The US has ordered 15 Cuban embassy officials to leave the country as result of a string of mysterious health incidents affecting 22 of its diplomats in Havana, which Washington says were the result of deliberate attacks.

The state department said the expulsions did not necessarily mean the US had concluded that the Cuban government was responsible for a variety of symptoms including hearing loss, headaches and cognitive problems, but it said Cuba had failed to live up to its obligations under international law to protect diplomats.

The US also said that the move was designed to achieve parity in each country’s embassy functions, after Washington announced the withdrawal on Friday of non-emergency personnel – more than half its diplomats in Havana, as well as all family members. Those US nationals are still in the process of leaving Cuba, while the 15 Cuban embassy staff are being given a week to leave.

“The decision was made due to Cuba’s failure to take appropriate steps to protect our diplomats in accordance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention,” the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said in a written statement. “This order will ensure equity in our respective diplomatic operations.(theguardian)…[+]

The accused in Italy’s highest-profile human trafficking case has spoken in court for the first time since his trial started more than year ago to claim he was the victim of mistaken identity.

“This is not my name. This is not my surname. This is not my identity,” the man, who Italian authorities say is the notorious Eritrean people smuggler, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, told a court in Palermo, Sicily. “You are prosecuting the wrong man. This is all absurd.’’ The man says he is Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 29-year-old refugee and former milk-hand, wrongly arrested in 2016 in Sudan and extradited to Italy with the help of the British Foreign Office and the UK National Crime Agency, which had participated in the operation.

After more than a year of proceedings, Italian prosecutors have failed to produce a single witness to testify against a man they have accused of being one of the most influential people-smugglers in north Africa, who sent thousands of Eritrean refugees from Libya to Italy. His appearance on Tuesday marked the opening of a new trial after the prosecutor, Gery Ferrara, who led the investigation against Mered from the beginning, petitioned to transfer the trial to the Palermo assize court, which handles more serious criminal offences, such as Mafia-related murders and kidnappings.(theguardian)…[+]

The older brother of a French extremist who killed seven people in a series of attacks on a Jewish school and soldiers in 2012 is to go on trial for complicity in the shooting spree. The criminal trial of Abdelkader Merah, 35, starting on Monday, will be the first time a French court considers charges in the attacks that killed three Jewish children, a teacher and three paratroopers in the Toulouse region over a nine-day period.

The 23-year-old gunman, Mohamed Merah, died after a 32-hour televised standoff with France’s police special forces. Abdelkader Merah has been in custody since the days after the Toulouse killings. He has denied helping his brother, who trained with al-Qaida-linked extremists in Pakistan, to prepare for or perpetuate the rampage.

His lawyer, Eric Dupond-Moretti, has said Merah, who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of “complicity to murders in relation with a terrorist undertaking”, was sent to trial by default because the actual killer was dead. “There is no evidence in the case file to convict him. That’s what I think, that’s what I’ll say,” Dupond-Moretti told BFM TV in February. The lawyer refused to give interviews as the trial neared. The trial is being held in a special Paris criminal court and heard by judges. It is expected to last a month with about 50 witnesses and a dozen experts called to the stand. A verdict is expected in early November.(Theguardian)…[+]

The US president, Donald Trump, has dedicated a golf trophy to the hurricane victims of Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, amid a worsening war of words between him and the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan, over the US response to the disasters.

Presenting the trophy to the US captain, Steve Stricker, at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in New Jersey, Trump said: “On behalf of all of the people of Texas, and all of the people – if you look today and see what is happening, how horrible it is, but we have it under really great control – Puerto Rico and the people of Florida who have really suffered over this last short period of time with the hurricanes, I want to just remember them. “And we’re going to dedicate this trophy to all of those people that went through so much that we love, a part of our great state, really a part of our great nation.” Trump tweeted a video of him presenting the trophy later on Sunday.(Theguardian)…[+]

The UK’s biggest peacetime repatriation is under way after the collapse of Monarch Airlines, with 110,000 customers to be brought home on specially chartered planes. The accountants KPMG announced at 4am on Monday that Monarch, Britain’s longest-surviving airline brand, had been placed into administration and that all further flights from the UK had been cancelled and would not be rescheduled.

