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BBC News with Chris Barrow.
Member states of the International Criminal Court have voted to remove its chief prosecutor Karim Khan. The 56-year-old British lawyer is accused of sexual misconduct towards a junior female colleague, an allegation he denies. Anna Holligan reports. Under Karim Khan, the ICC has issued arrest warrants linked to current conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Gaza, seeking arrest warrants for the leaders of both Hamas and the Israeli government, raising the court's profile and intensifying political polarization surrounding it. Israeli officials have celebrated his dismissal, casting it as confirmation that the Gaza warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister were an illegitimate distraction even though the allegations emerged before the warrants were sought. Venezuela says it's withdrawing from the International Criminal Court. The government said the court had shown it was biased against nations from Africa and Latin America. The court is currently investigating allegations of crimes against humanity committed under the former president Nicolás Maduro. The Spanish authorities say the emergency services do not have the capacity to contain a huge wildfire raging near Madrid. More than 60,000 people have either been evacuated or ordered to remain indoors. Forest fires are also burning in south-west France, where the flames are now heading towards the city of Bordeaux. President Macron has ordered the military to mobilize. Our correspondent in Paris, Hugh Schofield, has the latest. The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said the fire was of an unprecedented scale. It's already consumed an area of forest the size of Paris and the prefect for the Gironde department said that people in eight towns between the fire and Bordeaux must be prepared to leave their homes at short notice. They'd received text messages on their telephones when the moment came. The fire has already forced the authorities to evacuate the resort of Cap Ferret and other communities around the Bay of Arcachon, which in high summer are full of holidaymakers as well as regular residents. Israeli settlers have been attacking several Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank after a major confrontation left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead. The surging violence has led to fears of wider escalation. The Israeli army said it had launched a major operation. The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he'd ordered the establishment of more settler outposts in response. Here's Lucy Williamson. The conflict began with a group of Israelis walking around Tel village in a Palestinian-controlled area that Israel forbids its citizens from entering. Israel's firebrand far-right minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said for every Jew murdered, the enemy must suffer the loss of land and homes, while Palestinians are routinely killed and injured during attacks and confrontations with Israeli settlers. The killing of Israelis by Palestinians has tipped the West Bank into a dangerous moment. BBC News. Saudi Arabia has launched airstrikes on Houthi targets in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and a nearby island. Saudi Arabia said it was a response to Houthi threats to shipping in the Red Sea and its military response was now over. The Houthis have made several attacks on shipping in the Red Sea this week. The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Türk, has won a second term despite opposition from the United States, Russia and Israel. An overwhelming majority of members at the U.N. General Assembly voted to renew his four-year mandate. Mr. Türk has been a vocal critic of Israel's actions in Gaza as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. President Trump has ordered federal officials to place signs outside the Smithsonian Museum of American History warning that some of the exhibits inside are "inaccurate." The signs must also direct people to what the order calls accurate information. The Smithsonian is independent of the federal government but the pavements outside belong to the government's National Park Service. Canada has held a pared-back opening ceremony for a new bridge connecting the country to Detroit in the United States as tensions continue with its southern neighbor. A planned ribbon-cutting ceremony on the structure was ditched in favor of an indigenous blessing after a dispute about toll sharing and new threats of 50 percent tariffs from President Trump. Here's our Canada reporter Nadine Yousif. The bridge is 25 years in the making and it was supposed to support billions of dollars of trade that flow through the U.S. and Canada every year and that is still the main purpose, that is still what it is going to do if it goes ahead and opens officially on Monday. But the path to get here has been very rocky, it was supposed to open earlier this year in March but President Trump had blocked it effectively saying that he won't let it open until Canada agrees to a better deal with the U.S. on the bridge's ownership and how revenues are collected. And that's the latest BBC News. |