* The UN peacekeeping chief on Thursday underscored the need for stronger, more consistent and unified support from member states for the world body to fulfill its key peacekeeping goals.
* Japan's Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has told officials he will reshuffle his cabinet on Sept. 13, public broadcaster NHK reported on Friday.
* Top officials from Indonesia and China discussed ways to improve their bilateral investment and trade, which include expanding the range of Indonesian exports products, both countries said on Friday.
* At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Moros will pay a state visit to China from Sept. 8 to 14, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on Friday.
* Singapore and Indonesia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Friday to strengthen low carbon energy project and cross-border electricity trade, according Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry.
* Officials on Thursday urged more steps to enhance the process toward the launch of the common currency for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) named Eco by 2027.
* Azerbaijan is ready to allow Red Cross aid from Armenia into the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh enclave if Red Crescent aid from Azerbaijan is let in at the same time, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, told Reuters.
* Israel will allow the export of commercial goods from the Gaza Strip through a main border crossing from Sunday after a days-long ban for what it called an attempt to smuggle explosives, Palestinian officials said on Friday.
* Islamist militants killed at least 49 civilians and 15 soldiers in attacks on a military camp and a boat in northeastern Mali on Thursday, the interim government said.
* Germany's lower house of parliament on Friday passed a bill on phasing out oil and gas heating systems after months of wrangling, but the watered-down bill means the sector's 2030 climate goal cannot be reached, the economy ministry said.
* The Federal Reserve's top regulatory official said Friday the central bank is "a long way" from any decision on if it would issue its own digital currency, and added it would not do so without official support in Washington.
* Cambodia exported products worth 15.7 billion USD in the first eight months of 2023, a slight increase of 0.3 percent from 15.64 billion dollars in the same period last year, said a General Department of Customs and Excise's report released on Friday.
* The Philippines has resumed exporting fresh mangoes to Australia with an initial shipment of 1,500 kilograms of Carabao mangoes this week after an interruption of 10 years, the Philippines' Department of Agriculture said Friday.
* Myanmar saw its export of manufactured products earned over 4.08 billion USD in the first five months of the fiscal year 2023-24, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.
* A total of 1.31 million visitors arrived in Singapore in August, the second-largest figure this year, according to the latest statistic released by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).
* The Finnish government is aiming to double its domestic electricity production to boost clean energy growth, the country's Climate and Environment Minister Kai Mykkanen said on Thursday.
* With unexpected growth of 0.5 percent in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023, the French statistics authority has revised its annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast up to 0.9 percent for the whole year of 2023.
* An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 hit northeast of Kermadec Islands, New Zealand, at 21:09 local time (0909 GMT) on Friday, according to New Zealand research institute GNS Science. No injuries or property damage have been reported.
