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  • Xi calls China-Russia ties ‘precious’ in current international context

    Xi calls China-Russia ties ‘precious’ in current international context

    Against a global backdrop marked by overlapping shifts and widespread instability, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized Wednesday that the steady, predictable nature of China-Russia relations stands out as uniquely valuable. Speaking during a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Beijing, Xi noted that the enduring vitality and landmark importance of the two nations’ friendship treaty have grown even more prominent amid today’s turbulent international conditions.

    Xi called on the foreign ministries of both countries to fully carry out the agreements already reached between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin, pushing for deeper strategic communication and tighter diplomatic coordination between the two sides. He also urged continued efforts to advance the comprehensive strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow, expressing hope that the relationship will “gain greater elevation, move forward more steadily, and reach new milestones.”

    While Xi underscored the strategic importance of the bilateral partnership, he did not explicitly name the specific changes and chaotic developments he referenced. Global observers have noted growing uncertainty around the duration of ongoing conflict in Iran, with no clear timeline for a ceasefire or resolution in sight.

    Separately, in previously unreleased clips from an interview with Fox Business Network, former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iran conflict was “close to over.” This is not the first time Trump has prematurely announced a U.S. victory in the conflict, even as on-the-ground conditions have remained far more complex and unsettled than his public statements suggest.

    In the years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the strategic partnership between China and Russia has deepened considerably. Trump’s unconventional approach to the ongoing war in Ukraine has introduced a new variable to great power dynamics, but analysts say it has not produced any fundamental shift in the core of the Beijing-Moscow relationship. When Putin traveled to China for an official visit in September, Xi greeted the Russian leader as an “old friend,” and Putin reciprocated by addressing Xi as “dear friend,” signaling the warm personal and diplomatic ties between the two heads of state.

    Lavrov arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a two-day working visit, at the official invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, setting the stage for further diplomatic coordination between the two countries’ top diplomatic bodies.

  • At least 250 people missing, including Rohingya and Bangladeshis, after boat sinks in Andaman Sea

    At least 250 people missing, including Rohingya and Bangladeshis, after boat sinks in Andaman Sea

    A devastating maritime disaster has left at least 250 people — a group including both Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals — unaccounted for after their overcrowded migrant vessel capsized in the Andaman Sea while attempting to reach Malaysia, United Nations refugee and migration agencies confirmed.

    Details of the incident remain fragmented in its immediate aftermath, but Bangladesh Coast Guard spokesperson Lieutenant Commander Sabbir Alam Suzan shared preliminary information with the Associated Press on Wednesday, confirming that nine passengers have been pulled from the water alive. The rescue, which took place April 9, was carried out by the crew of the M.T. Meghna Pride, a Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship that spotted the survivors adrift after the shipwreck. Among those rescued are three Rohingya refugees and six Bangladeshi citizens, eight men and one woman, all reported to be in stable condition after being transferred to local police in Teknaf, the departure point for the ill-fated voyage.

    Unlike coordinated official search efforts, this rescue was an unscheduled act of goodwill by the merchant vessel’s crew, a senior Bangladesh Coast Guard media official told the AP Wednesday on condition of anonymity per government protocol. The capsizing occurred outside Bangladesh’s territorial waters, so the Coast Guard had not launched an official search operation at the time of the rescue. As of Wednesday, the exact timeline of the sinking and the status of any expanded search operations for the hundreds of missing passengers remains unconfirmed.

    In their joint statement released Tuesday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) outlined the known context of the disaster: the wooden trawler departed from Teknaf, located in Bangladesh’s southern Cox’s Bazar district, where the world’s largest refugee camp is based, carrying a large contingent of passengers bound for Malaysia. The vessel sank after extreme sea conditions — combined with dangerous overcrowding — left it unable to navigate, with strong winds and rough seas causing the boat to lose control and capsize.

    Shari Nijman, a UNHCR communications officer based in Cox’s Bazar, confirmed Wednesday that the agency had no additional updates to share beyond the initial joint statement.

