Submit your Article

At least eight people have been killed and 400 injured as thousands took to the streets in a day of protests across Kenya against President William Ruto's government, BBC reported.

Police clashed with protesters in the capital Nairobi and other cities exactly a year on from the wave of deadly anti-government demonstrations that hit the nation in 2024.

Many of those demonstrating chanted "Ruto must go" and waved branches as a symbol of peaceful opposition to his rule.

The government banned live TV and radio coverage of the protests, but its decree was overturned by the High Court in the capital, Nairobi, according to BBC.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told leaders at a NATO summit on Wednesday that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran needed to be made permanent, his office said, and called for a ceasefire in Gaza to alleviate the humanitarian crisis there.

NATO member Turkiye has been fiercely critical of Israel and its assault against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble after two years of war and had its population displaced.

Ankara has also said Israel’s “state terrorism” against Iran — with which it shares a 560-kilometer border — heightened the risks of a wider conflict, and welcomed the ceasefire between the two.

At the NATO summit in The Hague, Erdogan held talks with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on regional tensions, bilateral ties and relations with the EU, and defense industry cooperation. Erdogan met US President Donald Trump late on Tuesday.

“Our President said he welcomed the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, that the de facto situation needs to turn into lasting calm as soon as possible, that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is increasingly continuing, and that a lasting ceasefire is also needed there urgently,” Erdogan’s office said after his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 78 people in the Gaza Strip since dawn, including 14 Palestinians who were waiting near aid distribution centres, medical sources told Al Jazeera, even as United States President Donald Trump said “great progress” was being made to bring an end to the war, Aljazeera reported.

Sources at al-Awda and Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospitals in Gaza told Al Jazeera that at least nine Palestinians were killed and several others injured by Israeli fire early on Wednesday while waiting for aid near the Netzarim Junction in central Gaza.

The deaths are the latest in a wave of violencenear aid distribution points established late last month by the controversial Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which critics have slammed as “human slaughterhouses” and “death traps”.

The GHF has come under fierce criticism from aid agencies and the United Nations, which says the group is not able to meet the population’s needs and turns food into a weapon for Israel to carry out its military operations, according to Aljazeera.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her administration is investigating contamination from a SpaceX facility near the Mexican border in South Texas, and planning its next course of action, Associated Press reported.

The announcement follows the June 18 explosion of a Starship rocket while on a stand during a test, which sent a massive fireball into the night sky.

Pieces of metal, plastic and rocket pieces were reportedly found in the northern state of Tamaulipas, which borders the SpaceX’s Starbase following the explosion.

On Wednesday, Sheinbaum responded to a reporter’s question during her daily news briefing, saying “there’s a general review underway, (to find out) what international laws they are violating.” She added that her administration would then see what steps to take with the company, because “there is contamination.”

President Donald Trump is repeatedly condemning CNN and The New York Times for reports that call into question the damage caused by last weekend’s U.S. strikes of Iran — and downplaying his own intelligence analysts in the process, Associated Press reported.

Trump on Wednesday called on CNN to throw out “like a dog” a reporter who has worked on the story and suggested Times reporters were “bad and sick people” who were attempting to demean American pilots involved in the strikes.

Both news outlets defended their reporting.

The president is angry about stories that a preliminary assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had said Saturday’s strike of three nuclear sites had set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. The assessment “suggests that President Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities were ‘obliterated’ was overstated,” The Times said in a six-bylined story on Tuesday night, according to Associated Press.

Israel and Iran seemed to honor the fragile ceasefire between them for a second day Wednesday and U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that American and Iranian officials will talk next week, giving rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace, Associated Press reported.

Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold Tuesday on the 12th day of the war, told reporters at a NATO summit that he was not particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, insisting that U.S. strikes had destroyed its nuclear program. Earlier in the day, an Iranian official questioned whether the United States could be trusted after its weekend attack.

“We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said. “The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done.”

Twelve people were killed overnight in the Mexican state of Guanajuato when gunmen opened fire on a celebration in the city of Irapuato, authorities said Wednesday, Associated Press reported

People were dancing and drinking in the street in celebration of St. John the Baptist when the shooting began. Revelers screamed and ran to escape the gunfire, according to videos circulated online.

Irapuato official Rodolfo Gómez Cervantes, said in a news conference Wednesday that the number of victims had risen to 12. Some 20 others were wounded.

President Claudia Sheinbaum lamented the attack, saying that it was under investigation, according to Associated Press.

NATO allies have agreed to massively boost military spending while affirming their “ironclad commitment” to collective defence, Aljazeera reported.

Leaders from the 32-member bloc pledged to allocate up to 5 percent of their national GDP to defence and related sectors by 2035, describing the move as a “quantum leap” in collective security.

The new pledge was made in a summit communique agreed on Wednesday in The Hague. It stated that members would “invest 5 percent of GDP annually on core defence requirements as well as defence- and security-related spending”.