Category World News

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is slated to hear evidence against fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony two decades after his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) gained international infamy for atrocities in northern Uganda.

The Tuesday hearing, known as a “confirmation of charges”, is the Hague-based court’s first-ever held in absentia.

Kony faces 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection to the LRA’s campaign against the Ugandan government between 2002 and 2005, which prosecutors allege was rife with rape, torture, and abductions of children.

Kony has eluded law enforcement since the ICC first issued an indictment in 2005, making the hearing a litmus test for others in which arresting the suspect is considered a far-off prospect, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The hearing is expected to last three days and will allow prosecutors to outline their case in court, after which judges will decide whether to confirm the charges. Kony cannot be tried unless he is in ICC custody, however.

“Everything that happens at the ICC is precedent for the next case,” Michael Scharf, an international law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told The Associated Press news agency.

Kony was born in 1961 in northern Uganda’s village of Odek, where he was a Catholic altar boy and took up an interest in spirituality. He later claimed to be a spirit medium and used religious rituals – alongside violence and torture – to maintain control of followers.

The LRA’s attacks against the Ugandan government date back to the 1980s, but the group was not thrust into the international spotlight until 2012, when a #Kony2012 campaign went viral on social media.

By then, the LRA had been forced out of Uganda and was operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, where it continued its violent crusade. The LRA’s activities killed at least 100,000 people and displaced about 2.5 million in Africa, according to the United Nations, along with the kidnapping of children.

Survivors in Uganda plan to follow the ICC proceedings, including Everlyn Ayo, a 39-year-old whose school was first attacked by LRA fighters when she was five years old.

“The rebels raided the school, killed and cooked our teachers in big drums and we were forced to eat their remains,” Ayo told the AFP news agency. “Many times, on our return to the village, we would find blood-soaked bodies. Seeing all that blood as a child traumatised my eyes.”

The ICC has been under heavy pressure from Washington for its pursuit of cases surrounding Israel’s war on Gaza.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration had previously sanctioned the ICC in response to its investigation and subsequent arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

The United Nations has said it has been unable to reach 362 villages in Afghanistan in the wake of a deadly earthquake in its eastern Kunar province, which killed at least 2,200 people and flattened entire communities and their homes.

In a news briefing on Monday from Jalalabad, near the epicentre, Shannon O’Hara, who oversees the coordination of the UN’s humanitarian office in Afghanistan, said the earthquake had struck “some of the most remote, rural areas in the country”, making the delivery of humanitarian aid difficult.

O’Hara said an initial assessment only took account of 49 out of 411 affected villages in Afghanistan’s eastern regions, and found 5,230 homes destroyed and 672 damaged.

“Even before the earthquake, these villages were difficult to reach. Now, with the earthquake, it takes extraordinary effort to get there,” O’Hara added.

The magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Afghanistan at the end of August, killing at least 2,200 people, Taliban authorities said, with rescue operations ongoing to reach more affected villages.

The UN believes half a million people may have been affected by the earthquake, including 250,000 children.

Entire villages have been destroyed, and road conditions were made even more difficult due to aftershocks, O’Hara added. She said it took her team more than 6 hours to reach Jalalabad, the largest city near the area most affected by the earthquake.

Humanitarian teams often had to drive long distances to reach villages, including hours spent on foot, highlighting the logistical barriers to aid delivery.

In the mountains of southeast Afghanistan, whole villages have been reduced to piles of stone and mud.

More than a week after a devastating earthquake struck, residents are mourning their families and figuring out how they can survive, having lost everything.

“As we drove towards the epicentre, we saw families walking in the opposite direction – displaced, carrying what little they could. Many were still wearing the same clothes from the night of the earthquake,” O’Hara said. “Mothers and fathers were carrying their children, some with fresh bandages covering their injuries.”

The UN representative also warned that seasonal weather changes, including the possibility of heavy rain and snow in the coming months, could further complicate aid efforts. “Time is running out,” she said. “At the end of October, the winter season will begin, and snow will cut off access to these mountain valleys.

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto has replaced five ministers in a lightning cabinet reshuffle after deadly protests rocked the Southeast Asian nation of 285 million people in recent weeks.

The cabinet shake-up on Monday follows rising public dissatisfaction with Prabowo’s administration and parliament’s perceived insensitivity over economic hardships affecting everyday people, which led to mass protests breaking out at the end of August.

Five ministers lost their jobs, including Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who previously served as the executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and managing director of the World Bank, and Budi Gunawan, the coordinating minister for politics and security.

Prabowo chose economist Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, chairman of the Deposit Insurance Corporation, to replace Indrawati, who was one of Indonesia’s longest-serving finance ministers.

Indrawati’s replacement, Sadewa, 61, highlighted his experience at a news conference, noting he had provided fiscal expertise to the last two administrations.

The new finance minister said his focus is to speed economic growth by mapping out fiscal measures and ensuring that government spending is efficient without overhauling systems.

Prabowo also removed the ministers of cooperatives, youth and sport, and the minister for migrant workers protection.

Violent protests gripped the country last month after reports emerged that all 580 members of the House of Representatives received a monthly housing allowance of 50 million rupiah ($3,075), in addition to their salaries.

The housing allowance, introduced last year, was equal to nearly 10 times the minimum wage in Jakarta and even more for lower wages in rural areas.

The independent National Commission on Human Rights reported that 10 people died during the five-day protests and described an inhumane approach by security forces in handling the demonstrations.

Police have reported the protest death toll at seven.

Demonstrations also expanded following the death of 21-year-old motorcycle delivery driver Affan Kurniawan. He was reportedly completing a food delivery order when an armoured police car sped through a crowd of demonstrators and killed him.

With high rates of youth unemployment forcing many Indonesians to turn to precarious, low-paying work such as motorcycle taxi gig work, Kurniawan’s death prompted people to take to the streets.

The protests were swiftly met with police in riot gear, and water cannon and tear gas directed at activists, including on university campuses.

Prabowo told security forces to get tough on protests that showed signs of “treason and terrorism”.

But activists did not back down, targeting government buildings as well as the homes of several politicians during demonstrations, including ousted Finance Minister Indrawati’s home on August 31.

Calm has largely returned to the country after Prabowo revoked lawmakers’ perks and privileges last week, including the housing allowance, and suspended most of their overseas trips.