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Bruno Dey, 93, accused of being accessory to murder of 5,230 people in what could be one of last of such casesA former guard at Stutthof concentration camp will go on trial in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday, in what could be one of the last criminal cases of an individual charged over the Holocaust.The 93-year-old man, Bruno Dey, was 17 when he joined the SS-Totenkopfsturmbann (Death’s Head Battalion), which manned the watchtowers at the concentration camp east of what is now the city of Gdańsk, in Poland. Continue reading...

An NGO has recut and overdubbed a Venezuelan telenovela to raise awareness of sexual healthUganda has one of the highest birth rates in the world. It also has some of the most dedicated soap opera watchers anywhere in Africa.Now a group of enterprising Ugandans is aiming to tackle the former through the medium of the latter. Soap operas are expensive to make, however, so they plan instead to “hack” a Venezuelan import, recutting the existing series and overdubbing it with Ugandan actors. Continue reading...

On 5 October 1999, two trains collided at speed in west London, killing both drivers and 29 passengers. Barrister Greg Treverton-Jones, who survived the crash and worked on the harrowing inquiry, pieced together what went wrong• Warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of injury and traumaThere was no warning and no screech of brakes – just a huge bang, and then we were crashing. I was sitting with my back to the direction of travel, towards Paddington, and felt the impact through my seat, as well as hearing it. For a moment or two, it seemed that we might be all right, because the train continued on its way. But then we derailed, and the wheels started to plough over the sleepers and through the ballast beside the tracks. I became aware of a bright yellow light over my right shoulder, and realised that it was a fireball. It moved along the outside of the carriage from front to rear, and then was gone. The carriage tilted to its right and, out of the window to my left, which was now below me, I could see one or two small fires. A body drifted slowly past that same window. It was that of a middle-aged male. The body was intact, and the man’s eyes were closed. I was struck by the peaceful look on his face as he rolled slowly below us. I remember hoping that he was not hurt, and wondering where on Earth he had come from.Back then, in 1999, by a strange coincidence, I was acting as junior counsel for Great Western Trains Ltd at the public inquiry into the Southall rail crash, which had taken place two years earlier, in September 1997, and killed seven people. Many weeks earlier, I had been chatting to Richard George, managing director of Great Western Trains Ltd, about his experience as a passenger in the Southall crash. He had demonstrated to me how he had got out of his seat and crouched in the aisle as the train had slowed. Continue reading...

Arab and Asian visitors were on a bus when it collided with another heavy vehicleThirty-five foreign tourists were killed and four others injured when a bus collided with another heavy vehicle near the Muslim holy city of Medina, Saudi state media said on Thursday.The accident on Wednesday involved a collision between “a private chartered bus ... with a heavy vehicle (loader)“ near the western Saudi Arabian city, a spokesman for Medina police said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. Continue reading...

Bodmin Moor, Cornwall: A wet walk up Hawk’s Tor reveals vibrant colours and verdant pasturesFrom North Hill village, drab hedge banks are dominated by faded ferns, rotting blackberries, dull leaves and sycamore keys. Yet a spell of afternoon sunshine picks out the scarlet berries of honeysuckle and enhances the verdancy of pastures beside the glittering Lynher, swollen after days of rain.Across the river, steep woods edge the eastern side of Bodmin Moor; in the prevailing shade, spirals of gnats dance above upright fronds of buckler and male ferns, lit by sunbeams. Emerald moss-shrouded gateposts, stoned-up walls, tall tree trunks and fallen wood host pennywort seedlings and polypody ferns that thrive in the damp atmosphere. Shoals of leaves, beechmast and sparkling growan (decomposed granite) have been washed down the stony track and, from below, we hear the sound of the Withey Brook, rushing over the waterfall and towards the local hydroelectric power plant. Continue reading...

Eight green groups send letter to express concern over planned market floatEnvironmental groups have warned the banks linked to Saudi Aramco’s planned market float that they risk financing the destruction of the planet by supporting the public listing of the world’s biggest oil producer.The eight green groups, including Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth, warned that the world’s largest IPO would be “the biggest single infusion of capital into the fossil fuel industry” since global governments signed the Paris climate accord in 2015. Continue reading...

