Spotlight
With Pakistan in political turmoil, the country's Supreme Court is to convene Monday to hear arguments and later rule on whether Prime Minister Imran Khan and his allies had the legal right to dissolve parliament and set the stage for early elections.
The opposition is challenging the latest moves by Khan, a former cricket start turned conservative Islamist leader who came to power in 2018, as a ploy to stay on as prime minister. It has also accused him of economic mismanagement.

As foreign outrage mounts over evidence of possible executions and other atrocities by Russian forces in Ukraine, Germany's defense minister says Europe must consider stepping up penalties for Moscow by boycotting its gas exports, an economically painful step European leaders previously avoided.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday that "we strongly condemn attacks on civilians" following reports of bodies found with signs of torture in areas abandoned by Russian forces. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called reports of rape and other atrocities by Russian soldiers "beyond reprehensible."

An outspoken half-brother of Jordan's king has relinquished his princely title in apparent protest over how the country is run. It was the latest chapter in an ongoing palace feud that saw the junior royal placed under house arrest a year ago.
Prince Hamzah posted the announcement on his official Twitter account. He wrote that he was driven to the decision because his convictions cannot be reconciled with the "current approaches, policies and methods of our institutions."

A tanker carrying badly needed fuel arrived in Yemen's blockaded port of Hodeida on Sunday, as a cease-fire meant to stop the fighting in the war-torn country for two months entered its first full day.
The truce agreement, which took effect Saturday evening, allows for shipments of fuel to arrive in Hodeida and for passenger flights to resume from the airport in the capital of Sanaa. Both Hodeida and Sanaa are held by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country's capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off streets of one town out of fear that Russian forces may have left them booby-trapped.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that departing Russian troops were creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed." His claims could not be independently verified.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk -- began at sunrise Saturday in much of the Middle East, where Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.
The conflict cast a pall over the holiday, when large gatherings over meals and family celebrations are a tradition. Many in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia planned to start observing Sunday and some Shiites in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq were also marking the start of Ramadan a day later.

A report by the World Wildlife Fund shows illegal purchases of wildlife online are growing in Myanmar in a threat both to public health and to endangered species.
The report issued Friday found that enforcement of bans on such transactions has weakened amid political turmoil following a 2021 military takeover.

Mexican and American officials have met amid disagreements about an electrical power reform that seeks to limit foreign-built renewable energy plants and grant a majority market share to Mexico's state-owned power utility.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry, but the Mexican leader appeared unwilling to budge on the proposal, which is currently stuck in Mexico's Congress.

The head of the United Nations has announced the appointment of an expert panel led by Canada's former environment minister to scrutinize whether companies' efforts to curb climate change are credible or mere " greenwashing."
Recent years have seen an explosion of pledges by businesses — including oil companies — to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to "net zero" amid consumer expectations that corporations bear part of the burden of cutting pollution. But environmental campaigners say many such plans are at best unclear, at worst designed to make companies look good when they are actually fueling global warming.

Pope Francis on Friday made a historic apology to Indigenous Peoples for the "deplorable" abuses they suffered in Canada's Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church's misguided missionary zeal.
Francis begged forgiveness during an audience with dozens of members of the Metis, Inuit and First Nations communities who came to Rome seeking a papal apology and a commitment from the Catholic Church to repair the damage. The first pope from the Americas said he hoped to visit Canada around the Feast of St. Anna, which falls on July 26.
