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

Rudy Giuliani joins Trump's legal team to help end Russia investigation
Pyongyang calling: North and South Korean leaders get hotline as stage set for summit
Comey memos: Trump said Michael Flynn had 'serious judgment issues'
Daphne Project: MEPs and authors crank up pressure on Maltese authorities
Don't scrap Iran deal, MPs from UK, France and Germany urge US
Swaziland king renames country Kingdom of eSwatini
French MPs force vegetarian food producers to mince their words
Video of Iran 'morality police' wrestling with woman sparks outrage
‘Legal discrimination is alive and well’: Canada's indigenous women fight for equality
Grubs up: Carrefour offers Spanish shoppers insect-based snacks
Basel in the spotlight: the city that learned to love LSD
Home Office 'failed to foresee policy's terrible Windrush effects'
'We are truly sorry': Eta apologises for four decades of deadly violence
Despite Trump rhetoric, US withdrawal from Syria likely to be messy
Congo's award-winning digital activists speak out on life in crisis-stricken DRC
Blackface is free speech but anti-Bush tweet is not at California university
Haunted by ghosts of its dictatorship, Paraguay set to pivot back to the right in election
US grain ships diverted at sea hours after China imposes grain tariff
Victoria demands new detailed analysis on Neg after Coag meeting
Abuse allegations reported to Charity Commission soar after Oxfam scandal
Filthy lucre: scavenging grime and sewage for gold on Mumbai's streets | Puja Changoiwala
Dear Prince Charles, do you think my brown skin makes me unBritish? | Anita Sethi
Jacinda Ardern quotes Māori proverb during Commonwealth toast - video
Senator Tammy Duckworth makes history by bringing her baby to Senate floor vote – video
Kim Jong-un's wife makes first public appearance as first lady – video

Rudy Giuliani joins Trump's legal team to help end Russia investigation

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 03:42 PM PDT

The former mayor of New York says he sees his new job as negotiating an end to Robert Mueller's special investigation

Rudy Giuliani, the pugnacious former mayor of New York, has joined Donald Trump's legal team with a specific task of dealing with the special investigation into Russian election interference that is swirling around the president's head.

Pyongyang calling: North and South Korean leaders get hotline as stage set for summit

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 08:44 PM PDT

Officials prepare for greeting on live TV between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, the first such event in more than a decade

A hotline between the leaders of North and South Korea goes live on Friday as they prepare for next week's historic summit on the border that has separated their countries for more than six decades.

As preparations for their meeting gather pace, South Korean media reported that the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, and the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, would talk over the phone before they meet next Friday.

Comey memos: Trump said Michael Flynn had 'serious judgment issues'

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 08:38 PM PDT

According to former FBI head, president complained about his first national security adviser, who was later fired

The US president, Donald Trump, told former FBI director James Comey he had serious concerns about the judgment of his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, according to memos maintained by Comey.

The 15 pages of documents contain new details about a series of interactions between Comey and Trump in the weeks before Comey's May 2017 firing. In one of those encounters, a private Oval Office discussion, the former FBI head has claimed the president asked him to end an investigation into Flynn.

Daphne Project: MEPs and authors crank up pressure on Maltese authorities

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 10:15 AM PDT

Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Tom Watson among those calling for more to be done to investigate murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia

Malta's government has been told to take urgent action to implement EU anti-money laundering rules, as MEPs rang the alarm about the dangers for journalists investigating financial crime following the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The pressure intensified as the country's prime minister, Joseph Muscat, attended the Commonwealth heads of government summit in London amid further calls for him to provide reassurance that her death is being fully and impartially investigated.

Don't scrap Iran deal, MPs from UK, France and Germany urge US

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 09:51 AM PDT

Joint statement published in Guardian calls for rethink before 12 May deadline set by Trump

An open letter to the US Congress: don't let Trump rip up the Iran deal

More than 500 parliamentarians from France, Germany and the UK have written to their US counterparts urging them to persuade Donald Trump not to abandon the Iran nuclear deal.

