A court has banned two more parties, including the communists, bringing the total number of outlawed political groups to 15

A Ukrainian court on Tuesday banned the country's Communist Party (CPU), marking the end of an eight-year saga, and adding the communists to the blacklist of 15 allegedly 'pro-Russian' political movements that are outlawed in Ukraine.

The Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal in the western city of Lviv announced that "the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine are prohibited."

"Funds and other assets" of the party will be nationalized.

On July 1 at the White House, US President Joe Biden made a startling disclosure that "the idea we're going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, is not likely in the near term."

American gas exporters have positioned themselves accordingly to fill the gap as Europe turns away from Russian imports. FT reported recently that "US liquefied natural gas producers have announced a string of deals to boost exports as the industry capitalises on shortages that have left Europe with a mounting energy crisis."

The deals are so lucrative that Cheniere, America's leading gas exporter, has taken an investment decision to push ahead with a project that will boost its capacity more than 20 per cent by late 2025, anticipating long-term supply deals and locked in purchases of US gas over the coming decades. The US producers of gas are reportedly running plants flat-out to increase supplies to the EU.

The US has overtaken Russia for the first time as Europe's top gas supplier. Although LNG from the US is sold to Europe at much higher costs than pipeline gas from Russia, EU countries have no choice.

With Russian supply via Nord Stream at just 40% of capacity, and deliveries to be halted completely for annual maintenance on July 11-21, the outlook for near-term Russian gas supply to Europe appears bleak.

Germany has warned of the risk that Nord Stream gas may not return at all following the maintenance. At any rate, Russian supply to Europe is at record lows and is "set to remain constrained through the third quarter," per S&P Global.

Germany is heading for a major economic crisis. The head of the German Federation of Trade Unions has been quoted as saying in the weekend, "Entire industries are in danger of collapsing forever because of the gas bottlenecks — especially, chemicals, glass-making, and aluminium industries, which are major suppliers to key automotive sector." Massive unemployment is likely. When Germany sneezes, of course, Europe catches cold — not only the Eurozone but even post-Brexit Britain.

Welcome to the European Union's "sanctions from hell." The US literally hustled the Europeans into the Ukraine crisis. How many times did Secretary of State Antony Blinken travel to Europe in those critical months in the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to ensure that the door to any meaningful talks with the Kremlin remained shut! And American energy companies are today making windfall profits selling gas to Europeans. Won't Europeans have the common intelligence to realise they have been had?

A probe claims the IDF did not intentionally kill an Al-Jazeera journalist, though the US State Department is not so sure

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has concluded there is no way its soldiers "deliberately" fired at Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot and killed on May 11 while covering an IDF raid on the Palestinian city of Jenin in the West Bank. The Israeli military claimed it had assembled a multidisciplinary task force to "reconstruct and model the circumstances of the incident as accurately as possible," in a statement issued on Monday.

However, the Israeli statement seemingly contradicts the conclusions of the US State Department, which found the IDF had likely killed Abu Akleh "unintentionally," but argued there was no way to be sure of the gunman's intention. State Department spokesman Ned Price confirmed that "gunfire from IDF positions was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh."

Philip Short, a journalist from the BBC, has published a new book which claims to be a biography of Vladimir Putin. It isn't.

What it is instead is a biography of one hundred and twenty-three westerners — what they claim to know about Russia's leader and what for commercial motive, reason of state, or vanity they have told Short in interviews he conducted for his book. They include spies he names without their cover - John Scarlett, Richard Dearlove, Richard Bridge, Kate Horner, Martin Nicholson, and Pablo Miller from the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6); Hans-Georg Wieck and August Hanning of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND); Jean-Francois Clair, Raymond Nart, and Yves Bonnet of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST); Seppo Tiitinen of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO); Mark Kelton, Michael Morell, Peter Clement, Michael Sulick, Michael Morgan, Paul Kolbe, and William Green of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Juri Pihl, head of the Estonian Internal Security Service, and Eerik-Niiles Kross, chief of Estonian intelligence; and several dozen other ambassadors, consuls, advisers, headquarters staff, journalists, and think-tankers.

Not one of the spies was operational in Moscow for the past twenty-one years of Putin's terms in office.

The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Sunday responded to criticism from Jeff Bezos about President Biden's call for oil executives to reduce gas prices, saying high gas prices are emblematic of "a market that is failing the American consumer."

Driving the news: After Biden tweeted on Saturday reiterating calls for oil companies to lower prices, Bezos responded by tweeting, "inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this."

Government sources confirm move to curb the sole installation of gender-neutral facilities.

New offices, schools, hospitals and entertainment venues will be expected to have separate male and female lavatories, government sources have confirmed, in a move to curb the sole installation of gender-neutral facilities.

Ministers will formally announce this week that they will prevent non-residential buildings from being built solely with "universal" lavatories. The move will involve changes to building regulations and planning guidance.

Pope Francis has dismissed reports that he plans to resign in the near future, saying he is on track to visit Canada this month and hopes to be able to go to Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after that.

In an exclusive interview in his Vatican residence, Francis also denied rumors that he had cancer, joking that his doctors "didn't tell me anything about it," and for the first time gave details of the knee condition that has prevented him from carrying out some duties.

In a 90-minute conversation on Saturday afternoon, conducted in Italian, with no aides present, the 85-year-old pontiff also repeated his condemnation of abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month.

Rumors have swirled in the media that a conjunction of events in late August, including meetings with the world's cardinals to discuss a new Vatican constitution, a ceremony to induct new cardinals, and a visit to the Italian city of L'Aquila, could foreshadow a resignation announcement.

Washington believes it's too early to discuss peace talks between Moscow and Kiev since neither side is ready for such negotiations, the National Security Council (NSC) Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told Fox News on Sunday.

When asked whether US President Joe Biden should "push" Russia and Ukraine towards peace talks, Kirby said instead it was "time for the US to continue to support Ukraine." Washington's goal is to make sure Kiev "gets to determine how victory is decided" in the ongoing conflict and "on what terms."

"We do not want to see Ukraine defeated by Russia and that is why we are continuing to rush aid and assistance," the senior NSC official said, adding that the US alone has already allocated $7 billion in aid and assistance to Ukraine.

The US Oil & Gas Association mocked the Biden White House Sunday over a tweet ostensibly from the president that demanded the lowering of pump prices at once.

"Working on it Mr. President," the industry group said in the snarky post. "In the meantime - have a Happy 4th and please make sure the WH intern who posted this tweet registers for Econ 101 for the fall semester..."

One day earlier, Biden had once again tried to pin the blame for record-high gas prices on alleged gouging by refiners following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril," the president posted on Saturday. "Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you're paying for the product. And do it now."

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned "Anglo Saxon" leaders for openly wishing annihilation upon Russia in clips from a recent documentary. Macron has already been criticized by some of Ukraine's most fervent supporters for staying in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While he has condemned Russia's military operation in Ukraine and supported EU sanctions on Moscow, the French president has spoken to Putin by phone on several occasions since February. These calls have apparently not brought Ukraine any closer to peace, but have earned Macron scorn from Kiev's supporters, including Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who castigated his French counterpart for talking to a man he compared to "Hitler."

However, in a documentary recently broadcast on French television, Macron gave some insight into his approach to diplomacy.

Filmed on a train back from Kiev last month, Macron explained that talking to Putin is necessary to prevent the conflict in Ukraine from becoming a wider war. Describing "Anglo Saxon" leaders as pushing the message that "we must annihilate Russia, weaken it permanently," Macron said that his goal is instead to "help Ukraine to win," and "not to fight against Russia, let alone annihilate it."