    The two UN agencies emphasized that the tragedy is not an isolated incident, but a direct consequence of the years-long protracted displacement of the Rohingya people, for whom durable, long-term solutions remain out of reach. Decades of systemic persecution and ongoing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State have made safe, voluntary repatriation impossible for most of the more than 1 million Rohingya now sheltering in Bangladesh. Within Bangladesh’s overcrowded refugee camps, limited access to humanitarian aid, formal education, and legal employment leaves thousands of vulnerable people in desperate conditions, pushing many to accept dangerous offers from people smugglers who falsely promise steady work and improved living standards in Malaysia or other Southeast Asian nations.

    In the wake of the disaster, UNHCR and IOM issued an urgent call for the international community to increase financial support and show greater solidarity with Rohingya refugees and the government of Bangladesh, which has hosted the displaced population for more than six years.

  • South Korea jails American YouTuber for public nuisance

    South Korea jails American YouTuber for public nuisance

    A Seoul court has handed down a six-month prison sentence to 25-year-old American live-streamer Johnny Somali, legally named Ismael Ramsey Khalid, after he was convicted of multiple offenses including desecrating a memorial to World War Two comfort women and violating South Korean public order laws. The controversial content creator sparked widespread national outrage in late 2024 when he uploaded a viral clip showing himself kissing the iconic bronze statue and performing inappropriate lap dance movements on the monument during a visit to South Korea.

    Following the release of the clip, Seoul prosecutors formally charged Khalid with public nuisance in November 2024, and immediately imposed a travel ban barring him from leaving South Korea while the investigation proceeded. The conviction handed down on Wednesday adds additional counts of distribution of non-consensual sexual deepfake content, a charge that further amplified public anger over the streamer’s conduct.

    In its official ruling, the court emphasized that Khalid had repeatedly committed offenses targeting random members of the South Korean public, all as a deliberate strategy to generate views and profit from his YouTube channel, in open disregard of South Korean legal and social norms. Prosecutors had initially pushed for a harsher three-year prison term, but judges opted for the reduced six-month sentence after noting that no severe physical harm was inflicted on individual victims in this case. As an additional restriction, Khalid will be barred from working with any organizations serving minors or people with disabilities after his eventual release from custody.

    The monument targeted by Khalid is one of dozens of similar memorials erected across South Korea honoring the estimated 200,000 mostly Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War Two. Roughly half of these women, widely referred to as “comfort women” in historical discourse, were from Korea, which was under Japanese colonial rule at the time. The seated young woman statue that has become the symbol of the comfort women movement has long been a flashpoint in diplomatic relations between Seoul and Tokyo, as South Korean activists and officials continue to push for full reparations and formal acknowledgement of Japan’s wartime atrocities.

    Khalid, a provocateur who has built a small following of around 5,000 subscribers on YouTube through controversial, boundary-pushing content, issued a public apology back in November 2024 claiming he “didn’t understand the significance of the statue.” That apology was widely met with skepticism from South Korean social media users, who pointed to his long pattern of provocative behavior as evidence the incident was a deliberate stunt for attention.

    Throughout the course of the legal proceedings, Khalid escalated tensions by openly challenging local South Koreans to physical confrontations, multiple clips shared on South Korean social media showed the streamer being punched and chased through public streets by angry locals. This incident was far from Khalid’s first run-in with law and public order across East Asia and the Middle East. Prior to his 2024 trip to South Korea, he was detained in 2024 at a Tel Aviv protest for making inappropriate sexual comments to a female police officer, before being released after questioning. In 2023, during a trip to Japan, he sparked public anger by making provocative comments about the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and was later fined 200,000 yen (equivalent to roughly $1,400) for disrupting business at a Tokyo restaurant by blaring loud music. His history of provocative content has also led to permanent bans from multiple major streaming platforms over the years.

  • Maika Hamano scores to give Japan 1-0 win over USWNT

    Maika Hamano scores to give Japan 1-0 win over USWNT

    SEATTLE – In an upsetting international friendly match that closed out the first leg of their three-game series in the Pacific Northwest, Japan’s women’s national team delivered a 1-0 defeat to the reigning power U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) on Tuesday, snapping the Americans’ 10-match undefeated winning run.

