UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Despite a dire warning from the U.N. chief that the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees “is on the verge of financial collapse,” donors at a pledging conference on Friday provided just $107 million in new funds — significantly less than the $300 million it needs to keep helping millions of people.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the agency known as UNRWA, said he was grateful for the new pledges but they are below the funds needed to keep over 700 schools and 140 clinics open from September through December.

LA PAZ, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Bolivian President Luis Arce appointed new health and mining ministers Friday, urging them to "step on the accelerator" to meet planned goals.

Replacing Jeyson Auza Pinto as the new Minister of Health and Sports, Maria Renee Castro served as Deputy Minister of Promotion, Epidemiological Surveillance and Traditional Medicine and director of the National Institute of Health Laboratories.

MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences over the death of people in the railway incident in Odisha in his telegram for Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and President of India Droupadi Murmu.

"Please accept our deep condolences over the tragic aftermath of the train collision in Odisha. We share the grief of those who lost their relatives and close ones in this catastrophe and we hope for speedy recovery to everyone injured," says the telegram, published on the Kremlin’s website.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 3 (NNN-XINHUA) – The UN yesterday appealed for sustainable funding for UNRWA, its agency supporting Palestine refugees, which is on the brink of financial collapse.

“As I address you today (yesterday), I do not have the funds to keep our schools, health centres and other services running, as of Sept,” UNRWA Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, told a pledging conference at the UN headquarters in New York.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) — Citizens of the Cherokee Nation — the largest Native American tribe in the U.S. — are set to decide whether Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. should lead the tribe for another four years as it enters a golden era after courts recognized its sprawling reservation and an operating budget of more than $3 billion.

MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/: Any future Russian political leader that will try to change the discourse on the country’s development that emerged in 2022, will be perceived as a traitor, so there will be no return to the "pre-war" past, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev opined on his Telegram channel Saturday.

He made this statement, commenting on "sweet dreams" of Russians who left the country about the return to previous times.

PARIS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- The French National Assembly and the French Senate have adopted a bill to regulate influencer marketing on social media, local media reported Friday.

The bill prohibits the influencers from promoting adulterated products, conducting scams or fraud on social media.

The influencers are also obliged to label content paid by brands when creating content to encourage their audience to purchase the products or services.

TEHRAN, Jun 3 (NNN-IRNA) – The Iranian foreign minister said, Iran’s permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), will be finalised in early July.

Making the remarks in an interview with Iran’s IRIB news agency, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, following the approval from the Kyrgyz parliament, all SCO founding members have given Iran the greenlight towards permanent membership.

HONG KONG (AP) — As the 34th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown approaches Sunday, many in Hong Kong are trying to mark the day in private ways in the shadow of a law that prosecuted leading activists in the city’s pro-democracy movement.

For decades, Hong Kong was the only place in China where people held large-scale commemorations about the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in which tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people were killed.

KYIV, June 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Saturday.

"We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelenskiy told the Wall Street Journal.

"I don’t know how long it will take. To be honest, it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it, and we are ready."

BELGRADE, June 3. /TASS/: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that during a brief conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky at the Chisinau summit of the European Political Community on Thursday they did not discuss the topic of anti-Russian sanctions, Belgrade is still not going to use them.

Vucic said in an interview with TV Prva on Friday that he sees no problem in meeting with the Ukrainian president, but noted that they did not discuss sanctions against Russia.

TEHRAN, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, have discussed issues pertaining to the resumption and development of bilateral ties.

The meeting was held Friday on the sidelines of the Friends of BRICS meeting in Cape Town in South Africa, said the Iranian Foreign Ministry in a statement.