* India's election panel said on Friday it would announce dates for general elections at 3 p.m. local time (0930 GMT) on March 16.
* UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Thursday that there will not be a general election on May 2, ending months-long speculation that he would call an early election.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday tasked Mohammad Mustafa to form the 19th government, the official news agency WAFA reported.
* China on Thursday called on the United States to stop the unreasonable suppression of companies from other countries, following a U.S. bill targeting the short-video app TikTok.
* Russia on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction with the Security Council over its inaction on an international investigation of the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines.
* Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Angolan President Joao Lourenco in Beijing on Friday. The two heads of state announced the elevation of bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday instructed the government to deal with issues related to the creation of a nuclear power facility in space.
* France would not take the initiative on an offensive against Russia, said President Emmanuel Macron Thursday, insisting that there should be no restrictions on its commitment to supporting Ukraine.
* Ukraine has launched the rotation of troops on the frontline of the conflict with Russia, Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said on Thursday.
* The Ukrainian army shelled a critical infrastructure facility at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with explosives dropping five meters from a fuel storage facility, the plant's press service said on Thursday.
* Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich rejected U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's call for new elections in Israel on Thursday, saying "we expect the largest democracy in the world to respect Israeli democracy".
* Industry ministers from the Group of Seven major democracies agreed on Thursday to align rules on the development of artificial intelligence and to secure supply chains in key sectors such as semiconductors, the Italian presidency said.
* Germany's Federal Environment Agency (UBA) confirmed preliminary projections that Europe's biggest economy's greenhouse emissions fell by around 10% year-on-year in 2023, putting the country on track to meet its 2030 climate targets.
* New legislation has been approved by parliament in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) to ban offshore drilling and mining in a bid to protect beaches and the coastal environment.
* The Philippines has imposed a temporary ban on the importation of poultry and poultry products from Sweden and the Czech Republic due to an outbreak of bird flu in those countries, the Philippine Department of Agriculture has said.
* The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is set to establish an accelerator and two test centers for communications and quantum technology in Finland, the government announced on Thursday.
* Egypt is seeking to reach a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza, increase entry of aid and to allow displaced people in the south of the enclave to move to the north, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Friday.
* A ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday, witnesses said, as a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian enclave where famine looms after five months of Israel's military campaign.
* Brunei has allocated over 1 million USD to deliver 5,920 ready-to-eat meal packages to Gaza via airdrops, official media Pelita Brunei has reported.
* Arab League (AL) Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit met Thursday with visiting Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation Jose Manuel Albares in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, discussing the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian issue.
* Australia will reinstate funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the nation's Foreign Minister has announced.
* The Biden administration imposed sanctions on two Israeli outposts and three settlers it accused of undermining stability in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, and appealed to Israel to do more to prevent settler violence that Washington says is an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace.
* European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday after meetings in Washington that the United States should put more pressure on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, amid what he called a man-made disaster in the strip.
* Italy has continued to export arms to Israel, the Italian defence minister said on Thursday, despite assurances last year that the government was blocking such sales following Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip.
* At least 29 Palestinians were killed while awaiting aid in two separate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said.
* Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira on Thursday said Israel's "disproportionate" use of force in the Gaza Strip indicates Benjamin Netanyahu's government seeks the "collective punishment" of the Palestinian people.
* Thousands in Israel took to the streets on Thursday in two separate protests, one demanding an immediate release of hostages from Gaza and another calling for drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into the military.
* The leader of Yemen's Houthis, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday the group's operations targeting vessels will escalate to prevent Israel-linked ships from passing through the Indian Ocean towards the Cape of Good Hope.
* Senior Turkish and Iraqi officials held high-level talks in Baghdad on Thursday to discuss security issues including potential measures against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq, an Iraqi foreign ministry statement said after the meeting.
* The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said Thursday that Kiev is counting on receiving more than 10 billion USD of foreign financing in March-April this year.
* Non-oil economic activity in Saudi Arabia has achieved a milestone by contributing 50 percent of the country's real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.
* The Paris Club, an informal group of creditor nations whose objective is to find workable solutions to payment problems faced by debtor nations, has agreed to cancel more than 2 billion USD of debt Somalia owed to its members to help the East African country restore its debt sustainability.
* At least 60 people are feared to have died at sea and 25 others were rescued, the European migrant rescue organization SOS Mediterranee said on Thursday.
* At least eight people drowned when a rubber boat carrying migrants sunk off Turkey's northwest province of Canakkale, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.
* Malaysian authorities on Thursday warned of extremely dry and hot weather conditions in three states. Temperatures are expected to exceed 35 degrees Celsius at eight locations in the states of Kedah, Perlis and Perak, the meteorological department said in a statement.
