* Czech President Petr Pavel on Thursday accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Petr Fiala's government, as former Prime Minister Andrej Babis' ANO party is currently working on a new cabinet. Fiala's government will continue to serve as a caretaker until the new cabinet takes office.
* The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) of Iraq announced on Thursday that 7,744 candidates are eligible to run in the November parliamentary elections. IHEC spokesperson Jumana Al-Ghalai told the official Iraqi News Agency that the final tally was confirmed after the commission audited and disqualified 848 other applicants.
* Chinese Premier Li Qiang has signed a State Council decree promulgating a regulation on the monitoring of the ecological environment. The new regulation, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, comprises seven chapters and 49 articles.
* Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday held phone talks with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on bilateral ties.
* Ministers from Nordic and Baltic countries responsible for digitalisation on Thursday adopted a declaration aimed at accelerating the rollout of the European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDI Wallet) across the region, with the goal of creating an open and interoperable Nordic area for citizens and businesses.
* Poland and Romania have begun deploying the Turkish-made MEROPS counter-drone systems, according to media reports on Thursday.
* Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced Thursday the launch of a pilot program aimed at voluntary defence training for citizens, which will begin on Nov. 22.
* Sri Lanka and Bangladesh held the fourth round of Foreign Office Consultations in Colombo on Thursday after an eight-year gap, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
* India's finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman Thursday said the country needs a lot of big and world-class banks, and discussions were on with the central banking institution -- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and lenders in this regard.
* The Bank of England (BoE) has maintained its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 percent ahead of the Budget due in late November, amid persistently high inflation, according to a statement released Thursday by Britain's central bank.
* Kazakhstan's national grain operator Food Contract Corporation has sent its first batch of wheat to Armenia through Azerbaijan in 30 years, the Ministry of Agriculture's press service said on Thursday.
* Bahrain and Qatar launched the first passenger sea route on Thursday, connecting Khalifa bin Salman Port in Bahrain with Al-Ruwais Port in Qatar.
* Egypt and Qatar on Thursday signed an investment agreement worth 29.7 billion USD to develop a major real estate and tourism project on Egypt's Mediterranean coast, the Egyptian government said in a statement.
* Myanmar authorities have seized over 82 tons of illegal timber across the country in a week, the state-run daily The Mirror reported on Friday.
* The Philippines has imposed a temporary ban on the importation of wild and domestic birds, including poultry products, from the Netherlands following a recent outbreak of bird flu, the country's Department of Agriculture (DA) said Thursday.
* Türkiye is holding discussions with Canada-based engineering firm AtkinsRealis over potential cooperation on new nuclear power plant projects, a cabinet minister said Thursday.
* A total of 433 Afghan inmates imprisoned in Pakistan and Iraq have been released and repatriated to their homeland over the past week, Afghanistan's Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation announced late Thursday.
* A senior Palestinian official said on Thursday that any international force planned for deployment in the Gaza Strip should not serve as a substitute for the Palestinian security forces.
* The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday in a statement that it launched strikes on Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon.
* Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to declare the area along the Israel-Egypt border a closed military zone to halt a growing threat from drone-borne arms smuggling.
* Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said Thursday that it has agreed to "enter into the humanitarian truce" proposed by the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
* Relief organizations in Sudan's North Darfur are increasing support for the growing number of people displaced from the state capital of El Fasher, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday that it has approved a 32-million-U.S.-dollar financing package to help Mongolia strengthen disaster preparedness by modernizing the country's early warning systems.
* Sri Lanka welcomed 32,815 tourists during the first five days of November 2025, bringing the total tourist arrivals so far in 2025 to 1,923,502, according to the latest weekly report from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority.
* Iraq's national carrier announced Thursday the resumption of domestic flights at Mosul International Airport, marking its return to operation after an 11-year hiatus following the Islamic State (IS) group's capture of the city in 2014.
* Jamaica has suffered damage caused by Hurricane Melissa approximately equivalent to 30 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), an official of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said Thursday.
* This year is virtually certain to rank among the three warmest on record, with October 2025 being the third-warmest October globally, according to data released Thursday by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
* An explosion during Friday prayers at a mosque inside a school in Indonesia's capital Jakarta injured 54 people, the city's police chief Asep Edi Suheri said.
