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British politicians have accused the boss of Asda of pushing up prices, lowering wages and taking money out

The Belarus Red Cross has sparked international outrage after its chief told Belarusian state television that the organization is actively involved in bringing Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied areas to Belarus. Both Ukraine and the Belarusian opposition have decried the transfer as unlawful deportations, and there have been calls for international war crimes charges for the authoritarian Belarus leader, similar to the charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The actions of the Belarus Red Cross drew stern criticism from the International Federation of Red and Red Crescent Societies. Belarus has been Moscow’s closest ally since Russia's invasion started in February 2022, with its leader Alexander Lukashenko allowing the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops and weapons into Ukraine. Lukashenko has also welcomed a Russian military presence in Belarus and the deployment of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons there. Belarusian opposition figures have accused Lukashenko of facilitating the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus, allegations Minsk angrily rejected. A report aired Wednesday by the state Belarus 1 TV channel showed Dzmitry Shautsou, the head of the Belarus Red Cross, visiting the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region. In the footage, he says the organization was actively involved in bringing Ukrainian children to Belarus for “health improvement” purposes. “The Belarus Red Cross has taken — and is taking, and will be taking — an active part in it,” Shautsou said. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the International Criminal Court “to issue an arrest warrant" for Shautsou, saying that he "has publicly confessed to the crime of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine.” The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which brings together 191 national organizations, said it contacted the Belarus Red Cross to express its "grave concern” and to advise it to “stop any similar activity in the future.” Last month, Belarusian opposition activist Pavel Latushka said he has provided the ICC with material allegedly detailing the forced transfer of 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 Russia-occupied Ukrainian cities to Belarus with Lukashenko’s approval. In May, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office announced an investigation into the forced transfers. Belarusian authorities have confirmed hosting more than 1,000 children, aged 6-15, from Russian-held parts of Ukraine for health reasons. The first group of 350 children arrived in April, officials said, without providing further details. Shautsou from the Belarus Red Cross said he was working with a state-backed charity foundation to make “the children forget the horrors of the war and just rest, feel that there's an island of happiness.” The Belarus Red Cross is the biggest humanitarian organization in Belarus and is part of the international Red Cross movement. The Geneva-based umbrella organization — the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — said it had learned about Shautsou’s visit to Donbas through the media. it said it referred the issue to its compliance committee, which investigates any “alleged breaches of integrity.” “These actions risk damaging the trust of our work in supporting communities in need, whoever they are, and whichever side of the frontlines they are on,” the federation said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. It stressed that the Belarus Red Cross chief doesn’t speak on behalf of the federation “and his statements do not represent our views.” Latushka, who used to be a top official in Lukashenko's government, insists that taking Ukrainian children to Belarus is illegal and violates international norms. He has called on the ICC to launch a probe as some of those “children are under the guardianship of the Ukrainian state, including orphans, children with disabilities and those whose parents were stripped of parental rights.” “We have evidence that after being taken Belarus, some Ukrainian children ended up in Russia, which must become a subject of an international probe,” Latushka told the AP, speaking over the phone. In March, the ICC issued warrants for both Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the two were responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow has angrily rejected the move. European Parliament members on Tuesday called on the ICC “to consider a similar arrest warrant" for Lukashenkо. ___ Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Dreams spurred by $1B Powerball, $720M Mega Millions jackpots, but expert warns: Take it slow Officials to discuss use of police force in Fargo shooting that killed gunman who fired on officers Two planets sharing same orbit around their star? Astronomers find strongest evidence yet

Vladimir Putin will not attend a summit in South Africa next month – allowing the hosts to avoid a decision whether or not to arrest the Russian leader thanks to an international warrant over war crime allegations. As a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued the warrant, South Africa would be expected to detain Mr Putin once he sets foot in the country. Although it has refused to honour that obligation in the past, allowing safe passage to Sudan’s then-president Omar al-Bashir in 2015, who was facing allegations of war crimes against his own people. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova in March in relation to the forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia . The announcement that Mr Putin will stay away from the two-day summit in August comes a day after court documents showed South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa had sought permission from the ICC not to follow through with the arrest, saying it would amount to a “declaration of war”. South Africa’s largest opposition party, Democratic Alliance, had gone to court to try and compel authorities to carry out the arrest if Mr Putin arrived, but Mr Ramaphosa appeared dead set against the move. “South Africa has obvious problems with executing a request to arrest and surrender President Putin,” he said in an affidavit filed in late June but made public on Tuesday. “Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war. It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia.” On Wednesday, a statement from South Africa’s presidency said that by “mutual agreement” Russia would be represented by its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at the summit of Brics nations – Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa. The Russian state RIA news agency later said, citing the Kremlin, that Mr Putin will take part in the summit via video call. Speaking just before the announcement by South Africa, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, told reporters that everyone understood – without having it explained to them – what an attempt to infringe on Mr Putin’s rights would mean. But he said that Russia did not tell South Africa that an arrest would mean war. The Kremlin has called the warrant issued against Mr Putin outrageous and legally void, because the country is not a member of the organisation. “No, no such formulations were uttered, no one gave anyone to understand that,” Mr Peskov said. “It is clear to everyone in this world what an attempt to infringe on the rights of the head of the Russian State means. So there is no need to explain anything to anyone here.” South Africa has been trying to deal with the issue of the arrest for months. It sees Russia has an ally, but clearly does not want to inflame tensions with Western nations either. South Africa has consistently abstained from voting at the United Nations to condemn Russia’s aggression, calling instead for dialogue to end the war. Claiming neutrality, the country is also part of efforts by a group of at least six African nations who recently embarked on a peace mission to Kyiv and Moscow to meet with both Mr Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In his court submission, Mr Ramaphosa suggested such efforts might be jeopardised by an attempt to arrest Russia’s president. “An arrest of President Putin would introduce a new complication that would foreclose any peaceful solution,” he said. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

