Category: World

ISTANBUL, Jan. 21 – A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck Türkiye’s northwestern province of Canakkale on Tuesday, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

AFAD said on social media platform X that the earthquake occurred at 11:38 p.m. (2038 GMT) off the coast of Ayvacik district in the Aegean Sea.

Canakkale Governor Omer Toraman shared on X that following the earthquake, relevant units started field surveys, and no reports of damage or casualties have been received so far.

The tremor was felt across a wide range of areas in the Aegean and Marmara regions.

XINHUA

JERUSALEM, Jan. 21 – Four people were injured late Tuesday in a stabbing attack in central Tel Aviv. The attacker, identified as a Moroccan-born U.S. permanent resident, was shot and “neutralized.”

Police Spokesman Aryeh Doron said the assailant, trying to flee the scene, was shot by a civilian passerby, and was “neutralized.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s state-owned Kan TV reported that the suspect was killed and published photos of documents found on his body. The documents indicated he was born in Morocco in June 1995 and had held U.S. permanent resident status since September 2022 — an uncommon profile among individuals involved in attacks targeting Israelis. The suspect had entered Israel three days before the attack.

Eli Bin, director-general of the Magen David Adom rescue service, said two people sustained moderate injuries and two others were lightly injured. All four were taken to a hospital for treatment.

The attack comes after a similar incident on Saturday, when a knife-wielding Palestinian man from the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm carried out a stabbing attack in southern Tel Aviv, seriously injuring a 28-year-old Israeli man. That assailant was shot and killed.

The attack occurred just hours after the military announced the launch of a “significant” operation in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank. At least eight people were killed, according to Palestinian health officials, two days after a ceasefire agreement took effect in Gaza, which ended 15 months of Israeli military operations in the enclave.

XINHUA

MOSCOW – Russia on Tuesday slammed US President Donald Trump for reinstating its ally Cuba on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, saying the measure was aimed at destabilising the island and prompting regime change.

Trump on Monday reversed his predecessor Joe Biden’s decision to remove Cuba from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement that the newly-inaugurated Trump’s order was undoubtedly “aimed at further tightening financial and economic restrictions in the hopes of destabilising the situation and changing power in Cuba.”

The move is unjustified because Cuba is an active participant in “international cooperation on counterterrorism,” Zakharova said.

The US must realize such measures “have an extremely negative influence on the quality of life of the island’s population,” she added, suggesting it was aiming to provoke “social discontent.”

Russia will continue to provide “necessary support to Cuba” to back its demands for an “immediate and complete end” to the “illegal and inhumane” US blockade of the island, Zakharova said.

Russia and Cuba have strengthened ties since Moscow launched its Ukraine offensive in 2022 with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visiting last year.

AN-AFP, Jan 21, 2025

BEIRTU, Lebanon – Six people were killed on Tuesday in Syria’s central Homs province, a war monitor said, as security forces launched a sweep of the area.

The security forces were operating in the area around the village of Ghour Al-Gharbiya in western Homs “against the remaining militias supporting” ousted president Bashar Assad, the official news agency SANA reported.

The operation also targeted drug traffickers and smugglers, SANA said, citing a security source.

An “arms depot and munitions belonging to the ousted regime” were found, it added, reporting that violent clashes had broken out.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people had been killed in the Shiite-majority village, which lies close to the border with Lebanon.

The Observatory later specified that among those killed, two were “armed individuals” who died during clashes with security forces, while the other four were “civilians executed by local gunmen who entered the town” alongside the security forces.

Tanks were also deployed to the area, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the village “hosted local groups close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” adding that those groups had left the area after the fall of Assad on December 8.

Hezbollah was one of Assad’s key backers in the nearly 14-year conflict that broke out with the former president’s violent repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.

The Observatory said dozens were arrested during the latest security sweep. Recent weeks have seen widespread arrests of those accused of loyalty to Assad.

Islamist-led rebels forced Assad from power last month after a lightning offensive that saw them capture swathes of the country in 11 days.
Rights groups have reported violations by the new security authorities, including summary executions and the seizure of people’s homes.

The new authorities, however, have sought to reassure minorities in particular that their rights will be safeguarded.

AN-AFP, Jan 21, 2025

JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH – Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least eight Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “large-scale and significant military operation.”

The action, launched a day after US President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against Iranian-backed militants.

“We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses for the occupied West Bank.

The move into Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza and underscores the threat of more violence in the West Bank.

The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in self-rule areas of the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major center of armed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.

Gaza-based Hamas, which has expanded its reach in the West Bank over recent years, called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.

