Two French rap stars who have been in jail on remand for three weeks after they sparked a mass brawl at Paris’s Orly airport have been freed on bail ahead of their trial next month. The punch-up at the start of August in the airport terminal between two of France’s most successful rappers, Booba and Kaaris, saw passengers scurry for safety. Other passengers took videos on their mobile phones as the stars and their minders lashed out at each other and crashed through cosmetics stands in a duty-free shop.

The airport terminal was temporarily shut due to the brawl and some flights were delayed. Airport authorities and the duty-free shop said thousands of euros in damage had been caused. The two rappers, who once worked together but became sworn enemies in one of French rap’s longest-running feuds, were on their way to Barcelona and said they had not known they were to be on the same flight.

They were arrested and jailed on remand along with eight others from their entourages.(theguardian)…[+]

Enrique Fernández cannot remember the last night he slept peacefully. He is tall and heavyset, and does not look like someone who scares easily, but as he sits in his humble rented home in western Colombia, his eyes dart nervously from left to right, scanning for any threat. Any moment could be his last, he says. When a teenaged ice-cream vendor approaches the front door Fernández scurries anxiously to a back room, convinced the youth is helping set up an attempt on his life.

It is not paranoia. Fernández – a leader of the Nasa indigenous tribe and an outspoken defender of the environment – has had a price on his head for months. In February a bomb was left outside his family home. The explosive was disarmed by the army, but the message was clear: he had to move.

Last month a volley of phone calls and text messages threatened him again. “We will not rest until Colombia is free from communists like you,” the messages read. “Condolences to your family.” Since the beginning of 2016 – the year that a peace agreement was signed with Colombia’s largest leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc) – some 311 activists, community leaders, and human rights defenders have been murdered, according to the national human rights office.(theguardian)…[+]

A Europe-wide manhunt is under way for the suspected killer of an 11-year-old Dutch schoolboy on a campsite 20 years ago this month, after the largest DNA testing programme in the Netherlands’ history finally produced a 100% match. In the latest twist to a cold case that has gripped the country since 1998, police in the southern city of Maastricht said on Thursday that more than 200 people had called in following an appeal for tips about the possible whereabouts of Jos Brech, 55, a former scout and playgroup worker.

“A lot of people are calling,” said police commissioner Ingrid Schäfer-Poels on Thursday. “We are now convinced the suspect has gone into hiding.” Described as a survival specialist capable of enduring long periods alone in the wild, Brech was last known to be in the mountainous Vosges region of eastern France, where he has a cabin, and has been placed on Europol’s list of the continent’s most wanted fugitives.(theguardian)…[+]