US    –   Uber could be forced to adhere to local licensing laws in European cities, after a top legal adviser to Europe’s highest court said the US ride-hailing app should be regulated as a transport company. The European court of justice’s advocate general Maciej Szpunar said Uber provides a transport service, rather than a digital service as it has argued. He said in a statement: “The Uber electronic platform, whilst innovative, falls within the field of transport. Uber can thus be required to obtain the necessary licenses and authorizations under national law.” While the advocate general’s opinion is non-binding, the court’s judges follow it in most cases. This means Uber, which allows passengers to summon a ride through a smartphone app, may soon be subject to the same local laws that regulate taxi services in European countries.[+]http://abonnement

RUSSIA    –  Five LGBT activists have been detained in Moscow while trying to submit a petition signed by two million people calling for an investigation into the torture and persecution of gay men in Chechnya. A violent crackdown on gay people in the region was first reported in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta last month. It alleged more than 100 Chechen men suspected of being gay had been rounded up, and at least three killed. The Guardian independently spoke to gay Chechen men who gave accounts of beatings and torture in the ultra-conservative, predominantly Muslim southern Russian republic. The activists delivering the petition had met outside a central Moscow metro station and were planning to deliver boxes of signatures to the prosecutor general’s office close by, activist Irina Yatsenko told reporters. Almost immediately police accused them of holding an unsanctioned protest and detained them, she said.[+]http://abonnement

UK   –  Labour is braced for a battle over the final version of the party’s manifesto at a summit for its most senior figures a draft was leaked overnight. Recriminations over the leak and the motivations for it are likely to dominate the meeting of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) and shadow cabinet at the so-called clause V meeting. Jeremy Corbyn was due to attend a poster launch but pulled out to prepare for the talks.  Different drafts appear to have been leaked to the media, with the leaders’ office and other senior figures blaming each other for the breach. The document seen by the Guardian, which is watermarked “DRAFT: CONFIDENTIAL”, is believed to have been initially shown to the Trade Union and Labor Party Liaison Organisation (Tulo).[+]http://abonnement

The final toll of dead and missing from two refugee shipwrecks off Libya at the weekend has risen to 245, the United Nations high commission for refugees (UNHCR) has said. Tuesday’s revised estimate is partly based on horrific accounts from hospitalised survivors, and raises the death toll in the two incidents by about 50 people.

The revised tallies suggested that 82 went missing after a shipwreck on Friday night and a further 163 are feared dead in an incident off the Libyan coast on Sunday. The International Medical Corps said a woman and six men were rescued by the Libyan coast guards in the second incident. The new figures were given by the UNHCR at a briefing in Geneva. Overall the weekend disasters pushed the death toll on the Libya Mediterranean route for 2017 up to 1,300, while refugees and asylum seekers who successfully crossed the Mediterranean now number more than 43,000.(guardian)…[+]

Aine Lesley Davis, one of the British jihadis who brutalised and beheaded western hostages in Syria, has been convicted in Turkey on terrorism charges and jailed for seven and a half years. Davis, 35, is suspected by western intelligences services of being a member of the cell – along with Mohammed Emwazi, also known as Jihadi John – that oversaw the beheadings of hostages including the British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines and the US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley.

He was found guilty at a court in Silivri, a town 45 miles west of Istanbul, of being a member of a terror organisation. Officials believe he had been plotting an attack in Turkey. The UK Foreign Office said it was aware of his conviction…[+]

The US watched Russians hack France’s computer networks during the presidential election – and tipped off French officials before it became public, a US cyber official has told the Senate.France’s election campaign commission said on Saturday that “a significant amount of data” — and some fake information — was leaked on social networks following a hacking attack on Emmanuel Macron’s successful presidential campaign.  France’s cybersecurity agency is investigating what a government official described as a “very serious” breach. The leak came 36 hours before the nation voted Sunday in a crucial presidential runoff between Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.(guardian)…[+]

India is to legalise the mining of mica, a sparkly mineral used in eyeshadows and car paint, in a bid to cut the number of children who labour – and often die – to produce it. The announcement comes nearly a year after a series of Guardian investigations into mica found that crippling poverty forces many families and their children to mine the highly prized mineral, with as many as 20,000 children believed to be working in the mines, about 90% of which are illegal. A later investigation by Thomson Reuters Foundation found that at least seven children had died in just two months as they scavenged for the mineral in illegal mines.

Activists lauded the decision to legalise mica mining, but warned that high poverty levels meant the move was unlikely to stop child labour.

Two states in eastern India, Jharkhand and Bihar, account for roughly 25% of the global production of mica, which is used by the cosmetics, building and automotive industries in various products. Household and luxury brands including L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Rimmel, Merck, BMW, Vauxhall and Audi have all been linked to India’s mica mines.(guardian)…[+]

For the first time since leaving office, President Barack Obama has addressed his landmark healthcare legislation in a speech, reminding supporters of the courage and integrity of junior congressmen that it took to pass the bill.

Speaking at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on Sunday night, where he was given the Profiles of Courage award, he said: “Because of that vote, 20 million people got healthcare who didn’t have it before.

“And most of [the congressmen who voted for it] did lose their seats. But they were true to what President Kennedy defined in his book – desire to maintain integrity that is stronger than the desire to maintain office – the faith that the right course will be vindicated. Personal sacrifice.”“It is my fervent hope and the hope of millions … such courage is still possible, that today’s members of Congress regardless of party are willing to look at the facts and speak the truth, even when it contradicts party positions.”(guardian)…[+]

Israel has released a video that appears to show the high-profile leader of a Palestinian hunger strike eating in prison. The prison service released the video of what it said was Marwan Barghouti eating cookies and confectionary on two occasions in late April and early May.

Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, claimed the video was “fabricated” and “intended to break the morale of prisoners”, after more than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails joined Barghouti in refusing food from 17 April. On Israel’s part, a minister appeared to suggest prison officials had been involved in introducing the food into the cell where Barghouti was being held in solitary confinement with the aim of tempting him to eat.

The release of the footage is the latest development in a fierce battle to control the narrative of the prisoners’ hunger strike, which its leaders insist is for improved conditions in Israeli prisons but which Israel says is for political reasons.(guardian)…[+]

The archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of the suffering and persecution of Christians and others in the Middle East, saying he has heard voices of anger, fear and insecurity while on a 12-day trip to the Holy Land. Justin Welby was preaching to a packed congregation at St George’s Anglican cathedral in Jerusalem on Sunday morning before being installed as an episcopal canon later in the day.In his 10-minute sermon, he said Christians in the region had belonged to a “suffering church for centuries. Sometimes life has been better, sometimes it is less bad. But the nature of suffering is that when it is happening it is all-consuming.”In the conflict zones of the Middle East, he said, every part of life was dominated by suffering. “That is true whether you are a Christian or not but in this region in addition to the suffering of war, conflict and the tragedies of death and injustice, Christians especially are experiencing persecution, are especially threatened.”(guardian)…[+]