Israeli airstrike flattens Iranian Consulate in Syrian Capital Damascus Trump Media Shares Plummet 21% Days After Debut

An Israeli airstrike flattened Iran’s consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Monday and killed several people, including a senior Iranian commander, Syrian and Iranian media reported.

The attack could signal a further Israeli escalation in targeting Iranian military figures, but Israel said it had no comment about reports of the Damascus attack.

The strike killed Iranian military adviser Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi, who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016, according to the Iranian Arabic-language state television Al-Alam and pan-Arab television station Al-Mayadeen.

Iranian Ambassador Hossein Akbari condemned Israel for the attack, saying as many as seven people were killed, although rescue workers were still searching for any other bodies under the rubble.

Akbari vowed revenge for the strike “at the same magnitude and harshness.”

US Tries to Stop Israel from Rafah Attack

U.S. and Israeli officials are holding virtual talks Monday about Israel’s plan for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza to root out more Hamas fighters, a prospective attack the U.S. opposes for fear it would endanger more than 1.3 million Palestinians sheltering there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that “there is no victory without entering Rafah and there is no victory without eliminating the Hamas battalions there.” Netanyahu has approved a military operational plan for an attack.

But U.S. officials, led by White House national adviser Jake Sullivan, are looking to convince Israeli officials that there are other ways neutralise Hamas elements in Rafah without a ground invasion. Most of the Palestinians sheltering in the area were ordered to move there by the Israeli military to escape clashes in northern Gaza in the earliest weeks of the six-month-old conflict.

Israel has said it would protect the Palestinians from new warfare in Rafah, located just north of the Gaza-Egyptian border, but has given no public indication where it would move them.

The high-level U.S.-Israeli talks are occurring a week after Netanyahu at first called them off in protest of the U.S. failure to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. abstained from the vote on the resolution a week ago, allowing it to pass, after previously vetoing other similar resolutions.

Ex-Taiwanese President Visits China to Build Social, Cultural Links

Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is visiting China to help build social and cultural links on a trip that might include a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping despite heightened tensions.

Ma left Taipei with a student group Monday on an 11-day trip that underlines continued interactions in education, business and culture despite Beijing’s threat to use military force against the self-governing island democracy to achieve unification.

Toward the end of his second term in 2015, Ma held a historic meeting with Xi in Singapore, which has close contacts with both sides. The meeting — the first between the leaders of China and Taiwan in more than half a century — produced few tangible outcomes and Ma’s Nationalist Party lost the next presidential election to Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.

Current Vice President Lai Ching-te, despised by Beijing for his opposition to unification, was elected as Tsai’s successor in January, although the Nationalists recovered a narrow majority in the legislature.

Ma’s itinerary includes a visit to Beijing, where there is heavy speculation he might meet with Xi, who says he remains open to Taiwanese politicians who proclaim that the island and the mainland, which split during a civil war in 1949, belong to a common Chinese nation.

Taiwan’s official Central News Agency quoted Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who directs Ma’s foundation, as saying he hopes Ma will have the chance to meet with “an old friend,” but gave no details.

Turkish Local Elections Deal Blow to President Erdogan’s Party

Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, won major victories in the mayorships of Istanbul and Ankara, dealing a blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.

Erdogan’s party, known as AKP, had hoped to regain control of the cities less than a year after he claimed the presidency of the country for a third term.

With more than 90% of ballot boxes counted Monday, incumbent Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was leading by a wide margin in Turkey’s largest city and economic hub, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

“The period of one-person rule has ended as of today,” Imamoglu, 53, told thousands of jubilant supporters on Sunday evening.

The former businessman, who entered politics in 2008, had defeated Erdogan’s candidate in the local election five years ago, ending 25 years of rule in the city by AKP and its Islamist predecessors. He is now touted as a presidential challenger.

CHP’s Mansur Yavas, the mayor of the capital Ankara, retained his seat with a stunning 25-point difference over his challenger, the results indicated.

Pakistani PM Promises Better Security for Chinese Workers

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has promised the “best possible” security for Chinese nationals working in his country as Islamabad repatriated the remains Monday of five workers from China, killed last week in an attack.

On March 26, five Chinese workers and their Pakistani driver died when a suicide bomber rammed an explosiveladen car into their bus.

The workers were travelling to the Chinese-funded Dasu hydropower project in the remote region of Kohistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when they came under attack in Bisham, about 4-hours north of the capital Islamabad.

In a visit to Dasu, Monday, with Jiang Zaidong, Beijing’s ambassador to Islamabad, Sharif met the Chinese workers at the hydropower project and assured them of “fool-proof” security arrangements.

