The United Nations has accused South Sudanese government forces and allied militias of potential “war crimes” over a campaign of rape and killing that targeted civilians in opposition-held villages in the conflict-torn country. According to the UN human rights office, at least 232 civilians were killed and 120 women and girls raped during an offensive between 16 April and 24 May in the country’s Unity state, with three commanders identified as bearing the “greatest responsibility” in the violence.

Among the victims was a six-year-old who investigators say was gang-raped by soldiers, and elderly and disabled villagers who were burned alive in their huts. The UN report will increase pressure on the international community – not least the US – to impose fresh sanctions against senior figures in South Sudan over continuing serious human rights abuses.

It echoes allegations of serious human rights abuses made to the Guardian last month by villagers fleeing the fighting, as well as reports by human rights groups. Last month during a visit to the area of the attacks, survivors – who had fled across the Sudd marshes – detailed to the Guardian how villagers, including elderly residents, had been burned alive in their homes. The accounts were confirmed by an investigation conducted by the Human Rights Division of the UN mission in South Sudan.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump has named Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee for the US supreme court, lighting the fuse of an acrimonious political battle and potentially setting the court on a more conservative course for decades to come.

The selection of the federal appeals court judge was the cue for euphoria on the right and confirmed many progressive fears. If rubber-stamped by the Senate, it would represent one of the most consequential decisions of Trump’s presidency. Kavanaugh’s record will come under particular scrutiny for clues as to how he might vote in any future review of Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion. Last year, Kavanaugh decided against a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant in federal custody who sought to immediately terminate her pregnancy, though he was overruled by colleagues.(theguardian)…[+]

Monday’s flurry of resignations from Theresa May’s cabinet is causing consternation and frustration around European capitals, with politicians and commentators concerned that chaos in Westminster will paralyse Brexit negotiations and accelerate Britain’s departure from the geopolitical stage.

The prospect of more chaos in Westminster would more likely cause consternation than schadenfreude in Berlin, Josef Janning, who heads the Berlin office of the European council of foreign relations, told the Guardian. Although that sentiment did not extend to the recently-departed foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.

“The sorrow caused by Johnson’s departure in German government circles will be in short supply,” Janning said. “German politicians were alienated by the way in which he carried out his office from the beginning. He was seen as a player, an opportunist.”

Relations had got off to an awkward start during Johnson’s inaugural visit to the German capital in November 2016, when he offered the then-foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier an awkward fist-bump during their press conference and reportedly referred to his counterpart as “Markus-Walter” in their private meeting. Steinmeier, now Germany’s president, said he was “not amused” by Johnson’s support for Brexit.(theguardian)…[+]

Two Reuters journalists who uncovered a massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have been charged for violating the Official Secrets Act. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were charged under the colonial-era 1923 act for allegedly illegally possessing state secrets in government documents and face up to 14 years in prison if convicted.

Before their arrest, the journalists were investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men in the village of Inn Dinn in northern Rakhine state. Reuters published their report with accounts from villagers and security personnel in February. The case has attracted global attention. Some western diplomats and rights groups say it is a test of progress towards full democracy under the administration of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in a country where the military still wields considerable influence.

Speaking outside the Yangon court on Monday, defence lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said he was “not satisfied” with the decision. When asked if this case represented “backsliding” press freedom in Myanmar he said: “If you say backsliding that would mean there has been an advance, but there has been no advance just a slippery slope.”(theguardian)…[+]

Britain’s counter-terrorism chief has said it is highly likely the novichok that killed Dawn Sturgess in Wiltshire came from the same batch used four months earlier to attack a former Russian spy and his daughter at their Salisbury home.

The Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu also said the substance that led to Sturgess and her partner Charlie Rowley falling ill on Saturday was in a vessel or container when the couple came across it. Police have opened a murder investigation after Sturgess died in hospital on Sunday at 8.26pm. Basu said: “It is both shocking and utterly appalling that a British citizen has died having being exposed to a Novichok nerve agent. “But make no mistake, we’re determined to find out how Dawn and her partner, Charlie Rowley, came into contact with such a deadly substance; and we will do everything we possibly can to bring those responsible to justice.”(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has warned Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, that the White House is close to refusing to grant an interview with the president.