It was an extraordinarily public recruitment drive from an MI6 chief - an open invitation to senior officials in Russia’s security establishment to join those who have defected in disgust over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Sir Richard Moore wanted to send a direct message to officials and politicians in Moscow : “You know the address – come and talk to us… Our door is always open… Our loyalty to our agents is lifelong… our gratitude eternal… Their secrets will always be safe with us.” This was only the second public address by Sir Richard since he had taken over as ‘C’, and there was a reason why he chose Prague to raise this theme. It was crushing of the Prague Spring by Russian tanks 55 years ago which had led to a wave of Soviet officials crossing over to the West. There have been other defections since then. But security officers point out, these have been motivated, to a large extent, by other factors such as money, or general unhappiness, or clashes with colleagues. But the Ukraine war has seen a return to Russian officials agreeing to help Western services in numbers which one officer described as “ surprising but very, very welcome”. Sir Richard, speaking at the British embassy, said “Many Russians are wrestling with the same dilemmas and the same tugs of conscience as their predecessors did in 1968. “I invite them to do what others have already done this past 18 monthsand join hands with us. We will handle their offers of help with the discretion and professionalism for which our service is famed.” People in the Kremlin hierarchy have seen Putin’s position become progressively weak, Sir Richard wanted to point out. The fact that Yevgeny Prigozhin is still free and moving around despite marching on Moscow to carry out a coup was an astonishing example of this. “Just remember, in the morning of the coup Prigozhin was a traitor. By the evening he had been pardoned, two days later he was having tea with Putin”, said the head of MI6.” A security official added later: “And of course it was not tea with polonium which is something enemies of President Putin could have expected in the past, but now Putin is in no position to do that.” Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have claimed that they have received information from the Kremlin via Western intelligence services enabling them to carry out attacks inside Russia. Sir Richard would not be drawn on what role his or other British services may have played in this. He wanted to stress, however, that many in Moscow’s security apparatus shared Prigozhin’s scathing assessment of what had unfolded in Ukraine. “One architect of that onslaught, Yevgeny Prigozhin, demolished the whole charade in a single sentence when he said, and I quote Prigozhin’s own words. ‘The war was needed for Shoigu to receive a hero star….The oligarchic clan that rules Russia needed the war. The mentally ill scumbags decided: ‘it’s OK, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as cannon fodder. They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want.”’ The fact remains, however, that Putin’s Russia has global allies helping in Ukraine. Moore said “Some nations have reduced themselves to being accomplices of the aggressor. Iran’s decision to supply Russia with the suicide drones that mete out random destruction to Ukraine’s cities has provoked internal quarrels at the highest level of the regime in Tehran. And so it should, because that decision was unconscionable. Iran seeks cash by selling arms to Russia to enable them to kill Ukrainian civilians.” Wagner is no longer active in Ukraine, but its widespread and lucrative operations in Africa have continued. The regimes dealing with them in the continent will, in the long run, suffer, Sir Richard held. Russia is “hawking mercenaries around Africa”, and in nations suffering from civil war, poverty and collapsed infrastructure, Moscow is “offering a 21st Century version of a Faustian pact.” But the regimes which welcomed Wagner are at risk. “Now they’ve had to watch the very mercenaries who they are supposed to trust with their livesturning against their ultimate patron, Vladimir Putin, and bearing down on Moscow. If Russian mercenaries can betray Putin, who else might they betray?” Russia has sought ever closer ties with China as international sanctions have begun to bite. But that has come at a cost, China is emerging as the senior partner in the relationship. Sir Richard ended on his theme of redemption of Russians by rejecting Vladimir Putin and his war of aggression. “ They are watching in horror as their soldiers ravage a kindred country. They know in their hearts that Putin’s case for attacking a fellow Slavic nation is fraudulent, a miasma of lies and fantasy. The message to them is “ our door is always open.” Read More Russia-Ukraine war – live: Putin ‘clearly under pressure’ in wake of Wagner mutiny says UK spy chief Ireland will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes, vows Leo Varadkar South Africa says Putin will skip a summit next month because of his ICC arrest warrant The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

As he quit Parliament last month, Boris Johnson lashed out at what he called a “protracted political assassination.”

European natural gas prices fluctuated between gains and losses on Wednesday as traders weighed rising storage levels and

Europe’s heat is set to intensify as temperatures are forecast to peak at 47C (116.6F) on Wednesday in

By Stamos Prousalis and Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS (Reuters) -Wildfires burned for a third day west of the Greek capital Athens

Russia is pressing ahead with plans to introduce a digital ruble, joining a growing list of countries to

Grab Holdings Ltd.’s upstart digital bank started accepting larger deposits in Singapore, suggesting the city-state’s regulator has raised

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has expressed ambivalence toward Russia’s attack on Ukraine, said the

Rents paid by private tenants in the UK increased by 5.1% in the year to June — the