More than 60 people are presumed dead after a boat carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar capsized, the United Nations migration agency has said.

“Twenty-three people have been confirmed dead … 40 are missing and presumed drowned,” a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) told reporters in Geneva. Survivors of the accident told IOM staff that the boat was carrying about 80 people, including 50 children, escaping weeks of bloodshed in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and seeking the safety of neighbouring Bangladesh.

The boat overturned on Thursday in rough waters off Bangladesh, with witnesses and survivors saying it sank metres from the shore as it was lashed by torrential rain and strong winds. “Survivors described being at sea all night, having no food,” the IOM spokesman said. “The total fatality toll will be in the range of 60,” he said, updating a previous toll of 19. Bodies, including children and babies, continued to float to the shoreline on Friday. “They drowned before our eyes. Minutes later, the waves washed the bodies to the beach,” said Mohammad Sohel, a shopkeeper in Bangladesh.(theguardian)…[+]

Authorities in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, have begun a vicious crackdown on the city’s LGBT community, according to activists in the country. Reports suggest that over the past 10 days dozens of gay and trans people have been arrested. One person the Guardian contacted said he had been beaten in police custody.

Homosexuality is legal in the oil-rich, post-Soviet country, but a survey released last year by a rights organisation ranked Azerbaijan as the worst of 49 European countries in which to be gay. “There have been previous crackdowns on LGBT people, but this one is much bigger, with systematic and widespread raids,” said Samed Rahimli, a Baku-based lawyer who is helping coordinate legal defences for those who have been detained.

Rahimli said he was aware of 60 cases of LGBT people who had been either sentenced to 20 days’ imprisonment or fined as part of the recent crackdown. Those currently in jail were charged with resisting police orders. “This is a common charge used in Azerbaijan for arbitrary arrests.” He said many more people could have been caught up in the sweep but not formally charged.(theguardian)…[+]

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has made a second dramatic intervention in US Middle East policy, suggesting that only 2% of the West Bank is occupied by Israel and that the international community always intended for Israel to keep some of the land it seized in 1967 during the six-day war.

The comments, in an interview with the news channel Israeli Walla, came a day after rightwing Israeli politicians celebrated 50 years of Israeli settlement-building, prompting condemnation by Palestinian officials. “I think the settlements are part of Israel,” Friedman said, comments that seem at odds with decades of US foreign policy.

“I think that was always the expectation when resolution 242 was adopted in 1967,” he said, referring to the UN security council resolution made at the end of the six-day war, when Israeli forces occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Friedman, a former personal lawyer of Donald Trump who had no experience in diplomacy before his appointment, was regarded as being a strong supporter of Jewish settlement before he was named as ambassador.(theguardian)…[+]

UN human rights experts have warned the Spanish authorities that their “worrying” efforts to halt Catalonia’s independence referendum appear to violate fundamental individual rights as well as stifle debate “at a critical moment for Spain’s democracy”.The intervention by two specialists working for the UN Human Rights Council comes three days before Catalans are due to vote in a poll declared illegal by both the Spanish government and the country’s constitutional court. In a statement, David Kaye and Alfred de Zayas singled out the recent arrests of 14 Catalan officials, the blocking of referendum websites and the possibility that protest organisers could be charged with sedition.

“Regardless of the lawfulness of the referendum, the Spanish authorities have a responsibility to respect those rights that are essential to democratic societies,” the experts said.  “The measures we are witnessing are worrying because they appear to violate fundamental individual rights, cutting off public information and the possibility of debate at a critical moment for Spain’s democracy.”

David Kaye, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and De Zayas, an independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, also expressed reservations over the Spanish government’s decision to deploy thousands of extra police officers to Catalonia.(theguardian)…[+]

Afghan militants have unsuccessfully attempted to shoot a plane carrying the US defence secretary, James Mattis, during an attack on Kabul airport. The south end of Camp Sullivan, a US embassy compound near the international airport, was hit by what appeared to be rocket-propelled grenades or mortars.

Mattis, who was visiting Kabul with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, had arrived before the attack took place and there was no indication he was in danger at any point. A weapons depot caught fire during the assault, triggering explosions. Additional attackers fired small arms at three military entrances to the airport. At least five civilians were wounded, officials said. Two US and one Afghan military aircraft were reportedly damaged, along with a civilian plane. In a statement, the Taliban claimed responsibility, saying it had targeted Mattis’s plane. Islamic State later issued a competing claim of responsibility.  Mattis and Stoltenberg were in Kabul on Wednesday to meet Afghan officials and discuss strategy for a war to which Donald Trump has tied the US for an indefinite period.(Theguardian)…[+]

The European parliament’s Brexit coordinator has warned the home secretary that Britain’s recent treatment of foreign nationals could “colour” MEPs’ attitudes to whether they approve a future Brexit deal. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, has written to Amber Rudd to express leading MEPs’ concerns about a series of incidents highlighted by the Guardian, including the threat to deport a Japanese woman who lives with her Polish husband in London.

