Brutal attacks on civilians and security forces in anglophone regions of Cameroon have escalated in recent weeks and could rise even further in the run-up to presidential elections next month, rights groups have warned.

A self-declared member of the Ambazonia Liberation Forces appeared in a new video alongside images of a soldier’s decapitated head, according to Amnesty’s experts, who said the head had bruises on it and lay on a blood-soaked white cloth next to what could be the man’s genitalia. “Ambazonia” is the name separatists would like to give to their new country, if they achieve independence, and is derived from Ambas Bay in southern Cameroon.

“The situation in the anglophone regions of Cameroon is becoming increasingly desperate, with no one spared from the violence, which is spiralling out of control,” said Samira Daoud, the deputy regional director of campaigns in west and central Africa. She called for the government to act immediately to restore peace, adding: “Violence will only fuel further incidents, crimes and untold suffering.”(theguardian)…[+]

German doctors treating a member of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot say his symptoms suggest it is “highly probable” that he was poisoned, but are confident he will make a full recovery. Pyotr Verzilov, one of four members of Pussy Riot who invaded the pitch dressed in police uniforms during the World Cup final in Moscow to protest against excessive Russian police powers, fell ill following a court hearing last Tuesday. He was rushed to Berlin on Saturday night for treatment.

His early symptoms included loss of vision and being unable to walk or talk. “It is highly probable that he was poisoned,” a doctor at the Charite hospital in Berlin told a news conference on Tuesday, adding that there was no other explanation as to why Verzilov was in such a condition.Doctors said they were confident he would return to full health. “Pyotr Verzilov improves day by day and he is no longer at risk,” said the head of the hospital, Karl Max Einhäupl.(theguardian)…[+]

Around 50 girls, including some as young as four, are being treated in hospital in Burkina Faso after they underwent female genital mutilation (FGM). Two women, along with some of the girls’ relatives, have been arrested. Not all the girls who underwent the circumcision have been traced, the minister of women’s affairs, Laurence Marshall Ilboudo, told the BBC.

The procedure is reported to have been carried out in Kaya, northeast of the capital, Ouagadougou. The NGO Voix de Femmes, which runs a centre on the outskirts of the capital for survivors, said it had assisted five girls, while many others were taken to local hospitals. On Tuesday campaigners in Somalia announced that a third girl had died in less than a week after undergoing FGM in the Puntland region. Suheyra Qorane Farah was cut along with her sister, Zamzam. Both bled profusely and fell into a coma. Zamzam’s condition improved, but Suheyra’s worsened. She was diagnosed with tetanus and died on 17 September.(theguardian)…[+]

The strawberry contamination scare in Australia, which has caused supermarkets to recall brands and farmers to dump fruit, has spread to all six of the country’s states, police have said. The supermarket chains Coles and Aldi had pulled strawberries from their shelves across Australia except in Western Australia, and on Monday police in that state said a suspected case had been identified there.

A man in the town of York reported to police that he had found a needle in a sink after washing strawberries. The incident came after a seven-year-old girl in South Australia state found a needle in a Western Australia-grown strawberry on Saturday. A 62-year-old woman was caught putting a needle into a banana in Mackay, central Queensland, in what is believed to have been a copycat act.

Neil Handasyde, president of the Strawberry Growers Association of Western Australia, said growers had received requests from retailers and insurance companies to scan fruit for needles. “As an industry, we are sure that [the needles] are not coming from the farm, but we’re trying to get confidence into consumers that when they buy … strawberries, that there isn’t going to be anything other than strawberries in there and they’re safe to eat,” he told ABC. “[We] are looking at lots of different ways of tackling this issue. There’s been metal detectors purchased and tamper-proof packaging looked at.”(theguardian)…[+]

Bill de Blasio was two weeks into his term as New York mayor when he stood with weeping parents at the street corner where eight-year-old Noshat Nahian was killed while walking to school and pledged to end the city’s “epidemic” of road deaths.

Noshat was crossing the seven-lane Northern Boulevard in Queens with his 11-year-old sister five days before Christmas 2013 when Mauricio Osorio-Palominos, operating an enormous truck on a suspended driving licence, turned left across their path. Noshat was the 11th child under 13 to be killed on the streets of New York that year.

The urgent 30-day plan De Blasio ordered became the first Vision Zero policy of a major US city, blazing a trail for mayors around the world to tackle what the World Health Organization calls a “major but neglected global health problem” and which killed 1.25 million people in 2013. In two weeks in late November that year, four New Yorkers were killed by drivers on sidewalks, sparking protests.(theguardian)…[+]

Officials are planning to airlift food and water to Wilmington after the city of nearly 120,000 people became cut off from the rest of North Carolina by rising flood water from Florence. At least 17 people have died in North and South Carolina, as rescuers continued to pull residents from homes threatened by swollen rivers.

