In a high-profile wildlife trafficking case that highlights Kenya’s growing crackdown on the illegal insect trade, a Chinese national has received a 12-month prison sentence and a substantial fine for attempting to smuggle more than 2,000 live queen garden ants out of the East African nation en route to China. The verdict, handed down Wednesday by a Nairobi court, ordered defendant Zhang Kequn to pay 1 million Kenyan shillings, equal to roughly $7,737 or £5,713, in addition to his custodial sentence. Presiding Judge Irene Gichobi issued a sharp rebuke of Zhang’s conduct, noting the defendant was not fully cooperative during proceedings and showed no genuine remorse for his actions. The case traces back to Zhang’s March 10 arrest at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where authorities discovered the large consignment of live ants hidden in his checked luggage as he prepared to board a flight bound for the Chinese mainland. Court documents revealed Zhang had purchased the entire batch of ants from local Kenyan national Charles Mwangi, paying a total of 200,000 Kenyan shillings ($1,540, £1,150) for the 2,000 specimens. Mwangi was also arrested and charged in connection with the smuggling plot, and he has been released on bail as his case moves through the Kenyan judicial system. Zhang initially entered a plea of not guilty to all charges, which included illegal trafficking of protected wildlife species, before reversing his position and entering a guilty plea. Judge Gichobi emphasized that a harsh penalty was necessary to deter future trafficking activity, pointing to a steady uptick in large-scale garden ant smuggling cases across Kenya and the serious ecological damage that these illegal removals cause to local ecosystems. “There is need for a stiff deterrent sentence,” the judge stated, referencing the growing threat unregulated insect trafficking poses to Kenya’s natural biodiversity. Following the completion of his prison term, Zhang will be transferred to Chinese authorities for deportation back to his home country, per the judge’s ruling. Zhang’s legal team has confirmed he plans to challenge the verdict and sentence, and he has 14 days from the ruling date to file an official appeal with the Kenyan appeals court. Kenyan wildlife authorities have long warned that global demand for native Kenyan garden ants, particularly among private insect collectors in Europe and Asia, has spurred a sharp rise in illegal trafficking activity. Each queen garden ant can fetch as much as $220 (£170) on the global black market, making the illegal trade a high-profit, low-risk enterprise for criminal networks. This case is not an isolated incident: just 12 months ago, a Kenyan court handed down an identical 12-month prison sentence and $7,700 fine to four men – two Belgian citizens, one Vietnamese national, and one Kenyan national – who were caught attempting to smuggle thousands of live queen ants out of the country, also bound for collectors in European and Asian markets. The Kenya Wildlife Service, which leads enforcement against wildlife and insect trafficking in the country, has stepped up border and airport inspections in recent years to crack down on the illegal trade, as authorities work to protect native insect populations and preserve Kenya’s fragile ecological balance.
作者： admin
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New TCM allergy system from Beijing university links theory, clinics, and training
On Monday, a landmark step forward in the management of allergic diseases emerged from China’s capital, as the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine unveiled the nation’s first fully integrated traditional Chinese medicine system that unites theoretical research, clinical application, translational research development, and professional talent cultivation.
Unlike fragmented approaches that have historically separated these core components of medical advancement, this new interconnected framework represents a growing institutional push to address a widespread public health burden that impacts hundreds of millions of people across China. The system’s foundational roots lie in the TCM constitution theory developed by Wang Qi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Moving beyond the reactive, symptom-focused care that often targets immediate allergic reactions such as sneezing, skin itching, and rashes, the framework adopts a holistic, three-pronged diagnostic approach that evaluates a patient’s overall physical constitution, specific underlying allergic predisposition, and current presenting symptoms. Its core goal is to correct the deeper internal bodily imbalances that trigger allergic reactions at their source, rather than just managing flare-ups after they occur. This patient-centered model delivers customized long-term management plans tailored to each individual’s unique physiological profile.
At the heart of the new system is a three-tier prevention strategy aligned with core TCM principles. The first tier focuses on stopping allergic symptoms before they start by supporting overall bodily health, the second targets early intervention to stop conditions from worsening, and the third works to reduce the chance of recurrence after patients recover.
To turn this theoretical framework into accessible clinical care, the university has launched a cross-institutional allergy treatment alliance across all its affiliated hospitals, alongside the rollout of specialized multidisciplinary allergy clinics. Standardized evidence-based herbal formulas and evidence-backed external TCM therapies have also been introduced to ensure consistent, high-quality care across participating sites.
