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President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine unexpectedly traveled to the Netherlands on Wednesday and was scheduled to speak in The Hague on Thursday, according to the Dutch wire service ANP. Mr. Zelensky made the trip after spending much of Wednesday denying Russian claims his country was responsible for an early morning drone attack on the Kremlin, saying that Ukraine was focused on the fight on its own soil. “We’re defending our villages and cities,” he said, while visiting Nordic leaders in Helsinki, Finland. In the Netherlands, Mr. Zelensky was also expected to meet with Prime Minister Mark Rutte and to visit...

The South African government has elected to consider allowing Vladimir Putin's remote attendance to the 2023 BRICS summit ion an effort to navigate the bureaucratic headache that the Russian leader's presence risks due to the warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his capture, News24 reports. According to City Press, a hybrid sitting is under consideration for the summit which would allow multiple leaders, including Putin, to attend the event virtually. A government official said: "The Ramaphosa administration is the one that revoked the earlier decision to leave the ICC and decided the country would stay....

The U.S. has reportedly decided not to invite two of its allies to the ‘Summit for Democracy,' which is touted as President Biden’s hallmark foreign policy initiative. The U.S. government is inviting around 120 countries to join its 'Summit for Democracy' next week. But two NATO allies, Turkey and Hungary, aren’t going to get a call. The snub is likely to inflame tensions between the U.S. and its two NATO allies even further. ...

-snip- Opposition minority party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), has said Putin is welcome and EFF leader Julius Malema said that no one was going to arrest him in the country where Russia "played a huge role to support the struggle for freedom". -snip- "Putin is welcomed here. No one is going to arrest Putin. He [Putin] will address, finish all his meetings, and we will take him back to the airport," Mr Malema said. He continued: "We know our friends. We know the people who liberated us. We know the people who supported us." A spokesperson for President Cyril...

The ANC has remained silent about the International Criminal Court’s issuing an arrest warrant for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, but the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said the Russian leader was “welcome” in South Africa. South Africa faces a diplomatic problem because Putin is among the international dignitaries expected to attend the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in the country in August. During a media briefing earlier this week, ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula dodged a question about whether the government would arrest Putin should he enter the country. South Africa as a member state of the ICC...

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, will be attending the BRICS Summit in August this year, on invitation by the South African government. BRICS is a group of the world’s biggest emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and late-addition South Africa. The International Criminal Court in the Hague has issued a warrant of arrest for the Russian leader for war crimes stemming from the conflict with Ukraine that started over a year ago on 28 February 2022. The ICC warrant means that South Africa, a signatory to the ICC, will be obliged to arrest Mr Putin and hand him over if...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. But there is also a clear message to Israel behind it. Israel stands accused of war crimes against the Palestinians. Are some war crimes greater than others?The Russian leader has been charged with personal responsibility for the abduction of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation. International law experts consider the most recent arrest warrant against Putin to be the most dramatic decision since the tribunal was founded in 2002. In the past, arrest warrants have been...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the International Criminal Court (ICC) Sunday for issuing an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The comments came the day before the Russian leader hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping. The ICC charged Putin with war crimes, although Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court and is not likely to turn Putin over on the charges. Nevertheless, Zelenskyy claimed the charges were a "turning point" in the war and show the international community is recognizing atrocities committed in the Russia-Ukraine war, which reached its one-year milestone last month. "The evil state will be...

President Biden on Friday said the International Criminal Court (ICC) is “justified” in issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over allegations of war crimes. “Well, I think it’s justified,” Biden told reporters before leaving the White House for Delaware. “But the question is, it’s not recognized internationally by us, either. But I think it makes a very strong point.” Asked whether Putin should be tried for war crimes, Biden did not directly answer, but said the Russian leader has “clearly committed war crimes.”

The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine. The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.” It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations....

The special counsel named by the Biden administration to investigate Donald Trump oversaw a Justice Department unit rebuked by the Supreme Court for its prosecution of a prominent Republican and was linked by Congress to the IRS scandal that targeted conservative groups. Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor in The Hague and former chief of the DOJ public integrity section, was named Friday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to take over two investigations of Trump related to Jan. 6 and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. In 2014, the House Oversight Committee concluded that during Smith's earlier stint at DOJ he...

