World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

Trump picks climate change sceptic Scott Pruitt to lead EPA
Ratko Mladić must get life sentence, say war crimes prosecutors
Push for east Aleppo aid drops using GPS-guided parachutes
Revealed: Rio Tinto's plan to use drones to monitor workers' private lives
Bill English: the Catholic conservative who will be New Zealand's next PM
Charleston shooting survivor calls Dylann Roof 'evil' in tearful testimony
US launches airstrike on Mosul hospital used by Isis, military says
Lawyer condemns Julian Assange over statement on rape case
Montenegro's accession to Nato faces hurdle as US Senate session nears end
'Thanks to all and long live Italy' – PM Matteo Renzi tenders resignation again
Pop star Junaid Jamshed among 48 killed in Pakistan plane crash
German court rules Muslim girls must take part in swimming lessons
Paris bans cars for second day running as pollution chokes city
Malta becomes first European country to ban 'gay cure' therapy
US Border Patrol uses desert as ‘weapon’ to kill thousands of migrants, report says
Mexican man's open invitation for daughter's birthday goes too viral
Activists back Google's appeal against Canadian order to censor search results
'Once in a lifetime' exhibition of Cézanne's portraits to tour capitals
Chapecoense plane crash survivor plans return to Brazil – video
Madagascar's £152m vanilla industry soured by child labour and poverty
Satellite Eye on Earth: November 2016 – in pictures
'New generation of addicts' – US health chief's warning on vaping
Madonna reveals she kissed Michael Jackson in James Corden's Carpool Karaoke – video
My hunting trip with Yeltsin killed off the Soviet Union
'Democracy was hijacked. It got a bad name': the death of the post-Soviet dream
Council leader ignores calls to resign over 5am tree felling operation
Boris Johnson says Saudi Arabia is a 'puppeteer' in Middle East proxy wars
Noel Pearson says 'soft bigotry' of the left the biggest challenge to Indigenous reform
After Calais: what has happened to the refugee children? – video
Aftershocks rattle survivors amid appeal for supplies after Indonesia quake
Bill English to be New Zealand's next PM after challengers drop out
Malaysia's MH370 search under the spotlight after investigation delays
Brazil's top court overturns ban on senate head Renan Calheiros
Plane crashes in Pakistan with 48 on board – video report
Girls especially at risk in Nigerian conflict | Letters
Tricolour Brexit may play well in France | Brief letters
Pope Francis compares fake news consumption to eating faeces
Irish gangster held over kidnap of champion greyhound Clares Rocket
Arrest of leading Egyptian feminist Azza Soliman sparks anger
Queues before dawn as Ghanaians vote in presidential election
Theresa May joins condemnation of Russia over Aleppo bombings
Hospital chaplain loses same-sex wedding discrimination appeal
What do people in Germany think of the burqa ban?
There goes the neighborhood? Canada frets over Trump's trade agenda
Eyewitness: Kaprun, Austria
Inside Regent Park: Toronto's test case for public-private gentrification
Where is the world's most 'godless' city?
Five questions we should be asking about the impact of UK aid | Mark Goldring
Child labour 'rampant' in Bangladesh factories, study reveals
Britain champions female refugees abroad only to fail them here | Kasia Staszewska
Africa's crackdown on tax avoidance nets £204m to boost development
How a network led by the billionaire Koch brothers is riding the Trump wave
Time magazine names Donald Trump person of the year – video
Rescuers hunt for survivors after earthquake in Indonesia – video report

Trump picks climate change sceptic Scott Pruitt to lead EPA

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 12:03 AM PST

Donald Trump's latest cabinet pick is a clear signal of Republicans' desire to dismantle Obama's climate legacy

Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma and a sceptic of climate science, has been chosen by Donald Trump as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ratko Mladić must get life sentence, say war crimes prosecutors

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 09:59 AM PST

Lawyers at The Hague say any lesser punishment for Bosnian Serb military commander would be 'insult to his victims'

Prosecutors at The Hague war crimes tribunal have called for a life sentence to be imposed on the Bosnian Serb military commander, Ratko Mladić, for genocide and crimes against humanity committed by his forces in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Any lesser penalty would be "an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice" said Alan Tieger, closing the prosecution's case on Wednesday at the end of a trial that has taken more than four and a half years at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Push for east Aleppo aid drops using GPS-guided parachutes

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 07:30 PM PST

Politicians call for American air-drop technology known as JPads to be used to supply besieged Syrian civilians, but militaries reported to be reluctant

Western diplomats have conceded that there are no technical obstacles to a plan to deliver airdrops of food and medicine to Aleppo using a GPS-guided parachute system, but the scheme has been stalled in the face of reluctance among military commanders and an absence of political will.

