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☆ Fact Check-Bronze statue of naked person in The Hague falsely located in Oxford, UK
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A bronze statue of a naked person with both male and female body parts, which has stood in The Hague since 2017, is being misnamed and falsely linked to the British city of Oxford online. One Facebook user (here) uploaded a photo of the artwork with the caption: “This statue was recently unveiled in Oxford. But the statue, which was created by artist Femmy Otten (bit.ly/3MBClFb and here), has been located in The Hague since 2017 (here), according to Stroom Den Haag, a contemporary art centre based in the Dutch city. Reuters found no credible or local news reports about the artwork being moved to Oxford when searching for numerous combinations of relevant keywords online (bit.ly/43s5JDN, bit.ly/3A1NzLn and bit.ly/3mww5Us). The “And Life Is Over There” statue has been situated in The Hague, the Netherlands, since 2017.

☆ Ukraine's Naftogaz says Russia told to pay $5 billion for seizing Crimea assets
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] The logo of Ukraine's state energy company Naftogaz is seen outside the company's headquarters in central Kyiv, Ukraine October 18, 2021. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File PhotoKYIV, April 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine's state-owned gas company Naftogaz said on Thursday that Moscow had been ordered by an arbitration court in The Hague to pay $5 billion in compensation for unlawfully expropriating its assets in Russian-annexed Crimea in 2014. "Despite Russia's attempts to obstruct justice, the Arbitration Tribunal ordered Russia to compensate Naftogaz for losses of $5 billion," Naftogaz said. The company, whose assets in Crimea included Chornomornaftogaz which produced significant amounts of gas from the Black Sea, gave no further detail of which overseas Russian assets it could target. Naftogaz has been in talks with investors on a debt restructuring to bring the company out of a months-long default.

☆ Fake bomb causes evacuation of Dutch parliament building
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

AMSTERDAM, April 13 (Reuters) - The Dutch parliament building was evacuated for a short while on Thursday afternoon after a bomb alert that turned out to be false. Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders said a fake bomb addressed to him had been the cause of the evacuation. "A package with a teddy bear and wires addressed to me was delivered to the mail room of parliament", Wilders said in a post on Twitter. Wilders, whose far-right Freedom Party has become the Netherlands' second-largest, has been living under tight security measures for years due to death threats. Reporting by Bart Meijer Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Protesters shout down Macron on visit to the Netherlands
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Christian Levaux | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

THE HAGUE, April 11 (Reuters) - Anger against an unpopular pension reform in France followed President Emmanuel Macron to the Netherlands where protesters interrupted a speech he was giving on Tuesday at the start of a two-day state visit. Other protesters in the audience targeted the pension law and climate change, while one displayed a banner that read: "President of violence and hypocrisy". During his speech, he defended the pension law, which will delay retirement age by two years to 64. "I will pass (retirement age) from 62 to 64," he said, speaking in English. "When I compare, they (French protesters) should be less angry with me, because in your country it's much higher, and in a lot of countries in Europe, it's much higher than 64."

☆ Protesters disrupt Macron's speech in The Hague
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Reuters Editorial | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PoliticsProtesters disrupt Macron's speech in The HaguePostedProtesters interrupted the start of a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron in The Hague on Tuesday (April 11) ? during a two-day state visit in the Netherlands ? by asking "where is French democracy?"

☆ Ben Ferencz, last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor, dies at 103
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

We mourn the death of Ben Ferencz—the last Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor. At Nuremberg, Ferencz became chief prosecutor for the United States in the trial of 22 officers who led mobile paramilitary killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen that were part of the notorious Nazi SS. The case we present is a plea of humanity to law," Ferencz added. "Genocide - the extermination of whole categories of human beings - was a foremost instrument of the Nazi doctrine," Ferencz said. After the Nuremberg trials, Ferencz worked to secure compensation for Holocaust victims and survivors.

If a nuclear attack were headed toward the US, residents would have fewer than 30 minutes to prepare. Russian Presidential Press Service/APA nuclear attack remains highly unlikely, but it's not out of the question, experts say. Redlener said the best way to learn of an impending nuclear attack would probably be TV or radio. Survivors of a nuclear attack would have about 15 minutes before sandlike radioactive particles, known as nuclear fallout, reached the ground. A sign for a nuclear fallout shelter on a residential block in Brooklyn.

☆ World Court says it can rule on Guyana-Venezuela border dispute
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

THE HAGUE, April 6 (Reuters) - Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday ruled they had jurisdiction over a long-running border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela, which could determine which country has rights to offshore oil and gas fields. Guyana asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in 2018 to confirm that the border was laid down in an 1899 arbitration between Venezuela and the then-colony of British Guiana. The court "by 14 votes to 1, rejects the preliminary objection raised by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," said presiding judge Joan Donoghue, while reading the decision. Venezuela does not want the ICJ to rule and instead insists on a bilateral negotiated solution to determine the course of the land border, which may ultimately determine which country has rights to certain offshore oil and gas fields. Offshore oil discoveries in recent years have given Guyana, which has no history of oil production, the potential to become one of the largest producers in Latin America.

