Today's headlines: Thousands of young men try to leave Myanmar after conscription is introduced. A few weeks before India’s elections, the opposition Congress party has its bank accounts frozen. Satellite photos show Egypt is building a wall next to the Rafah crossing. Japan successfully launched the new H3 space rocket. US and China agree to hold follow-up talks on North Korea and the Middle East.
Wagner Group Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claims he will make the Belarusian military “the second (best) army in the world” as convoys of his mercenaries arrive in Belarus. The European Parliament calls on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for his role in supporting Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
Lukashenka's continued repression of dissent is a catastrophe unfolding right now in the middle of Europe and on the EU's border. Remaining silent about it will come at a significant cost, Anna Zlatkovskaya, Inna Kavalionak, and Vita Dudko write.
A Minsk court on Friday sentenced exiled Belarusian opposition politician Valeriy Tsepkalo to 17 years in a high-security prison in absentia, the state-run news agency Belta reported. Tsepkalo, a former head of Belarus' equivalent of Silicon Valley, the High Technology Park, intended to run in Belarus' 2020 presidential election but was barred from registering as a candidate. His wife, Veronika Tsepkalo, is one of three women who led historic opposition protests in the run-up to the 2020 election.