A Thai man has been jailed for 35 years for Facebook posts deemed insulting to the royal family, a watchdog said, in one of the harshest sentences handed down for a crime that insulates Thailand’s ultra-rich monarchy from criticism. A Bangkok military court convicted him of 10 counts of lese-majesty for posting photos and videos of the royal family on a Facebook account that purported to belong to a different user.

Wichai, 34, whose last name was withheld to protect his relatives from ostracism, was accused of using the account to slander a former friend, said iLaw, a group that tracks royal defamation cases. “The court punished him with seven years per count. Altogether he was given 70 years, but it was reduced in half because he confessed,” said Yingcheep Atchanont from iLaw.(guardian)…[+]

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have sanctioned a dozen organisations and 59 people it accuses of links to Islamist militancy – a number of them Qataris or with links to Qatar – escalating the diplomatic crisis in the region.

The publication of the sanctions list comes amid increasing efforts by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain to diplomatically and physically isolate the tiny but wealthy Gulf state of Qatar, which has been subjected to a series of co-ordinated measures in the past five days. The move was announced as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, approved new legislation – rushed through the Turkish parliament the day before – for increased military cooperation with Qatar, including the potential deployment of Turkish troops.Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported that the initial deployment would be a military assessment team arriving in the coming days to consider reinforcing a 90-strong mission already based in Doha.(guardian)…[+]

Commercial drones and self-driving cars will soon be joined by fleets of autonomous cargo ships that navigate the world’s oceans using artificial intelligence. Several shipbuilders and shipping firms in Japan have joined forces to develop remote-controlled cargo vessels that could be launched by 2025, according to the country’s Nikkei business newspaper.

The ships would use the internet of things – connecting a range of devices over the internet – to gather data, such as weather conditions and shipping information, and plot the shortest, most efficient and safest routes. By removing the potential for human error, the companies believe the technology could dramatically cut the number of accidents at sea. Mitsui OSK Lines, Nippon Yusen and other firms will invest hundreds of millions of dollars developing the technology required to steer as many as 250 ships through busy shipping lanes and, according to the Nikkei, boost Japan’s sagging share of the global shipbuilding market.(guardian)…[+]

An Uber executive who reportedly obtained the medical records of a Delhi woman who was sexually assaulted by one of the company’s drivers would have had no legal reason to access the documents during the investigation or trial, according to the police officer who oversaw the case.

Indian lawyers said Eric Alexander, the former president of Uber’s Asia-Pacific division, could have applied for access to the woman’s medical records after the verdict was delivered in 2015, but receiving permission would have been “highly unlikely” and strongly opposed by police. Questions are being asked about how Alexander could have gained access to the medical records of the woman, after the technology news website Recode reported on Wednesday that he had shared the sensitive information with senior staff including Uber’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick. Alexander reportedly gained access to, and shared the records on the suspicion that the case might have been fabricated by one of Uber’s rivals in the Indian market, the Bangalore-based ridesharing service Ola.(guardian)…[+]

The fired FBI chief, James Comey, has publicly revealed how Donald Trump put pressure on him to shut down an investigation into a senior adviser’s links to Russia.

Trump asked Comey to drop his investigation into the former national security adviser Gen Michael Flynn, Comey’s first written account of his interactions says.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” the president is alleged to have told Comey in the White House in February. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Comey, who was subsequently dismissed by Trump, writes that he understood the president to be asking him to drop the investigation into Flynn, an intervention he found “very concerning”. Comey’s statement for the record was released on Wednesday ahead of his eagerly awaited appearance before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Over seven pages, he provides intriguing detail about his private conversations with Trump, including a 30 March phone call in which Trump asked what Comey could do to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation.(guardian)…[+]

US coastal areas are set to be deluged by far more frequent and severe flooding events if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t slashed, with rare floods becoming the norm for places such as New York City, Seattle and San Diego, new research has found.

The study, undertaken by researchers from Princeton and Rutgers universities, found that along all of the US coastline, the average risk of a 100-year flood will increase 40-fold by 2050. Such floods are statistically expected to occur only once every 100 years because of their severity, although this doesn’t mean these sort of floods never happen in consecutive years. The annual chance of such a flood is around 1%.

The research found that if emissions are not curbed, San Francisco and Seattle would both get a 100-year flood every year by 2050, while San Diego would expect 10 such events annually and Key West in Florida would be hit 11 times a year. Some of the worst affected areas would be in Hawaii, with Mokuoloe island, situated off Oahu, forecast to be deluged by 130 floods a year that are currently considered to be 100-year events.(guardian)…[+]

Donald Trump plans to nominate Christopher Wray to be the next director of the FBI, he announced on Twitter on Wednesday. The announcement comes nearly one month after Trump fired FBI director James Comey – one of the most controversial decisions of his young presidency – and just one day before Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate intelligence committee.

During the hearing, Comey is expected to be asked about Trump’s attempts to soft-pedal the investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia. Trump has indicated that the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections and links to his campaign made up part of his thinking when he dismissed the director. In the tweet, Trump called Wray – whose name emerged as one of those in the frame on 31 May – “a man of impeccable credentials”. An FBI director must be confirmed by the Senate and typically serves a single, 10-year term.(guardian)…[+]

At least 12 people have been killed and dozens more injured in Tehran after gunmen and suicide bombers attacked the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of the founder of the Islamic Republic. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on the highly symbolic sites, publishing a brief video that purported to show the assailants inside the parliament. If an Isis role is confirmed, this would be the first attack conducted by the terror group inside Iran.

The parliament assault began when four gunmen armed with rifles burst into the building complex. One of the attackers reportedly blew himself up inside as police surrounded the building. Gunfire could be heard from outside as police helicopters circled overhead, entrance and exit gates were closed, and mobile phone lines from inside were disconnected. “I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” one journalist at the scene, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.(guardian)…[+]

Three days before Americans voted last November, Reality Winner joked with her sister online that Moscow’s efforts to influence the US presidential election could have an upside for her as a keen weightlifter.

“When we become the United States of the Russian Federation,” she said on Facebook, “Olympic lifting will be the national sport.” Seven months later, Winner, 25, called home to Texas on Saturday to let her family know that the Russian hacking saga had ended up landing her in a far more serious situation. “She said that she had been arrested by the FBI and that she couldn’t really talk about it,” her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told the Guardian in a telephone interview. “I am still in shock.”Prosecutors allege that last month, Winner, who was working for the defense contractor Pluribus International Corporation, printed an NSA document detailing how Russia had hacked a voting equipment vendor in Florida and was trying to breach local election systems right up until the days before November’s vote. The Intercept reported on Monday that Russian military intelligence carried out a cyber-attack on at least one US voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than a hundred local election officials days before the poll.(guardian)…[+]

The UN’s top human rights official has marked the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories by calling for its quick end, insisting that such an outcome would benefit both sides. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the Jordanian prince who heads the UN Human Rights Council, echoed the strong language of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who earlier this week condemned the occupation’s “heavy humanitarian and development burden on the Palestinian people”, which he said had “fuelled recurring cycles of violence and retribution”.

The remarks follow a series of critical reports by humanitarian and rights organisations that reveal the impact of the 50-year occupation, and come as Israeli politicians celebrate the bicentenary of the 1967 six-day war, in which Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the Old City.

The focus of the Israeli celebrations has been what it calls the “reunification” of Jerusalem, a characterisation rejected by most of the international community, which does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over the captured territories.(guardian)…[+]