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

Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general despite controversies
Russian hacking group's 'last member at liberty' comes out of the shadows
Images reveal three more Japanese WWII shipwrecks torn apart for scrap
'The punches we’ve taken have made us stronger': Podemos leader goes for broke
EU reaches out to Russia to broker deal with Libyan general Haftar
Kenyan court quashes government order to close refugee camp
Young Indian cricketer's astonishing innings makes him global sensation
Yemen wants US to reassess counter-terrorism strategy after botched raid
Almost 90% of new power in Europe from renewable sources in 2016
More than 1,000 Rohingya feared killed in Myanmar crackdown, say UN officials
Ex-Somali PM heralds 'new beginning' after presidential election win
Ecuador presidential hopeful promises to evict Julian Assange from embassy
Europe urged to offer migrants work to cut Mediterranean deaths
Coretta Scott King's daughter hits back over Elizabeth Warren silencing
Boris Johnson among record number to renounce US citizenship in 2016
Berlin film festival spurns US to focus on past and future of Europe
Justin Trudeau canvasses world leaders before visit to Trump White House
Alexei Navalny: Russian opposition leader found guilty of embezzlement
Sarah Palin touted as US ambassador to Canada? You betcha!
Travel ban shuts out some of those who suffered most at hands of Isis
Donald Trump keeps China on hold with letter but no phone call for Xi Jinping
Jeff Sessions addresses Senate after confirmation as attorney general – video
Britain has blood on its hands over Yemen | Owen Jones
Snow on the tracks? Get out the didle | Letters
Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit: Labour will push for concessions
Peter Dutton says tougher citizenship test may be on the way
Did you come to the UK as a child refugee?
Thursday briefing: Jeff Sessions wears his new Trump hat
The doctor’s dilemma: is it ever good to do harm | Dr Gwen Adshead
CIA chief Mike Pompeo visits Turkey to discuss policy on Syria and Isis
Editorial: the demobilised woman – archive, 9 February 1920
Australian man whose girlfriend died in Thailand jetski collision to be interviewed by police
Medical journal to retract paper after concerns organs came from executed prisoners
Lagom might be just enough to save us all | Letters
Six Red Cross workers in Afghanistan killed in ambush
Halting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia would have risks, court hears
Pope Francis appears to criticize Trump's Mexico border wall plan
PM accused of closing door on child refugees as 'Dubs' scheme ends
Brazil authorities request troops as violence continues amid police strike
The great fridge debate: first eggs – and now ketchup
'Cowardice' to blame for delayed response at Sousse attack
Trump envoy says Greece is now more likely to leave the euro
Protests spread across Paris estates as anger grows over alleged police rape
Germany makes rare criticism of Israel over West Bank outposts vote
'It's pretty brave': Mogadishu on lockdown as Somali MPs elect president
Chinese family of 500 reunite for supersize group photo
Turkey dismisses 4,400 public servants in latest post-coup attempt purge
Unbuilt Los Angeles: the city that might have been – in pictures
The populist bishop and the Apprentice host: meet Brazil's new megacity mayors
Deja vu but different: how the fall of one New Zealand city helped save another
Syria's plight must not be allowed to slip from the world's conscience | Stephen O'Brien
UK foreign aid fraud investigations 'quadruple in last five years'
Irish trawlers accused of 'alarming' abuses of migrant workers
Yemen's food crisis: 'We are broken, we die either from bombing or hunger'
'A big-hearted optimist': Hans Rosling tributes pour in on social media
'She persisted': Elizabeth Warren cements spot as Trump's opposition
'Attack on his daughter': Trump aide on Ivanka's fashion rejection – video
President Trump in disbelief at travel ban appeals court process – video
Barack Obama kitesurfing – in pictures

Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general despite controversies

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 05:42 PM PST

Senator had come under fire for his views on race and civil rights in a tempestuous confirmation process that strained the upper chamber's norms

A closely divided Senate confirmed the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be attorney general on Wednesday after a historically tumultuous confirmation process that saw the senator from Alabama come under fire for his views on race and civil rights.

Russian hacking group's 'last member at liberty' comes out of the shadows

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:00 PM PST

'Alexander' tells how Shaltai-Boltai, or Humpty Dumpty, terrorised Russian officials for three years, combining hacking, leaking and extortion

Wearing a Christmas jumper emblazoned with reindeer, Alexander sits in a bar in Riga. He has a remarkable story to tell. After several years hiding in the shadows, he is, or at least claims to be, the last member still at large of Russia's most notorious band of hackers and leakers.