    The result marked the USWNT’s first loss since a 2-1 away defeat to Portugal back in October 23, 2025, and ended a 41-game streak of matches where the American side had avoided being held scoreless. The Tuesday defeat comes just three days after the USWNT claimed a tight 2-1 win over Japan in a Saturday meeting in San Jose, ending a prior losing run to the Japanese side that dated back to Japan’s 2-1 victory over the USWNT in the 2025 SheBelieves Cup final.

    The game’s only goal came in the 27th minute, when 21-year-old forward Maika Hamano outmaneuvered American defender Lilly Reale with a clever feint, then unleashed a curling left-footed strike that sailed over the outstretched glove of U.S. goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce to find the top right corner of the net.

    USWNT head coach Emma Hayes made the controversial call to drastically reshuffle her starting lineup from Saturday’s victory, opting to rest star starters Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman among other key players. All four rested players — Wilson, Rodman, center back Tierna Davidson, and defender Gisele Thompson — entered the match as second-half substitutes in the 65th minute as Hayes looked to spark an equalizing comeback.

    The substitution carried extra storylines for two veterans: Davidson made her first appearance for the national team since February 2025, after suffering a torn ACL during a club match with Gotham FC in March of that year that sidelined her for more than a year. For Wilson, the appearance marked her second consecutive cap for the USWNT following the birth of her daughter last fall, after she had been out of international action since October 2024.

    Tuesday’s historic match also carried off-pitch significance for Seattle sports: it was the first time the USWNT had played at Lumen Field since 2017, when the team declined to return due to longstanding concerns over the stadium’s old artificial turf. The venue recently installed a new natural grass surface in preparation for this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, making the friendly the first USWNT match on the new playing surface.

    A total of 36,128 fans packed Lumen Field for the match, breaking the all-time attendance record for a standalone women’s soccer match in Seattle. The previous record of 34,130 was set in 2023 during Megan Rapinoe’s retirement match with the NWSL’s Seattle Reign.

    The two sides will now travel to Commerce City, Colorado, to play the third and final match of their friendly series this coming Friday, where the USWNT will look to rebound from Tuesday’s upset defeat.

  • Australia’s richest person must share part of her mining fortunes, court rules

    Australia’s richest person must share part of her mining fortunes, court rules

    After more than a decade of bitter legal wrangling over one of Australia’s most profitable iron ore projects, the Supreme Court of Western Australia has delivered a split decision in the high-profile lawsuit against Gina Rinehart, the country’s wealthiest individual, granting partial wins to both sides of the dispute. Rinehart, who holds an estimated personal net worth of A$38 billion, inherited her father Lang Hancock’s iron ore holdings in 1992 and grew the portfolio into a dominant mining force across Western Australia’s resource-rich Pilbara region, anchored in part by the massive Hope Downs iron ore development. At the heart of the legal conflict is a decades-old joint venture agreement forged between Hancock and his close business partner Peter Wright, founders of the iron ore pioneering Hanwright partnership that first laid claim to the Pilbara’s mineral reserves decades ago. The heirs to Wright’s stake, organized under Wright Prospecting, launched the legal challenge alongside two of Rinehart’s own children – Bianca Rinehart and John Hancock – arguing that Rinehart had breached the original partnership agreement and wrongfully withheld rightful shares of profits and control from the claimants. The 51-day 2023 trial centered on competing claims to royalties and mining rights for the Hope Downs project, which is currently jointly operated by global mining giant Rio Tinto and Rinehart’s flagship company Hancock Prospecting. In 2023 alone, the site generated A$832 million in revenue for Hancock Prospecting, with Rio Tinto paying a 2.5% royalty on production to Rinehart’s firm. Justice Jennifer Smith, presiding over the case, ruled that half of all past and future royalties from the project must be awarded to the Wright family, upholding their core claim that they were entitled to a share of the project’s ongoing profits. However, the judge rejected the Wright family’s demand for a split of formal mining rights, leaving full ownership of those critical assets with Rinehart. The court also dismissed claims from Rinehart’s two children, who had argued that their mother moved lucrative Hope Downs mining rights out of a family trust to intentionally cut them off from an inheritance their grandfather intended for them. Rinehart’s defense had argued the transfer was made over legitimate concerns about irregularities in her father’s business dealings, while her children countered the move was designed to exclude Rinehart’s stepmother, Rose Porteous, from accessing the family fortune. A separate claim for royalties brought by the family of late engineer Don Rhodes was partially granted by the court. In responses to the ruling, representatives from both sides characterized the outcome as a victory. Jay Newby, executive director of Hancock Prospecting, noted that the judgment confirmed the company’s full ownership of the Hope Downs mining rights and firmly rejected the broader ownership claims brought by the Wright family and Rinehart’s children. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Wright Prospecting said the organization was “pleased to finally receive a result in our favour” after 13 years of litigation. Beyond her control of Australia’s largest private mining empire, Rinehart is known as one of the country’s most influential private donors, contributing heavily to conservative political parties, national sports programs, and charitable causes across Australia.

