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EU Voices Support for ICC After US Sanctions Judges

The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)
The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)
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EU Voices Support for ICC After US Sanctions Judges

The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)
The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)

The European Union strongly supports the International Criminal Court, the head of the bloc's highest political body said on Friday, after US President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions on four judges at the court.

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, which represents national governments of the 27 member states, said the court is "a cornerstone of international justice" and said its independence and integrity must be protected.

Costa spoke a day after Washington imposed sanctions on four judges at the ICC in unprecedented retaliation for the war tribunal's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.

The order names Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said these judges had "actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel".

The ICC and some of its member states are urging the European Union to use its blocking statute, which bans any EU company from complying with US sanctions, to counter the sanctions.

"Due to the inclusion of a citizen of an EU member state on the sanctions list, Slovenia will propose the immediate activation of the blocking act," Slovenia's foreign ministry said in a post on social media site X, late Thursday.

ICC president Judge Tomoko Akane had urged the EU already in March this year to bring the ICC into the scope of the EU's blocking statute.

The new sanctions have been imposed at a difficult time for the ICC, which is already reeling from earlier US sanctions against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who last month stepped aside temporarily amid a United Nations investigation into alleged sexual misconduct.

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US Forces Responded to Suspected Drone Activity Over Base in Britain

The main entrance at the RAF Lakenheath airbase, which hosts United States Air Force (USAF) personnel, amid reports of a security threat in Lakenheath, Britain, November 13, 2026. (Reuters)
The main entrance at the RAF Lakenheath airbase, which hosts United States Air Force (USAF) personnel, amid reports of a security threat in Lakenheath, Britain, November 13, 2026. (Reuters)
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US Forces Responded to Suspected Drone Activity Over Base in Britain

The main entrance at the RAF Lakenheath airbase, which hosts United States Air Force (USAF) personnel, amid reports of a security threat in Lakenheath, Britain, November 13, 2026. (Reuters)
The main entrance at the RAF Lakenheath airbase, which hosts United States Air Force (USAF) personnel, amid reports of a security threat in Lakenheath, Britain, November 13, 2026. (Reuters)

US forces responded to possible unauthorized drone activity over a military base in Britain Friday, spokespeople from the two countries said, in the latest security incident at a facility hosting American warplanes.

"No personnel, aircraft or infrastructure were affected" at the RAF Lakenheath base, a US Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.

"We continue to work closely with our host nation counterparts to ensure the safety and security of our US service members, US and host nation civilians, contractors, and all of our families," the statement added.

A spokesperson for Britain's Ministry of Defense confirmed that account in a statement that said "the situation is now resolved."

A post on the official RAF Lakenheath Facebook page earlier this week urged people to report "suspicious activity, including unauthorized drone activity."

"Our strongest security asset is an observant community," the post said.

The possible drone incident at Lakenheath came after the US Justice Department announced charges earlier in the week against three men it described as "Iranian operatives" over their role in an alleged terrorist plot at RAF Fairford, another British base.

The three men allegedly helped plan and direct the September incident at the base, which came to light when police were called after a local farmer reported seeing a group of men with several white vans engaged in "suspicious" activity.

- Iran war fallout -

A US charging document stated that a man identified as Mohammad Ali al-Hassani directed unnamed individuals to drive to the base in the vans, some of which contained barrels of fuel, and that he earlier paid the group to buy metallic objects that could be used as shrapnel.

Days later, the United States withdrew all its B-1 bombers from the base.

UK police last month charged two British men with national security offenses related to the RAF Fairford incident.

One was charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service, believed to be in Iran, and another with entering a prohibited place for a purpose "prejudicial" to the UK.

Flight-tracking data meanwhile showed Tuesday that the US military had removed at least a dozen aircraft from another British airbase, RAF Mildenhall, following what the Wall Street Journal said was a threat from Iran.

The United States has flown military aircraft from bases in Britain as part of the US-Israeli war against Iran sparked earlier this year, which saw Tehran respond by launching missiles and drones at countries across the region, while the militant groups it backs also entered the fray.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei threatened to strike US bases beyond the Middle East, including in Europe, if they are used for attacks against the country.

