Headline
World Powers Rush To Offer Turkey, Syria Aid Over Quake

International offers to help Turkey and Syria with rescue efforts poured in on Monday after a massive earthquake killed around 1,800 people and wreaked devastation.
– European Union –
The European Union has mobilised search and rescue teams for Turkey after the stricken country requested EU assistance.
Ten urban search and rescue teams from various member states will support first responders on the ground, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and EU crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarcic said.
The EU’s Copernicus satellite system has also been activated to provide emergency mapping services, it added.
The EU is also ready to support those affected in Syria, it said.
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– UNHCR –
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi voiced “solidarity” with those affected in both countries, saying the UN agency was “ready to help provide urgent relief to the survivors through our field teams wherever possible”.
– India –
India said it would immediately send rescue and medical teams as well as relief equipment to Turkey.
Two National Disaster Response Force teams comprising 100 personnel with dog squads and equipment were ready to be flown to the affected area, the foreign ministry said. Teams of trained doctors and paramedics with medicines were also being readied.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “anguished” and “deeply pained” by the deaths in Turkey — with whom India has frosty relations — and Syria.
– Germany –
Germany — home to about three million people of Turkish origin — will “mobilise all the assistance we can activate”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, after speaking with the Turkish ambassador to Berlin.
Germany’s Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) “can set up camps to provide shelter as well as water treatment units”, she said.
The THW agency is also preparing generators, tents and blankets.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the German government would hold a crisis meeting later Monday with the relevant ministries to organise an aid package.
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Berlin will also increase its assistance to charities such as Malteser International providing humanitarian aid in northwest Syria by one million euros ($1.1 million), she said.
– Russia –
President Vladimir Putin sent messages to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, conveying Russia’s condolences and offering aid.
“We hope for a speedy recovery for all the injured and are ready to provide the assistance needed to overcome the impact of this natural disaster,” Putin told Assad.
– Ukraine –
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his war-torn country was “ready to provide the necessary assistance to overcome the consequences of the disaster.”
The message was reiterated by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who said Ukraine was “deeply saddened by the loss of life and damage” wreaked by the earthquake.
– Greece –
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Turkey’s historic rival Greece, whose relations with Ankara have suffered from a spate of border and cultural disputes, pledged to make “every force available” to aid its neighbour.
Mitsotakis said Ankara had already approved the dispatch of a Greek emergency rescue unit, and Athens was ready to send “additional equipment, medical supplies, blankets, tents” depending on further Turkish requests.
– NATO –
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg voiced “full solidarity” with ally Turkey, saying he was in touch with Turkey’s top leadership and “NATO allies are mobilising support now”.
– Sweden –
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, whose bid to join NATO is meeting Turkish resistance, tweeted: “Saddened about the loss of lives in Türkiye and Syria following the major earthquake. Our thoughts go to the victims and their loved ones.”
He sent his “deepest condolences” to President Erdogan. “We stand ready to offer our support.”
– France –
President Emmanuel Macron said France stood ready to provide emergency aid to Turkey and Syria. “Our thoughts are with the bereaved families,” he tweeted.
– Britain –
“The UK stands ready to help in whatever way we can,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted saying his thoughts were with the people of Turkey and Syria.
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Britain was sending 76 search-and-rescue specialists to Turkey, a minister added.
– Iran –
Iran is ready to provide “immediate relief aid to these two friendly nations”, President Ebrahim Raisi said, offering condolences on the “heartbreaking incident”.
Headline
Afghanistan’s Taliban Release US Citizen