In a joint statement published in the Guardian, Der Spiegel, the New York Times and Le Monde, they urged a White House rethink before the 12 May deadline set by Trump to pull out of the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA), unless Europe can come up with a new policy that will meet his concerns.

Swaziland king renames country Kingdom of eSwatini

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 09:06 AM PDT

King Mswati III declares name change 50 years after independence from British rule

The king of Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy, has announced that his country has changed its name to the Kingdom of eSwatini to mark 50 years since independence from British rule.

Meaning "place of the Swazi", eSwatini is the Swazi language name for the tiny state landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique. Unlike some countries, Swaziland did not change its name when it gained independence in 1968 after being a British protectorate for more than 60 years.

French MPs force vegetarian food producers to mince their words

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 02:32 PM PDT

Makers of 'vegetarian sausages' and similar items will no longer be able to use meat-related terms after new ruling

French MPs have voted to ban producers of vegetarian meat substitutes from using words such as steak, bacon or sausage to describe their products if they are are not partly or wholly composed of meat.

The measure, approved on Thursday, was proposed by MP Jean-Baptiste Moreau, who argued that products such as soya steaks, vegan sausages and other vegetarian alternatives were "misleading" for consumers. Moreau based his argument on a 2017 judgment by the European court of justice, that ruled that soya and tofu products could not be marketed as milk or butter.

Video of Iran 'morality police' wrestling with woman sparks outrage

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 09:39 AM PDT

Female officer shown slapping woman and wrestling her to floor because her hijab was loose

Shocking video footage of a young woman being wrestled to the floor by Iranian "morality police" because her hijab was loose has sparked outrage after it was posted online.

The footage shows members of the special taskforce tackling the woman, believed to be in her mid-20s, in Tehran. Under Iranian law, it is compulsory for women to cover themselves from head to toe in public, but many defy the boundaries by wearing loose hijab that shows their hair.

‘Legal discrimination is alive and well’: Canada's indigenous women fight for equality

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 04:17 AM PDT

Canada recently passed an amendment to end inequality, but a lack of timeline means a colonial-era act still holds back indigenous women

As a child, Sharon McIvor spent her days roaming her grandmother's First Nations community deep in British Columbia, learning to fish, harvest sap and pick berries, as the Nlaka'pamux Nation had done for millennia.

When the time came to teach those skills to her grandchildren, however, more than a century of gender discrimination stood in her way.

Grubs up: Carrefour offers Spanish shoppers insect-based snacks

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 08:50 AM PDT

Supermarket chain's new range includes spicy chilli buffalo worms and smoked crickets

Despite being a country that guards its culinary traditions more jealously than most - the recipe for the perfect tortilla proves enduringly divisive, and woe betide the anglosajón celebrity chef who dares pollute a paella with chorizo - Spain could be set to swell the ranks of the two billion people on the planet who regularly eat insects.

Or so the supermarket giant Carrefour is hoping.

Basel in the spotlight: the city that learned to love LSD

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 03:00 AM PDT

'Bicycle Day' on 19 April is the 75th anniversary of the day Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered LSD, changing his perceptions – and the city's future

Seventy-five years ago, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann experienced the world's first full-blown LSD trip on his way home from his lab in Basel. Hofmann had been researching the ergot fungus, hoping to develop a drug to treat fatigue. Among the compounds he was analysing was lysergic acid – Lysergsäure-Diethylamid in German, also known as LSD. On Friday 16 April 1943, Hofmann left the lab feeling a little dizzy: "I lay down and had these wonderful dreams – I saw every thought as an image," he said in an interview for his 100th birthday. The chemist concluded that he had accidentally touched the substance, and was intrigued by its powerful effect.

