Peter Oloo wiggles his way through the maze ahead of him, easily avoiding hitting, or getting hit by, the dozens of people moving between the narrow streets of Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Every few metres he stops, fist-bumping childhood friends or respectfully bowing when shaking hands with older women.

“These were my mothers when growing up,” he says. “Here, we used to look out for each other. Everyone was their brother’s keeper.” Kibera is made up of 13 villages crammed into 2.5 sq kilometres and has an estimated population of 250,000 people. The unemployment rate in Kenya stands at 22%, with most of those being the young, many of whom live in informal settlements such as Kibera. “It is this group of people that is most vulnerable during this political season,” Oloo says. “Everyone lives peacefully here,” says his colleague Eric Mwanzia. “Until the politics start.”

On 8 August, Kenya will hold national elections. In Kibera, promises of employment opportunities and the provision of basic amenities such as reliable and clean water are cited in the manifestos of dozens of politicians seeking to represent the various parts of the slum. But as they sell their policies, they sell something else, too.

“Fear, intimidation, division and tribalism,” Oloo says. “All these make their way back into the day-to-day conversations of Kibera.”

For Mwanzia, who is part of a group called the Shofco Urban Network (SUN), the heightened hate speech and intimidation is all deja vu. “We know where this is heading, we don’t like it. But we know we can play a role to stop it,” Mwanzia says.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump has sought to rally thousands of diehard supporters against the investigation into his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia – on the same day news emerged that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has convened a grand jury in the case. “They’re trying to cheat you out of the leadership that you want with a fake story,” Trump told a rally in Huntington, West Virginia.

The concerted effort could be a sign that the White House is realising the full gravity of the situation. Mueller, appointed special counsel in May following the dismissal of the former FBI director James Comey, has recruited more than a dozen investigators, including current and former justice department prosecutors with experience in international bribery, organised crime and financial fraud. On Thursday, it was reported – first by the Wall Street Journal, but later by other outlets including the Associated Press – that Mueller is using a grand jury in Washington, meaning he could subpoena witnesses and records in the coming weeks and months.The use of a grand jury, a standard prosecution tool in criminal investigations, suggests that Mueller and his team of investigators are likely to hear from witnesses and demand documents in the coming weeks and months.(theguardian)…[+]

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been named as a suspect in two investigations into allegations of “fraud, breach of trust and bribes” as his former chief of staff had signed a deal with prosecutors to testify against him. The suspicions against Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, were revealed in a court application by detectives on Thursday seeking a gag order on reporting details of negotiations with Ari Harow, the former chief of staff, to become a state witness. The negotiations were concluded on Friday with Harow signing a deal in which he agreed to testify in the two cases. The confirmation of the seriousness of the allegations comes on the day after his wife, Sara, was again interviewed by police in a separate case relating to claims for household costs in the prime minister’s residence.

While the scope of the investigations in the so-called cases 1000 and 2000 – the first about gifts from wealthy benefactors and the second over attempts to sway media coverage – have long been known, it is the first time Netanyahu has been publicly designated as a suspect. Netanyahu’s office denied the accusations and said investigators were trying to bring down his government. “We completely reject the unfounded claims made against the prime minister. The campaign to change the government is under way, but it is destined to fail, for a simple reason: there won’t be anything because there was nothing,” a statement said.(Theguardian)…[+]

Eleven southern and central European countries have issued extreme heat warnings amid a brutal heatwave nicknamed Lucifer, with residents and tourists urged to take precautions and scientists warning worse could be to come. Authorities in countries including Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia are on red alert, the European forecasters’ network Meteoalarm said, and swathes of southern Spain and France are on amber.

As temperatures in many places hit or exceed 40C (104F) in the region’s most sustained heatwave since 2003, emergency services are being put on standby and people have been asked to “remain vigilant”, stay indoors, avoid long journeys, drink enough fluids and listen for emergency advice from health officials.

At least two people have died from the heat, one in Romania and one in Poland, and many more been taken to hospital suffering from sunstroke and other heat-related conditions. Italy said its hospitalisation rate was up 15% on the normal level and asked people in affected regions only to travel if their journey was essential. Polish officials warned of possible infrastructure failures.(Theguardian)…[+]

The UN-brokered Syrian peace talks are failing due to external interference and can only be rescued by refocusing on the issue of political transition, a coalition of 160 Syrian civil society groups has said in an open letter to the UN’s special envoy. The letter to Staffan de Mistura reveals a deep frustration that the UN has allowed the peace process to be hijacked by regional players with their own agendas. “The time consumed on discussions around process and representation, at the expense of a credible and realistic political deal for transition towards democracy, is not only wasting precious time but it is also undermining the international community’s efforts to fight terrorism in Syria,” the letter says. De Mistura has led seven rounds of discussions in Geneva, but in recent months they have become bogged down by attempts by Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Gulf States to shape the process. The most recent round of talks made virtually no progress.

