Six people who died in a luxury hotel suite in Thailand were poisoned by drinks laced with cyanide, police have said.

Police suspect that one of the dead was behind the poisoning and was driven by crushing debt.

The six deceased were found dead by housekeepers at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the Thai capital Bangkok late on Tuesday.

Investigators believe they had been dead for 24 hours by then.

Two of the six had loaned “tens of millions of Thai baht” to another of the deceased for investment purposes, authorities said. Ten million baht is worth nearly $280,000 (£215,000).

Confusion and mystery had earlier surrounded the discovery of the bodies, with local reports initially suggesting there had been a shooting. Police later dismissed these reports.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin visited the hotel on Tuesday and ordered an urgent investigation into the case, stressing that it was a “private matter” unrelated to national security.

A clearer picture is emerging now of what might have happened.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Deputy Bangkok police chief Gen Noppassin Poonsawat said the group had checked into the hotel separately over the weekend and were assigned five rooms – four on the seventh floor, and one on the fifth.

They had been scheduled to check out on Monday but failed to do so.

Four of the victims are Vietnamese nationals Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.

The other two are American citizens Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55.

The US state department has offered its condolences and said it is “closely monitoring” the situation. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting Thai authorities in the investigation, Mr Srettha said.

Police say on Monday afternoon all six victims had gathered in the room on the fifth floor.

The group ordered food and tea, which was delivered to the room around 14:00 local time (08:00 BST) and received by Ms Chong – who was the only person in the room at the time.

According to the deputy police chief, a waiter offered to make tea for the guests but Ms Chong refused this. The waiter recalled that she “spoke very little and was visibly under stress”, authorities said.

The waiter later left the room.

The rest of the group then began streaming into the room at various points, between 14:03 and 14:17. No one else is believed to have entered the room apart from the six inside and police have said the door to the room was locked from within.

Police say there were no signs of a struggle, robbery or forced entry.

They later found traces of cyanide in all six tea cups.

Pictures released by the police show plates of untouched food left on a table in the room, some of them still covered in cling wrap.

There was a seventh name on the group’s hotel booking, whom police identified as the younger sister of one of the victims. She had left Thailand last week for the Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang and is not involved in the incident, police said.

Relatives interviewed by the police said Thi Nguyen Phuong and Hong Pham Thanh, a couple, owned a road construction business and had given money to Ms Chong to invest in a hospital building project in Japan.

Police suspect that Mr Tran, a make-up artist based in Da Nang, had also been “duped” into making an investment.

Mr Tran’s mother Tuý told BBC Vietnamese that he had travelled to Thailand on Friday and had called home on Sunday to say he had to extend his stay until Monday. That was the last his family had heard from him. She rang him again on Monday but he did not answer the call.

Ms Chong had hired Mr Tran as her personal make-up artist for the trip, one of his students told BBC Vietnamese. Mr Tran’s father, Phu, told Vietnamese media that his son was hired last week by a Vietnamese woman to travel to Thailand.

The six bodies were discovered one day after Thailand expanded its visa-free entry scheme to travellers from 93 countries and territories to revitalise its tourism industry.

The Grand Hyatt Erawan is located in a district popular with tourists – however the area has also been the site of several high-profile crimes in recent years.

Last October, a 14-year-old boy shot and killed three people at the Siam Paragon mall just a few hundred metres down the road from the hotel.

The hotel sits opposite the Erawan Shrine, which was hit by a bomb blast in 2015 that killed 20 people.

The cyanide poisoning case prompted Prime Minister Srettha to reassure the public that Thailand has put in place security measures for tourists. Tourism is a key pillar of the Thai economy, but it has not fully recovered from the coronavirus pandemic.

One by one, Donald Trump’s defeated rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination took the stage to sing his praises at the party’s convention on Tuesday night.

From his box just above the convention floor, Trump smiled at times as he watched his former opponents Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy voice their full support for his candidacy.

If there were any doubts that this was Trump’s party, Tuesday’s programming put them to rest.

“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” said Ms Haley, the former UN Ambassador who posed the strongest challenge to Trump earlier this year.

She said Trump had asked her to speak at the event in Milwaukee in the name of “unity”.

“For the sake of our nation we have to go with Donald Trump,” she told the crowd.

Ms Haley said in May that she would vote for the former president, but her headline speech on Tuesday was her most direct endorsement of the Republican nominee yet.

And when she declared her endorsement, Trump stood and clapped.

Ms Haley’s arrival, however, was not universally welcomed in the arena. There was a noticeable intake of breath as she acknowledged that she and Trump had their differences.

Some Republicans have struggled to forgive her for launching an aggressive campaign against their favoured candidate. Late in the race, she questioned whether Trump had the mental stamina to serve as president.

A smattering of boos greeted her as she took the podium, though they were soon drowned out by cheers and chants.

She deserves the booing, said Gregory Switzer, a conservative activist from Texas.

“She stayed in that race a lot longer than she needed to and dragged out the inevitable,” said Matt Bumela, a delegate from Washington state who had predicted the booing. “And said things about Trump that were negative all the way up to the end.”

Ms Haley notably broke from Trump when she called for the US to continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia.

When she later said she would vote for him in November, she said the former president would be “smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me”.

On Tuesday night, she told supporters of hers who might be on the fence: “You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him – take it from me.”

“Tonight is our unity night,” said New Hampshire state Senator William Gannon, who had served as a delegate for Ms Haley. He believed Trump made the right choice to invite her to speak.

“I wanna win the national election,” he said. “It was a wise move to bring her in.”

The third-place finisher in the primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, received a far more enthusiastic welcome from the crowd.

