The Turks love tea, with each one consuming an average of 1,300 cups per year. The associated transactions, though small, are sufficiently numerous that they play their part in keeping the economy ticking over. Unfortunately, inflation has become almost as identifiable with Turkey as tea.

Iran’s Guardian Council disqualified all but seven of last month’s 592 presidential hopefuls — including the country’s longest-serving parliamentary speaker, a vice president and a former president — in the most extreme interference by a supreme leader in the electoral process.

Mass public gatherings have been rare in Iraq since security forces and militia groups stifled anti-government protests last year and amid regular government curfews to combat the spread of COVID-19.

For any country that relies upon hydrocarbons to provide 99 percent of its energy, you might imagine that announcing an ambitiously huge entry into the renewables space would be daunting.

The grounding of the cargo ship Ever Given in the Suez Canal last week serves as a good opportunity to focus our minds on the future of the waterway and the wider Red Sea region.