Exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man President Pervez Musharraf deposed, is set to return to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia within days, aides said on Friday.

A bomb hidden in a box of birds killed 13 people and wounded 57 at a popular pet market in central Baghdad on Friday, police and witnesses said, describing the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in two months.

Iraq is facing a health “catastrophe” in the capital Baghdad, with reports of cholera rising sharply over the past weeks to more than 80 new cases, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.