* U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump took the stage at CNN's Atlanta studio Thursday night for the first presidential debate of the 2024 election.
* The European Council summit agreed on Thursday to formally nominate Germany's Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as president of the European Commission.
* Voting in Mongolia's parliamentary elections concluded on Friday, with the turnout estimated at 69.3 percent, according to the country's General Election Commission.
* Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on Friday dissolving the sixth National Assembly and has scheduled early parliamentary elections for Sept. 1.
* Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who is scheduled to take office Oct. 1, unveiled the names of more members of her future cabinet on Thursday.
* China and Peru have achieved "substantial conclusion of negotiations" on the upgrading of a free trade agreement between both countries, Chinese state media said on Friday.
* New Delhi on Friday rejected the U.S. State Department's 2023 religious freedom report on India, calling it "deeply biased" and one that does not understand the South Asian nation's social fabric.
* Japan and the Philippines' foreign and defence ministers will meet in Manila next month for talks that could include a breakthrough defence pact that would allow their military forces to visit each other's soil.
* Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has directed the general staff of the Russian armed forces to propose a plan responding to U.S. drone operations over the Black Sea, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Friday on social media.
* Belarus is reinforcing its border with Ukraine after a security incident and has deployed a division of multiple launch rocket systems to test their combat readiness, the Belarusian defence ministry said on Friday.
* Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday that military pledges outlined in 20 security agreements Kyiv has signed with its partners total $60 billion annually for the next four years.
* Poland will almost certainly sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine before July's NATO summit in Washington, the Polish prime minister said on Friday.
* German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told her Iranian counterpart, Ali Bagheri Kani, that Iran needed to help prevent a further escalation of the situation in the Middle East.
* An attempted coup against Bolivian President Luis Arce was foiled by the immediate and spontaneous response of the people, social organizations and political leaders, a senior Bolivian official said Thursday.
* The Biden administration will expand deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 309,000 Haitians in the country already, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Friday.
* Israeli forces pressed their incursion deeper into two northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday, and Palestinian health officials said tank shelling in Rafah killed at least 11 people.
* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he did not rule out a possible meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to help restore bilateral relations between the neighbours.
* Fighter jets of the U.S.-British coalition conducted four airstrikes overnight in Yemen's southwestern province of Taiz, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported on Friday morning.
* South Sudan faces a "perfect storm" of violence, floods, an economic crisis and hunger, with 79,000 people in Jonglei State facing catastrophic food insecurity, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.
* An agreement for a roadmap to a 2025 accord to peacefully resolve a border dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria was hailed on Thursday by a UN spokesperson.
* The United Nations humanitarian agency is struggling to secure funding to combat severe food insecurity in Nigeria's insurgency-hit northeast, raising fears of mass hunger and deaths, its resident coordinator warned.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday said it has approved 41 million USD in contingent disaster financing to help the Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Tuvalu, and Vanuatu respond to disasters triggered by natural hazards and health emergencies.
* U.S. monthly inflation was unchanged in May as a modest increase in the cost of services was offset by the largest drop in goods prices in six months, drawing the Federal Reserve closer to start cutting interest rates later this year.
* Japan's unemployment rate remained at 2.6 percent in May for the fourth consecutive month, government data showed Friday.
* Thailand's economy continued its path to recovery in May, but at a slower pace compared to a month earlier, dragged down by a decline in exports, manufacturing production and private investment, the central bank said on Friday.
* Pakistan's parliament on Friday passed the government's tax heavy finance bill for the coming fiscal year amid an annual inflation projection of up to 13.5% for June.
* Canada's job vacancies fell by 5.3 percent to 575,400 in April, marking the third consecutive monthly decline, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
* France's consumer price index (CPI) is expected to slow to 2.1 percent year-on-year in June, following a 2.3-percent increase in the previous month, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) reported on Friday.
* Myanmar on Friday kicked off an expo for the agriculture and livestock, power and machinery, food and beverage, and hotel, restaurant, and catering sectors in Yangon.
* A powerful earthquake of magnitude of 7.0 struck near the coast in southern Peru's Arequipa region on Friday, local officials said, adding no deaths had been reported.
* A total of 17 Italian cities will receive heat warnings this weekend, the country's Ministry of Health said Thursday, suggesting another unusually hot summer could be in the works.
* The Latvian meteorological authority issued a hot-weather alert on Friday as air temperatures are expected to surge above 30 degrees Celsius.