Haruko Tomioka, 48, had her child benefit stopped and driving licence revoked, in what critics claim was an example of the Home Office’s attempts to create a “hostile environment” for those it believes should not be in the country. Despite living in the UK for 13 years, and being married to an EU national, Tomioka was told in a formal letter she had seven days to leave the country before the Home Office accepted it had made a mistake. Verhofstadt, who met the Brexit secretary, David Davis, for a meeting on Monday in Brussels, at the British cabinet minister’s bidding, warned Rudd in his letter of the concerns shared by him and colleagues on the European parliament’s Brexit steering group.(theguardian)…[+]

Saudi women have hailed a move by the conservative kingdom’s ruler to allow them to drive as a landmark moment in a society where gender roles have long been rigidly demarcated and strictly enforced. Women contacted by the Guardian responded with jubilation to the law change, which activists and senior Saudi officials claim marks a watershed in the country. “The mindset has shifted,” said Sultana al-Saud, 26, from Riyadh. “We weren’t waiting for our families to accept, we were waiting for something larger to back us up, a backbone, which is the government.

“This is a huge step for women, it’s nice to see women behind the wheel metaphorically I believe it’s like her leading her life now. The patriarchy is slowly but surely turning to land of equality. This is amazing. It’s the first few steps of freedom, we didn’t even reach 2030 yet,” she said in reference to a government plan to transform Saudi society. “We are part of this big vision. We women are now taken into consideration.” Under the new law, women can legally obtain a driving licence without asking a male guardian for permission, despite “guardianship” laws that grant Saudi men power over female relatives.(theguardian)…[+]

Three Israelis have been killed in a gun attack by a Palestinian assailant at a settlement outside Jerusalem. Police said the attacker arrived at a rear entrance to the Har Adar settlement at about 7am as security guards were opening a gate to admit Palestinian labourers with permits.

When security guards became suspicious, the individual pulled out a pistol hidden under his shirt and opened fire, fatally wounding three Israelis – a policeman and two civilian security guards – before he was shot and killed. The victims were named as 20-year-old police sergeant Solomon Gavriya and security guards Youssef Ottman and Or Arish, both 25.

Authorities identified the gunman as 37-year-old Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal from the nearby village of Beit Surik. Israeli security services said he had “significant personal and family problems, including those regarding family violence” and that his life had fled to Jordan several weeks ago.  The attacker held a work permit for the settlements. Permits are issued only after security vetting. Shay Retter, the head of Har Adar’s security committee, said between 100 and 150 Palestinian labourers typically enter the community each day for work.(theguardian)…[+]

Mount Agung in Bali is experiencing unprecedented levels of seismic activity and could erupt in a “matter of hours” if tremors continue, Indonesia’s volcanology centre has said. More than 75,000 people have been evacuated in the last few days as Agung, the highest point of the island, has experienced hundreds of internal volcanic earthquakes.

“Instrumentally we have never recorded such high energy or seismicity from Mount Agung,” Devy Kamil Syahbana, a seismologist from Indonesia’s centre for volcanology and geological hazard mitigation, told the Guardian. Data showed that Mount Agung experienced 844 volcanic earthquakes on Monday, and 300 to 400 earthquakes by midday on Tuesday, he said. “We need to pay attention because these kinds of earthquakes indicate the movement of magma and increase the probability of an eruption.”

Evacuated people have sought shelter in hundreds of village halls and sports centres and in the homes of relatives in more than nine districts. President Joko Widodo is scheduled to visit evacuees at several camps on Tuesday. Authorities have urged people to stay out the danger zone, a designated five- to seven-mile radius of the volcano. The increasing frequency of deep and shallow volcanic earthquakes, as well as local tectonic tremors, is an indication that magma continues to move toward the surface. The alert status of Agung was raised to the highest level on Friday evening following a significant spike in seismic activity.(theguardian)…[+]

At least six senior Trump administration figures have used private email accounts for official White House business, according to various media reports.

Hillary Clinton, who lost the presidency to Donald Trump after a campaign in which her use of a private email server while secretary of state was a defining issue, called the news “just the height of hypocrisy”. Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, admitted through his lawyer on Sunday that he had done so in the administration’s early days. A New York Times report said Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, aides Gary Cohn and Stephen Miller, and former staff members Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus also used private accounts.

None of those named are believed to have broken the law, which allows public officials to use private addresses where official emails are forwarded to government accounts to be archived for reasons of transparency. However, the reports have the potential to cause serious embarrassment to Donald Trump, whose election campaign was built partly on regular and heavy criticism of Clinton for her use of a private email server.(theguardian)…[+]