Donald Trump’s White House and a Republican congressman who is supposed to be investigating Russian interference in the US election conspired to divert attention from Moscow’s actions, a senior Democrat alleged on Sunday.

Adam Schiff accused Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, of colluding in an “attempt to distract” the public from concerns over potential links between Trump and Russian meddling. Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said on CNN’s State of the Union that Nunes and the White House had made an “effort to point the Congress in other directions, to basically say, ‘Don’t look at me, don’t look at Russia, there’s nothing to see here’.”(the guardian)…[+]

Five natural disaster zones have been declared in New South Wales as police found a woman’s body on a flood-affected property in the north of the state.

The woman disappeared on Thursday night in floodwaters at a rural property at Upper Burringbar, 20km south of Murwillumbah, and her body was found by a family member at about 8am on Friday, police said in a statement. About 20,000 people have been ordered to evacuate northern NSW as flooding continued to hit the area. On Friday, NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said the Tweed, Lismore, Byron, Richmond Valley, and Kyogle and Ballina local government areas were natural disaster areas, meaning residents can access disaster assistance funding.(guardian)…[+]

US intelligence officials had serious concerns about Michael Flynn’s appointment as the White House national security adviser because of his history of contacts with Moscow and his encounter with a woman who had trusted access to Russian spy agency records, the Guardian has learned.

US and British intelligence officers discussed Flynn’s “worrisome” behaviour well before his appointment last year by Donald Trump, multiple sources have said.

They raised concerns about Flynn’s ties to Russia and his perceived obsession with Iran. They were also anxious about his capacity for “linear thought” and some actions that were regarded as highly unusual for a three-star general.Flynn was forced to quit in February, after 24 days in the job. He resigned when it emerged he had lied to the vice-president, Mike Pence. Flynn said he had not discussed lifting US sanctions on Russia with Sergei Kislyak, Moscow’s US ambassador, but later admitted this was untrue.On Thursday, Flynn indicated he was willing to testify before the FBI and congressional committees about potential links between the Trump campaign and Russia in exchange for immunity. In a statement released by his lawyer, Flynn said he had a story to tell but was seeking “assurances against unfair prosecution”.(guardian)…[+]

The EU has put the future of Gibraltar at stake in the coming Brexit negotiations, effectively backing Spain in its centuries-old dispute with the UK over the British overseas territory.

After lobbying from Spanish diplomats, a clause has been inserted in the EU’s draft Brexit negotiating guidelines that appears to allow Spain to exclude Gibraltar from any transitional single market access arrangement or future trade deal with the UK if it is not satisfied with the status of the territory. This suggests that unless Britain is willing to let its citizens on “the rock” be subject to an inferior economic future than those in the UK, the EU has effectively handed the Spanish government a veto on Britain’s entire future relationship with the bloc.

“The union will stick up for its members, and that means Spain now,” a senior EU official said. The news is likely to infuriate London, which has insisted that its longstanding refusal to entertain Spain’s ambitions of reclaiming sovereignty over Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain in 1713, will not be affected by Brexit.(guardian)…[+]

Eduardo Cunha the former head of Brazil’s lower house of congress has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for his role in the massive Car Wash corruption scandal.

Cunha’s conviction is one of the stiffest penalties handed down to such a senior politician since the end of the dictatorship era in 1985, but public satisfaction with the judgement will be mixed with concern that he could yet win an appeal and many other powerful figures accused of similar crimes remain unpunished. Curitiba lower court judge Sergio Moro found Cunha – a rightwing evangelical Christian – guilty of corruption, money laundering and currency law evasion in connection with a $1.6m bribe he received from a deal by state-run oil firm Petrobras to buy exploration rights in Benin. The judgement also noted a pending case in Switzerland related to $2.3m stashed in a secret bank account in the European country.(the guardian)…[+]

François Hollande has told Theresa May the EU is not prepared to discuss Britain’s future relationship with the bloc until the conditions of its exit have been agreed. The French president used a phone conversation with the prime minister on Thursday to echo remarks by the European council president, Donald Tusk, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel, that trade and divorce talks could not be held in parallel.

Meanwhile, May published articles in five European newspapers that linked security cooperation with the Brexit talks, reiterating the controversial position taken in her article 50 letter on Wednesday.

According to a statement released by the Elysée Palace, Hollande told May: “First we must begin discussions on the modalities of the withdrawal, especially on the rights of citizens and the obligations arising from the commitments that the United Kingdom has made. “On the basis of progress made, we could then open discussions on the framework of the future relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union,” he said, calling for clear and constructive talks that respected the rules and interests of the EU(the guardian)…[+]

The number of refugees who have fled Syria has topped five million people for the first time since the civil war began six years ago, according to the UN’s refugee agency.

Half of Syria’s 22 million population has been uprooted by a conflict that has now lasted longer than the second world war, the figures released by the UNHCR show, with 6.3 million people who are still inside the country’s borders forced from their homes. It urged Europeans not to “put humanity on a ballot” in elections in France and Germany this year, where far-right candidates opposed to refugee arrivals could make gains.

A surge in violence in Aleppo, as government forces backed by Russian airstrikes retook Syria’s second city at the end of 2016, resulted in 47,000 people fleeing to neighbouring Turkey, it said. Camps for internally displaced people close to the Turkish border also hold those who have fled the fighting in northern Syria.

The latest arrivals into Turkey mean the number of Syrians who have fled the country stands at more than five million, four years after the UNHCR announced that one million people had fled.(the guardian)…[+]

The government of Nepal and Everest expedition organisers have launched a clean-up operation at 21,000ft to remove rubbish left on the world’s highest peak after a series of deadly avalanches.

Sherpas and other climbers have been given 10 canvas bags each capable of holding 80kg (176lbs) of waste to place at different elevations on Mount Everest. Dambar Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal, said on Wednesday the bags had been sent to camp two, a large camping site established in 2014 after an avalanche killed 16 Nepalese guides, leading to the cancellation of the climbing season. The following year’s climbs were also axed after an earthquake-triggered avalanche swept Everest’s south base camp, killing 19 people.(guardian)…[+]

India’s foreign affairs minister has condemned “deplorable” race riots targeting African students near Delhi this week that put two men in hospital and led to seven arrests. The victims included a Kenyan woman who alleges she was pulled from a rickshaw on Wednesday morning and beaten by a group of men.

Police say at least 600 people were involved in the mob violence on Monday in and around Noida, a satellite city to the east of Delhi. Resentment towards Africans, thousands of whom study in Indian universities, has simmered in India in the past few years, fuelled partly by cultural differences and the involvement of a small proportion of people from the continent in the Delhi drug trade.A number of opinion pieces in the Indian media have also attributed the attacks to racist attitudes towards foreigners from African countries.(guardian)…[+]