A 13-year-old boy and an amateur archaeologist have unearthed a “significant” trove in Germany which may have belonged to the Danish king Harald Bluetooth who brought Christianity to Denmark. René Schön and his student Luca Malaschnitschenko were looking for treasure using metal detectors in January on northern Rügen island when they chanced upon what they initially thought was a worthless piece of aluminium.

But upon closer inspection, they realised that it was a piece of silver, German media reported. Over the weekend, the regional archaeology service began a dig covering 400 sq metres (4,300 sq ft). It has found a hoard believed to be linked to the Danish king Harald Gormsson, better known as “Harry Bluetooth”, who reigned from around AD958 to 986.Braided necklaces, pearls, brooches, a Thor’s hammer, rings and up to 600 chipped coins were found, including more than 100 that date back to Bluetooth’s era, when he ruled over what is now Denmark, northern Germany, southern Sweden and parts of Norway.

“This trove is the biggest single discovery of Bluetooth coins in the southern Baltic Sea region and is therefore of great significance,” the lead archaeologist, Michael Schirren, told national news agency DPA. The oldest coin is a Damascus dirham dating to 714 while the most recent is a penny dating to 983.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump called James Comey an “a weak and untruthful slimeball” on Friday morning after the first reports were released from the former FBI director’s new book, in which he likens the president to a mob boss.

“James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR,” Trump tweeted. “Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH.” In his next tweet, Trump wrote: “He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case will go down as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!”

Comey said during congressional testimony last year that he helped to leak details of a memo about Trump to the New York Times, but he denied that it contained classified information.Earlier on Friday morning, ABC News released the first clip from its upcoming interview with Comey, which will be aired on Sunday night.(theguardian)…[+]

The prime minister of Slovakia has hit out at people seeking to portray his country as a mafia state following the murder of a reporter investigating government corruption, but conceded that the “professional” killing was proving difficult to solve. Peter Pellegrini, who replaced Robert Fico after he was forced to quit in the wake of the murders of the journalist Ján Kuciak, 27, and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, said unprecedented numbers of police were working on the case. The authorities believe Kuciak was killed in relation to his work. He had recently been examining claims that a senior aide to Fico had business links with a man suspected of ties to the Italian mafia.

In an interview with the Guardian and five other European newspapers during a visit to Brussels, Pellegrini said the Slovakian police were being assisted by the FBI, the Metropolitan police and Italian and Dutch forces, but he appeared to suggest the investigation was struggling because of the delay in finding the bodies. “I am very sorry for the fact that the murders are running four days ahead of us. The problem is that the murder did occur on Wednesday, but the people were reported missing on the Sunday. This is far too much in case of a murder,” he said.

“It seems it was … very professional. That is why it may be very difficult to find. But for my government, for myself, for our citizens it is very important to find the perpetrator as quickly as possible.” Pellegrini was Fico’s deputy for the last two years, and while the protests that forced the former prime minister from office have been put on hold, there are concerns among those campaigning for a cleanup of government corruption that little will change.(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN– The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has launched a Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Project in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), which will assist the country in recovering from the effects of Hurricane Irma. The Project, which was launched on April 10, 2018, will be funded through a USD65.3 million (mn) loan and a USD300,000 grant.

Speaking at the launch, Diana Wilson Patrick, General Counsel, CDB, noted that the Project is a further extension of CDB’s efforts to help BVI recover from the impact of the extreme weather event. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Irma, the Bank provided an Emergency Relief Grant of USD200,000, and Immediate Response Loans totalling USD2.25 mn. “It was with a sense of some pride that the management and staff of the Caribbean Development Bank were able to work with our counterparts in the Government of the Virgin Islands to have financing towards the proposed rehabilitation and reconstruction activities approved by the Bank’s Board of Directors on December 14, 2017. This was a mere three months after Hurricane Irma caused the loss of four lives and an estimated USD3.6 billion in damage to homes, schools, infrastructure, public administration and defence and several other sectors; disrupting the lives of the country’s men, women, boys and girls.”

Premier and Minister of Finance, Dr. The Honourable D. Orlando Smith said that the Project was timely, as it will assist with recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction. “It is time to get our livelihoods back on track. It is time for us to get on with the several projects and initiatives that are identified for each ministry in the loan agreement. And, it is time to weather proof our infrastructure and rebuild it in a way that offers some resiliency to unprecedented weather patterns.” He went on to note that the funds provided will help to restore economic stability to the Territory.(CDB)…[+]

The Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was given a rougher ride on his second day of congressional testimony on Wednesday as he faced sharp questions about the tech giant’s ability to track its users’ movements, shopping habits and browsing histories and was at one stage compared to J Edgar Hoover.

