MILAN: Italy’s new national carrier ITA Airways took its debut flight Friday, closing a turbulent chapter that witnessed the decline of the country’s storied but ill-fated Alitalia after 74 eventful years. 

KUWAIT: Zain, the leading digital service provider in Kuwait, showcased its 5G deployment success story and the company’s leadership as the first operator to commercially launch this revolutionary technology in the Kuwaiti market, as well as launching the region’s largest 5G network in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. 

NEW YORK: Bitcoin breached the $60,000 mark for the first time since April on growing optimism that American regulators will greenlight the first US futures exchange-traded fund for the cryptocurrency. 

FRANKFURT: Global shortages in industrial components and raw materials have cramped Germany’s export driven economy, prompting the country’s leading economic institutes to slash their forecast for growth this year yesterday. 

ISTANBUL: The Turkish lira sank to a record low against the US dollar yesterday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired three central bank members in an overnight decree. The embattled Turkish currency has lost nearly a fifth of its value so far this year as market concerns over the policy-setting bank’s independence hit fever pitch.

BEIJING: China’s factory inflation hit its highest level in a quarter of a century on surging commodity costs last month, with yesterday’s figures fanning concerns that higher prices could filter through supply chains and into the global economy. 

KANDAHAR: Afghanistan’s festive pomegranate season has begun, but this year thousands of tons of the juicy red fruit risk rotting on trucks blocked at Pakistan’s frequently shuttered border-leaving thousands of farm workers unemployed. 

LONDON: The United States has overtaken China as the biggest miner of bitcoin following Beijing’s crackdown on the method used to unearth the world’s major cryptocurrency, a study showed yesterday. 

WASHINGTON: American Airlines and Southwest Airlines said Tuesday they will continue requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, deferring to federal regulations as Texas and the White House square off over vaccine mandates.