On the education and global outreach side, Yan Zhanfeng, vice-president of the university’s Dongzhimen Hospital, announced the launch of an international training program focused on integrative allergology. The initiative is designed to cultivate a new generation of medical professionals with expertise in both traditional Chinese medicine and modern immunology.
Liu Cunzhi, vice-president of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, noted that the program deepens cross-sector integration between academic research, frontline clinical care, and the healthcare industry. Beyond meeting domestic public health needs, the initiative aims to share Chinese medical expertise with the global community working to address the rising global burden of allergic diseases.
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Israeli forces number Palestinian women’s hands during Jenin invasion
On a crisp Monday in April 2026, a small group of 120 displaced Palestinian women were granted just a few hours of restricted access to their Jenin refugee camp homes, part of the occupied West Bank, more than a year after Israeli military forces launched a sweeping offensive that forced tens of thousands of residents to flee. What was supposed to be a rare opportunity to retrieve personal belongings and inspect damaged properties became a new chapter of trauma, marked by invasive searches, deliberate humiliation, and the shattering final sight of entire neighborhoods reduced to smoldering rubble.
Since the large-scale military operation began in January 2025, Israeli forces have expelled approximately 40,000 Palestinians from Jenin camp and surrounding population centers in the northern West Bank. The incursion has left most of the camp in catastrophic ruins, with large swathes sealed off to civilian residents and permanent military outposts installed across seized residential property. Monday’s access was only the second such limited entry permitted for displaced residents, following a smaller outing in July 2025 that allowed just 25 women to enter the camp.
Before the women were allowed past the heavily fortified camp entrance, soldiers marked each woman’s hand with inked numbers and letters, sorting them by the neighborhood where their homes were located. Multiple women reported hours of degrading treatment even before entry: forced to stand for three hours under the blazing Middle Eastern sun, with troops intentionally altering neighborhood classification markings to extend the delay. Um Fadi Wahdan, a 60-something resident of the camp’s Wahdan neighborhood who spoke to Middle East Eye, described the chaotic, abusive processing that preceded the two-hour visit.
When Wahdan finally reached her family’s five-story home—where more than 30 of her extended family once resided—she found nothing but ash and charred remains. The entire structure had been burned to the ground. “I went to the Wahdan neighbourhood where my house is. I was shocked to find it completely burned down, all five storeys. I wish I hadn’t gone,” she told reporters. She left with nothing, her grief compounded by the fact that the visit reopened wounds that had just begun to heal: her son Saeed was killed by Israeli forces in an August 2024 vehicle airstrike, one son has been detained by Israeli authorities for seven years, and a third remains in Palestinian Authority security custody.
Wandering through the camp, Wahdan found a landscape unrecognizable from the home she grew up in. Open sewage pooled across crumbling streets, dozens of intact residential homes had been converted into military barracks, and filth covered every surface. Where once families gathered, now only military vehicles and armed patrols move freely.
For 60-year-old Abeer al-Sabbagh, a displaced woman whose home was bombed by Israeli forces in 2023—a strike that killed three members of her family—the abuse extended beyond waiting and marking. Al-Sabbagh, who fled the camp in 2023 with her elderly mother (who has since died in exile), recounted that female Israeli soldiers forced all 120 women to undergo invasive strip searches inside a seized former family home, which had been cleared of all furniture and converted into a temporary military holding area.
Al-Sabbagh said when she tried to refuse the search and leave, soldiers told her she would not be allowed to exit without undergoing the procedure. “It was indecent, especially since there were women in their twenties among us, and we didn’t know if there were hidden cameras,” she told Middle East Eye. Frightened by the overwhelming military presence and devastated by what she could already see of the destruction, al-Sabbagh turned back before reaching her neighborhood. “There isn’t a single house left fit for habitation,” she said.
The accounts of the 120 women paint a devastating picture of the aftermath of Israel’s year-long military occupation of the Jenin refugee camp. For displaced residents who have spent more than a year living away from their homes, the rare, tightly controlled visit did not provide closure—instead, it confirmed that the community they knew is gone, and their treatment at the hands of Israeli forces added a new layer of dehumanizing trauma to an already devastating displacement.
