Kuwait is trying to mediate in the Gulf crisis in which Arab countries have cut diplomatic ties to Qatar and moved to isolate the kingdom from the outside world, Qatar’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. The row is the biggest diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf since the 1991 US-led war against Iraq and has seen shoppers in Doha panic buying food and other supplies after Saudi Arabia imposed a de facto blockade.

Qatar – an energy-rich travel hub – shares its only land border with Saudi Arabia and relies heavily on importing food, much of it from Gulf countries.Queues up to 25 people deep formed in the Carrefour supermarket in Doha’s City Center mall, one of the busiest shopping areas in the Qatari capital, hours after five Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with the kingdom, accusing it of supporting extremism.(guardian)…[+]

Talks to reunify Cyprus are to resume after the resolution of an impasse at a meeting of the island’s Greek and Turkish leaders. Emerging from a four-hour meeting with Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akıncı in New York on Sunday night, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said negotiations would recommence later this month. The breakthrough was met with relief on the island, where many had feared the collapse of talks widely seen as a once-in-a generation chance of reconciliation.Flanked by island’s two leaders, Guterres said all three had “agreed on the need to reconvene the conference on Cyprus”. A special UN adviser, Espen Barth Eide, who terminated mediation efforts last month in exasperation after two years of shuttle diplomacy, would be tasked with the “preparation of common documents to guide discussions on security”, he said.“The chapter on security and guarantees is of vital importance,” Guterres continued, emphasising that both were essential to building trust between the two communities in an envisaged federation. “The leaders agreed [that] … all other outstanding issues, starting with territory, property and governance and power sharing … will be negotiated interdependently and that nothing is agreed till everything is agreed.”(guardian)…[+]

A possible terror incident has left two men dead and three police officers and a woman hostage injured in a Melbourne apartment building. Police shot the gunman dead after discovering the body of another man in the foyer in the serviced apartment in Brighton, 11km south-east of Melbourne’s central business district.

The Seven Network is reporting the gunman called the organisation saying “This is for I.S [Islamic State]. This is for al-Qaida.” Victoria police said it was investigating whether the incident was “terrorism related”. Channel Seven reporter Paul Dowsley reported that his newsroom was called by a man claiming to be linked to the incident. “My colleague could hear a woman screaming in the background,” he said.(guardian)…[+]

In the aftermath of the London terror attack, Donald Trump on Monday returned the offensive over security and his attempted travel ban against people from six Muslim-majority countries.People,” the president tweeted, “the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” Trump’s executive order restricting entry to the US from Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Syria – a first version included Iraq – has been blocked by federal courts in Maryland and Hawaii. The White House has appealed to the supreme court.

Rulings against the order have concerned Trump and associates’ references to the order as a “ban”, and references to Muslims being its target. A ban on entry to the US based on religion – as a ban on the countries concerned would be on a de facto basis – would be unconstitutional on grounds of religious discrimination.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the US. In January, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters: “It’s not a Muslim ban. It’s not a travel ban. It’s a vetting system to keep America safe.” Trump tweeted about his travel ban on Saturday night, as events in London were unfolding. Seven people died and 48 were injured, 18 critically, when three attackers drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and then attacked people with knives in Borough Market. All three attackers were shot dead by police.(guardian)…[+]

A giant section of an Antarctic ice shelf is hanging by a thread and could break off at any moment, researchers have revealed. The split in the Larsen C ice shelf of the Antarctic peninsula will release a huge iceberg 5,000 sq km in size – an area about a quarter of the size of Wales. “The rift is nearly 200km long now, and it has turned towards the ice front, suggesting that it has only got that last piece to go – and that last section is only 13km,” said Professor Adrian Luckman, a scientist at Swansea University and leader of the UK’s Midas project – an endeavour that has been monitoring the situation at the Larsen C ice shelf.Like any fracture in something, the longer the fracture becomes the more pressure there is on the remaining part of it. So it is really only hanging by a thread here,” he told the Guardian.

While the iceberg will not be the biggest ever recorded – the title is held by Iceberg B-15, a mass that broke off the Ross Ice Shelf in the year 2000 and had an area the size of Jamaica – it is expected to be among the top 10.

