Ukraine: Towards a first trial for war crimes, Moscow accuses Kiev of striking in Russia
Ukraine will conduct the first war crime trial linked to the Russian invasion, against a 21-year-old soldier accused of shooting an unarmed civilian, while Moscow claimed that Kiev had bombed a Russian city on Wednesday. Vadim Shishimarin is accused of shooting a Kalashnikov out of the window in a car he was driving in to shoot dead an unarmed 62-year-old civilian, prosecutor Iryna Venediktova's office said in a statement.
The accused soldier was traveling with four other Russian soldiers after their convoy attacked on Feb. 28 and they stole a car near the village of Chupakhivka, the statement continued. "One of the soldiers ordered the accused to kill a civilian so that he would not denounce them," he added. The man, who has not been identified, "died on the spot, only a few dozen meters from his home". Vadim Shishimarin, who is in detention, faces life imprisonment if convicted of war crimes and premeditated murder. The date of the trial was not specified. Meanwhile, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region, Ukraine's neighbor in southwestern Russia, said Wednesday -- citing a report from the regional health ministry -- that shelling from Ukraine had left one dead and six wounded.

North Korea announces its first-ever case of Covid-19
North Korea has declared a "serious national emergency" after detecting its first case of Covid-19 since the pandemic began, with leader Kim Jong Un vowing to "eliminate" the virus, according to state media on Thursday. This first case, detected during tests carried out Sunday in Pyongyang on sick and feverish people, "corresponds" to the Omicron variant, highly transmissible, said the official KCNA agency. Kim Jong Un called for nationwide "containment" measures after a crisis meeting of the political bureau. "The goal was to eliminate the root as soon as possible," the leader was quoted as saying by the state-run KCNA news agency. "He assured us that due to the strong political awareness of the population [...], we will surely overcome the emergency and succeed with the emergency quarantine project," the news agency said.
  
IN BRIEF
The former CEO of France Telecom Didier Lombard pleaded his innocence and said he was "marked for life" by the "suffering" of his former employees, Wednesday at the opening of the appeal trial of former executives of the group for institutional moral harassment.
A plane of the Chinese company Tibet Airlines went off the runway Thursday morning before catching fire at the international airport of Chongqing (southwest china), but without causing any deaths, according to the company.
Calls for a transparent investigation mounted on Wednesday after the death of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, one of Al Jazeera's best-known, who was shot dead wednesday while covering an Israeli army operation in the occupied West Bank.
Rennes almost drew a line on the Champions League after its defeat in Nantes (2-1) which ejected it from the podium, at the end of the 36th day of Ligue 1, tarnished by the insulting chants of Nice fans against Emiliano Sala.