Shaltai-Boltai, or Humpty Dumpty, terrorised Russian officials for nearly three years, combining hacking, leaking and extortion, while retaining an impenetrable cloak of anonymity. The group would post online samples of emails from officials they had hacked, and put the rest of the cache up for sale: the incriminating information could then either be bought back by the original sender, or snapped up by enemies.

Images reveal three more Japanese WWII shipwrecks torn apart for scrap

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:54 PM PST

Exclusive: Metal salvaging off Borneo was originally authorised as 'research' by Malaysian university

Three Japanese ships that sank off the coast of Borneo during the second world war have been destroyed in an apparent illegal metal salvage operation, according to photos taken by divers and passed to the Guardian.

The sunken cargo transporters, believed by divers and historians to be the Kokusei Maru, Higane Maru and Hiyori Maru, were torpedoed during the 1944 Pacific War by US forces and are likely to still hold the remains of dozens of crewmen.

'The punches we’ve taken have made us stronger': Podemos leader goes for broke

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 12:40 AM PST

Pablo Iglesias's political career is on the line as he faces off against his old friend and number two for the party's mandate

From Peruvian literature to Soviet military history, Catalan independence to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party, there are, it seems, very few subjects on which Pablo Iglesias does not have an enthusiastic opinion.

But wide as the scope of his interests and knowledge is, his immediate focus is on the Podemos congress this weekend, an event that will determine the direction of the anti-austerity party he leads and, very possibly, make or break his political career.

EU reaches out to Russia to broker deal with Libyan general Haftar

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:00 PM PST

Diplomats hope for reconciliation between the UN-backed government of national accord and the military commander of Libya's eastern government

European diplomats are attempting a last-ditch effort to dissuade Russia from helping the renegade military strongman Khalifa Haftar seize overall military power in Libya.

Haftar, the military commander of Libya's eastern government, has sought Moscow's help to battle Isis, but European diplomats fear that that he could join what has been described as Vladimir Putin's axis of secular authoritarians in the Middle East alongside Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

Kenyan court quashes government order to close refugee camp

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 01:35 AM PST

Judge declares repatriation of 200,000 Somali refugees from Dadaab camp unconstitutional and discriminatory

A Kenyan court has declared illegal a government order to close the world's largest refugee camp and send more than 200,000 people back to war-stricken Somalia.

The judge, John Mativo, said on Thursday that Kenya's internal security minister had abused his power by ordering the closure in May of Dadaab refugee camp, near the border with Somalia.

Young Indian cricketer's astonishing innings makes him global sensation

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 12:31 AM PST

Mohit Ahlawat, 21, a farmer's son from a rural district north of Delhi, is coolly facing his sudden stardom in the way he faces bowlers

His world-first 300 run knock in a Twenty20 match at a suburban Delhi cricket ground has become a global sensation, but Mohit Ahlawat is still a little bemused by the attention. It isn't the first record-breaking score the 21-year-old has posted in the game's shortest form.

"In the last tournament I played in the Delhi district league I scored 224 not out," he says. In another recent tournament, in Ghaziabad, he posted a casual 139.

Yemen wants US to reassess counter-terrorism strategy after botched raid

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 12:14 PM PST

Sidelining of Trump's national security council worries experts, who liken decision-making process that led to civilian deaths to 'shooting from the hip'

The Yemeni government said on Wednesday it wants a rethink of US counter-terrorist operations on its territory after a botched commando raid on 29 January that left more than 30 civilians dead.

The Navy Seal operation, aimed at gathering intelligence on al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap), has shone light on chaotic decision-making in the Trump White House, where presidential aides, many with little foreign policy or national security experience, are competing for influence.

Almost 90% of new power in Europe from renewable sources in 2016

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:00 PM PST

Wind energy overtakes coal as the EU's second largest form of power capacity but concerns remain over politicians' enthusiasm for renewables

Renewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe's electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent's rapid shift away from fossil fuels.

But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end.

More than 1,000 Rohingya feared killed in Myanmar crackdown, say UN officials

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:32 PM PST

Aung San Suu Kyi criticised for failure to condemn army despite mounting evidence of atrocities on a huge scale

More than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims might have been killed in a Myanmar army crackdown, according to two senior United Nations officials dealing with refugees fleeing the violence, suggesting the death toll is far greater than previously reported.