Three days later, on 19 April, he returned to the lab and swallowed a tiny amount just to see what would happen: "As it later turned out, it was five times too much and gave me a horror trip." He asked an assistant to take him home by bicycle, and Basel transformed into a panorama of hellish and heavenly visions. The bike seemed to freeze to the spot; a friendly neighbour turned into an evil witch. Hours later, Hofmann felt wonderful. "LSD called me, I didn't seek it out," he recalled. "It came to me."

Home Office 'failed to foresee policy's terrible Windrush effects'

Posted: 20 Apr 2018 02:16 AM PDT

But individuals didn't face real threat of deportation, says former top immigration official

A former senior immigration official has said the impact of the Home Office's hostile environment strategy on the Windrush generation was "terrible" but that it was unlikely any individuals would have been deported.

David Wood, deputy chief executive of the UK Border Agency for nearly five years until 2013, said the consequences for Windrush immigrants had not been foreseen.

'We are truly sorry': Eta apologises for four decades of deadly violence

Posted: 20 Apr 2018 02:23 AM PDT

Basque separatist group says it bears 'direct responsibility' for deaths of at least 800 people in the name of nationhood struggle

The Basque terrorist group Eta, which killed more than 800 people during its four-decade armed campaign, has apologised for the suffering it caused and asked for the forgiveness of victims and their families as it prepares to dissolve.

In a statement released on Friday morning, the group made a full and unambiguous apology for its actions, accepting that it bore "direct responsibility" for years of bloodshed and misery.

Despite Trump rhetoric, US withdrawal from Syria likely to be messy

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 10:17 PM PDT

President's goals – defeating Isis and deterring chemical weapons use – could both prove elusive

Donald Trump remains determined to take US troops out of Syria "as rapidly as possible" despite his decision last week to launch missile strikes against government targets, a senior Republican senator has said.

The president reportedly told his generals this month that he wanted the roughly 2,000 US soldiers in Syria to wrap up their counter-Isis mission immediately and return home, in line with his pledge at a rally that the withdrawal was imminent.

Congo's award-winning digital activists speak out on life in crisis-stricken DRC

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 11:00 PM PDT

Index on Censorship honours a collective that bears witness to young people's experiences in a land plagued by violence, corruption and poverty

In the midst of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's dangerous political crisis, the main media outlets have split almost entirely into pro-government and pro-opposition camps, most concentrated in the capital, Kinshasa.

Information has become as factionalised as politics, an echo chamber of competing narratives. Into that vacuum, however, a group of young Congolese bloggers has attempted to inject an alternative voice.

Blackface is free speech but anti-Bush tweet is not at California university

Posted: 20 Apr 2018 02:00 AM PDT

State school system accused of 'glaring hypocrisy' after initially saying Barbara Bush criticism 'beyond free speech' but racist frat stunt is protected

When a white student at California State University was caught this month wearing blackface, administrators had a clear message: it was racist, but "protected by free speech".

Days later, when a professor tweeted that the late Barbara Bush was a "racist", the university's tone was different: the faculty member would be investigated for her remarks, which, a campus president said, went "beyond free speech".

Haunted by ghosts of its dictatorship, Paraguay set to pivot back to the right in election

Posted: 20 Apr 2018 02:00 AM PDT

The military regime of Alfredo Stroessner jailed, tortured and 'disappeared' opponents. Now the son of Stroessner's private secretary is likely to become president

Fifty-eight years later, when Rogelio Goiburú dug up the body in a remote part of eastern Paraguay this March, a few teeth were all that were left to identify it.

"We're fighting against time," he said. Paraguay's soil is highly acidic, he explained. "It eats bones very quickly, so the DNA disappears, and it's much harder to obtain a genetic profile."

US grain ships diverted at sea hours after China imposes grain tariff

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 11:02 PM PDT

Five ships carrying tonnes of sorghum change course after Beijing imposes rule requiring 178% deposit

Ships laden with more than 1.2m tonnes of US sorghum bound for China may have no where to go amid the ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Twenty ships carrying more than $216m worth of sorghum were at sea on Friday, according to Reuters, but least five of them had changed course within hours of China's announcement this week that it would place stiff tariffs on the grain.

