“Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday repeated his assertion that his successor and former rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, exhibited ‘crazy behavior’ as a high-profile defamation lawsuit between the two political heavyweights got underway,” the AP reports.

“The two fallen prime ministers faced off in a largely empty Tel Aviv courtroom in the opening of Netanyahu’s defamation suit against Olmert.”

“The White House has announced $308 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan, offering new aid to the country as it edges toward a humanitarian crisis since the Taliban takeover nearly five months ago,” the AP reports.

“North Korea has fired a suspected ballistic missile, less than a week after it launched what it claimed was a hypersonic missile,” the BBC reports.

“The number of Russian troops at Ukraine’s border has remained steady in recent weeks, despite U.S. intelligence predictions of a surge, but American officials say that President Vladimir V. Putin has begun taking steps to move military helicopters into place, a possible sign that planning for an attack continues,” the New York Times reports.

“After Haiti’s president was assassinated and the country slid into turmoil, Ariel Henry became head of the government, responsible for bringing the killers to justice and helping the country heal,” the New York Times reports.

“But new evidence suggests that Mr. Henry maintained communications with a prime suspect in the case — and that the two stayed in close contact even after the murder.”

“Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has described deadly violence last week as an attempted coup d’etat,” the BBC reports.

“He told leaders of a military alliance of ex-Soviet states the action had been co-ordinated by a ‘single center,’ but did not name those responsible.”

“With Russian troops massing along Ukraine’s borders, American and Russian diplomats made clear after an intense round of negotiations on Monday that while the two sides would keep talking, they remain far from agreement on meeting each other’s security concerns,” the New York Times reports.

“Russian officials said they told their American counterparts they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a series of talks that lasted nearly eight hours.”

“French politician Stephane Claireaux, who is a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling La Republique En Marche party, said on Monday that he had been attacked over the weekend by protesters demonstrating against France’s COVID health pass,” Reuters reports.

A video shows them pelting Claireaux with trash.

“Russian and American officials met for a preliminary dinner on Sunday night to begin a high-stakes negotiation over threats to Ukraine and a widening gulf between Moscow and the West, but there was deep pessimism on both sides that a diplomatic solution was within reach,” the New York Times reports.

Financial Times: “Nato has warned Moscow to abandon its belligerent foreign policy and co-operate with the west or face a military alliance steeled for conflict on the eve of a week of intense diplomacy aimed at averting a Russian assault on Ukraine.”

“The Taliban have arrested a Kabul university professor who gained national fame for berating a senior official on live television, a sign of the intensifying crackdown on critics of Afghanistan’s new regime,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Russian forces continued to pour into Kazakhstan on Sunday, deploying to help Kazakh authorities reassert control in the country’s biggest cities following days of sometimes violent protests against the country’s leadership,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“With the fate of Ukraine and potentially broader post-Cold War European stability at stake, the United States and Russia are holding critical strategic talks that could shape the future of not only their relationship but the relationship between the U.S. and its NATO allies. Prospects are bleak,” the AP reports.

“Though the immediacy of the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine will top the agenda in a series of high-level meetings that get underway on Monday, there is a litany of festering but largely unrelated disputes, ranging from arms control to cybercrime and diplomatic issues, for Washington and Moscow to overcome if tensions are to ease. And the recent deployment of Russian troops to Kazakhstan may cast a shadow over the entire exercise.”

“With much at risk and both warning of dire consequences of failure, the two sides have been positioning themselves for what will be a nearly unprecedented flurry of activity in Europe this week. Yet the wide divergence in their opening positions bodes ill for any type of speedy resolution, and levels of distrust appear higher than at any point since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

“The Biden administration and its allies are assembling a punishing set of financial, technology and military sanctions against Russia that they say would go into effect within hours of an invasion of Ukraine, hoping to make clear to President Vladimir V. Putin the high cost he would pay if he sends troops across the border,” the New York Times reports.

“The plans the United States has discussed with allies in recent days include cutting off Russia’s largest financial institutions from global transactions, imposing an embargo on American-made or American-designed technology needed for defense-related and consumer industries, and arming insurgents in Ukraine who would conduct what would amount to a guerrilla war against a Russian military occupation, if it comes to that.”

NATO’s secretary-general has ruled out creating “second-class” members of the military alliance to appease Moscow, ahead of a week of high-stakes diplomacy between the Kremlin and western powers that aims to avoid a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Financial Times reports.

The Biden administration is heading into next week’s talks with Russia still unsure whether Moscow is serious about negotiations, but if so U.S. officials are ready to propose discussions on scaling back U.S. and Russian troop deployments and military exercises in Eastern Europe, NBC News reports.

Kazakhstan’s president said in a televised speech Friday that he ordered security forces to “shoot to kill without warning” in an attempt to forcibly suppress an unexpected uprising, adding that those who failed to surrender “need to be destroyed,” Axios reports.