  • Harry says children should be an ‘upgrade’ of their parents

    Harry says children should be an ‘upgrade’ of their parents

    On the second day of his private working visit to Australia, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, merged his longstanding advocacy for mental health and love of sport to launch a landmark new report on paternal well-being, opening up about his own journey as a father and the intergenerational shift shaping modern parenting.

    Greeting the Melbourne crowd with a casual “G’day everyone” and a lighthearted nod to the Western Bulldogs AFL team’s strong start to the 2026 season, the Duke centered his remarks on evolving approaches to parenting, drawing a direct connection to his own experience growing up in the British royal family and raising his own children today. He noted that global social shifts have rendered outdated parenting models obsolete, arguing that each new generation of parents has the opportunity to build on the lessons of the past.

    “The world around us has changed massively, so there is no version of where parenting is going to be the same as we experienced,” he told attendees. “From my perspective, our kids are our upgrades. That’s not how I was taught, but that was my take on it… Even if you had the best upbringing in the world, the best parenting in the world, there’s still room for improvement.” A longstanding public advocate for open discussion of mental health struggles, the Duke also pushed back against the persistent stigma that discourages fathers from seeking support when they are struggling, framing openness as a sign of strength rather than weakness.

    “For so many years it has been seen as a weakness to stick your hands up. I find it’s the opposite,” he said. “The more grief I get for talking about it, the more I want to stand up and talk about it. I know if I go quiet about it – what does that say to everyone else?”

    The event, hosted by men’s health charity Movember, marked the launch of new research that lays bare the unaddressed mental health challenges facing new fathers. The study’s findings are stark: one in five fathers report extreme feelings of isolation in the period after welcoming a child, while just under 60% of new dads were never asked how they were coping in their baby’s first 12 months. The report also found that more than 70% of surveyed fathers are actively committed to parenting differently than their own fathers did, a trend Movember leaders say aligns directly with Harry’s public messaging.

    Dr. Zac Seidler, Movember’s Global Director of Research, praised the Duke for bringing authentic, personal experience to the advocacy effort. “He’s really passionate about this, it matters to him, and he told us real stories that he had experienced, stuff that he’d spoken about with his wife, with his therapist,” Seidler said. “He really just wanted to get to the heart of it and talk about advocating for change. I think Harry was just talking about this seismic intergenerational shift that we’re all experiencing. We want to do things differently; we want to learn from our fathers, whether it’s mistakes or otherwise and really lean into what it means to be a dad today.”

    Nathan Appo, the first Indigenous Australian to sit on Movember’s global board and a Mamu man from Far North Queensland, acknowledged the complicated context of Harry’s visit, noting that many of the systemic health barriers facing First Nations Australians trace back to British colonialism carried out by the Duke’s ancestors more than 250 years ago. Even so, Appo praised Harry for centering Indigenous voices and engaging meaningfully with the community’s challenges.

