MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Even economically strong and developed Western countries have turned into colonies, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

"Western countries, even strong and developed economies, have become colonies," the diplomat noted, addressing a Russian-African women’s forum.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was released from the hospital Monday after an emergency heart procedure and now faces an unprecedented national crisis ahead of parliament’s vote on the first major piece of legislation to remake the country’s justice system.

Demonstrators, many of whom feel the very foundations of their country are being eroded by the government’s plan, stepped up their opposition, blocking a road leading up to parliament. Businesses shuttered their doors to protest the vote.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — More than 100 people who died in Nigeria in 2020 during protests against police brutality will soon be buried, authorities said, prompting allegations by activists on Monday of a cover-up and calls for a new investigation.

At least 103 bodies were gathered from across the state after the protests and other clashes related to it, the top official at Lagos State’s ministry of health, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye, said in a statement after local media reported a leaked memo about the planned burial.

PHNOM PENH, Jul 24 (NNN-AKP) – The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen, claimed a landslide victory in yesterday’s general election, a party spokesman said.

Though official results had yet to be announced, CPP spokesman, Sok Eysan confirmed the results last night, saying that, this marked another great success for the CPP.

“We have won a landslide victory in this election, but we have not yet calculated the number of seats we have gained,” he told Xinhua. “This truly reflects people’s confidence in the CPP’s leadership.”

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Mali’s army together with suspected Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries have committed summary executions, lootings, forced disappearances and other abuses, said a leading human rights group Monday.

Human Rights Watch said the atrocities happened in Mali’s central region and that several dozen civilians were summarily executed or forcibly disappeared since December 2022. The human rights group interviewed 40 people by phone, including witnesses, and reviewed a video “showing evidence of abuses by Malian soldiers and associated foreign fighters.”

JERUSALEM, July 24 (Reuters) - Israel's parliament on Monday ratified the first bill of a judicial overhaul sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after last-gasp compromise efforts collapsed and failed to ease a constitutional crisis convulsing the country for months.

The amendment to a law enabling the Supreme Court to void some government decisions if it deemed them "unreasonable" passed by a 64-to-0 vote after opposition lawmakers abandoned the session in protest, some of them shouting: "For shame!"

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces intercepted a rocket of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system and downed 35 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Monday.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian authorities accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on Moscow early Monday that saw one of the aircraft fall near the Defense Ministry’s main headquarters, while the Russian military unleashed new strikes on port infrastructure in southern Ukraine.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there were no casualties when the drones struck two nonresidential buildings in Moscow. Separately, a Ukrainian drone struck an ammunition depot in Russian-annexed Crimea, forcing a halt in traffic on a major highway, Russian authorities said.

BAGHDAD, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Iraq on Sunday confirmed its full support for the national dialogue in Yemen to achieve security and stability in the war-torn country.

During a meeting with visiting Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rasheed expressed his country's "full support for the national dialogue to achieve security and stability in Yemen, in a way that guarantees the peace for the people who have suffered greatly because of the conflict," according to a statement issued by the president's office.

QUITO, July 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The mayor of Ecuador’s third largest city was slain Sunday in a shooting that killed one other person and wounded four more, including two suspected attackers, officials said.

Agustín Intriago, a 38-year-old lawyer, belonged to the local Better City movement in the port city of Manta and was recently re-elected to a term that began in May.

RHODES, Greece, July 24 (Reuters) - Tour operators flew more than 2,000 holidaymakers home on Monday as wildfires raged on the island of Rhodes in what the Greek government said was the largest evacuation ever undertaken in the country.

More repatriation flights were due on Monday and Tuesday as the fires remained out of control and the Civil Protection authority warned the threat of further fires was high in almost every part of Greece, gripped by a heatwave.

Mumbai, Jul 24 (PTI) One should behave with a sense of responsibility while communicating something to others via their WhatsApp status, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has said while refusing to quash a case against a man for posting content allegedly spreading hatred against a religious group.

A division bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes in its order on July 12 said the purpose of WhatsApp status nowadays is to convey something to your contacts.