In southern Ukraine, a Russian bus attack claimed the lives of nine people. Difficulty number of drone strikes launched over the course of one. The US threatens to “walk away” as Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations stall.
Istanbul, Turkiye’s cultural and economic heartland, shook for five terrifying seconds as buildings shook and shelves toppled, and panic erupted.
At 12:49 p.m. (09:49 GMT) on Wednesday, Istanbul’s ground trembled, sending millions of people running into the streets. An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 struck the area off its western coast. There were a few smaller aftershocks that lasted between 3. 5 and 5. 9 years later.
Authorities claim that no significant damage was discovered, but Istanbul Governor Davut Gul claimed that at least 151 people had injured themselves as they jumped from heights to escape in a panic.
Residents of Silivri in the Sea of Marmara were left frightened by the earthquake’s impact and were left wondering what might happen next.
When her building suddenly trembled, 69-year-old Bilge was at home in the upscale Nisantasi district.
“Earthquake screamed from the building!” and departed. She described how people were strewn onto the sidewalks and clutching phones to check on loved ones and said, “My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.”
Coffee shop employees scurried into the street in a hurry to get there. As aftershocks echoed across the city, one said, “We were just calling our families.”
Events were canceled and the public became more anxious as a result of the earthquake’s coincidence with National Sovereignty and Children’s Day, a public holiday.
Parents were seen posing with their kids still in costume as they paraded through the streets.
Zeynep Karatas, a freelance designer from Sisli who had visited Nisantasi’s Macka Park with hundreds of others who wanted the privacy of an open space, said, “I was on the seventh floor, just about to make lunch.”
“My building’s walls cracked, and the glasses clinked.” I ran after my cat and grabbed it, Karatas said.
She joined the dozens of nearby people who had already gathered outside. Some people tried to contact relatives while others tried their phones. “We all left together,” she said. Elderly people were being harassed as they climbed the stairs. She continued, “I wanted to cry.
Some park residents are concerned and promise to stay awake for the entire night. In case they need to leave their homes quickly, some people intend to pack a small bag.
Residents of Turkiye should be on the lookout for aftershocks that can last for hours or even days.
The psychological effects were immediate, despite initial reports of little structural damage.
According to Baran Demir, 62, “everyone was talking about 2023,” referring to the devastating earthquake that claimed the lives of more than 53 000 people in southern Turkiye and another 6 000 in Syria. You could feel that same fear in other people’s faces. The memory of my building then came rushing back, not to collapse.
When the aftershocks struck, Mehmet, a 35-year-old cafe worker, was assisting customers outside in Nisantasi. Everyone maintained a calm state, but quickly things changed. We simply held our breath. We believed that this was the crucial step in the quest for it.
Istanbul residents have long been concerned about a significant earthquake striking the city, as has previously happened. In 1509, 1766, and 1894, earthquakes of a magnitude greater than 7 struck Istanbul, causing thousands of casualties and extensive destruction. More than 17, 000 people were killed in an earthquake that occurred in Izmit, which occurred about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Istanbul in 1999.
The city is close to the North Anatolian Fault, a significant fault line that frequently causes earthquakes.
Many people are still concerned about the impact of earthquakes in the densely populated city, despite recent improvements to building codes.
Globalization has had a positive impact on China, according to Singaporean geostrategist Kishore Mahbubani, but also on the United States.
Kishore Mahbubani, a veteran diplomat from Singapore, claims that US President Donald Trump is “legitimate” about the growing inequality between the rich and poor, but that his plan to re-enter the US factory sector is unlikely to succeed.
The Chinese are willing to accept the US’s current trade war, Mahbubani tells Steve Clemons, but “the Chinese are willing to accept short-term pain for long-term gain.”
According to the country’s interior minister, Mazin Fraya, the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, has been permanently barred from the country.
On Wednesday, police searched the party’s main office and surrounded it.
Fraya stated that anyone who supports the group’s ideology would be held accountable by the law and that all activities would be prohibited.
He further explained that the group’s publishing policy includes the closure and confiscation of all of its offices and property.
The organization, which has had a long history of legal operation in Jordan and has received a sizable amount of support from the public, did not respond immediately.
In spite of the widespread demonstrations against Israel over its occupation of Gaza, the political party affiliated to the region-wide group, the Islamic Action Front won the most seats in parliamentary elections last year.
Jordan officially authorized the Islamic Action Front and tolerated it while restricting some of its activities ten years ago, but Jordan officially authorized a splinter group. How far the most recent ban would go was unknown at the time.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that it has been established that members of the group work in the dark and engage in activities that could destabilize the nation. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood have harmed national unity and stifled security and public order, according to the statement.
Without giving names or additional information, it claimed that one of the group’s leaders’ son had attempted to produce and test explosives alongside others to use against security forces.
Jordan announced last week that it had detained 16 people on suspicion of producing short-range missiles, keeping them a secret, using automatic weapons, concealing ready-to-use missiles, and engaging in illegal recruitment and training.
The accused were included in what the government called “unlicensed groups,” which included the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization claimed that it was protecting Jordan’s security and denied the allegations.
Additionally, Jordan attributed a 2024 heist to Muslim Brotherhood members.
Members of the organization have organized some of the region’s largest demonstrations against Israel’s occupation of Gaza. The organization’s opponents claim that the protests increased their popularity. Jordan has tightened its grip on the organization over the past two years, outlawing some of its activities, and detained vocal anti-government protesters.