Diplomats and military from six governments – including the UK, US, France and Germany – have now seen the detailed operational plan proposed by an aid agency, which has been circulating among western officials for over a month.

Revealed: Rio Tinto's plan to use drones to monitor workers' private lives

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 05:19 PM PST

Exclusive: Privacy campaigners express alarm after company contracts Sodexo to 'capture individual insights' from staff in Western Australian mining camps

In the remote Australian outback, multinational companies are embarking on a secretive new kind of mining expedition.

Rio Tinto has long mined the Pilbara region of Western Australia for iron ore riches but now the company is seeking to extract a rather different kind of resource – its own employees, for data.

Bill English: the Catholic conservative who will be New Zealand's next PM

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 10:26 PM PST

Having once led the National party to worst ever electoral defeat, the farmer turned politician is now getting a chance at the top job

A socially conservative former farmer with 11 siblings is set to become the next prime minister of New Zealand, after Bill English's rivals withdrew from the leadership race on Thursday.

English led the National party to its worst ever defeat in 2002, but the former deputy prime minister and three-term finance minister says he has "grown" since then, and has "much more energy" now the youngest of his six children are teenagers.

Charleston shooting survivor calls Dylann Roof 'evil' in tearful testimony

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 04:00 PM PST

Felicia Sanders recounts moment her 26-year-old son was gunned down in assault on Bible study class in emotional testimony on opening day of Roof's trial

One of the survivors of the Charleston church massacre described the young white man accused of murdering nine of her fellow parishioners as "evil, evil, evil as can be" during powerful testimony that left many in the courtroom in tears on Wednesday.

Felicia Sanders lost her 26-year-old son Tywanza Sanders in the assault, and described the moment she saw 22-year-old Dylann Roof open fire on her bible study class at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, during an attack prosecutors argue was planned months in advance and motivated by violent racism.

US launches airstrike on Mosul hospital used by Isis, military says

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 03:22 PM PST

Central Command says 'precision strike' targeted building from which Isis fighters had fired at Iraqi forces for more than a day

The US military has deliberately conducted an airstrike on a hospital in the Iraqi city of Mosul, it said on Wednesday, after saying its Iraqi allies came under fire by Islamic State fighters from the hospital complex.

US Central Command (Centcom) said it launched a "precision strike" on a building within the al-Salem hospital complex from which Isis fighters had for more than a day launched "heavy" machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire on Iraqi forces.

Lawyer condemns Julian Assange over statement on rape case

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 10:58 AM PST

Elisabeth Massi Fritz says Assange's decision to release statement detailing his relationship with accuser is 'unfortunate'

A lawyer acting for the woman who made rape allegations against Julian Assange has accused him of "violating" her client in the media, after the WikiLeaks founder released a statement detailing answers he gave to Swedish investigators.

Assange on Wednesday thumbed his nose at Swedish officials, who he says have robbed him of his freedom for six years, by releasing the answers he gave to them under questioning at Ecuador's London embassy last month.

Montenegro's accession to Nato faces hurdle as US Senate session nears end

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 01:40 PM PST

The White House and Pentagon support the Balkan state gaining membership but the Senate has yet to approve it and Trump could oppose it as president

A behind-the-scenes drama over Montenegro's accession to Nato is currently playing out on Capitol Hill.

The tiny Balkan state's bid to become the 29th member of the alliance is strongly backed by the White House and the Pentagon, but its status is unresolved in the Senate, which will end its legislative session on Thursday.

'Thanks to all and long live Italy' – PM Matteo Renzi tenders resignation again

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 08:00 AM PST

Departure of country's youngest PM to come days after president put temporary freeze on his exit to allow budget to pass

Matteo Renzi has formally submitted his resignation, nearly three years after he became Italy's youngest ever prime minister.

