UK’s Starmer says things will get worse before they get better

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday to sanction the International Criminal Court for targeting the United States and its allies, such as Israel, a White House official said.
The order will place financial and visa sanctions on individuals and their family members who assist in ICC investigations of US citizens or US allies, said the official.
The move by Trump comes after US Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Netanyahu is currently visiting Washington.
The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible US sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month.
In December, the court’s president, judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the Court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence.”
This is the second time the court has faced US retaliation as a result of its work. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
The 125-member ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members.

PANAMA CITY: Panama President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday said the United States was spreading “lies and falsehoods” after the State Department claimed US government vessels would be able to pass the Panama Canal without paying a fee.
The fiery allegations are the latest point of tension between the two countries which have clashed over the canal since US President Donald Trump claimed the vital waterway had effectively been taken over by China and vowed “we’re taking it back.”
Speaking to journalists, Mulino expressed his “absolute rejection” of managing US-Panama ties “based on lies and falsehoods.”
The Panama Canal Authority issued a statement late on Wednesday denying the claim from the US State Department earlier in the day that Panama’s government had agreed to no longer charge crossing fees for US government vessels, in a move that would save the US millions of dollars a year.
Trump has accused the Central American country of charging excessive rates to use its trade passage, one of the busiest in the world.
“Why are they making an important institutional statement from the entity that governs the foreign policy of the United States, under the President of the United States, based on a falsehood?” Mulino asked on Thursday, calling the State Department’s claim “simply and plainly intolerable.”
Mulino said he had asked his ambassador in Washington to take “firm steps” to deny the Trump administration’s claim.