Monday briefing: Earthquake kills hundreds, Polish nationalist march, Trump in Phillipines

Hello, this is Anna getting you up to speed with the latest top stories.

Devastation in Iraq and Iran - At least 348 people have been confirmed dead and 5,953 injured after a deadly 7.3 earthquake struck the northern border region between Iraq and Iran at 9.20pm local time. Rescue teams and friends and families are sifting through rubble to help locate people who may be trapped. More than 700,000 people are now in need of emergency shelter, the Iranian Red Crescent said. Kermanshah province was the hardest hit area, and three days of mourning have been announced. More than 236 people died in the town of Sarpol-e Zahab, about 10 miles from the Iraq border, alone.

Nationalism in plain sight - Over the weekend roughly 60,000 Polish nationalist demonstrators marched through Warsaw to mark the country’s independence day. The march drew worldwide criticism for its far-right and xenophobic undertones, including people throwing red smoke bombs and carrying banners with slogans like ‘White Europe of brotherly nations’. Demonstrators with faces covered chanted ‘Pure Poland, white Poland!’ and ‘Refugees get out!’. A banner hung over a bridge that read: ‘Pray for Islamic Holocaust.’

Political gaffes - UK Conservative Party ministers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have come under increasing fire for their careless and potentially damaging comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman jailed in Iran. Johnson last week said that she was in Iran teaching, rather than on holiday, in a gaffe that may increase Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s prison time and prompted calls for him to resign. Gove later seemed to offer veiled support for his counterpart, saying he did not know why the woman was in Iran. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband has urged ministers not to ‘muddy’ the situation.

Rising CO2 - Climate scientists have warned that the burning of fossil fuels around the world is set to reach a record high in 2017, following three years of flat growth that maintained hopes that a peak in global emissions had already been reached. Although the uptick in carbon emissions is a ‘giant leap backwards for humankind’, according to some scientists, others say fluctuations are expected and huge polluters like China are working to cut their carbon footprint.

Human rights ignored - Donald Trump has gushed about his ‘great relationship’ with the Philippines’ president Rodrigo Duterte, who is accused of killing thousands in the country during a brutal drug crackdown. Trump made no mention of human rights violations as the pair met before reporters, ignoring shouted questions about the war on drugs. Trump was in the Philippines on the final leg of his Asia tour, which has made headlines as the reality star-in-command got chummy with other world leaders.

Red-breasted censorship - Now for a bit of light and comedic news, Facebook temporarily banned a Scottish artist from selling her Christmas card via the social network because it was of a ‘sexual’ and ‘adult’ nature. A truly harmless painting of a red-breasted robin is the ‘seedy’ content in question. Jackie Charley, its creator, said she ‘could not stop laughing’ when she was told her Robin card was too explicit to sell.