The resignation was delivered to Sergio Mattarella, Italy's president, two days after he first attempted to quit after suffering a resounding defeat in Sunday's referendum on constitutional reform.

Pop star Junaid Jamshed among 48 killed in Pakistan plane crash

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:47 AM PST

Officials said there were no survivors on Pakistan International Airlines flight that crashed into a hillside north of Islamabad

Junaid Jamshed, a legendary figure in Pakistani pop music, was among the 48 people killed when a plane crashed into a hillside north of Islamabad, the latest episode in the country's long history of aviation disasters.

The small turboprop ATR 42 operated by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) was travelling from the mountainous region of Chitral on Wednesday when it crashed near the town of Havelian.

German court rules Muslim girls must take part in swimming lessons

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 01:20 PM PST

Constitutional judges say schoolgirl cannot be excused mixed classes on grounds of Islamic dress codes

Germany's highest court has ruled that ultra-conservative Muslim girls must take part in mixed swimming classes at school, finding against an 11-year-old pupil who had argued that even wearing a burkini, or full-body swimsuit, breached Islamic dress codes.

The constitutional court in Karlsruhe on Wednesday rejected an appeal by the girl's parents that she should be excused from the classes because a burkini did not conform with Islam's ethic of decency, German media reported.

Paris bans cars for second day running as pollution chokes city

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 07:09 AM PST

Vehicles with odd-number plates were banned on Tuesday and, on Wednesday, it was the even numbers' turn

Paris authorities restricted traffic in the city for a second day after a "lid of pollution" sealed the capital, causing concern over public health.

Photographs showed a grey veil of dirty air trapped over the city, masking the horizon and, at times, landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower. Experts said it was the longest most intense spike in pollution for at least 10 years and was expected to continue for at least another day if not longer.

Malta becomes first European country to ban 'gay cure' therapy

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 03:22 AM PST

Under new law anyone found guilty of trying to change, repress or eliminate a person's sexual orientation faces fine or jail

Malta has become the first country in Europe to ban gay conversion therapy after the parliament in Valetta unanimously approved a bill outlawing attempts to "cure" homosexuals of their sexuality.

Under the new Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression Act, anyone found guilty of trying to "change, repress or eliminate a person's sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression" will face fines or a jail sentence.

US Border Patrol uses desert as ‘weapon’ to kill thousands of migrants, report says

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:10 AM PST

Arizona advocacy group says agents chase border crossers from Mexico into hostile terrain in a strategy that leaves many injured, dead or lost

The US Border Patrol agency has engineered the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants by using the desert wilderness as a "weapon", according to an advocacy group.

Agents chase and scatter border crossers across hostile terrain in a strategy that leaves many people injured, dead or lost, turning the US's south-western frontier into a "vast graveyard of the missing", the Arizona-based group No More Deaths said on Wednesday.

Mexican man's open invitation for daughter's birthday goes too viral

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:44 AM PST

Video posted to Facebook drew millions of responses to Rubi Ibarra's quinceañera as well as tributes and spoofs from companies, singers and actors

Millions of people have responded to an invitation to a coming-of-age party for a girl in rural northern Mexico after her parents' video innocently asked "everybody" to attend.

A local event photographer posted the video describing a down-home 15th birthday party complete with food, horse races and local bands to his Facebook page, which is usually dedicated to announcing weddings, baptisms and other events in a rural corner of the northern state of San Luis Potosí.

Activists back Google's appeal against Canadian order to censor search results

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 02:30 AM PST

Canadian supreme court decision to ban links of fake company worldwide could allow countries to regulate internet outside borders, civil liberty groups say

More than two dozen human rights and civil liberty groups have thrown their weight behind Google as the tech giant challenges a Canadian court decision it warns could stifle freedom of expression around the world and lead to a diminished internet of the "lowest common denominator".

In an appeal heard on Tuesday in the supreme court of Canada, Google Inc took aim at a 2015 court decision that sought to censor search results beyond Canada's borders.