The number of elected officials under 30 doubled in city and district elections. Here a selection of them speak about their prioritiesThey took gap years to stay at home and run for office. They list as their political heroes progressive leaders such as Jacinda Ardern and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And they plan to juggle their new roles as elected officials with university exams and shifts at McDonald’s.The record number of young New Zealanders, some still in their teens, who surged to victory in the country’s local government elections on Saturday – in what was dubbed a “youthquake” by commentators – were not lured by dreams of high-profile posts in national politics. Continue reading...

The unusual organism has no mouth but can detect and digest food, and no brain yet can learnA Paris zoo has showcased a slime mold, dubbed the “blob”, a yellowish, unicellular, small living being which looks like a fungus but acts like an animal.This newest exhibit of the Paris Zoological Park, which goes on display to the public on Saturday and is widely used in scientific experiments, has no mouth, no stomach, no eyes, yet it can detect food and digest it. Continue reading...

Andy Foster says financial backing from Lord of the Rings director was not reason for his victory in New Zealand capitalWellington’s new mayor, Andy Foster, has hit back at suggestions he is a “puppet” of Sir Peter Jackson, whilst still refusing to reveal how much the Lord of the Rings director and wife Fran Walsh donated to his campaign.Andy Foster won local elections in New Zealand’s capital city over the weekend, ousting one-term incumbent Justin Lester. Continue reading...

Frank Bainimarama’s heated argument with opposition MP Pio Tikoduadua was captured on videoNo assault charges will be laid against the prime minister of Fiji in relation to an incident with an opposition MP outside parliament, despite there being “sufficient evidence for the matter to proceed to court,” the country’s department of public prosecutions has ruled.Frank Bainimarama was accused of assault by Pio Tikoduadua, an opposition MP for the National Federation Party, who alleges the prime minister grabbed and shoved him outside Fiji’s parliament in Suva, causing his glasses to fall to the ground and break. Continue reading...

Uighurs living in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and France have complained of intimidation by BeijingTwo days after Abdujelil Emet sat in the public gallery of Germany’s parliament during a hearing on human rights, he received a phone call from his sister for the first time in three years. But the call from Xinjiang, in western China, was anything but a joyous family chat. It was made at the direction of Chinese security officers, part of a campaign by Beijing to silence criticism of policies that have seen more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities detained in internment camps.Emet’s sister began by praising the Communist party and making claims of a much improved life under its guidance before delivering a shock: his brother had died a year earlier. But Emet, 54, was suspicious from the start; he had never given his family his phone number. Amid the heartbreaking news and sloganeering, he could hear a flurry of whispers in the background, and he demanded to speak to the unknown voice. Moments later the phone was handed to a Chinese official who refused to identify himself. Continue reading...

Palfreeman says ‘fascist party’ may try to set him up by planting drugs and using a false witness if he is sent back to prisonAustralian Jock Palfreeman, who has been freed from detention but banned from leaving Bulgaria, has said he fears systemic corruption within that country’s criminal justice system could see him returned to jail for years beyond his original sentence.In an interview with the ABC shortly after being released from immigration detention, Palfreeman said he feared the influence of far-right political movements, which are seeking to have him reimprisoned, on the judiciary and criminal justice system. Continue reading...

Work begins on scheme that will encourage river to flow through multiple channelsPioneering work to return a river to its natural path in an attempt to improve the diversity of flora and fauna and reduce the risk of flooding has been launched on Exmoor in Somerset.The scheme, the first of its kind in the UK, has been inspired by projects in the north-west of the US, in which rivers and streams have been encouraged to flow through multiple channels, pools and shallow riffles as they would have done before mankind arrived and began moulding them into shapes to suit farming and settlement. Continue reading...

No 10 refuses to confirm Boris Johnson’s travel plans but PM could make early Brussels dash to push talks along

Protesters set cars alight and attack police after sentencing of nine pro-independence leadersStreet violence escalated in Barcelona late on Wednesday, as protesters set cars on fire and threw acid at police officers in a third night of unrest following the imprisonment this week of nine pro-independence leaders for their roles in the failed 2017 push for regional independence.Officers from the Catalan force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, were reported to have fired teargas and run over two protesters during clashes that quickly spread after a earlier demonstration turned into a series of running battles with police. Continue reading...

