Portal:Current events/2025 May 12

May 12, 2025 (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Gaza war
- Gaza war hostage crisis
  - Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander is released by Hamas after being kept in captivity in Gaza for 19 months since the October 7 attack. (Reuters)
Libyan crisis
- 2025 Tripoli clashes
  - Clashes erupt between rival militia gunmen from the 444th Brigade and the Stability Support Apparatus in Tripoli, Libya, after the assassination of Commander Abdel Ghani al-Kikli. Six people are injured, and a state of emergency is declared by authorities. (The Jerusalem Post) (Al Jazeera English)
Kurdistan Workers' Party insurgency
- At its 12th Congress, the Kurdistan Workers' Party announces an immediate halt to its insurgent activities in Turkey and plans for its formal dissolution. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)
Myanmar civil war
- The National Unity Government of Myanmar says that an airstrike by junta forces killed 17 students and injured 20 others at a school in Tabayin, Sagaing Region. (Reuters)
Syrian civil war
- The remains of 30 people believed to have been killed by Islamic State militants are found in a search by Qatar and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation in the remote town of Dabiq, Aleppo Governorate, Syria. (CTV News)
Unknown gunmen attack a Chinese artisanal gold mine in Narena, Koulikoro Region, Mali, killing one Malian and two others from Ghana, and abducting two Chinese nationals. (AP)

Disasters and accidents

Thirteen people are killed by an expired ammunition explosion in Garut Regency, West Java, Indonesia. (Jakarta Globe)

International relations

China–United States trade war
- The U.S. and China agree to a trade deal in which, for 90 days, U.S. tariffs on most Chinese goods will drop from 145% to 30%, while China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods will drop from 125% to 10%. (BBC News)
Immigration policy of the second Donald Trump administration, South Africa–United States relations
- The first group of Afrikaners arrive in the United States after U.S. president Donald Trump grants refugee status to the white minority group, who Trump says face a "genocide" in the South African farm attacks. The government of South Africa rejects the claims. (AP)

Politics and elections