The Hague

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attacked the International Criminal Court in a speech to the Federalist Society in Washington on 13 Nov. He said the court would try to prosecute US officials or service members, a claim he used to justify sanctions against the ICC announced last month. Rubio said the US would not submit to what he called radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats. He argued for a muscular foreign policy and said the goal of the US-Israeli war against Iran was to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon. The speech was his first prepared remarks since Republicans lost the 3 Nov midterm elections.

Over 200 nations are attending the UN COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Türkiye, which runs to 20 Nov, with the aim of limiting warming to 2 °C. The UN climate chief Simon Stiell warned that tactical delays could stop a global warming agreement. Rich countries agreed two years ago to raise climate finance for poorer countries to $300 billion a year by 2035, a target that comes after they missed their 2020 goal two years late. Oxford researchers found 718 of more than 800 climate measures in 39 countries remain unchanged, while 11 have been repealed, eight of them in the United States. The US has no official delegation at the conference after leaving the Paris Agreement, though more than 100 US governors, senators and mayors are attending.

Tens of thousands marched through Amsterdam on Sunday 8 Nov in the Red Line protest, pressing the Dutch government for tighter trade sanctions on Israel, a halt to arms sales and an official genocide finding over Gaza. Amnesty International Netherlands put attendance above 200,000, while police described the march as largely peaceful. Streets around the Van Gogh Museum were closed to traffic. Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who attended an earlier Red Line march, did not join this one. Israel rejects the genocide accusation and has revoked Dutch diplomats' accreditation.

Archaeologist Renzo Duin has spent more than two decades documenting dense archaeological landscapes hidden under Suriname's forest canopy. Speaking to Mongabay, Duin described pottery fragments and a ditch-enclosed site he found in what his team perceived as pristine rainforest, during a 2004 expedition into the mountainous tri-border area shared by Brazil, Suriname and Guyana. Experts cited by Mongabay say the country pledged to permanently protect 90% of its forests, yet they warn that neglecting Indigenous stewardship history leaves the ecosystem exposed to ongoing illegal deforestation. Illegal gold mining, Mongabay reports, pollutes Suriname's rivers with mercury and cyanide.