Ex-Amazon economist to head Turkey’s central bank

• Fatih Karahan's appointment follows the resignation of Hafize Gaye Erkan after less than a year in office over a media scandal involving her family
• The reshuffle appears to keep in place Erdogan's newfound commitment to market economics following years of financial turmoil

US retaliatory strikes hit Iran-linked targets in Syria, Iraq

• The United States did not strike the Iran's territory seeking to deter future attacks while stopping short of all-out war with Tehran
• US NSC spokesman John Kirby told journalists that the strikes lasted about 30 minutes though they involved a lengthy trip for the B-1 bombers

EU gives accent to landmark rules on artificial intelligence

• Brussels first proposed an AI law in 2021 but spent most of last year racing to greenlight the draft text after chatbot ChatGPT exploded onto the scene.
• EU ambassadors finally signed off on the text during a meeting Friday in Brussels, after French and German concerns were assuaged.

Jordan defeats Tajikistan to reach first Asian Cup semi-final

Iraq’s pro-Iran Al-Nujaba group to continue attacks on US troops

• Al-Nujaba movement forms part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an alliance of Iran-backed armed groups that the US has blamed for last weekend's deadly drone attack
• Another of the alliance's factions, Kataeb Hezbollah (the Hezbollah Brigades), announced earlier this week that it was suspending its attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria

Most markets advance after tech titans fuel Wall Street surge

• Shares in Amazon, Apple and Facebook owner Meta all climbed during Thursday's session. All three companies were due to report results after the market closed
• Wall Street's main indices -- the Dow, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the broad-based S&P 500 -- had tumbled on Wednesday after the Fed's disappointing rate signal

China economic slowdown to continue for the next four years, says IMF

• The world's second-largest economy last year saw some of its slowest growth in decades
• A debt crisis in the property sector added to geopolitical tensions and weakening global demand.

Iranian adviser among three killed in Israeli strikes on Syria

• The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "three members of pro-Iran groups, including an Iranian and an Iraqi" were killed in "Israeli air strikes".
• Iran's Mehr news agency said an Iranian adviser from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Saeed Alidadi, was killed in the strikes

UN estimates at least 17,000 Gaza children separated from parents

• Before the conflict erupted, UNICEF estimated that more than 500,000 children in the Gaza Strip needed mental health and psycho-social support.
• Now it believes that "almost all children are in need" of such help -- more than one million children, said Jonathan Crickx, spokesman UNICEF in the Palestinian territories.

Hosts Qatar embrace ‘positive pressure’ of Asian Cup title defense

• The hosts and holders won all three of their games in the group phase without conceding a goal and then defeated Palestine 2-1 in the last 16.
• Qatar face Uzbekistan on Saturday in front of what is expected to be a packed crowd at the 68,000-capacity Al Bayt Stadium outside Doha.