The officials, from two separate UN agencies working in Bangladesh, where nearly 70,000 Rohingya have fled in recent months, said they were concerned the outside world had not fully grasped the severity of the crisis unfolding in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Ex-Somali PM heralds 'new beginning' after presidential election win

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:25 AM PST

Former prime minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed promises 'new beginning' for beleaguered country

Celebrations have erupted on the streets of Somalia after parliamentarians elected a new president, with crowds chanting songs and firing automatic weapons into the night sky.

The election of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a 55-year-old former prime minister and dual US-Somali national with a reputation for independence and competence, has raised the hopes of millions of people in the poor and violent east African state.

Ecuador presidential hopeful promises to evict Julian Assange from embassy

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:30 PM PST

Presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso says costly asylum no longer justified
WikiLeaks founder has been living at London embassy for four and a half years

Julian Assange will be given a month's notice to leave the Ecuadorian embassy if the country's main opposition candidate wins the presidency in next week's election.

In an interview with the Guardian, Guillermo Lasso, of the rightwing Creo-Suma alliance, said it was time for the WikiLeaks founder to move on because his asylum was expensive and no longer justified.

Europe urged to offer migrants work to cut Mediterranean deaths

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:28 AM PST

Opening up legal routes to work would reduce number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean, senior UN figure says

Europe needs to open up legal routes for African migrants to work on the continent if it is serious about cutting deaths in the Mediterranean, according to a senior UN figure.

More than 181,000 people made the sea crossing from north Africa to Italy in 2016, a record number that EU leaders have vowed to drastically reduce amid fears that even higher numbers could tear the European project apart. More than 5,000 people have died in the central Mediterranean.

Coretta Scott King's daughter hits back over Elizabeth Warren silencing

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 12:12 PM PST

Dr Bernice King issued a blistering critique of Republicans after Elizabeth Warren was silenced while reading a letter by Coretta Scott opposing Jeff Sessions

#LetLizSpeak: Senate's silencing of Warren prompts rallying of support

Civil rights leaders reacted with fury to the move by Republicans to silence Elizabeth Warren as she was in mid-flow on the floor of the US Senate, reading out a 1986 letter from one of the titans of the struggle for race equality, the late Coretta Scott King.

King's friends and fellow members of the movement for equal rights, in which she had played a prominent role alongside her husband Martin Luther King, responded with anger to the action of the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell. He cut Warren off mid-sentence, claiming that by quoting King's words the Democratic senator had broken a Senate prohibition on members impugning the conduct of their peers.

Boris Johnson among record number to renounce US citizenship in 2016

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 01:40 PM PST

Foreign secretary had previously protested against 'absolutely outrageous' US tax obligations after sale of his north London home

Boris Johnson has renounced his US citizenship, ending years of ambiguous loyalties and probably ridding himself of a hefty tax bill.

A list released by the US Treasury department showed the UK foreign secretary was one of 5,411 individuals to renounce his American citizenship in 2016.

Berlin film festival spurns US to focus on past and future of Europe

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 03:47 PM PST

T2 Trainspotting and Django make the cut, with only one American production – The Dinner – chosen for the festival's competition

As Europe and the US retreat from each other politically, European cinephiles are learning to cut back on Hollywood fare – with big US productions strikingly absent from this year's Berlin film festival, which opens on Thursday.

In past years, the German capital's Berlinale has opened with star-studded Oscar contenders such as the Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! or Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. This year, the world's biggest audience participation festival launches with the world premiere of a biopic of French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt – focusing on his family's persecution in Nazi-occupied Paris – by little-known first-timer Etienne Comar.

Justin Trudeau canvasses world leaders before visit to Trump White House

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 11:36 AM PST

The Canada prime minister has discussed Donald Trump with Britain's Theresa May and France's François Hollande as he prepares for a trip to Washington

Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has been conferring with other world leaders on how best to engage with Donald Trump as he prepares for an upcoming visit with the unpredictable new president.

On Saturday, Trudeau spoke with Theresa May, the British prime minister. Along with accepting May's condolences for the recent shooting at a mosque in Quebec City, Trudeau also mined her for information on her recent visit to the White House, according to the Canadian Press.

