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Top envoys from the U.S. and China huddled in closed-door talks in Geneva on Tuesday to lay out their national approaches to the promise and perils of emerging artificial intelligence technology.

The talks, which Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreed to launch in last 2023, are meant to open up bilateral dialogue between the world’s two biggest economies — and increasingly, geopolitical rivals — on a fast-moving technology that already has consequences for trade, lifestyles, culture, politics, national security and defense and much more.

U.S. technology experts say the meeting — led on the American side by high-level White House and State Department officials — could offer a glimpse into Beijing’s thinking about AI amid a generally tight-lipped Chinese approach to the technology.

STATE DEPARTMENT WANTS CHINA, RUSSIA TO DECLARE THAT AI WON'T CONTROL NUCLEAR WEAPONS, ONLY HUMANS

Co-founder Jason Glassberg of Casaba Security in Redmond, Washington, an expert on new and emerging threats posed by AI, handicapped the meeting as a get-to-know-you that will likely yield few concrete results, but get the two sides talking.

"What’s most important right now is that both sides realize they each have a lot to lose if AI becomes weaponized or abused," Glassberg said in an e-mail. "All parties involved are equally at risk. Right now, one of the biggest areas of risk is with deepfakes, particularly for use in disinformation campaigns."

"This is just as big of a risk for the PRC as it is for the U.S. government," he added, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

It was not immediately clear why the meeting was taking place in Geneva, though the internationally-minded Swiss city bills itself as a hub of diplomacy and U.N. and international institutions.

The Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union — a U.N. agency currently headed by American Doreen Bodgan-Martin and previously run by China’s Houlin Zhao — is set to host its annual "AI for Good" conference in the city later this month.

The meeting is the first under an intergovernmental dialogue on AI agreed upon during a multi-faceted meeting between Xi and Biden in San Francisco six months ago.

The U.S. government has sought to set some guardrails around the technology while fostering its growth, seeking a possible boon for economic output and jobs.

Western experts have suggested that China’s government, meanwhile, has in part kept a lid on AI applications because of its real or potential applications for military and surveillance activities under the ruling Communist Party.

U.S. officials suggested they would lay out ways to mitigate possible risks from the technology by creating voluntary commitments with the sector’s leading companies and requiring safety tests of AI products.

Two men accused of plotting to gun down Jews in an Islamic State-inspired attack in northwest England were held without bail Tuesday after appearing in a London court.

Walid Saadaoui, 36, and Amar Hussein, 50, were accused of planning to use automatic weapons to kill Jews, police and military personnel, prosecutors said in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

The duo face charges of preparing terrorist acts between Dec. 13 and last Thursday.

WARSAW SYNAGOGUE ATTACKED AT NIGHT WITH 3 FIREBOMBS, NO INJURIES REPORTED

The charges come as incidents of antisemitism in the U.K. hit a record high last year — with a spike following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, according to Community Security Trust, an advocacy group for British Jews that works to eliminate antisemitism.

"This is one of a number of recent and ongoing cases that demonstrate why the Jewish community needs such extensive security measures," said Amanda Bomsztyk, northern regional director of the trust.

A third man, Bilel Saadaoui, 35, was accused of making arrangements for the expected death of his brother, co-defendant Walid Saadaoui.

He pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to disclose information about an act of terrorism.

Defense lawyer Angelo Saponiere said Bilel Saadaoui was a family man unaware of the alleged plot.

The three were arrested last week by Greater Manchester Police. They were held without bail and scheduled to appear May 24 for a hearing in the Central Criminal Court.

Israel for the first time has released its estimated civilian death toll in Gaza, saying that 16,000 have been killed in the war that began on Oct. 7 instead of the approximately 35,000 that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas' Ministry of Health is claiming. 

Israel government spokesperson Avi Hyman tells Fox News that for 221 days, his country has been "condemned globally because of a fake and fabricated civilian death toll created and disseminated by Hamas.  

"The United Nations has rubber-stamped these Hamas numbers and become a Hamas newswire to the world," he said. "In reality, Israel is setting the new gold standard for urban warfare with what appears to be the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratios in history." 

On Monday, Hyman, citing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a video that "we believe we have killed in excess of 14,000 terrorists and sadly around 16,000 civilians" inside the Gaza Strip. 

TURKEY’S ERDOGAN DEFENDS HAMAS, CLAIMS MORE THAN 1,000 MEMBERS ARE AT HIS COUNTRY’S HOSPITALS 

"We would expect everyone to now take these figures as a genuine estimate from a free democratic country that fights in strict accordance with the laws of armed conflict in one of the most challenging urban warfare scenarios in history," he added. "Let me make it clear, every civilian casualty is a tragedy. That would not have happened if Hamas hadn’t insisted on using their own people as human shields." 

Hyman also said the figures coming from Hamas "spits in the face of our brave heroes who have paid the ultimate price to fight this just and moral war." 

WHITE HOUSE WALKS DIPLOMATIC TIGHTROPE ON ISRAEL WITH CONTRADICTORY MESSAGING 

The Israeli Defense Forces’ own losses in the conflict have risen to 620, he said. 

Israel’s new estimates come after the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs revised its data pertaining to the number of women and children who have died in the war. 

However, the World Health Organization on Tuesday said there is "nothing wrong" with the numbers being provided by the Hamas-led Gaza Ministry of Health, according to Reuters. 

As Japan embarks on a major military build-up, it's struggling to fill its ranks with the women that its forces need, and its policymakers have pledged to recruit.

Following a wave of sexual harassment cases, the number of women applying to join the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) decreased by 12% in the year ending March 2023, after several years of steady growth. Some victims have said an entrenched culture of harassment could deter women from signing up.

But nine months after the defense ministry pledged to take drastic measures, it has no plans to take action on a key recommendation issued by an independent panel of experts - implementing a national system for reviewing anti-harassment training standards - according to two ministry officials responsible for training.

US AMBASSADOR PRAISES JAPAN'S MILITARY OVERHAUL, ALLOWING EXPORT OF PATRIOT MISSILES

The government-appointed panel had identified in a report published in August that the military's superficial harassment education - which made only limited mention of sexual harassment - and a lack of centralized oversight of such training were contributing factors to cultural problems within the institution.

The head of the panel, Makoto Tadaki, said some training sessions - one of which Reuters attended - were at odds with the gravity of the situation.

A servicewoman who is suing the government over an alleged sexual harassment incident also said in an interview that the education she received over the past 10 years was ineffective.

Calls to root out harassment and increase the number of servicewomen come as aging Japan faces rising threats from China, North Korea and Russia and navigates the burdensome legacy of its wartime past.

Women make up just 9% of military personnel in Japan, compared to 17% in the United States, Tokyo's key security ally.

