BAGHDAD: Kurdish-led armed groups in Iraq and Syria have alleged that Turkish airstrikes killed a total of eight of their fighters.
The counterterrorism service of the regional government in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq said in a statement that four members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were killed and another wounded in a Turkish drone strike in Sharbazher district in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The drone targeted a vehicle carrying PKK fighters near the village of Rangina, it said.

CAIRO: Frequent power outages have sparked frustration and anger across Egypt, and the owners of small businesses are among the worst affected.

“The electricity is cut off about three times a day, for an hour each time, bringing work to a standstill,” Jamal Sayed, who owns a small supermarket in the Faisal area, told Arab News.

LONDON: The UAE has banned rice exports and re-exports for four months, including rice of Indian origin, Emirates News Agency reported on Friday.
“The decision included banning the export and re-export of rice originating in the Republic of India imported into the country, including free zones, after July 20,” the statement said, adding that it applies to all rice varieties.
The UAE, which imports 90 percent of its food, said the ban would cover rice of all varieties including brown rice, fully or partially milled rice and broken rice.

ZURICH: Relations of a US aid worker and American soldiers — all killed or injured by Daesh and Al-Nusra Front — have lodged a legal claim against cement maker Lafarge over payments the French company made to extremist groups.
Last year Lafarge became the first company in American history convicted of bribing a foreign terrorist organization after it admitted paying the two groups to allow it to keep operating in Syria.

LONDON: Firefighters managed to put out a fire in one of the bitumen production unit’s lines at Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, Kuwait National Petroleum Company said in a statement on Friday.
“The company’s crews were able to successfully extinguish the fire that broke out in one of the lines of the bitumen production unit at the company’s Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery,” said KNPC spokesman Ghanim Al-Otaibi in the statement posted on X.