cauca department killed 10 people, including a minor, Tuesday night, military officials said Wednesday.
* Hundreds of uncontrolled wildfires burned across western Canada on Wednesday, putting more communities under evacuation alert and raising concerns about the blazes impacting Canadian crude production.
* Wildfires continue raging across the western United States as of Wednesday, prompting thousands to evacuate, together with the highways' shutdown.