Alexei Navalny: Russian opposition leader found guilty of embezzlement

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 08:39 AM PST

Retrial conviction could prevent anti-corruption activist and Putin critic from running in 2018 presidential election

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been found guilty at a retrial of embezzlement and given a five-year suspended prison sentence, putting his proposed presidential run in 2018 in doubt.

Election rules say candidates cannot have felony convictions, but the anti-corruption activist vowed to appeal and said he would continue his campaign "no matter what happens in court".

Sarah Palin touted as US ambassador to Canada? You betcha!

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 02:43 PM PST

Canadians have expressed dismay on social media after the White House press secretary refused to rule out the ex-Alaska governor as our woman in Ottawa

Much of her life has played out like a Canadian stereotype: from her favourite food of moose stew to extolling the virtues of hockey moms and her love of snowmobiling.

But after a White House spokesman refused to rule out the possibility that Sarah Palin could be the next US ambassador to Ottawa, few in Canada seemed to be embracing the prospect of the former Alaska governor taking up the role.

Travel ban shuts out some of those who suffered most at hands of Isis

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 02:00 AM PST

Yazidi religious minority were subjected to what the United Nations classified as genocide when Isis militants overran their homes in northern Iraq in 2014

The travel ban imposed by Donald Trump on seven Muslim-majority nations has had the effect of excluding some of those who suffered most at the hands of Islamic State extremists.

Donald Trump keeps China on hold with letter but no phone call for Xi Jinping

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 01:44 AM PST

US president sends belated new year wishes, but failure to contact Beijing counterpart almost three weeks after inauguration is prompting questions

Donald Trump has reportedly yelled down the telephone at Australia's prime minister and veered off into rants about China and Nato with French leader François Hollande.

Jeff Sessions addresses Senate after confirmation as attorney general – video

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 12:42 AM PST

Jeff Sessions tells a divided Senate in his inaugural speech as US attorney general that lawmakers should work together when possible. Sessions was confirmed on Thursday despite controversies surrounding his views on race and civil rights. All but one Democrat voted against confirming Sessions, while he was unanimously backed by his Republican colleagues

Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general despite controversies

Britain has blood on its hands over Yemen | Owen Jones

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 12:05 PM PST

Bombs made by us and dropped by Saudi Arabia are killing civilians in the civil war. Perhaps a high court ruling will bring our government to account

Little children should not be drawing missiles and corpses. When I met Yemeni girls and boys in a sandy, sun-scorched refugee camp in the horn of Africa, the pictures they had drawn chilled me. One depicted aeroplanes raining missiles down on houses; there were frowning corpses in crudely drawn puddles of blood, a weeping child beside them. These were horrors they had suffered – and they suffered them, in part, because of the role of Britain's government.

Yemen is in the midst of a civil war that has lasted two years, taken the lives of 10,000 civilians and plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis. There are multiple parties involved, all unsavoury, all accused of war crimes. But, as the UN reported last year, it is a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that is responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths. Some of those civilians are being killed by British-made bombs, sold to the Saudi dictatorship by our government. Since the Saudis began pummelling Yemen, the government has granted licences for £3.3bn worth of arms. It is a cause for national shame.

Snow on the tracks? Get out the didle | Letters

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 11:24 AM PST

"The science fraud squad" (The long read, 1 February) perhaps needs to look out not just for published research studies that offer conclusions based on invented or edited data but also for those that are not published because the results fail to support the idea, product or process that the researchers (or their commercial sponsors) were hoping for; thereby nurturing a bias towards their favoured conclusion by concealing contrary evidence. That latter form of truth-bending may be just as frequent as the former, and often more deliberate.
Professor Derek Rowntree
Banbury, Oxfordshire

Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit: Labour will push for concessions

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 01:59 AM PST

Party leader says government does not have a blank cheque to set up an offshore tax haven in Britain

The government does not have "a blank cheque" to push through its vision of Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn has said, despite the overwhelming Commons vote to pass the article 50 bill without a single amendment.

The Labour leader said there was little his party could have done about the bill, given its limited scope, but said he would continue to push for concessions and changes as the Brexit process continued.

Peter Dutton says tougher citizenship test may be on the way

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 01:04 AM PST

Authorities could ask whether would-be immigrants have sent their children to school, minister says

Peter Dutton has signalled a new, tougher citizenship test could consider behaviour including whether or not parents sent their children to school in the country they lived in before they applied for permanent residency in Australia.

