Beijing launched mass COVID-19 testing in some areas on Friday and Shanghai was testing all hospital staff as China battles its worst outbreak of the disease since March, with families fretting over Lunar New Year reunion plans amid new curbs.

Israel has vaccinated 224,000 people against Covid-19 in a single day, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein wrote on Twitter on Friday. This figure, which refers to Thursday, takes the total number of people who have received the first shot of the jab to 2.4 million, while 850,000 people have received both shots of the vaccine.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in a crowded Baghdad market on Thursday, killing at least 32 people in Iraq's first big suicide bombing for three years. Authorities described it as a possible sign of the reactivation of Islamic State, Reuters reported.

A rare twin suicide bombing killed nearly 30 people in central Baghdad on Thursday, Iraqi state media announced. At least 28 people were killed and another 73 wounded in the attack on a huge open-air market for second-hand clothes in the Iraqi capital's Tayaran Square.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged the incoming US administration on Wednesday to return to a 2015 nuclear agreement and lift sanctions on Tehran, while welcoming the end of “tyrant” President Donald Trump’s era.

Israel on Tuesday confirmed a record 10,021 new coronavirus cases, the Health Ministry said, as the country continues to vaccinate its population at breakneck speed.

More than 600 people have been arrested and troops have been deployed after a third consecutive night of riots in several Tunisian cities, officials said Monday.

The top UN official for Libya said Saturday an advisory committee for representatives of Libya's different regions has proposed a way forward for choosing a transitional government that would lead the war-torn country to elections late this year.

Palestinian voters will go to the polls at the end of July to elect a new president for the first time in 15 years.

Qatar Airways announced on Thursday that it has begun to reroute some flights through Saudi airspace, days after Qatar and Saudi Arabia ended a years-long dispute, dpa reported.