The letter is understood to be specially aimed at Russian interference. Many civil society groups feel that the UN negotiating team has succumbed to the Russian agenda because it views the Russians as the dominant political and military force on the ground. De Mistura’s critics claim he has been too willing to adjust the process to suit the demands of external actors, leaving central issues such as humanitarian protection, detainee releases and political transition on the back burner.(Theguardian)…[+]

Venezuela’s president has accused the company that provides the technological platform for the country’s voting system of bowing to US pressure after it said the official turnout figure in Sunday’s vote had been manipulated by at least a million votes. Nicolás Maduro stood by the official count of more than 8m votes and said an additional 2 million people would have voted if they had not been blocked by opposition protesters. “That stupid guy, the president of Smartmatic, pressured to the neck by the gringos and the Brits, said there were 7.5 million [voters],” Maduro said in televised remarks. “I think there were 10 million Venezuelans who went out.”

Antonio Mugica, the chief executive of London-based Smartmatic, had said on Wednesday that results recorded by the company’s systems show “without any doubt” that the official turnout figure was tampered with. Maduro provided no evidence to support his claim, but his remarks were received with resounding applause from a meeting of about 500 people elected to the assembly on Sunday.(theguardian)…[+]

Millions of eggs are being recalled from shops and warehouses in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium after they were found to contain high levels of a toxic insecticide banned from use in the production of food for human consumption.

About 180 farms in the Netherlands have been temporarily closed and a criminal investigation has been launched as authorities seek to get a grip on the scale of the problem. About a million eggs destined for Germany were recalled from the border with the Netherlands this week. Tests of chicken droppings, blood and eggs had shown high levels of the insecticide fipronil, a common ingredient in veterinary products for getting rid of fleas, lice and ticks, but banned from being used to treat animals destined for human consumption. According to the World Health Organisation, the highly toxic substance can damage the liver, thyroid glands and kidneys if ingested in large amounts over time.(theguardian)…[+]

Benjamin Netanyahu’s former chief of staff is reportedly in negotiations to become a state witness – which would make him the second prominent figure to do so – in a series of police investigations into the Israeli prime minister and his inner circle.

According to widespread reports in the Hebrew media, Ari Harow, for years one of Netanyahu’s closest political associates, is in talks with police to give evidence, allegedly in exchange for a lesser sentence over accusations of wrongdoing in the sale of his consulting company. Last week Mickey Ganor, a businessman and key player in an allegedly corrupt deal to buy submarines from Germany, struck a deal with authorities to become a state witness.

Netanyahu has strenuously denied wrongdoing in relation to any of the cases, and is not a suspect in the submarine case. However, a series of high-profile investigations have in recent months inched ever nearer to his closest circles, touching on everything from allegations of corruption in arms purchases, to the prime minister’s attempts to control the Israeli media, and on gifts to him and his family from wealthy benefactors.

David Shimron, Netanyahu’s lawyer and cousin, has also been questioned over the submarine deal. Shimron has denied any wrongdoing.(theguardian)…[+]

More than one million malnourished children aged under five in Yemen are living in areas with high levels of cholera, the charity Save The Children warned on Wednesday as it began sending more health experts to the worst hit areas. The scaling up in response came after latest figures show that a deadly cholera epidemic that started in April 2015 has infected more than 425,000 people and killed almost 1,900.Save the Children said children under the age of 15 are now accounting for about 44 percent of new cases and 32 percent of fatalities in Yemen where a devastating civil war and economic collapse has left millions on the brink of starvation.

“The tragedy is both malnutrition and cholera are easily treatable if you have access to basic healthcare,” said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s Country Director for Yemen.“But hospitals and clinics have been destroyed, government health workers haven’t been paid for almost a year, and the delivery of vital aid is being obstructed.“

Cholera, which is spread by ingestion of food or water contaminated by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, can kill within hours if untreated. The cholera outbreak prompted the United Nations last week to revise its humanitarian assessment and it now calculates 20.7 million Yemenis are in need of assistance, up from the previous figure of 18.8 million in a population of 28 million. Oxfam has projected the number of people infected with cholera could rise to more than 600,000 – “the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year since records began” – exceeding Haiti in 2011.(theguardian)…[+]

The White House has confirmed Donald Trump played a role in drafting a misleading statement about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer. On Tuesday, the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, contradicted Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, who said the president had had no involvement. “The statement that Don Jr issued is true,” Huckabee Sanders said at the daily press briefing. “There is no inaccuracy in the statement. The president weighed in as any father would.”

Trump “weighed in based on the limited information that he had”, she said.

The White House was rocked on Monday night by another revelation in the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia. The Washington Post first reported that the president had dictated a statement which dismissed the significance of a meeting between his son Donald Trump Jr, top campaign aides Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. On Tuesday, Huckabee Sanders said: “He certainly didn’t dictate. But he weighed in, offered suggestions, like any father would do.” The statement, which was issued by Donald Trump Jr’s lawyer, required repeated updates as more details of the meeting leaked out.

Initially, Trump Jr said he and the Russian lawyer “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children”. Further reporting revealed that Trump Jr had, in fact, taken the meeting after having been offered incriminating information about Hillary Clinton, forcing the president’s son to release the email exchange leading up to the meeting.(theguardian)…[+]