BUCHAREST -- The Romanian Parliament rejected a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu's government on Friday.

The motion, initiated Tuesday by opposition parties Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), S.O.S. Romania, and the Party of Young People (POT), received 147 votes in favor and one against, falling short of the 233 votes needed for adoption. (Romania-No confidence-Ciolacu)

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ANKARA -- Türkiye's economy expanded by 3.2 percent in 2024, official data showed on Friday.

The Turkish Statistical Institute said gross domestic product (GDP) for the fourth quarter of 2024, as a chained volume index, increased by 3 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year. (Türkiye-Economy-Growth)

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ISLAMABAD -- At least eight people were killed and 15 others injured after a passenger bus overturned at a motorway in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province on Friday, officials said.

The bus carrying over 40 passengers was traveling from the southern port city of Karachi to northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when it crashed, apparently due to the driver's negligence, Saqib Waheed, a spokesperson of the motorway police told Xinhua. (Pakistan-Road Accident)

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ISLAMABAD -- The China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) and the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) signed a cooperation agreement on the spaceflight of Pakistani astronaut to the Chinese space station here on Friday.

Under the agreement, the Chinese government will select and train a group of Pakistani astronauts, and one of them will be the first foreign astronaut to enter the Chinese space station. (Pakistan-China-Astronaut)

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ISLAMABAD -- Five people were killed and 20 others injured when a suicide bomber detonated himself inside a seminary in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, police and rescue officials said.

The incident happened at "Darul Uloom Haqqania" in Nowshera district, with the seminary's caretaker, Maulana Hamid ul Haq Haqqani, being the target of the attack, and he was critically injured in the blast, Inspector General of Police Zulfiqar Hameed told local media. (Pakistan-Blast)

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MOSCOW -- Russia successfully launched the Progress MS-30 cargo spacecraft into orbit using a Soyuz-2.1a rocket on Friday, Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos said.

The carrier rocket lifted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 00:24 a.m. Moscow time Friday (2124 GMT Thursday). The spacecraft is expected to reach the International Space Station (ISS) in approximately two days, with docking to the Zvezda module scheduled for Sunday, Roscosmos said in a press release on its website. (Russia-ISS Resupply) Enditem

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