An earthquake struck Turkey’s southeastern province of Adiyaman early on Tuesday, injuring 39 people and damaging buildings, state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake, which struck at 0034 GMT, had a magnitude of 5.2 and occurred at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).

Iran banned the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by banks and financial institutions on Monday amid ongoing debate over how best to regulate the technology. “The use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in all the country’s monetary and financial centres was banned,” the central bank said in a statement overnight.

After initial delay, Chemical weapons experts belonging to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said they have finally collected samples in the besieged Syrian city of Douma on Saturday, after being barred from accessing the site. According to CNN, a fact-finding team visited one site in Douma and collected samples, to help determine whether banned substances were used there in an April 7 strike. The report quoted OPCW as saying

Dozens of Chinese have been arrested in Cambodia on suspicion of extorting money from people in China via a telecoms scam, police said on Monday. The arrests at two locations in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh on Sunday are the latest in an ongoing battle Cambodia has waged with China’s help against criminal call centers.

The Asian stocks dipped on Monday as investors braced for a bevy of earnings from the world’s largest corporations, while keeping a wary eye on U.S. bond yields as they approach peaks that have triggered market spasms in the past. Traders were also anxiously awaiting surveys on global manufacturing for April to see if economic softness in the first quarter was just a passing phase linked to poor weather and the Lunar New Year holidays.

A suicide bomber on Sunday detonated his vest at a voter registration centre in the Afghan capital Kabul killing at least 31 people and injuring many according to health officials. Al Jazeera reports that Kabul's acting police chief, Mohammad Daoud Amin, said the assailant detonated his explosives at the doorway of the ID distribution centre in the capital at 10am (05:30 GMT) on Sunday.