After the attack last Tuesday, Pakistan quickly put together a joint investigation team to probe the incident as well as an inquiry committee to examine security measures for Chinese citizens working in the country.

France Presses China on Trade, Ukraine Ahead of Xi Jinping Visit

The French foreign minister pressed China on trade issues and the war in Ukraine on Monday ahead of a planned visit to France by Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this spring.

Stéphane Séjourné, in talks with his counterpart Wang Yi in the Chinese capital, largely echoed positions that have been laid out by European leaders, including Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on a visit to Beijing last week.

“The rebalancing of our economic partnership is a priority, as it is for our European partners,” Séjourné said at a joint news conference with Wang. “The European Union is a very open market, the most open in the world. But the current deficits with a certain number of countries, including China, are not sustainable for us.”

Shares of Donald Trump’s social media company plunged 21% on Monday, wiping out the gains from its debut last week, after disclosing millions in losses and saying it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities going forward.

Trump Media & Technology Group lost more than $58 million in 2023, it said in a filing, sending shares reeling less than a week after the Truth Social parent went public through a high-profile blank-check merger.

The stock surged in its March 26 debut to close at nearly $58 a share on retail buyer enthusiasm, including supporters of Trump, the likely Republican nominee in 2024’s presidential election. But Monday’s disclosure reversed that trend, sending shares down $13.30, or 21%, to $48.66.

“Truth Social was overvalued and that reality is dragging down the stock. Because the service does have not have a clear path to profitability and its revenues are meager, its high debut was unsustainable,” said Ross Benes, analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Trump owns 78.75 million shares, which could result in a big windfall for the former president, depending on their value. At the stock’s peak last week, his stake would have been more than $6 billion, but after the selloff it would be valued at about $3.8 billion. Trump is not allowed to sell or borrow against any of his shares for six months – and any move by him to try to alter that agreement would likely trigger more selling.

807 Suspected Scammers Arrested in MyanmarChina Joint Operation

More than 800 people suspected of being cross-border scammers were arrested in a joint police operation by Myanmar and China, the junta and Beijing’s embassy in Yangon said Monday.

Scam compounds have flourished in Myanmar, staffed by citizens from China and other countries who are often forced to work swindling their compatriots in an industry analysts say is worth billions.

Beijing — a major ally and arms supplier of Myanmar’s isolated junta — has repeatedly asked the military to crack down on such operations.

Chinese law enforcement provided input to their Myanmar counterparts, who launched raids around Muse city, a major trade hub in northern Shan state, the embassy said on its WeChat channel.

Myanmar police arrested 807 people “who committed cross-border crimes” and seized computers, mobile phones and “fraud scripts,” it said in a statement.

Among those arrested in the late March operation were 352 Chinese citizens, who were transferred to China on Sunday, the statement said.

The remainder were Myanmar nationals, it added.

A junta statement released late Monday said 352 Chinese citizens had been arrested in the swoop and handed over to Chinese authorities.

It said 486 Myanmar nationals had been arrested.

Channel Opened for Vessels Clearing Wreckage at Baltimore Bridge Collapse Site

The U.S. Coast Guard has opened a temporary, alternate channel for vessels involved in the clearing of debris at the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, part of a phased approach to opening the main channel leading to the vital port, officials said.

Crews are undertaking the complicated work of removing steel and concrete at the site of the bridge’s deadly collapse into the Patapsco River after a container ship lost power and crashed into a supporting column. On Sunday, dive teams surveyed parts of the bridge and checked the ship, and workers in lifts used torches to cut above-water parts of the twisted steel superstructure.

Officials said the temporary channel is open only to vessels that are helping with the cleanup effort. Authorities believe four workers plunged to their deaths in the collapse. Recovery of their bodies is a key part of the ongoing salvage operation.

Officials earlier said the channel would have a controlling depth of 11 feet (over 3 meters), a horizontal clearance of 264 feet (80 meters) and a vertical clearance of 96 feet (29 meters). A video released Sunday showed the Coast Guard dropping buoys in the water.

Netanyahu vows to ban Al Jazeera broadcasts in Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed to ban Al Jazeera broadcasts inside Israel.

“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activities,” Netanyahu said in a post on the social media platform X.

Earlier in the day, parliament passed a law allowing the government to close down foreign news outlets viewed as threatening state security.

The measure, which passed by a margin of 70 votes to 10, gives the prime minister and the communications minister the power to close foreign media outlets in Israel if they are believed to pose a threat to Israel’s security. Under the law, targeted outlets can also have their broadcasts banned.

Netanyahu announced earlier in the day that he would be reviving efforts to shut down the news channel in Israel.

The White House called Netanyahu’s vow to ban the channel concerning.

Doha-based Al Jazeera did not immediately reply to VOA’s request for comment.