World
ICC begins probe into alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine

The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor said on Wednesday he would immediately open an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
Thousands of people have been reportedly killed in Ukraine after Russia launched full-scale invasion of the country a week ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of committing war crimes.
"Active investigations formally commence in Ukraine upon receipt of referrals by 39 state parties", ICC prosecutor Karim Khan tweeted.
The prosecutor's office would start collecting evidence for "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", Khan said in a statement as reported by Reuters.
The ICC prosecutes individuals accused of the most serious crimes concerning the international community, where states cannot or are unwilling to do so.
Ukrainian authorities have said that more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion, BBC reported.
World
Trump imposes sanctions on International Criminal Court

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday authorized economic and travel sanctions targeting people who work on International Criminal Court investigations of U.S. citizens or U.S. allies such as Israel, repeating action he took during his first term.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israel's Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu, who - along with his former defense minister and a leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas - is wanted by the ICC over the war in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.
It was unclear how quickly the U.S. would announce names of people sanctioned. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC's investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sanctions include freezing any U.S. assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States.
The 125-member ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members.
Trump signed the executive order after U.S. Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to pass legislation setting up a sanctions regime targeting the war crimes court.
The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible U.S. sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month.
In December, the court's president, judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would "rapidly undermine the Court's operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardise its very existence."
Russia has also taken aim at the court. In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia has banned entry to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and placed him and two ICC judges on its wanted list.
World
Sweden’s deadliest attack leaves 11 dead at Orebro adult school
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.

Eleven people were killed in a shooting at an adult education centre on Tuesday, Swedish police said, marking the country's deadliest gun attack in what the prime minister called a "painful day."
Police said the gunman was believed to be among those killed and a search for other possible victims was continuing at the school, located in the city of Orebro. The gunman's motive was not immediately known, Reuters reported.
"We know that 10 or so people have been killed here today. The reason that we can't be more exact currently is that the extent of the incident is so large," local police chief Roberto Eid Forest told a news conference.
Later in the evening the police website said: "At this time, there are 11 deaths due to the incident. The number of injured is still unclear. We currently have no information on the condition of those who have been injured."
Forest told the press conference police believed the gunman had acted alone and that terrorism was not currently suspected as a motive, though he cautioned that much remained unknown. He said the suspected gunman had not previously been known to police.
"We have a big crime scene, we have to complete the searches we are conducting in the school. There are a number of investigative steps we are taking: a profile of the perpetrator, witness interviews," Forest said.
The shooting took place in Orebro, some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm, at the Risbergska school for adults who did not complete their formal education or failed to get the grades to continue to higher education. It is located on a campus that also houses schools for children, read the report.
Ali Elmokad was outside the Orebro University Hospital, looking for his relative, not yet knowing if he was among the injured or the dead.
"We've been trying to get hold of him all day, we haven't been successful," he said, adding that he had a friend who also attended the school. "What she saw was so terrible. She only saw people lying on the floor, injured and blood everywhere."
Police said it was still going through the crime scene and had searched several addresses in Orebro after the attack.
Late on Tuesday, police vans and personnel were still outside an apartment building in central Orebro that had been raided earlier.
"We saw a lot of police with drawn weapons," said Lingam Tuohmaki, 42, who lives in the same building. "We were at home and heard a commotion outside."
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
"It is hard to take in the full extent of what has happened today -- the darkness that now lowers itself across Sweden tonight," he told a news conference.
King Carl XVI Gustav conveyed his condolences. "It is with deep sadness and dismay that my family and I received the news about the terrible atrocity in Orebro," he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her sympathy on X, saying: "In this dark hour, we stand with the people of Sweden."
Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, said someone threw open the door to her classroom just after lunch break and shouted to everyone to get out, Reuters reported.
"I took all my 15 students out into the hallway and we started running," she told Reuters by phone. "Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance.
"I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious," she said.
Many students in Sweden's adult school system are immigrants seeking to improve basic education and gain degrees to help them find jobs in the Nordic country while also learning Swedish.
Sweden has been struggling with a wave of shootings and bombings caused by an endemic gang crime problem that has seen the country of 10 million people record by far the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU in recent years.
However, fatal attacks at schools are rare.
Ten people were killed in seven incidents of deadly violence at schools between 2010 and 2022, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Sweden has a high level of gun ownership by European standards, mainly linked to hunting, though it is much lower than in the United States, while the gang crime wave has highlighted the high incidence of illegal weapons, read the report.
In one of the highest-profile crimes of the past decade, a 21-year-old masked assailant driven by racist motives killed a teaching assistant and a boy and wounded two others in 2015.
In 2017, a man driving a truck mowed down shoppers on a busy street in central Stockholm before crashing into a department store. Five people died in that attack.
World
Trump to target UN Human Rights Council, UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA
The United Nations and UNRWA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected on Tuesday to stop U.S. engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continue a halt to funding for the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, a White House official said on Monday.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing the agency of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being "involved in terrorist activities against Israel."
The United Nations and UNRWA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
During Trump's first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms, Reuters reported.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The U.S. is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under Democratic former President Joe Biden, the U.S. was re-elected and served a 2022-2024 term.
A Human Rights Council working group is due to review the U.S. human rights record in August, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the U.S. withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement - also steps he took during his first term in office.
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, on Monday praised the expected moves by Trump, accusing the Human Rights Council of "aggressively promoting extreme anti-Semitism."
"At the same time, UNRWA has long lost its status as an independent humanitarian organization, and has turned into a terrorist authority controlled by Hamas under the guise of a humanitarian agency," he said.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said last week that the agency has been the target of a "fierce disinformation campaign" to "portray the agency as a terrorist organization."
The U.S. was UNRWA's biggest donor - providing $300 million-$400 million a year - but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian militants Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza, read the report.
The U.S. Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025. UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon - killed in September by Israel - was also found to have had a UNRWA job. The U.N. has vowed to investigate all accusations made and repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided, Reuters reported.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
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