JAPAN CALLS FOR HEIGHTENED SECURITY MEASURES AFTER DRONE VIDEO OF WARSHIP POSTED ON CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA

The SDF referred Reuters' questions to the defense ministry, which said in an emailed response that harassment "must never be allowed, as it destroys mutual trust between service members and undermines their strength."

The ministry said it had hosted harassment prevention lectures by external experts since 2023, made sessions more discussion-based and planned to invite specialists to review its training this year.

It did not respond to questions on whether it would implement the panel's recommendation to centralize oversight of training.

After ex-soldier Rina Gonoi went public with allegations of sexual assault in 2022, the defense ministry conducted a survey that year that uncovered more than 170 alleged sexual harassment incidents in the SDF.

Another alleged victim was an Okinawa-based servicewoman who accused a senior of making lewd remarks toward her in 2013. She was then publicly named in harassment training materials distributed to her colleagues in 2014, she told Reuters. The alleged perpetrator was not identified in the materials.

Reuters does not name alleged victims of sexual harassment. Her allegations were corroborated with documents in the lawsuit she filed last year, after she said she exhausted an internal complaints process.

The defense ministry offers an annual online module on general harassment. It also provides training materials to officers for in-person sessions, but doesn't offer training on delivering harassment education and doesn't track how or when the officers carry out harassment training, the two defense officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, justified the existing system as offering flexibility to commanders.

The six experts concluded in their review that existing training amounted to "generic, superficial statements" that were "not effective in helping people apply the training in the real world."

In April, Reuters attended a harassment prevention course delivered by an external instructor to over 100 mid-ranking military officers at a base on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Instructor Keiko Yoshimoto presented harassment as a communication issue and focused discussions on generational differences and how they played out in preferences for types of cars and flavors of crisps.

"Generational differences make it hard for people to communicate," she said, adding that people should understand the basics of communication before they could deal with specifics around sexual harassment.

Law professor Tadaki, who separately witnessed part of Yoshimoto's session, said it "did not feel like the sort of training you would expect against a backdrop of there being so many cases of harassment surfacing."

He added that it would likely take more time to increase oversight over the quality of training.

Two months after the panel issued its report, local media reported that a sailor had in 2022 been ordered against her will to meet a superior that she had accused of sexual harassment. She later quit the SDF.

Gonoi and the Okinawa-based servicewoman have criticized the system as inadequate.

"People would say 'everyone put up with that kind of behavior, it was normal back in our time,' – but these issues are being passed down to my generation because nothing was done to stop it," the servicewoman told Reuters in March.

She added that the harassment training she has since received was often poorly conducted and that more centralized oversight was needed: "Rather than trying to make a point about sexual harassment, (officers) pick materials that are easy to teach, something that will fit into the time they have."

The defense ministry officials said that training on sexual harassment largely takes place within a broader anti-harassment curriculum. At the two-hour training session attended by Reuters, about two minutes were dedicated to sexual harassment.

When Reuters asked about sexual harassment incidents during interviews with the officials, as well as two senior uniformed officers, they responded by speaking about general harassment.

The officials said it was challenging to give standardized training on harassment because service members in high-stress environments may give orders in a direct way that is unusual in other circumstances.

The two officers said there were concerns within the military that too much focus on harassment could create operational issues and one suggested it might lead to unfair complaints.

The defense ministry said in a statement that it does not tolerate abuse and that its training aims to ensure commanders do not "hesitate to give necessary guidance on the job because they are concerned about harassment."  

Tadaki, the professor, said Japan could learn from other militaries.

"The U.S., U.K., and France have a much clearer focus on preventing harassment from its root causes so its prevention program is structured around improving the internal climate and culture of its organization," he said.

More than 300 Syrian refugees headed back home to Syria in a convoy on Tuesday, leaving two remote northeastern towns in crisis-stricken Lebanon where anti-refugee sentiment has been surging in recent months.

Lebanese officials have long urged the international community to either resettle the refugees in other countries or help them return to Syria. Over the past months, leading Lebanese political parties have become increasingly vocal, demanding that Syrian refugees go back.

A country of about 6 million people, Lebanon hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands who are unregistered — the world’s highest refugee population per capita.

VIOLENCE IN SYRIA RISES, AID DRIES UP AS CIVIL WAR BEGINS 14TH YEAR

In the northeastern town of Arsal, Syrian refugees piled their belongings onto the back of trucks and cars on Tuesday as Lebanese security officers collected their U.N. refugee agency cards and other paperwork before clearing them to leave.

As the trucks pulled away, the refugees waved to friends and relatives staying behind, heading to an uncertain future in Syria.

Ahmad al-Rifai, on his way to the Qalamoun Mountains after over a decade in Lebanon, said that whatever the situation was in Syria, "it’s better to live in a house than in a tent."

Lebanese security forces this year stepped up deportations of Syrians, although nowhere near the level threatened two years ago when the Lebanese government announced a plan to deport some 15,000 Syrians every month, to what they dubbed " safe areas," in cooperation with the government in Damascus.

AIRSTRIKES IN SYRIA KILL AN IRANIAN ADVISER AND A MEMBER OF A WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION TEAM

Tuesday's convoy from the mountainous towns of Arsal and Qaa consisted of only 330 refugees who had signed up for repatriation, the first such "voluntary return" return organized by Lebanese security forces since late 2022.

"Nobody can not be happy to return to their home," Ahmad Durro told The Associated Press while waiting in his truck. "I signed up a year ago to be in the convoy."

But many other Syrians — especially young men facing compulsory military service or political opponents of the government of President Bashar Assad — say it's unsafe to return.

Others see no future in Syria, where in many parts the fighting may have died down but an economic crisis has pulled millions into poverty.

An increasing number of refugees in Lebanon have taken to the sea in an attempt to reach Europe.

The UNHCR has said it only supports voluntary returns of Syrians based on informed consent. Yet, major human rights organizations remain skeptical of the voluntary nature of these returns amid anti-refugee hostility in Lebanon.

"Syrian refugees are, targeted by both geo sources and host communities. They are subjected to violence, insults and other degrading treatment," Amnesty International’s deputy Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Aya Majzoub told the AP, also decrying curfews and other restrictions imposed on refugees by a handful of Lebanese municipalities.

"So our assessment is that in these conditions, it is very difficult for refugees to make free and informed decisions about returning to Syria."

Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have documented cases of refugees detained and tortured by Syrian security agencies upon their return.

The UNHCR says nine out of 10 Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in extreme poverty and need humanitarian aid to survive. That aid has declined amid donor fatigue and as international attention shifted to other crises.

