Using a mobile phone while cycling is to be banned in the Netherlands amid mounting safety fears in a country where bikes outnumber people. A draft law scheduled to take effect next July will extend an existing 2002 ban on car and lorry drivers using their mobile phones at the wheel unless in hands-free mode to “the use of a mobile electronic device while driving any vehicle (including a bicycle)”.

The Dutch transport minister, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, said the law was needed because the advent of social media and unlimited mobile data had changed how people used smartphones and the time they spent on them. Cyclists were excluded from the initial ban because of their lower speeds, Van Niewenhuizen said. “But in fact, using a phone is just as dangerous on a bike as it is in a car,” she said. “The fact is that whenever you’re on the road you should be paying full attention and not doing anything at all on a phone.”

The increasing popularity of electric bikes meant cyclists’ average speed had risen, the minister added, while the country’s 22,000 miles of cycle lanes and paths had become more crowded. The Netherlands has more bikes – about 22.5m – than people: 17 million. Almost a quarter of the population cycles every day and cycle use has increased by about 12% since 2005; the average Dutch cyclist now covers more than 600 miles a year in 250-300 trips.(theguardian)…[+]

The tension had been building for months, maybe years. In the days before Alan Hogg, the wealthy Scottish businessman, and his Thai wife Nott, were killed and then buried in the garden of their home, relatives have revealed that the relationship between Nott and her brother Warut Satchakit, who has since been charged with the murders, had soured beyond repair.

For 20 years, Nott’s favourite older brother had lived in a house on her and her husband’s expansive property where he worked as the chief gardener, looking after the plants, the fruit orchard, the chickens and the 15 cows. According to numerous neighbours, Hogg and Satchaikit tended the 13-hectare plot of land side-by-side, though not always harmoniously.

But Nott’s and Satchakit’s youngest brother Thanom Suddan, 53, said Nott had been planning to kick her 63-year-old brother off the property, after the family conflict became too much.

“She visited me the Saturday before she was killed to tell me she could no longer stand Warut,” Suddan told the Guardian, as he sat by their bodies which had been brought to the local Phrae Thammaran temple. “He was creating too many arguments and not looking after the land properly. He didn’t even tell them when the dogs died. She told me she was going to ask him to leave.”(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump is accustomed to addressing diehard supporters at rallies. His press conferences are rare and tightly controlled. So the open derision of his fellow leaders at the UN general assembly clearly came as a surprise. He insisted he was “OK” with the mirthful reaction to his claims of historic achievements, but he was clearly not OK. Trump is said never to forgive or forget those who laugh at him, so this second outing at the UN podium is unlikely to end well for his administration’s already ambivalent relations with the global body.

Trump made an entrance – nearly half an hour later than his allotted time – determined to trash everything the UN stands for. The president explicitly rejected “the ideology of globalism” in globalism’s high temple and proposed in its place the “doctrine of patriotism”.While most leaders have used their time on the UN stage to list the agreements they have made, the protocols agreed and treaties signed, Trump clearly delighted in telling the world how many such pieces of paper he had ripped up.(theguardian)…[+]

Civilian deaths in Yemen have surged dramatically since June after the Saudi-led coalition began an offensive to take the key port city of Hodeidah from Houthi rebels.

According to the figures, collected by the Armed Location and Event Data monitoring group (Acled), civilian deaths in the Yemeni conflict have increased by 164% in the four months since the Hodeidah offensive started, claiming the lives of about 166 people a month. The group’s analysis suggests Hodeidah has become the most violent frontline in the four-year conflict. In recent months, about one-third of the total conflict-related fatalities have been recorded in the governorate, reflecting the bitterness of the struggle for the key port and its surrounding environs.

Attempts to negotiate a ceasefire led to a temporary pause in the summer offensive, but the failure of peace talks in Geneva convened by Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, led to a resumption of hostilities on 7 September. The coalition-led efforts have focused on several key points around the city, including a battle for control of the Kilo 16 road junction linking Hodeidah to Sana’a, a key supply line for the Houthis controlling the port.(theguardian)…[+]

The conditions in which thousands of asylum seekers are being detained on Lesbos has unleashed a furious political backlash in Greece, as financing of the island’s overcrowded Moria detention camp comes under scrutiny. Tensions mounted after the defence minister, Panos Kammenos, filed a defamation action against three journalists, including the editor-in-chief of the Fileleftheros daily, after the publication of a report alleging misuse of EU funds.

Kammenos, who heads the leftist-led government’s junior partner, the rightwing populist Anel, accused the newspaper of defamation after it linked him to businessmen who had benefited from funds intended to improve living conditions in the camp. Fileleftheros claimed enterprises with “very close” ties to Kammenos had routinely inflated charges for services that ranged from catering to plumbing. It said projects were frequently awarded through fast-track processes without due diligence or being put out to competitive tender.The European anti-fraud agency confirmed on Tuesday it was investigating “alleged irregularities concerning the provision of EU-funded food for refugees in Greece”. Athens has received a total of €1.6bn in financial aid for refugees since 2015.(theguardian)…[+]

Some of Brazil’s most celebrated musicians, writers and public intellectuals have said Latin America’s largest democracy could take an authoritarian turn if rightwing populist Jair Bolsonaro emerges victorious from next month’s presidential election.

