Donald Trump has announced new travel restrictions on visitors to the United States that will expand his controversial travel ban to eight countries. The new proclamation, which will come into effect on 18 October, will continue to target travellers from Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Libya and Iran, but also adds North Korea, Chad and Venezuela to the list of targeted countries. Sudan has been dropped from the administration’s list of nations and Iraqi citizens will be subjected to “additional scrutiny” but will not face any blanket bans.

Seven of the countries face wide-ranging restrictions, which effectively block travel for most citizens, while the limits imposed on Venezuela will only apply to a group of government officials and their families. “As president, I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people,” Trump’s statement said. The president later tweeted: “Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet.” Unlike the administration’s previous travel bans, which were intended as temporary measures as homeland security officials were instructed to review vetting procedures, the new restrictions are not time-limited. The proclamation marks the administration’s third move to limit travel into the United States after Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the US on the campaign trail.(theguardian)…[+]

Iraqi Kurds are casting ballots in Iraq’s Kurdish region and disputed territories on whether to support independence from Baghdad, in a historic but non-binding vote that has raised regional tensions and fears of instability. The referendum will not immediately bring independence, but it would mark a definitive stance by the Kurds to break away, and Kurdish leaders say they will use a “yes” vote to press for negotiations with Iraq’s central government to win statehood. Iraq has called the vote constitutional and it is opposed by Iran, Syria and Turkey, who also have Kurdish minorities.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, on Monday threatened military intervention in response to the vote, stressing that Kurdish independence was unacceptable to his country and that this was a “matter of survival.” He said Turkey would take also take political and economic measures against steps toward independence and suggested it could halt oil flows arriving through a pipeline from northern Iraq, depriving Iraqi Kurds of revenues. “We have the valve. The moment we shut the valve, that’s the end of it,” he said.(theguardian)…[+]

One of the world’s “big four” accountancy firms has been targeted by a sophisticated hack that compromised the confidential emails and plans of some of its blue-chip clients, the Guardian can reveal. Deloitte, which is registered in London and has its global headquarters in New York, was the victim of a cybersecurity attack that went unnoticed for months. One of the largest private firms in the US, which reported a record $37bn (£27.3bn) revenue last year, Deloitte provides auditing, tax consultancy and high-end cybersecurity advice to some of the world’s biggest banks, multinational companies, media enterprises, pharmaceutical firms and government agencies.

The Guardian understands Deloitte clients across all of these sectors had material in the company email system that was breached. The companies include household names as well as US government departments. So far, six of Deloitte’s clients have been told their information was “impacted” by the hack. Deloitte’s internal review into the incident is ongoing. The Guardian understands Deloitte discovered the hack in March this year, but it is believed the attackers may have had access to its systems since October or November 2016. The hacker compromised the firm’s global email server through an “administrator’s account” that, in theory, gave them privileged, unrestricted “access to all areas”.(theguardian)…[+]

BARBADOS – The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has offered a grant to the Commonwealth of Dominica following the passage of Hurricane Maria, and is fast-tracking a grant for the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).

The Bank is making an Emergency Relief Grant of USD200,000 available to Dominica, which will assist with costs associated with damage assessments and the provision and transportation of emergency relief supplies, water and sanitation resources, roofing materials for emergency shelters and community buildings, and temporary shelter for displaced persons. Dominica is also eligible to receive an Immediate Response Loan of up to USD750,000. The Loan, available on highly concessionary terms, is designed to support the clearing and cleaning of areas damaged by Hurricane Maria, and the emergency restoration of services.

The Bank is also in the process of providing a USD150,000 grant to CDEMA to support the ongoing mobilisation and coordination of disaster relief, given the number of recent hurricanes.

Dominica is also eligible to receive a Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Loan. The Loan is designed to help governments with their recovery efforts, to rehabilitate social and economic infrastructure, and restore key economic sectors to better than pre-disaster operating levels. This financing also assists in reducing countries’ vulnerability to future disasters. Following Hurricane Irma, the Bank sent a team of technical specialists to Antigua and Barbuda to conduct a preliminary damage assessment, and identify national priorities for recovery and rehabilitation, and is preparing to send similar teams to other Borrowing Member Countries affected by recent hurricanes. In December 2015, CDB approved a loan of USD30 million to assist with reconstruction after the passage of Tropical Storm Erika, which was estimated to have caused approximately USD483 million in damages and losses—the equivalent of 90 percent of Dominica’s Gross Domestic Product.(CDB)…[+]

More than 34,000 people have fled from a rumbling volcano on Bali as the magnitude of tremors grows, prompting fears it could erupt for the first time in more than 50 years, an official has said.

Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said the number of people fleeing their homes surrounding the volcano had tripled since Friday amid growing alarm that Mount Agung could erupt at any moment. “The evacuation process is ongoing and we expect the number of evacuees to continue to rise,” the agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. The resort island is a popular destination for Australian tourists and the foreign affairs department in Canberra issued a new travel warning for Bali because of fears of an eruption.

