The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on the president of the International Criminal Court and one of its top prosecutors as it continues a campaign to dismantle the tribunal, which it accuses of trying to unfairly prosecute U.S. and Israeli soldiers for alleged crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza.

The State Department said Tuesday it had hit ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in U.S. jurisdictions or come into contact with the U.S. financial system.

The move is the latest by the Trump administration against the ICC, which it says has exceeded its mandate by investigating or trying soldiers, commanders and political officials from countries, such as Israel and the United States, that are not members of the court.

The ICC was quick to respond, as it has done when faced with previous Trump administration actions, saying that the sanctions “undermine the rule of law.”

See also:

• ICC slams US decision to sanction the court’s president and a senior prosecution lawyer
• EU leaders rally behind International Criminal Court after fresh US sanctions
• Japan criticises US over 'unfortunate' sanctions on ICC

Δικαστική δικαίωση για τη βουλεύτρια του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, Ελενα Ακρίτα, στην αγωγή που έκανε στη δημοσιογράφο του iefimerida, Σοφία Γιαννακά.

Η κ. Γιαννακά έγραψε το άρθρο «Δεν θα συνεννοηθούμε ποτέ με όσους υποστηρίζουν τη Χαμάς» (19/10/23) αναφερόμενη στην κ. Ακρίτα, που δάκρυσε σε τηλεοπτικό πάνελ βλέποντας εικόνες νεκρών παιδιών από βομβαρδισμό νοσοκομείου στη Γάζα. Το Πρωτοδικείο Αθηνών έκανε δεκτή την αγωγή, μιλώντας για «αναληθή γεγονότα [που] δεν ήταν αντικειμενικά αναγκαία για τη δέουσα κριτική, ενώ υπήρχε πρόθεση που κατευθυνόταν ειδικά στην προσβολή της τιμής της ενάγουσας, με αμφισβήτηση της ηθικής και κοινωνικής αξίας του προσώπου της […]», όπως γράφει η απόφαση, απόσπασμα της οποίας δημοσιοποίησε η κ. Ακρίτα.

«Οι Γιαννακάδες αυτού του κόσμου θεωρούν συνεργάτη της Χαμάς τον άνθρωπο που λυγίζει στη θέα δολοφονημένων μωρών» σχολίασε η βουλεύτρια.

Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books

A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.

Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.

A Waverley council spokesperson said: “The book has been removed from library shelves for review, and council will further consider processes to ensure closer oversight of book selection.”

The Jewish news outlet JWire last week reported it had approached the council after a survivor of December’s antisemitic attack at Bondi, during which 15 people were killed, saw How to Sell a Genocide on the “new release / hot item” shelf and wrote on Facebook that the display was distressing for survivors and bereaved families.

How to Sell a Genocide critiques what it claims is the US media’s “complicity in the destruction of Gaza”.

The decision to remove the book was criticised by its author, Adam Johnson, who said calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide was not “a fringe or radical position”.

“They seem to be objecting largely based on the title using the word ‘genocide’,” Johnson said.

The attacks began on a July weekend and have continued for a month, stretching from Moscow and St. Petersburg, to cities in the south, and eastward to the Ural Mountains. The targets weren’t oil refineries, maritime hubs or arms plants hit by other Ukrainian strikes, but warehouses that bring the convenience of online shopping across the breadth of Russia.

Ukraine’s drones have pummeled the giant depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the broad public.

The attacks on about 20 Wildberries facilities have underlined Kyiv’s ability to strike far and wide inside Russia and posed a new challenge to President Vladimir Putin nearly 4½ years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They have badly shaken the empire built by Tatyana Kim, the country’s richest female entrepreneur, whose fortune has been estimated at $8.1 billion.

Hundreds of thousands of individual sellers have lost their merchandise, sending shock waves across Russia’s economy. Wildberries has drawn massive loans from VTB and other banks as it expanded and likely will have trouble repaying them, putting more pressure on the financial system.

Wildberries depots are easy targets

Unlike smaller competitors Ozon and Yandex Market, the company has prided itself on relying on about two dozen mammoth warehouses as the core of its vast logistical network, stockpiling the goods before shipping to about 100,000 storefront distribution points.

As Ukraine embarked on a strategy of long-range drone attacks deep inside Russia, it has expanded from striking military bases, oil refineries and other infrastructure to Wildberries warehouses, which provided particularly soft targets.

Attacks cause a ripple effect

Ukrainian officials have said Wildberries sells gear and technical components, including drones, to the military. Moscow denied it, but such dual-use items as drone components, flak jackets or thermal weapon sights remain available on the platform.

Wildberries’ debts were estimated at the equivalent of about $15 billion at the end of 2025.

Russia’s small and medium businesses already have been hit hard by tax increases, regulatory hurdles and, most recently, a fuel crisis from attacks on oil refineries.

The lost goods mean tens of thousands of small businesses can’t continue to operate, service their loans or pay taxes.

Some analysts warn the attacks could fuel stronger anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western fervor.