Afghanistan’s Taliban government released an American citizen from detention on Sunday, a week after freeing an elderly British couple.
In a statement, the ministry identified the detainee as Amir Amiri and said he had been handed over to Adam Boehler, Washington’s special envoy on hostages.
Boehler made a rare visit to Kabul earlier this month to discuss the possibility of a prisoner exchange with the Taliban government.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan released an American citizen named Amir Amiri from prison today,” the Foreign Ministry on X, using the official name for the government.
“The Afghan government does not view the issues of citizens from a political angle and makes it clear that ways can be found to resolve issues through diplomacy.”
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Little is known about Amiri’s case, as it has not been widely reported.
An official with knowledge of the release said Amiri, who is 36, “had been detained in Afghanistan since December 2024”.
The official added that Amiri would stop briefly in Doha, Qatar for medical checks before continuing back to the United States.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the release of Amiri, said he had been “wrongfully detained” in Afghanistan, and thanked Qatar for helping to get him freed.
President Donald Trump “has made it clear we will not stop until every American unjustly detained abroad is back home,” Rubio wrote on X.
In January two Americans were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the United States.
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Another American, airline mechanic George Glezmann, was freed after more than two years in detention during a March visit to Kabul by Boehler.
At least one other US citizen, Mahmood Habibi, is being held in Afghanistan. The United States is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The Taliban authorities deny any involvement in his 2022 disappearance.
Just a week ago, Britons Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, were released from a Kabul prison after almost eight months in detention. The Taliban authorities did not say why they were detained.
The couple was arrested in February and first held in a maximum security facility, “then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred” to the intelligence services in Kabul, UN experts have said.
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The couple married in Kabul in 1970 and have spent almost two decades living in Afghanistan, running educational programmes for women and children. They also became Afghan citizens.
All the releases have been mediated by Qatar.
Both the US and the UK, like many other Western nations, warn against all travel to Afghanistan.
Russia is the only country to have officially recognised the Taliban government, which has imposed a strict version of Islamic law and been accused of sweeping human rights violations.
Dozens of foreign nationals have been arrested since the group returned to power in August 2021, when most embassies withdrew their diplomatic presence.
The Taliban government says it wants to have good relations with other countries, notably the United States, despite the 20-year war against US-led forces.
Headline
One Dead, Several Injured After US Shooting, Fire At Mormon Church

One person was killed and several others injured Sunday after a shooter targeted a Mormon church in the US state of Michigan, where the building was also set on fire, authorities said.
The suspect, a 40-year-old man from a nearby town, was shot dead by law enforcement after the attack, police said, without specifying any possible motive.
President Donald Trump called the shooting “horrendous” and said on his Truth Social platform it “appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”
Images from the scene showed emergency services escorting people on stretchers and a large plume of dark smoke at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township.
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Local police chief William Renye told reporters the suspect drove his vehicle through the front doors of the church and then began firing at people inside with an assault rifle.
He said the service was active with “hundreds of people within the church.”
Authorities believe the gunman also deliberately set fire to the church before he was killed by responding police officers, Renye said.
Ten gunshot victims were transported to hospital, including one who has died, the official said.
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He added that the fire had been extinguished but that “we do believe that we will find additional victims once we have that scene secure.”
A woman who lives near the church told AFP: “My husband heard people screaming, one lady yelling for help.”
FBI agents are on the scene to assist the investigation, chief Kash Patel said on X.
“Violence in a place of worship is a cowardly and criminal act. Our prayers are with the victims and their families during this terrible tragedy,” he wrote.
Attorney General Pam Bondi also said she had been briefed on the incident.
Headline
Head Of Mormon Church Is Dead

Russell Nelson, who headed the Mormon church since 2018, died on Saturday night at age 101, the church announced.
“With sorrow we announce that Russell M. Nelson, beloved President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away peacefully… at his home in Salt Lake City,” it said in a statement, using the church’s official name.
The former heart surgeon was “the oldest president in the history of the Church,” the statement added, without specifying a cause of death.
Utah Republican senator Mike Lee lauded Nelson as a “bold, visionary leader prepared by God to testify of Jesus Christ in the very times in which we now live.”
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Nelson became the 17th president of the Church in January 2018 at age 93, succeeding Thomas Monson.
Before becoming president, Nelson successfully pushed for the church to label same-sex married couples as “apostates” and bar their children under the age of 18 from religious rites, including baptisms — though that policy was scrapped after he took on the role.
He also broke with his predecessors and cautioned against using shorthands “LDS” or “Mormons” to refer to the church.
Nelson’s successor will be chosen after his funeral by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who like the church’s president are considered prophets by believers.
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The religious leader is survived by his wife, eight of his children, 57 grandchildren and more than 167 great-grandchildren, according to the church.
Founded in 1830, the Mormon church considers itself a Christian body, but bases its doctrines on the Book of Mormon, a text purporting to contain a fuller version of the words of Jesus Christ than that recorded in the Bible.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims a total membership of more than 17.5 million people.
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