* Chairman of the Election Commission R.M.A.L. Ratnayake said on Sunday that Sri Lanka's presidential election entered the second round of counting. He said that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People's Power (NPP) and Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawega (SJB) will be qualified in the race.
* Polls opened on Sunday in the German state of Brandenburg, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is projected to finish first, aiming to build on recent successes in other eastern states and surpass Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats in this traditional stronghold.
* Czech main opposition party Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) on Saturday emerged victorious in the regional elections, winning 10 out of the country's 13 regions. The ruling Together coalition won in South Moravian Region, the Civic Democrats (ODS) in South Bohemian Region, and the Mayors for Liberec Region in its own region, according to preliminary official results.
* Russia will not participate in a possible second peace summit on Ukraine, as it is unrelated to resolving the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.
* Iran and Cuba have reaffirmed mutual support for addressing U.S. hostile policies and sanctions, said the Iranian foreign ministry on Sunday.
* Greece and Cyprus signed on Friday an agreement to advance to their electrical interconnection under the Great Sea Interconnector project, the Greek Environment and Energy ministry announced on Saturday.
* Alongside the opportunities, significant risks posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the cultural sector were highlighted at the Group of Seven (G7) ministers' cultural meeting, which concluded on Saturday in Naples, Italy.
* Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire into Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of conflict across Lebanon's south and Hezbollah firing rockets deep into northern Israel.
* Israeli forces raided the bureau of media network Al Jazeera in the West Bank city of Ramallah early on Sunday morning, issuing it with a military order to shut down operations, the network said.
* Hezbollah forces in Lebanon fired approximately 115 rockets into Israel early Sunday, with some reaching areas near the northern city of Haifa, extending their range to previously untargeted locations amid the ongoing conflict.
* Iran on Saturday unveiled its latest homegrown precision strike long-range ballistic missile and kamikaze drone at a grand parade staged by the country's armed forces, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
* Chad on Saturday denied reports that it has agreed on the return of American Special Forces to the Central African nation.
* United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is "gravely alarmed" by reports of a full-scale assault on the Sudanese city of al-Fashir by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and called on its leader to halt the attack immediately, a U.N. spokesperson said on Saturday.
* China's Ministry of Water Resources warned on Sunday that some small and medium-sized rivers in the country's southern regions could see floods exceeding alert levels due to heavy downpours over the next few days.
* Japan's weather agency on Sunday morning downgraded its heavy rain emergency warning for parts of Ishikawa Prefecture to a warning, but authorities called for continued vigilance against possible floods and landslides.
* At least 503 people have been killed by flooding in Chad since July, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Chad said on Saturday.
* A gas explosion in a coal mine in Iran's South Khorasan Province killed at least 51 people and injured 20, Iran's state media said on Sunday.
