* Cuba on Thursday denounced the six-decade U.S. trade embargo as causing economic losses of more than 5 billion USD between March 2023 and February 2024.
* South Sudan's government has decided to postpone a long-delayed national election until December 2026, the presidency said on Friday, underscoring the challenges facing the country's fragile peace process.
* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday said his government's judicial reform package has been ratified by enough state legislatures to validate its application.
* The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) expressed its strong opposition on Friday to the latest round of sanctions imposed by the United States on Venezuelan officials.
* Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), met with visiting Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council Sergei Shoigu on Friday, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Saturday.
* Russian forces have taken control of eight settlements in the Donetsk region over the past week, the Russian defense ministry said Friday.
* Ukraine's government has approved the 2025 draft budget, which has a strong focus on defence spending, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday.
* Lithuania and Germany signed an agreement in Berlin on the rights of German troops to be stationed in Lithuania on Friday, according to Lithuania's Ministry of Defence.
* Finland will provide an additional 118 million euros (131 million USD) in defense aid for Ukraine, the Finnish government announced in a press release on Friday.
* Switzerland will continue to provide support to help Albania reform its finance system at the local level, according to an agreement signed here by the two sides on Friday.
* The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador announced Friday that starting Saturday "consular services in Venezuela will continue to be served electronically and through the consulates in Bogota and Panama City," after the closure of the Ecuadorian consulate in Caracas.
* Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis requested on Friday an immediate response from the European Union (EU) to distortions in European energy market.
* Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday his three-day trip to Iraq was aimed at promoting unity and solidarity between the two countries.
* Top Iranian and Belarusian security officials on Friday highlighted the need to strengthen bilateral political, security and economic relations, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported.
* Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed on Friday the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli escalation in the West Bank.
* UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon Imran Riza announced on Friday a 24-million-USD emergency aid package to support the country's most vulnerable populations and those suffering from the ongoing Hezbollah-Israel conflict.
* The United Nations and its partners have vaccinated against polio more than 560,000 children under 10 in the Gaza Strip, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
* Portugal's birth rate and marriage rate have both declined in the first seven months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) released on Friday.
* Russia's Gazprom said it would send 42.4 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Saturday, in line with recent days.
* The Federal Reserve is nearly as likely to deliver an outsized interest-rate cut next week as a more-usual-sized reduction, trading in rate-futures contracts suggested on Friday, as financial markets priced in a bigger chance that the Fed will move more aggressively.
* India has raised the basic import tax on crude and refined edible oils by 20 percentage points, the government said on Friday, as the world's biggest edible oil importer tries to help protect farmers reeling from lower oilseed prices.
* The Sri Lankan government announced proposed adjustments to the personal income tax structure on Friday, which will come into effect in April, next year, according to the president's media division (PMD) on Friday.
* The Portuguese government on Friday announced plans to more than double the country's public housing supply by 2030, setting a target of building 58,993 homes as part of its Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
* The South African government has noted the decision of Fitch Ratings, a credit rating agency, to affirm the country's long-term foreign and local currency debt ratings at "BB-" and maintain the stable outlook, said the National Treasury on Friday.
* The Austrian National Bank (OeNB) on Friday lowered the forecast for Austria's gross domestic product (GDP) this year from a 0.3 percent growth to a 0.7 percent contraction, citing an industrial recession and weak consumer spending.
* Russia in August received 1.05 million foreign tourists, the most in two years, according to the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia (Rosstat).
* The Asian Development Bank on Friday launched a new country partnership strategy for Bhutan, aiming to help the South Asian country address economic obstacles and enable inclusive, sustainable, resilient and job-creating growth.
* Floods triggered by a storm in Myanmar have killed 33 people and displaced over 230,000 people in recent days, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) True News Information Team reported on Friday.
* Nearly 40 people have been killed and more than 414,000 others affected by the devastating floods that have recently ravaged Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, an official of the United Nations in the African country has said.
* The Czech Republic is preparing for potential major floods after meteorologists extended an extreme flood warning to most of the country over the next few days.