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Ping-Pong Diplomacy marks 5 decades
Fifty-five years after a group of curious American table tennis athletes crossed a decades-long ideological divide to step onto Chinese soil, the world is once again reflecting on one of the most remarkable turning points in modern diplomatic history. April 2026 marks the 55th anniversary of the groundbreaking “Ping-Pong Diplomacy”, an unplanned, serendipitous breakthrough that softened Cold War tensions between China and the United States and redefined what people-to-people exchange can achieve in even the most strained geopolitical contexts.
The story of this historic thaw did not unfold in a formal cabinet meeting or a high-stakes diplomatic summit. It began on a crowded team bus in Nagoya, Japan, during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships. When young American player Glenn Cowan accidentally missed his own team’s shuttle and boarded the Chinese national team’s bus, a moment of accidental history was born. At a time when the two nations had cut off formal contact for decades, Chinese champion Zhuang Zedong stepped forward to greet Cowan and offered him a warm gesture of goodwill, a simple act that cut through decades of ideological friction.
That small interaction between two athletes would become a textbook example of how the “small ball” of table tennis could move the “big ball” of global politics. It proved that cultural exchange and mutual respect could open doors that formal diplomatic negotiations had locked for years. More than half a century later, the lessons of that moment still hold powerful resonance for a deeply divided world, reminding global communities that genuine human connection can overcome even the deepest political and social divides.
To honor the milestone, commemorative events marking the 55th anniversary and the launch of new China-US youth sports exchange initiatives were held in Beijing on April 10, with a parallel Shanghai leg kicking off at Shanghai University of Sport days later. Members of the original 1971 delegations from both countries gathered in China for an emotional reunion, reaffirming the bonds first forged in that unplanned 1971 encounter. Warm hugs, shared decades-old memories, and a shared commitment to advancing cross-border connection defined the gathering.
The U.S. delegation was led by original 1971 team members Judy Hoarfrost, Olga Soltesez, Connie Sweeris and Dell Sweeris, who were reunited with their Chinese counterparts Zheng Minzhi and Liang Geliang. Liang, who was just 21 years old when the original exchange took place and a contemporary of the late Glenn Cowan, recalled the casual, friendly ten-minute practice the two young players shared half a century earlier.
For Hoarfrost, the memories remain as vivid as the day they were made. “55 years ago, I was 15 years old and the youngest member of the delegation,” she shared. Even after more than five decades, she still carries the roar of 18,000 spectators in a Beijing gymnasium, a sound that has stayed with her for a lifetime. Hoarfrost added that the experience, where she saw Chinese athletes’ incredible skill paired with gentle, open warmth, taught her the core truth of the event’s guiding mantra: “Friendship First, Competition Second.”
The seven-day 1971 trip left an indelible mark on all participating American athletes. Connie Sweeris recalled visiting iconic sites including the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, and sharing the experience of preparing Beijing roast duck, calling these moments “memories I would cherish for the rest of my life”. To this day, a display cabinet at her home filled with trip souvenirs and mementos stands as a permanent tribute to the formative journey.
Speaking to a new generation of young athletes in attendance at the anniversary events, Hoarfrost urged young people to value the unprecedented opportunities for connection they have today. “Please treasure these opportunities to connect. In my day, we had to cross mountains and oceans just to meet face-to-face,” she said. She noted that the digital tools of the 21st century create a bridge between nations that her generation never could have imagined, encouraging young people to maintain open, inclusive minds, immerse themselves in each other’s cultures, and continue learning from one another.
Jan Carol Berris, vice-president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations and a veteran of the original 1971 exchanges, echoed the importance of the milestone. She expressed hope that the 1971 exchange’s “spirit of mutual respect and friendly engagement” can serve as a blueprint for rebuilding a stable bilateral relationship that serves the interests of people in both countries and advances global peace and development.
For Petra Erika Gummesson Soerling, president of the International Table Tennis Federation, the 1971 Ping-Pong Diplomacy exchange stands as both a critical sporting milestone and a landmark in global politics. She described the encounter as a cornerstone of international table tennis history, and expressed hope that its enduring spirit will continue to “strengthen cross-border friendship” in an increasingly fractured world.
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After criticizing the pope, Trump slams Italy’s Meloni over lack of support for Iran war
The once-anticipated role of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as Europe’s primary bridge to U.S. President Donald Trump now teeters on collapse, after a series of public broadsides from the American leader over her refusal to back his administration’s war on Iran and her condemnation of his criticism of Pope Leo XIV.