Giuliani took the increasingly belligerent tone of the White House up a notch on Sunday when he called the Russian investigation the “most corrupt I’ve ever seen”. Speaking on This Week on ABC News, he accused the special counsel of assembling a team of investigators around him that included “very, very severe partisans working on an investigation that should have been done by people who are politically neutral”.

Asked whether they had made a decision on whether or not Trump should participate in an interview with the inquiry, he replied: “We have not determined he will not sit down with Mueller, but we are close to that.”

Giuliani’s round of the Sunday TV political talkshows is the latest sign that the core Trump team has decided to abandon its earlier approach of being seen to cooperate with the Russia investigation, and move towards an antagonistic position. On Friday, Giuliani told the New York Times that Mueller would get his interview with the president only if he could satisfy the White House that he had evidence that Trump had committed a crime.(theguardian)…[+]

Turkey has dismissed thousands of state employees under an emergency decree for alleged links to terrorism groups. Under the decree, published on the Official Gazette early on Sunday, 18,632 people, including nearly 9,000 police officers, 6,000 members of the military and hundreds of teachers and academics were sacked. Their passports will be cancelled.

Turkey has been under a state of emergency for nearly two years, declared after a coup attempt in July 2016. The government blames a US-based cleric for orchestrating the coup and has sacked or arrested people suspected of links to him. The cleric, Fethullah Gülen, denies the allegations. But the purge has broadened to include other “terrorism groups”, with more than 130,000 people dismissed. Sunday’s decree also reinstated 148 people previously sacked through emergency decrees.(theguardian)…[+]

Disarmament talks between the US and North Korea ended in Pyongyang on Saturday with the North Korean regime accusing Washington of a “gangster-like mindset” and warning of “yet another tragedy” if negotiations collapse. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, responded that if the US was a gangster, so was the whole world, as it had the same demand that North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programme.

He insisted sanctions would remain in place until Pyongyang completed disarmament.

Pyongyang, however, made clear it had no intention of carrying out the comprehensive unilateral disarmament Donald Trump has claimed was the outcome of his 12 June summit in Singapore with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. In rebuffing the US approach to talks, the regime laid out its most detailed negotiating position to date, suggesting confidence-building measures each side could take, including a proposal to freeze production of intercontinental ballistic missiles and a call for a formal declaration ending the Korean war of 65 years ago.(theguardian)…[+]

Michael Gove has urged Eurosceptic Conservative MPs to rally behind Theresa May as she prepares to face down her backbench critics in person before publishing a white paper on leaving the EU. The environment secretary, a leading Brexiter, said the deal the prime minister achieved at Chequers was not everything he had hoped for but insisted the cabinet was behind it and collective responsibility would prevail.

“Those of us who believe that we want to execute a proper Brexit, and one that is the best deal for Britain, have an opportunity now to get behind the prime minister in order to negotiate that deal,” he said. The prime minister is facing an angry backlash from Brexit-supporting MPs when she addresses the House of Commons on Monday, before a meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, in an attempt to get them behind the plans.

Since Friday, several more Conservative MPs were said to have added their names to a list supporting a vote of no confidence, although No 10 insiders have indicated May would fight any challenge and the numbers looked to be in her favour. Boris Johnson, a leading critic of the plans, spent several minutes at the Chequers summit spelling out his concerns, saying anybody defending the deal would be “polishing a turd” if they tried then to sell it to the party and the public.(theguardian)…[+]

The former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption in a verdict likely to influence the general election due to be held on 25 July. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s anti-graft court, ruled that Sharif and his family laundered money in the 1990s to pay for four luxury apartments in Park Lane in London, drawing on allegations that resurfaced in the Panama Papers leak, published by the Guardian and others in 2016.

The court also sentenced Sharif’s daughter and presumed political heir, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, to seven years’ imprisonment, fined the family £10m and ordered the seizure of the Avenfield properties. “The Pakistani nation and the PML-N [Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz), Sharif’s party] reject this decision,” Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, told reporters. “This is a dark chapter in the history of this country. There was no solid legal evidence in the entire case.” Sharif, who has been at the sickbed of his wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, in London, did not attend the hearing. The court earlier denied his request for a week-long delay to the verdict while she is on a respirator following treatment for throat cancer.(theguardian)…[+]