* The Iraqi parliament on Thursday approved three deputy prime ministers and 11 new cabinet ministers in a vote to fill vacant government positions after about five months of political standoff, according to a parliamentary statement.
* China is ready to work with the European Union (EU) to continue to leverage the role of the export control dialogue mechanism and promote the development of bilateral trade in dual-use items, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.
* Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Thursday that renewable energy now accounts for more than one-fifth of the country's electricity generation as it seeks to reduce the impact of U.S. fuel restrictions.
* Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned Thursday night that external forces are attempting to "divide and own" Canada, calling on voters in Alberta to choose to stay in Canada in an upcoming referendum.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told British media that Ukraine would restart strikes on Russia's oil refineries and described recent U.S. moves as a betrayal of Kyiv, according to reports on Thursday.
* German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday rejected placing Russian assets frozen in the European Union (EU) under U.S. control, saying decisions over the funds should remain with Europe.
* Russian Ambassador to Japan Nikolai Nozdrev rejected Tokyo's protest over the detention of a Japanese correspondent, during a meeting at Japan's foreign ministry, the Russian embassy said on Thursday.
* Koja Genta, governor of Japan's southern prefecture of Okinawa, said Friday he accepts the deployment of U.S. military MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft at the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the prefecture, local media reported.
* European Union (EU) leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit which focused on economic competitiveness, high energy prices and the bloc's next long-term budget, with the first day ending amid differences in views and the cancellation of a scheduled press conference.
* The Seventh Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was held in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, on Thursday. Participants exchanged views on security and development in the CICA region, the implementation of confidence-building measures and ways to strengthen practical cooperation.
* The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia.
* Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday, urged the United States to pressure Israel to halt its attacks on southern Lebanese villages and towns.
* The Iranian Army's Navy announced that its monitoring teams on Thursday detected a "violating" oil tanker that had caught fire earlier in the day while seeking to cross the "forbidden region" east of the Strait of Hormuz.
* Iraq's Transportation Ministry announced on Thursday the reopening of air routes between Iraq and Kuwait, which had been temporarily suspended due to recent regional security developments and tensions.
* Yemen's Houthi group attacked the King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh 20 times in October, killing 17 people and injuring 333 others, the Saudi-led coalition said Thursday.
* Syria's state postal service dispatched its first batch of international parcels to five countries on Thursday, marking the resumption of outbound postal shipments after more than a decade of suspension, state news agency SANA reported.
* South Africa has expressed serious concern over the renewed escalation of attacks in the Red Sea region, particularly in and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, including attacks on Saudi Arabia, according to a statement issued by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation on Thursday.
* Eritrea urged the African Union (AU) to take "immediate corrective measures" to restore its representation at the AU Commission headquarters after Ethiopia expelled its diplomats.
* The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday that the total volume of oil stocks to be released by its members would exceed the initially pledged 400 million barrels to address tightness in global oil markets.
* Republic of Korea's job growth stayed in the 100,000 range for a third straight month, driven by a turnaround in the manufacturing industry in over two years, statistical ministry data showed Friday.
* Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX) surged 68.4 percent year-on-year in September, extending a 46.1 percent increase in August, Enterprise Singapore said in a release on Friday.
* Four people, including three children and a teacher, were killed and two others injured in a shooting on Thursday at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, police said. The 16-year-old gunman was also fatally shot.
* A magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on Friday, about 161 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the region's largest city, the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported. The quake occurred at 15:35 local time (0335 GMT) at a depth of 127.8 km.
* A bus collided with a stationary train on a vehicle-loading platform on the French side of the Channel Tunnel on Thursday evening, injuring 19 people, French daily Le Figaro reported.