'Once in a lifetime' exhibition of Cézanne's portraits to tour capitals

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 02:00 AM PST

London, Paris and Washington will take turns to host show of 'most personal' work by artist Picasso called 'the father of us all'

The first exhibition devoted entirely to the portraits of Paul Cézanne, an artist hailed as "the father of us all" by Matisse and Picasso, is to be staged in London, Paris and Washington.

The National Portrait Gallery in London announced details of what it said would be a "once in a lifetime" exhibition.

Chapecoense plane crash survivor plans return to Brazil – video

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 01:37 AM PST

Chapecoense defender Alan Ruschel, one of six people who survived the plane crash that killed 71 people last month, says on Wednesday he will soon be back in Brazil. In a video released by Colombia's San Vicente Fundación hospital, where he is being treated, the Chapecoense defender is seen walking around his hospital room and thanking supporters

Madagascar's £152m vanilla industry soured by child labour and poverty

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 01:00 AM PST

A report claims retailers profiting from the world's second most expensive spice are ignoring the desperate plight of impoverished Madagascan farmers

Nine-year-old Xidollien has no idea that the vanilla pods he and his family so painstakingly cultivate throughout the year on their small vanilla farm in the north of Madagascar is one of the most valuable spices in the world.

He hides behind his mother, Liliane, as she stands among the family's vanilla plants . He has spent all morning clearing weeds from the land with a machete. Tomorrow will be the same for him and thousands of other children in the northern region of the island.

Satellite Eye on Earth: November 2016 – in pictures

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 01:00 AM PST

Ancient water channels in Morocco, declining Arctic sea ice and the US-Mexico border were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last month

A bank of clouds covers East Java to the west, with a bright sun overhead casting shadows from the clouds along the ocean surface. Sunglint, an optical effect caused by the reflection of sunlight off the water surface directly back at the satellite sensor, exposes the waves created by the movement of currents in the ocean water. Internal waves are generated when the interface between layers is disturbed, such as when tidal flow passes over rough ocean floors, ridges, or other obstacles. The Lombok Strait, a relatively narrow passageway between Bali (west) and Lombok (east), allows flow of water from the Pacific Ocean into the Indian Ocean. The bottom of the strait is complex and rough, consisting of two main channels, one shallow and one deep. Because of the variation in water movement due to the complexity of the channels and ocean interface, the tides in the strait have a complex rhythm but tend to combine about every 14 days to create an exceptionally strong tidal flow. It is the combination of rough topography, strong tidal currents, and stratified water from the ocean exchange that makes the Lombok Strait famous for the generation of intensive internal waves.

'New generation of addicts' – US health chief's warning on vaping

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 12:53 AM PST

Surgeon general acknowledges more research is needed on e-cigarettes but says: 'Your kids are not an experiment'

The US surgeon general has said e-cigarettes pose an emerging health threat to young people.

In a report released on Thursday, Vivek Murthy acknowledged a need for more research into the health effects of vaping, but said e-cigarettes were not harmless and too many teenagers were using them.

Madonna reveals she kissed Michael Jackson in James Corden's Carpool Karaoke – video

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 12:02 AM PST

Madonna joins James Corden for a trip around New York in the latest episode of Carpool Karaoke from The Late Late Show aired on Wednesday. Corden and Madonna sing a selection of Madonna's hits and the singer even twerks in the front seat of the car. At the end of the journey Madonna admits to having kissed Michael Jackson, a fact she says she has never previously made public

Watch the full video on The Late Late Show with James Corden YouTube channel

My hunting trip with Yeltsin killed off the Soviet Union

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 07:18 AM PST

Belarusian politician recalls his role 25 years ago in reaching deal that led to breakup of USSR without major bloodshed

The man whose signature in effect dissolved the Soviet Union 25 years ago on Thursday has admitted that was not his intention as he travelled to the fateful meeting.

'Democracy was hijacked. It got a bad name': the death of the post-Soviet dream

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:00 PM PST

Independence 25 years ago promised to bring freedom and prosperity to central Asia, but kleptocratic regimes have left many yearning for the past

The road out of Kommunizm, a small town in southern Tajikistan, is badly paved and bumpy. Like most things here it was built long ago, when the ruling ideology that gave the settlement its name was still thriving.