“It is a big event and it will change the landscape of the Antarctic peninsula – the Larsen ice shelf will be left 10% smaller,” said Luckman.(guardian)…[+]

The European Union has rejected Donald Trump’s offer to renegotiate the Paris climate agreement and pledged instead to bypass Washington to work with US business leaders and state governors to implement the historic accord’s commitments.

Less than 24 hours after the US president announced his decision to withdraw from the 2015 agreement and strike a new, less ambitious deal with the rest of the world, Brussels declared its outright refusal to engage in such talks. EU officials will instead cut out the White House to deal directly with the US states and major corporations, many of whom have already pledged to live by the terms forged in Paris.

In Britain, Theresa May faced criticism for not signing up to a joint declaration by Germany, France and Italy in opposition to the US move. A Downing Street source defended the prime minister, pointing out that other countries including Japan and Canada had not signed up to the letter either.(guardian)…[+]

Danish lawmakers have repealed a 334-year-old blasphemy law that forbids public insults of a religion, such as the burning of holy books. Only a handful of blasphemy trials have taken place in the past 80 years, and several high-profile cases have been dropped, including one involving a caricature of the prophet Muhammad published in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005.

Denmark was the only Scandinavian country with a blasphemy law, which called for up to four months in prison upon conviction, although most people were fined instead.

Politicians who wanted to repeal the law introduced in 1683 “do not believe that there should be special rules protecting religions against expressions”, the Danish parliament said on its website. But remarks and acts that threaten or demean certain groups of people because of their religious beliefs will still be punishable.(guardian)…[+]

George Soros has accused the Hungarian president Viktor Orbán of building a “mafia state”, as he warned the fate of the Central European University he founded still hangs in the balance. The Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist said he was confident the university’s defence of its freedom would ultimately “bring the slow-moving wheels of justice into motion”, but said it and other organisations he had backed were still at risk under the Orbán-led government.

Hungary’s populist prime minister has introduced tough measures for the registration of foreign-registered universities that could force the closure of the CEU, one of the top academies in the region. Thousands of people protested in Budapest in April against a bill seen by many as targeting the university.

In a wide-ranging speech on European integration, where he recalled how his Jewish family fled the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Soros hit back at Orbán for casting him as a scheming “currency speculator” in an “unrelenting propaganda campaign”.(guardian)…[+]

Spain’s top anti-corruption prosecutor has resigned following weeks of pressure that culminated in an admission that he holds a stake in an offshore company in Panama. Manuel Moix stepped down “for personal reasons” on Thursday, shortly after it emerged that he has a quarter-share in a company in the Central American tax haven that was apparently set up as part of an inheritance from his parents. The public prosecutor, José Manuel Maza, told reporters that Moix had resigned even though there was no suggestion “of any irregular or illegal behaviour” on his part.However, Moix’s brief tenure has been dogged by controversy over his alleged attempts to interfere in corruption investigations involving the governing People’s party (PP).

The Spanish socialist party (PSOE), which had argued that Moix’s business affairs in Panama made him unfit to pursue corruption, said his resignation had come too late.The PSOE’s newly re-elected leader, Pedro Sánchez, said Moix had been forced out “by media pressure and public opinion”, adding that the decisions and actions of prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who leads the PP, were “seriously damaging the health of our democratic system”.(guardian)…[+]

India has posted its slowest growth rate in two years, ceding its status as the world’s fastest-growing major economy to China, with economists blaming the downturn partly on last year’s shock decision to recall the country’s two highest-value bank notes.

Analysts said the 6.1% GDP growth figure for the January to March quarter – compared with China’s 6.9% – reflected a general economic slowdown in the south Asian giant, compounded by the shock demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes, worth approximately £6 and £12. The move led to months of acute cash shortages across India that hit the country’s manufacturing and construction sectors particularly hard, the former recording slower growth than in the same period last year. The construction sector contracted by 3.7%.The cash recall was intended to hasten the country’s transition towards a formal economy and close down the booming economy of untaxed cash transactions, which aid corruption, the funding of terrorist groups and keeps counterfeit notes in circulation. It was also expected to unearth stashes of untaxed wealth in a country where just 1% pay income tax.(the guardian)…[+]