The Civil Aviation Authority said it had launched a programme to bring back Monarch customers to the UK over the next fortnight on 34 chartered planes. All Monarch customers who were due to return to the UK in the next two weeks would be flown home at no extra cost and did not need to cut short their stay, the regulator said. However, 300,000 future bookings had been cancelled. Hundreds of passengers flying early on Monday arrived at UK airports to find their flights cancelled, some just minutes before they were due to board, leaving their plans in tatters. The CAA chief executive, Andrew Haines, said: “This is the biggest UK airline ever to cease trading, so the government has asked the CAA to support Monarch customers currently abroad to get back to the UK at the end of their holiday at no extra cost to them.(Theguardian)…[+]

Canadian police said early on Sunday that an attack on an officer outside a football game with a car and knife and a high-speed chase of a U-Haul van that left four people injured are being investigated as acts of terrorism. Edmonton police chief Rod Knecht said officers took a suspect into custody and they think he acted alone. Knecht said an Islamic State flag was found in the car that hit the officer. They later described the suspect as a 30-year-old Edmonton man.

The attack began outside a Canadian Football League game at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday night. Police said a white Chevrolet Malibu rammed a traffic control barricade and sent an officer flying into the air 15ft. Knecht said the driver then got out and attacked the officer with a knife before fleeing on foot. The officer was taken to a hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries while a manhunt was launched. “It’s not critical,” Knecht said of the injuries.

A few hours later, a U-Haul van was stopped at an impaired driving check stop north of downtown on Wayne Gretzky Drive. Knecht said the name of the driver was close to the name of the registered owner of the car that hit the officer. He said the U-Haul sped off toward downtown with police in pursuit.(Theguardian)…[+]

The war of words between the president of the United States, population 324 million, and the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan, population 400,000, intensified on Sunday as the island continued to struggle in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

As Puerto Ricans stood in line for water, food and petrol, and with 95% of the island still without power, Donald Trump doubled down on his cantankerous spat with San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. In a Sunday morning tweet he alluded to her in all but name, referring to “politically motivated ingrates”.Cruz proved herself to be as adept as the occupant of the White House in using the media to stand her ground. In interviews with the Sunday politics shows, she too doubled down on her criticisms of Trump and his administration and the neglect, as she sees it, that they have shown her community.(Theguardian)…[+]

A knifeman fatally stabbed two women at the main train station in the southern French city of Marseille on Sunday afternoon before soldiers on patrol shot him dead.One of the victims was stabbed while the other had her throat slit by the man who is believed to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) at the start of the attack, a source close to the investigation told AFP. Anti-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation into “killings linked to a terrorist organisation” and the “attempted killing of a public official”. But investigators remained prudent, and did not make conclusive remarks about the nature of the incident. The investigation has been handed to central police forces, not anti-terrorism police. The attacker, who was reported to be in his 30s, was not carrying identity documents. AFP quoted a source close to the inquiry who suggested the man was known to police for criminal offences.(Theguardian)…[+]

Greece is experiencing a dramatic rise in the number of refugees and migrants entering the country, exacerbating already deplorable living conditions on island camps.

The number of people arriving, across land and sea borders, has more than doubled since the beginning of the summer. Authorities estimate arrivals are now at their highest level since March 2016, with over 200 men, women and children being registered every day. “It is dramatic and it is the most vulnerable of the vulnerable coming in,” said Elias Pavlopoulos, who heads Médecins sans Frontières in Greece. “There are whole families fleeing war zones in Syria and Iraq. In the last few months our clinics have seen more people who have suffered violence, who are victims of rape, who have been tortured, than ever before.” Despite a pledge by EU member states in September 2015 to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers – including 106,000 from Greece and Italy – a mere 29,000 have been moved to other European countries so far. With the 28-nation bloc failing to meet the deadline set out in its own plan, mass demonstrations are expected in capitals across Europe this weekend.(theguardian)…[+]

At least 22 people have been killed and more than 30 injured during a rush-hour stampede on a bridge between two railway stations in Mumbai. The crush occurred on a narrow footbridge connecting Prabhadevi station, formerly Elphinstone, and Parel station during the Friday morning commuter rush and amid heavy rain. A Mumbai police official, Ganshem Patel, said the stampede was triggered by falling concrete that struck a bridge railing, leading to fears that the bridge could collapse. There may also have been a power cut that exacerbated the panic, according to the Press Trust of India.(theguardian)…[+]