In an interview on Sky News on Thursday, the immigration minister said a tougher citizenship test, which remains in gestation inside the government, could consider questions beyond whether or not the person had a criminal record.

Did you come to the UK as a child refugee?

Posted: 09 Feb 2017 02:17 AM PST

As the government plans to end the 'Dubs scheme' for child refugees in Europe, we want to hear from people who benefited from being given asylum in the UK

The government plans to end the "Dubs" scheme, which offered a safe haven for thousands of vulnerable lone child refugees in Europe. It comes after only 350 children have been brought to Britain through the initiative conceded by David Cameron in May last year.

There's now widespread anger and dismay at the commitment to close doors to refugees. The government was careful not to put an exact figure on the numbers of children they would allow in from camps in Greece, Italy and France. But MPs were told local authorities were being asked to provide homes for 3,000. The scheme is to close, however, after the arrival of barely one in 10 of that number.

Thursday briefing: Jeff Sessions wears his new Trump hat

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:39 PM PST

President gets his attorney general … Corbyn ridiculed for declaring 'real fight starts now' on Brexit … and Julian Assange's embassy sanctuary threatened

Hello, this is Warren Murray bringing you today's Guardian morning briefing.

The doctor’s dilemma: is it ever good to do harm | Dr Gwen Adshead

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:00 PM PST

If a patient's heart stops, the doctor can resuscitate them. But how does the doctor decide if it's the right thing to do?

Medical knowledge changes swiftly, and technological changes make new and expensive investigations and treatments possible that were only theoretical a few years ago. Life has been extended in length, but not in quality, and the debates about end‑of‑life decisions show us how much the notion of a "good life" is bound up with the absence of disease, illness and suffering.

The practice of medicine is not purely technical. It involves a relationship between a person who is seeking help, and who may be vulnerable, and a person who has the skills and knowledge to help. Relationships that involve disparities of power, knowledge and vulnerability require some degree of external oversight and regulation. Traditionally, in medicine, this oversight has taken the form of codes of ethics, starting with the Hippocratic Corpus. Today, bodies such as the General Medical Council and the Royal Colleges define the standards of good medical practice.

CIA chief Mike Pompeo visits Turkey to discuss policy on Syria and Isis

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 10:00 PM PST

Pompeo due in Ankara 48 hours after Trump and Erdoğan spoke by phone
Turkey sees trip of reset of relations that were strained under Obama

Less than 48 hours after a phone call between Donald Trump and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the head of the CIA is due in Ankara on Thursday to map out ways of dealing with two of the region's most contentious issues: tackling the Islamic State (Isis) and dousing the Syrian war.

The visit by the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, is being cast in Turkey as a reset of bilateral relations that grew fraught during the last three years of the Obama administration, particularly over Washington's choice of a proxy to fight Isis: Kurdish groups linked to the PKK militants who have fought a four-decade insurgency against Turkey.

Editorial: the demobilised woman – archive, 9 February 1920

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:00 PM PST

9 February 1920: Women returning from the war will have the same difficulty as men finding work

So many minds and pens are busy at the moment with the problem of the returned soldier and how to find work for him that perhaps a good many people are inclined to overlook the fact that the same difficulty applies equally to a large number of women. Some very significant figures were given to us the other day by Dr Murray Leslie on the existing preponderance of women over men.

Those figures mean a good many things, but one of the most important of them is that more women will have to earn their own living than ever before. Yet there are great numbers of young women whose choice of a way of achieving their own economic independence is at the present moment as thoroughly restricted as that of any demobilised officer or man.

Australian man whose girlfriend died in Thailand jetski collision to be interviewed by police

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 05:06 PM PST

Local media says Thomas Keating will be formally charged with reckless driving after Emily Collie's death

An Australian man whose girlfriend was killed after their jetskis collided off a Thai beach will be interviewed by police in Phuket on Thursday.

According to local media, Thomas Keating will be formally charged with reckless driving. His girlfriend, 20-year-old Emily Collie from Victoria, died after their jetskis crashed on Sunday.

Medical journal to retract paper after concerns organs came from executed prisoners

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 12:49 PM PST

Study published in Liver International examined the outcomes of 564 transplantations at Zhejiang University's First Affiliated hospital in China

A prestigious medical journal will retract a scientific paper from Chinese surgeons about liver transplantation after serious concerns were raised that the organs used in the study had come from executed prisoners of conscience.

