Anadolu Agency's Morning Briefing

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

Turkey's daily count of coronavirus cases reached over 50,000 on Sunday, the Health Ministry said.

Turkey has successfully tested its first hybrid engine that will be used in its moon mission, the country's technology and industry minister said Sunday.

Five Azerbaijani veterans wounded in Nagorno-Karabakh have been fitted with prosthesis in Turkey as part of an aid project.

One more family joined an ongoing sit-in against the PKK terror group in southeastern Turkey on Sunday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke by phone Sunday with his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar, said Turkish diplomatic sources.

Libya's interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh will pay an official visit to Turkey on Monday at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish president said Sunday that Western countries do not want to acknowledge the reality of the Turkish diaspora getting stronger.

Turkey’s presidential spokesman on Sunday reiterated his country’s call for a de-escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Turkey’s communications director said Sunday that international organizations, particularly UNESCO, need to look at Karabakh without being hypocritical.

Turkish female weightlifter Melike Gunal won three bronze medals Sunday in the 2021 European Weightlifting Championships in Moscow.

- COVID-19 updates worldwide

Pakistan recorded 114 deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, its highest single-day number during a third wave of the pandemic, the Health Ministry said Sunday.

India registered more than 152,000 new cases during the past 24 hours on Sunday, according to officials figures.

Iraq said Sunday that it has received the first batch of the German-American Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

To accelerate the vaccination campaign and save up on doses, France will extend the spacing between the two shots of mRNA COVID-19 injections from four weeks to six weeks, the health minister said.

The UK could fully vaccinate three-quarters of its population by August despite ensuing vaccine shortages and rising concerns over a possible link between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots.

- Other global developments

Over 7 million registered voters in Chad headed to the polls Sunday as President Idriss Deby Itno seeks a sixth consecutive term.

Voters in Kyrgyzstan headed to the polls Sunday for a referendum envisaging radical change in the central Asian country's constitution.

The Ukrainian armed forces said Sunday that one soldier was killed and another injured due to shelling by separatists in the eastern Donbas region.

Israel will seal off the occupied Palestinian territories for three days as of Tuesday, according to the Israeli military on Sunday.

Over 116,000 Somalis have been displaced by extreme water shortages since October 2020, according to a joint statement issued Sunday by the UN and Somalia.

Iran and Iraq on Sunday signed a five-year joint cooperation program in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

A 14-year-old boy who recently joined militant ranks was killed along with 11 other militants in separate gunfights in Indian-administered Kashmir during the last 72 hours, regional police said Sunday.

The Turkish Cypriot president met Sunday with the UN special envoy on the Cyprus dispute ahead of a conference on the long-divided island later this month.

A group of women held a protest march in the capital of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday against a fashion show that was organized recently and featured Kashmiri girls as models.

Amid coronavirus measures, Peruvians went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president for the next five years.