* Republic of Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday appointed a new prime minister and four other ministers after a cabinet reshuffle last month for the final year of his five-year presidency.
* The United Nations (UN) Security Council will hold an open meeting on Sunday to discuss the escalation of tensions between Israel and Palestine. Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN, tweeted that the meeting will be held at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Sunday.
* Israel fired artillery and mounted extensive air strikes on Friday against a network of Palestinian militant tunnels under Gaza that it dubbed "the Metro", amid persistent rocket attacks on Israeli towns.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the need for strict observance of a ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan during a phone call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday, the Kremlin said.
* China carried out about 12.6 million vaccinations against COVID-19 on May 13, bringing the total number of doses administered to 366.91 million, according to data released by the National Health Commission on Friday.
* Japan's government is not considering crafting a supplementary budget to respond to the coronavirus pandemic immediately given there's still money left to tap in the emergency budget reserve, Finance Minister Taro Aso said.
* Brazil's pandemic death toll rose to 430,417 on Thursday, after 2,383 more people died from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, said the Health Ministry. Tests detected 74,592 new cases, taking the national count to 15,433,989, said the ministry.
* Russia reported 9,462 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, including 3,818 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 4,922,901. The government coronavirus task force said 393 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 115,116.
* Singapore announced the strictest curbs on social gatherings and public activities since easing a COVID-19 lockdown last year, amid a rise in locally acquired infections and with new coronavirus clusters forming in recent weeks.
* The Philippines will ban international arrivals from Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) starting Saturday amid concerns over the new coronavirus variant first detected in India, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Friday.
* US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Senate Republicans will give him a revised infrastructure offer next week as the two sides seek compromise on the issue.
* Germany's seven-day rate of COVID-19 cases fell below the threshold of 100 per 100,000 people for the first time since March, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.
* The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday advised that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors and can avoid wearing them indoors in most places. The updated guidance, the agency said, will allow life to begin to return to normal.
* More than two thirds of Spain's 47 million people will have been vaccinated by mid-August, its prime minister said.
* The Spanish Congress of Deputies, the lower chamber in the parliament, approved on Thursday a law on climate change and energy transition aimed at drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the coming years.
* The four most worrying coronavirus variants have been detected in virtually all countries and territories of the Americas, but although they are more transmissible there is no evidence they are more lethal, a World Health Organization expert said.
* Ontario, the 2nd largest province in Canada, will extend its stay-at-home order for an additional two weeks to June 2.
* The first repatriation flight for Australians from India will arrive home on Saturday with the up to 150 citizens and permanent residents heading for two weeks of quarantine in an old mining camp in the remote Northern Territory.
* Egypt received a batch of more than 1.7 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX.
* Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine generates antibody responses 3-1/2 times larger in older people when a second dose is delayed to 12 weeks after the first, a British study said.
* A second-generation vaccine developed by CureVac and GlaxoSmithKline, designed to protect against coronavirus variants, produced a high level of immune response in a trial in rats, the companies said.
* Nine people aged 19-25, including one woman, were injured on Thursday evening when an unidentified number of suspects opened fire in a drive-by shooting in Providence, the capital city of the eastern US state Rhode Island, local media reported.
