The U.S.
action targets former director of the Paraguayan Civil Aviation Authority, Edgar Melgarejo, current member of the Paraguayan Panel for the Discipline of Judges and Prosecutors, Jorge Bogarin, and current Court Clerk Vicente Ferreira, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.

March 23 (Reuters) – The United States has designated one former and two current Paraguayan officials for what Washington said was their involvement in “significant corruption,” making the officials and their families ineligible for entry into the North American country.

“While the IOC has made no final decisions yet, we strongly urge it to reconsider its plans and return to the original well-proven stance supported by the international community,” the Polish statement said.

BRUSSELS, March 20 (Reuters) – European Union member states have reached an agreement on the joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on the sidelines of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels on Monday.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned Russia and Belarus after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but is now reluctant to exclude their athletes from the Olympics entirely for fear of a return to the boycotts of the Cold War era.

“It is for us today to push our governments, our institutions, our people to move towards a federation because we believe that only the federation can be the global and definitive solution for Africa,” said Souleymane Diouf Diallo, spokesperson for the group, calling itself “The walkers for African unity”.

“Today, we will sign the respective documents,” he told reporters, adding Germany would also open its national framework contracts with the defense industry to other partners as speed was of the essence in supplying Kyiv.

HOUNDE, Burkina Faso, March 21 (Reuters) – A small group of activists have been walking from Mali’s capital Bamako to Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou to express their support for a federation between the two West African states.

“We strongly believe that now is not the time to consider the opening up of a pathway for Russian and Belarusian athletes to return to the Olympic Games in any status,” the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement issued jointly with Britain, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Holding the flags of both countries and the African Union, the group of about a dozen men and women walked in single file last week on the side of a road near Hounde, in western Burkina Faso, as they neared the finish line of a trek of more than 860 km (535 miles).

WARSAW, March 27 (Reuters) – Russian and Belarusian athletes should be banned from the 2024 Olympics in Paris unless Moscow pulls its forces out of Ukraine, according to Poland, Britain and the Baltic states, despite the IOC saying it plans to let them compete as neutrals.