Rwanda has said international sanctions will reduce the likelihood of peace with M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), after the United Kingdom said it would pause some bilateral aid and impose other diplomatic sanctions on Kigali.  

“The punitive measures announced today by the UK government in response to the conflict in eastern DRC—where the UK has now clearly chosen a side—are regrettable,” Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.  

Judges of the Supreme Court at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers war crimes court announced on Wednesday that they have upheld the 15-year prison sentence for former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Salih Mustafa, who was found guilty of arbitrary detention, torture, and murder. 

Syria’s de facto leader reiterated his pledge to deliver a democratic political transition as talks on the country’s future opened. 

Ahmed al-Sharaa urged his countrymen to unite and pledged to establish a transitional justice body, as he welcomed participants of a national dialogue aimed at guiding the country’s political transition following years of civil war and the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad. 

Argentina’s President Javier Milei temporarily appointed two Supreme Court judges by decree, bypassing Congress during its summer recess to push through a particularly controversial candidate in a move criticized as an overreach of executive power. 

The president’s office said it was within Milei’s constitutional right to fill the two vacancies on the five-member panel as a matter of convenience and expediency. Argentina’s top court “cannot carry out its normal role with only three justices,” the statement added. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the complete demilitarization of much of southern Syria. 

It is an announcement that could make conflict between Israel and the new leadership in Syria, after the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad, more likely. 

In a speech to Israeli military cadets on Sunday, Netanyahu said that Israel would not allow the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—the Islamist group that led the overthrow of Assad—nor the new Syrian army that is being formed to "enter the area south of Damascus".  

The European Union has lifted select sanctions on Syria as part of an effort to support democratic development during the country’s political transition. 

The bloc announced that it had suspended restrictions on oil, gas, and electricity, along with sanctions on the transport sector including aviation, with immediate effect. 

However, it cautioned that the decision could be reversed should Syria’s de facto leadership not implement expected reforms. 

Friedrich Merz, who is expected to be Germany’s next chancellor, says he would make sure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can visit Germany despite an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

Thanin Kraivichien, an anti-communist judge who became Thailand’s prime minister after a 1976 military coup but was ousted by another coup a year later because of his hardline policies, has died at age 97, his family announced. 

In a dramatic shift in transatlantic relations under President Donald Trump, the United States split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in votes on three UN resolutions seeking an end to the three-year war. 

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF in French) has said it is suspending its work in a famine-stricken camp for displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur region, as an increase in violent attacks has made it too dangerous to operate. 

In a statement, the medical charity said fighting in and around Zamzam camp near the town of el-Fasher had made it “impossible … to continue providing medical assistance”.