    “As you travel around the world, connecting with Indigenous people to understand their history and what our people face regularly, the barriers that we face… and how that impacts on health is really important,” Appo told the BBC. “Building your knowledge to give you a good understanding of how you can change policy for the better is really important, and I think Harry is someone who does that. He’s using his platform to promote and empower people around the world and do the right things. It’s hard not to be drawn to people like that.”

    After the report launch, Harry leaned into the second half of his day’s agenda: trying his hand at Australian Rules Football, the dominant sport of Melbourne, with players from the Western Bulldogs. Under the guidance of Bulldogs midfielder Adam Treloar, the Duke, a former keen rugby player in his youth, learned the basics of holding the oval-shaped AFL ball and navigating the field. Treloar described Harry as enthusiastic and genuinely curious about the sport, noting that the interaction felt far from the stiff, scripted meetings common for high-profile visitors.

    “He went alright, he was very keen on learning,” Treloar told reporters. “I don’t think we had enough time to really teach him, but he was super keen, asking how we hold the footy and where the laces go. It was pretty normal. We had a great conversation. One of the teammates that was with me has four pubs and was talking about his pubs and maybe coming down for a beer if he has some spare time, which obviously he doesn’t, but it just seemed really genuine and authentic.”

    Harry’s wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, did not attend Wednesday’s public event, and no public appearances have been scheduled for her on this day. A spokesperson for the couple did not respond to BBC requests for comment on Meghan’s plans during the trip. The couple, who stepped down as working British royals in 2020, are traveling to Australia in a private capacity, combining charitable engagements like Harry’s mental health launch with private commercial work. It is understood that Meghan is using the trip to explore plans for expanding her As Ever lifestyle brand into the Australian market. Following his Melbourne commitments, Harry is set to travel to Canberra for engagements later on Wednesday.

  • Cameroon hopes the pope’s visit brings healing after nearly a decade of conflict

    Cameroon hopes the pope’s visit brings healing after nearly a decade of conflict

    In the violence-scarred city of Bamenda, the epicenter of Cameroon’s years-long Anglophone separatist conflict, 52-year-old nurse and mother of six Caro Bih carries a lifetime of trauma that has become all too common for residents of the country’s restive western regions. Once kidnapped, chained, and held for ransom by separatist fighters, Bih has lost multiple relatives to killing, imprisonment, and abduction. Her family home has been burned to the ground, a stroke she suffered while fleeing repeated violence has gone untreated due to conflict-related financial collapse, and her children’s once-bright dreams of professional futures have been cut short by poverty and instability. Today, her only hope for lasting change rests on the arrival of Pope Leo XIV, who is set to visit Cameroon this week as part of a four-nation African tour.

    Millions of Cameroonians are awaiting the pope’s Wednesday arrival, which comes at a fragile turning point for the Central African nation. Just months prior, a deeply disputed presidential election that extended the 40-plus-year rule of 93-year-old Paul Biya, the world’s oldest sitting head of state, left dozens dead and deepened existing divisions across the country. The papal visit, centered on a public call for national reconciliation, will shine a long-overdue global spotlight on the separatist conflict that has torn through Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions since 2017, when fighters launched a rebellion seeking an independent state separate from the country’s Francophone-dominated government. The conflict, widely labeled by humanitarian organizations as one of the world’s most neglected crises, has already claimed thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands. In a significant gesture to clear the way for the visit, separatist leaders announced Tuesday a three-day ceasefire to ensure safe passage for the pope, civilians, and visiting dignitaries.

    During his time in Cameroon, the pope will preside over a peace gathering with local community leaders in Bamenda on Thursday, followed by a public Mass at the city’s airport. Cameroonian government officials have framed the visit as a historic opportunity to foster national unity across the country’s long-running ethnic and linguistic divides. But outside observers and opposition activists have raised sharp concerns that the Biya administration, which has been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses during the conflict and has rejected meaningful dialogue with separatist groups, will seek to exploit the papal visit to gain international legitimacy.