With 282 days to go, the Tokyo 2020 organisers have held a World Press Briefing at some of the venues to show how preparations are progressing Continue reading...

Catalonia braced for third night of unrest after imprisonment of nine pro-independence leadersSpain’s prime minister has warned that his government will not be provoked into overreacting as Catalonia braces for a third night of unrest following the imprisonment this week of nine pro-independence leaders for their roles in the failed push for regional independence two years ago.Speaking on Wednesday evening after holding talks with other political party leaders, Pedro Sánchez said the government would defend Spain’s constitution and peaceful coexistence but would not be tempted into inflaming tensions. Continue reading...

Canadian PM responds with ‘Thanks my friend’ after Obama gives apparently unprecedented endorsement by former US presidentBarack Obama has urged Canadians to re-elect Justin Trudeau, an apparently unprecedented endorsement of a candidate in a Canadian election by a former American president.Obama tweeted on Wednesday that he was proud to work with Trudeau and described him as a hard-working, effective leader who takes on big issues like climate change. Continue reading...

Thursday: Guardian Australia investigates the epidemic sabotaging efforts to address climate change. Plus, European leaders say Brexit deal is close.Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 17 October. Continue reading...

• ILO announces reforms including minimum wage

Hajar Raissouni says in statement from prison that she was targeted for her work as as a journalistA Moroccan journalist sentenced to a year in prison for an illegal abortion and premarital sex has been pardoned by the country’s king in the latest twist of a case which has come to symbolize repression of women’s rights and freedom of speech.Hajar Raissouni was found guilty of charges of “having an illegal abortion and sexual relations outside marriage”. Her fiancé, Prof Rifaat al-Amin, was also given a one-year sentence, while a doctor, Mohammed Jamal Belkeziz, was given a two year sentence in the same trial for alleged complicity. Continue reading...

Mullah Bahm claimed schools had anal sex and paedophile ‘agenda’ at protest, video showsThe lead protester in the row over LGBT equality teaching has been accused of “inflaming tensions” by inviting a controversial imam who claimed anal sex, paedophilia and transgenderism were being taught in schools to a demonstration.Shakeel Afsar, who has led a long campaign to halt the lessons, was questioned on the third day of a high court hearing to rule on whether an exclusion zone banning protests around Anderton Park primary school in Birmingham should be made permanent. Continue reading...

Special forces could be involved in rescuing orphans and unaccompanied minorsBritain will consider repatriating orphans and unaccompanied children in north-east Syria if they are alerted to their presence by local military or aid agencies.Home Office officials said the UK would assist British orphans trapped in Syria after the Turkish invasion, reversing a previous policy that children had to be taken out of the country before they might get any help. Continue reading...

Everything about Westminster’s invisible man is designed with forgettability in mindIf Stephen Barclay didn’t exist, would anyone notice his absence? He is Westminster’s very own invisible man. Someone so forgettable that not even his own reflection recognises him. A man who slips in and out of rooms without leaving a trace. No one can even be quite sure if he has human form or if he is just some shape-shifting ectoplasm.Everything about him has been designed with forgettability in mind. His voice is liquid valium. Calming to the point of comatose, each word more meaningless than the one before. By the end of a sentence you are far worse informed than if he had said nothing. His ideal job would be a doctor specialising in telling patients that their cancer was now terminal. Because everyone would have either nodded off or died before they had managed to absorb the news. Continue reading...

