* The U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon urged de-escalation on Friday after a big increase in hostilities at the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire for almost a year.
* A U.N. committee on Thursday accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children's rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.
* Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday presided over a State Council executive meeting to study measures to boost the development of venture capital. The meeting noted that venture capital is related to sci-tech innovation, industrial upgrading and high-quality development.
* President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia was ramping up drone production by around ten times to nearly 1.4 million this year in a bid to ensure the Russian armed forces win in Ukraine.
* The Lao government launched a project to protect biodiversity and reduce poverty, engaging farmers from three districts of southern Laos' Khammuan province to help improve livelihoods and restore forests in the province.
* By 2030, 30 percent of Malta's land and fishery zone will be legally protected, according to a biodiversity strategy and action plan released on Thursday.
* Cambodia on Thursday set a new monthly minimum wage for the country's garment, footwear and travel goods industry at 208 USD for 2025, up 1.96 percent from the current 204 dollars, Labor and Vocational Training Minister Heng Sour said.
* Venezuela was designated a member of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the 2024-2026 period, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said Thursday.
* Russia said on Friday that the West should stop supplying weapons to Ukraine and sponsoring "terrorist activity" if it wanted to send a signal it was serious about seeking an end to the war.
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vowed in an interview published on Friday that Moscow would defend its interests in the Arctic both in diplomatic and military terms.
* U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will hold separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sept. 26, the White House said in a statement on Thursday.
* Greece will start negotiations to buy a fourth Belharra frigate from France to strengthen its navy as it recovers from a decade-long debt crisis, the country's defence minister said on Thursday.
* The 4th World Conference on Creative Economy (WCCE) will be held in Tashkent on Oct. 2-4, Uzbek media reported on Thursday.
* Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his official residence in Madrid on Thursday, for the first time since Spain recognized Palestine as a state in May.
* European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in Poland on Thursday evening that flood-hit countries will have access to a 10 billion euro (11 billion USD) fund from the European Union (EU).
* U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday he expects the Federal Reserve to continue cutting interest rates and vowed that his administration would keep working to lower costs for Americans.
* Morocco has arrested 152 people, who will now face trial on accusations they used social media to incite an attempt at mass illegal migration into the adjacent Spanish enclave of Ceuta, a government spokesperson said.
* There are no changes to U.S. military posture in the Middle East, the Pentagon told reporters on Thursday when asked about recent deadly attacks in Lebanon attributed to Israel that blew up Hezbollah radios and pagers.
* French President Emmanuel Macron held phone calls with top political and military leaders from Lebanon as well as a separate call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging restraint after a wave of explosions of pagers and radio devices.
* British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah after a week of escalation that has brought both sides to the brink of war.
* Israeli warplanes carried out late on Thursday their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war, heightening the conflict between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid calls for restraint.
* Israel will face "a crushing response from the axis of resistance", Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday according to state media, after attacks on Lebanese Hezbollah's communication devices.
* The Israeli military on Thursday night instructed residents in dozens of northern communities to stay near shelters and avoid non-essential outdoor activities due to possible retaliation from Hezbollah.
* Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that the explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, which targeted communication devices, amounted to "an act of war and a declaration of war by Israel."
* The Yemeni government on Thursday praised the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)'s recent adoption of a non-binding resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories within a year.
* Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in tank and air strikes on north and central areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday, medics said, as tanks advanced further into northwest Rafah near the border with Egypt.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday it has approved a $500 million policy-based loan to Indonesia to fund a program designed to help its energy transition efforts.
* The Nepali government spent about one third of its revenues in repaying loans in the 2023-24 fiscal year which ended in mid-July, as the country's public debt has been ballooning in recent years.
* The credit rating agency Fitch Ratings has upgraded Mongolia's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating to "B+" from "B," maintaining a stable outlook, the country's central bank said Thursday, citing the agency's statement.
* German residential property prices continued to fall in the second quarter, dropping by an average of 2.6% year-on-year, but they showed some signs of stabilisation, federal statistics office data showed on Friday.
* The number of Canadians receiving regular employment insurance (EI) benefits totaled 489,000, up 2.2 percent in July from a month earlier which was the third consecutive monthly increase, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
* Argentina posted a trade surplus of $1.963 billion in August, after registering $6.793 billion in exports and $4.830 billion in imports in the month, the government's statistics office announced on Thursday.
* Egypt aims to restore normal production at its natural gas fields by next summer, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Thursday, signalling the government is moving to settle its arrears with production companies.
* Malaysia's domestic tourism rose 23.8 percent year on year in the second quarter by recording 68.4 million domestic visitors, official data showed Friday.
* The South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the country's central bank, said Thursday that it has decided to cut the repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 8 percent, effective from Friday.
* China's financial hub, Shanghai, had evacuated 112,000 people as of Friday morning due to Typhoon Pulasan, which brought record-breaking rainfall to parts of the city.
* The death toll from Myanmar's floods has risen to 293, with 89 people still missing, as of Thursday morning, the state-run daily The Mirror reported on Friday.
* Flooding has displaced 7,780 people in several states in Malaysia as of 2 p.m. local time on Friday. The worst affected was Kedah state, with 6,588 people being housed in 38 flood relief centers, according to the country's social welfare department.
* Northeastern Japan is expected to see significant downpours as bands of heavy rain clouds have formed over the coast of Akita Prefecture, the country's weather agency said on Friday.
* Firefighters tackling deadly wildfires in central and northern Portugal had doused the flames in the Aveiro district, one of the worst-hit, as of Thursday, and were focusing on eight large blazes still raging elsewhere.
* The mpox outbreak in Africa is still not under control, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) warned on Thursday, adding that cases were still increasing in several countries.
* At least three people have died, and 84 others have fallen ill following a cholera outbreak along the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania's Katavi region, a local health official reported on Friday.
* Myanmar has received 2.45 million doses of oral cholera vaccines from the World Health Organization (WHO), the state-run daily The Myanma Alinn reported on Friday.