Many increasingly impoverished Lebanese have accused Syrian refugees of benefitting from the aid while beating Lebanese to jobs by accepting lower pay. Lebanon’s ruling political parties and leadership claim that most Syrians living in the tiny Mediterranean country are economic migrants rather than refugees escaping the war at home, now in its 13th year. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, a top ally of Assad, has made such an allegation.

"They have dollars and they are sending those dollars to relatives in Syria," Nasrallah said in a speech on Monday.

Lebanese security agents have in the past weeks raided shops and other businesses employing undocumented Syrian workers, and shut them down.

The European Union this month announced an aid package worth about $1.06 billion of which about 200 million euros would go to security and border control, in an apparent bid to curb migration from Lebanon to Cyprus, Italy, and other parts of Europe.

While Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the aid, other officials described it as a bribe for tiny Lebanon to keep the refugees.

Parliament is to discuss the EU package on Wednesday, with lawmakers from the entire political spectrum expected to ramp up anti-refugee sentiment and call for more refugee returns and crackdowns.

A young Thai activist who went on a hunger strike after being jailed for advocating reform of the country’s system of monarchy died Tuesday in a prison hospital, officials said.

Netiporn Sanesangkhom, 28, was a member of the activist group Thaluwang, known for their bold and aggressive campaigns demanding reform of the monarchy and abolition of the law that makes it illegal to defame members of the royal family. The group’s name can be loosely translated to "breaking through the palace," a reference to its open criticism of Thailand’s monarchy.

She appears to be the first political activist in Thailand to have died after carrying on a hunger strike.

THAILAND'S PRIME MINISTER MOVES TO OUTLAW MARIJUANA 2 YEARS AFTER ITS DECRIMINALIZATION

The royal institution until recent years was widely considered an untouchable, bedrock element of Thai nationalism. Criticism of the monarchy was taboo, and insulting or defaming key royal family members remains punishable by up to 15 years in prison under a lese majeste law, usually referred to as Article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code.

Student-led pro-democracy protests beginning in 2020 openly criticized the monarchy, leading to vigorous prosecutions under the law, which had previously been relatively rarely employed. Critics say the law is often wielded as a tool to quash political dissent.

The protest movement faded due to government harassment and the coronavirus pandemic, but Netiporn was one of more than 270 activists charged with Thailand’s royal defamation law since the protests in 2020-21.

Netiporn suffered cardiac arrest early Tuesday morning, and medical teams spent several hours trying to resuscitate her. She was pronounced dead just before noon, according to a press release from the Corrections Department..

She had two charges of lese majeste pending against her, both of them involving conducting polls in public spaces in 2022 asking people’s opinion about the royal family, according to the group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. Her release on bail was revoked in January due to her participation in a political rally last year.

Netiporn started her hunger strike after she was detained in January. The Corrections Department said she started eating and drinking water again after April 4. However, the human rights lawyer group’s latest update on her condition on April 25 said she was still fasting.

Two fellow jailed activists are also carrying out hunger strikes. Both are Thaluwang’s monarchy reform activists slapped with lese majeste charges, and they started their hunger strike about a month after Netiporn.

Netiporn’s lawyers had applied to transfer her from the Central Corrections Hospital to Thammasat University Hospital but was never granted a prolonged stay there for treatment, said her lawyer Kritsadang Nutcharas.

"Does it seem like there’s standard treatment in the Thai justice system when we compare what these kids are going through with their political charges and what some prominent adults have gone through?" Kritsadang said. He was making an apparent reference to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who returned from exile last year to serve a prison term on corruption-related cases but never spent a single night in jail on grounds of ill health.

Thaluwang has made high-profile protests calling not only for reform of the monarchy, but also changes in the justice system and an end to political persecution through the courts. It has also called for rejection of Thailand’s application to join the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Thailand announced its bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2025-2027 term after the current government took office last year, seeking to show its commitment to protect human rights. Critics charge that the reality of law enforcement in the country strongly contradicts its ambition to be recognized by the international community as a human rights defender.

Human Rights Watch has raised concerns over "the Thai government’s use of arbitrary arrest and pretrial detention to punish critics of the monarchy for their views" which it says is a violation of their rights under international human rights law.

Two teachers met them with a smile at the steel door, and down the concrete staircase the mother and daughter clattered, hand in hand, through another blast door and into the bunker for the first day of school.

Hundreds of children began lessons this week in Ukraine's first purpose-built bunker school, 20 feet below the ground to protect them from Russian drone and missile attacks.

Kharkiv's primary school 155 is reached through a door in a small white concrete box on the pavement. At the bottom of the stairs classrooms branch off a corridor. There are are no windows, but the rooms are brightly lit and the hallways painted in white and lime green.

ONLY A FEW HUNDRED REMAIN IN VOVCHANSK AS RUSSIAN ADVANCE INTENSIFIES IN NORTHEAST UKRAINE

Ukraine's second-biggest city, located in the country's northeast near the Russian border, has been under relentless Russian attack since Moscow's invasion was halted at its ramparts 26 months ago. In recent weeks the fighting has grown closer and the airstrikes more constant as a Russian offensive in the surrounding countryside pushed Ukrainian troops back.

In these days of war, most children in Kharkiv do most of their learning at home on a computer. Masha, 9, and her brother Oleksii, 6, were giddy over the chance to go to a real class with a real live teacher, in person with other kids.

"My daughter, a third grader, could hardly wait to come, dress up for the occasion, meet her friends that she missed very much," said their mother, Marina Prikhodko. "For my son, a first grader, it's like a festive day, a chance to meet his classmates in real life, not online."

The latest upsurge in fighting? "Yes, it is scary," she said. "But whatever happens, life goes on and we have to try and live here and now, every day."

The new school has an initial enrollment of 300 pupils, but Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said that would expand to two daily shifts of 450 each.

"We need to make sure that both teachers and students get accustomed to the school and hopefully from Sept. 1 there will be full complement of students," he said.

At the school's opening on Monday, many pupils wore traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts, or "vyshyvanky", to celebrate. Children of all ages mingled in hallways and sat behind desks in spacious, windowless classrooms. Lunch was burgers and boxes of juice.

"It's like day and night," said headmaster Ihor Voznyi, comparing the new school with what pupils had to deal with before.

"Our schools do not have bomb shelters. There are basements, underground spaces which are totally unsuited to conduct any teaching. The spaces here are designed to provide quality, modern spaces."

A second senior Russian defense official was arrested on bribery charges, officials said Tuesday, days after President Vladimir Putin replaced the defense minister in a Cabinet shake-up that fueled expectations of more such purges.

Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, the 55-year-old chief of the Defense Ministry’s main personnel directorate, was arrested in a raid early Monday on his suburban Moscow villa, Russian media reported. He was detained on charges of bribery and jailed pending an investigation and trial, according to the Investigative Committee, Russia's top state criminal investigation agency.

