Donald Trump’s scorched-earth approach to environmental protections has shocked current and former government officials overseas who are waiting nervously to see whether the US will destabilize the Paris climate agreement by pulling out of the deal.The Guardian has spoken to a number of officials from key countries before Trump makes a decision on the Paris agreement this month. Trump’s announcement might come as early as this week.Trump’s actions on the climate are worrying,” said Izabella Teixeira, the former Brazilian environment minister. “Although it is still too early to be sure what his strategy is for the US, the signs so far of backsliding are a concern to anyone who was involved in the long process that lead up to the Paris agreement,” said the veteran negotiator, who was credited with a key role in securing the international deal in 2015.(guardian)…[+]

Eighty-two Chibok schoolgirls held captive for more than three years by the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram have been released and flown to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, in a deal that involved an exchange of prisoners held by the government.

The young women were among 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls whose abduction by Boko Haram caused an international outcry in April 2014. In the early hours of Sunday, the Red Cross secured the transfer of the former captives, who were flown to Abuja, where they were expected to meet the president. Anxious families awaited an official list of the names of those released.

The former captives were photographed boarding a helicopter on Sunday morning, after the government negotiated their release in exchange for an unspecified number of prisoners from Boko Haram. The women were picked up in Red Cross vehicles and transferred to military helicopters. The president, Muhammadu Buhari, who has recently been ill and working from home, was due to receive them in Abuja. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told the Guardian that it had acted as a neutral intermediary and organised the transportation of the girls and young women to freedom.(guardian)…[+]

The English language is losing importance in Europe, the president of the European commission has said amid simmering tensions over the Brexit negotiations.

Speaking to an audience of European diplomats and experts in Florence, Jean-Claude Juncker also described the UK’s decision to leave the EU as a tragedy.

“Slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe,” Juncker said, to applause from his audience. “The French will have elections on Sunday and I would like them to understand what I am saying.” After these opening remarks in English, he switched to French for the rest of the speech.

Making a stout defence of the EU, Juncker said the UK had voted to leave the project despite historic successes and a recent uptick in economic growth. “Our British friends decided to leave the EU, which is a tragedy,” he said.(guardian)…[+]

An Argentinian climber stranded for four days on Canada’s highest mountain has been rescued. Natalia Martínez, who began a solo traverse of 5,959-metre Mount Logan in the Yukon late last month, was at an elevation of about 3,900 metres when a 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit Yukon and Alaska on Monday, sending snow and glacial ice crashing down around her camp. A few hours later, the mountain was rattled by a second earthquake of magnitude 6.3 along with several aftershocks.

Martínez – ensconced in her tent about 135 miles from the earthquakes’ epicentre – was unscathed by the avalanches triggered by the quakes, but left stranded. A message posted on the ExpeNews website popular with climbers said Martínez was rescued on Thursday night. ExpeNews said a pilot with the charter service Icefield Discovery had noticed an improvement in weather conditions and alerted a rescue team. The website said Martínez was taken to the Icefield Discovery base in Kluane Lake.(guardian)…[+]

When she attended a counter-demonstration at a far-right rally, Lucie Myslíková thought there would be a little bit of publicity from the local press. Now a photograph of the 16-year-old Scout squaring up to a neo-Nazi has been seen by people all over the world. Lucie’s viral moment came after she attended the May Day rally in Brno, Czech Republic, with fellow Scouts. Counter-protesters aimed to disrupt the rally with peaceful protest and colourful banners. She said: “The organisers [of the counter-protest] invited participants to invent their own way of celebrating the first of May and at the same time to show that the nationalism is not an alternative. The thing I liked most was the fact there was a lot of people with different opinions, but we all shared the idea of fighting against the hate.” It made sense to Lucie and her friends in the Czech Scouts to attend in their uniforms. “It’s consistent with Scout ideology and history to fight against neo-Nazism,” she said.(Guradian)...[+]