    Benjamin Akih, a U.S.-based Cameroonian activist with the civil society group Council for the Sovereignty of Cameroon, warned that the pope must avoid letting the regime use his visit to distract from deep-rooted historical injustices with empty calls for unity. Eric Chinje, head of the diaspora-based democracy organization Project Cameroon, echoed that skepticism, noting the visit likely aligns more with the pope’s global evangelical mission than with tangible efforts to resolve Cameroon’s political crisis. He added that the pope is unlikely to publicly rebuke Biya, who has clung to power for decades through contested elections and authoritarian rule. This skepticism comes amid a recent controversial move by Cameroon’s parliament, which revived the country’s vice presidency, granting the aging Biya sweeping power to appoint his own successor, further consolidating his control over the state.

    For many clergy and ordinary residents who have endured years of violence, however, the visit remains a source of cautious hope. Catholic priests have been repeatedly targeted by both sides of the conflict: in November, Rev. John Berinyuy Tatah was kidnapped alongside five fellow clergy by separatists and held for two weeks in remote bushland cut off from all outside contact. Despite his own trauma, Tatah, who plans to attend the pope’s Mass, said he believes the pontiff’s visit will plant a seed of reconciliation that can grow to heal the country if nurtured. “The cry of every Cameroonian is for the pope to help us mediate for dialogue in the ongoing crisis,” he said.

    Beyond the Anglophone separatist conflict, Cameroon also faces persistent attacks from Boko Haram extremists operating across its northern border with Nigeria, compounding the country’s humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, more than 3.3 million Cameroonians impacted by conflict currently face acute food insecurity, with many families forced to skip meals, sell their only livestock, or take on crippling debt to survive.

    Yeeika Desmond Nangsinyuy, a Bamenda-based spoken-word artist who has used his work to advocate for peace, was abducted by separatists in 2024 and ordered to stop his anti-violence performances. He refused to end his work, and now says he hopes the pope will center the pain of families torn apart by years of fighting. “My hope is that the pope touches the soft spot of our collective wounds,” he said. “I want him to speak directly to the pain of families torn apart by conflict, and to inspire renewed hope that peace is possible.”

    For Caro Bih, that hope is deeply personal. Her family’s total monthly income, from the small vegetable plot she tends and sells from and the odd jobs her older children take to get by, amounts to roughly $53, barely enough to cover basic food needs. Only two of her six children remain in school; 9-year-old Lydiane, who dreamed of becoming an accountant, dropped out to help care for her younger siblings, and Bih’s husband, a former Catholic missionary teacher, was forced to abandon his job due to persistent insecurity. Bih herself abandoned stroke medication and physiotherapy in 2024 to save money for her family, relying instead on cheap herbal remedies to manage her symptoms. “I had dreamt of seeing my children become doctors, magistrates and so on,” she said quietly. “Now their future is uncertain.” But like millions of other conflict-weary Cameroonians, she says she believes the pope’s visit will mark a turning point. “We believe he will be a turning point,” she said.

    This reporting is supported by the Gates Foundation as part of AP News’ global health and development coverage in Africa, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • Homeric hangover cure: Greek claim over ancient bovine belly broth stirs feud with rival Turks

    Homeric hangover cure: Greek claim over ancient bovine belly broth stirs feud with rival Turks

    A decades-long culinary rivalry between Greece and Turkey has reignited over a humble, hearty offal soup, with both nations staking competing claims to the dish as Greece pushes to have it recognized as an official intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.

    In the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki, Dimitris Tsarouhas, a third-generation restaurateur who has spent decades perfecting the recipe for what Greeks call patsa, is leading the charge for UNESCO registration. The dish, a slow-simmered broth made from bovine bellies and trotters, has long been a beloved staple in Greek culture — particularly as a soothing morning meal that locals swear eases the discomfort of hangovers and even treats chronic stomach ailments. Proponents of the Greek claim trace the dish’s origins all the way back to 8th century BCE, referencing a mention in Homer’s *Odyssey* that describes a similar preparation served at a feast for Penelope’s suitors, moments before Odysseus reveals his identity after 10 years of travel. According to Tsarouhas, the epic describes a dish of stuffed bovine belly mixed with suet and blood — a description he says matches the core of modern Greek patsa perfectly.