Kuznetsov is accused of accepting an "exceptionally large bribe," a charge punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The committee alleged he received the bribe in his previous post as head of the military General Staff's directorate in charge of preserving state secrets, a position he held for 13 years.

PUTIN TO VISIT CHINA THIS WEEK TO MEET WITH XI, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS

In the raid, agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, broke down the doors and windows of his home while he was asleep, the reports said, seizing gold coins, luxury items and just over $1 million in cash.

His wife, who previously worked in several Defense Ministry structures, was also reportedly interrogated.

On Sunday, Putin reshuffled his Cabinet as he starts his fifth term in office, replacing Sergei Shoigu, who served as defense minister for 11 1/2 years, with Andrei Belousov, an economics expert and former deputy prime minister. Putin named Shoigu the secretary of Russia's Security Council, a role roughly similar to the U.S. national security adviser, replacing Nikolai Patrushev.

Patrushev, a hawkish and powerful member of Putin’s inner circle who held the job for 16 years, was appointed a presidential aide. Alexei Dyumin, the governor of the Tula region and often mentioned as a potential Putin successor, also was named a presidential aide.

ONLY A FEW HUNDRED REMAIN IN VOVCHANSK AS RUSSIAN ADVANCE INTENSIFIES IN NORTHEAST UKRAINE

Patrushev will oversee Russian shipbuilding industries in his new job, but may later also deal with other duties, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.

He rejected notions that Shoigu's reshuffle represented a demotion, describing his new role as a "very senior job with broad responsibilities."

While Shoigu, who had personal ties with Putin and accompanied him on vacations in the Siberian mountains over the years, was given a new senior position, the future of his close entourage in the Defense Ministry appeared in doubt under Belousov.

Shoigu’s deputy, Timur Ivanov, was arrested last month on bribery charges and was ordered to remain in custody pending an official investigation. His arrest was widely interpreted as an attack on Shoigu and a possible precursor to his dismissal.

The shake-up appeared to be an attempt to put the defense sector in sync with the rest of the economy and tighten control over soaring military spending amid allegations of rampant corruption in the top military brass.

Speaking Tuesday at the upper house of parliament, Belousov said Putin has given him the task to more closely integrate the defense sector into the national economy.

"It's not an easy task, it’s comprehensive and primarily implies optimization of military spending," he said. "First and foremost, optimization means increasing efficiency."

He credited Shoigu with overseeing the modernization of the military but emphasized the importance of attaining Russia's goals in Ukraine with minimal casualties.

Belousov also cited the need to increase supplies of modern artillery and missile systems, drones and electronic warfare assets. He said the military would continue bolstering its ranks with volunteers, noting there is no need for another round of mobilization.

A partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists that Putin ordered in fall 2022 amid the military setbacks was widely unpopular, prompting hundreds of thousands to flee abroad to avoid being drafted.

In an apparent jab at Shoigu and his entourage who were widely criticized by pro-Kremlin military bloggers of hiding setbacks in Ukraine from Putin, Belousov said he would proceed from the "ironclad principle: it's possible to make mistakes but it's inadmissible to lie."

Shoigu has been widely seen as a key figure behind Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022, and many Russian hawks criticized him for overstating Russian military capabilities.

He and the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, had faced strong criticism from Russian hawks for military setbacks, including the failure to capture Kyiv early in the war and a Russian retreat from northeastern and southern Ukraine later that year.

The shake-up came as Russian troops pressed new offensives, trying to take advantage of a slowdown in Western aid to Ukraine in what many observers see as a decisive moment in the war.

The Kremlin sought to ease widespread bewilderment over choosing an economics expert with no military record as defense minister by emphasizing that Gerasimov, who directs the fighting in Ukraine, has kept his post.

Peskov also dismissed the allegations that the shake-up and the arrests of senior Defense Ministry officials could disorganize the military and affect events in Ukraine.

European Union nations endorsed sweeping reforms to the bloc’s failed asylum system on Tuesday as campaigning for Europe-wide elections next month gathers pace, with migration expected to be an important issue.

EU government ministers approved 10 legislative parts of The New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It lays out rules for the 27 member countries to handle people trying to enter without authorization, from how to screen them to establish whether they qualify for protection to deporting them if they’re not allowed to stay.

Hungary and Poland, which have long opposed any obligation for countries to host migrants or pay for their upkeep, voted against the package but were unable to block it.

EU ANNOUNCES 1 BILLION EUROS IN AID FOR LEBANON AMID A SURGE IN IRREGULAR MIGRATION

Mainstream political parties believe the pact resolves the issues that have divided member nations since well over 1 million migrants swept into Europe in 2015, most fleeing war in Syria and Iraq. They hope the system will starve the far right of vote-winning oxygen in the June 6-9 elections.

However, the vast reform package will only enter force in 2026, bringing no immediate fix to an issue that has fueled one of the EU’s biggest political crises, dividing nations over who should take responsibility for migrants when they arrive and whether other countries should be obligated to help.

Critics say the pact will let nations detain migrants at borders and fingerprint children. They say it’s aimed at keeping people out and infringes on their right to claim asylum. Many fear it will result in more unscrupulous deals with poorer countries that people leave or cross to get to Europe.

Europe’s asylum laws have not been updated for about two decades. The system frayed and then fell apart in 2015. It was based on the premise that migrants should be processed, given asylum or deported in the country they first enter. Greece, Italy and Malta were left to shoulder most of the financial burden and deal with public discontent. Since then, the ID-check-free zone known as the Schengen Area has expanded to 27 countries, 23 of them EU members. It means that more than 400 million Europeans and visitors, including refugees, are able to move without showing travel documents.

Some 3.5 million migrants arrived legally in Europe in 2023. Around 1 million others were on EU territory without permission. Of the latter, most were people who entered normally via airports and ports with visas but didn’t go home when they expired. The pact applies to the remaining minority, estimated at around 300,000 migrants last year. They are people caught crossing an external EU border without permission, such as those reaching the shores of Greece, Italy or Spain via the Mediterranean Sea or Atlantic Ocean on boats provided by smugglers.

The country on whose territory people land will screen them at or near the border. This involves identity and other checks -– including on children as young as 6. The information will be stored on a massive new database, Eurodac. This screening should determine whether a person might pose a health or security risk and their chances of being permitted to stay. Generally, people fleeing conflict, persecution or violence qualify for asylum. Those looking for jobs are likely to be refused entry. Screening is mandatory and should take no longer than seven days. It should lead to one of two things: an application for international protection, like asylum, or deportation to their home country.

