Individuals at the highest level from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the government of Yemen and Houthi rebels have committed violations of international law in Yemen that may amount to war crimes, UN experts have said.

A long-awaited report released on Tuesday catalogues abuses including rape, torture, disappearances and “deprivation of the right to life” during the three-year Yemeni conflict, in which Houthi rebels and their allies are fighting a Saudi-led coalition that backs the UN-recognised government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In a particularly damning section of the report, the three experts said the Saudi-led coalition routinely failed to consult its own “no-strike list” of more than 30,000 sites in Yemen, including refugee camps and hospitals. They also said the Saudi air force had failed to cooperate with them about its targeting process.(theguardian)…[+]

The world was waiting for her to speak. But the day after a damning United Nations report concluded that genocide had occurred in Myanmar under her watch, Aung San Suu Kyi used a public appearance to discuss only poetry and literature.

Arriving at the University of Yangon 24 hours after the publication of the UN fact-finding mission’s report, which concluded that the Myanmar military had carried out a genocide of the Rohingya in Rakhine and were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Rakhine, Shan and Kachin states, the Myanmar leader chose to stay silent on all issues of politics and made no mention of the UN.

The former Nobel peace prize winner, who was once heralded as the face of a new democratic Myanmar, but whose government is now facing mounting calls to be investigated by the international criminal court (ICC) for war crimes, spent the afternoon talking to students about the merits of Gone With the Wind, and the differences between fiction and non-fiction.(theguardian)…[+]

Survivors of a shooting at a video gamers’ competition in Florida in which three people died have told of chaotic scenes as those caught up in the violence trampled over others in panic as they tried to escape. The dead included the gunman, David Katz, 24, a player on the gaming circuit who is believed to have been angry because he lost Sunday’s tournament. Eleven people were also wounded in the gunfire.

One witness who was present during the Madden NFL 19 video game tournament in Jacksonville said she saw Katz as he fired while walking backwards. “We did see him, two hands on the gun, walking back, just popping rounds,” said Taylor Poindexter, 26, who had been ordering pizza at the bar when she heard the first shot at about 1.30pm.

“I was scared for my life and my boyfriend’s,” she told reporters, standing on crutches after spraining her ankle trying to escape.(theguardian)…[+]

Myanmar’s military has been accused of genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine state in a damning UN report that alleged the army was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity against minorities across the country.

The UN report said it found conclusive evidence that the actions of the country’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, “undoubtedly amounted to the gravest crimes under international law” in Rakhine as well as in Kachin and Shan, states also riven by internal conflicts.

The UN investigators were denied access to Myanmar by the government but interviewed 875 witnesses who had fled the country. They found that the military were “killing indiscriminately, gang-raping women, assaulting children and burning entire villages” in Rakhine, home to the Muslim Rohingya, and in Shan and Kachin. The Tatmadaw also carried out murders, imprisonments, enforced disappearances, torture, rapes and used sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and enslavement – all of which constitute crimes against humanity.(theguardian)...[+]

The governor in charge of the Egyptian resort town where two British holidaymakers died suddenly last week has confirmed there was an unusual smell in their hotel room, adding to fears there may have been something in the ventilation system that contributed to their deaths.

Major General Ahmed Abdullah, the Red Sea governor, told reporters in Hurghada that “there was a strange odour in the room” where John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 63 fell ill last Monday night. He said the room at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel has been sealed off and protected while a committee of specialists investigate the ventilation and air conditioning systems. The Coopers’ daughter, Kelly Omerod, who was with her parent on holiday said on Sunday that she believed “there was something in the room that’s actually killed them” and that they may have inhaled something that poisoned them.

Several hotel guests who were staying at the resort at the same time as the Coopers reported gastric problems and complained of being served raw chicken and fish, and drinks in dirty glasses. The Coopers, however, had not suffered upset stomachs, Ormerod said. At least one other guest reported lung problems. Alison Cope from Birmingham said a member of her party had suffered headaches, breathing difficulties and water on the lung, which a British doctor said was consistent with legionnaires’ disease.(theguardian)…[+]

Israeli allegations that an aid worker shot dead by its troops earlier this week was attempting to carry out a cross-border attack from Gaza are being examined by the international medical aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). MSF confirmed that one of its Palestinian medical staff, Hani al-Majdalawi, was killed in an incident earlier this week.

Cogat, the Israeli organisation responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said al-Majdalawi tried to infiltrate Israel from Gaza, opened fire at soldiers and threw a bomb. Israeli troops shot and killed al-Majdalawi during the attack on Monday. The Israeli military has not said whether it is holding al-Majdalawi’s remains.

According to the statement, Cogat’s commander, Maj Gen Kamil Abu Rokon, said those who take “part in saving lives should assist in humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip, and should not take part in terrorism”. Alva White, a spokeswoman for MSF, confirmed al-Majdalawi had worked for the organisation and that he was killed in Gaza on Monday. “MSF is working to verify and understand the circumstances regarding this extremely serious incident, and is not able to comment further at this stage,” the organisation said in a statement.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump has hit back at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after Sessions issued an unusual public rebuke to the US president. In the latest outbreak of hostility between the two, Trump, who is increasingly embattled after being accused of criminal behaviour as part of a guilty plea by his former lawyer Michael Cohen this week – tweeted that Sessions should investigate alleged “corruption” by his political enemies.

“Open up the papers & documents without redaction? Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!” the president wrote. In a Fox News interview broadcast on Thursday, Trump said: “I put in an attorney general who never took control of the justice department.”

But Sessions issued a statement defending the integrity of his department. “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in,” he said. “While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”(theguardian)…[+]

The EU has hit back at a threat by Italy’s populist government to halt its budget payments to Brussels amid a row over a migrant rescue ship, as Italian prosecutors travel to Rome to question the far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini about the illegal detention of the migrants onboard.

The investigation, conducted by the prosecutor of the Sicilian city of Agrigento, was launched against “unknowns” but it is clear that if the magistrates were to go ahead with a judicial proceeding, Salvini, who is not being investigated at the moment, would end up under investigation, being responsible for the landing ban, sources said.

Italy is facing a violation of the article 5 of the European convention on human rights. Under its terms, asylum seekers detained for more than 48 hours should be immediately released and should be given the opportunity to apply for a refugee status. On Thursday, the Italian deputy prime minister threatened to suspend his country’s financial contribution to the EU if Brussels did not intervene and redistribute the 150 refugees and migrantsonboard the coastguard ship Ubaldo Diciotti.(theguardian)…[+]

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)…[+]