Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, has won a second term after taking 67% of the vote in a runoff election. Opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé received more than 32% of the vote in Sunday’s poll.

The estimated turnout was 34%. Voters were put off by threats of violence from extremist groups, and there was widespread disillusion with veteran politicians, whose campaign promises failed to offer convincing solutions to the impoverished and violent west African country’s many problems. The election looks unlikely to bring stability, which is key in the battle against Islamist extremism in the Sahel region and in efforts to curb illegal migration to Europe. Cissé, 68, has said he will reject the results of the runoff, which was marred by allegations of ballot-box stuffing and other irregularities, calling on the population “to rise up”. Extra security forces were deployed after about 250,000 people, 3% of the electorate, were unable to vote in the first round because of insecurity.(theguardian)…[+]

Fears have risen about the condition of infrastructure across Europe after the deadly collapse of a stretch of a motorway bridge in Genoa, with experts warning that some road bridges are in a dangerous state. In France, the transport minister warned that the country’s road network was in a “critical state” after a recent studied carried out by the French government found a third of its road bridges required repairs and that 841 posed a potential risk.

In Italy, as many as 300 bridge are at risk of failure, including a bridge near Agrigento, Sicily, designed by Ricardo Morandi, the same engineer behind the Genovese bridge. The Sicilian authorities closed the structure because of structural damage in its pillars.

Genoa’s chief prosecutor said on Thursday that there could be as many as 20 people missing in the rubble from the collapsed bridge, in addition to the 39 already confirmed dead.(theguardian)…[+]

The war of words between John Brennan and Donald Trump escalated on Thursday, with the former CIA director calling the president’s repeated denials that his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election “hogwash”.Brennan hit back after being stripped of his security clearance by the White House the previous day – an unprecedented presidential intervention that has prompted widespread criticism. A statement from Trump said he had taken the step due to Brennan’s “erratic conduct and behavior”.

Writing in an article for the New York Times published on Thursday, Brennan described the decision to revoke his clearance as “politically motivated” and “an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him”. He also wrote: “Mr Trump’s claims of no collusion [with Russia] are, in a word, hogwash.” Brennan, whose criticisms of Trump have escalated in recent months, wrote that the president was “desperate” to end the Russia investigation.(theguardian)…[+]

Controversial Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been suspended from Twitter for up to seven days. The suspension has put Jones into what Twitter describes as “read-only mode” preventing him from tweeting, liking or retweeting, but not removing his tweets or personal account from the social network. The Infowars Twitter account remains unaffected.

A Twitter spokesperson said the action was taken for tweets containing a video that was in violation of the company’s rules on abusive behaviour and inciting violence. Twitter instructed Jones to delete the tweets, which he has done. The New York Times reports that Jones tweeted a link to a video calling for supporters to get their “battle rifles” ready against media and others.

The move by the last remaining high-profile social network, from which Jones has yet to be permanently banned, comes after a tumultuous period in which Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey has had to repeatedly defend the company’s position. Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and Apple banned Jones’s accounts and products from their various services on 6 August following the media backlash. Jones’s apps still remain available via Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play store, however.(theguardian)…[+]

At least 48 people have died after a suicide bomber targeted an education centre in a minority Shia area of western Kabul, in the latest assault in Afghanistan’s war-weary capital. “We can confirm the attack was caused by a suicide bomber on foot. The bomber detonated himself inside the education centre,” said a police spokesman, Hashmat Stanikzai.

The health ministry said 48 people had died, with another 67 wounded. There was no immediately claim of responsibility. The Taliban quickly denied involvement. In a separate incident a Taliban attack on an Afghan military outpost in the northern province of Baghlan killed up to 44 policemen and soldiers. The attacks underlined how hard militants have been pressuring badly stretched local security forces, and came as the central city of Ghazni struggles to recover from five days of intense fighting.(theguardian)…[+]

The lira has continued its recovery against the dollar on Wednesday as Turkey increased tariffs on US goods and introduced measures to restrict bets against the embattled currency. After rising as high as 5.9 to the dollar, the lira was up 3.8% to $6.16 shortly after 1pm on Wednesday. The currency’s climb followed retaliatory tariffs by Ankara against US goods including rice, coal and cars. The tariff increases followed Donald Trump’s decision last week to double US tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminium, deepening Turkey’s economic crisis.

