THE HAGUE, June 9 — A key governing body of the International Criminal Court yesterday suspended chief prosecutor Karim Khan as he faces sexual abuse allegations against a member of his office.

The 21-member bureau of the Assembly of State Parties (ASP) decided to refer Khan’s case to the wider ASP that represents every member country of the ICC.

The bureau decided “by qualified majority... to suspend the Prosecutor from duty with immediate effect pending the final decision of the Assembly of States Parties as the competent decision-maker,” the body said in a statement.

“The bureau emphasises that this suspension is not an indication of the final outcome,” added the statement.

The decision will have little practical impact on the functioning of the court, as the 55-year-old Khan stepped aside in May 2025, taking a leave of absence to fight the allegations that he denies.

He has already been removed from pleading in the ICC’s most high-profile case against former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte.

A special session of the ASP will be convened as soon as possible to discuss the Khan case, according to the statement.

The 55-year-old Briton hit the headlines when he sucessfully applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over the Gaza war.

He was among the first to be sanctioned by Israel’s ally, the United States, which expressed outrage over the arrest warrants. — AFP

XBXG posted a photo:

Mobile office

A rather unusual vehicle for commuting, but not for the American banker Hugh McDonald, who in the early 1930s has himself driven back and forth in this luxurious combination from his estate on Long Island to his office in New York.

The semi-trailer resembles an aeroplane and was built in accordance with aviation construction principles by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company in Florida. A lightweight, tubular metal frame is braced with wire cables. The Aerocar’s nose looks like a cockpit and is fitted with a compass, barometer, altimeter, speedometer and swivelling floodlights. The interior is furnished with lightweight wicker chairs and a desk. The galley features a refrigerator and there is also a lavatory with flushing toilet. The yacht was towed by a Graham-Paige Blue Streak fitted with a four-litre engine. A spare wheel was placed in the space normally occupied by the ‘dickey seat’. The towing pin of the trailer fits in a socket in the hub and the tyre damped out the shocks while driving.

Source: www.louwmanmuseum.nl

Louwman Museum
Den Haag, the Netherlands.

Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:

Vintage Dutch postcard. Photo Coret, The Hague. From a booklet of postcards on the stage play Boefje/ Little Rascal, adapted for the stage by Jaap van der Poll after the novel (1903) by M.J. Brusse. The little rascal Jan Govers was played by Annie van Ees, his parents M. and Mrs. Govers, by Piet Bron and Mrs. Schwab-Welman. The play premiered in 1923, by 1935 Van Ees had played the part 500 times.

In 1939 a film adaptation followed, directed by Douglas Sirk/ Detlef Sierck, shortly before he moved to Hollywood (he never saw the finished film). In the film, Van Ees again played the part of the rascal Jan Govers, while Bron played the father once more. Shooting took place at the The Hague based film studio complex Filmstad.

Marie Joseph (Rie) Brusse (Amsterdam, June 26, 1873 – Alkmaar, January 5, 1941) was a Dutch journalist and writer. His well-known book *Boefje* was adapted into a film in 1939. According to one of his sons, M.J. Brusse was known as the “prince of journalists.”

Brusse was an innovator in Dutch journalism. He was one of the first to describe situations and events from his own observational perspective. He was also one of the first to present the interviews and conversations he conducted in dialogue form. For his series of articles on Rotterdam sailors’ lodgings, he went undercover (1898). For decades, he wrote daily reports and serialized stories for the (then) Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant under the title “Onder de Menschen.” He wrote extensively about social injustices in the major cities and in rural areas. Many of his pieces were published in book form. A bestseller was his book *Het rosse leven en sterven van de Zandstraat* about Rotterdam’s red-light and sailors’ district around Zandstraat.

During the First World War, he reported extensively on the work of Dutch doctors and nurses in the Balkans, both in newspapers and in books. In 1915, he published *The Horrors of War in Serbia* about Dr. Arius van Tienhoven’s ambulance unit in Valjevo, and two years later, *A Dutch Hospital in a Bombed City* about Dr. Henri van Dijk’s work at the front in Monastir. In 2017, 100 years after its first publication, the First World War Study Center Foundation reissued that latter work.

In 1903, he published a serialized story titled Boefje in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, also issued that year as novel. The play Boefje, adapted from Brusse's lovel and written by Jaap van der Poll, enjoyed great popularity and was performed hundreds of times with actress Annie van Ees in the title role, from 1923 onward. In 1939, Douglas Sirk directed a Dutch film adaptation starring the then 45-year-old Van Ees.

Brusse spent the last years of his life with his family in Groet (North Holland). He died in 1941 in a hospital in Alkmaar and is buried at the General Cemetery in Schoorl.

(Source: Dutch Wikipedia)