☆ U.S., European Police Shut Down Hacker Marketplace, Make 119 Arrests
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Kim S. Nash | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

The international action conducted Tuesday and Wednesday against Genesis Market, one of the largest so-called initial access brokers in the world, resulted in 119 arrests. The dismantling of Genesis Market follows the arrest last month of a man U.S. prosecutors say ran BreachForums, a site for buying and selling stolen data. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ Pro Cybersecurity Cybersecurity news, analysis and insights from WSJ's global team of reporters and editors. The Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned Genesis Market, a so-called initial access broker in operation since 2018. Genesis Market data was provided to the website Have I Been Pwned, so individuals can check whether their credentials have been compromised.

☆ Britain blocks UN webcast of Russian meeting on Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Michelle Nichols | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

UNITED NATIONS, April 4 (Reuters) - Britain has blocked the U.N. webcast of an informal Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Wednesday at which Russia's commissioner for children's rights - whom the International Criminal Court wants to arrest on war crimes charges - is due to speak. The meeting will focus on "evacuating children from conflict zone" and Russia said on Tuesday that commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova would feature virtually. Such meetings are not held in the Security Council chamber and all 15 council members have to agree to allow it to be webcast by the United Nations. Diplomats have said it is rare for a U.N. webcast to be blocked. However, last month China blocked the U.N. webcast of a U.S.-convened informal Security Council meeting on human rights abuses in North Korea.

☆ Several people hurt after trains collide in southern Netherlands
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

April 4 (Reuters) - Several people were 'seriously injured' and a potential fire was reported after a passenger train derailed following a collision with a freight train in southern Netherlands, local emergency services said early on Tuesday. Emergency services were at the scene rescuing those injured in the town of Voorschoten, a village between The Hague and Amsterdam, a notice from the local emergency services showed. Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

MOSCOW, April 4 (Reuters) - Russia's commissioner for children's rights on Tuesday dismissed International Criminal Court (ICC) allegations that she was responsible for unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine as false. The Hague-based ICC on March 17 issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Children's Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces. The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and children's care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. CHILDRENSince the invasion, Ukraine has cast Russia as a brutal imperial aggressor that has committed war crimes, including the theft of children. Putin allies have cast the ICC, which countries including China and the United States do not recognise, as a "legal nonentity."

☆ Former Kosovo president Thaci pleads not guilty to war crimes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Ivana Sekularac | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

THE HAGUE, April 3 (Reuters) - Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci on Monday pleaded not guilty to 10 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity as his trial opened at a special court in The Hague. Thaci and three co-defendants, all former close associates in the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and later in peacetime politics, all pleaded not guilty shortly after hearings got underway. "I understand the indictment and I am fully not guilty," Thaci said in court. The trial, conducted by international judges and prosecutors, began with opening statements by the prosecution followed by defence lawyers and a representative of Kosovo's war Victims Council over the ensuing three days. Thaci, 54, resigned as president shortly after his indictment and was transferred to detention in The Hague.

☆ Kosovo war crimes court begins trial of ex-guerrilla chief and president Thaci
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

THE HAGUE, April 3 (Reuters) - Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci stands trial at a special court in The Hague on Monday for alleged war crimes during the 1998-99 insurgency that eventually brought independence from Serbia and made him a hero among compatriots. Thaci was indicted in 2020 by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearance of people, including after fighting ended. Thaci and three co-defendants, all former close associates in the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and later in peacetime politics, have pleaded not guilty to all 10 counts. The trial, conducted by international judges and prosecutors, will begin with opening statements by the prosecution followed by defence lawyers and a representative of Kosovo's war Victims Council over the ensuing three days. Thaci, 54, resigned as president shortly after his indictment and was transferred to detention in The Hague.

☆ NHL roundup: Bruins clinch league's best record
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Pastrnak took Hampus Lindholm's feed into the offensive zone and finished with the backhand for his 53rd goal of the season. Tyler Bertuzzi scored the lone Bruins goal of regulation, tying the game in the second period. Mario Ferraro had a goal and an assist and Oskar Lindblom and Tomas Hertl also scored for San Jose. Defenseman Henry Thrun, making his NHL debut after starring at Harvard, added two assists, and James Reimer finished with 23 saves. Blues 5, Blackhawks 3Brandon Saad scored one goal and set up another as St. Louis handed host Chicago its seventh straight loss.

A special Kosovo court set up in The Hague indicted Thaci in November 2020 on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including persecution, murder, torture and enforced disappearance of people among other things during the uprising. Thaci, 54, resigned as president shortly afterward and was transferred to detention in The Hague. As the fighting abated and Serbian forces withdrew under NATO bombardment from Kosovo, Thaci traded in his green uniform for a blue suit and tie. Milosevic went on trial before a separate U.N. tribunal in The Hague for war crimes against Kosovo Albanians in the conflict, but he died in 2006 before a verdict was reached. Some senior Serbian officials including then-army chief Nebojsa Pavkovic and deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic were sentenced to long prison terms over war crimes in Kosovo.