The study was published last year in Liver International. It examined the outcomes of 564 liver transplantations performed consecutively at Zhejiang University's First Affiliated hospital between April 2010 and October 2014.

Lagom might be just enough to save us all | Letters

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 11:39 AM PST

Richard Orange (Opinion, 6 February) chooses to describe the Swedish concept of lagom as being based in Lutheran principles of self-denial, thereby inviting it to be seen as puritan and killjoy. Quite apart from the fact that, as with all Christian principles, the believer is called to apply self-denial to his or her own behaviour, not to impose it on others, lagom has an appeal way beyond religious ethics. We live in a world where we are encouraged to see continuous increase in the consumption of stuff as the only sure measure of political and personal success, ignoring that the Earth's resources are finite. In this country we pay only lip service to the condemnation of a western culture of conspicuous waste, and we walk away from institutions formed to enhance individuals' quality of life by cooperating in the development of social welfare.

Six Red Cross workers in Afghanistan killed in ambush

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:38 AM PST

Two others are missing after attack in northern province where police chief says Isis militants have presence

Six Afghan Red Cross aid workers have been killed in an ambush in the country's north while travelling to a remote area to deliver humanitarian aid.

Three vehicles carrying eight International Committee of the Red Cross employees were travelling through Dasht-e Leili, a desert in Jowzjan province, when they came under fire, according to the provincial governor, Lotfullah Azizi. Three drivers and three other personnel were killed, and two are missing.

Halting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia would have risks, court hears

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:27 AM PST

Government case is laid out at judicial review of decision to allow arms exports to country involved in Yemen offensive

Halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia over concerns that British-made weapons could be used to break humanitarian laws in Yemen would have "serious political ramifications", a London court has heard.

James Eadie QC laid out the government's case on the second day of a judicial review into the government's decision to continue licensing exports of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Pope Francis appears to criticize Trump's Mexico border wall plan

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 09:09 AM PST

The pontiff did not directly refer to Donald Trump's plan to build a fence along his country's border with Mexico, but made a thinly veiled criticism of it

Pope Francis has made a thinly veiled criticism of the policies of Donald Trump, saying societies should build bridges not walls to encourage good relations among people.

The pontiff did not directly refer to the US president or his plan to build a fence along his country's border with Mexico.

PM accused of closing door on child refugees as 'Dubs' scheme ends

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 08:22 AM PST

Campaigners voice dismay as Home Office announces only one more group of children will come to UK under plan

Widespread anger and dismay has greeted a low-key announcement by the government that it is to end its commitment to provide a safe haven for thousands of vulnerable lone child refugees in Europe after only 350 have been brought to Britain.

Campaigners had hoped that as many as 3,000 "Dubs children" would benefit under the scheme conceded by David Cameron in May last year after a huge public outcry over the European refugee crisis and the prospect of Tory rebellion.

Brazil authorities request troops as violence continues amid police strike

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 08:20 AM PST

After state police began striking in a pay dispute last weekend, there have been more than 80 reported deaths in the small coastal state of Espírito Santo

Authorities in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo have requested more federal troops to stem a crime wave, amid an ongoing police strike that in five days has led to more than 80 reported deaths.

The death toll, if confirmed, would be roughly six times the state's comparable homicide rate from last year.

The great fridge debate: first eggs – and now ketchup

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 07:19 AM PST

An Asda poll found the nation split over whether or not to refrigerate the condiment – reigniting a heated debate over which foods should be kept cold

Name: Ketchup.

AKA: Catsup, ketsup.

'Cowardice' to blame for delayed response at Sousse attack

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 07:11 AM PST

Tunisian investigation into 2015 attack reveals officers were unjustifiably late to arrive on scene - with one of them fainting

"Deliberate and unjustifiable" delays taken by Tunisian security authorities to arrive at the scene of the mass shooting in Sousse were down to "simple cowardice", an inquest has heard.

Seifeddine Rezgui, a 23-year-old extremist, opened fire with an assault rifle on the beach outside the Riu Imperial Marhaba hotel on 26 June 2015 before rampaging through the five-star building, killing 38 holidaymakers.

Trump envoy says Greece is now more likely to leave the euro

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 07:10 AM PST

Ted Malloch, proposed US ambassador to the EU, casts doubt on survival of eurozone and says Athens should return to drachma

Donald Trump's administration has put itself on a fresh collision course with the European Union after the president's candidate to be ambassador in Brussels said Greece should leave the euro and predicted the single currency would not survive more than 18 months in its present form.

