The British government on Wednesday unveiled plans for a Bill of Rights it says will strengthen free speech and the power of Parliament — but that critics argue will rip up human rights protections for ordinary people.

The government published the bill days after courts in the U.K. and Europe, on human rights grounds, stopped Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative administration deporting people seeking asylum in Britain to Rwanda.

Kuwait's crown prince on Wednesday dissolved Parliament and called for early elections, a move to ease government gridlock that has bred popular opposition and paralyzed the tiny country for months.

In his televised national address, the 81-year-old Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmed Al Jaber said that while the ruling family respected Kuwait's constitution that grants the country's rowdy parliament more power than elsewhere in the autocratic region of Persian Gulf sheikhdoms, popular dissatisfaction over the deepening dysfunction compelled the emir to intervene.

French armed forces conducted a surprise military exercise in Estonia, deploying more than 100 paratroopers in the Baltic country that neighbors Russia, the French defense ministry said Wednesday.

The airborne operation conducted on Tuesday night and dubbed Thunder Lynx "enabled, at very short notice, the dropping of about 100 paratroopers" from France's 11th Airborne Brigade "over an area secured by Estonian soldiers," the statement said.

Lawmakers in Bulgaria are set to vote Wednesday on a no-confidence motion against the country's coalition government. If approved, the motion could topple the centrist prime minister and further stall efforts by Balkan countries to join the European Union.

The center-right opposition GERB party filed the motion last week, citing the government's handling of public finances and economic policy in the face of rising inflation.

Russian appeals against bans from international soccer because of the country's war in Ukraine are set to be heard at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in July.

The court on July 5 will hear the Russian soccer federation's appeal against FIFA and UEFA's joint decision to suspend its national and club teams days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Britain's inflation rate hit a new 40-year high of 9.1% in the 12 months to May, figures showed Wednesday, as Russia's war in Ukraine drove food and fuel prices ever higher.

The Office for National Statistics said consumer price inflation rose slightly from 9% in April, itself the highest level since 1982.

Thousands of farmers gathered in the central Netherlands Wednesday to protest against the Dutch government's plans to rein in emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia, driving their tractors across the Netherlands and snarling traffic on major highways.

The protest was organized earlier this month after the government published nationwide targets for reducing emissions, sparking anger from farmers who claim their livelihoods — and those of thousands of people who work in the agricultural service industry — are on the line.

Suspected al-Qaida militants on Wednesday attacked a security post in a southern Yemeni province, sparking clashes that left five troops and three militants dead, officials said.

The early morning attack took place in Ataq, the capital of the mountainous province of Shabwa, the officials said. At least four other troops were wounded in the attack, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.

Egypt has detained three men after a video clip allegedly showing one of them singing and dancing at a mosque went viral online, the prosecutor's office said.

In the footage, a man can be seen dancing, jumping and singing with a microphone in a mosque to a song by Ahmed Moza, a popular performer of "mahraganat" music.

A Turkish cargo ship on Wednesday left Ukraine's Russian-occupied port of Mariupol after a round of "constructive" grain talks with Moscow, the Turkish defense ministry said, without specifying if it was carrying wheat.

"The meeting in Moscow gave its first concrete result," the Turkish ministry said in a statement.