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Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was summoned on Tuesday to appear in court next week as prosecutors consider charging him with contempt following a weekend speech in which he threatened police officers and a magistrate, officials said.

The possible contempt charge comes on top of charges under an anti-terror law that police filed against Khan over the same televised speech.

Khan had complained about sedition charges an aide faces for allegedly inciting mutiny in the military. 

"We will not spare you," Khan said in the speech that named the police chief and the judge involved in the case against the aide. "We will sue you."

Khan has been campaigning for new elections since being forced to step down this year but a conviction would disqualify him from standing, legal experts said.

"The court ... summons him to appear before the court in person on Aug. 31," Jahangir Khan Jadoon, Advocate General Islamabad, told Reuters.

The court also asked the Chief Justice at Islamabad High Court to constitute a full court bench to proceed with the contempt case, he added.

"It is a criminal conviction," retired judge Shaiq Usmani told television channel Geo News, adding that Khan could face six months in jail if convicted.

The South Asian nation has seen at least one prime minister, and some lawmakers, unseated after such disqualifications.

The use of anti-terrorism laws as the grounds for cases against political leaders is not uncommon in Pakistan, where Khan's government also used them against opponents and critics.

His political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has dismissed the accusations as being politically motivated, saying they were being used to block him from leading anti-government rallies. 

Khan, prime minister from 2018 until losing a confidence vote in parliament in April, came to power with what political analysts said was the support of the military on a conservative agenda that appealed to many middle-class and religious voters.

But analysts said he fell out with the military after a dispute over the appointment of a spy chief.

Khan denied ever having military support and the military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than three decades of its 75-year history, denies involvement in politics. (Reuters)

The United Nations Libya mission said on Tuesday it was deeply concerned by what it called an ongoing mobilisation of forces and threats to use force to resolve the country's political crisis.

Libya has been enmeshed in a stalemate for months after the eastern-based parliament swore in a new prime minister despite the incumbent in Tripoli refusing to cede power, leading to a standoff with armed factions backing each side.

Several shootouts have already taken place this summer between rival forces in the capital, raising the prospect of wider clashes and a return to sustained warfare after two years of comparative peace.

In Tripoli, Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah was installed last year through a U.N.-backed process to head the new Government of National Unity and oversee an election that was scheduled to be held last December.

After the election process collapsed with rival factions refusing to agree on the rules, the eastern-based parliament said Dbeibah's term had expired and it appointed Fathi Bashagha to lead a new government.

However, Dbeibah and some major factions in northwest Libya have rejected the parliament's right to replace him and he has said he will only quit after national elections. (Reuters)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed on Tuesday to restore Ukrainian rule over Russia-annexed Crimea, a move that he said would help re-establish "world law and order".

He told an international conference on Crimea that regaining control of the peninsula - seized and annexed by Russia in 2014 in a move not recognised by most other countries - would be the "biggest anti-war step".

"It all began with Crimea, and it will end with Crimea," Zelenskiy said in an opening address to the Crimea Platform, a forum that seeks to restore Ukraine's territorial integrity and end Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Calling for victory over Russia, he said: "It is necessary to liberate Crimea from occupation ... This will be the resuscitation of world law and order."

Zelenskiy said representatives of about 60 states and international organisations participated in the summit, including about 40 presidents and prime ministers.

Almost all took part online but Polish President Andrzej Duda attended in person. He urged global leaders not to turn a blind eye to what he depicted as Russian aggression, and said there could be no return to business as usual with Moscow.

"Crimea was, remains and will be a part of Ukraine just like Gdansk is a part of Poland, Nice is a part of France, Cologne is a part of Germany, and Rotterdam is a part of Netherlands," Duda said.

"FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Russia shows no sign of abandoning Crimea, home to its Black Sea fleet, and has used the peninsula as a platform to launch missile strikes on Ukrainian targets.

It has denied accusations of human rights abuses in Crimea, and says a referendum held after Russian forces seized the peninsula showed Crimeans genuinely want to be part of Russia. The referendum is not recognised by most countries.

Zelenskiy said Russia had turned Crimea into "an ecological disaster zone and a military springboard for aggression".

In a video linkup, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Russian "land grab (of Crimea) in 2014 was the direct precursor of today's war" and accused Russia of turning it into "an armed camp, from which to threaten the rest of Ukraine".

French President Emmanuel Macron urged non-European countries to support Ukraine against Russia, adding: "It's about our universal values."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said separately that foreign assistance since the invasion had reached $14 billion, and that Ukraine hoped to receive a further $12-$16 billion from foreign partners by the end of this year. (Reuters)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party suspended a state lawmaker from its membership on Tuesday, hours after he was arrested on suspicion of "promoting enmity in the name of religion".

T. Raja Singh, a lawmaker in the southern state of Telangana, was arrested and later released by a court in Hyderabad city, a lawyer for Singh told Reuters, after Muslim groups demanded his arrest for his comments about the Prophet Mohammad.

Hours after he was detained by local police, Singh was suspended from his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pending an internal inquiry.

"He has been suspended for expressing views contrary to the party's beliefs. The party doesn't believe in running any religion down," Om Pathak, the party official who issued Singh's suspension order, told Reuters.

Singh's suspension comes months after the BJP suspended a spokesperson for her remarks on the prophet that had led to a diplomatic backlash against India.

"He has been charged with promoting enmity in the name of religion... This about the recent video that he posted," Joel Davis, a senior police official in Hyderabad city, told Reuters.

In the video, available on social media, Singh, and in an apparent reference to the Muslim prophet, said an elderly man had married a girl decades his junior. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Hundreds of Muslims protested against Singh on Monday evening after the video appeared on social media, footage from media showed. (Reuters)