With less than a fortnight until the 7 October vote, Bolsonaro, a pro-torture former army captain who recently called for his political opponents to be shot, leads polls with about 28% of the vote. Bolsonaro’s supporters, many of whom hail from Brazil’s middle and upper classes, see him as an iron-fisted antidote to the corruption and violence they believe is the result of 13 years of leftist Workers’ party rule.

But in an online manifesto that reflects mounting anxiety over a possible Bolsonaro presidency, 150 prominent artists and thinkers denounced him as “a clear threat to our fundamental civilisational heritage”. Signatories include Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil, a trio of politically engaged composers who all spent time in European exile during Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship.(theguardian)…[+]

The first sign something was amiss came when an 18-wheeler lumbered into the dilapidated neighbourhood of Paseos del Valle on the outskirts of Guadalajara.

The truck itself was unremarkable – a white tractor unit pulling a refrigerated trailer emblazoned with a polar bear logo – but it came with a police escort. And as the massive vehicle pulled on to a muddy track between the last row of houses and a corn field, dogs across the neighbourhood began to bark wildly at the stench it released.

“It was a smell of death,” recalled Alejandro Espinosa, a hospital maintenance worker who lives nearby.

A crowd quickly gathered, and when the truck became stuck in the mud, several youths pushed past the police and forced open the trailer doors. Inside were scores of human bodies, wrapped in garbage bags, bound with duct tape and piled haphazardly on top of each other. Local authorities eventually confirmed that 273 corpses had been dumped in the trailer after the relentless pace of violent crime left the local morgue without any space for new arrivals. For nearly two weeks, the truck had been drifting around the suburban hinterland of Mexico’s second city. As the scandal escalated, Jalisco officials were forced to admit that they had been using stationary trailers to store bodies for at least two years.(theguardian)…[+]

Something extraordinary is happening in Ethiopia. Under new prime minister Abiy Ahmed, authoritarianism and state brutality appear to be giving way to something resembling democracy. A country that began the year crippled by anti-government protests is now being lauded as a model for the region. One of Africa’s most autocratic ruling parties, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), is today led by a man who professes to believe deeply in freedom of expression.

In the capital, Addis Ababa, huge crowds have been welcoming home exiled dissidents. Residents who once feared speaking publicly about politics now talk of little else. Flags and symbols long banned by the EPRDF blossom across the city.

But it is also a time of deep anxiety. The unprecedented loosening of state control has been accompanied by an upsurge in ethnic violence and widespread lawlessness. Hate speech thrives on social media. Groups with starkly contrasting visions for the country have clashed on the streets of the capital. On 19 September the government began its first clampdown, arresting thousands of people suspected of orchestrating violence.“Abiymania”, as it has become known, may not last forever.(theguardian)…[+]

British diplomatic links to Turkey will come under pressure this week as a dispossessed media proprietor faces extradition to Ankara for financial offences allegedly related to a military coup.
Akın İpek, whose newspapers and TV stations have been confiscated by Turkish officials for criticising President Recep Tayip Erdoğan’s regime, will appear alongside two other men at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday. The case against İpek and his co-accused follows demands for the UK to send back fugitives supposedly involved with the Fethullah Gülen movement, which the Turkish government claims was responsible for the 2016 uprising against Erdoğan.

In November, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, met the British prime minister, Theresa May, and asked her to extradite those supposedly associated with the failed coup.Tens of thousands of Turkish lawyers, journalists, civil servants, judges, soldiers and others have been imprisoned or lost their jobs since 2016. MPs on the foreign affairs select committee have accused Erdoğan of exploiting the failed coup to purge opponents and suppress human rights.

The case is expected to put further strains on relations between fellow Nato members at a time when the UK is courting business partners outside the EU. Recent extradition requests from Turkey have been refused on the grounds that the country’s prison system is unsafe.(theguardian)…[+]

Bill Cosby is facing prison time as he is sentenced this week for sexual assault, capping a stunning fall from grace for a man who was once one of America’s most popular entertainers. Cosby is due in court for a two-day sentencing hearing beginning on Monday, where Judge Steven O’Neill will decide his fate at the Montgomery county courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

More than 60 women have accused the 81-year-old Cosby – a once-beloved actor and comedian known as “America’s Dad” – of sexual assault, but it’s a single case, the only one to result in criminal charges, that could land him behind bars.Cosby was convicted in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 2004.

He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each charge, but state guidelines recommend a sentence of about one to four years. Constand, who had gotten to know Cosby when she was managing the women’s basketball team at Temple University, testified that the TV star gave her three blue pills, which caused her to pass out. She awoke to find Cosby digitally penetrating her, touching her breasts, and placing her hand on his genitals. The trial – his second, after the jury in a first trial failed to reach a verdict – was the first of a celebrity accused of sexual assault since the beginning of the #MeToo movement.(theguardian)...[+]