The volcano, located about 75km (50 miles) from the tourist hub of Kuta, has been rumbling since August. Officials announced the highest possible alert level on late Friday following the increasing volcanic activities and urged people stay at least nine kilometres away from the crater. “I am actually very worried to leave, I left my cows and pigs at home because we were ordered to vacate our village immediately,” villager Nyoman Asih who evacuated with her entire family told AFP.(theguardian)…[+]

Authorities in Tennessee said eight people were injured in a shooting at a church in the Nashville area. Nashville fire department spokesman Joseph Pleasant told the Tennessean newspaper that the wounded were being transported to Vanderbilt Medical Center. The nature of the injuries weren’t immediately known.

A dispatcher quoted by the newspaper said that the scene was still “active” at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ as of 11.40am on Sunday. Multiple ambulances were seen at the church. On Twitter, Nashville fire officials described it as a “mass casualty situation”. They said eight people, nearly all of them adults over age 60, were being treated for gunshot wounds and the area around the church remained shut down. A Nashville police spokesman did not immediately answer a telephone call or respond to an email on the shooting.(theguardian)…[+]

Dutch police are warning older cyclists of the dangers of switching to electric bikes after an increase in the number of deaths on the roads. Figures released this week show that more people are being killed in the Netherlands while riding an electric bike than a moped, and nearly 90% were aged 60 or above.

The death toll has prompted Dutch police to call for those who start riding bikes fitted with a motor to take a safety course. “People are staying mobile for longer and are more likely to go for an e-bike,” Egbert-Jan van Hasselt, who heads the Dutch police road safety unit, told the Dutch newspaper AD. “In itself, that’s nice because it’s healthy. But unfortunately some of the elderly lack the ability. [It is] not a normal bike.”

Van Hasselt added that bike paths in the Netherlands, where cycling is a popular pastime, were becoming busier and the variety of cycles using them was a complication. Last year 629 people died in road accidents in the Netherlands, according to Statistics Netherlands, of whom 189 were cyclists and 28 were on e-bikes. In the last three years at least 79 people were killed in road accidents when on an e-bike, of whom 87% were over the age of 60.(theguardian)…[+]

Israeli jets have reportedly bombed an area near the Damascus international airport in the third attack in as many weeks by the Israeli military on targets associated with the Lebanese group Hezbollah. According to social media reports on sites associated with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Israeli planes fired at least two missiles from outside Syrian airspace, hitting either a weapons depot or a convoy.

The Facebook page of the National Guard for the Defence of the Homeland, allied with the Syrian military, reported that “an area near the Damascus international airport was attacked by a hostile missile”, while images showed a fire burning in the early hours of Friday. The Lebanese television station al-Mayadeen also reported the attack.

The latest airstrikes mark a recent increase in Israeli interventions which have coincided with diplomatic warnings by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that his country will not accept an enhanced Iranian and Hezbollah presence on its northern borders.(theguardian)…[+]

Iraq’s Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, is on the edge of defying overwhelming international opposition to take the Kurds to a landmark referendum he says will end the region’s role in a broken, sectarian Iraq, and pave the way to independence.

Speaking days before the ballot, scheduled for Monday, Barzani said the majority of the global community had underestimated the determination of the Kurds. It had also, he claimed, made a miscalculation in believing that his intention to hold the ballot was a “pressure card” designed to draw concessions, rather than a tangible first step towards a long-held goal of sovereignty. “From world war one until now, we are not a part of Iraq,” he said. “It’s a theocratic, sectarian state. We have our geography, land and culture. We have our own language. We refuse to be subordinates.  “The parliament in Baghdad is not a federal parliament. It’s a chauvinistic, sectarian parliament. Trust is below zero with Baghdad,’ Barzani said at his presidential palace in the mountains beyond Erbil – the ruined city of Mosul 50 miles away, a border with Iran to the east, and Syria and Turkey to the west…[+]

The president of Catalonia has accused the Spanish government of acting “beyond the limits of a respectable democracy” and violating fundamental rights in its latest efforts to prevent an independence referendum from being held in 10 days’ time. But writing in the Guardian a day after Spanish Guardia Civil officers raided regional government buildings and arrested 14 senior officials, Carles Puigdemont insists the vote will go ahead despite the mounting pressure. “Catalan home rule has effectively been suspended due to this anti-democratic attitude from the Spanish government,” he writes. “It’s a situation that harks back to the dark past of this country, when democracy was not a part of the Spanish dictionary. What is happening here in Catalonia would not happen anywhere else in the European Union.”

Puigdemont says requests for negotiations with the Madrid government have been ignored dozens of times, and the Spanish executive is refusing to entertain any dialogue on the issue. “Instead of engaging in discourse, the Spanish government has opted for police and judges, taking us beyond the limits of a respectable democracy,” he writes. “With the arrests of high-ranking officials and threats to detain democratically elected politicians, I believe the Spanish government has violated the European charter of fundamental rights.”(theguardian)…[+]