People seeking asylum must apply in the EU nation they first enter and stay until the authorities there work out what country should handle their application. It could be that they have family, cultural or other links somewhere else, making it more logical for them to be moved. The border procedure should be done in 12 weeks, including time for one legal appeal if their application is rejected. It could be extended by eight weeks in times of mass movements of people. Procedures could be faster for applicants from countries whose citizens are not often granted asylum. Critics say this undermines asylum law because applicants should be assessed individually, not based on nationality. People would stay in "reception centers" while it happens, with access to health care and education. Those rejected would receive a deportation order.

To speed things up, a deportation order is supposed to be issued automatically when an asylum request is refused. A new 12-week period is foreseen to complete this process. The authorities may detain people throughout. The EU’s border and coast guard agency would help organize joint deportation flights. Currently, less than one in three people issued with an order to leave are deported. This is often due to a lack of cooperation from the countries these people come from.

The new rules oblige countries to help an EU partner under migratory pressure. Support is mandatory, but flexible. Nations can relocate asylum applicants to their territory or choose some other form of assistance. This could be financial -– a relocation is evaluated at $21,462 per person -– technical or logistical. Members can also assume responsibility for deporting people from the partner country in trouble.

Two issues stand out: Will member countries ever fully enact the plan, and will the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, enforce the new rules when it has chosen not to apply the ones already in place? The commission is due to present a Common Implementation Plan by June. It charts a path and timeline to get the pact working over the next two years, with targets that the EU and member countries should reach. Things could get off to a rocky start. Hungary, which has vehemently opposed the reforms, takes over the EU’s agenda-setting presidency for six months on July 1.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly defended Hamas on Monday, claiming that more than 1,000 members of the terrorist group from Gaza are being treated at hospitals in his NATO nation. 

At a joint press conference in Ankara, Turkey, Erdogan took issue with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis having categorized Hamas as a "terrorist organization." 

"If you call Hamas a 'terrorist organization,' this would sadden us," Erdogan said, according to Reuters. 

"We don't deem Hamas a terrorist organization," he reportedly said. "More than 1,000 members of Hamas are under treatment in hospitals across our country." 

The press conference followed a two-hour face-to-face summit with the Greek prime minister. 

TURKEY AND GREECE LEADERS TO MEET, PUT FRIENDSHIP INITIATIVE TO THE TEST AMID GAZA AND UKRAINE WARS

"I do not see Hamas as a terror group," Erdogan said at the press conference, according to The Associated Press. "I see it as a group of people trying to protect their own land."

Greece, like most Western states, considers Hamas a terrorist organization, but Erdogan repeated his reference to the group as a "resistance organization." The leaders were meeting for the fourth time in the past year in a bid to strengthen a normalization process.

A Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity later told Reuters that Erdogan meant to refer to Palestinians from Hamas-controlled Gaza, not members of Hamas. 

"President Erdogan misspoke, he meant 1,000 Gazans are under treatment, not Hamas members," the official reportedly said. 

TURKEY CARRIES OUT NEW AIRSTRIKES IN NORTHERN IRAQ, KILLING 16 KURDISH MILITANTS

In November, the Turkish government said it planned to evacuate some wounded or sick Gazans, mostly cancer patients, as well as Turkish nationals, Turkish Cypriots and their relatives. 

Turkey and Greece, which are NATO members, have been at odds for decades over a series of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and drilling rights in the Mediterranean, and have come to the brink of war three times in the last half-century. A dispute over energy exploration rights in 2020 led to the two countries’ warships facing off in the Mediterranean.

They agreed last December to put their disputes aside and focus on areas where they can find consensus. The list of items on the so-called positive agenda includes trade, energy, education and cultural ties. Since that summit in Athens, the regional rivals have maintained regular high-level contacts to promote fence-mending initiatives, such as allowing Turkish citizens to visit 10 Greek islands without cumbersome visa procedures.

Stressing the ties between the two countries, Mitsotakis said the deal allowed Turks and Greeks to "get to know each other, which is an important step." Similarly, Erdogan referred to the Turkish-Muslim minority in Greece's Thrace region as a "friendship bridge between the two communities."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, in the latest show of unity between the two authoritarian allies against the U.S.-led Western liberal global order.

Putin will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit starting on Thurday, the ministry said, saying the two leaders would discuss "cooperation in various fields of bilateral relations ... as well as international and regional issues of common concern." No details were mentioned.

The Kremlin in a statement confirmed the trip and said Putin was going on Xi’s invitation. It said that this will be Putin’s first foreign trip since he was sworn in as president and began his fifth term in office.

PUTIN SECURES 5TH TERM AS RUSSIAN PRESIDENT IN ELECTION WITH NO REAL OPPOSITION, ADDRESSES NAVALNY DEATH

China has backed Russia politically in the conflict in Ukraine and has continued to export machine tools, electronics and other items seen as contributing to the Russian war effort, without actually exporting weaponry.

China is also a major export market for energy supplies that keep the Kremlin’s coffers full.

China has sought to project itself as a neutral party in the conflict, but has declared a "no limits" relationship with Russia in opposition to the West. The sides have also held a series of joint military drills and China has consistently opposed economic sanctions against Russia in response to its now two-year-old campaign of conquest against Ukraine.

The two continent-sized authoritarian states are increasingly in dispute with democracies and NATO while seeking to gain influence in Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Putin's visit comes just days ahead of Monday's inauguration of William Lai Ching-te as the next president of Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China claims as its own territory and threatens to annex by force if necessary.

Xi returned last week from a five-day visit to Europe, including stops in Hungary and Serbia, countries viewed as close to Russia. The trip, Xi's first to the continent in five years, was seen as an attempt to increase China's influence and drive a wedge between the EU and NATO on one side, and a yet-to-be-defined bloc of authoritarian nations on the other underpinned by Chinese economic influence that has been wavering amid a housing crisis and dramatically slower domestic economic growth.

Austrian judges have ruled that a man who kept his daughter captive for 24 years, raped her thousands of times and fathered seven children with her, can be moved from psychiatric detention to a regular prison, a court said Tuesday.

The decision on Monday was the latest in a legal back-and-forth on Josef Fritzl's future.

The state court in the town of Krems said in a statement that the 89-year-old can be moved as he no longer poses the kind of danger that requires keeping him in psychiatric detention. The decision was based on an April 30 hearing with Fritzl, as well as reports by forensic and psychiatric experts.

JOSEF FRITZL, WHO RAPED DAUGHTER AND KEPT HER CAPTIVE FOR 24 YEARS, COULD MOVE TO REGULAR PRISON

Because of Fritzl's advancing dementia and physical decline, psychiatric detention is no longer necessary for his "combined personality disorder" as there is no longer a danger of Fritzl committing serious crimes, the court said.