According to international human rights organizations, Jordanian authorities have used a number of laws to silence critical voices and have increased the persecution and harassment of political opponents and citizens over the past four years. The government of Jordan says it will not tolerate violent speech in public.
Kyiv, Ukraine – Finishing a cigarette with a final deep puff outside a hospital building in central Kyiv, a wounded Ukrainian drone operator sums up Russian President Vladimir Putin’s readiness to end the Ukraine war along the current front lines.
“Don’t trust these leaks, the … vampire is just dragging the talks out,” Arseny, a 31-year-old recovering from a cranial wound that left him blind in one eye, told Al Jazeera while standing near a blossoming apple tree.
He referred to a Financial Times report on Tuesday that suggested that Putin could “relinquish” Moscow’s claims on four partly-occupied Ukrainian regions.
In September 2022, seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Moscow recognised the regions as part of Russia even though it did not fully control them – and began losing some occupied areas within weeks.
In return for the Kremlin’s concession, the US may recognise Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014, as part of Russia, and “acknowledge” the Kremlin’s de facto control over the four regions’ occupied parts, the Financial Times claimed, citing officials familiar with the talks.
“The grandpa in the bunker wants to fool [US President Donald] Trump and then find an excuse to resume the war,” Arseny, who withheld his name in accordance with the wartime protocol, said, referring to Putin. “We’ve known this imperial tactic for centuries.”
The Kremlin’s chief spokesman rejected the report, but fell short of denying details about Crimea’s recognition.
“Many fakes are being published these days, including by respectable publications,” Dmitry Peskov told the RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday. “That’s why one has to listen only to original sources” of information, he said.
However, a researcher with Germany’s University of Bremen is confident that the ceasefire along the current front line is a viable option for Putin.
“Russia doesn’t have resources to continue the war and, moreover, achieve any large-scale conquests,” Nikolay Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera.
Western sanctions, a dire shortage of qualified labour, and the Russian economy’s militarisation triggered an abrupt fall in production in many industries, he said.
“For Putin, Washington’s recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and Ukraine’s refusal to join NATO are a good trophy that [would look] convincing for the public,” he said.
The trophy “would nurture further hopes that [the Kremlin] doesn’t have to rush to fulfil so that [Russian forces] can rest, regroup and further act according to the situation”, he said.
A deal with the European Union, whose member states overwhelmingly oppose the dismemberment of Ukraine, “could be reached somehow later”, he said.
However, Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not seem convinced.
“He’s an independent player whose game can thwart the deal,” Mitrokhin said, referring to Ukraine’s president. “But so far, Zelenskyy seems to be in the mood to try and reach a deal.”
Putin is ready to formally agree with some of Trump’s demands – only to come up with more demands of his own.
“This is double-dealing, Putin’s traditional style,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
“This is an attempt to keep Trump on the hook in negotiations, an attempt to haggle in return for a virtual agreement to cease fire along the front line,” he said.
The concession may look like a “formal step” towards Washington’s position.
But in fact, Putin wants to get much more, including the immediate lifting of all sanctions the West slapped on Russia since Crimea’s 2014 annexation, Fesenko said.
Putin “is dragging Trump into the negotiation process, but on Russia’s terms”, he said.
He noted Washington’s readiness to recognise Crimea as a “principal mistake” that caused a crisis in the talks that have been dragging on for months despite Trump’s claim that he could end the war “in 24 hours”.
If the White House does not back out of the Crimea conundrum, the talks will stall, Fesenko said.
Crimea seems to have indeed become the bone of contention.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Kyiv would never recognise the peninsula as part of Russia.
His words apparently forced Trump’s special Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to refuse to attend peace talks in London that were scheduled for Wednesday.
Even though the Ukrainian delegation arrived, London said the talks with other European and United States officials will not take place.
Meanwhile, Moscow is boosting its push along the crescent-shaped front line that stretches more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
But military analysts say Moscow simply lacks manpower and weaponry.
“They don’t have enough power,” General Lieutenant Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told Al Jazeera.
He said that Moscow is trying to kick Ukrainian forces out of their toeholds in the western Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod.
Putin also wants to maintain a buffer zone in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, where Russia occupied several border towns but failed to advance towards larger cities, Romanenko said.
“The task from the top is to reach the [borders of the eastern] Dnipropetrovsk region by May 9,” when Moscow will lavishly celebrate the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, Romanenko said.
Under Putin, the May 9 celebrations have become the focal point of Russia’s political calendar.
A Ukrainian political analyst-turned-serviceman thinks that the war will drag on for several more months.
“We are sure that by fall or winter we can squeeze serious concessions out of Russia because of economic reasons” such as continuing sanctions, Kirill Sazonov wrote on Telegram.
“No four regions, no official recognition of occupied areas, the termination of hostilities along the front line, foreign peacekeeping contingents to control the ceasefire – and that’s it,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Moscow wants to break Ukraine’s defences to resume its offensive on eastern and southern fronts and then “use their position of power in talks,” he wrote.
Donald Trump believes that US manufacturing is hampered by the strength of the dollar. The idea of a weaker currency is supported by his team.
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the value of the dollar has fallen. Investors have rushed to the exit because they fear Trump’s tariffs could lead to a recession in the US.
Does the president care? Trump’s opinion of the value of his country’s currency seems contradictory.
Because it gives the US geopolitical leverage, he wants a dominant dollar.
However, he claims that US manufacturing is slowed by a weaker greenback.
According to some economists, the president may lower the dollar’s value. His organization supports the concept of a “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to stifle it.