Home to just 7,000 inhabitants, Kommunizm was at the very edge of the Russian empire, first tsarist then Soviet; a mere 50 miles from Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

Council leader ignores calls to resign over 5am tree felling operation

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 01:45 AM PST

Campaigners in Sheffield say 4,000 trees have gone since private finance deal was signed with contractor Amey in 2012

A council leader has ignored calls to resign over a pre-dawn tree-felling operation in which five people were arrested.

Simon Crump and Calvin Payne, both pensioners, were detained in the battle over Sheffield's tree-felling programme.

Boris Johnson says Saudi Arabia is a 'puppeteer' in Middle East proxy wars

Posted: 08 Dec 2016 12:00 AM PST

Foreign secretary, who has been accused of a series of diplomatic gaffes, breaks with convention by publicly criticising UK ally

Boris Johnson accused Saudi Arabia of abusing Islam and acting as a puppeteer in proxy wars throughout the Middle East, in remarks that flout a longstanding Foreign Office convention not to criticise the UK's allies in public.

The foreign secretary told a conference in Rome last week that the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, and also Iran, was a tragedy, adding that there was an absence of visionary leadership in the region that was willing to reach out across the Sunni-Shia divide.

Noel Pearson says 'soft bigotry' of the left the biggest challenge to Indigenous reform

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:12 PM PST

Aboriginal leader says low expectations of 'false progressives' for Indigenous people has trapped reformers such as himself in a 'zero-sum game'

Noel Pearson has declared the "soft bigotry" of Australia's progressive left in education, the environmental movement and media as "the most fundamental challenge to Indigenous reform in our country".

The Aboriginal leader amplified his recent attack on the ABC with a sweeping indictment of "the left" generally over Indigenous policy failure, a critique he credited to an unlikely source, former US president George W Bush.

After Calais: what has happened to the refugee children? – video

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:05 PM PST

Six weeks after the Calais migrant camp was demolished, unaccompanied minors scattered around France are still waiting to hear of their fate from the Home Office. Lisa O'Carroll, Mat Heywood and John Domokos meet one young refugee who fled death in Darfur desperate to be reunited with his radiographer brother in Liverpool

Sudanese refugee in UK voices fears for brother stranded in France

Aftershocks rattle survivors amid appeal for supplies after Indonesia quake

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 08:40 PM PST

Nearly 100 people have died in the latest disaster to hit Aceh as hopes fade of finding people alive in the rubble

Aftershocks have rattled the survivors of a devastating earthquake in Indonesia that killed nearly 100 people as officials urgently appealed for medicine and doctors to treat the hundreds injured.

The fresh tremors hampered rescue efforts in Aceh province on Sumatra where a shallow 6.5-magnitude quake levelled hundreds of homes, mosques and businesses on Wednesday.

Bill English to be New Zealand's next PM after challengers drop out

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 07:51 PM PST

John Key's chosen successor must still face party vote on Monday, but with support of most National MPs, transition looks likely to be a formality

Bill English looks certain to be New Zealand's next prime minister.

The deputy leader of the Nationals has secured the public support of 30 of the party's MPs on Thursday – a majority – and, following the withdrawal of two challengers, stands unopposed for the leadership.

Malaysia's MH370 search under the spotlight after investigation delays

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 06:14 PM PST

'Remarkable coincidence' that investigators have only now collected potential debris from Madagascar, say families who started own hunt for missing plane

Questions have been asked about Malaysia's commitment to the search for missing flight MH370, after the country's civil aviation head insisted that delays in collecting potential debris were justified, and Malaysia Airlines took steps to block a bid for compensation by families of those on board the plane.

Relatives of the passengers have remarked on the fact that the shift in Malaysia's investigation has coincided with their trip to Madagascar to hunt for debris themselves.

Brazil's top court overturns ban on senate head Renan Calheiros

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 04:57 PM PST

The senator refused to recognise an order suspending him while he faces trial on multiple charges of corruption

Brazil's top court has reinstated the head of the country's senate after overturning a bid to suspend him from leadership duties while he faces trial.

The supreme federal tribunal voted 6-3 on Wednesday to reinstate Renan Calheiros a day after he refused to abide by the suspension order issued late on Monday by Justice Marco Aurelio Mello.