The court said Fritzl can be moved to the prison for a 10-year trial period but that he cannot be released from detention altogether.

Prosecutors appealed an earlier decision in January that Fritzl could be moved to a regular prison, and both sides also are entitled to appeal the latest decision.

His crime came to light in 2008 and he was sentenced in 2009 to life imprisonment for committing incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment and enslavement of his daughter, and negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.

Fritzl became known as the "Monster of Amstetten" after the northern Austrian town where he locked up his then-18-year-old daughter in a sound-proofed basement of his house in 1984.

Over the next 24 years, he repeatedly raped her and fathered seven children with her, one of whom died.

The mother of a U.S. Army soldier who has been detained in Russia after visiting a girlfriend tells Fox News Digital that if she could write a letter to her son, she would say "I love you, I miss you, [and] I hope you get to come home soon." 

Melody Jones is speaking out as it is approaching two weeks since Staff Sgt. Gordon Black was taken into custody by Russian authorities in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. Black, 34, has been charged with criminal misconduct and is accused of stealing from his girlfriend. 

"I think he worries about shaming us, and I would tell him in a letter, no you haven’t," Jones told Fox News Digital. 

She added that this past Mother’s Day without him was "really hard" and that she isn’t aware of his current condition. 

MOTHER OF DETAINED US SOLDIER SAYS RUSSIAN GIRLFRIEND BEGGED FOR MONEY BEFORE HIS ARREST 

"We don’t hear anything, it’s bugging me," Jones said. "What I understand, they have not been able to see him." 

"It would be nice to know that he is OK. You worry about those things, being a momma," she also said. 

A U.S. Army spokesperson, when asked by Fox News Digital this week for further information on Black’s situation, said "there are no new updates at this time." 

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson said last week that it is aware of Black’s reported arrest and detention and that the department has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans abroad. 

Black enlisted in the Army as an infantryman in 2008 and has been assigned to the Eighth Army U.S. Forces Korea at Camp Humphreys in South Korea. He traveled to Vladivostok, Russia, "for personal reasons" prior to his arrest on May 2, the Pentagon says.  

MOTHER OF AMERICAN SOLDIER DETAINED IN RUSSIA WHILE VISITING GIRLFRIEND BELIEVES HE WAS ‘SET UP’ 

The Pervomaisky District Court of Vladivostok said "When choosing the preventive measure in the form of detention, the court came to the conclusion that US citizen B. (Black) -- under the weight of the charges -- could hide from the preliminary investigation authorities and the court to avoid responsibility," according to Reuters.  

It reportedly added that Black will be detained until July 2 for "secretly stealing the property of citizen T., causing the latter significant damage." Russian officials in Vladivostok said a 32-year-old woman had filed a complaint against Black. 

Reuters cited the officials as saying that the pair met in South Korea before Black came to visit her in Russia, during which they became involved in an argument. She then reportedly filed a police report accusing him of stealing money and Black was taken into custody at a hotel. 

"On April 10, Black out-processed from Eighth Army and signed out on permanent change of station, to leave en route to Texas," Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said last Tuesday. "However, instead of returning to the U.S., Black flew from Korea through China, and then to Vladivostok, Russia, for personal reasons."  

The Army has opened an administrative investigation to determine the facts and circumstances around his travel, Singh noted, and part of the investigation will involve looking into consequences for his actions. 

Jones previously told Fox News that her son's Russian girlfriend asked her for money shortly before her son was arrested on theft charges. 

Fox News’ Bailee Hill, Louis Casiano, Greg Wehner and Pilar Arias contributed to this report. 

Rescuers on Tuesday searched in rivers and the rubble of devastated villages for bodies, and whenever possible survivors, of flash floods that hit Indonesia’s Sumatra Island over the weekend.

Monsoon rains and a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi caused rivers to breach their banks. The deluge tore through mountainside villages in four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight Saturday.

The floods swept away people and 79 homes and submerged hundreds of houses and buildings, forcing more than 3,300 residents to flee to temporary government shelters, National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.

INDONESIA'S MOUNT IBU VOLCANO ERUPTS, AUTHORITIES PREPARE TO EVACUATE THOUSANDS

The National Search and Rescue Agency said in a statement that 52 bodies had been pulled from mud and rivers by Tuesday, mostly in the worst-hit Agam and Tanah Datar districts, while rescuers are searching for 20 people who are reportedly missing.

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said that more downpours were forecast for the West Sumatra province in the coming days, and that the danger of extreme rainfall would continue until next week. The agency recommended the application of weather modification to reduce rain.

National Disaster Management Agency chief Suharyanto said that authorities would start seeding clouds in the province in a bid to prevent further rainfall and flash floods.

"We are deploying weather modification technology starting tomorrow so that rain does not fall during this emergency response period," Suharyanto, who goes by a single name like many Indonesians, told reporters while visiting devastated areas in Agam district. He added that the emergency response will be ended on May 25.

Television reports showed rescue personnel using jackhammers, circular saws, farm tools and sometimes their bare hands, digging desperately in Agam district where roads were transformed into murky brown rivers and villages covered by thick mud, rocks, and uprooted trees.

Scores of rescue personnel were searching through a river around the Anai Valley Waterfall area in Tanah Datar district where tons of mud, rocks and trees were left from flash floods.

Rescuers were focused on finding four people from a group of seven that were swept away with their cars. Three other bodies were pulled out on Monday, said Abdul Malik, who heads the Search and Rescue Office in Padang, the provincial capital.

"With many missing and some remote areas still unreachable, the death toll was likely to rise," Malik said.

Heavy rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near floodplains.

The weekend disaster came just two months after heavy rains triggered flash floods and a landslide in West Sumatra, killing at least 26 people and leaving 11 others missing.

A surprise eruption of Mount Marapi late last year killed 23 climbers. The mountain’s sudden eruptions are difficult to predict because the source is shallow and near the peak, according to Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

Marapi has been active since an eruption in January 2024 that caused no casualties. It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The country is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Two miners were killed and one remains missing after a cave-in at the Myslowice-Wesola coal mine in southern Poland early Tuesday in which 12 other miners were hurt, mining authorities said Tuesday.

The cave-in happened around 3:30 a.m. some 2,800 feet underground in an area where 15 miners were working, said Rajmund Horst, the deputy head of the company that runs the mine.

He said two of the miners located by rescuers and brought to the surface were declared dead, while one was being taken to the hospital. Eleven other miners were earlier brought to the surface with various injuries. Nine of them remain hospitalized.

KENTUCKY HOUSE VOTES TO DECREASE EMERGENCY SAFETY MEASURES IN SMALL COAL MINES

Rescuers were still searching for one missing miner but had no contact with him. Six teams of rescuers were working in the area.

