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PODGORICA, July 12 (Reuters) - A Montenegro court acquitted 13 people including pro-Russian politicians and two Russian intelligence officers on Friday in a retrial over an alleged 2016 election day plot to topple the government and kill then-prime minister Milo Djukanovic. The defendants were initially convicted in 2019 and given long prison terms over the alleged plot against the pro-Western Djukanovic, who led the small Adriatic state almost continuously as premier or president for three decades until 2023. But the verdict was overturned on appeal in 2021 and a retrial was ordered.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi has hit back at Nato's "groundless accusations" that Beijing is helping Russia in its war on Ukraine.

He has also warned the Western alliance against stirring up confrontation.

Mr Wang's comments, made in a call with his Dutch counterpart, came hours after leaders of Nato member states gathered in Washington DC and issued a declaration that mentioned the war.

They accused China of being a "decisive enabler" of Russia through its "large-scale support for Russia's defence industrial base", in some of their harshest remarks yet about Beijing.

WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - A U.S. review found no evidence of human rights violations by Ukraine's Azov Brigade, paving the way for it to use American training and weapons, the State Department said on Tuesday, citing Russian disinformation aimed at discrediting the unit. U.S. law bars foreign security forces from U.S. military assistance if they have committed gross violations of human rights, but a review of the National Guard of Ukraine's 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade cleared them for U.S. funds, the department said in a statement.

"After thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the U.S. Department of State," the department wrote, referring to the Leahy Law. The move allows the Biden administration to reverse a decade-old ban on allowing the Ukrainian military unit to use U.S. weapons, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the decision.

The U.S. has added three more companies to an entity list that bars imports from firms allegedly involved with Uyghur forced labor in China, according to a U.S. government notice posted online on Tuesday. The latest targets include shoe manufacturer Dongguan Oasis Shoes Co, electrolytic aluminum maker Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity Co and food processor Shandong Meijia Group Co, also known as Rizhao Meijia Group, the notice from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.

The announcement by the head of the Republicans was a historic break with his party’s policy. Top politicians on the right have called for him to step down, bringing the party to the brink of implosion.

Manal al-Wakeel and her extended family of 30 people thought they were going home.

Displaced from their home in Gaza City months ago, Ms. al-Wakeel and relatives began packing their bags on Monday and preparing to dismantle their tent in Rafah, at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas had announced that it had accepted a cease-fire proposal from Qatar and Egypt, leaving many Gazans thinking that a truce was imminent. Their joy was short-lived; it soon became clear that Hamas was not talking about the same proposal endorsed days earlier by Israel, which said the two sides remained far apart.

Eight countries joined the U.S. in opposing the UN’s latest resolution to allow Palestine to qualify to become a full UN member.

The United Nations General Assembly backed the Palestinian bid to be eligible for a full UN membership on Friday, with 143 countries voting in favor, 25 abstaining and nine voting against.

Those nine countries that opposed the Palestinian recognition to join the international body are the U.S., Israel, Argentina, Czech Republic, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Hungary and Papua New Guinea.

AMSTERDAM, May 10 (Reuters) - South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah as part of additional emergency measures over the war in Gaza, the U.N.'s top court said on Friday. In the ongoing case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians, the World Court in January ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians.

Last fall, a coalition of rebel groups known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a rapid-fire offensive across Myanmar’s northern Shan state, quickly overrunning more than 100 military outposts and seizing several key towns along the country’s border with China.

This in itself was not unusual. Myanmar’s military government has faced insurgencies from ethnic and political militias for decades, and there’s been a major uptick in rebel activity since the 2021 coup, which brought the country’s current military junta to power, ending a short period of representative government. Over the past few months, the government has been rapidly losing ground to rebel forces in several regions of the country.

People who are poor, unemployed, homeless, immigrants, or exploited, as well as all those killed by past dictatorships and turned into rubbish by the "throwaway culture" of the present: the level of a society's civilisation is measured by the way they are treated, the Pope said.

Pope Francis reiterated the centrality of the vulnerable as well as the urgency of countering the triple "scourge" of corruption, abuse of power, and lawlessness—both in politics and in society—in his address on Wednesday with representatives of the DIALOP transversal dialogue project.

US climate envoy John Kerry will leave the administration later this winter and plans to help President Joe Biden’s election campaign, Kerry’s office said on Saturday.

Kerry, a US former secretary of state, informed his staff earlier on Saturday after speaking with Biden earlier this week, a spokesman for Kerry said.