Days after being accused of "outrageous malevolence" towards the EU for publicly declaring that it "needs a little taming", Ted Malloch courted fresh controversy by saying Greece should have left the eurozone four years ago when it would have been "easier and simpler".

Protests spread across Paris estates as anger grows over alleged police rape

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 04:54 AM PST

Violence continues for fourth successive night on housing estates after police officer charged with raping young man with baton

French police arrested a dozen people on a fourth straight night of clashes with youths on housing estates north of Paris, amid fury over a violent arrest in which a police officer was charged with raping a young man with a baton.

The case put the spotlight on police brutality in France, where officers are regularly accused of using excessive force in poorer neighbourhoods, particularly against black and minority ethnic young men.

Germany makes rare criticism of Israel over West Bank outposts vote

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 04:43 AM PST

Move to 'legalise' outposts in Palestinian territories has shaken trust in commitment to two-state solution, says Berlin

Germany and France have sharply questioned Israel's commitment to the two-state solution and to peace in the aftermath of a contentious vote in the Knesset to "legalise" illegal outposts in the occupied Palestinian territories.

As two human rights groups on Wednesday launched a court challenge to the new law, Germany's foreign ministry issued an unusually blunt statement saying its "trust in the Israeli government's commitment to the two-state solution" had been "fundamentally shaken".

'It's pretty brave': Mogadishu on lockdown as Somali MPs elect president

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 04:02 AM PST

Politicians meet in compound in capital to vote in process hailed by some as important step towards democracy

Politicians are voting in a high-security compound at an airport in the Somali capital Mogadishu to elect a president for the unstable east African state.

Growing evidence of the systematic purchase of votes risks undermining Wednesday's long-awaited poll, which has been described as a "way station" to political stability and full democracy.

Chinese family of 500 reunite for supersize group photo

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 02:59 AM PST

Members of the Ren clan gather in eastern china for portrait to commemorate the completion of detailed family tree

More than 500 members of a single Chinese family have convened for a gigantic group portrait that captures the dramatic transformations their country has undergone since its economic boom began almost four decades ago.

Members of the Ren family came together in a village near the eastern city of Zhengzhou, about 150 miles (240km) south of Shanghai, at the start of February to celebrate China's lunar new year.

Turkey dismisses 4,400 public servants in latest post-coup attempt purge

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 02:36 AM PST

Dismissals come hours after first phone call between presidents Trump and Erdoğan hints at closer ties between US and Turkey

The Turkish government has dismissed more than 4,400 public employees, including hundreds of academics, in a fresh round of purges that have in the past elicited criticism from the country's western allies.

The dismissals, which spanned the education ministry, gendarmerie, security services, as well as the ministries of the interior, economy and foreign affairs, came just hours after the first phone conversation between the US president, Donald Trump, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Unbuilt Los Angeles: the city that might have been – in pictures

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 11:30 PM PST

From the offshore Santa Monica freeway to a mini Las Vegas with pyramids and the Parthenon, Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell look at the LA that never happened

Never Built Los Angeles is published by Metropolis Books

The populist bishop and the Apprentice host: meet Brazil's new megacity mayors

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 03:45 AM PST

A multimillionaire reality TV star and an evangelical bishop might seem worlds apart. But the surprise new populist mayors of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo both signal a rejection of traditional leaders by cities mired in economic crisis

At 9.10am on a recent Saturday, the new mayor of São Paulo was already hard at work in overalls, goggles and a hard hat, methodically painting a rusty bus stop metallic grey as photographers swarmed around him.

Since assuming office on 1 January, João Doria – a multimillionaire businessman and TV presenter who once hosted Brazil's version of The Apprentice – has also played the part of gardener and street cleaner to promote his headline-grabbing "Beautiful City" (Cidade Linda) campaign.

Deja vu but different: how the fall of one New Zealand city helped save another

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 02:14 AM PST

Infrastructure became a national talking point after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake devastated Christchurch in 2011, but were lessons learned? At three minutes past midnight on 14 November last year, Wellington found out

There was an uneasy sense of recognition as Mike Gillooly, Christchurch's chief resilience officer, helicoptered over the township of Kaikoura, the epicentre of New Zealand's latest major earthquake, last November.

