Iraq recorded 2162 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, to bring its total to 2,032,660, the health ministry said. It reported 32 deaths to take its coronavirus death toll to 22,713. It also reported 3199 recoveries to bring its total to 1,961,666 (96.5%). The COVID-19 intensive care patients count to …

Turkey’s lira touched new lows against the dollar and euro on Friday, hamstrung by worries over more interest rate cuts despite high inflation, after President Tayyip Erdogan dismissed three central bank policymakers. Two of the three monetary policy committee (MPC) members ousted on Thursday were seen to oppose the bank’s …

Bitcoin topped $60,000 for the first time in six months on Friday, nearing its all-time high, as hopes grew that U.S. regulators would allow a futures-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), a move likely to open the path to wider investment in digital assets. Cryptocurrency investors have been waiting for approval of …

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok said on state TV on Friday that he agreed with main political players on a roadmap to end the crisis. The PM added in a live TV broadcast the country will arrange an international donors conference to tackle East Sudan issues saying the transitional period …

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reprimanded the media and urged journalists to do a better job of selling Democratic President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill to the American public. “You all could do a better job of selling this, to be frank. Every time I come here, I …

US President Joe Biden’s administration is taking steps to restart by mid-November a program begun under his predecessor Donald Trump that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for US court hearings after a federal court deemed the termination of the program unjustified, US officials said Thursday. The administration, however, …

Russia’s Defense Ministry said a Russian warship on Friday prevented a US Navy destroyer from what it described as an attempt to intrude into Russia’s territorial waters in the Sea of Japan. The incident came as Russia and China conducted joint naval drills in the area, and follows other dangerously …

France on Friday stopped offering COVID-19 tests free of charge for everyone, in the government’s latest effort to incite holdouts to get vaccinated against the virus. A recent negative test, proof of recovery, or full vaccination is needed to get a health pass which is required for access to cafes, …

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said hundreds of fighters loyal to ISIS were massing in northern Afghanistan with plans to move between ex-Soviet Central Asian countries disguised as refugees. “According to our intelligence, the number of (ISIS) members alone in northern Afghanistan is about 2,000 people,” the Russian leader …

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at thousands of protesters in Bangladesh’s two main cities on Friday, on the third day of religious disturbances in the Muslim-majority nation, authorities said. The protests began on Wednesday after footage emerged of a Quran being placed on the knee of a god …

British health officials said Friday that an estimated 43,000 people may have been wrongly told they don’t have the coronavirus because of problems at a private laboratory. The UK Health Security Agency said a lab in Wolverhampton, central England, has been suspended from processing test swabs after reports of false …

A deal for the United Nations to start work on a remote Bangladeshi island where the government has sent thousands of Rohingya refugees offers no guarantee they will be allowed to move freely to the mainland, according to a copy of the agreement. The Bangladesh government has moved nearly 19,000 …

The suspect in a bow-and-arrow attack that killed five people and wounded three in a quiet Norwegian town this week is facing a custody hearing Friday. He won’t appear in court because he has confessed to the killings and has agreed to be held in custody. Espen Andersen Braathen, a …

South Korean police have arrested four people for allegedly installing hidden cameras in the rooms of an entire motel and attempting to extort money from the hundreds of guests who were filmed. The suspects filmed for months and tried to blackmail some guests with threats to release their videos but …

Fully vaccinated passengers arriving in England from low-risk countries from Oct. 24 will no longer have to take expensive COVID-19 tests, the British government said on Thursday. Last month the government simplified the rules for international travel to England in a boost to the tourism industry, which has blamed the …

Boeing Co said on Thursday that some titanium 787 Dreamliner parts were improperly manufactured over the past three years, the latest in a series of problems to plague the wide-body aircraft. The quality issue does not affect the immediate safety of flights, the company said, adding it had notified the …

Former US president Bill Clinton has been hospitalized with a non-Covid-related infection, a spokesman said Thursday evening. Clinton’s doctors said it was a blood infection. Clinton, 75, was admitted to a hospital in Irvine in Southern California on Tuesday evening, Angel Urena tweeted. He gave no details other than to …

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, headed by Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, and Republican Chuck Grassley, plan to introduce a bill that would bar Big Tech platforms, like Amazon and Alphabet’s Google, from favoring their products and services. Amazon, for example, has been accused of using data from third-party sellers …

The US is offering two $1million cash rewards to bring Pakistani national and human smuggler Abid Ali Kahn to justice and to crackdown on his people-smuggling network that operates across the Middle East and Asia, the Department of State announced on Thursday. Ali Khan allegedly operates a Pakistani-based smuggling network …

A British lawmaker in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party was stabbed to death on Friday in a church by a man who walked into a meeting with voters from his electoral district, police said. Police said a man had been arrested on suspicion of murder. David Amess, who represented …