France has repatriated five orphaned children of French jihadists from camps in north-east Syria, where a five-year offensive against Islamic State is drawing to a close. Among the children repatriated were the three sons of a French woman who died under Isis rule. Officials retrieved them from a camp in northern Syriawhere they were being held with as many as 3,000 other children of Isis families.

Al-Hawl camp is one of two detention centres that the British government says is too dangerous to visit. It is home to children of foreign nationals from more than 40 countries. The newborn son of the British teenager Shamima Begum was among them until his death last Thursday, which provoked outrage over the UK’s reluctance to rescue him or any other children born to parents with links to Isis.The French intervention is likely to add weight to the criticism, given that Kurdish officials said they had agreed to the repatriation as soon as Paris lodged a request. Residents of the camp said the three children removed were Yasir, Shakhir and Jaffir, the sons of Julie Maninchedda and Martin Lemke, a German national held in al-Roj camp along with other alleged Isis fighters.(theguardian)…[+]

From Australia to America, children put down their books on Friday to march for change in the first global climate strike. The event was embraced in the developing nations of India and Uganda and in the Philippines and Nepal – countries acutely impacted by climate change – as tens of thousands of schoolchildren and students in more than 100 countries went on “strike”, demanding the political elite urgently address what they say is a climate emergency.

In Sydney, where about 30,000 children and young people marched from the Town Hall Square to Hyde Park, university student Xander De Vries, 20, said: “It’s our time to rise up. We don’t have a lot of time left; it’s us who have to make a change so I thought it would be important to be here and show support to our generation.”Coordinated via social media by volunteers in 125 countries and regions, the action spread across more than 2,000 events under the banner of Fridays for Future.

As dusk fell in the antipodes, the baton was passed to Asia, where small groups of Indian students went on strike for the first time. In Delhi, more than 200 children walked out of classes to protest against inaction on tackling climate change, and similar protests took place on a smaller scale in 30 towns and cities. Vidit Baya, 17, who is in his last year at MDS public school in Udaipur, said: “In India, no one talks about climate change. You don’t see it on the news or in the papers or hear about it from government. “This was our first strike as a nation and there were young people taking strike action in many cities. It is a fledgling movement but we are very happy with our action today. We are trying to get people to be more aware of climate change and the need to tackle it.”(theguardian)…[+]

A 34-year-old man is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in a Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trate’s Court to­day charged with the kid­nap­ping, rob­bery and sex­u­al as­sault of two Unit­ed King­dom tourists. Arther­ly “Rat­ty” Fras­er, of Canaan, was charged with two counts each of rape, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault, kid­nap­ping and rob­bery yes­ter­day by To­ba­go po­lice, a re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice said. Fras­er was ar­rest­ed at his home on Tues­day by of­fi­cers of the Scar­bor­ough CID.Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the two UK women hired a pri­vate dri­ver to take them back to their guest house af­ter lim­ing at the Sun­day School fes­tiv­i­ties in Black Rock on Mon­day. How­ev­er, while en route to their des­ti­na­tion, the dri­ver stopped at Grafton Beach and pro­ceed­ed to rape, sex­u­al­ly as­sault and rob the women of their cell­phones be­fore es­cap­ing in his ve­hi­cle.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]