A Muslim man has died in western India after he was attacked by hundreds of Hindu cow protection vigilantes, the latest attack in a spate of mob killings in the name of the revered animal. Police said on Wednesday that Pehlu Khan, 55, had died in hospital two days after a group attacked his cattle truck on a road in Alwar in the desert state of Rajasthan.

Gangs of “cow protectors” have been implicated in killing at least 10 people in the past two years as the welfare of the animal has become an increasingly charged issue in Indian politics. Cows are revered by most of India’s majority Hindu community and beef consumption is permitted in only eight of the country’s 29 states and territories.

Alwar’s police chief, Rahul Prakash, told AFP at least six others were injured in the attack, but they had now been discharged from hospital.(guardian)…[+]

Western intelligence agencies are seeking biological samples from survivors of the chemical weapons attack in northern Syria to compare against specimens of sarin taken from the Syrian military’s stockpiles four years ago.

The testing will be used to established whether the nerve agent used in the attack – which the US, Britain and France say is very likely sarin – came from stores of the gas that Damascus was supposed to surrender in a UN-supervised process after more than 1,300 people were killed in an attack in August 2013. Intelligence officers are also seeking environmental samples from the town of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province where, according to witnesses, a dawn airstrike on Tuesday released a noxious gas over the area, killing at least 70 people and wounding more than 100.(guardian)…[+]

The European parliament has overwhelmingly voted in favour of a tough negotiating stance towards the British government in the Brexit negotiations.

MEPs in Strasbourg approved a resolution setting out the parliament’s red lines in the coming negotiations by 516 votes to 133, with 50 abstentions, comfortably exceeding the two-thirds majority sought by parliament leaders to show unity behind their approach.

The resolution backs “phased negotiations” in the divorce proceedings, going against the wishes of Theresa May’s government, which would like exit talks and discussions of a future trade arrangement to happen in parallel. Talks on such a deal can also only occur once London has come to a settlement with the EU on its financial liabilities and the rights of citizens.

The parliament leaves open the possibility that UK citizens might be able to individually apply to keep the rights they currently enjoy. However, the resolution also says that any transition arrangements to cushion the UK’s departure, such as tariff-free access to the single market, can only last a maximum of three years after the UK departs.(guardian)…[+]

The prime suspect in Monday’s bomb attack on the St Petersburg metro is a Russian citizen born in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, according to Kyrgyz intelligence. Russia’s health minister raised the death toll from 11 to 14 on Tuesday and said 49 people were still in hospital. She said 11 people had died at the scene, one died while being transported by ambulance and a further two died in hospital.

Kyrgyzstan’s state committee for national security said 22-year-old Akbarzhon Jalilov could be behind the attack, and that it was cooperating with Russian agencies to help investigate.

Russian investigators said they believed the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, based on some of the body fragments they found at the scene. Investigators said they had identified the bomber but would not release details at this stage.(guardian)…[+]

Undercover officers in the New York police department infiltrated small groups of Black Lives Matter activists and gained access to their text messages, according to newly released NYPD documents obtained by the Guardian.

The records, produced in response to a February court ruling, provide the most detailed picture yet of the sweeping scope of NYPD surveillance during mass protests over the death of Eric Garner in 2014 and 2015. Lawyers said the new documents raised questions about NYPD compliance with city rules. The documents, mostly emails between undercover officers and other NYPD officials, follow other disclosures that the NYPD regularly filmed Black Lives Matter activists and sent undercover personnel to protests. The NYPD has not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment or interview.(guardian)…[+]

Dozens of people have been killed in a suspected chemical attack in northern Syria, aid workers and local activists have said, in one of the largest mass casualty incidents using a toxic gas in the six-year conflict. The attack on Tuesday morning on Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province was followed by air raids in the early afternoon on the same town, according to medical workers. More than 50 people were killed when planes carrying weaponry laced with unidentified chemicals raided Khan Sheikhun. Victims exhibited symptoms resembling those caused by exposure to sarin gas.“Everyone is horrified and the children are in total shock,” said Mohammad Hassoun, a spokesman for civil defence rescue workers in the nearby town of Sarmin, which received 14 of the wounded. (guardian)…[+]

Ecuador’s ruling party candidate appeared to be heading for victory in a presidential runoff that would cement the country’s reputation as a bastion of the Latin American left and provide breathing space for the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

However, the narrow 51% to 49% lead for Lenin Moreno was contested by the opposition candidate, Guillermo Lasso, prompting fears for heightened political tension in the days ahead.

With 97% of votes counted, Moreno, a former vice-president under the outgoing president Rafael Correa, was on course to beat Lasso, a 61-year-old former banker.

The head of Ecuador’s electoral council, Juan Pablo Pozo, called on the opposition candidate to recognise the results. “Ecuador deserves the ethical responsibility from its political actors to recognise the democratic decision made by the people at the ballot box,” Pozo said.(guardian)…[+]

The first time they met, Indian paramilitary guard Naren Chandra Das was ordered not to talk to the bespectacled young soldier he was escorting near the Chinese border in a top-secret mission.

Nearly 60 years later, Das was reunited with the Dalai Lama in an emotional ceremony that recalled the Buddhist leader’s escape from Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese authorities.

This time the Dalai Lama had the first word. “Looking at your face, I now realise I must be very old too,” he told Das, 79, at a ceremony on Sunday in the north-eastern city of Guwahati. The ceremony is likely to fuel anger in Beijing over the Dalai Lama’s tour of north-east India, including Arunachal Pradesh, a border state with areas that China regards as its own territory.(guardian)…[+]

At least 10 people have been killed after a suspected bomb detonated on a metro train in St Petersburg. The blast occurred at the Sennaya Ploshchad station, in the centre of Russia’s second city, at about 2.30pm (11.30am GMT), reportedly as the train was pulling out of the station.

Andrei Kibitov, spokesman for the St Petersburg governor, told Russian television that 10 people had been killed and 50 injured. Hours later a second device at another metro station was found and made safe, Russia’s national anti-terrorist committee said in a statement. The news agency Interfax quoted law enforcement sources claiming the blast was caused by explosive material placed in the carriage. Photographs from the scene showed a metro train in the station with one set of doors blown out, and a number of people on the ground with injuries. Eyewitnesses said people had to exit the carriage through the windows as the doors did not work.(the guardian)…[+]

Shirley thought she had made a new friend. The elderly Maine resident would don a dress and jewels and wait at the back door for the charming young Jamaican man she had met over the phone.

The couple had developed a long-distance relationship after he called to say she had won $24m US and a new car in a lottery. He appeared untroubled by Shirley’s dementia and asked for a picture of her.

But he never appeared. Instead, he harassed Shirley and her family with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of phone calls in a complicated scam that eventually led her to lose more than $200,000 and her home.

“She would stand by the back door in her jewels, waiting for him to give her her new car or take her to dinner or to show her the house he was building for her,” said Shirley’s niece, Sandra Raymond.

Shirley is just one of countless Americans – most of them elderly and vulnerable – who have fallen victim to Jamaica’s lottery scam, a criminal cottage industry that is estimated to involve at least 30,000 people. Over the past 20 years, the fraud is believed to have been worth an estimated $1bn each year, overtaking the drugs trade in terms of illicit contributions to Jamaica’s economy.(the guardian)…[+]