Saudi Arabia has been accused of using anti-terror laws to suppress free expression and failing to carry out independent inquiries into its Yemen bombing campaign in a hard-hitting report published on Thursday by the UN special rapporteur on human rights. The report follows a five-day visit by Ben Emmerson QC on behalf of the UN to Riyadh, where Saudi officials refused to grant the rapporteur access to prisoners the UN believes are being wrongly held under anti-terror laws

He also said he had heard repeated stories of wrongful arrest, misuse of court procedures, cases of torture to extract confessions and clear cases of miscarriages of justice in recent beheadings. Emmerson also called specifically for the release of 10 named Saudis who he said had been arbitrarily arrested, largely because they had expressed criticism of aspects of the kingdom.(guardian)…[+]

A candidate who entered the Iranian election race to help his boss, President Hassan Rouhani, is emerging as a favourite of reformists for his bold and outspoken campaign, even though he is ultimately expected to step aside.

Eshaq Jahangiri, the first vice-president, made clear when he registered as a candidate for the top job that he was “supplementing” and not challenging the incumbent – indicating his campaign was a tactical move aimed at defending Rouhani’s achievements. The presidential election on 19 May is the first since the 2015 nuclear deal with the west, when Tehran rolled back its nuclear programme in exchange for the removal of sanctions.(guardian)…[+]

Barack Obama has made a last-minute intervention in the French presidential election in support of Emmanuel Macron, saying “the success of France matters to the entire world”. Macron, a centrist, faces Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National in a runoff vote on Sunday. Polls put him 20 points ahead. The former US president said he had chosen to declare his support, in a video tweeted by Macron on Thursday afternoon, because of the importance of the election. “I’m not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don’t have to run for office but the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about.”

Obama said he supported Macron because he appealed to “people’s hopes and not their fears” and ended, in French, with the words “Vive la France.”

The intervention comes a day after Macron and Le Pen met in a bruising televised debate that French media widely judged the frontrunner to have won. The two traded personal insults and clashed over how to fix the country’s sluggish economy and fight terrorism.(guardian)…[+]

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has voiced hope of reaching an “entente cordiale” with the UK, but said some in Britain still harbour illusions that Brexit can be painless.

In his first press conference since EU leaders agreed a tough opening stance for the Brexit talks on Saturday, Michael Barnier said he was not asking for a blank cheque from the UK and refused to confirm reports that the divorce bill could be as high as €100bn (£84.5bn). “There is no punishment, there is no Brexit bill, the financial settlement is only about settling the accounts,” he said, insisting he was not hostile to the UK. “Leaving the union does not have a price that has to be paid.”Barnier stressed that Britain was being asked to meet promises made by previous governments. “The union and the United Kingdom have mutual commitments … We decided these programmes together, we benefited from them together,” he said.

He also attempted to calm the waters after scathing reports from Brussels about a dinner with Theresa May that he and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, attended last week. Barnier said the dinner, which was his first meeting with May, had been very cordial and he hoped to reach a friendly understanding between Britain and the rest of the EU.(guardian)…[+]

Early one morning last week, Richard Constant drove across the 24,000-acre ranch that he part-owns on a high plateau in central Kenya to discover what remained of his home. In March, Constant’s friend and business associate Tristan Voorspuy, a British army officer turned safari operator, had been shot dead on his horse while inspecting the damage caused by armed herders who had driven tens of thousands of cattle on to the ranch.Constant, a 62-year-old Yorkshireman, arrived as the day’s first rays of sun fell on the ground. He heard distant gunshots, a reminder that the deadly unrest that has pitted major landowners, local smallholders and security forces against armed cattle herders for more than three months was far from over. He found his home in ruins, burned to the ground. “I looked at my house and felt sad that Kenya, which I regard as home, has got into such a state,” he said. “But a house can be rebuilt. I can’t get my friend back, nor the two security guards who were shot on the neighbouring ranch.”(guardian)…[+]