27 June 2023; MEMO: Palestinian MPs from the besieged Gaza have filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the 17-year-long Israeli siege of the enclave, Quds Press reported yesterday.

First Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, Ahmad Bahar, said in a press conference that the complaints came in the framework of legal, diplomatic and parliamentary efforts being exerted against the Israeli occupation's crimes.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Nearly 36 million people in Europe may have had long-lasting health problems from coronavirus infections they got during the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s regional director said Tuesday.

Dr. Hans Kluge said “long COVID” remained “a complex condition (that) we still know very little about” and “a glaring blind spot in our knowledge.”

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is facing a cliffhanger vote next month that will test its global climate and environmental credentials, after its parliament was again deadlocked on pushing a nature restoration bill onwards on Tuesday.

The legislature’s environment committee emerged deadlocked at 44-44 on the plan to beef up the restoration of nature in the 27-nation bloc that was damaged during decades of industrial expansion. It means the full parliament will be asked to reject it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s watchdog said Tuesday that a “combination of negligence and misconduct” enabled financier Jeffrey Epstein to take his own life at a federal jail in New York City while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz cited the federal Bureau of Prisons’ failure to assign Epstein a cellmate after his previous one left and problems with surveillance cameras as factors in Epstein’s death.

MOSCOW, June 27 (Xinhua) -- In a national address on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Wagner forces to relocate to Belarus if they wanted, sign a contract with Russia's Defence Ministry, or return to their families.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russian intelligence services were investigating whether Western spy agencies played a role in the aborted mutiny, the TASS news agency reported.

LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - Prince Harry's lawyer said on Tuesday a British publisher’s failure to call witnesses such as Piers Morgan was a fatal blow to its defence against allegations brought by the royal and others of unlawful behaviour by its tabloid papers.

The prince and 100 others are suing Mirror Group Newspapers(MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, over allegations of phone-hacking and unlawful information-gathering between 1991 and 2011.

MOSCOW, June 27. /TASS/: Russia’s military and law enforcement agencies took crucial streps to protect the people's safety at the time of an attempted armed insurgency and effectively saved the country from civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin told soldiers and other law enforcement personnel who played a key role in recent events.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s muted reaction to the Wagner mercenary group uprising against Russia’s military belies Beijing’s growing anxieties over the war in Ukraine and how this affects the global balance of power.

China’s ruling Communist Party called the swift end of the 22-hour revolt Moscow’s “internal affair,” with state media affirming China’s support for Russia.

Chinese observers said the incident showed how overblown Western rhetoric was regarding the “Russian internal conflict” and that President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power remains secure.

26 June 2023; MEMO: Israel's nationalist-religious government approved the construction of 5,700 additional illegal housing units for Jewish settlers in the Occupied West Bank on Monday, despite US pressure to halt settlement expansion that Washington sees as an obstacle to peace with Palestinians, Reuters reports.

The plans for approval of the housing units in various areas of the West Bank were approved by Israel's Supreme Planning Council. Jewish settler leadership praised the decision.

BANGKOK (AP) — A Thai court is to deliver a verdict Wednesday in the case of five people accused of impeding the queen’s motorcade during a pro-democracy march in 2020, an offense that if judged egregious could bring a death sentence.

BERLIN (AP) — Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler was convicted of fraud Tuesday in connection with the automaker’s diesel emissions scandal, making him the highest-ranking executive found guilty over cars that cheated on emissions tests with the help of illegal software.

A German court handed Stadler a suspended prison sentence of 21 months and ordered him to pay a fine of 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million), some of which will go to charitable groups. The sentence resulted from an agreement between his lawyers, the judge and prosecutors after he pleaded guilty last month.

BERLIN (AP) — Russian forces carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians who were detained in connection with its attack on Ukraine, summarily executing dozens of them, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday.

The global body interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia.