* Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and Central Asian countries together, can foster a new cooperation paradigm and will take turns to host the China-Central Asia Summit.
* Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, broadcaster CNN-News 18 reported on Friday, their first meeting since Russia launched the “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022.
* Chinese Premier Li Qiang has urged efforts to boost the real economy, expand domestic demand and stabilize external demand to promote economic recovery.
* US President Joe Biden held a call with his debt ceiling negotiation team on Friday while he was traveling in Japan for the Group of Seven (G7) summit, according to White House officials.
* Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the Arab League summit was a "historic opportunity" to address crises across the region, during his speech at the bloc's summit in Jeddah on Friday.
* Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu inspected the headquarters of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine's Zaporizhzia region on Friday, Russian news agencies reported, citing the defence ministry.
* Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will visit China on May 23-24, where he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Russian government announced on Friday.
* More than a million people have been displaced by fighting in Sudan so far, including a quarter of a million refugees, a U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson said on Friday.
* African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat has called for African solidarity in dealing with security issues on the continent.
* Palestine on Thursday condemned an Israeli decision that allows Jewish settlers to return to an Israeli settlement evacuated 18 years ago.
* The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has warned that around 7 million Ethiopians are at risk of being infected by cholera.
* The UN warned Thursday that insufficient global progress in disaster risk reduction is jeopardizing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and called for more concerted efforts to address the issue effectively.
* Energy ministers from nine European Union (EU) countries agreed on Thursday to turn the Mediterranean region into a green energy hub.
* UN peacekeepers have chased armed rebels from several villages in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a UN spokesman said on Thursday.
* The World Bank has moved 150 million USD of the funds it has earmarked for Mozambique projects to help fund the southern African nation's efforts to recover from the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy.
* Most emerging market currencies on Friday were set for losses at the end of a rollercoaster week that saw the dollar being lifted by optimism over a US debt ceiling deal, while Turkey's lira hovered close to an all-time low seen in the previous session.
* Bangladeshi State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid Thursday said the government plans to keep energy prices on par with international rates.
* US space officials are set on Friday to reveal a second company that would build a spacecraft to send astronauts to and from the moon's surface, capping a high-stakes contest between groups that include Jeff Bezos' space firm Blue Origin and defense company Northrop Grumman NOC.N.