The blaze charring the High Fens nature reserve, a vast expanse of boggy peatlands, pine forests and hiking trails, has grown since Friday

Firefighters and farmers, backed by water-dropping aircraft, battled through a fourth day on Monday to tame Belgium’s worst wildfire in a century, still burning through pristine parkland, though it was halted short of the German border.

The blaze charring the High Fens nature reserve, a vast expanse of boggy peatlands, pine forests and hiking trails, has grown since Friday to 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) – half the size of Manhattan.

Crisis cell spokesman Tony Hosmans told AFP Monday the fire had “not spread further, but we cannot yet say it is contained.”

“It could change according to the weather,” he warned.

Europe has been swept by weeks of devastating wildfires fuelled by dry conditions and a historically hot summer, with France, Greece, Portugal and Spain also battling major fires.

Hosmans confirmed the High Fens blaze was no longer advancing towards the German border after creeping nearer over the weekend, prompting an evacuation order in the town of Monschau.

Much-needed rain delivered some respite Monday to the 500 firefighters and emergency crews mobilised on site, but officials said conditions could shift fast.

See also:

• Belgium's biggest wildfire on record heads towards Germany -- Fire has burned 3,000 hectares since Friday, authorities say -- Belgian authorities tell evacuated residents not to return -- Monschau advises border-area ​residents to leave due to smoke (Reuters)

Rates on routes including Panama Canal, Rhine, Red Sea and Black Sea jump, while Hormuz closure also hits seaborne trade

The cost of shipping goods through many of the world’s maritime chokepoints has soared in the past month due to war and climate change, fuelling fears of higher consumer costs and underlining concerns about the fragility of global supply chains.

The dual impact of conflict and low water levels caused by long periods of drought in Europe and Latin America has pushed up rates along key shipping routes including the Panama Canal, the Rhine, the Red Sea and Black Sea to record highs, according to pricing agency Argus.

The continuing conflict in the Middle East, which has all but shut the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, is also having ripple effects worldwide as vessels reroute to find alternative energy supplies. Around one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas previously passed through the waterway out of the Gulf.

“This is something which is unprecedented,” said Alexander Saverys, chief executive of Belgian shipping company CMB Tech, of the “freight rate boom”.

Factories would need to shut down or source goods from “more expensive parts of the world”, he said.

Rates for shipping oil from the Gulf to Asia hit $15.22 per barrel on August 10 because of the threat of attacks on Saudi Arabia-linked tankers attempting to transit the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Argus, the highest level since the agency began assessing the rates in 2005.

In the Black Sea, freight rates for tankers into the Mediterranean were also at their highest this week since at least 2005.

At the same time, slots to sail through the Panama Canal have hit record highs thanks to falling water levels resulting from the intense El Niño weather system and high levels of traffic — a knock-on impact of the conflict in the Middle East.

Prices to go through both sets of locks on the Panama Canal, which are designed to cater to different-sized ships, hit records of $1.1mn and $2.5mn in early August — the highest since Argus’s records began.

Meanwhile, droughts across Europe have caused water levels in the Rhine, a critical river serving Germany’s heavy industry, to fall perilously low. Freight rates for barges up the Rhine to Cologne, Duisburg, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe have reached their highest levels since 2012.

“This is without doubt the single greatest disruption that the shipping market has seen on record, eclipsing the Covid pandemic and Russia sanctions,” said John Ollett, head of Europe freight pricing at Argus.

“Chokepoints are becoming more critical largely because smaller countries now recognise the disproportionate political and economic leverage they can wield over global trade in an increasingly multi-polar world,” said Henry Curra, head of research at shipbroker Braemar.

With water levels at a historic low on the Rhine this sweltering summer, companies at Europe’s biggest and busiest port are paying part of the bill for the continent’s drought.

Cargo vessels carrying chemicals, oil and other goods to and from Rotterdam on the much-reduced river are being filled to only about 30 per cent capacity to lighten the load and prevent grounding. That means operators have to pay for about 100 extra barges a week and still cannot carry everything they transported before.

It is, says Lex Bezemer at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, “one of the most significant episodes we have experienced in recent decades”.

The port’s expensive workarounds represent only a fraction of the overall cost of a dry season that developed astonishingly quickly, implies big bills for agriculture, industry and even tech, and may be the forerunner of lasting changes in the way the continent carries out its business.

Massimo Tavoni, director of the Venice-based European Institute on Economics and the Environment, an independent research centre, warns that the drought is only a taste of what is to come as the world’s fastest-warming continent feels the impact of climate change.

“Droughts are dangerous. They are extreme events, but they are long lasting,” he says. “Europe is extremely exposed. It really is a hotspot for climate change.”

June and July ranked as the hottest on record in western Europe, according to Copernicus Climate Change, the EU’s earth observation agency. The coming weeks are unlikely to provide much solace: little meaningful rainfall is forecast.

A large chunk of Europe is now living with critical soil moisture deficits and plunging river levels. At the Rhine’s shallowest point, in Kaub, Germany, they fell on Friday to the lowest point since records began, a “single-digit” level below which shipping may be unfeasible and the river split into two.

