* Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani reappointed El Moctar Ould Djay as prime minister on Friday and tasked him with forming a new government, hours after his cabinet resigned, the Mauritanian News Agency reported.
* South African jurist and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was on Friday announced as the winner of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.
* The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday added the International Criminal Court (ICC) to its sanctions list, extending U.S. sanctions against the Hague-based court from individual officials to the institution itself.
* China and the European Union (EU) have reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining stable and balanced trade ties as key trading partners after a meeting of the China-EU trade and investment consultation mechanism, an official with China's commerce ministry said Saturday.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday, during which considerable attention was paid to prospects for resolving the Ukraine crisis, the Kremlin said. On global energy developments, Russia reaffirmed its readiness to supply oil and petroleum products to U.S. and global markets, according to the Kremlin.
* China's top diplomat Wang Yi held the 28th China-France Strategic Dialogue with French President's Diplomatic Adviser Emmanuel Bonne in Datong, north China's Shanxi Province, on Saturday.
* Thailand has finished preparing for next week's annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas said on Friday during a press tour of the venue.
* The Chinese and Pakistani armies will conduct their first joint training exercise in Korla in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in mid-to-late October, a defense spokesperson said on Saturday.
* Ukrainian forces struck a data center and several facilities in Russia linked to missile launch infrastructure and rocket fuel production, according to Ukrainian statements released Friday.
* Belarus on Friday issued a protest note to Ukraine over a drone attack on Thursday on a Belarusian-registered cargo vehicle in Russia's Bryansk region that left a Belarusian citizen seriously injured.
* The leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have called on the European Union (EU) to ban the transit of Russian grain through its territory, according to a statement released by the Estonian government on Friday.
* Thailand and Timor-Leste agreed on Friday to begin negotiating a rice trade agreement and to push for direct flights between the two countries as their prime ministers pledged closer cooperation on food security and tackling online scams.
* Indonesian authorities have procured 4.11 million tonnes of rice from local farmers as of Oct. 8, surpassing the government's full-year target of 4 million tonnes, state-owned logistics company Bulog said Friday. Bulog President Director Ahmad Rizal Ramdhani said the absorption reached 102 percent of the government-mandated target for 2026.
* Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim unveiled the national budget for 2027 on Friday with a focus on easing the cost of living through tax breaks, a higher minimum wage and other measures while also seeking to develop the country's burgeoning technology sector.
* Finland's capital Helsinki has decided to ban outdoor advertisements promoting airline flights, cruises and fossil-fuel-powered cars on city-controlled advertising spaces as part of efforts to meet its climate goals, Finnish media reported Friday.
* Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian proposed on Friday establishing a "CIS+1" mechanism to strengthen cooperation between Iran and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State in Turkmenistan.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday it has approved a financing package of 305.75 million USD to support Nepal's highways and protect wildlife habitats. The program consists of a 285 million dollar capital loan, a 20 million dollar grant and 750,000 dollars in technical assistance, according to ADB.
* The navy of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) announced Friday that its forces had hit a "giant" ship carrying liquefied petroleum gas within the preceding hours as it sought to cross the Strait of Hormuz through the "illegal" route south of the waterway.
* An explosion was heard at Terminal 3 of King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday afternoon, with smoke briefly seen rising near the terminal, eyewitnesses said. People at the airport were being evacuated, according to the eyewitnesses.
* Attorney-General of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said Friday that investigations into the Sept. 30 incident aboard flydubai flight FZ1073 revealed that the co-pilot had attempted to carry out a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv.
* The United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has projected that global economic growth will be 2.6 percent in 2026, down from 2.9 percent in 2025. In its Trade and Development Report 2026 released on Friday, UNCTAD said developing economies are expected to grow by 4 percent this year, easing from 4.7 percent in 2025.
* The Australian government has invested a record 1.1 billion Australian dollars (about 770 million USD) to strengthen the country's mental health system and expand access to care, according to a statement released on Saturday to mark World Mental Health Day.
* Slovakia's trade balance swung to a deficit of 125 million euros (139.9 million USD) in August, ending six consecutive months of trade surpluses, according to preliminary data released by the Slovak Statistics Office on Friday.
* Azerbaijan's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.5 percent year on year to 102 billion manats (about 60 billion USD) in the first three quarters, the State Statistical Committee said Friday.
* Mount Anak Krakatau in Indonesia's South Lampung regency erupted on Friday afternoon, spewing a thick ash plume about 250 meters above its peak, according to the country's Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. The ash column, drifting north and northwest, lasted over 3 minutes and 46 seconds on seismograms, the agency said in a statement.
