Libyan ICC war crimes suspect arrested in Germany
In addition to the sanctions, the ICC is also operating without its chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who stepped aside temporarily two months ago as he faced a probe by United Nations investigators into alleged sexual misconduct.
Khan denies the allegations, and his two deputy prosecutors are running the office in his absence.
In a statement on Friday, the office of the prosecutor said it expected Al Hishri to be transferred to The Hague and added that it stood ready to start his trial.
"This development is so needed at a time of unprecedented turmoil in the field of accountability generally and at the ICC specifically," Kip Hale, an attorney who documented crimes in Libya for the UN, told Reuters.
"Yet, it is most important for the victims of the many atrocity crimes committed at Mitiga prison."
Italy arrested another Libyan ICC suspect, Osama Elmasry Njeem, in January but subsequently returned him to Tripoli, saying the arrest warrant contained mistakes and inaccuracies. He was also accused of crimes committed against detainees in Mitiga prison.
His release sparked outrage among Italian opposition parties and triggered a legal investigation into Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and several other government members.
The court has been investigating allegations of serious crimes committed in Libya since the outbreak of its civil war in 2011, following a referral by the UN Security Council
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Daily Maverick
7 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born — now is the time of monsters
On Sunday, 13 July 2025, siblings Karam and Lulu al-Ghussain, aged nine and 10 respectively, went to fetch water for their family from a water distribution site in Gaza. Given the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) much-vaunted proclamations of precision bombing, and that there is no indiscriminate bombing, we can assume that they identified when there were enough people and children in line, before proceeding with the bombing of the site, and dismembering Karam and Lulu. I began writing this piece on Saturday, 19 July, and during the course of Saturday 32 Palestinians were killed while seeking food and water. On Sunday, 20 July, another 73 Palestinians who had been queueing were killed. By Monday morning that figure had been adjusted upwards to 93 confirmed dead. The pope went so far as to describe the bombing as barbaric. Much of the aid now being 'allowed' into Gaza is being distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American organisation launched in February 2025 with the aim of supplying aid to Gaza. It operates in a small part of Gaza, has no website and has the full support of the Israeli government. The foundation has been accused of making starvation a bargaining chip and of being a direct accomplice in Israel's killing and starvation machine. The United Nations has estimated that since the end of May the IDF has killed more than 800 people who were trying to secure food at distribution hubs operated by the foundation. That figure is now well above 1,000. I would perhaps be somewhat cynical to suggest that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation exists simply to draw children to distribution sites to create an easy target for the IDF bombs. But am I? The population of Gaza is being systematically starved. And when, in a state of utter desperation, they seek aid, at the only site the IDF has approved, the IDF is then in a position to simply wait for enough people to arrive and to drop a bomb. Every day. Drop a bomb on children every day. Why? Because they can? This is slaughter for sport. And our response? Mostly silence, save for a few news outlets and intrepid reporters and commentators. How did we get here? How is it that the outrage is not so loud as to drown out everything else? In attempting an answer, I am going to draw on two books. The first, the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, and the second the truly remarkable Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know by Mark Lilla. Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher and journalist in the early part of the 20th century. He is most famous for his Prison Notebooks which he wrote during his imprisonment by Mussolini from 1926 until his death in 1937. Perhaps his most well-known quote is 'the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters'. This idea of a 'time of monsters' refers to what he saw (the period following World War 1) as a time when the old order and old understandings were in a state of collapse. He called this the interregnum (from the Latin, meaning 'between reigns'). In the space created, in the vacuum of social upheaval, is when the monsters emerge to take advantage of the chaos. Hitler in 1930s Germany is, of course, the prototypical example. It seems incontrovertible that we are living in a time of monsters. Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Narendra Modi in India are all prime examples. And, of course, hovering creepily above all of this is the sociopathic felon and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump. But the prize for the monster of monsters must surely be Benjamin Netanyahu. A man willing to slaughter tens of thousands of children to stay out of court, and to fulfil his messianic delusion of Israel controlling all the territory from ' the river to the sea '. How did we get to the point where these are the monsters filling the void of power and taking millions along with their brutal lies? We now live in a world where millions of people believe that vaccines cause autism; where the habitual liar Trump is seen as a visionary leader; where climate breakdown is for many people a hoax; where the head of health in the US, Robert F Kennedy Jnr, does not believe that HIV causes Aids and believes that the Covid vaccines were developed to control people via microchips; and where Edgar Maddison Welch was so convinced that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring in the basement of a Washington DC pizza restaurant that he fired shots at the pizzeria using an assault-like AR-15 rifle in an attempt to 'save' the children, eventually serving four years in jail. Lilla, in Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know, offers a potential answer as to why so many people stubbornly refuse to see the world as it is, rather holding tightly onto some kind of self-delusion. He writes: 'We willingly give up a shot to acquire true beliefs about the world out of fear that truths about ourselves will be exposed in the process, especially our insufficient courage for self-examination. We prefer the illusion of self-reliance and embrace our ignorance for no other reason than that it is ours. It doesn't matter that reliance on false opinion is the worst sort of dependence. It doesn't matter that through stubbornness we might pass up a chance at happiness. We prefer to go down with the ship rather than have our names scraped off its hull.' Lilla argues that the more difficult the truth we have to face, the more we are likely to lie to ourselves. Imagine having to face the truth that we watched as one of the most powerful armies in the world (with the open support of the most powerful one) bombed and slaughtered a classroom full of children (27 of them) every day for 653 days. Every day for 653 days. We saw it happening and we denied, rationalised, pontificated, lied, fudged, and ultimately did nothing. No wonder there is so much solace and bliss to be found in ignorance. DM
IOL News
11 hours ago
- IOL News
Cyril Ramaphosa faces pressure to appoint US ambassador as tariffs loom
President Cyril Ramaphosa has been urged to appoint a US ambassador 'urgently' amidst impending tariffs. . Image: Supplied While the Presidency announced the appointment of Ambassador Vivianne Fock Tave as the new Seychelles Ambassador to the United Nations in New York on Monday, partners in the Government of National Unity (GNU) are intensifying calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa to appoint an ambassador to the United States as a matter of urgency. This comes days before the implementation of 30% tariffs on South African products exported to the US, imposed by President Donald Trump's administration. South Africa has been without an ambassador to the US since March when Ebrahim Rasool was expelled over comments deemed an attack on the Trump administration. In response, Ramaphosa appointed Mcebisi Jonas as a special envoy. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading However, the DA revealed that the US government denied Jonas a diplomatic visa in May and informed the Presidency that he would not be recognised as South Africa's official interlocutor. Jonas and Rasool are both seen as Trump's adversaries after they criticised him on two different occasions. In mid-March 2025, the Trump administration expelled Rasool as South Africa's ambassador to the US, following his critical comments about the US government during a webinar. Rasool had characterised the "Make America Great Again" movement as partly a reaction to "a supremacist instinct" and anticipated demographic changes in the US, specifically the projected decline of the white population to minority status. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly denounced Rasool as a "race-baiting politician who hates America" and declared him persona non grata. In 2020, Jonas referred to Trump as "a racist, homophobic, and narcissistic right-winger", which resurfaced following his appointment as Special Envoy to the US. This exclusion of the two officials coincided with escalating tensions between the US and South Africa, fuelled by the US disapproval of South Africa's legal proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice and the US freezing aid to South Africa. GOOD Party secretary-general Brett Herron emphasised the need for Ramaphosa to take the nation into his confidence and update citizens on the Washington strategy. "Ramaphosa must update the nation on Washington strategy. President Cyril Ramaphosa owes the nation an update on progress... with the nation's diplomatic relationship with the US," Herron said. Another GNU partner, the IFP, during a media briefing on Monday, also urged Ramaphosa to appoint an ambassador as a priority. IFP national spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the party is expecting the president to appoint the ambassador as a matter of urgency, given the diplomatic fallout between the two countries. He further stated that urgency was also necessary because South Africa will hand over the G20 Presidency to the US. Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) spokesperson, Chrispin Phiri, referred questions to the Presidency. However, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya did not respond to questions on what the status of appointing an ambassador was. Last week, the Presidency and the DA were engaged in a war of words after the DA revealed that despite being aware of the US rejection of Jonas's credentials, the Presidency continued to present him as the special envoy to North America. "The United States of America denied Mcebisi Jonas a diplomatic visa in May this year. The US government has formally rejected Jonas's credentials...," the DA initially stated. In response, the Presidency warns against treating DA disinformation on international relations as official government policy. "Special Envoys do not present credentials, and Mr Jonas's role, while supportive of DTIC (Department of Trade, Industry and Competition) and DIRCO in trade negotiations and diplomatic relations, does not supersede them. He has been assisting in developing trade proposals and resetting diplomatic ties. "President Ramaphosa has not urgently required Mr Jonas to visit the US due to ongoing processes and recent contact with President Trump. The Presidency is concerned about the DA's persistent campaign against South Africa's national interest, originating from their ideological visit to the US earlier this year. The DA is attempting to use a foreign state to change national policies and is exploiting critical engagements to protest President Ramaphosa's removal of Mr Andrew Whitfield,' Magwenya said. He further said the DA's insults against other nations and international organisations harm South Africa's international relations and could negatively impact businesses and livelihoods dependent on global trade. The impending 30% tariffs on South African exports to the US, expected to take effect next month, pose significant challenges to South Africa's economy. Additionally, South Africa is on the brink of losing its African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) status when it expires this year. AGOA enables economic growth and development in sub-Saharan Africa by providing eligible countries with duty-free access to the US market for thousands of products.
eNCA
13 hours ago
- eNCA
Greece to create new marine reserves to protect underwater wildlife
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday said that his government was creating two new protected marine areas, fulfilling a promise he made at a United Nations conference on the oceans in June. The new protected areas -- in the Ionian Sea and in the Southern Cyclades in the Aegean Sea -- would be "among the largest marine protected areas in the entire Mediterranean", he said in a video message in English. The prime minister said that the "hugely damaging practice of bottom trawling" by commercial fishing boats would be banned within the new marine reserves and in all Greece's marine protected areas by 2030, making it the first country in Europe to take such a significant step in preservation. Fishing is generally allowed in protected marine areas worldwide, even by trawlers which scrape the seabed with a huge funnel-shaped net, to devastating effect. Mitsotakis said that he had "made a promise to honour (Greece's) unique marine heritage" at last month's UN Oceans Conference in southern France, "and to protect it for generations to come". "Today I am delivering on that promise with the establishment of two new marine national parks... because when we protect our ocean, we protect our own future." Greece is located in the eastern Mediterranean and has around 13,600 kilometres (8,450 miles) of coastline and hundreds of islands. Greece, Brazil and Spain all used the UN conference in Nice, to announce new protected marine reserves and measures to ban bottom trawling, in order to better protect marine wildlife. Mitsotakis said that the size of the new Greek marine reserves "will enable us to achieve the goal of protecting 30 percent of our territorial waters by 2030". He said that the government would work with "local communities, local fishermen, scientists (and) global partners (to) make these parks examples of what is possible". - The oceans are 'life itself' - In May, Athens banned bottom trawling in the waters of the Fournoi Korseon island chain in the Aegean to protect recently discovered coral reefs that are exceptionally rich in marine wildlife. Neighbouring Turkey, whose western coast is close to the Aegean islands, responded to Monday's announcement by criticising such "unilateral action". "International maritime law encourages cooperation between the coastal states of these seas, including on environmental issues," the foreign ministry in Ankara said. It said that Turkey was willing to cooperate with Greece and would soon announce its own plans to protect maritime areas. Greece and Turkey, both members of NATO, have historical disputes over maritime boundaries in the Aegean Sea. They signed an agreement in 2023 aimed at easing tensions. Mitsotakis said that "Ocean", a new documentary by British natural history broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, had inspired Greece to accelerate efforts to protect life below the waves. "Ocean", which features spectacular footage of undersea habitats and marine life, emphasises the importance of healthy seas for tackling climate change and the current sweeping loss of wild species across the planet. Mitsotakis said "Ocean" showed that the sea was "not just beautiful scenery".