In an interview with leading Italian national newspaper Corriere della Sera, Trump made clear his disillusionment with Meloni, who had long been counted among his closest European allies. “I thought she had courage,” Trump told the outlet. “I was wrong.” The verbal rebuke came after Meloni publicly labeled Trump’s attack on the pope “unacceptable,” and maintained Italy’s firm refusal to join the U.S.-led military campaign against Iran – a stance that included blocking U.S. bombers from accessing a key Italian air base in Sicily last month.
Meloni has yet to issue a direct public response to Trump’s attacks, but foreign policy analysts widely agree the split could work to her political advantage, as she navigates the aftermath of a lopsided referendum defeat last month and seeks to insulate her government from backlash over the deeply unpopular Iran war, which has sent domestic energy prices soaring across Italy.
“I actually think this is a godsend for her,” explained Nathalie Tocci, director of the International Affairs Institute and a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe. “Trump has become completely toxic across Europe, across much of the world, including Italy.”
Trump doubled down on his criticism during an appearance on Fox News Wednesday, confirming what insiders had hinted at for months: the once-close personal and political bond between the two nationalist leaders has definitively frayed. “She’s been negative,” Trump said. “Anybody that turned us down to helping with this Iran situation, we do not have the same relationship.”
The breakdown of the alliance follows a 15-month arc that began with high expectations. Meloni was the only European Union leader invited to Trump’s second inauguration, and political observers widely predicted she would leverage her close personal ties to advance Italian interests after he returned to office. Both leaders share nationalist ideological leanings and hard-line positions on immigration, creating what was seen as a natural alignment. But the relationship began to sour almost immediately, when Italy was hit hard by Trump’s global tariffs, leaving Meloni with little tangible gain to show for her overtures to the White House. When asked if the two leaders had spoken this month, Trump told Corriere della Sera, “No, not in a long time.”
Tensions grew after an awkward Oval Office meeting one year ago, where Meloni avoided direct confrontation over Trump’s tariff policies. The rift widened sharply over the Iran war, with Meloni holding firm to Italy’s neutral position. Her public rebuke of Trump’s comments on the pope marked the most direct public criticism she has leveled at the U.S. president to date.
Tocci argues the split is not the result of a deliberate shift by Meloni away from Trump, but rather a consequence of the U.S. president’s increasingly erratic public posture. “It’s been building up over time, not so much because she is moving away from him but because he has become increasingly unhinged,” she noted.
Senior members of Meloni’s government have sought to downplay the public dispute, emphasizing that the broader U.S.-Italy transatlantic alliance remains intact. Adolfo Urso, a cabinet minister from Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, told Italian outlet Radio 24 that the row would not shake the longstanding partnership between the two nations. “Italy and the United States are allied countries and maintain their relationship and alliance within international institutions, starting obviously with the Atlantic Alliance,” Urso said, adding that the Catholic Church’s moral teachings “cannot crack relationships consecrated in alliances signed a few decades ago.”
Mariangela Zappia, president of the Italian think tank ISPI and a former Italian ambassador to the United States, framed Trump’s heated reaction as symptomatic of broader frustration with Europe, not just Italy. Beyond failing to secure unified European backing for the Iran war, Trump recently lost one of his most loyal far-right European allies after Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in Hungary over the weekend.
Even so, Zappia stressed that Trump’s personal attack on Meloni should not be interpreted as a permanent fracture to the broader transatlantic alliance. “Europe absolutely considers the United States its historic ally, but in some way wants to be involved in the decisions that are taken,” Zappia said. For Trump, she added, the takeaway is clear: “this European Union is not easy to dismantle. We are different, we react differently. Some are clearly anti-Trump, some are pro-Trump but in the end, destroying the European project, separating us on the things on which we see as our future, that is very difficult.”
For Meloni, the immediate priority is shoring up domestic political support after last month’s referendum defeat, which functioned as an informal confidence vote on her leadership. She recently embarked on a high-profile two-day tour of three Gulf states, seeking to secure new long-term gas and oil deals to ease Italy’s ongoing energy crisis driven by the Iran conflict, but returned to Rome without any binding formal agreements. Earlier this week, she announced Italy would not automatically renew its defense cooperation agreement with Israel, after warning shots struck an Italian UN peacekeeping convoy in southern Lebanon. Analysts widely view the move as a symbolic gesture driven by domestic politics, rather than a substantive shift in Italian foreign policy, given deep public opposition to Israel’s actions in the region among Italian voters.