Plane crashes in Pakistan with 48 on board – video report

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 12:24 PM PST

A Pakistan International Airlines plane has crashed on its approach to Islambad from Chitral. Army officials say there unlikely to be any survivors. According to local media, one of Pakistan's most famous singers, Junaid Jamshed, was on board the plane

Pakistan International Airlines plane crashes with 48 onboard

Girls especially at risk in Nigerian conflict | Letters

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:36 AM PST

Your editorial (Prevent famine by returning money stolen from Africa's poor, 5 December) rightly highlights the urgent need for humanitarian action to help those at risk of starvation in north-east Nigeria. We know from our work on the ground that tens of thousands of children will be at risk of starvation, abuse and death unless the international community takes immediate and coordinated action. We welcome the UN's efforts in doubling its funding appeal for north-east Nigeria. But we also need to ensure that equal priority is given to girls caught up in the conflict. They make up one-third of the 2.6 million people who have been forced to flee their homes due to violence. For these girls, sexual abuse and forced marriage are real dangers that routinely threaten their lives. If we are to ensure the protection, survival and dignity of women and girls caught up in conflict, then as well as providing food, water and shelter, the humanitarian community must address sexual violence from the onset of its response.
Eugenio Donadio
Programme manager for disaster risk management, Plan International UK

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Tricolour Brexit may play well in France | Brief letters

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:35 AM PST

Zaki Cooper (Letters, 5 December) trundles out the tired old cliche, regularly disproved by history, that faiths are but different paths to the same end. The common "values and morals" he goes on to list are no more than the basic tenets of secular humanism. All that is added by "faith identity" is an element of the supernatural, the primacy of a random deity and the slew of sexual, dietary and cultural regulations that divide the human race into numerous factions.
Tony Reeves
London

• Fining poor people is cruel and ineffective, says retired magistrate Nigel Reynolds (Letters, 5 December). Our jobcentres sanction hundreds of the incompetent and mentally ill, driving them from poverty into destitution, cruelly but ineffectively to get them into employment. Our overcrowded prisons are full of recidivists, demonstrating their ineffectiveness. Apart from the occasional parking ticket, is any punishment effective?
Alison Cholmondeley
Wells, Somerset

Pope Francis compares fake news consumption to eating faeces

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 09:50 AM PST

Pontiff says journalists must avoid falling into 'the sickness of coprophilia', an abnormal interest in excrement

Pope Francis has lambasted media organisations that focus on scandals and smears and promote fake news as a means of discrediting people in public life. Spreading disinformation was "probably the greatest damage that the media can do", the pontiff told the Belgian Catholic weekly Tertio. It is a sin to defame people, he added.

Using striking terminology, Francis said journalists and the media must avoid falling into "coprophilia" – an abnormal interest in excrement. Those reading or watching such stories risked behaving like coprophagics, people who eat faeces, he added.

Irish gangster held over kidnap of champion greyhound Clares Rocket

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 09:45 AM PST

Christie Keane among four men arrested after 'fastest dog in Ireland' is recovered safe and well

An Irish gangster is being held in custody over the kidnapping of a champion greyhound worth an estimated €1m. The dog, Clares Rocket, was stolen on Monday from kennels belonging to the Tipperary-based trainer Graham Holland. It was recovered by armed officers from a car on a road between Waterford and Limerick on Tuesday evening, police said.

Christie Keane was one of four men arrested by police on Tuesday night over the incident, which has been likened to the IRA's kidnapping of the record-breaking racehorse Shergar in 1983. A police spokesman said the detained men were being questioned at stations in Clonmel and Tipperary. "The dog has been recovered safe and well," he added.

Arrest of leading Egyptian feminist Azza Soliman sparks anger

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 09:19 AM PST

Reason for detention not known but Egyptian human rights groups say they are subject to worst clampdown ever

Human rights activists in Egypt have reacted angrily to the arrest of prominent women's rights advocate Azza Soliman, saying it marked a "chilling escalation" of pressure on civil society organisations.

Soliman, the founder of the Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA), is one of a number of activists, lawyers and journalists to have been prevented from leaving Egypt in the past month.

Queues before dawn as Ghanaians vote in presidential election

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 07:58 AM PST

Close race expected between incumbent John Dramani Mahama and challenger Nana Akufo-Addo

Ghanaians began lining up at polling stations before dawn on Wednesday to elect their next president as the west African nation hopes to reaffirm its reputation as a model of democracy on the continent.

