Australia’s oldest scientist, David Goodall, has ended his own life at a clinic in Switzerland, surrounded by family and while listening to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

The British-born 104-year-old professor was forced to travel on a one-way ticket from his home in Western Australia to Switzerland where liberal assisted dying laws allowed him to end his life legally, in contrast to Australia where it remains forbidden.

In his final hours, Goodall enjoyed his favourite dinner: fish and chips and cheesecake. And in his final minutes, he listened to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, best known for its last movement Ode to Joy, reportedly passing away shortly after the piece of music finished. To end his own life, Goodall had to turn a wheel that allowed a lethal infusion to flow into his bloodstream through a cannula on his arm. Assisted dying, where patients take the final action to end their lives, is legal in Canada, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and parts of the US.(theguardian)…[+]

A dam has burst its banks in Kenya’s Rift Valley, killing at least 38 people and forcing hundreds from their homes, officials have said. Water burst through the banks of the Patel dam in Solai, 190km north-west of the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday night, sweeping away hundreds of homes, including those on the expansive Nyakinyua farm, which borders the reservoir.

“We have recovered 38 bodies and many people are missing. It is a disaster,” said Joseph Kioko, chief of police in the town of Rongai. Almost an entire village was swept by silt and water, said Gideon Kibunja, the Nakuru county police chief in charge of criminal investigations. Up to 40 people were rescued from the mud and taken to hospital in rescue operations conducted by the Kenya Red Cross and Nakuru County disaster management teams. Many more are feared to be trapped under debris and mud. Officials said the dam water and mud spewed out of the reservoir and submerged homes over a radius of nearly 2km (1.2 miles).(theguardian)…[+]

Theresa May has apologised for the “appalling” treatment of a husband and wife who were the victims of a so-called rendition operation mounted with the help of MI6.

The attorney general, Jeremy Wright, read out a letter from the prime minister in which she apologised unreservedly to the Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife, Fatima Boudchar, on behalf of the government. He also announced that Boudchar, who was pregnant when the couple were kidnapped, would receive compensation of £500,000 for the UK’s role in her treatment. Belhaj had neither sought, nor received, a financial settlement. Boudchar watched from the Commons public gallery as the minister told MPs that, after mediation, the government had reached a full and final settlement with the couple, who had withdrawn their legal claim.(theguardian)…[+]