US President Joe Biden announced higher targets related to protection of environment. He revised previous ambitions and called big car makers to accept voluntarily his aim to increase the share of electric vehicles in their overall car sales to 40% by 2030, Reuters reported. The administration of the White House is expected next week to introduce new tighter rules related to the decrease of greenhouse gases by 2026.

Moldova's President Maia Sandu said on Friday she was nominating former Finance Minister Natalia Gavrilita to become the new prime minister, Reuters reported. Gavrilita needs to be approved by parliament, where Sandu's PAS party commands a majority after the winning a snap parliamentary election in July on a platform of carrying out reforms and tackling corruption.

Israel’s PM Naftali Bennett on Thursday announced that the country would offer a coronavirus booster to people over 60 who have already been vaccinated, news wires reported. The decision makes Israel, which launched one of the world’s most successful vaccination drives earlier this year, the first country to offer a third dose of a Western vaccine to its citizens on a wide scale. The move comes at a time of rising infections and signs that the vaccine’s efficacy dwindles over time.

President Joe Biden called on states, territories and local governments to do more to incentivise Covid-19 vaccination by offering $100 to those who get vaccinated and reimbursing small- and medium-sized businesses for offering their employees paid leave to get their family members vaccinated, news wires reported. "I know that paying people to get vaccinated might sound unfair to folks who have gotten vaccinated already. But here's the deal, if incentives help us beat this virus, I believe we should use them," Biden said on Thursday.

Open Balkans will be the new name of the regional initiative which had been informally called Mini-Schengen, MIA reported. This was announced at today's Economic Forum on Regional Cooperation in Skopje, attended by Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev, Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania Edi Rama and President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić.

A roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure investment bill advanced in the US Senate on Wednesday, passing a key milestone that moves the emerging legislation toward formal debate and possible passage.

Authorities in several southeast European countries have issued weather warnings before a heat wave in the region expected Thursday that is set to push temperatures to as high as 43 C (109.4 F) in inland areas.

Japanese officials sounded the alarm on Thursday after the announcement of record-breaking coronavirus cases for the third straight day in Tokyo with the Olympics well underway, news wires reported. “We have never experienced the expansion of the infections of this magnitude,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters. He said the new cases were soaring not only in the Tokyo area but across the country.

Russia says it wants Britain and France to become part of wider nuclear arms control talks with the United States as Washington continues to seek China's inclusion in the negotiations.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that the country expects to receive a second payment from its $5bn IMF programme after fulfilling all its agreed commitments, news wires reported. He said Ukraine had fulfilled its reform commitments, passing legislation to open the land market, overhaul the judicial system and strengthen the central bank. "We have done everything as I promised ... and everything that we need for Ukraine," Zelensky told reporters.