    Tsarouhas has not undertaken this effort alone. Working alongside a local Thessaloniki cultural association and Lena Oflidis, the only historian to have published a full book on the soup’s history, he has compiled a comprehensive dossier to submit to UNESCO outlining Greece’s historical and cultural connection to the dish. For the chefs who prepare patsa daily, the recipe’s lineage is clear: 22-year veteran patsa chef Pantazis Koukoumvris explains that ancient Greek cooks developed the preparation, which was later adopted by Byzantine chefs, passed to the Ottoman Empire, and preserved through generations in Greek cooking.

    Beyond its legendary roots, regular patrons and proponents point to the dish’s practical and cultural place in modern Greek life. Dozens of customers flock to Tsarouhas’ restaurant at all hours, starting at dawn, to enjoy a bowl, customized to preference with coarsely or finely chopped meat, topped with mustard, hot pepper flakes and sesame seeds. Tsarouhas, citing medical research, notes that the slow-cooked trotters contain nearly 33.4% consumable collagen, making it a popular remedy for joint pain after surgery, stomach ulcers and other digestive issues linked to alcohol consumption. Long-time patron Christos Mousoulis emphasizes that regardless of any similarities between the Greek and Turkish versions, patsa has been a fixture in Greek family life for generations. “We grew up with Greek patsa,” he explained. That shared cultural connection, he argues, is the foundation of Greece’s claim.

    But across the Aegean Sea, Turkish chefs, restaurateurs and members of the public are pushing back hard against the Greek bid, calling it an attempt to appropriate a dish that Turks have called iskembe çorbası, or simply iskembe, as a national staple for centuries. Unlike Greek patsa, which includes both tripe and trotters, Turkish iskembe is made exclusively with slow-cooked tripe, simmered for 8 to 9 hours overnight before being served in a rich garlicky broth.

    Ali Turkmen, a 59-year-old Istanbul restaurateur who has specialized in iskembe for decades, says the dish is inherently tied to Turkish cultural identity. “It’s been a staple in our culture for centuries. Tripe soup is something specific to Turks,” he said, echoing the long-running pattern of culinary disputes between the two neighbors that have already included competing claims to baklava, stuffed grape leaves, and Turkish coffee, all legacies of centuries of shared Ottoman history.

    Turkish historical evidence points to 17th-century writings from famed Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi, who documented street vendors selling tripe and trotter soup in the streets of Istanbul in his *Book of Travels*, proving a 400-year recorded history of the dish in Turkish lands. Turkish media has widely framed the Greek bid as cultural appropriation, and members of the public are calling for official pushback. “Tripe soup is one of the dishes we should be promoting to the world,” said Murat Pajik, a regular customer at Istanbul’s iconic Alem Iskembe restaurant. “Measures need to be taken to protect our heritage.” Another patron, Engin Cakar, called the Greek claim futile: “This tripe dish is from our grandfathers, our mothers. It belongs to us.”

    Despite the public friction, Tsarouhas remains confident in Greece’s case, striking a conciliatory tone amid the dispute. “Nobody’s stopping them from making their own claim,” he said. “We believe that we have all the documentation to secure certification for patsa as Greek heritage. We don’t have anything to divide with our neighbors — rather the taste unites us.”

    The UNESCO registration process is expected to take months, leaving the question of which nation can lay claim to the beloved soup still very much up in the air.

  • AFL 2026: Melbourne coach Steven King has united with his fellow coaches on a fixture flaw

    AFL 2026: Melbourne coach Steven King has united with his fellow coaches on a fixture flaw

    Just six games into his tenure as Melbourne Football Club’s senior AFL coach, Steven King has added his voice to a growing cohort of league coaches pushing for major changes to the Victorian Football League (VFL) competition fixture, citing disruptive scheduling gaps that derail player development pathways.

    The Demons’ reserves affiliate, the Casey Demons, have only been able to complete two regular matches through the first chunk of the 2024 season, with a scheduled bye for the club and a league-wide break to accommodate the VFL State of Origin exhibition match forcing the side into an extended break. The fragmented, stop-start schedule left King’s side with no official competitive outlet for their development players, prompting Melbourne to arrange an unofficial scratch match against Essendon’s reserves at the Bombers’ training base, the Hangar, this past Sunday.