Turkey’s trade minister, Ruhsar Pekcan, said: “The United States is an important trading partner but it is not our only partner. We have other partners and alternative markets.” In an effort to defend the lira, Turkey’s central bank tightened its rules on currency swaps and other foreign exchange transactions, limiting the ability of banks to supply lira to foreign financial companies.(theguardian)…[+]

Facebook has bought the rights to show Spanish top-flight football in the Indian subcontinent in the latest move by a US technology company into sports rights.

The company has signed an exclusive agreement to show La Liga games featuring Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and other stars for the next three years. The deal will allow Facebook to show all 380 matches for the new season, which starts on Friday, to users in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Facebook will show the games for free to its 348 million users in the region, including 270 million in India. The company did not disclose how much it was paying for the rights, which cost Sony Pictures Network $32m (£25m) last time they were for sale in 2014.

Facebook and other US technology companies have been buying up rights to popular sports for streaming services. Competition from cash-rich US tech companies is a threat to cable and satellite TV broadcasters, which have used sport as a way to attract and keep customers. Facebook pays about $1m a game to show 25 Major League Baseball games worldwide for no fee, supported by advertising. From next season in the UK, Amazon will bundle 20 English Premier League matches with its Prime subscription service. Sky and BT currently share the rights to show live games on TV.(theguardian)…[+]

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Turkey will boycott electronic products from the US, as he issued another defiant response to the US sanctions imposed in a dispute over the detention of an American evangelical pastor. The US measures have accelerated a currency crisis in Turkey, though the lira rallied slightly on Tuesday, from a low of 7 against the dollar on Monday night to about 6.5 at noon (1000 BST) in Istanbul.

“We will boycott US electronic products,” the Turkish president said. “If they have iPhone, the other side has Samsung. In our country there is Venus, Vestel [the Turkish smartphone brands].” Erdoğan also railed against what he called a larger and deeper operation against Turkey. “They do not refrain from using the economy as a weapon against us, as they tried in the areas of diplomacy, military, or efforts for social and political instability,” he said. Meanwhile, the American pastor Andrew Brunson, whose continued detention over espionage allegations provoked the latest crisis, said through his lawyer that he was appealing against his house arrest and travel ban.(theguardian)…[+]

An Australian crossbench senator has invoked the term “the final solution” in an inflammatory speech calling for a plebiscite asking voters whether they want to end all immigration by Muslims and non-English speaking people “from the third world”.

Fraser Anning, formerly of the far-right Pauline Hanson One Nation party, and now a member of the Katter’s Australia party, used his maiden speech in the Senate to call for “a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, and particularly whether they want any Muslims”.

He also invoked the white Australia policy, suggesting Australians may want “to return to the predominately European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus”. The white Australia policy, which restricted non-European immigration, ran from 1901 until it began to be dismantled in the late 1960s. He said neither the former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam, nor any subsequent government, had asked Australians what kind of immigration they wanted. “What we do need a plebiscite for is to decide who comes here.”(theguardian)…[+]

A French-born aristocrat is suing France for €351m (£313m) in damages, claiming it tricked his family out of inheriting the throne of Monaco. Louis de Causans alleges that he and his relatives would have been in the line of succession if not for a “sleight of hand” by the French state more than a century ago. De Causans says that by falsifying the rules of succession, France gained control over the Mediterranean principality, robbed his family of its birthright and installed another branch of the Grimaldis on the throne.  He insists his legal action is not aimed at Monaco’s current ruler, Prince Albert, but the French state.

The aristocrat, whose full name is Louis Jean Raymond Marie de Vincens de Causans, told Le Parisien newspaper: “I want the truth to come out and this injustice perpetrated by France on my family to be put right. “In reality, my cousin Prince Albert acceded to the throne by a sleight of hand … France found a solution to get its hands on Monaco. Afterwards, they managed business on the Rock as they wished.”(theguardian)…[+]