Safiyya Amira Shaikh is accused of terrorist act preparation and dissemination of terrorist publicationsAn alleged supporter of the Islamic State terror group has appeared in court accused of a plot to bomb St Paul’s Cathedral and a hotel.Safiyya Amira Shaikh, 36, from Hayes, Middlesex, is accused of the preparation of terrorist acts and dissemination of terrorist publications. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson tells Tories negotiations are near peak, but summit is ‘shrouded in mist’

Move announced by senior MPs represents another step away from nuclear deal signed in 2015Iran will further reduce its commitment to the nuclear deal signed with world powers by limiting international inspectors’ access to its nuclear sites, senior Iranian MPs have said.The move, which is expected to take place at the beginning of November, will be the fourth Iranian step away from the deal, and puts pressure on France, Germany and the UK to make some form of counter-move. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Former police officer told information in public interest disclosures he made between 2010 and 2018 ‘is nonexistent’The Queensland police service says it cannot find records of whistleblower complaints – despite being required by law to keep them – including information relating to a former officer who alleges he was targeted for reprisals.Last week the former officer, Rick Flori, was told by the state’s information watchdog that police could not provide information relating to “public interest disclosures” he made between 2010 and 2018 because “the information is nonexistent”. Continue reading...

Capt Colin Nufer tells inquest into death of Joshua Hoole he received no formal guidanceAn experienced army officer who oversaw a course during which a soldier fatally collapsed on a hot summer day has told an inquest he had been given no formal health and safety training.Cpl Joshua Hoole, 26, died within an hour of collapsing on an annual fitness test (AFT) in Brecon, south Wales, in July 2016. Three years earlier, three army reservists sustained fatal heat illness during an SAS selection march in the Brecon Beacons. Continue reading...

Maddison Yetman, 18, tells Canadians on video that despite her ‘limited time’, she managed to cast ballot in the federal electionAfter receiving a devastating diagnosis of terminal cancer last week, an 18-year old Canadian woman is using her final days to inspire her fellow citizens to vote in the country’s upcoming election.Maddison Yetman was diagnosed with cancer last week after finding strange bruising on her legs. She was told the advanced stage of the sarcoma meant she probably had only days left. Continue reading...

Challenge by Italian heritage group threatened to disrupt deal with Paris museumLeonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man will join several works at a blockbuster exhibition on the Renaissance artist’s life at the Louvre after an Italian court rejected an appeal against the drawing being lent to the Paris museum.Italia Nostra, a heritage group, recently filed a complaint saying the drawing, which is kept in a climate-controlled vault at the Accademia Gallery of Venice, was too fragile to travel and risked being damaged by lighting in the Louvre if displayed for a long period. Continue reading...

Turkish offensive and Idlib battle add to Greek concerns over rising asylum claimsTurkey’s military push into Syria has sparked fears in Greece, already struggling with a rise in the number of asylum claims in recent months, of a new wave of migration to Europe.With camps on Aegean islands at breaking point, Athens has insisted the topic should lead the agenda at this week’s EU summit. “Europe shouldn’t be caught unprepared again,” Giorgos Koumoutsakos, the Greek minister for migration policy, told local media. “Nobody can be certain what is going to happen.” Continue reading...

Far-right politician sparks outrage by telling Muslim woman to remove hers on trip to parliamentThe French government has insisted it will not seek to ban Muslim women who wear headscarves from volunteering to help on school trips after outrage when mothers accompanying pupils were told to remove theirs.One mother said pupils were distressed and traumatised when a far-right politician told her to take off her headscarf in a regional parliament in eastern France, where she was helping out on a primary school outing for her son’s class. Continue reading...

After days of unrest, president agrees to stop austerity package – showing the political force of Ecuador’s indigenous groupsWithin hours of a deal which ended Ecuador’s worst political unrest in recent memory, thousands of indigenous people – along with student volunteers and local residents – took to the streets of Quito to clean up the city.Teams worked their way through El Arbolito park, which was still littered with burning tires and paving slabs that had been used as barricades. Continue reading...

Dany Cotton says new guidance needed as she presents report on post-Grenfell responseMore than two years after the Grenfell Tower disaster, the London fire commissioner has indicated that firefighters still need guidance on what to do if a building is burning out of control and advice to “stay put” is no longer safe.Delivering an interim report into how the London fire brigade (LFB) has responded since the 14 June 2017 tragedy claimed 72 lives, Dany Cotton said on Wednesday that a review of stay put policies was needed, admitting “considerable challenges” remained in moving away from the policy that is widely believed to have cost many lives at Grenfell. Continue reading...