As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media.

Palestinian health services said at least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded as the Israeli raid began, a week after an Israeli air strike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more.

Since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Israeli raids.

“Protecting settlers”

Hard-line pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for large parts of Israeli policy in the West Bank, said the operation was the start of a “strong and ongoing campaign” against militant groups “for the protection of settlements and settlers.”

Smotrich earlier welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and said he looked forward to cooperating with the new administration in expanding settlements.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.

The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule over some territory in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation.

In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation, Palestinians throughout the West Bank said multiple roadblocks had been set up throughout the territory, where violence has resurged since the start of the war in Gaza.

Late on Monday, bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, near the village of Al-Funduq, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.

The military said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some in masks.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attack in Al-Funduq as well as the sudden appearance of multiple new barriers and roadblocks, which it said were aimed at “dismembering the West Bank.”

“We call on the new American administration to intervene to stop these crimes and Israeli policies that will not bring peace and security to anyone,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office said in a statement.

AN-REUTERS, Jan 21, 2025

GAZA STRIP – The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday that 47,107 people had been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, with the toll continuing to rise in spite of a ceasefire as new bodies were found under the rubble.

The ceasefire has held since going into effect on Sunday, bringing a halt to more than 15 months of fighting in the Palestinian territory.

But the health ministry is finding more dead, as the truce has allowed people to comb the ruins. Other people have died from wounds received before the fighting stopped, with the territory’s health system devastated by the war.

The bodies of 72 people “arrived at hospitals… over the past 24 hours,” the ministry said in a statement.

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulances and civil protection teams are unable to reach them,” it added.
The ministry said the number of wounded had reached 111,147 since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.

The ministry called on the families of people killed or missing in the war to register online to aid in the identification of bodies and to compile a more accurate death toll.

Israel has regularly questioned the credibility of the ministry’s figures, although the United Nations deems them reliable.

A study in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published in early January estimated that the number of deaths during the first month of the war was around 40 percent higher than the official ministry figure.

AN-AFP, Jan 21, 2025

PARIS – Two French investigating magistrates have issued an arrest warrant against ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad for suspected complicity in war crimes, the second such move by France’s judicial authorities, a source said on Tuesday.

Assad, who was ousted late last year in a lightning offensive by Islamist forces, is held responsible in the warrant issued on Monday as “commander-in-chief of the armed forces” for a bombing in the Syrian city of Daraa in 2017 that killed a civilian, a source close to the case, asking not to be named, told AFP.

This mandate was issued as part of an investigation into the case of Salah Abou Nabout, a 59-year-old Franco-Syrian national and former French teacher, who was killed on June 7, 2017 following the bombing of his home by Syrian army helicopters.

The French judiciary considers that Assad ordered and provided the means for this attack, according to the source.

Six senior Syrian army officials are already the target of French arrest warrants over the case in an investigation that began in 2018.

“This case represents the culmination of a long fight for justice, in which I and my family believed from the start,” said Omar Abou Nabout, the victim’s son, in a statement.

He expressed hope that “a trial will take place and that the perpetrators will be arrested and judged, wherever they are.”

French authorities in November 2023 issued a first arrest warrant against Assad over chemical attacks in 2013 where more than a thousand people, according to American intelligence, were killed by sarin gas.

While considering Assad’s participation in these attacks “likely,” public prosecutors last year issued an appeal against the warrant on the grounds that Assad should have immunity as a head of state.

However, his ouster has now changed his status and potential immunity. Assad and his family fled to Russia after his fall, according to Russian authorities.

AN-AFP, Jan 21, 2025

ANKARA, Jan. 21 – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a national day of mourning for Wednesday following the death of 66 people in a fire that broke out at a popular ski resort in northwestern Bolu province.

“A one-day national mourning has been declared across the country tomorrow,” Erdogan said at a press conference after a cabinet meeting, extending his condolences to the family of the victims.

“Those who caused such a disaster in any way, those who have negligence and fault will be held accountable before the law,” he said.

He added that 17 of the wounded have been discharged and the treatment of the other wounded, one of whom is in intensive care, continues.

A fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel has left 51 others injured, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said earlier in the day.

The fire broke out at 03:27 local time (00:27 GMT) in the 12-storey wooden hotel, which was accommodating 238 guests during the busy holiday season.

Initial investigations suggest the fire started in the fourth-floor restaurant area before spreading upwards, according to Bolu Provincial Governor Abdulaziz Aydin.

Authorities have detained four individuals following the fire, including the hotel owner.