☆ World Court rules U.S. was wrong to freeze Iranian assets
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Stephanie Van Den Berg | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

However, in a blow for Tehran, the World Court said it did not have jurisdiction over $1.75 billion in frozen assets from Iran's central bank, by far the largest amount claimed back by Iran. The ruling comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Iran after tit-for-tat strikes between Iran-backed forces and U.S. personnel in Syria last week. The case before the ICJ, also known as the World Court, was initially brought by Tehran against Washington in 2016 for allegedly breaching a 1955 friendship treaty by allowing U.S. courts to freeze assets of Iranian companies. The rulings of the ICJ, the United Nations' top court, are binding, but it has no means of enforcing them. The United States and Iran are among a handful of countries to have disregarded its decisions in the past.

It suspended its probe in November 2021 at the request of the Philippines after Manila said it was carrying out its own investigations. The ICC investigation was reopened in January 2023 and on March 27 the ICC rejected Manila's request to suspend it pending an appeal questioning the court's jurisdiction and authority. It is not clear even among some government officials what cutting contact meant or whether the Philippines will completely drop its appeal against the ICC investigation. Police say they killed 6,200 suspects during anti-drug operations that ended in shootouts but reject accusations by human rights groups of systematic executions and cover-ups. There doesn't seem to be any political will within the Philippine government to seriously investigate," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told CNN Philippines.

March 25 (Reuters) - Russia's parliament speaker on Saturday proposed banning the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crimes. Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin's, said that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave "assistance and support" to the ICC. Any assistance or support for the ICC inside Russia, he said, should be punishable under law. The ICC issued an arrest warrant earlier this month accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin says the ICC arrest warrant is an outrageously partisan decision, but meaningless with respect to Russia.

☆ Putin ally proposes banning ICC in Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Russia's parliament speaker on Saturday proposed banning the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crimes. Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin's, said that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave "assistance and support" to the ICC. Any assistance or support for the ICC inside Russia, he said, should be punishable under law. The ICC issued an arrest warrant earlier this month accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin says the ICC arrest warrant is an outrageously partisan decision, but meaningless with respect to Russia.

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Democratic and Republican U.S. senators urged the Biden administration on Friday to share information with the International Criminal Court that could assist as it pursues war crimes charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Last week, the court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The legal move will obligate the court's 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory. Although the United States is not a party to the ICC, Biden said last week that Putin has clearly committed war crimes, adding that the ICC warrant was justified. Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alex RichardsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Hungary would not arrest Putin, says PM Orban's chief of staff
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BUDAPEST, March 23 (Reuters) - Hungary would not arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he entered the country, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said on Thursday, adding that it would have no legal grounds. Hungary signed and ratified the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant on Friday accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. When asked if Putin would be arrested if he came to Hungary, Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, told a briefing that the Rome Statute had not been built into the Hungarian legal system. When asked, he said his government "had not formed a stance" on the arrest warrant issued against Putin. Putin, only the third serving president to have been issued an arrest warrant by the ICC, is unlikely to end up in court any time soon.

March 20 (Reuters) - Russia's top investigative body said on Monday it had opened a criminal case against the International Criminal Court prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges. The move was a symbolic gesture of defiance, three days after the ICC accused Putin and his children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. The Kremlin has called the issuing of the warrant outrageous but legally void, as Russia is not a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC. On Monday it said the court's move was a sign of the "clear hostility" that exists against Russia and against Putin personally. Russia has publicly said it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia in what it presents as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and abandoned children in the conflict zone.

☆ Russia's former president suggested firing a hypersonic missile at The Hague after Putin's ICC arrest warrant: 'Look carefully into the sky'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dmitry Medvedev suggested striking The Hague with a hypersonic missile in a furious post on Monday. It came after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russia's Vladimir Putin. On Friday, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin relating to the "unlawful deportation" of children from occupied areas of Ukraine. Medvedev also claimed that the arrest warrant for Putin heralds the collapse of international law, calling it "a grim sunset of the whole system of international relations." While the US' own relationship with the ICC has been fraught, on Friday President Joe Biden said the arrest warrant for Putin was justified.

☆ Putin's macabre tour of occupied Ukraine: Russian leader visits besieged regions of Crimea and Mariupol
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A defiant Putin has begun a tour of occupied areas of Ukraine, stopping in Crimea and Mariupol. The Russian leader visited besieged areas that have faced widespread casualties since the invasion began. The trip comes after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes. According to Russian state-sponsored media outlet Tass, Putin then visited Mariupol early Sunday in his first-ever visit to the Donbas region. During Putin's visit to the region, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin began creating a report about reconstruction efforts in the city and its outskirts, Tass reported.

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