The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia departed for Kyiv (NYT) to voice European support for Ukraine. It will be the highest-profile visit to the country since Russia invaded on February 24. Meanwhile, virtual talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations are due to continue today (RFE/RL). 
 
Russia has stepped up its siege of Mariupol and shelling of Kyiv’s suburbs. Kyiv’s mayor announced that a thirty-five-hour curfew will begin tonight. Around four thousand people were able to evacuate (Reuters) frontline cities yesterday, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said. In Russia, a woman was detained after displaying an anti-war protest sign (RFE/RL) during a live evening news broadcast on state television.

Riyadh invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit as it looks to deepen ties with Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported. The trip is expected to occur after the upcoming Islamic holy month of Ramadan and could be Xi’s first time traveling abroad since the start of the pandemic.
 
Australia: The Federal Court overturned a landmark ruling (ABC) that said Australia’s environment ministry has a duty to protect young people from the effects of climate change when considering fossil fuel projects.

Sri Lanka began talks (Bloomberg) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after previously resisting a bailout from the organization.
 
India: A high court in the state of Karnataka upheld a ban (Times of India) on women and girls wearing Islamic headscarves at school.
 
This Backgrounder looks at India’s increasingly marginalized Muslim population.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, will discuss recently paused final negotiations (Reuters) on restarting the 2015 nuclear deal.
 
CFR’s Ray Takeyh discusses how the Ukraine crisis could sideline the Iran nuclear deal.
 
Yemen: Without new humanitarian funding for Yemen, the number of people facing famine-level hunger in the country will reach 161,000 (UN News) by the end of the year, a five-fold increase, UN agencies said.

Maxime Jeoffroy Eli Mokom Gawaka of the Central African Republic (CAR) is suspected of committing war crimes (AFP) including murder, torture, and forced disappearances in 2013 and 2014. He became the CAR’s minister for disarmament and demobilization in 2019.
 
This Backgrounder looks at the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
 
South Africa: The country’s labor department and a subsidiary of Chinese tech giant Huawei reached an out-of-court settlement (Reuters) requiring that South Africans make up 50 percent of the company’s staff within three years.

Austria and Germany are reporting record numbers (Bloomberg) of new daily COVID-19 cases amid the spread of the coronavirus’s BA.2 omicron subvariant. Most of Germany’s remaining pandemic restrictions are set to expire on Sunday.

The ruling is a setback for LGBTQ+ rights (Guardian) in the British overseas territory. Separately, the judges ruled there is no right to same-sex marriage in the Cayman Islands.
 
Peru: The country’s Congress voted to open impeachment proceedings (MercoPress) against President Pedro Castillo for the second time over accusations that he is unfit to govern based on his “questionable” cabinet appointments and the alleged existence of a shadow cabinet.

The Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW) initiative will combine data (CNN) from the government and private businesses to help goods reach stores faster. Many large companies can already access data about when their supplies arrive at ports, but smaller ones cannot.