* The newly elected Indian government will present its first union budget in the lower house of parliament on July 23, Kiren Rijiju, minister of parliamentary affairs said in a post on social media platform X on Saturday.
* Following his re-election, Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene called upon the country's newly elected legislators on Friday to avoid politicizing issues crucial for national development.
* The Romanian government has officially adopted the calendar for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. The decision was adopted on Thursday in a meeting, according to government spokesman Mihai Constantin.
* Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico made his first appearance at a public event Friday after being attacked by a gunman in mid-May. He presented a speech at the Devin Castle in Bratislava, in celebrating a national holiday.
* Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged all-out rescue and relief work to safeguard people's lives and property after a dike breach in Dongting Lake in central China's Hunan Province which occurred Friday afternoon.
* Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan clarified the nation's proposed 200 percent import tariff amid rising speculations on Friday, noting that the tariff is not aimed at any particular country.
* After weeks of deliberations, Germany's ruling coalition on Friday reached a preliminary agreement on a draft budget for 2025, averting a crisis that threatened to break up Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government.
* The 12th World Peace Forum (WPF) opened in Beijing on Saturday, focusing on improving global security governance.
* Cambodia sent the 10th batch of 244 peacekeepers to join a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation in war-torn Central African Republic late on Friday.
* G20 diplomats have agreed to avoid prickly geopolitical issues during their ministerial meetings preparing for the summit of the world's largest economies in November, host Brazil's sherpa said on Friday.
* Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Ankara could start a new normalization process with Damascus, and he might extend an invitation to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban discussed the Ukrainian conflict and Russia's relations with the European Union (EU) during talks in Moscow Friday, according to the Kremlin.
* NATO allies at their summit in Washington next week will unveil a "bridge to membership" plan for Ukraine and announce steps to bolster Kyiv's air defenses, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
* Belarus and its allies will take action against any provocations at its borders, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Belarusian Armed Forces Vladimir Kupriyanyuk said Friday.
* Armenia and the United States will hold joint military exercises in Armenia on July 15-24, the Armenian Defence Ministry said on Saturday.
* Ukraine's air defence shot down 24 of 27 Russian drones fired in an overnight attack on Saturday, Ukrainian air force said.
* The United Nations expressed grave concerns on Friday about intensified clashes along the Lebanon-Israel frontier, known as the Blue Line. The world body highlighted the mounting tensions following an increase in exchanges of fire between Lebanese and Israeli forces.
* The transitional president of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore, arrived in Niamey Friday afternoon for a summit with leaders of Niger and Mali.
* At least 38,098 Palestinians have been killed and 87,705 others injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Saturday.
* Hamas has accepted a U.S. proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men, 16 days after the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the Gaza war, a senior Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday.
* Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Friday said the two groups are committed to continued field and political coordination "at every level to achieve the desired goals," according to a statement by the Lebanese militant group.
* Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced on Friday that it targeted several Israeli military sites in response to its attacks on Lebanese southern villages and houses.
* Iran and Hungary on Friday highlighted the necessity to refrain from the escalation of tension in the West Asia region.
* Over 1 million people in the Caribbean have been affected by Hurricane Beryl, UN humanitarians said Friday.
* Up to 4.2 million people in Malawi are expected to experience high levels of acute food insecurity between June and September, said a report released by Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee, a government-led multi-agency body.
* Many developing countries in Asia and the Pacific region, including the Philippines, still have a high tuberculosis (TB) incidence rate, according to an article from the Asian Development Blog of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
* Global food prices remained stable in June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Friday. The FAO also forecasted that global cereal output would reach an all-time high in 2024.
* U.S. employment increased solidly in June, but government and healthcare services hiring made up about three-quarters of the payrolls gain and the unemployment rate hit a 2-1/2-year high of 4.1%, pointing to a slackening labor market that keeps the Federal Reserve on course to start cutting interest rates soon.
* Thailand's headline inflation growth eased in June due to softening food prices and the impact from the low base price of electricity has ended, official data showed on Friday.
* Canada's unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.4 percent in June, Statistics Canada said Friday. The unemployment rate has trended up since April 2023, rising 1.3 percentage points over the period.
* Pakistan has achieved a significant milestone in agricultural sector with agro-exports reaching an unprecedented 8 billion USD mark for the first time in previous fiscal year from July 2023 to June 2024, Pakistani Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan said Saturday.
* Sri Lanka's earnings from tourism rose to over 1.5 billion USD in the first six months of 2024, a 77.9-percent increase year on year, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) said in its latest weekly report.
