A court in Thailand removed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office over an ethical violation, further shaking up Thai politics after the court-ordered dissolution of the main opposition party a week ago. The Constitutional Court ruled on a case involving Srettha's appointment of a Cabinet member who had been imprisoned in connection with an alleged attempt to bribe a court official. The court voted 5:4 against Srettha and the ruling removed him from office immediately.

The Cabinet will remain in place on a caretaker basis until Parliament approves a new prime minister, for which there is no time limit. The caretaker Cabinet could also dissolve Parliament and call a new election. The acting PM is expected to be Phumtham Wechayachai of the Pheu Thai party. Phumtham was first deputy prime minister and commerce minister under Srettha. If Parliament is given the task of choosing a new prime minister, it can select from a roster of candidates nominated for the post last year.

A panel of experts from the United Nations said Venezuela's recent presidential elections lacked "basic transparency and integrity," adding an important voice to those who have cast doubt on President Nicolás Maduro's claim he won the contest. A four-member team sent by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres was in Caracas for over a month in the run up to the July 28 election, one of the few independent outside observers invited by Maduro's government.

While the U.N. group praised the logistic organisation of the voting, it harshly criticised the National Electoral Council, or CNE, for flouting local rules and announcing Maduro the winner without tabulated results from each of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide, something it said "had no precedent in contemporary democratic elections." This had a negative impact on confidence in the outcome announced by the CNE among a large part of the Venezuelan electorate, the U.N. experts said in a statement.

Ukraine's top military commander said his forces now control 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) of Russia's neighbouring Kursk region, the first time a Ukrainian military official has publicly commented on the gains of the lightning incursion that embarrassed the Kremlin. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi made the statement in a video posted Monday to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Telegram channel. In the video, he briefed the president on the front-line situation.

"The troops are fulfilling their tasks. Fighting continues actually along the entire front line. The situation is under our control," Syrskyi said. Russian forces are still scrambling to respond to the surprise Ukrainian attack after almost a week of fierce fighting. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the incursion, which has caused more than 100,000 civilians to flee, is an attempt by Kyiv to stop Moscow's offensive in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region and gain leverage in possible future peace talks.

Poland received a European arrest warrant issued by Berlin in connection with the 2022 attack on Nord Stream pipelines, but the suspect, a Ukrainian man named as Volodymyr Z, has already left Poland. He was able to leave as Germany had failed to include his name in a database of wanted persons, according to Polish prosecutors. The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of explosions in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A married couple, a man and a woman - also Ukrainian diving instructors - have also been identified in Germany's investigation into the sabotage but so far no arrest warrants have been issued for them, according to SZ, Zeit and ARD. The blasts wrecked three out of four Nord Stream pipelines, which had become a controversial symbol of German reliance on Russian gas in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.