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.

Let's start with the COVID-19 outbreak. It seems like the virus will never end, but there is hope because recoveries are increasing.

Coronavirus in Turkey

Following normalization steps taken by the country, Turkey on Sunday announced 1,412 more recoveries from the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the tally to more than 160,000, according to Health Minister Fahrettin Koca.

With the latest additions, the number of recoveries reached 160,240, Koca said on Twitter, citing Health Ministry data.

The death toll in the country rose to 4,950 as 23 new fatalities were reported over the past day.

Healthcare workers conducted 40,496 tests to detect the disease over the past 24 hours, raising the total count to more than 2.94 million.

According to test results, the total number of COVID-19 cases nationwide reached 187,685, with nearly 1,192 new infections.

Sunday’s figures took the number of active cases to 22,495.

Global coronavirus developments

The pandemic has claimed more than 467,600 lives in 188 countries and regions since originating in Wuhan, China last December.

The US, Brazil and Russia are currently the worst-hit countries.

More than 8.92 million cases have been reported worldwide, with an excess of 4.41 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by US-based Johns Hopkins University.

The US, which is the hardest hit by the pandemic, has over 2.27 million cases and the death toll stands at almost 120,000.

Brazil reached 1,067,589 cases with 54,771 new infections recorded in the last 24 hours. In one day, the South American country reported 1,022 deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 49,976.

In Russia, 7,728 people tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the country's tally to 584,680. Over the same period, 109 fatalities were registered, raising the death toll to 8,111.

Meanwhile, the number of people infected with the coronavirus in Africa reached 297,352 on Sunday, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The coronavirus is not done with Eurasia as cases and virus-linked deaths are still rising. Health authorities in the continental area announced new numbers Sunday.

Both China and South Korea recorded new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours.

Terror

A Turkish soldier was martyred in a clash with terrorists in a cross-border anti-terror operation in northern Iraq, the Turkish National Defense Ministry said Sunday.

In another statement, the ministry said the Turkish army had seized a large amount of ammunition as part of a fresh anti-terror operation in northern Iraq.

In Syria, one person was injured in a terrorist attack in Azaz district in the country’s north, security sources said late Sunday. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but officials in the region think it was carried out by the YPG/PKK terrorist group.

In the UK, police on Sunday declared a recent stabbing incident in Reading in which three people were killed a terrorist incident.

 Mediterranean

The Libyan government on Sunday dubbed a threat of military intervention by Egypt’s president a “declaration of war.”

“The statements of the Egyptian President [Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi], which are harassing Libya's sovereignty and meddling in its internal affairs, and supporting putschists, militias and mercenaries in Libya are unacceptable,” the government’s press office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, during the closing ceremony of the International Migration Film Festival, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan drew attention to the deaths of asylum seekers in the Mediterranean Sea.

“In the past eight years, 25,000 people, most of them women and children, died in the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean,” he said.

Yemen crisis

Yemen’s minister of industry and trade resigned Sunday in response to attacks by armed groups backed by the United Arab Emirates and in reaction to a coup in Socotra governorate.

Al-Maytami also accused some countries that are part of a coalition led by Saudi Arabia of trying to split Yemen.