“The Gulf tour was a way to show public opinion that she was being proactive. The fact it didn’t actually lead to anything is beside the point,” Tocci explained. Of the non-renewal of the Israel agreement, she added: “substantively is rather meaningless because there is not much in this agreement but symbolically it helps because Israel has become just so unpopular in Italian public opinion.”
Even with these political calculations working in her favor, some political analysts predict a challenging remaining 18 months of Meloni’s mandate before national elections scheduled for 2027, with the economic fallout of the Iran war continuing to weigh on household finances. Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of government at Rome’s LUISS University, noted that Italian voters are focused on tangible relief from rising energy costs, not just symbolic political gestures. “People want to see their gas bills go down, not just see Meloni talk about gas,” D’Alimonte said. “What matters are the bills you get every month.”
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Qinghai–Xizang Railway hits 100 million ton cargo milestone
Two decades after cutting through the world’s highest plateau to connect the Xizang Autonomous Region to the rest of China, the Qinghai–Xizang Railway has hit a historic transportation milestone: it has moved more than 100 million metric tons of cargo into and out of the plateau region since launching commercial operations in 2006, according to official data from China Railway Qinghai–Xizang Group.
When the railway first opened to traffic on July 1, 2006, it achieved a feat once thought impossible by engineering standards. It ended Xizang’s centuries-long history of being disconnected from the country’s national rail network, turning the long-held dream of a rail link across the “Roof of the World” into tangible reality. The landmark infrastructure project immediately ushered in a new era of seamless connectivity between the plateau region and China’s inland provinces.
Over the 20 years since opening, freight volume along the line has grown at a steady, robust pace. Official statistics from the operator show that annual cargo throughput stood at just 361,000 tons in the railway’s first year of operation. By 2025, that figure had surged to 8.31 million tons, marking an average annual growth rate of 18 percent.
The growth has been seen across both inbound and outbound cargo flows. Inbound freight, which consists primarily of essential commodities including coal, cement, construction materials, and grain, has jumped from 340,000 tons in 2006 to 6.9 million tons in 2025. Outbound cargo has expanded even faster, climbing from just 21,000 tons two decades ago to more than 1.4 million tons in 2025.
Zeng Qiang, deputy director of the operator’s Passenger and Freight Management Department, explained the transformative role the railway plays for the regional economy. “The railway ensures efficient delivery of essential supplies to the plateau while enabling specialty products such as highland barley and Tibetan beverages to reach national markets,” Zeng said.
Beyond growing cargo volumes, the rail network around the Qinghai–Xizang line has expanded dramatically in both capacity and coverage. The core Golmud–Lhasa section now operates 58 stations, can handle maximum traction loads of 2,880 tons, and runs 17 pairs of freight and passenger trains daily. Following the completion and integration of the Lhasa–Shigatse and Lhasa–Nyingchi rail lines, a Y-shaped regional rail backbone network has been fully established across Xizang.
Today, Xizang’s total rail network exceeds 1,000 kilometers, featuring five dedicated freight stations and strengthened freight hubs in the major cities of Lhasa, Shigatse, and Nyingchi. The operator reports that a comprehensive logistics system made up of seven regional freight centers and 47 service outlets now covers Qinghai, Gansu, and Xizang, streamlining cargo movement across the vast plateau region.
The railway’s impact is no longer limited to domestic connectivity: it is now expanding cross-border trade links to serve international markets. Since 2021, combined rail-road intermodal transport services have launched new routes connecting Xizang to South Asia and Central Asia, with total export volumes via these cross-border routes already reaching 113,000 tons as of the milestone announcement.
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WHO says vaccinations save millions in Africa, but US aid cuts and Iran war threaten progress
In a landmark first comprehensive assessment of African immunization efforts published Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) has delivered a dual narrative: extraordinary decades-long progress that has saved tens of millions of lives across the continent, paired with urgent warnings that growing funding cuts from the United States and global disruptions risk reversing decades of hard-won gains.
