Russia's army has "fully occupied" the key Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk after weeks of fighting, its mayor said, as Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to send nuclear-capable missiles to Belarus within months.. "The city has been fully occupied by the Russians," Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said Saturday.
Its first two decades have brought criticism and controversy but as the International Criminal Court marks its 20th birthday the Ukraine war is giving it a new impetus.. - 'Lofty goals' - The ICC is the successor to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, when the post-war international order sought an ideal of global justice.
G7 leaders will gather from Sunday in a quintessentially German venue handpicked by former chancellor Angela Merkel and recycled by her successor Olaf Scholz -- a luxury hotel with a fairy-tale setting and a tumultuous past.. After the start of World War II, he prevented his beloved hotel from being seized by the Nazi top brass for their own use by renting it out to the German army as a resort for soldiers on leave from the front.
G7 leaders including US President Joe Biden gather on Sunday in southern Germany, seeking emphatic backing for Ukraine against Russia's invasion while grappling with the intensifying global fallout of the war.. "Core problems that are on the top of mind for all of us" include "rising prices, supply chain disruptions all exacerbated by this war in Ukraine", said Kirby.
Britain's railway system once again came to a virtual standstill on Saturday and flights in Europe were disrupted as strikes in the travel sector hit the continent.. - Airline strikes - Britain, like much of Europe, is suffering from rocketing inflation and stagnant economic growth, raising the prospect of a summer of strikes across the continent.
President Paul Kagame on Saturday fiercely defended Rwanda's record on human rights and political freedoms as the curtains closed on a Commonwealth summit where his country came under intense scrutiny.. His government had presided over a crackdown on rights of assembly, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial executions, they said.
Ecuador's president will face a no confidence vote Saturday, nearly two weeks into sometimes violent countrywide protests led by Indigenous groups against rising fuel prices and living costs. . The government has rejected the protesters' demand for a fuel price cut, saying it would cost the government an unaffordable $1 billion per year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi is due to visit Saudi Arabia and Iran "in the next few hours", as part of efforts to mediate between the two countries, a cabinet source said Saturday.. "The official visit... comes in the context of the talks that Riyadh and Tehran recently held in Baghdad," the source within the prime minister's cabinet said in a statement.
The prolonged roar of Grad rockets can be heard as locals in the east Ukrainian town of Siversk crowd around a van selling essentials such as bread, sausages and gas for camp stoves.. Nearby, a group of Ukrainian soldiers sprawl in a disused petrol station, eating bread and sausage, their semi-automatic rifles beside them.
Gabon and Togo joined the Commonwealth on Saturday, becoming the latest nations with no historic ties to Britain to enter the English-speaking club headed by Queen Elizabeth II. The 54-nation group of mostly former British colonies accepted Togo and Gabon's application for membership on the final day of its leadership summit in Rwanda.. Mozambique -- a former Portuguese colony -- became the first Commonwealth member without historic links to Britain when it joined in 1995. np/txw/dl