Railway tracks had been hauled off their foundations and lay sprawled across roads. Massive landslides entirely covered the main highway, cutting off access to this small seaside settlement on the east of the country's South Island. Along the coast, the seabed had been pushed up almost two metres, exposing shellfish clinging to previously submerged rocks. Inland, Gillooly could see massive cracks that had appeared along fault lines running through hilly farmland.

Syria's plight must not be allowed to slip from the world's conscience | Stephen O'Brien

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 11:00 PM PST

The siege of Aleppo is over but, six years after the onset of brutal violence, millions of people in Syria still cannot access the basics they need to survive

The focus of the plight of the Syrian people has shifted away from the apex of horror that was the suffering caused by the siege of eastern Aleppo. Now we must not let the lives of millions of people in desperate need across Syria slip from the world's conscience.

UK foreign aid fraud investigations 'quadruple in last five years'

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 04:01 PM PST

National Audit Office says rise has occurred as more public money is delivered to 'fragile' countries where bribery can be seen as 'cultural norm'

Fraud investigations involving foreign aid have quadrupled over five years as more public money is given to "fragile" countries, Whitehall's spending watchdog has found.

Reforms introduced by David Cameron to increase funding and assign it to unstable nations have increased the risk of wrongdoing, according to the National Audit Office.

Irish trawlers accused of 'alarming' abuses of migrant workers

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 08:01 AM PST

Despite efforts to give non-EEA fishermen legal status, workers say they do 100-hour weeks with insufficient rest

Migrant fishermen from Asia and Africa are reporting "alarming" allegations of abuse on Irish trawlers, despite government efforts to regularise illegal working in the sector, former jobs minister Ged Nash told the Irish Senate on Wednesday.

Senator Nash, who was one of the ministers charged with tackling exploitation in the Irish fishing fleet after a Guardian investigation in 2015, said a new scheme introduced to give migrant fishermen legal status and protect their rights was not working. He called for the government to scrap and replace it urgently.

Yemen's food crisis: 'We are broken, we die either from bombing or hunger'

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 07:41 AM PST

Conflict has driven Yemen to the brink of famine. Few areas have been hit harder than al-Hudaydah, where many people are now bereft of hope

Broom-maker Taie al-Nahari is kneeling on the sand, shirtless, outside his thatched hut in al-Qaza village in Yemen's al-Hudaydah governorate. His bones show through his skin.

Before the conflict began in 2015, the 53-year-old was a fisherman. Now he makes two brooms a day, which earns him a daily income of $1. "The boats that we were working on were bombed [by Saudi jets]. Now my family and I don't have enough to eat," he says.

'A big-hearted optimist': Hans Rosling tributes pour in on social media

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 04:27 AM PST

Melinda Gates and David Nabarro join worldwide chorus of praise for visionary academic's work in transforming the way we see the developing world

How did Rosling work's affect you? Tell us in the comment thread below

Tributes have flowed in on social media for Hans Rosling, who died aged 68 on Tuesday. Rosling, a visionary statistician and educator, had a gift for analysing complex development data on issues such as global health, population and climate change, and presenting it in a compelling, accessible way. His aim was to present a "fact-based worldview", challenging assumptions on development with his forensic examination of figures.

Ulrika Modéer, the Swedish secretary of state for development cooperation, paid her respects to Rosling on Twitter.

'She persisted': Elizabeth Warren cements spot as Trump's opposition

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 11:20 AM PST

Warren was silenced by Senate Republicans on Tuesday but bolstered by supporters, showing herself once more as a figurehead for Democrats

Elizabeth Warren arrived on the Senate floor to deliver a speech that on a typical day of debate might have gone unwatched, lost in the worthy public affairs television archives of C-Span.

'Attack on his daughter': Trump aide on Ivanka's fashion rejection – video

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 07:39 PM PST

The White House has defended Donald Trump's criticism of the Nordstrom retail chain, saying its decision to drop Ivanka Trump's clothing line was a politically motivated attack. 'I think this was less about his family's business than an attack on his daughter,' said White House spokesman Sean Spicer. Nordstrom said it was simply because of declining sales.

President Trump in disbelief at travel ban appeals court process – video

Posted: 08 Feb 2017 01:51 PM PST

President Trump tells an audience of law enforcement officials that he finds it 'incredible to have a court case going on for so long'. Trump's speech on Wednesday referred to the court of appeals proceedings relating to his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, despite a 'perfectly written' executive order