May 5, 2023

*) China will promote peace talks on Ukraine crisis — FM Qin Gang China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Beijing will persist in promoting peace talks for the Ukraine crisis. The country’s Foreign Ministry statement said China is "willing to maintain communication and coordination with Russia to make tangible contributions to the political settlement of the crisis." The statement referred to Qin's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Foreign Ministers' meeting in Goa, India. *) Ten killed, 15 injured in Serbia shooting: state media A gunman killed at least 10 people and injured 15 near the Serbian capital Belgrade, in the second mass shooting in the Balkan nation this week. Police arrested the suspected gunman responsible for the killing, state media reported, following an hours-long manhunt throughout the night. The back-to-back mass shootings have left the country in a state of shock, with thousands flocking to makeshift memorial sites while others have queued to donate blood. *) Israeli forces kill Palestinian woman near Nablus The Israeli army killed a Palestinian woman in a northern town of the occupied West Bank for allegedly carrying out a stabbing attack. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the woman as Iman Odeh and said she was killed by "a bullet to the chest fired by the occupation soldiers in Huwara. Eyewitnesses said that an Israeli force shot the 26-year-old woman dead and prevented Palestinians from reaching her. *) Western media's anti-Türkiye and Erdogan hostility is regrettable: Altun Turkish Communications Director Fahrettin Altun has slammed the cover of The Economist, a weekly British magazine, depicting hostility against Türkiye and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Altun regretted the anti-Türkiye and Erdogan hostility of the Western media before the May 14 elections. He said, "As our country gets rid of the shackles, we observe that the violence of Western-centred attacks increases, ignoring