PEPs

The family of Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for Palestine, sued President Trump and senior U.S. officials on Wednesday, challenging sanctions imposed on her over her advocacy for the prosecution of Israeli leaders and international companies connected to the war in Gaza.

The U.S. on Thursday blacklisted five senior Nicaraguan officials for their alleged role in helping Nicaragua to consolidate authoritarian power through financial controls, labor policy, surveillance, and military intelligence operations.

A blacklisted, former Belarusian official is working with Russia to disguise the origin of agricultural products from Ukraine’s occupied territories, according to new reporting by Ukrinform. The news agency, which is Ukraine’s only national news service and is controlled by the country’s Cabinet of Ministers, said it based its reporting on documents obtained by the Belarusian opposition group […]

There has been visible discontent with Albania’s government in recent weeks, with protestors hurling petrol bombs at government buildings and calling out Prime Minister Edi Rama by name.

Last December, the Trump administration moved swiftly to free former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández after President Donald Trump granted him an unexpected pardon for his 2024 conviction on bribery and drug-trafficking charges. Few would’ve predicted what happened next.

The fallout of the release of the Epstein Files continued this week, with emergence of new details of the deceased sex trafficker’s finances, the launch of additional investigations into suspicious money flows and related sexual-abuse allegations, and the arrest of a former British royal.

Ukraine has imposed sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accusing the Belarusian leader of playing an increasingly larger role in Russia’s war efforts, UNITED24 Media reported. 

Peru’s Congress voted Tuesday to remove interim President José Jerí from office as he faces corruption and influence-peddling allegations, plunging the country into another bout of political instability just weeks before April’s presidential and congressional elections, according to France 24.

Belgian prosecutors have charged two people close to former European Commissioner Didier Reynders as part of a money-laundering investigation that until now had focused on Reynders alone.

Police raided the Arab World Institute in Paris on Monday as prosecutors widened an investigation into former French culture minister Jack Lang and his daughter, Caroline, over suspected financial links to Jeffrey Epstein.