Over the past 50 years, routine vaccination programs across Africa’s 1.5-billion-person continent have prevented more than 50 million premature deaths, according to the WHO analysis. Since 2000 alone, expanded immunization initiatives have reached more than 500 million children through routine programming, averting over 4 million fatalities annually. For every infant life saved by vaccines, the public health initiative gains an estimated 60 additional years of life expectancy, marking one of the most impactful global development investments of the modern era.
Even in recent years, the work has delivered transformative public health wins: the WHO recorded that nearly 2 million lives were saved by vaccines in 2024 alone. Standout milestones include the complete eradication of wild poliovirus across Africa in 2020, a historic public health achievement, and the elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus in most African nations. The rollout of life-saving malaria vaccines, which target a disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually (the vast majority under-five children on the continent), has now expanded to 25 African countries, a breakthrough WHO’s Africa regional director Mohamed Janabi called “a major scientific and public health breakthrough” during an online press briefing.
But this progress is now at risk, global health leaders warned. Janabi noted that after the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated gaps in access, growth in immunization coverage has stalled in multiple countries, with a sharp rise in the number of children who have never received a single routine vaccine. Just 10 nations account for 80% of all unvaccinated children across the region, a gap that leaders frame as a profound global equity crisis.
The biggest drivers of this slowdown, health officials say, are cuts to U.S. global health aid following Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025 and his ongoing “America First” policy. The U.S. formally withdrew from WHO in January 2025, a move that stripped the agency of roughly 40% of its total overseas development funding for immunization and public health work. Compounding this funding shock, the ongoing war in the Middle East has strained global aid budgets and disrupted critical global supply chains, pushing up energy prices that are particularly harmful for African health facilities, many of which rely on backup generators to maintain cold storage for vaccines.
Adelheid Onyango, WHO Africa’s director for health systems and services, explained that while the full impact of the Middle East conflict has yet to be quantified, the disruptions have already created growing uncertainty for health systems across the continent. Aid-funded immunization programs have already been scaled back or shuttered entirely in multiple nations, eroding the core infrastructure that vaccination campaigns depend on – from local clinic access and trained health workers to cold-chain storage and community outreach services.
Shabir Madhi, a leading vaccinologist and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, called funding constraints the “biggest threat” to African immunization moving forward, as Western donors beyond the U.S. have also tightened aid budgets for low-income nations. Even Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance – a longstanding key partner to WHO in expanding African immunization – is facing a significant financial crunch, Madhi noted.
Sania Nishtar, chief executive of Gavi, echoed the call for more targeted action to reach marginalized children, saying “These immunization outcomes reflect very different realities, and we have more work to do to ensure we are consistently able to reach children, even in the most fragile and remote contexts.”
To offset the loss of international donor funding, WHO officials are urging African national governments to increase domestic financing for health and immunization programs. Madhi added that long-term sustainability will require a clear shift toward greater local ownership, arguing that relying entirely on international aid partnerships can no longer be the default model.
The original report was covered by The Associated Press, which receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP maintains full editorial independence over all content, per its institutional partnership standards.
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Pupil kills nine, wounds 13 in new Turkey school shooting
In a shocking outbreak of school violence that has shaken Turkey, a second mass shooting in as many days left nine people dead and 13 others injured Wednesday when an 8th-grade student opened fire randomly at a school in the country’s southern Kahramanmaras province, a region where such mass casualty attacks have historically been extremely rare.
According to local and national officials, the 13-year-old attacker brought multiple firearms — which authorities believe belonged to his father, a former police officer — hidden in his backpack to the school. After entering two separate classrooms, the teen began shooting indiscriminately. Initial reports had placed the death toll at four, but Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci later confirmed the updated fatality count in an official statement, adding that six of the 13 wounded remain in intensive care, with three in critical condition. Kahramanmaras Governor Mukerrem Unluer told reporters the suspect was carrying five handguns and seven ammunition magazines, and died during the incident. Authorities have not yet confirmed whether the teen’s death was a suicide or an accidental shooting amid the chaos of the attack, Unluer added. Turkish police have since detained the suspect’s father, Ugur Mersinli, for questioning, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Verified footage from the scene has captured the panic and terror that unfolded during the attack. A video recorded by a nearby resident and verified by Agence France-Presse shows terrified students leaping from first-floor windows to escape the gunfire, while dozens more run for safety through the school’s courtyard. Roughly 15 gunshots can be heard in the 90-second clip. Other footage from private Turkish news agency IHA shows an evacuated victim being carried into an ambulance, alongside distraught parents rushing to the school after news of the attack broke. Law enforcement quickly locked down the area surrounding the school, and emergency response vehicles flooded the site. Both Turkey’s interior minister and education minister traveled immediately to Kahramanmaras to oversee the response, while Justice Minister Akin Gurlek confirmed public prosecutors have launched an urgent investigation into the incident.