The accident happened near the coal face, an area especially exposed to cave-ins or explosions of methane gas, which is present in the rock in many Polish coal mines.

It is the second cave-in at the Myslowice-Wesola mine this year, following one on April 17 that killed one miner. Two other coal mine workers were killed in accidents inside other mines in Poland this year, while in 2023, 15 miners were killed in on-the job accidents.

An unknown number of orcas rammed a sailing yacht in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar on Sunday morning, causing it to later sink, the latest attack in a trend that has been terrifying sailors in the region for the past four years. 

The latest incident took place at around 9 a.m. when crew members aboard the 50-foot-long Alboran Cognac called rescue services for help, saying that their ship had been damaged by the apex predators about 14 miles from Cape Spartel, local outlet El Pais reports, citing Spain's maritime rescue service. Cape Spartel is located at the southern entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar.

A helicopter was mobilized and the oil tanker MT Lascaux which was sailing nearby was also asked to provide assistance.

KILLER WHALES MAY BE ATTACKING BOATS AS REVENGE FOR INJURED MATRIARCH: SCIENTISTS

The tanker eventually rescued the two people onboard and transported them to Gibraltar. The yacht was left adrift and eventually sank.

The incident is the latest example of recurring orca rammings around the Gibraltar Strait that separates Europe from Africa and off the Atlantic coast of Portugal and northwestern Spain.

Experts believe them to involve a subpopulation of about 15 individuals given the designation "Gladis."

According to the research group An Atlantic Orca Task Force (GTOA), which tracks populations of the Iberian orca subspecies, there have been nearly 700 interactions since orca attacks on ships in the region were first reported in May 2020.

VIDEO SHOWS KILLER WHALE NEAR SPAIN BITING RUDDERS OFF BOAT

It is unclear why the orcas are targeting boats but some experts believe they may be acts of revenge.

Marine biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez told Live Science previously that the lead whale, a female orca scientists have called White Gladis, suffered a "critical moment of agony," likely a collision with a boat or entanglement with a fishing line, that turned her more aggressive. 

Other theories include it being a playful manifestation of the mammals' curiosity, a social fad or the intentional targeting of what they perceive as competitors for their favorite prey, the local bluefin tuna.

All but a handful resulted in only minor injuries or damage. However, the attacks have grown more frequent and a few have led to boats sinking.

For instance, in August last year, Phep Philouceros, 77, was sailing off the coast of Cape Vincent in Portugal, when his boat was attacked by orcas. The sailor, who has 55 years of experience, said the orcas continued for 30 minutes — even following the boat as it was towed to shore. He caught part of the attack on video. 

Fox News’ Peter Aitken and Reuters contributed to this report. 

Authorities in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia announced a two-day curfew and banned gatherings on Tuesday after violent unrest erupted in the capital of Noumea and other areas.

In Paris, the French Interior Ministry announced that police reinforcements were being sent to island.

The territory’s top French official, High Commissioner Louis Le Franc, said 46 security forces had been injured in the unrest and 48 people had been arrested. No serious civilian injuries were reported, he said in a statement.

MAGNITUDE 7.5 QUAKE STRIKES IN PACIFIC NEAR NEW CALEDONIA

Le Franc said Noumea was wracked by "high intensity" disturbances overnight Monday to Tuesday that damaged numerous stores and video surveillance equipment. Schools were closed on Tuesday, and most business and shops, some damaged in the unrest, remained shut.

French media reported that the unrest started with protests against voting reforms that French lawmakers are debating in Paris which would increase the number of people who could cast ballots in New Caledonia.

New Caledonia, colonized by Napoleon’s nephew in the 19th century, is a vast archipelago of about 270,000 people east of Australia that is 10 time zones ahead of Paris and hosts a French military base.

Tensions in the archipelago between native Kanaks seeking independence and descendants of European colonizers who want to remain part of France have been simmering for decades.

NEW CALEDONIA IN PACIFIC TO VOTE ON INDEPENDENCE FROM FRANCE

Le Franc said in an interview with French broadcaster BFM that clashes between police forces and pro-independence protesters and opponents of the constitutional reform occurred overnight in Mont-Dore, a town in the southeast near Nouméa. Shots were fired at gendarmes "from high caliber weapons and hunting rifles," he said.

Hundreds of cars were set on fire and dozens of businesses and homes could be seen in flames on videos posted on social media.

"The situation remains extremely tense," Le Franc said. He said internal security troops and civil security forces have been mobilized to intervene.

Gatherings on public roads and in public places have been prohibited in the municipalities of Nouméa, Dumbéa, Mont-Dore and Païta, and all travel on public roads and in public places there was banned from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday morning, except for health and public emergencies.

Le Franc called for calm and "strict compliance with the measures taken to ensure the safety of the population."

The archipelago’s population incudes native Kanaks, who once suffered from strict segregation policies and widespread discrimination, and descendants of European colonizers.

A peace deal between rival factions was reached in 1988. A decade later, France promised in the Noumea Agreement to grant New Caledonia political power and broad autonomy and hold up to three successive referendums.

The three referendums were organized between 2018 to 2021 and a majority of voters chose to remain part of France instead of backing independence.

New Caledonia became French in 1853 under Emperor Napoleon III — Napoleon’s nephew and heir — and was used for decades as a prison colony. It became an overseas territory after World War II, with French citizenship granted to all Kanaks in 1957.

An Australian judge sentenced a former army lawyer to almost six years in prison on Tuesday for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

David McBride, 60, was sentenced in a court in the capital, Canberra, to five years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges including theft and sharing with members of the press documents classified as secret. He had faced a potential life sentence.

Justice David Mossop ordered McBride to serve 27 months in prison before he can be considered for release on parole.

JUDGE RULES AUSTRALIA'S MOST DECORATED WAR VETERAN UNLAWFULLY KILLED POWS, COMMITTED WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

Rights advocates argue that McBride's conviction and sentencing before any alleged war criminal he helped expose reflected a lack of whistleblower protections in Australia.

McBride addressed his supporters as he walked his dog to the front door of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court to be sentenced.

"I’ve never been so proud to be an Australian as today. I may have broken the law, but I did not break my oath to the people of Australia and the soldiers that keep us safe," McBride told the cheering crowd.

A lawyer for McBride, Mark Davis, said that his legal team would appeal a ruling that prevented McBride from mounting a defense. Mossop ruled in November last year that McBride had no duty as an army officer beyond following orders.

"We know that the Australian military teach a much broader notion of what the duty of an officer is in a battle field than to follow orders," Davis said.

AUSTRALIA'S MOST DECORATED WAR VETERAN APPEALS COURT RULING THAT BLAMED HIM FOR UNLAWFUL KILLING OF AFGHANS

Davis said the severity of the sentence also created grounds for appeal, but their effort would focus on the earlier ruling.