Kartalkaya is a popular ski resort in the Koroglu mountains, some 300 km east of Istanbul.

XINHUA

ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 21 – A total of 20 Ethiopian migrants, including nine women and 11 men, were killed when their boat capsized off southern Yemeni coast over the weekend, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Tuesday.

The vessel, carrying 35 Ethiopian migrants along with a Yemeni captain and his assistant, reportedly departed from the Hammarta area in Djibouti and capsized on Saturday night “amid strong seasonal winds” near Al-Hajjajah in Dubab District, Taiz Governorate, the IOM said in a statement, adding that the survivors have successfully reached the shore.

“This tragedy is a grim reminder of the treacherous conditions migrants endure in their search for safety and a better life,” the statement quoted IOM’s Chief of Mission in Yemen Abdusattor Esoev as saying.

“The international community must strengthen its resolve to address the root causes of irregular migration and prioritize the protection and dignity of migrants,” Esoev said.

Yemen’s coastal waters are among the world’s most dangerous. According to IOM statistics, more than 60,000 migrant arrivals in Yemen were documented in 2024 alone. Since 2014, 3,435 deaths and disappearances have been recorded along the Eastern Route, including 1,416 lives lost to drowning.

On Tuesday, a Yemeni government official, speaking to Xinhua on condition of anonymity, confirmed that “the incident occurred days ago” and said that dozens of people had died, without providing specific casualty figures.

XINHUA

RAMALLAH – Six Palestinians have been killed and 35 others injured in a major Israeli military operation launched Tuesday in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, according to Palestinian health officials in Ramallah.

The operation, dubbed “Iron Wall” by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), has triggered clashes with Palestinian militants and drawn condemnation from Palestinian factions.

The IDF said the operation aimed to thwart “terrorist activities” in Jenin, with Israeli media cited military sources indicating the operation could last several days.

Palestinian security sources said Israeli forces entered Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp with a large number of vehicles, coinciding with drone strikes and helicopter fire. Eyewitnesses reported heavy clashes between Israeli forces and armed Palestinian factions.

Hamas called for intensified fighting against Israel in response to the raid. The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, claimed to have repelled the Israeli advance.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was “another step in achieving the goal we set, strengthening security” in the West Bank.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel had asked the Palestinian Authority security services to withdraw from Jenin prior to the operation.

Tensions in the West Bank have escalated since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since then.

In August 2023, Israel conducted a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank called “Summer Camps,” which it said aimed to arrest wanted individuals and prevent attacks against Israel.

XINHUA

ANKARA – A fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the northwestern Turkish ski resort of Bolu has killed 66 people and injured 51 others, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday.

The fire broke out at 03:27 a.m. local time (0027 GMT) in the 12-story hotel during a busy holiday period, with more than 230 guests present. Video footage circulating on social media showed what appeared to be guests using bed linen to escape from windows.

Bolu Provincial Governor Abdulaziz Aydin said initial investigations indicated the fire started in the fourth-floor restaurant area before spreading upwards.

XINHUA

ISTANBUL – A fire engulfed a hotel at the popular Kartalkaya ski resort in northwestern Turkiye early Tuesday, killing 10 people died and injuring 32 others, the interior minister said.

The blaze at the 12-story Grand Kartal hotel, which has wooden cladding, started at 3:27 a.m. (0027 GMT), Ali Yerlikaya said on X.

Private NTV broadcaster said three people died after jumping from the hotel’s windows.

The resort is located on top of a mountain range about 170 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of the capital Ankara.

The fire, which is believed to have started in the restaurant at around midnight, spread quickly. It was not immediately clear what caused it.
Television footage showed huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky with a snowcapped mountain behind the hotel.

Local media said 237 people were staying at the hotel, where the occupancy rate was between 80 and 90 percent due to the school holidays.

Those evacuated were rehoused in nearby hotels.

AN-AFP

JAKARTA – A landslide in Indonesia’s Central Java city of Pekalongan killed 16 people and injured 10, an official at the country’s regional disaster mitigation agency and police said on Tuesday.

The landslide was triggered by heavy rains in the area, Bergas Caturasi, an official at the country’s regional disaster mitigation agency told news channel Kompas TV.

The search for those missing has been hampered by rain, Bergas said.

“The search continues on, because we don’t have a lot of time. We’re in a race with the weather,” he said.

AN-REUTERS

TAIPEI – A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck southern Taiwan early Tuesday, leaving 27 people with minor injuries and some reported damage.

The quake hit at 12:17 a.m. and was centered 38 kilometers (24 miles) southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration said. The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at a less powerful magnitude 6.

