* Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has extended his lead in the West African nation's presidential election, provisional results showed on Sunday.
* The UN Security Council adopted a presidential statement on Friday calling on member states to redouble efforts to strengthen the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
* With just six years remaining to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global progress is alarmingly insufficient with only 17 percent of the targets are currently on track, according to a new UN report released on Friday.
* The Lao government will further coordinate with related sectors to effectively tackle rising inflation and foreign exchange rates in order to reduce their impact on the prices of goods.
* Cambodia has launched a tourism marketing and promotion board, aiming at promoting the tourism sector to the international markets, said a Ministry of Tourism's statement on Sunday.
* Russia needs to start the production of intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) strike systems in response to the actions of the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
* The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday condemned the first-ever multi-domain military exercises involving the United States, Japan and South Korea, vowing to take countermeasures to safeguard its sovereignty and security, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
* European companies, participating in the Egypt-EU Investment Conference in Cairo on Saturday and Sunday, are signing with Egyptian partners more than 20 new deals and MOUs worth over 40 billion euros (nearly 42.9 billion USD) in various fields.
* Economic growth in Norway is expected to strengthen gradually, leading to increased real incomes and improved purchasing power for most households, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s annual assessment of the Norwegian economy and its economic policies.
* A Bolivian court on Friday sentenced General Juan Jose Zuniga and two other former military chiefs to a six-month preventative detention over a failed coup against Bolivian President Luis Arce, said the local authorities.
* Israeli forces advanced further on Sunday into the Shejaia neighbourhood of northern Gaza and also pushed deeper into western and central Rafah in the south, killing at least six Palestinians and destroying several homes, residents said.
* A senior official of the militant Islamist group Hamas, Osama Hamdan, said on Saturday there has been no progress in ceasefire talks with Israel over the Gaza war.
* At least 37,877 Palestinians have been killed and 86,969 have been wounded in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday.
* A fresh round of negotiations between the Yemeni government and Houthi representatives began Sunday in Muscat, focusing on the exchange of prisoners and detainees.
* The head of the Turkish Intelligence Organization Ibrahim Kalin on Sunday met with Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, the state-run TRT broadcaster reported.
* Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday discussed with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel the course of ongoing negotiations to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
* At least 18 people were killed and 30 others injured after a series of blasts in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state on Saturday, the head of the local state emergency management agency said.
* The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector came in at 49.5 in June 2024, unchanged from May, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Sunday.
* Russia on Saturday extended the permit for the export of gasoline until July 31, according to a government document.
* African countries need to deliver action plans and national strategies to accelerate the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and economic integration among them, experts have said.
* Egypt is looking to raise its target for the renewable share of energy generation to 58% by 2040 in an updated strategy for expanding green power, Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker said on Saturday.
* The Bangladesh parliament on Sunday passed a record 7.97-trillion-taka (68 billion USD) national budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year (July 2024-June 2025).
* Afghanistan exported commercial goods valued at 304 million USD from March 20 to June 20, said the country's Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
* Saudi Arabia announced Sunday that foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows grew by 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
* The South African government said on Saturday that the country achieved its first primary budget surplus in 15 years due to the implementation of prudent fiscal measures.
* Tanzania will sell 650,000 tonnes of maize to Zambia, a senior government official said on Sunday, in a deal intended to help the southern African country reduce food shortages caused by a prolonged drought.
* Canada's second-largest airline, the WestJet Group, on Saturday announced an additional 235 flight cancellations due to a strike by its aircraft maintenance engineers.
* Four people died and two were missing in Switzerland on Sunday after violent thunderstorms and melting snow caused flooding and landslides in two southern cantons, police said.
* Wildfires in three locations across Turkey's western province of Izmir were taken under control and the police detained suspects in connection with the fires, Turkish Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said Sunday.
* Greek firefighters were battling a wildfire south of Athens on Sunday amid strong winds, just hours after managing to contain blazes in a mountainous area also near the capital as well as on an island in the Aegean Sea.
