* The World Bank announced Wednesday that it is providing over US$4 billion for the purchase and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines for 51 developing countries, half of which are in Africa.
* The highly contagious Delta variant of the novel coronavirus is surging through Asia this week, with record numbers of infections in Australia and Republic of Korea, prompting some countries to tighten curbs and others to step up vaccinations.
* Cambodia exported 132,174 tons of dry rubber in the first half of this year, up 7 percent over the same period of last year, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Veng Sakhon said on Friday.
* All US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have evacuated the Bagram Airfield near the Afghan capital Kabul, handing over the largest coalition base to the Afghan government troops, the Tolo News TV reported on Friday.
* Britain said on Friday it had received 6 million applications to its settlement scheme for European Union nationals before a June 30 deadline passed.
* An OPEC+ deal to release more oil to the market and extend its supply management policy to the end of 2022 hinges on agreement from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has opposed the deal and pushed talks into a second day, OPEC+ sources said.
* Brazil saw a trade surplus of US$37.5 billion in the first half of 2021, the biggest surplus since 1997, when records started being kept, the Economy Ministry's Secretariat of Foreign Trade said on Thursday. The surplus is 68.2 percent higher compared to the first half of 2020, when it totaled US$22.3 billion.
* More than 1.26 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China by Thursday, the National Health Commission said Friday.
* India's federal government on Friday sent high-level expert teams to states that saw a surge in COVID-19 cases in a bid to help them improve response and management in tackling the pandemic. On Friday morning the ministry said the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 recorded in the South Asian country has reached 30,458,251 with 400,312 deaths.
* Russia reported 679 COVID-19 deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since the pandemic began, amid a surge in cases that authorities blame on the Delta variant.
* Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike reiterated a ban on spectators for the upcoming Olympics would be an option if the coronavirus situation worsened.
* Indonesia has authorised the COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna for emergency use, Penny K. Lukito, the chief of its food and drug agency, said.
* Retired and overseas-trained health professionals and the wider health workforce can now join New Zealand's expanding vaccinator workforce, the country's COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said on Friday.
* The White House said it would send out special teams to hot spots around the United States to combat the Delta variant amid rising case counts in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low.
* The grim, painstaking search for victims in the rubble of a partially collapsed Miami-area condominium complex, briefly suspended over safety concerns, has resumed with greater caution and a watchful eye on a tropical storm headed toward Florida.
* Israeli aircraft bombed a Hamas site in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian enclave, Israel's military said on Friday.
* Around one in four people lacked safely managed drinking water in their homes in 2020 and nearly half the world's population lacked safely managed sanitation, said a joint report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday.
* The Euro 2020 soccer tournament was blamed for a surge in cases as fans have flocked to stadiums, bars and spectator zones across Europe to watch the action while the pandemic has still been raging.
* A night-time curfew will be imposed in several Portuguese municipalities, including the capital Lisbon and the city of Porto, the government said.
* Australia will halve the number of arrivals from overseas as its coronavirus hotel quarantine system creaks under pressure from outbreaks of the highly transmissible Delta variant, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
* Spain posted a record drop in jobless figures for the second month in a row in June, as looser COVID-19 restrictions, increased vaccination rates and the cautious return of tourism buoyed the labour market.
* Britain has reported 50,824 new cases of the highly transmissible Delta coronavirus variant of concern in the latest week, Public Health England (PHE) said on Friday.
