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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians feeling the squeeze from U.S. sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy are increasingly turning to such digital currencies as Bitcoin to make money, prompting alarm in and out of the country.

In Iran, some government officials worry that the energy-hungry process of “mining” Bitcoin is abusing Iran’s system of subsidized electricity; in the United States, some observers have warned that cryptocurrencies could be used to bypass the Trump administration’s sanctions targeting Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats approved legislation Thursday to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, to $15 an hour, transforming an issue that once splintered the party into a benchmark for the 2020 election.

Even though the bill has little chance of passing the Republican-led Senate, or being signed into law by President Donald Trump, the outcome pushes the phased-in rate to the forefront as the new standard, one already in place at some leading U.S. corporations.

18 July 2019; AA: Turkey continued on Thursday to receive components of Russian S-400 missile defense systems. 

Delivery of the long-range air defense hardware continued, with 15 shipments having so far landed at the Murted Air Base in the capital Ankara over the past week.

The first shipment was delivered last Friday.

Following protracted efforts to purchase an air defense system from the U.S. with no success, Ankara signed a contract in 2017 to purchase the S-400s from Russia.

Lahore, Jul 17 (PTI) Pakistan will allot 42 acres of land for the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, up 14 times, Punjab governor has announced while indicating that 80 per cent of the work on the landmark Kartarpur Corridor has been completed, according to a media report.

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) Russia is likely to deliver the S-400 missile systems to India by April 2023, the government said Wednesday.

Asked about the US pressure to scrap the missile deal with Russia, the government said it takes sovereign decisions based on security challenges facing the country.

"A contract has been signed on October 5, 2018 for delivery of S-400 system from Russia. The deliveries are likely to be made by April, 2023," Sripad Naik, Minister of State for Defence, said.

BEIJING (AP) — Trading starts Monday on a Chinese stock market for high-tech companies that play a key role in official development plans that are straining relations with Washington.

Regulators have approved 25 companies in information technology and other fields seen by communist leaders as a path to prosperity and global influence for the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s central bank on Thursday cut its policy rate for the first time in three years to shore up growth threatened by a trade dispute with Japan.

The Bank of Korea lowered its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.50% following a meeting of its monetary policy committee, which also cut its growth forecast for the country’s economy this year from 2.5% to just above 2%.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s exports declined in June as shipments of goods were hit by trade disputes between China and the U.S., the Finance Ministry reported Thursday.

The data released by the Finance Ministry on Thursday show exports fell 6.8% in June from a year earlier, the seventh straight month of decline, while imports fell 5.2%.

The trade surplus for the month dropped 20% to 589.5 billion yen ($5.5 billion), the ministry said.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 17  (NNN-BERNAMA) — Malaysia is ready to hold talks with China in respect of friendly consultations over compensation for the cancelled gas pipeline projects undertaken by China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering (CPP), says Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

It was reported that Malaysia had seized more than RM1 billion from a bank account of state-owned CPP over incomplete pipeline projects, namely stretching 600 km along the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and 662 km in Sabah.        

WASHINGTON, July 17 (NNN-Sputnik) – Iran has denied speculation that the nation could reconsider its missile programs if the United States stopped selling missiles and other weapons to nations in the region, Iran’s mission at the United Nations in New York said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Iran’s missiles are absolutely and under no condition negotiable with anyone or any country, period”, the statement said.