Despite concerns about the credibility of the elections, voter enthusiasm has been high. The race is expected to be tight between the incumbent president, John Dramani Mahama, and the opposition leader, Nana Akufo-Addo.

Theresa May joins condemnation of Russia over Aleppo bombings

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 05:44 AM PST

Prime minister among six western leaders criticising Syrian government and backers for attacks on civilians and obstructing aid

Theresa May has joined Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and the leaders of France, Canada and Italy to jointly condemn Russia over its role in the humanitarian disaster "taking place before our very eyes" in Aleppo.

In the statement, the six leaders criticised the Syrian government "and its foreign backers, especially Russia", for attacks on civilians and obstructing humanitarian aid.

Hospital chaplain loses same-sex wedding discrimination appeal

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 05:01 AM PST

Jeremy Pemberton was appealing against ruling backing Church of England ban on gay clergy marrying their partners

A Church of England hospital chaplain has lost his claim that he was discriminated against when his licence to work was withdrawn after he married his same-sex partner, in a case that gay rights campaigners hoped would force the church to change its stance.

Jeremy Pemberton was appealing against an earlier ruling that backed the church's legal right to enforce its position that gay clergy are forbidden from marrying their partners.

What do people in Germany think of the burqa ban?

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 05:00 AM PST

We want to hear from people in the country, including supporters of Islam, about the proposed partial ban on the burqa and the niqab in Germany

Angela Merkel has endorsed her party's call for a partial ban on the burqa and the niqab in Germany. Showing her support for this for the first time, she told delegates at the Christian Democratic Union's conference in Essen "the full facial veil is inappropriate and should be banned wherever it is legally possible".

This week the German chancellor's CDU party is expected to pass a motion proposing a ban on the full-face veil in some areas of public life such as courts, schools and universities and during police checks.

There goes the neighborhood? Canada frets over Trump's trade agenda

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 03:30 AM PST

Canada seems a likely target of Trump's protectionism on account of Nafta, but the government has sounded a willingness to renegotiate

A few days before Donald Trump is sworn in as US president, one of his key advisers will arrive in Canada.

Kellyanne Conway will not be in Ottawa to meet with the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, or senior Canadian officials. Instead, the woman who managed the final months of Trump's campaign will be in Alberta for a tour of the Fort McMurray oil sands and a speaking gig at a fundraising dinner for a Conservative advocacy group.

Eyewitness: Kaprun, Austria

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 02:35 AM PST

Photographs from the Eyewitness series

Inside Regent Park: Toronto's test case for public-private gentrification

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:00 PM PST

Once notorious for bedbugs and crime, the Regent Park social housing development has been transformed with a $1bn revitalisation – and more than a few luxury apartments. But has it managed to avoid social cleansing?

Paintbox Bistro is a typical modern restaurant: high ceilings, framed art and hand-built wooden tables, serving everything from snacks to wraps to flank steak by a chef who did time in trendy Toronto eateries. It's a description that could apply to many of the restaurants that regularly pop up (and back down) throughout Canada's foodie capital. Except Paintbox Bistro has a twist: it is located in what used to be the city's roughest neighbourhood, Regent Park.

A 69-acre housing project known for bedbugs and crime, Regent Park became especially notorious in 2005, when a member of the Point Blank Soulijahs gang – an offshoot of the Regent Park Crew – shot dead a 15-year-old bystander near the Eaton Centre, the biggest mall in the downtown core. The killing shocked Toronto; several years later, in 2012, fighting between the gang's descendants, the Sic Thugz, led to another weekend shootout.

Where is the world's most 'godless' city?

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 04:03 AM PST

Norwich has the highest proportion of residents describing themselves as having no religion, while Berlin has been called the 'atheist capital of Europe'. But what about the rest of the world? And is such an assessment meaningful?

Discovering how many people in a given city believe in God (or not) is an almost superhuman task. In territories controlled or influenced by Islamic State, for example, the risks to declared non-believers are drastic and obvious. On the other side of the coin, the state atheism promulgated by the leaders of the Soviet Union meant that believers were stigmatised at best, persecuted at worst.