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the missions of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and international organizations to come to Bucha and other cities and towns of Kyiv region as soon as possible to collect evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russians. "I call on the International Criminal Court and international organizations to send their missions to Bucha and other liberated cities and villages of Kyiv region, in order, in cooperation with Ukrainian law enforcement officers, to collect as thoroughly as possible all the evidence of Russian war crimes," the press service of the...

On March 2, Khan issued a statement that he had received referrals from 39 countries. That is nearly one-third of the ICC’s members. Khan remarked, “These referrals enable my Office to proceed with opening an investigation into the Situation in Ukraine from 21 November 2013 onwards, thereby encompassing within its scope any past and present allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide committed on any part of the territory of Ukraine by any person.” Without state referrals, Khan would have needed approval from the ICC’s pre-trial chamber judges to open a formal investigation. In the past, these judges...

British lawyer Karim Khan was sworn in as the new chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Wednesday. The 51-year-old replaces outgoing prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of Gambia, who extended the war crimes court’s reach during her nine-year term. […] During a career spanning decades, he has argued in all the major international courts and conducted high-profile probes, including a special United Nations investigation into crimes by Islamic State militants in Iraq. He has also courted controversy by representing Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto, the son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and former Liberian President Charles...

A Nobel peace prize nominee has accused the director-general of the World Health Organisation of allegedly aiding genocide in Ethiopia. American economist David Steinman accused WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 55, of being a 'crucial decision maker' who directed Ethiopia's security forces actions from 2013 to 2015. He accused Tedros of being one of three officials who were in charge of the security services over that period, during which the 'killing' and 'torturing' of Ethiopians took place. Tedros was the country's foreign minister until 2016 when his Tigray People's Liberation Front party was in power. Raised in Tigray, he also...

Prioritizing government-owned broadband networks would be inconsistent with the Constitution’s provisions regarding private property and commerce.As part of its massive $2 billion infrastructure proposal, the Biden administration is proposing an ambitious $100 billion broadband plan. The plan overreaches, misdirecting subsidies in ways that are wasteful, such as shoveling funds to areas already served instead of those lacking service. And the plan suggests the need to regulate the broadband prices of private service providers as if they were public utilities. As a matter of policy, these aspects of the Biden broadband plan are serious enough defects. But here we want to...

US President Joe Biden removed sanctions on Friday that former President Donald Trump placed on two top officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reports France 24. The sanctions were among the previous administration’s more aggressive moves targeting international institutions and officials. Pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC blasted the move warning that it could have damaging affects on Israel who is the target of an investigation by the Hague for war crimes. In a tweet on Friday, AIPAC wrote: “We are disappointed the administration is revoking sanctions on the International Criminal Court officials who are pursuing a baseless and discriminatory attack...

NEW YORK (AP) - Secretary General Kofi Annan's chief of staff called the United States an "ungainly giant" that only plays by its own rules, criticizing the U.N.'s largest donor in unusually strong terms Sunday. Mark Malloch Brown said the U.S. contributed most to the development of international law in the last century, but was now the country most opposed to international constraints. "This ungainly giant of a nation that has led the world in advancing freedom, democracy and decency, cannot quite accept membership in the global neighborhood association, and the principle of all neighborhoods - that it must abide...

A special investigator will be appointed to prosecute allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan as the Government prepares to release a long-awaited report into the conduct of special forces during the conflict. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said there were a "significant number" of incidents and issues to look into, and the investigation would be "inherently complex". And he warned the process would "[require] us to deal with honest and brutal truths where expectations and standards may not have been met". "Given the likely allegations of serious and possibly criminal misconduct, the matters raised in the inquiry must be assessed,...

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra are being eyed for possible top cabinet positions in President-elect Joe Biden's administration, said two sources familiar with the discussions. Yates, who currently serves on the advisory board to Biden's transition team, is "no doubt" being considered as a candidate to become the country's next Attorney General, said one of the two, who asked to remain anonymous because no decision has been reached.