There were scattered reports of minor to moderate damage around the cities of Chiayi and Tainan.

Taiwan’s fire department said 27 people were sent to hospitals for minor injuries. Among them were six people, including a 1-month-old baby, who were rescued from a collapsed house in the Nanxi district of Tainan. The Zhuwei bridge on a provincial highway was reported to be damaged.

No deaths have been reported, though rescuers were still assessing damage.

Two people in Tainan and one person in Chiayi city were rescued without injuries after being trapped in elevators.

The quake caused a fire at a printing factory in Chiayi, but it was extinguished, and there were no reports of injuries.

Last April, a magnitude 7.4 quake hit the island’s mountainous eastern coast of Hualien, killing at least 13 people and injuring more than 1,000 others. The strongest earthquake in 25 years was followed by hundreds of aftershocks.

Taiwan lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

AN-AP

TAIPEI/BEIJING, Jan. 21 — A 6.2-magnitude earthquake jolted Tainan City of China’s Taiwan, at 12:17 a.m. Tuesday (Beijing Time), according to China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

The epicenter, with a depth of 14 km, was monitored at 23.24 degrees north latitude and 120.51 degrees east longitude, the CENC said.

Tremors were felt in Taipei, lasting for over 10 seconds, and several aftershocks occurred after the quake.

According to local media reports, two people are being rescued after a house collapsed in Tainan.

XINHUA

JERUSALEM — An Israeli reservist soldier was killed, and a battalion commander seriously injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said on Monday.

The Israeli troops were patrolling the Palestinian town of Tammun, south of Jenin, when their jeep hit the explosive device around midnight between Sunday and Monday.

The reservist, identified as 31-year-old Eviatar Ben Yehuda, was killed in the explosion. The officer seated next to him sustained serious injuries and was evacuated to a hospital for treatment, the military said.

The incident occurred amid escalating tensions in the West Bank, as Israel continues daily raids in Palestinian cities and towns, often resulting in Palestinian casualties. It came a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, halting more than 15 months of an Israeli onslaught in Gaza.

XINHUA

BELGRADE — Eight people lost their lives in a devastating fire early Monday morning at a nursing home in Belgrade’s suburb settlement of Barajevo, with police suspecting the tragedy was caused by criminal activity.

“Emergency services reacted quickly and efficiently, but the fire had already spread extensively. Unfortunately, eight lives were lost,” Nemanja Starovic, minister for Labor, Employment, Veterans, and Social Affairs, told Serbia’s Tanjug News Agency.

Rescuers safely evacuated 13 people from the burning building, while seven sustained injuries and received medical care.

Starovic stated that initial findings point to the possibility of a criminal act. “The investigation is ongoing, and I expect the prosecution to provide official information later today,” he added.

The fire erupted at approximately 3:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), with media outlets reporting that around 30 residents were in the building at the time.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze after deploying many personnel and vehicles, while emergency medical teams provided on-site assistance.

XINHUA

BEIJING – The Myanmar military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) signed a formal agreement for a ceasefire that began on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said, halting fighting near the border of both countries.

The two sides held talks in China’s southwestern city of Kunming where they thanked Beijing for its efforts to promote peace, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a regular news briefing on Monday.

“Cooling down the situation in the north of Myanmar is in the common interest of all parties in Myanmar and all countries in the region, and contributes to the security, stability and development of the border areas between China and Myanmar,” she said.

China will continue to actively promote peace and dialogue and provide support and assistance to the peace process in northern Myanmar, Mao said.

The MNDAA is one of several ethnic minority armed groups fighting to repel the military from what they consider their territories.

It is part of the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army, that launched an offensive against the military junta in late October 2023 seizing swathes of territory near the border with China.

The MNDAA, made up of ethnic Chinese, said last July it had taken control of a major military base near the Chinese border.

Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces which have pushed the military out of vital borderlands and started making inroads towards the central city of Mandalay.

The military seized power from Myanmar’s civilian government in February 2021, plunging the country into crisis.

China fears chaos along its more than 2,000 kilometre long border with Myanmar would jeopardise investment and trade.

Beijing previously brokered a ceasefire deal in the northern borderlands in January 2024, but the deal broke down a few months later.

REUTERS

KABUL – The Taliban’s acting deputy foreign minister called on his senior leadership to open schools for Afghan girls, among the strongest public rebukes of a policy that has contributed to the international isolation of its rulers.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, who previously led a team of negotiators at the Taliban’s political office in Doha before U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, said in a speech at the weekend that restrictions on girls and women’s education was not in line with Islamic Sharia law.