As sociology professor Phil Zuckerman pointed out in an essay in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, even the terminology of religious belief can throw up roadblocks to understanding. If my idea of religious practice is a good deal looser than yours, can we have a meaningful conversation about which cities are godless and which are not?

Five questions we should be asking about the impact of UK aid | Mark Goldring

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 11:00 PM PST

British aid can and must be scrupulously monitored, not least to ensure that it is fulfilling its remit to eradicate poverty and reaching beyond domestic interests

Together with last year's government aid strategy, the Department for International Development's publication of two reviews of its approach to aid delivery provides a much clearer picture of how Britain will tackle world poverty.

There is much to welcome in last week's reviews of bilateral (pdf) and multilateral (pdf) funding, not least development secretary Priti Patel's forthright and passionate commitment to aid as a vital tool in the fight to end poverty. The reviews rightly stress the importance of aid effectiveness, innovation, impact and enhanced levels of national and international transparency, scrutiny and accountability for every pound spent.

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Child labour 'rampant' in Bangladesh factories, study reveals

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 05:47 AM PST

Overseas Development Institute survey finds 15% of six- to 14-year-olds living in poorest households work an average of 64 hours a week

Most mornings, 15-year-old Iqbal arrives for his job at a Dhaka panel beaters at about 10am, working on cars for up to 13 hours before he can go home.

The teenager, who earns less than £60 a week, has been working these hours since the age of 12, when his family's financial problems forced him out of school and into a full-time job.

Britain champions female refugees abroad only to fail them here | Kasia Staszewska

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 04:48 AM PST

Despite saying it wants to protect women from sexual violence in conflict, the UK fails to provide safe, legal routes to sanctuary and handles asylum insensitively

Ramya, an Eritrean, was raped more than once by the traffickers who held her captive in a camp in Libya. Hala, from Aleppo, was offered a lower fee by a people smuggler in Turkey if she had sex with him. Reem, a Syrian, couldn't sleep in refugee camps in Europe because she was scared the men around her would try to touch her during the night. Ada fled sexual violence in Nigeria, only to be kidnapped and abused by people smugglers in Libya on her journey to safety in Europe.

Women and girls fleeing conflict and persecution face these terrifying risks every day, yet the issue has barely figured in the global response to the refugee crisis.

Africa's crackdown on tax avoidance nets £204m to boost development

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 02:00 AM PST

UN Development Programme chief Helen Clark applauds project designed to improve audit capacities and ensure multinationals observe local tax laws

A team of tax experts from Kenya will be deployed to Botswana early next year in the latest round of an initiative that seeks to boost domestic revenue collection to fund national development plans.

The move was announced last week at the second global partnership for effective development cooperation meeting in Nairobi, which brought together representatives of governments, civil society, the private sector and UN officials.

How a network led by the billionaire Koch brothers is riding the Trump wave

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 03:00 AM PST

Despite the Koch brothers not backing Donald Trump financially with ads during the election, their network is emerging as a winner from his transition

Despite deciding not to back Donald Trump financially with ads during the presidential election, the sprawling donor and advocacy network led by the multibillionaire Koch brothers is emerging as a winner in the transition.

Longtime ally Mike Pence is leading the transition team, and several veteran Koch network donors, operatives and political allies are poised to join the Trump administration when the new president takes office in January.

Time magazine names Donald Trump person of the year – video

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 01:03 PM PST

Time magazine announces Donald Trump as its person of the year on Wednesday, describing him on its front cover as the 'president of the divided states of America'. Assistant managing editor at Time, Ben Goldberger, says that for 90 years the magazine has named the person 'who's had the greatest effect on the world and the news for good or for ill'. Photograph: Time magazine/Nadav Kander

Donald Trump named as Time magazine's person of the year

Rescuers hunt for survivors after earthquake in Indonesia – video report

Posted: 07 Dec 2016 02:23 AM PST

Indonesian emergency services clear rubble on Wednesday after a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit northern Sumatra. At least 54 people have been killed by the earthquake with more believed to be trapped beneath the rubble. Sutopo Nugroho of the national disaster management agency says a state of emergency has been declared in Aceh

Aceh earthquake: 54 dead and dozens feared trapped in Indonesia

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World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

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