The US’s highest emergency official said other states were in the path of Florence. “Not only are you going to see more impact across North Carolina this week … but we’re also anticipating you are about to see a lot of damage going through West Virginia, all the way up to Ohio as the system exits out,” said Brock Long of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Wilmington, the state’s eighth-largest city, residents waited for hours outside stores and restaurants for necessities such as water. Police guarded the door of one store and only 10 people were allowed inside at a time. Woody White, the New Hanover county commission chair, said officials were planning for food and water to be flown into the coastal city. “Our roads are flooded,” he said. “There is no access to Wilmington.”(theguardian)…[+]

Pussy Riot activist Pyotr Verzilov has been flown to Berlin to receive specialist medical treatment following a suspected poisoning in Moscow. Verzilov, who was one of the four members of Pussy Riot who invaded the pitch dressed in police uniforms during the World Cup final in Moscow to protest excessive Russian police powers, fell ill following a court hearing on Tuesday and taken to hospital in a serious condition. His first symptoms included a loss of vision and being unable to walk.

It is not yet clear what is causing Verzilov’s illness, but other members of the protest group say they believe it to be poisoning. The 30-year-old arrived at Berlin’s Schönefeld airport on Saturday night on a flight organised by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, which has close connections with the Russian protest group and is based in the German capital.The foundation’s founder, Jaka Bizilj, told the German newspaper Bild that it was important for the family that Verzilov was treated as quickly as possible outside of Russia. “We hope now that he will be helped quickly in Berlin and that we can then establish whether and how he was poisoned in Russia.”(theguardian)…[+]

Scientists have found the first evidence that particles of air pollution travel through pregnant women’s lungs and lodge in their placentas. Toxic air is already strongly linked to harm in foetuses but how the damage is done is unknown. The new study, involving mothers living in London, UK, revealed sooty particles in the placentas of each of their babies and researchers say it is quite possible the particles entered the foetuses too.

“It is a worrying problem – there is a massive association between air pollution a mother breathes in and the effect it has on the foetus,” said Dr Lisa Miyashita, at Queen Mary University of London, one of the research team. “It is always good if possible to take less polluted routes if you are pregnant – or indeed if you are not pregnant. I avoid busy roads when I walk to the station.”

A series of previous studies have shown that air pollution significantly increases the risk of premature birth and of low birth weight, leading to lifelong damage to health. A large study of more than 500,000 births in London, published in December, confirmed the link and led doctors to say that the implications for many millions of women in polluted cities around the world are “something approaching a public health catastrophe”.(theguardian)…[+]

The criminal trial of eight men accused over the murder of environmental activist Berta Cáceres will begin in Honduras on Monday amid accusations of a political cover-up. Cáceres was shot dead just before midnight on 2 March 2016 at her home in La Esperanza in western Honduras, after a long battle against a hydroelectric dam project on sacred Lenca territory.

The murder sparked international condemnation and confirmed Honduras’ ranking as the most dangerous country in the world for environment and land rights defenders.

Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist, was also shot in the attack but survived by pretending to be dead. The eight defendants are also accused of his attempted murder. All eight deny the charges. Cáceres, who was coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras (Copinh), led opposition to the internationally financed Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque river, which triggered a wave of repression including violent evictions, surveillance, sexual harassment, false criminal charges, multiple death threats and, ultimately, her murder. The dam was licensed to the company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (Desa).(theguardian)…[+]

Dominic Raab has surprised EU officials and diplomats by optimistically claiming the Brexit talks are “closing in” on a solution to the Irish border problem, following a 30-minute telephone conversation with Michel Barnier.

In an an article on Thursday, in which he had threatened to withhold the UK’s £39bn divorce bill, the British cabinet minister had told how he was looking forward to continuing negotiations with Barnier the following day. In reality, the two men had a call that lasted about 30 minutes on Friday, sources said. EU diplomats in Brussels also expressed astonishment at the sunny outlook offered by the British cabinet minister over the state of the negotiations.

In a statement issued after the call, Raab said: “This morning, I had an extended phone call with Michel Barnier. We discussed the latest progress our teams have made on the withdrawal agreement and the framework for the future relationship.“While there remain some substantive differences we need to resolve, it is clear our teams are closing in on workable solutions to the outstanding issues in the withdrawal agreement, and are having productive discussions in the right spirit on the future relationship.”(theguardian)…[+]