South Africa says it will provide diplomatic immunity to all leaders attending a summit of the BRICS group in August, in a move to protect the conference.
The African country said on Tuesday it will extend its Diplomatic Immunity and Privileges Act to all international officials, who plan to attend the summit of the BRICS block of developing nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
“This is a standard conferment of immunities that we do for all international conferences and summits held in South Africa, irrespective of the level of participation,” South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs announced.
"The immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals. They are meant to protect the conference and its attendees from the jurisdiction of the host country for the duration of the conference," it added.
The government notice about immunity has prompted speculations that Johannesburg is providing immunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to pave the way for him to attend the summit despite an ICC arrest warrant.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest in March over the alleged war crimes in Ukraine as Moscow has rejected the warrant as "null and void". .......more below
Nvidia would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday, Bloomberg reported. A Chinese expert said the move is shortsighted, noting that tightening restrictions despite domestic industry opposition will only accelerate China’s tech innovation and further diminish Nvidia’s chances of reentering the Chinese market.
Known as the Secure and Feasible Exports Act, the bill would order the US Commerce Department to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries, including China and Russia for at least 30 months. Any processors more powerful than those already approved for export to those nations would be subject to the measure, the Bloomberg report said.
The legislation comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the....more below
A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent's analysis of public court records.
The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence ...
Hundreds of retired Israeli police officers have urged the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, to reject Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in corruption cases.
On November 30, Netanyahu, who faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust in three separate cases, submitted a formal pardon request to the office of Herzog, claiming the long-running corruption cases were tearing the regime apart.
In a letter to Herzog, about 400 former officers, including ex-commissioners and deputy commissioners, said Netanyahu’s request contains “not even a hint of admission of guilt,” making it unacceptable.
They warned that “such a step without [Netanyahu’s] confession and remorse is liable to ignite severe violence in Israeli society.”.....more below