Victoria demands new detailed analysis on Neg after Coag meeting

Posted: 20 Apr 2018 01:52 AM PDT

Meeting on Friday between energy ministers almost derailed by disagreement over how Energy Security Board should proceed

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The Victorian energy minister Lily D'Ambrosio has written to the Energy Security Board asking for new detailed analysis to be provided on the national energy guarantee, as the stand off between the Turnbull government and the states over energy policy shifts into its decisive phase.

The federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg secured agreement on Friday for further work to be done on the Neg, but the process was almost derailed by a backroom skirmish about the riding instructions for the Energy Security Board before a critical meeting in August.

Abuse allegations reported to Charity Commission soar after Oxfam scandal

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 12:07 PM PDT

Reports of serious safeguarding incidents to the watchdog more than double last year's figures

The number of sexual abuse and harassment allegations reported to the Charity Commission has more than doubled since the Oxfam scandal.

The commission said it had received 532 new reports of serious safeguarding incidents across the sector in February and March this year, up from 176 in the same period last year. The number of reports in the whole of 2016-2017 were 1,210.

Filthy lucre: scavenging grime and sewage for gold on Mumbai's streets | Puja Changoiwala

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 03:48 AM PDT

Along the narrow alleys of one of India's largest bullion markets, men and women scrape a living scouring the dust and even the drains for specks of the precious metal

When most of Mumbai is fast asleep at 5am each day, 41-year-old Tanu Behre sets out on her hunt.

Armed with a little handbrush, she walks the narrow alleys of Zaveri bazaar, one of India's largest bullion markets, and dusts the streets for gold. She enters drains outside goldsmiths' workshops, and gathers the black sludge in her aluminium pan. If she's lucky, the slime will turn up the precious metal.

Dear Prince Charles, do you think my brown skin makes me unBritish? | Anita Sethi

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 10:47 AM PDT

The Prince of Wales told me I don't look like I'm from Manchester. If this is how he thinks, he shouldn't be the next head of the Commonwealth

I met Prince Charles this week at the Commonwealth People's Forum at which I was a speaker (on a day whose itinerary was entitled Politics of Hope: Taking on Injustice in the Commonwealth). It was part of the buildup to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, the summit of leaders of 53 countries representing more than 2 billion people.

I shook the prince's hand with my right hand. In my other, I was holding a copy of an anthology, We Mark Your Memory: Writing from the Descendants of Indenture, in which I have an essay published. I told him that my mother was born in Guyana and that the anthology had collected hidden histories of indenture.

Jacinda Ardern quotes Māori proverb during Commonwealth toast - video

Posted: 20 Apr 2018 12:27 AM PDT

New Zealand prime minister proposes a toast to the future of the Commonwealth at a dinner hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. In it she said the group of nations was uniquely placed to offer a strong voice on issues such as climate change, clean oceans and democracy. She then quoted a whakataukī (proverb): 'What is the most important thing in the world? The people, the people, the people'.

• Jacinda Ardern wears Māori cloak to Buckingham Palace

Senator Tammy Duckworth makes history by bringing her baby to Senate floor vote – video

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 09:42 PM PDT

A little history was made in Washington on Thursday – little in the form of a newborn who became the first baby to appear on the floor of the US Senate during a vote. A swaddled 11-day-old Maile Pearl Bowlsbey arrived on the floor of the chamber, carried by her mother, Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth. Oblivious to the momentous occasion, however, little Maile 'slept through the whole thing'.

Kim Jong-un's wife makes first public appearance as first lady – video

Posted: 19 Apr 2018 04:05 AM PDT

Ri Sol-ju, the wife of North Korea's leader, made her first public appearance as first lady last weekend at a ballet performance by a visiting Chinese troupe. Kim Jong-un's decision to give his wife the title is widely seen as a major boost to her status before summits with South Korea and the US