Wednesday’s attack comes just 24 hours after another school shooting in Turkey, which also ended in the attacker’s death. On Tuesday, a former student opened fire with a shotgun at his old high school in the Siverek district of Sanliurfa province, wounding 16 people — 10 of whom were students — before killing himself during a confrontation with police. In the wake of that first attack, police detained one suspect and suspended four local officials from their posts over alleged failures, and the school was ordered closed for four days.
Speaking to lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in parliament, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that any individual found negligent or responsible for security lapses that allowed the attacks will face full accountability. “There will certainly be accountability for anyone found at fault,” Erdogan said.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel has called for sweeping, nationwide upgrades to school security, arguing that the back-to-back attacks prove school violence in Turkey can no longer be dismissed as a series of isolated events. “This issue has turned into a growing and deepening security vulnerability,” Ozel wrote on social media platform X. He outlined a series of urgent measures he says are now non-negotiable: full screening at all school entrances and exits, an increase in on-site security personnel, upgraded campus camera systems, more frequent police patrols around school grounds, and updated, ready-to-deploy emergency crisis response plans. “The security of schools is entrusted to our state. No negligence or deficiency in this regard can be excused anymore,” Ozel added.
School shootings were an extremely rare occurrence in Turkey before this week. The most recent prior incident occurred in May 2024, when a expelled former student shot and killed a private high school principal in Istanbul. The country already enforces some of the strictest gun control regulations in the region, requiring all firearms to be licensed and registered, mandatory mental health and criminal background checks for gun owners, and harsh legal penalties for anyone found in possession of unregistered weapons.
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Israeli jailers assaulted Marwan Barghouti three times in a month, lawyer says
Top Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been held in Israeli custody since 2004, has been violently assaulted three separate times by Israeli prison guards over the course of one month, according to claims from his legal team and a regional prisoner advocacy campaign. The alleged attacks, which advocates describe as targeted, brutal abuse, have taken place as Barghouti is held in solitary confinement across multiple Israeli correctional facilities, raising urgent alarms over the treatment of high-profile Palestinian detainees amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
The campaign advocating for Barghouti’s release released a public statement Tuesday detailing the allegations, confirming the assaults occurred during his solitary detainment at Megiddo Prison in northern Israel and Ramon Prison in the country’s south. The group claims Barghouti was tortured through repeated beatings and the use of repressive restraint tactics, leaving him with multiple lacerations and widespread bleeding across his body that has gone entirely untreated by prison medical staff. The campaign added that the attacks against the 66-year-old leader are part of a broader, systematic crackdown that began when Israel launched its large-scale military campaign in Gaza in October 2023.
Israeli human rights attorney Ben Marmarelli, who conducted a legal visit with Barghouti on Sunday, publicly outlined the full timeline of alleged abuse in a detailed post on the social platform X, calling the ongoing treatment “deeply alarming.” Per Marmarelli’s account, the first assault took place on March 24, when guards entered Barghouti’s solitary cell accompanied by a attack dog, forced the prisoner to the ground, and directed the dog to attack him on multiple occasions. The following day, as Barghouti was transferred between Megiddo Prison and Ganot Prison, a second assault occurred during the movement process.
The most severe alleged attack took place on April 8, when guards beat Barghouti severely inside his cell at Ganot Prison, leaving him bleeding for more than two hours before he could access any care. When legal representatives submitted a formal request for urgent medical attention following the beating, prison authorities denied the application entirely.
“These are not isolated incidents. They form a clear pattern of escalating abuse: violence, medical neglect, and treatment that places him at immediate risk,” Marmarelli wrote in his social media post. The attorney also documented the harsh, restrictive conditions imposed during his recent legal meeting with Barghouti, noting that the pair was forced to shout through a thick glass partition to communicate after prison authorities failed to repair the broken meeting room phone. “This is what a legal visit looks like today: basic conditions denied, communication obstructed, and even the most elementary human and professional standards ignored,” he added.