IOPC concerned reviews could prejudice decision on whether to investigate alleged misconduct

Boat carrying 50 people capsized off island of Lampedusa last weekItalian authorities have found the bodies of at least 12 people who drowned last week after a boat capsized in rough seas off the island of Lampedusa.Photos released by the Italian coastguard showed some of the clothed bodies floating at a depth of about 60 metres (200ft). Among them was a woman who drowned while embracing her child of about eight months. Continue reading...

250 tubes of wine-flavoured crisps taken in investigation into use of protected nameThe Italian agriculture minister, Teresa Bellanova, has pledged to fight against “identity theft” after hundreds of tubes of prosecco-flavoured Pringles were seized from a supermarket chain in the Veneto region.The supermarket had purchased the crisps, officially labelled “prosecco and pink peppercorn flavour”, from a marketing affiliate of Pringles in the Netherlands. The product is among the brand’s “Dinner Party” range. Continue reading...

Thames Valley police say two men aged 34 and 35 and woman aged 36 are in custodyThree people have been arrested in connection with a burglary at Blenheim Palace in which a gold toilet was stolen.Thames Valley police were called to reports of a burglary at Winston Churchill’s birthplace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, on 14 September. Continue reading...

With the province’s economy still sluggish the climate crisis seems to be a secondary issue for voters in Canada’s federal electionRobyn Moser still remembers the bidding wars for mansions when Calgary’s oil economy roared.In her best years – the decade before a 2014 crash in petroleum prices – Moser would sell more than 75 luxury homes, including estates with spectacular views of the Rocky Mountains. Last year she sold just 40 properties – and all at reduced prices. Continue reading...

Couple say Trump shocked them by revealing woman involved in son’s death, Anne Sacoolas, was nearbyThe parents of Harry Dunn have vowed to continue their fight for justice following a White House meeting with Donald Trump where they were told the US woman allegedly responsible for their son’s death would not return to the UK.Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence officer, fled the UK after 19-year-old Dunn was killed in a road collision. Dunn died near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on 27 August. Continue reading...

Specialist stranded abroad after Home Office decision, amid chronic shortage of doctorsAn eye doctor has been stranded overseas and unable to resume his career in the NHS after the Home Office banned him from entering Britain over a visa mix-up.The decision by the Home Office’s immigration department has been branded “inhumane” and prompted warnings it will worsen the NHS’s already serious shortage of doctors. Continue reading...

Brexit secretary suggests PM will send letter to Brussels in absence of agreement

We have to break out of our narrow navel-gazing: this is the Spanish civil war of our timesThese past few days have been a watershed for Europe. I’m not thinking about Brexit, but about Syria – which increasingly looks like our 21st-century Spanish civil war. Western and European defeat in Syria (by which I mean political and moral, not just military defeat) has parallels with the 1930s when democracies were unable or unwilling to stand up to authoritarians when it mattered, or even to play any kind of meaningful role in preventing a catastrophe that would soon enough engulf them, too.Events in north-eastern Syria are obviously tragic, if not lethal, for the tens of thousands of people caught up in them locally. But they will also have an impact on Europe in more ways than we perhaps care to acknowledge. Donald Trump himself has said as much, casually pointing out that Islamic State-connected foreign fighters now on the loose would make their way back to Europe. He made clear that that is a problem Europe would have to handle alone. As bad as that prospect is, it is only one part of a wider picture that should make Europeans feel desolate: at a crucial moment in history, the Russia-Iran authoritarian axis is now fully victorious on Europe’s doorstep. Continue reading...

Police and protesters clashed in Barcelona and other Catalonia towns on Tuesday over the jail sentences handed to nine Catalan separatist leaders. A peaceful candlelit protest outside the offices of the Spanish government in Barcelona escalated and the central government warned that violent demonstrations would be met with a ‘firm, proportional and united’ response

Extreme rightwing groups in Australia will remain an ‘enduring threat’, according to annual report from Australia’s spy agencyThe threat from extreme rightwing terrorism in Australia has increased in recent years and will remain an “enduring threat”, according to Australia’s spy agency.The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation issued the warning in its latest annual report, adding that “extreme rightwing groups in Australia are more cohesive and organised than they have been in previous years”. Continue reading...