The Canadian government is going to apologise and give millions to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15, with Canada’s supreme court later ruling that officials had interrogated him under “oppressive circumstances”. An official familiar with the deal said on Tuesday that Omar Khadr will receive 10.5 million Canadian dollars (US$8 million). The official was not authorised to discuss the deal publicly before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. The government and Khadr’s lawyers negotiated the deal last month.

The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by US troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, US army Sgt Christopher Speer. Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo and ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission. He pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murder and was sentenced to eight years plus the time he had already spent in custody. He returned to Canada two years later to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.(theguardian)…[+]

The government of South Sudan and its militias are behaving with vicious brutality in the country, with reports of men being locked in huts and burned to death, and of machete attacks being carried out in remote villages.

The atrocities are just one of the causes of the major refugee crisis in the region, with almost a million people fleeing to Uganda. Out of a population of some 12.5 million, more than 1.7 million are enduring severe hunger, classified as just one step below famine, and the number at risk of starvation is 6 million and growing. On top of that, a fast-spreading cholera outbreak threatens to kill thousands. The human rights group Amnesty International, which has been gathering together reports from the conflict, said forces – those loyal to the government and also some to the opposition – had also cut food supplies to parts of the country.

Women and girls are increasingly being abducted and raped in the region of Equatoria, a new frontline in the conflict, which is now a region of “treacherous killing fields”, according to Amnesty. “The escalation of fighting in the Equatoria region has led to increased brutality against civilians. Men, women and children have been shot, hacked to death with machetes and burned alive in their homes. Women and girls have been gang-raped and abducted,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser.(theguardian)…[+]

German politicians have called for an overhaul of transport laws after claims that “rubbernecking” drivers may have cost lives by blocking emergency vehicles’ access to a burning bus in Bavaria on Monday. Eighteen people are now known to have been killed after the bus, which was carrying elderly tourists to Italy, hit the back of a lorry on the A9 motorway. The bus immediately caught fire, killing more than a third of those on board.

Drivers have been accused of failing to follow motorway protocol by clearing the emergency lane. “Their behaviour is totally irresponsible and shameful,” said Joachim Herrmann, Bavaria’s interior minister responsible for transport, after visiting the accident site. He said that emergency services had reached the crash site 10 minutes after being called out, but that they might have arrived sooner, had it not been for drivers who failed to open a corridor to allow fire engines and ambulances through. He claimed the space made was not wide enough for larger vehicles, which had “lost valuable time” as a result. By the time firefighters reached the scene, the heat of the fire was so intense they were unable to approach the vehicle. Thirty passengers managed to escape. Of the survivors, many are still being treated in hospital and two have life-threatening injuries.(theguardian)…[+]