Despite the degrading and dangerous conditions of his detainment, Marmarelli confirmed that Barghouti remains mentally alert and closely engaged with political developments across the region. “He had a great deal to say. Above all, he wanted to know more about his family and the Palestinian people, what is happening in Palestinian and Israeli scene. I tried to tell him everything I know,” Marmarelli said.
Barghouti, a senior leader of the Fatah political party, has been in Israeli custody since 2002, with his conviction finalized in 2004. Israeli authorities targeted him over his prominent leadership role during the 2000–2005 Second Intifada, and he was ultimately convicted on charges linked to attacks that killed five Israelis. He is currently serving five consecutive life sentences plus an additional 40 years of incarceration. Throughout his trial, Barghouti refused to present a defense, stating publicly that he did not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli court to hear his case.
Public opinion polls conducted across Palestinian territories have consistently shown that Barghouti would win the Palestinian presidency by a clear margin if national elections were held and he was allowed to run as a candidate. Widely regarded as one of the only remaining Palestinian political figures capable of unifying fragmented factions across the territory, he retains broad public support even as the Palestinian Authority, Fatah’s governing body, suffers from widespread unpopularity among Palestinian residents.
Barghouti has been held in continuous solitary confinement for years, but reports confirm that abusive treatment against him and other high-profile Palestinian detainees has intensified dramatically since October 2023, when Israel launched its current military operation in Gaza.
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Allies of disgraced former presidents lead in Peru presidential election
Four days of ongoing ballot counting in Peru’s 2024 presidential first-round election has cemented two candidates as the clear front-runners poised to advance to the June runoff, as widespread logistical failures disrupted voting processes for thousands of voters at home and abroad.
Keiko Fujimori, a conservative Peruvian politician making her fourth bid for the country’s highest office and the daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori, held the top spot in official counts released Tuesday, with 16.95% of the vote after 90% of all ballots were processed. Close behind her, nationalist congressman and former cabinet minister Roberto Sánchez claimed 11.99% of the vote, putting him just barely ahead of third-place contender Rafael López Aliaga, an ultraconservative and former mayor of Lima who captured 11.94% of counted ballots.
The election has been plagued by organizational breakdowns that disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters both within Peru and among the Peruvian diaspora in the United States. The disruptions began when ballot boxes failed to reach polling locations on schedule for the original voting day, forcing election officials to extend voting into an extra day on Monday. The extension, announced Sunday evening just as official counting got underway, allowed more than 52,000 Lima-based residents to cast their ballots, as well as Peruvian voters registered in two U.S. locations: Orlando, Florida, and Paterson, New Jersey.
Under Peruvian electoral rules, a candidate must secure an absolute majority of more than 50% of the vote to win the presidency outright in the first round. Since no candidate is on track to hit that threshold, the top two finishers from the first round will advance to a head-to-head runoff election scheduled for June 7.
The eventual winner will take office as Peru’s ninth president in just a decade, stepping into a role that has seen rapid turnover amid ongoing political instability. The current interim president, José María Balcázar, was appointed to the position in February, following the ousting of his predecessor — an interim leader removed from office over corruption allegations just four months after taking power.
Fujimori, who has run unsuccessfully for the presidency three times previously, has centered her campaign on pledges to crack down on rising violent crime across Peru. However, her policy record has drawn scrutiny: in recent years, her party backed legislative changes that legal experts argue have significantly weakened the country’s ability to prosecute criminal suspects. The reforms eliminated the option of preliminary detention for certain offenses and raised the legal bar for law enforcement to seize assets tied to criminal activity. If elected, Fujimori has proposed new measures including anonymous judges for criminal cases and a requirement that incarcerated people work to earn meals in prison.
Sánchez, who previously served as foreign trade minister under ousted former president Pedro Castillo, has positioned himself as a nationalist, populist alternative. He frequently wears a wide-brimmed traditional Andean peasant hat on the campaign trail — a gift from his political mentor and ally Castillo, who remains in prison on charges tied to his 2022 attempt to dissolve Congress. If elected president, Sánchez has pledged to use executive pardon power to secure Castillo’s release.
The slow progress of this year’s ballot counting echoes the 2021 Peruvian presidential election, when official final results were not completed until five full days after polls closed, reflecting long-standing structural challenges in Peru’s electoral administration.