During five hours of testimony, the billionaire entrepreneur revealed that his own personal information was among that handed over to the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook users without their permission. The Democratic congresswoman Anna Eshoo, reading questions from her constituents at a hearing of the House energy and commerce committee, asked Zuckerberg whether his data was “included in the data sold to the malicious third parties”. After a brief hesitation, the Facebook CEO replied: “Yes.”(theguardian)…[+]

The international chemical weapons watchdog has backed the UK’s findings on the identity of the chemical used to poison the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. The findings by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will be a major relief to the UK, which has said novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia, was used in the attack.

The executive summary released by the OPCW does not mention novichok by name, but states: “The results of the analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirms the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and severely injured three people.” The OPCW, which does identify the chemical by its complex formula in a classified report that has not been made public, also notes in its summary that the chemical had an “almost complete absence” of impurities.(theguardian)…[+]

LA SOUFRIÈRE, St. Vincent and the Grenadines – The University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center (UWI-SRC), in collaboration with the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO), recently launched a project to prepare communities to manage potential impacts of La Soufrière Volcano and related hazards.

The “Volcano-Ready Communities in St. Vincent and the Grenadines” project targets 12 towns and villages in the high-risk zones of La Soufrière. It specifically seeks to improve early warning and alert systems; train early response and risk assessment teams; develop a “Volcano-Ready” framework and toolkit for communities; and create public education and awareness materials to be shared with schools, businesses, and residents. “We want to ensure that people here can live safely and resiliently and enjoy their lives, so that when bad things happen because of the environment that [they] won’t be knocked back as badly,” said Dr. Richard Robertson, Director of UWI-SRC.

He further explained, “When we speak about ‘Volcano-Ready communities’ we’re speaking about it in the context of a volcanic environment. Yes, the volcano erupts from time to time, but the very nature of the volcanic landscape is such that it poses certain hazards. For example, all of the loose material around is great for crops and farming, but it means that when rain comes, it strips off the materials and creates flash floods. When you have a storm, because the land falls away so quickly, storm surge comes in and damages the coastline. So, you’re really in a multi-hazard environment.” Following successful completion of the project, St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be the first country in the Region to hold a “Volcano-Ready” designation.(CDB)…[+]

Shrinking reservoirs in Morocco, India, Iraq and Spain could spark the next “day zero” water crisis, according to the developers of a satellite early warning system for the world’s 500,000 dams.

Cape Town recently grabbed global headlines by launching a countdown to the day when taps would be cut off to millions of residents as a result of a three-year drought. Drastic conservation measures have forestalled that moment in South Africa, but dozens of other countries face similar risks from rising demand, mismanagement and climate change, say the World Resources Institute (WRI). The US-based environmental organisation is working with Deltares, the Dutch government and other partners to build a water and security early warning system that aims to anticipate social instability, economic damage and cross-border migration. A prototype is due to be rolled out later this year, but a snapshot was unveiled on Wednesday that highlighted four of the worst-affected dams and the potential knock-on risks.(theguardian)…[+]

An Indian man who was arrested after accusing a ruling party official of raping his teenage daughter has died in police custody, prompting outrage and calls for an independent investigation. The day before the man died, his daughter had gone to Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, doused herself in kerosene and tried to self-immolate in protest against the alleged unwillingness of police to pursue her allegations. Uttar Pradesh is a state of 200 million residents with poverty and malnutrition levels close to those of sub-Saharan Africa and a reputation for lawlessness. The allegations have shocked Indians and prompted renewed scrutiny of the power wielded by politicians in small-town India.

The mother of the girl, who court documents say is 15, has alleged in a handwritten note to police that her daughter was raped on 9 June last year by two men one of whom was Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a member of the Uttar Pradesh parliament with the ruling Bharatiya Janata party. Her family had been unsuccessfully trying to convince police to register a case against the politician for months until last Tuesday, when the family allege Singh Sengar and his brother Atul Singh Sengar barged into their home at about 6pm with a group of men. “My two young girls were molested and when my husband protested he was tied to a tree and was beaten,” the woman alleged in her note.(theguardian)…[+]

More than 250 people have been killed in a military plane crash in Algeria, state television has reported. The plane crashed soon after takeoff in a field near the Boufarik military base in northern Algeria on Wednesday. The cause of the crash was unclear and an investigation has been launched, the defence ministry said. Emergency services converged on the area near the base. Mohammed Achour, the chief spokesman for the civil protection agency, said the Russian-designed Il-76 military transport plane had been carrying soldiers. The defence ministry has not provided a death toll but expressed condolences to the victims’ families.

The Algerian TV network Ennahar published images of body bags lined up in a field after the crash. The flight had just taken off from Boufarik, about 20 miles (30km) south-west of Algiers, when it crashed. It was bound for a military base in Béchar in the south-west of the country, Achour said. It was scheduled to make a stopover in Tindouf, in western Algeria, home to many refugees from the neighbouring Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco.(theguardian)…[+]