Iranian officials have previously threatened to expand the geographic scope of the conflict should the US attack again.

In late September, an adviser to Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei publicly mused that the war could "expand even further, reaching the Indian Ocean and perhaps beyond."

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Rubio Says Further US Military Action Is Not Needed Against Economically Weakened Iran

Secretary Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026. (AFP)
Secretary Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026. (AFP)
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Rubio Says Further US Military Action Is Not Needed Against Economically Weakened Iran

Secretary Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026. (AFP)
Secretary Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026. (AFP)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that further US military action against Iran is unnecessary because the economic pain the US is inflicting on a weakened country is so great.

Rubio's comment in a speech to the Federalist Society reinforced a statement by US President Donald Trump earlier in the week that the war “militarily is effectively over.”

“And right now, frankly, the economic pain that we are inflicting on that regime is so great that there’s no need for military action because we’ve weakened them so much,” Rubio said. “But I think victory is ensuring that they never have a nuclear weapon.”

Rubio also acknowledged the economic pain Americans have experienced as a result of the war, which has driven up fuel costs and affected nearly every sector of the global economy.

It would have been easy for Trump to ignore the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, avoid an unpopular war and “leave it for the next person to worry about,” he said, adding that the president decided he was “not going to leave it unaddressed.”

“But it’s hard,” Rubio said. “It’s not easy and it’s difficult. And oftentimes it inflicts, you know, pain, economic pain and otherwise. So we recognize that.”

World

Trump, Xi, Putin to Hold Historic Meeting in China, Says White House

Traditional Russian wooden dolls depicting China's President Xi Jinping, the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (AP)
Traditional Russian wooden dolls depicting China's President Xi Jinping, the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (AP)
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Trump, Xi, Putin to Hold Historic Meeting in China, Says White House

Traditional Russian wooden dolls depicting China's President Xi Jinping, the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (AP)
Traditional Russian wooden dolls depicting China's President Xi Jinping, the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (AP)

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will hold the first three-way meeting between the leaders of the United States, Russia and China at a summit in Shenzhen next week, the White House said Friday.

Trump wants to talk about reducing nuclear arsenals at the trilateral talks on Thursday and is also set to bring up his war in Iran -- but he is not expected to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine, US officials said.

The three leaders will meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese city, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters.

"The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world. This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous," Wales said.

One of the major conflicts dominating Trump's second term as president will feature, but the other will not, the US officials said.

"I think the president does intend to talk about Iran in the trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin," a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters on a call.

Washington has a "whole other track" of negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, the official added, referring to talks that US envoys have had in recent days with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"China is not really a part of that track, so it doesn't seem appropriate to have the Ukraine discussion there," the official added.

- Yalta redux? -

The meeting calls back to the 1945 Yalta summit in the Soviet Union, where then-US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Britain's Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin laid out the post-WWII settlement and new territorial boundaries in Europe.

Zelensky has raised the alarm that the meeting in Shenzhen could be a Yalta-like "redistribution of spheres of influence" for the 21st century.

The Trump administration has sought to reassert US dominance over the "Western hemisphere" -- including by capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January -- but splitting the world among great powers like it's 1945 may not guarantee security.

Trump will also hold a bilateral working lunch and meeting with the Chinese president on Thursday -- their fourth meeting since the US president's return to power last year.

But Trump is not scheduled to have a separate one-on-one with Putin.

Among other topics, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang's resignation over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy is not expected to come up in Trump's meetings with Xi, the officials said.

"The situation with Nvidia should not really have any bearing on the trip," a second US senior official said.

The United States also did not plan to discuss export controls on sensitive chip technology, which were at the heart of the Nvidia scandal.

"We do not negotiate American export controls. These are national security matters that we develop in the administration... and we don't expect it to figure at all in any of our conversations with the Chinese while we're there," the second official said.

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk will accompany Trump on his trip to China but will not be involved in the meeting with Xi and Putin, the officials said.

Trump will leave Washington on Monday and arrive in the Philippines on Tuesday for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) before heading to Shenzhen.