* Georgians voted on Saturday in a parliamentary election. Polls opened at 0400 GMT and will close at 1600 GMT, with some 3.5 million Georgians eligible to cast ballots.
* Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Friday presided over a State Council executive meeting, during which attendees discussed the current economic situation and the implementation of a raft of incremental policies.
* India and Germany signed several memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in areas including science and technology, environment science and health in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in New Delhi on Friday.
* Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, has officially expressed the intention to join BRICS, viewing the multinational group as a vital platform to strengthen cooperation among developing countries.
* At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Finnish President Alexander Stubb will pay a state visit to China from Oct. 28 to 31, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced Friday.
* Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies on Friday reached consensus on delivery of some $50 billion in loans to Ukraine backed by the earnings from frozen Russian sovereign assets starting as early as December.
* European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday during her official visit to Serbia, where they discussed the country's progress toward European Union (EU) accession, regional stability, and economic cooperation.
* Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has canceled the trips to the United Nations summits COP16 in Colombia and COP29 in Azerbaijan, his office said on Friday, following medical advice after he suffered a head injury last weekend.
* Israel struck military sites in Iran early on Saturday, but its retaliation for an Iranian attack this month did not appear aimed at the country's most sensitive oil and nuclear targets after urgent calls from allies and neighbours for restraint.
* British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday Iran should not respond to a wave of Israeli strikes, urging restraint on all sides.
* The United Arab Emirates on Saturday condemned the military targeting of Iran and stressed the importance of exercising "maximum restraint" to avoid escalation, after Israel carried out airstrikes on military sites in Iran.
* The European Union (EU) recognizes the urgent need for seven steps to address the ongoing conflict in Lebanon, said Josep Borrell, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on Friday.
* Iran will resume its flights from 9 a.m. local time, the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the spokesperson for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization as saying on Saturday.
* Israel has completed what it called a retaliatory attack on military targets in Iran, said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) early Saturday morning.
* Hezbollah announced on Friday that it launched air attacks using squadrons of suicide drones and missiles targeting the northern Israeli city of Safed and other locations in northern Israel.
* More than 50 people were killed and over 200 injured Friday in an attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a village in central Sudan, according to non-governmental groups.
* At least 4,882 people have been killed in Sudan's Khartoum State since the outbreak of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on April 15, 2023, the state's health authorities said on Friday.
* The People's Bank of China (PBOC) and the Bank of Japan have agreed to renew their bilateral currency swap deal amounting to 200 billion yuan (about 28.13 billion USD), or 3.4 trillion Japanese yen.
* French Finance Minister Antoine Armand on Friday, following a Moody's credit rating warning on his country's debt, said that France's top fiscal priority is to reduce its public deficit to a targeted 5% of GDP by 2025.
* The United Nations humanitarian agency said Friday that severe flooding caused by heavy rains pounding several parts of South Sudan has affected more than 1.3 million people.
* At least 19 people were killed in gang clashes in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch said Friday.
