* China's combined tax and fee support policies have helped ease the burden on market entities and stabilize the macroeconomy, official data showed on Thursday.
* A ceremony was held on Friday for the signing of treaties to incorporate Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson into the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the event, which took place in the Kremlin.
* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday Ukraine was formally applying for fast-track membership of the NATO military alliance.
* The Republic of Korea (RoK), the United States and Japan on Friday conducted anti-submarine drills near the Korean Peninsula, according to the RoK’s navy.
* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday said a cyber hack had accessed government files containing confidential information about the armed forces and details about his health, including a heart condition that led to treatment in January.
* Nord Stream 2 AG has informed that it expects the gas leaks on the damaged Nord Stream 2 pipeline to cease during Saturday, Denmark's Energy Agency said on Friday.
* Norway will receive assistance from Britain, Germany and France to boost offshore security following the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Friday.
* British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Friday he had discussed shared issues with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic including the Northern Ireland Protocol, a contentious trade issue between the European Union and Britain.
* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called on the maritime sector to accelerate its voyage to decarbonization.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Friday that it has approved a financial project to support restoration, conservation and management of coral reefs in four countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region.
* Japan's jobless rate dropped to 2.5 percent in August, the government said in a report on Friday. The unemployment rate edged down from 2.6 percent in July, the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
* Inflation in the eurozone rose by 10 percent in September, a new record high since the launch of the single currency in 1999, according to a flash estimate published on Friday by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU).
* Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, met in Sofia on Friday to discuss ways to expand bilateral cooperation on gas supply.
* President of Burkina Faso Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba on Friday called on people to remain calm and united following a confusing situation created by certain army units earlier in the day in Ouagadougou, the national capital, according to a statement published by the presidency.
* India is likely to receive above-average rainfall in October, an official with the state-run weather office said on Friday, posing risks for summer-sown crops such as rice and the planting of wheat.
* Experts predict that long COVID-19 is likely to cost the US economy trillions of dollars and will almost certainly affect multiple industries, US website WebMD reported this week.
* The Pakistani rupee continued its recovery drive against the USD for the fifth consecutive working session on Friday in the interbank market, appreciating more than 0.50 percent, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
* Sri Lanka's inflation, as measured by the year-on-year change in the Colombo Consumer Price Index, rose to 69.8 percent in September 2022 from 64.3 percent a month earlier, the Department of Census and Statistics announced on Friday.
* Single-use plastic cotton buds, drink stirrers and most plastic meat trays will be banned from sale or manufacture from Oct. 1 in New Zealand.
* The United Kingdom's (UK) gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 0.2 percent in the second quarter (Q2) of this year, revised up from the previous estimate of 0.1 percent contraction, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Friday.
* The inflation rate in Belgium went up to 11.27 percent in September, its highest level since August 1975, the country's statistical office Statbel said on Thursday. The rate was 9.94 percent in August and 9.62 percent in July.
* An estimated 233,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Puerto Rico on Friday almost two weeks after Hurricane Fiona caused an island-wide outage for its 3.3 million people.
* Pakistan is facing a disaster within a disaster as diseases spread rapidly and deaths mount following widespread deadly flooding - a crisis worsened by the country's weak health system and lack of emergency planning, medical experts warn.
* Cholera cases have surged this year, especially in places of poverty and conflict, with outbreaks reported in 26 countries and fatality rates rising sharply, a World Health Organization official said on Friday.
