* Two bodies were found, about 20 people remained missing and at least 10 houses were destroyed on Saturday in a massive mudslide triggered by torrential rain in central Japan, local authorities said.
* More than 1.28 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China by Friday, the National Health Commission said Saturday.
* India's COVID-19 tally rose to 30,502,362 on Saturday as 44,111 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
* Brazil registered 65,165 new cases of coronavirus and 1,857 new COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Friday.
* Russia on Saturday reported 697 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since the pandemic began and the fifth day in a row it has set that record.
* Cambodia reported 36 new COVID-19 fatalities on Saturday, the highest-ever daily number of deaths, taking the overall death toll in the country to 696, the health ministry said in a statement.
* The Indonesian government has decided to deploy 53,000 personnel for emergency community activity restrictions (locally known as PPKM) to be imposed in Java and Bali from July 3 to 20, a senior police officer said on Friday.
* Newly arrived overseas tourists on Thailand's Phuket were able to roam free without quarantine for the first time in more than a year, as the country launched a special programme for vaccinated visitors to the island.
* Indonesia expects COVID-19 infections to keep rising for up to two weeks before curbs introduced on Saturday on more than 100 million people begin to reduce cases, a government minister said.
* Malaysia will relax coronavirus lockdowns next week in five states that have met the government's indicators for lifting curbs, the security minister said on Saturday. The Southeast Asian country has been under a nationwide lockdown since June 1 to rein in a surge of COVID-19 infections.
* US President Joe Biden said on Friday that the drawdown in Afghanistan is "on track", but troops will not leave the country in the next few days.
* German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled a relaxation of quarantine rules for double-jabbed Britons on Friday following a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in her final trip to Britain as chancellor.
* Greece will support Libya on the path to national elections scheduled later this year, Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias said on Friday, backing the call of visiting Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives (parliament) Aguila Saleh for the withdrawal of foreign forces and mercenaries from the North African country.
* Europe's medicines regulator has approved a scale-up of Johnson & Johnson's plant in Leiden, the Netherlands, that produces the drug substance used in its vaccine.
* US employers added 850,000 jobs in June, with unemployment rate unexpectedly edging up to 5.9 percent, the US Labor Department reported Friday.
* Ireland has agreed in principle to buy one million vaccines from Romania, just days after Romania agreed to offload over 1 million excess shots to fellow EU member Denmark.
* White House economic adviser Brian Deese on Friday said the United States was still working to get more countries to join an agreement signed this week by 130 countries backing a global corporate minimum tax of at least 15%.
* Canadian factory activity grew at the slowest pace in four months in June as material shortages persisted and inflation pressures rose, but the rate of expansion remained vigorous.
* The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 671 to 3,730,353, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday. The reported death toll rose by 16 to 91,023, the tally showed.
* Australia's New South Wales state recorded its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 infections this year, even as residents in several major cities across the country were released from snap lockdowns on Saturday.
* Mexico's health ministry on Friday reported 5,879 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country and 177 more fatalities, bringing its total to 2,531,229 infections and 233,425 deaths.
* The United Arab Emirates banned citizens from travelling to India, Bangladesh and some other countries, state news agency WAM reported.
* South Africa registered more than 24,000 cases on Friday, its highest tally of new infections since the pandemic began.
