 Hello and welcome to International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you news from across the world, our headlines. The United States sanctions the International Criminal Court over investigations on war crimes committed in Afghanistan. The European Human Rights Court overturns convictions of 11 BDS activists in France. Rights groups call out mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo for confining workers at mindsites. We begin with an update on the COVID-19 pandemic situation which shows no sign of abating in many countries across the world. Over 7.6 million infections have been reported so far globally, of these 3.3 million cases are active, while 424,000 fatalities have been reported. Over the past two weeks, numbers have dramatically increased in some of the countries. While the United States continues to be at the top with over 2 million reported cases in 116,000 fatalities, it is no longer the largest contributor to the daily new infections in fatalities. The country in that spot is now Brazil, with over 800,000 cases, which has been adding more than 30,000 new cases in over 1,000 fatalities every day for over a week. India, which has been relaxing its counter-pandemic restrictions since June 8, has been seeing a spike in newly reported infections, with anywhere close to 9,000 to 10,000 new additions being reported for over a week. The total number of cases expected to cross a 300,000 mark over the weekend. The only severely affected country showing any significance slowing down is Russia. Despite half a million reported infections, Russia has a much lower death rate. It has come down significantly in terms of daily new cases. This is from a high of over 11,000 new cases in mid-May to around 8,700 new cases as of today. Russia has also emerged as one of the leading countries in terms of testing and detection, having tested nearly a 11th of its population, which is the highest for any country with a population of over 10 million. On Thursday, the United States passed sanctions against international criminal court. The unprecedented move will block ICC officials and their family members from entering the U.S., and will also freeze all assets owned by ICC employees in the country. The executive order enacting the sanctions was signed by Donald Trump's administration over the ICC's ongoing investigation into war crimes committed in Afghanistan by the U.S.-led forces. Moments after the president signed the sanctions order, U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo characterized the ICC as a kangaroo coat. A statement from the White House argued that the measure was to prevent the ICC from supposedly infringing on U.S. sovereignty. Allegations have also been made by prominent officials of the Trump administration that the ICC is being manipulated by adversaries of the U.S. The Trump administration is consistently opposed to war crimes investigation by the ICC, arguing that the U.S. is not a signatory to the Treaty of Rome and outside the ICC jurisdiction. The Trump administration has also recently cancelled the visa of ICC chief prosecutor Fatah Ben-Soda to block preliminary investigations. In a statement put out on Thursday, the ICC responded to the U.S. sanctions and alleged that it amounted to an interference in the rule of law. Fatah Ben-Soda has been reading a pretrial investigation into the reported war crimes, having collected testimonials and evidence since in November 2017. A formal investigation was by the ICC was opened on March 3, 2020, after a presiding judge found that preliminary investigation showed reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes had been committed in Afghanistan. In our next story, the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday overturned a French court's criminal conviction against 11 BDS activists. The ECHR unanimously founded a French court's verdict against the activist group Collective Palestine 68 to be unfounded and that the conviction had no relevant or sufficient grounds. The ECHR also ordered the French government to pay each of the 11 defendants around 31,000 U.S. dollars' compensation as well as to cover their legal costs. The European Court's ruling stated that the freedom of speech and expression as protected in the European Convention of Human Rights of the 11 activists was violated by the French court's order. It also said that boycotts are a protected form of protest. The activists were found guilty of incitement to economic discrimination by a French court over a pro-BDS protest in the town in Eastern France in 2009. The activists had called for a boycott of Israeli products being sold in a supermarket. They had distributed leaflets with information about Israeli origin products. The protest was conducted in response to the 2009 Israeli invasion of the blockaded Gaza Strip. The activists were convicted by the French court under Article 7 of the European Convention of Human Rights which prohibits discrimination. The convictions were upheld by France's highest appeal court in 2015. But on Thursday, the ECHR said that Article 7 did not pertain to economic boycott and said that it was means of expressing one's protest. And finally, a group of 11 civil society groups has asked 13 mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday to end the practice of confining workers on the mine site in the name of the pandemic. The civil society groups include rights and accountability in development and African resource watch. Mostly the copper cobalt companies in the DRC have demanded that their employees either stay at the mining site or have threatened them with losing their jobs. This was done to avoid halting production over the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. Several workers and unions have been complaining about how they have been forced to stay with inadequate food and other essential items under confinement. According to reports in some of the unions, workers have been forced to work beyond their stipulated eight hours without compensation. They are also being denied information about the duration of their confinement. The companies have been blamed for failing to maintain safe working environments and instead resorting to coercion. The organizations want the companies in the letter that the current situation should not be used as a pretext to infringe on workers' rights and bypass their responsibilities. The letter also demands that the companies follow physical distancing guidelines and provide for hygiene and safe facilities for the workers. Some of the companies mentioned in the letter are the world's largest corporations including Glencore and Eurasian Resource Group. Congo is the world's leading producer of cobalt with around 70% of the total production. Cobalt is used to make rechargeable batteries. That's all we have in this episode of the International Daily Roundup. We'll be back on Monday with news from across the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.