South Korea's spy agency National Intelligence Service (NIS) said on Friday that it is closely monitoring the possibility of North Korea's Foreign Minister visiting Russia.

The National Intelligence Service assessed the response to a news report that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui is expected to visit Russia to attend the fourth Eurasian Women's Forum to be held in St. Petersburg from September 18-20, news agency reported.

There has been speculation that Choe may also travel to New York to take part in the UN General Assembly meetings, which are set to open on September 24.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government's judicial reform package has been ratified by enough state legislatures to validate its application.

At his regular daily press briefing, the President said the next step will be the publication of the reform in the Government Gazette, probably on Sunday, news agency reported.

"A constitutional reform requires the approval of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Chamber of Senators with a qualified majority, plus half of the states plus one, i.e., 17 are required and that's the way the process is legalised," President Obrador said.

Afghan authorities have opened a water supply network and water filtration plant in Kabul, the country's Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development said in a statement on Friday.

Financially supported by United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund and implemented by the Ministry, the projects cost more than $518,000, said the statement, adding that these projects will provide potable water to 1,290 families in Kabul's Sarobi district, news agency reported.

Before the inauguration, Mullah Mohammad Younus Akhundzada, acting minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, said that in the future, no one will have to go far from home to fetch drinking water, as they will have access to clean water through taps installed in their houses.

The Australian government has announced plans to issue fines worth millions of dollars to companies that fail to protect customers from scams.

On Friday, Stephen Jones, the assistant treasurer, released details of the government's proposed new laws, that would force banks, telecommunications companies and technology giants to do more to protect customers under mandatory sector-specific codes.

The codes will create new obligations for designated sectors to combat scammers and protect Australians, news agency reported.

Companies in those sectors that fail to meet their obligations will face fines worth up to $33.6 million.

In a significant development, China has banned PwC China -- part of the Big Four -- for six months and fined it nearly $62 million for alleged auditing lapses, the media reported on Friday.

The action came after an announcement by China’s securities regulator that PwC China approved the accounts of beleaguered property company Evergrande, even as the real estate developer “inflated mainland revenues by nearly $80 billion in the two years before its default in 2021,” the Financial Times reported.

According to China’s finance ministry, PwC China and its Guangzhou branch were aware of “major mistakes” in the audit of Evergrande from 2018 to 2020 but failed to point them out.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi called for reforming the global financial system's structure and boosting the engagement of developing countries in economic decision-making mechanisms.

On Thursday, he appealed in a virtual speech at the UN event "Global Call on the Summit of the Future," news agency reported.

The event comes amid an increasing international crisis, both politically and economically, he said, stressing the serious escalation in the Middle East in particular.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that by providing Ukraine with long-range weapons, Western countries risk involving directly in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In such circumstances, Russia would be forced to make "appropriate decisions" based on the new threats, Putin was quoted by Russian media as saying.

Ukraine has been pleading with its Western allies for it to use their missiles, including long-range ones, to fire deep into Russian territory, according to Western media reports.

"Only service people from NATO countries can make flight assignments to these missile systems. Ukrainian service people cannot do that," Putin told Russian state TV.

Venezuela has recalled its Ambassador to Spain, Gladys Gutierrez, for consultations in response to remarks made by Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles, said Venezuela's Foreign Minister Yvan Gil.

Gil condemned Robles' comments, calling them "insolent, meddling, and disrespectful" in a statement shared on Telegram, news agency reported.

Robles earlier referred to the Venezuelan government as a "dictatorship."

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry has summoned Spain's Ambassador to Caracas, Ramon Santos Martinez, to appear at the ministry on Friday.

Additionally, Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's National Assembly, on Wednesday called on the Foreign Affairs Committee to urge the executive branch to sever all diplomatic, commercial, and consular ties with Spain.

Former US President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has announced that he will not participate in another presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

In a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, Trump on Thursday claimed that he won the debate hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, and accused Harris of refusing to accept debate invitations from Fox News, NBC News and CBS News.

In a post on social media platform X, Harris said on Thursday that "we owe it to the voters to have another debate."

The South Korean military has recently taken down more than 1,300 surveillance cameras installed at various bases, including those near the border with North Korea, after discovering they were Chinese-made equipment, a military official said Friday.

In late July, military and intelligence authorities found out the surveillance cameras supplied by a South Korean company were produced in China during military equipment examinations, news agency reported, citing the official.

The military has uninstalled all of the equipment in question and is replacing it with domestic equipment due to security concerns. Currently, about 100 of them have been newly installed.