    King explained that the current scheduling structure fails star development players waiting for their chance to break into the senior AFL lineup. “I’ve got 12 to 15 players who are hungry to compete every week to prove they deserve an AFL call-up, and right now they can’t get that game time in the official competition,” King said. He pointed out a specific conflict with the State of Origin round: when the VFL pauses all club matches for the representative game, only a tiny handful of VFL-listed players get selected to participate, leaving dozens of AFL-listed reserves with no competitive match to play. “This is something the AFL should look into adjusting. If stand-alone clubs get a bye when they lose players to the State of Origin game, why can’t our AFL-listed reserves get the opportunity to keep playing?” he added.

    The disjointed fixture has also forced awkward, difficult conversations between King and players on the cusp of senior selection. “Players come up to me and ask, ‘Does this mean I’m out of contention for the first six weeks because there are no games for me to prove myself?’ That’s a really tough question to answer,” King said. “All our guys want is to get out on the ground and play, so they can put their hand up for senior selection. I know most other clubs have already raised concerns about this issue, and I will be following the proper channels to push for change too.”

    Looking ahead to this weekend, Melbourne is set to face the Brisbane Lions at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday for the annual Jim Stynes Foundation charity match. The game comes as a critical bounce-back opportunity for the Demons, who suffered an upset loss to Essendon during the league’s recent Gather Round.

    When asked about his game plan for the Lions, who boast one of the deepest, most talented midfield groups in the competition, King said he would prioritize sticking to Melbourne’s own identity rather than completely overhauling the Demons’ game plan to counter the opposition. “We can’t be a club that just reacts every week and changes how we play to match the opponent,” King explained. “We know what works for our game and what fuels our belief. Of course we will tweak a few things to limit the Lions’ strengths — that’s just standard preparation. But as a young coach, I want this group to play our brand of footy and play to our own strengths.”

  • US justice department seeks to throw out Capitol riot convictions

    US justice department seeks to throw out Capitol riot convictions

    In a major legal shift aligned with former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign pledges, the U.S. Department of Justice has formally requested a federal appeals court to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 individuals connected to the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

    When Trump took office for his second term, he moved quickly to grant clemency to hundreds of people charged or convicted over their roles in the insurrection, issuing full pardons or sentence commutations to more than 1,500 individuals on his first day in office. Though Trump issued over 1,000 full pardons to January 6 rioters, he opted only to commute the sentences of the 12 rioters—most of whom are affiliated with the far-right militia groups the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. This commutation allowed the defendants to secure early release from prison, but left their felony convictions intact on their official criminal records.

    In a court filing submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia stated that “The United States has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”

    Among the 12 individuals seeking full expungement of their convictions is Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia. A former U.S. Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, Rhodes led a contingent of Oath Keepers members to Washington, D.C., on the day of the riot, where the group plotted to disrupt Congress’s formal certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. Prosecutors proved during Rhodes’ 2023 trial that the group stored weapons in a Virginia hotel room across the Potomac River, and that while Rhodes never entered the Capitol building himself, he directed his followers’ actions from outside the building during the melee. He was originally sentenced to 18 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of seditious conspiracy, the charge of attempting to overthrow the lawful U.S. government. The D.C. Circuit has set an April 17 deadline for all parties to submit formal filings in the expungement cases. If the court grants the DOJ’s request to throw out the convictions, it will eliminate the need for the Trump administration’s DOJ to defend the original convictions in ongoing expungement proceedings.

    Notably, former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique “Henry” Tarrio, who was also convicted of seditious conspiracy over his role in organizing the riot and was originally sentenced to 22 years in prison, received a full pardon from Trump rather than a commutation, so he is not included in this latest request.

    A successful ruling dismissing the convictions would mark a key symbolic victory for Trump, who centered a major campaign promise on supporting and pardoning rioters who participated in the insurrection aimed at overturning his 2020 election loss.