* Peruvian President Pedro Castillo on Thursday called on the country's political parties to help his government form a new "broad-based" cabinet, following the resignation of Anibal Torres as prime minister.
* Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington resumed in Vienna with a meeting between Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and the EU's Enrique Mora, who coordinates the talks aimed at salvaging a 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian state media reported on Thursday.
* US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met with leaders in Samoa and Tonga on Friday, discussing climate change, ocean security and opportunities to work together as Washington seeks to re-engage with the region.
* Three ships loaded with grain left Ukrainian ports on Friday under a recently concluded safe passage deal, the Turkish defenсe ministry and Reuters witnesses said.
* Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe said an interim budget will be presented to parliament in the first week of September, the president's media division said in a statement.
* The African Union (AU) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) on Thursday launched a joint election observer mission to observe general elections in Kenya on Aug. 9.
* South Sudan's parties to the unity government on Thursday extended the transitional period by two years.
* Palestine on Thursday called for international intervention to stop the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and protect the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
* Israel's military announced Thursday it was sending more troops to the area near Gaza in case there were possible reprisal attacks following the arrest of a senior militant in the West Bank this week.
* Indonesia's economic growth accelerated in the April-June quarter amid an export boom driven by rising commodity prices, official data showed on Friday, but monetary tightening, rising inflation and a global recession risk threaten the outlook.
* Japan's agricultural and seafood exports hit a record high in the first six months of 2022 owing to increased overseas demand as more people dine out amid a decline in COVID-19 infections, the government said in a report Friday.
* The Reserve Bank of India's key policy repo rate was raised by 50 basis points on Friday, the third increase in as many months to cool stubbornly high inflation.
* Year-on-year inflation in the Philippines accelerated to 6.4 percent in July, mainly due to higher prices in food and non-alcoholic beverages and transport, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Friday.
* US job growth likely slowed in July, but the pace was probably strong enough to keep the unemployment rate at 3.6% for a fifth straight month, offering the strongest evidence yet that the economy was not in recession.
* Inflation in the Netherlands rose to 10.3 percent in July, exceeding the 10 percent mark for the first time since September 1975, the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) announced on Thursday.
* Inflation in Cyprus went further up in July by 10.9 percent on a yearly basis, the Statistical Service of the Ministry of Finance (CYSTAT) said on Thursday. CYSTAT said in an announcement that the rise in inflation was the highest since August 1981. It was also 1.30 percentage points higher than June.
* Australia's central bank on Friday warned inflation was heading to three-decade highs requiring further hikes in interest rates that would slow growth sharply, making it tough to keep the economy on an "even keel".
* Climate change and rising sea levels pose long-term threats to Fiji's low-lying islands, including the need to relocate and deaths during disasters, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its latest Pacific Economic Monitor.
* Rescue teams will work non-stop to free 10 miners trapped in a flooded coal mine in Mexico's northern border state of Coahuila, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday.
* The Republic of Korea launched its first lunar orbiter, carried by a US rocket, the science ministry said Friday.
* More than 70 countries where monkeypox is not endemic have reported outbreaks of the viral disease, which the World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency, as confirmed cases crossed 25,800 and non-endemic countries reported their first deaths.
* The US government on Thursday declared monkeypox a public health emergency, more than a week after the World Health Organization qualified the outbreak as a global emergency.
* Health authorities in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) will begin the nation's first rollout of monkeypox vaccination on Monday as cases of the infectious disease continue to rise.
* Bolivia's Health and Sports Ministry on Thursday said two new cases of monkeypox were detected, raising the total cases to three and leading authorities to redouble efforts to control the spread of the virus.
* Mainland China reported 539 coronavirus cases for Aug. 4, of which 222 were symptomatic and 317 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.
* India's daily COVID-19 caseload Friday again surpassed the 20,000 mark after remaining below it for the past five days, officials said.
* The government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has reintroduced mandatory masks in all medical and social care facilities, due to an increase in COVID-19 cases, the government said Thursday.
* The German government will fund the development of a nasal vaccine against COVID-19 similar to flu vaccines already available for children.
