ANKARA

Anadolu Agency is here with a rundown of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic and other news in Turkey and around the world. 

Coronavirus and other developments in Turkey

Another 5,846 people in Turkey won their battle against the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, pushing the country’s total number of recoveries past 5.25 million, according to official figures released Thursday.

Turkey has administered over 45 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January, according to official figures released Thursday.

Turkey's health regulators approved the use of a nanotechnology-based device developed by Turkish scientists that diagnoses COVID-19 in 10 seconds with 99% accuracy after completing reliability testing, and the device has started to be used.

Turkey’s indigenously developed coronavirus vaccine candidate Turkovac was administered to volunteers as part of Phase 3 clinical trials this week.

No additional personnel will be sent to Afghanistan, the Turkish national defense minister informed a US delegation during a meeting in the capital Ankara on Thursday.

A Turkish court decided Thursday to seize the assets of 12 fugitive suspects, including the ringleader of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), in the 2007 murder case of a prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist unless they return to the country, according to a judicial source.

The presidents of Russia and Turkey spoke over the phone Thursday and discussed bilateral ties, tourism, the Sputnik V vaccine, Nagorno-Karabakh region and Syria, said official statements.

Turkey condemned Honduras late Thursday for moving its embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

COVID-19 updates worldwide

Over 2.79 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines have been given worldwide so far, figures compiled by Our World in Data, a tracking website, showed Thursday.

With a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases recently, Russia on Thursday reported over 20,000 daily infections, the biggest daily spike since Jan. 24.

The rise in coronavirus cases in Africa is "incredibly worrying" as the Delta variant has been reported in 14 countries on the continent, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa said Thursday.

The heads of the world health, intellectual property and global trade bodies agreed Thursday on intensified cooperation in support of access to medical technologies worldwide to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said Thursday that Venezuela received an unspecified number of doses of the new Cuban coronavirus vaccine Abdala.

Other global developments

Kenya's military on Thursday confirmed soldier fatalities in a helicopter crash that occurred earlier in the morning, without sharing the actual death toll, with an exclusive source saying 17 had been killed.

EU leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit to discuss relations with Turkey and Russia as well as the latest developments in the fight against COVID-19.

The World Food Program (WFP) announced Thursday that it received $5.3 million from USAID for food assistance for refugees in Rwanda.

NATO refuses to have any contacts with the Russian military while tensions in Europe are rising, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday.

The Algerian president on Thursday accepted the resignation of the country’s prime minister to open the door for the formation of a new government following parliamentary election results.

The German chancellor called Thursday for an update to the Customs Union between the EU and Turkey.

The UN on Thursday sent 94 more truckloads of humanitarian aid through Turkey to Syria's northwestern Idlib province.

The US government imposed trade restrictions on five companies in China, citing forced labor and human rights abuses in Xinjiang province, the White House announced Thursday.

There is evidence that some parts of Venus’ surface move around similar to that of Earth, scientists announced.

Hundreds of unmarked graves have been found at a former Indian residential school in western Canada, Cowessess First Nations Chief Cadmus Delorme said Thursday.

Top pro-India politicians from disputed Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday for the first time since New Delhi stripped the region's autonomy.