McBride’s documents formed the basis of an Australian Broadcasting Corp. seven-part television series in 2017 that contained war crime allegations including Australian Special Air Service Regiment soldiers killing unarmed Afghan men and children in 2013.

Police raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in 2019 in search of evidence of a leak, but decided against charging the two reporters responsible for the investigation.

In sentencing, Mossop said he did not accept McBride’s explanation that he thought a court would vindicate him for acting in the public interest.

McBride’s argument that his suspicions that the higher echelons of the Australian Defense Force were engaged in criminal activity obliged him to disclose classified papers "didn’t reflect reality," Mossop said.

An Australian military report released in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation.

Police are working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigation agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

Former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz last year became the first of these veterans to be charged with a war crime. He is accused of shooting dead a noncombatant man in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012

Also last year, a civil court found Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith had likely unlawfully killed four Afghans. He has not been criminally charged.

Human Rights Watch’s Australia director Daniela Gavshon said McBride’s sentencing was evidence an Australia’s whistleblowing laws needed exemptions in the public interest.

"It is a stain on Australia’s reputation that some of its soldiers have been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan, and yet the first person convicted in relation to these crimes is a whistleblower not the abusers," Gavshon said in a statement.

"David McBride’s jail sentence reinforces that whistleblowers are not protected by Australian law. It will create a chilling effect on those taking risks to push for transparency and accountability – cornerstones of democracy," she added.

Some lawmakers from minor parties and independents raised McBride's sentencing in Parliament on Tuesday.

Greens lawmaker Elizabeth Watson-Brown told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that McBride had been imprisoned for the "crime of telling the truth about war crimes."

"Why won’t your government admit that our whistleblower laws are broken and commit to urgent reform to keep whistleblowers like Mr. McBride out of jail?" Watson-Brown asked the prime minister.

Albanese declined to answer, saying it might prejudice McBride's appeal.

"I’m not going to say anything here that interferes with a matter that is quite clearly going to continue to be before the courts," Albanese told Parliament.

Andrew Wilkie, a former government intelligence analyst whistleblower who’s now an independent lawmaker, said Australian governments "hate whistleblowers."

"The government wanted to punish David McBride and to send a signal to other insiders to stay on the inside and to stay silent," Wilkie said.

Wilkie quit his intelligence job in Australia's Office of National Assessments days before Australian troops joined U.S. and British forces in the 2003 Iraq invasion. He publicly argued that Iraq didn’t pose enough of a threat to warrant invasion and that there was no evidence linking Iraq’s government to al-Qaida.

Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday began the third and final reading of a divisive bill that sparked weeks of mass protests, with critics seeing it as a threat to democratic freedoms and the country’s aspirations to join the European Union.

The bill would require media and nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofits to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

A large crowd of demonstrators gathered on Tuesday morning in front of the parliament, amid a heavy presence of riot police, to protest the bill once again, as lawmakers were discussing it in the lead-up to a vote. Over the weekend, thousands poured into the streets of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, and many stayed in front of the parliament until Monday morning.

GEORGIANS PROTEST PROPOSED LAW RESTRICTING 'FOREIGN INFLUENCE' IN MEDIA AS PARLIAMENT APPROVES FINAL VOTE

The opposition denounces the bill as "the Russian law," because Moscow uses similar legislation to crack down on independent news media, nonprofits and activists critical of the Kremlin.

The bill is nearly identical to one that the governing Georgian Dream party was pressured to withdraw last year after street protests. Renewed demonstrations have rocked Georgia for weeks, with demonstrators scuffling with police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds.

The government says the bill is necessary to stem what it deems as harmful foreign influence over the country’s politics and to prevent unspecified foreign actors from trying to destabilize it.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with the governing party, has vowed to veto the law, but Georgian Dream has a majority sufficient to override a presidential veto.

The legislature approved a second reading of the bill earlier this month, after protests that drew tens of thousands of people.

European Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday spoke of Georgia in Copenhagen at a conference on democracy, and said that "if they want to join the EU, they have to respect the fundamental principles of the rule of law and the democratic principles."

Hong Kong's leader on Tuesday urged foreign governments to respect its overseas-based trade offices after a staff member in its London branch was charged in Britain for allegedly working for the Chinese city's intelligence service.

Chief Executive John Lee said his administration had demanded the British government provide an explanation about the prosecution of Bill Yuen, the office manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London. Lee said any attempt to make unwarranted allegations against the city’s government is unacceptable.

British police allege that Yuen, along with Chi Leung (Peter) Wai and Matthew Trickett, agreed to engage in information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception that were likely to materially assist the Hong Kong intelligence service. The trio was charged under a new national security act that gave British police additional powers to tackle foreign espionage.

3 MEN CHARGED IN UK FOR ALLEGEDLY COLLABORATING WITH HONG KONG INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

In his weekly news briefing, Lee said the duties of the trade office in London are to foster ties with various sectors in Britain and promote Hong Kong.

"Any attempt to interfere with the work of the ETO offices in different places will be against free trade and free economy and will harm the economy of the countries that try to do bad things to the operation of the ETO offices," he said.

Monday's prosecution is likely to sour relations between Britain and China. Chinese authorities in both the U.K. and Hong Kong have criticized the charges, saying they were the latest in a series of "groundless and slanderous" accusations that the British government has leveled against China.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday that China is gravely concerned about the prosecution of the Chinese national and called on Britain to safeguard the legitimate rights of Chinese in the U.K.

"For some time, the British side has been hyping up the so-called Chinese spying and Chinese cyberattacks," he said. "China firmly opposes such despicable acts of political manipulation in the name of justice and national security."

In April, British prosecutors charged two men, including a former researcher working in the U.K. Parliament, with spying for China. The Chinese Embassy called the allegations fabricated.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned the U.K. was facing an increasingly dangerous future due to threats from an "axis of authoritarian states," including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Hong Kong has always been a specific source of tensions between Britain and Beijing. The former British colony returned to China in 1997 under an agreement that included promises by Beijing to keep for 50 years a degree of self-government and freedoms of assembly, speech and press that are not allowed on the Communist-ruled Chinese mainland. Critics say those freedoms have all but disappeared.

The three men were granted bail in a London court on Monday and their next court appearance is scheduled for May 24.

Hong Kong media reported that Yuen is a former police officer in Hong Kong. The Associated Press found Yuen’s name printed in local police publicity materials online.

In the news conference on Tuesday, Lee also responded to reports of a photo he had taken with Yuen for a news article years ago.

"This photo appears to be a graduation group photo," he said. "My impression of this person is solely based on this photo."