PAKISTAN: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to provide $3 billion (£2.3bn), in a long-awaited bailout of the country’s impoverished economy.

The nine-month agreement must be approved by the fund’s executive board, which is expected to make a final decision in mid-July, top IMF official Nathan Porter said in a statement on Thursday night.

SOUTH AFRICA: President Cyril Ramaphosa was cleared today of any wrongdoing over a scandal involving the theft of more than $500,000 (£393,000) in US currency that had been stashed in a sofa at his game farm.

Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka said that Mr Ramaphosa had not violated the ethics code for members of South Africa’s executive over the incident, which happened in 2020.

GERMANY: Leaders of the main opposition centre-right Union bloc called today for voters to back them in two major state elections this autumn, claiming to be the best bet for stability and  that backing the burgeoning far-right Alternative for Germany would bring no change.

The October 8 elections in the southern state of Bavaria and neighbouring Hesse come halfway through centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s term. 

FINLAND: The economic affairs minister in the new four-party centre-right coalition government resigned today after just 10 days in the job over his alleged ties to far right, local media reported.

Vilhelm Junnila, a member of the populist anti-immigration Finns Party, stepped down in part for a speech related to a far-right memorial in the western city of Turku in 2019.