“We request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education,” he said, according to local broadcaster Tolo, referring to the Taliban’s name for its administration.

“In the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the doors of knowledge were open to both men and women,” he said.

“Today, out of a population of forty million, we are committing injustice against twenty million people,” he added, referring to the female population of Afghanistan.

The comments were among the strongest public criticism in recent years by a Taliban official of the school closures, which Taliban sources and diplomats have previously told Reuters were put in place by the supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada despite some internal disagreement.

The Taliban have said they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.

They made a sharp u-turn on promises to open high schools for girls in 2022, and have since said they were working on a plan for the schools to re-open but have not given any timeline.

They closed universities to female students at the end of 2022.

The policies have been widely criticised internationally, including by Islamic scholars, and Western diplomats have said any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban is blocked until there is a change on their policies towards women.

A Taliban administration spokesman in the southern city of Kandahar where Haibatullah is based did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stanekzai’s remarks.

REUTERS

KOLKATA – An Indian court awarded the life sentence on Monday to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in the eastern city of Kolkata.

The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Aug. 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals, as the crime sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.

Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against Roy.

Roy said he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency.

The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty.

Judge Das said it was not a “rarest-of-rare” crime, adding that Roy could go in appeal to a higher court.

The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday. The speedy trial in the court was not open to the public.

The parents of the junior doctor were among those in court on Monday. Security was stepped up with dozens of police personnel deployed at the court complex.

REUTERS

GUANGZHOU — Fan Weiqiu, the criminal convicted of causing heavy casualties after ramming his car into the crowd at a sports center in November last year in the city of Zhuhai, south China’s Guangdong Province, was executed on Monday, according to a court statement.

The execution was conducted by the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court after the death sentence was approved by the Supreme People’s Court. The procedure was supervised by prosecutors from the local procuratorate in Zhuhai.

Fan was convicted of the crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means in December 2024. He was also deprived of his political rights for life.

XINHUA

NANJING — Xu Jiajin, the criminal convicted of killing eight people and injuring 17 in a knife attack at a vocational school in east China’s Jiangsu Province, was executed on Monday, according to a court statement.

The penalty was executed by the Intermediate People’s Court in the city of Wuxi, Jiangsu, after the Supreme People’s Court approved the death sentence. Prosecutors from the local procuratorate in Wuxi supervised the procedure.

The death sentence was handed down by the Wuxi court in December 2024.

The attack took place at around 6:30 p.m., Nov. 16, 2024, at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology. Xu was caught at the scene and confessed to his crime, according to a police statement at the time.

XINHUA

RAMALLAH — Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners from Ofer prison, located west of Ramallah in the West Bank, early on Monday, just hours after three Israeli hostages returned to Israel following their release from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

Eyewitnesses and local Palestinian sources said that several buses left Ofer prison at 1:00 a.m. local time (2300 GMT on Sunday) after issues related to verifying the list of names were resolved.

The Hamas-affiliated Prisoners’ Media Office confirmed that the release process had started after an agreement was reached on the lists.

A statement mentioned that buses from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) transported the prisoners, including both men and women, from Ofer prison to Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.

Hundreds of Palestinians, including families of the prisoners, gathered near the prison to welcome the released prisoners.

The area around the prison witnessed heightened tension after several journalists and Palestinian citizens were assaulted by Israeli forces, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Among the 90 released prisoners are women from East Jerusalem and minors under 18.

This prisoner release is part of a Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that took effect on Sunday.

XINHUA

ACCRA — Seven illegal miners were killed and one seriously injured during a gun battle with the troops in western Ghana, the military said Sunday.

The gun battle took place in Obusai, a town in the western African country’s Ashanti Region, on Saturday when some 60 illegal miners breached AngloGold Ashanti mine’s security fence to enter the Deep Decline care of the mine and opened fire on the military stationed there, the military said in a statement.

The illegal miners were wielding locally manufactured rifles, pump-action guns, gas cylinders, knives, heavy-duty industrial bolt cutters, axes and machetes, said the statement.

“The troops returned fire in self-defense. The shootout led to the death of seven illegal miners and one seriously injured. The remaining illegal miners bolted,” it said.

“A soldier who was also hit by pellets from a pump-action gun and got injured has been treated,” it added.

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has ordered an immediate investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding the clashes and ensure that any individuals found to have acted unlawfully are brought to justice.

Over the past few years, the Ghanaian government has ramped up its efforts to tackle illegal mining, not least by dispatching security agencies to protect the mining concessions for their owners.

XINHUA