Experts at institutions ranging from Zurich Insurance to Tavoni’s think-tank estimate this year’s flash drought is likely to deal a short-term economic blow to Europe of at least €50bn, which could rise significantly if the water shortages drag on. The total toll of this summer’s heat is likely to be much more — as high as €180bn, according to one bank.

This could also add to inflationary pressures, squeezing household disposable income and forcing central banks to keep interest rates higher for longer.

Four paintings by the Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Messina, Sicily, on Saturday, Italian officials said.

Taking advantage of an annual religious celebration that brings tens of thousands to Messina’s streets, thieves made off with three of five panels that constitute the Polyptych of San Gregorio as well as a small double-sided devotional painting. They are the only works by Antonello da Messina, commonly called Antonello, that remained in his native city.

Ο καταστηματάρχης -ο καφετζής, ο μπακάλης...- θα χρεώνει την κάρτα του πελάτη μέσω του POS και, στη συνέχεια, θα του δίνει το αντίστοιχο ποσό σε χαρτονομίσματα από το δικό του ταμείο. Αν ο έμπορος δεν έχει μετρητά, θα μπορεί να λέει «όχι» στον συνταξιούχο. Έτσι, η πρόσβαση του πολίτη στο ίδιο του το χρήμα μετατρέπεται από κατοχυρωμένο δικαίωμα σε ζήτημα... τύχης ή καλής θέλησης.

Μετά το μαζικό κλείσιμο των σχολείων, των ταχυδρομικών υποκαταστημάτων και των κέντρων υγείας, η κυβέρνηση και το εγχώριο τραπεζικό σύστημα προχωρούν τώρα στο επόμενο βήμα της οικονομικής ασφυξίας της περιφέρειας: την πλήρη κατάργηση των φυσικών τραπεζικών καταστημάτων και των μηχανημάτων ATM.

Αντί όμως να αναλάβουν την πολιτική ευθύνη για την απομόνωση εκατοντάδων χιλιάδων πολιτών, επιλέγουν να μετατρέψουν τους καφετζήδες, τους παντοπώλες και τους ιδιοκτήτες μικρών λιανικών καταστημάτων στα χωριά σε… άτυπους τραπεζοϋπαλλήλους.

Η αποκάλυψη αυτή δεν αποτελεί σενάριο επιστημονικής φαντασίας, αλλά επίσημη κυβερνητική παραδοχή. Σε γραπτή της απάντηση στο πλαίσιο του κοινοβουλευτικού ελέγχου, ύστερα από σχετική ερώτηση του βουλευτή Ιωαννίνων του ΠΑΣΟΚ, Γιάννη Τσίμαρη, η γενική γραμματέας Χρηματοπιστωτικού Τομέα και Διαχείρισης Ιδιωτικού Χρέους, Θεώνη Αλαμπάση, ξεδίπλωσε με απόλυτη ψυχρότητα το νέο κυβερνητικό σχέδιο.

Μέσω της αναθεώρησης του ευρωπαϊκού κανονιστικού πλαισίου για τις υπηρεσίες πληρωμών (Κανονισμός PSR και Οδηγία PSD3), η οποία βρίσκεται σε πλήρη συνεννόηση και συμφωνία με την Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή, θεσμοθετείται η δυνατότητα ανάληψης μετρητών από εμπόρους λιανικής μέσω φυσικών καταστημάτων, ακόμη και χωρίς να προηγείται αγορά αγαθών ή υπηρεσιών από τον πελάτη.

Το έγγραφο-σοκ της κ. Αλαμπάση αναφέρει αυτολεξεί: «Θα προβλέπεται η δυνατότητα παροχής υπηρεσιών ανάληψης μετρητών από εμπόρους λιανικής μέσω φυσικών καταστημάτων, ακόμη και χωρίς να προηγείται αγορά αγαθών ή υπηρεσιών από τον πελάτη. Η παροχή των εν λόγω υπηρεσιών θα πραγματοποιείται σε προαιρετική βάση από τους εμπόρους λιανικής και αποσκοπεί στη βελτίωση της διαθεσιμότητας μετρητών, ιδίως σε περιοχές με περιορισμένη πρόσβαση σε ΑΤΜ ή τραπεζικά καταστήματα. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό, νομικά πρόσωπα θα παρέχουν υπηρεσίες διάθεσης μετρητών μέσω καταστημάτων λιανικής, ανεξάρτητα από την πραγματοποίηση αγοράς».

More than 1,300 homes damaged and 5,000 people displaced as Indonesia grapples with one of its deadliest earthquakes in years.

A powerful earthquake that struck eastern Indonesia has killed at least 51 people and forced about 5,000 people to evacuate, as rescue teams work to clear roads blocked by landslides and reach survivors still trapped under rubble.

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck at 5:58am local time on Saturday (21:58 GMT, Friday), with its epicentre about 68km (42 miles) north-northwest of the city of Ende, on Flores Island, East Nusa Tenggara province, according to the US Geological Survey, which put the depth at 10km (6.2 miles).

The earthquake, followed by some 341 aftershocks, is one of Indonesia’s deadliest in years.