Canada recently passed an amendment to end inequality, but a lack of timeline means a colonial-era act still holds back indigenous women

As a child, Sharon McIvor spent her days roaming her grandmother’s First Nations community deep in British Columbia, learning to fish, harvest sap and pick berries, as the Nlaka’pamux Nation had done for millennia.

When the time came to teach those skills to her grandchildren, however, more than a century of gender discrimination stood in her way.

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COLOMBO (Reuters) - At least five people were killed in Sri Lanka on Thursday after a worker at a rubber factory fell into a tank of ammonia and co-workers and residents tried to save him, police said.

Ri Sol-ju, the wife of North Korea's leader, made her first public appearance as first lady last weekend at a ballet performance by a visiting Chinese troupe. Kim Jong-un's decision to give his wife the title is widely seen as a major boost to her status before summits with South Korea and the US

• Kim Jong-un elevates wife to position of North Korea's first lady

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A state-funded film about tsar Nicholas II’s affair with a ballerina, Matilda was expected to be a celebration of Russian culture – but it has outraged the Orthodox church

In the midst of the frostiest relations between Russia and the UK since the cold war, this weekend Russia is sending over a cultural present: the controversial historical drama Matilda opens in British cinemas. It features beautiful costumes (7,000 of them, according to the LA Times), an international cast, lavish sets and a fair amount of nudity. Perhaps this is the warm and generous Russian gift to bring the thaw we have been waiting for.

Or perhaps not. Matilda comes trailing bitter arguments over historical accuracy and accusations of blasphemy. It’s the erotic scenes that have caused a scandal in Russia. The film details (with a large dollop of artistic licence) the real-life relationship between tsar Nicholas II and prima ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya, an affair which almost derailed his 1896 coronation and, some argue, set in train the events which led to the revolution of 1917.

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Along the narrow alleys of one of India’s largest bullion markets, men and women scrape a living scouring the dust and even the drains for specks of the precious metal

When most of Mumbai is fast asleep at 5am each day, 41-year-old Tanu Behre sets out on her hunt.

Armed with a little handbrush, she walks the narrow alleys of Zaveri bazaar, one of India’s largest bullion markets, and dusts the streets for gold. She enters drains outside goldsmiths’ workshops, and gathers the black sludge in her aluminium pan. If she’s lucky, the slime will turn up the precious metal.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Berlin's Tegel airport has warned passengers to expect disruption on Friday morning when a World War Two bomb discovered near the capital's central train station is defused.

It was a major breakthrough, drastically reducing the risk of a nuclear arms race. Abandoning it now will do lasting damage

• Signed by parliamentarians from Britain, Germany and France

For more than a decade, we – Europeans, Americans, and the international community – have feared the imminent threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. To counter this threat and make the Middle East a safer place, the international community came together, using the might of diplomatic negotiations and the force of sanctions, agreed by most of the major economic powers.

After 13 years of joint diplomatic effort, we reached a major breakthrough and signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement between Iran, France, the UK, Germany, the US, China, and Russia, regarding Tehran‘s nuclear programme. With that, we were able to impose unprecedented scrutiny on the Iranian nuclear programme, dismantle most of their nuclear enrichment facilities, and drastically reduce the danger of a nuclear arms race. Not a drop of blood was spilt. Furthermore, these controls will not cease after the 10 years of the JCPOA: Iran will continue to be subject to the strict controls prescribed by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which will continue to limit enrichment.

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YANGON (Reuters) - A Myanmar minister expressed concerns on Thursday about "very poor conditions" in Rohingya refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, and said repatriation of the Muslim minority should start as soon as possible due to the coming monsoon season.

South Korean president says Pyongyang has not attached conditions such as US troop withdrawal

North Korea has expressed a desire for “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula without attaching preconditions such as the withdrawal of US troops from the South, the South Korean president has said.

The statement – unconfirmed by North Korea – comes before a summit between the leaders of the two countries on 27 April, to be followed in May or June by a meeting between Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, and Donald Trump.

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SEOUL/GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea has expressed its commitment to "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula and is not seeking conditions, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday, as the United States vowed to maintain "maximum pressure" on Pyongyang.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria could start checking traffic to Germany as part of stepped-up border controls in the second half of this year when it holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, its far-right interior minister said.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union gave asylum to more than half a million refugees in 2017, its statistics office Eurostat said on Thursday, with Germany taking in more than 60 percent.

‘Bicycle Day’ on 19 April is the 75th anniversary of the day Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered LSD, changing his perceptions – and the city’s future

Seventy-five years ago, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann experienced the world’s first full-blown LSD trip on his way home from his lab in Basel. Hofmann had been researching the ergot fungus, hoping to develop a drug to treat fatigue. Among the compounds he was analysing was lysergic acid – Lysergsäure-Diethylamid in German, also known as LSD. On Friday 16 April 1943, Hofmann left the lab feeling a little dizzy: “I lay down and had these wonderful dreams – I saw every thought as an image,” he said in an interview for his 100th birthday. The chemist concluded that he had accidentally touched the substance, and was intrigued by its powerful effect.

Three days later, on 19 April, he returned to the lab and swallowed a tiny amount just to see what would happen: “As it later turned out, it was five times too much and gave me a horror trip.” He asked an assistant to take him home by bicycle, and Basel transformed into a panorama of hellish and heavenly visions. The bike seemed to freeze to the spot; a friendly neighbour turned into an evil witch. Hours later, Hofmann felt wonderful. “LSD called me, I didn’t seek it out,” he recalled. “It came to me.”

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A mother grieves, fights and heals after her son, Tony Robinson Jr, is killed by police in 2015. Listen to her story

Andrea Irwin’s audio diary begins with her reflections on the night of 5 March 2015, when her 19-year-old son, Tony Robinson Jr, was killed by a white police officer in Madison, Wisconsin.

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GENEVA (Reuters) - The United State is hopeful of reaching agreement with Britain, France and Germany to address U.S. concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood told a news conference in Geneva on Thursday.