He touched on several conservative social issues, including diversity initiatives, which he said were “indoctrination”.

He urged the crowd to rally behind Trump – though they were already solidly behind their current nominee. “We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down,” Mr DeSantis said.

He also took a swipe at Mr Biden’s age, an issue that is currently roiling the Democratic Party. “We need a commander-in-chief who can lead 24 hours a day and seven days a week,” he said.

Daniel Willis, the 25-year-old chair of the Delaware Young Republicans, said Mr DeSantis and Ms Haley did more than enough “to bridge the gap” with Trump supporters.

The rest of the night was devoted to the more common Republican campaign points, such as migrant crossings at the border, crime and an overarching commitment to defeating Mr Biden.

Ted Cruz, the US senator from Texas, said there was a “literal invasion” of the United States. Dr Ben Carson, who served in Trump’s cabinet, accused Democrats of “shredding the Constitution”.

Trump himself led a huge standing ovation for Madeline Brame, a woman whose son was killed in New York in 2018 and has since called for tough-on-crime policies.

Down on the floor, delegates said they were ready to move beyond the intra-party divisions of the primary and instead focus the party’s energy on President Biden.

“At the end of the day,” said Georgia delegate Pam Lightsey, “We’re all Republicans.”

As the war in Gaza grinds on, there are growing fears another Middle East war may erupt – with devastating consequences for the region, and beyond.

Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah (backed by Iran) have been trading fire across their shared border for the past nine months. If this conflict escalates to all-out war, it could dwarf the destruction in Gaza, draw in Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and Yemen, spread embers around the Middle East and embroil the US. Iran itself could intervene directly.

The United Nations has warned of a “catastrophe beyond imagination”.

For now, a low-level war simmers in the summer heat, along a 120km (75 mile) stretch of border. One spark here could set the Middle East alight.

Over the lapping of the waves, and the thwack thwack of paddle games on the beach, a sound cuts through – a sudden deep boom.

Soon smoke billows from a hillside in the distance after an Israeli strike.

Around the pool in a resort hotel, a few sunbathers stand briefly to scan the horizon.

Others don’t move a tanned limb.

Explosions are part of the sound of summer 2024 in the ancient Lebanese city of Tyre, as Hezbollah and Israel exchange fire across the border 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.

“Another day, another bomb,” says Roland, 49, with a shrug, as he relaxes on a lilo. He lives abroad but is back home on holiday.

“We got used to it somehow over the months,” says his friend Mustafa, 39, “though children are still a little bit scared.” He nods towards his daughter Miral, 7, who is dripping wet from the pool.

“When she hears an explosion, she always asks, ‘will there be a bomb now?’” he says.

Earlier this month, there was a massive blast in his neighbourhood in Tyre, as his family of four were having a meal. Israel had assassinated a senior Hezbollah commander, Mohammed Nimah Nasser.

“We heard the noise,” Mustafa says, “and we carried on eating.”

But the sunbathers on the beach in Tyre may be on borrowed time. This city will be in the firing line in the event of all-out war, along with the rest of southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold.

We are now at the water’s edge of a potentially devastating war which both sides say they don’t want.

How did we get here?

On 8 October last year – one day after Hamas gunmen stormed out of Gaza and killed about 1,200 Israelis as well as taking 251 others hostage – Hezbollah joined in, firing from Lebanon into Israel.

The Shia Islamist armed group said it was acting in support of Gaza.

Soon Israel was firing back.

Hezbollah, which is also a political party, is the most powerful force in Lebanon.

Like Hamas, it is classed as a terrorist organisation by many countries, including the UK and the US.

But unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has the firepower to seriously threaten Israel.

It is believed to have an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles – some precision-guided – capable of inflicting heavy damage around the country.

• What is Hezbollah in Lebanon and will it go to war with Israel?

Put simply Hezbollah – its English translation, the Party of God – has more arms than many countries.

Its backer Iran – which denies Israel’s right to exist – is happy to train and fund the enemies of the Jewish state.

The conflict has been heating up, with thousands of cross-border strikes.

Some countries have already told their nationals to leave Lebanon urgently, including Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and Saudi Arabia. The UK has advised against all travel to the country and is urging Britons who are here to leave – while they still can.

So far, both sides are mainly striking military targets, close to the border – staying within familiar red lines.

But here on the Lebanese side, we have seen destruction in civilian areas with scorched fields, flattened houses and abandoned villages.

And the current tit-for-tat has already driven tens of thousands from their homes – more than 90,000 in Lebanon and about 60,000 in Israel.

The Israeli army says Hezbollah has killed 21 of its soldiers. The civilian death toll is 12, according to government officials.

Lebanon’s losses are far higher at 466, according to the Ministry of Health here. Hezbollah says most of the dead were fighters.

Sally Skaiki was not.

“I never called her Sally,” says her father Hussein Abdul Hassan Skaiki. “I always called her ‘my life’ – she was everything for me.”

“She was the only girl in the house, and we spoiled her, me and her three brothers.”

Sally, 25, was a volunteer paramedic. She was killed by an Israeli strike after sunset on 14 June as she stood in the doorway of her building.

Her father wears the black of mourning, and the green scarf of the Shia Amal movement, which is allied to Hezbollah.

We meet in his village of Deir Qanoun En-Naher, 30km (18 miles) from the border. The main road is dotted with sun-bleached posters of fighters killed in battle against Israel – some in recent months, others back in 2006 when the two sides last went to war.

In that conflict, Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill but at huge cost to Lebanon and its people. There was massive destruction, and more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed – according to official figures – along with an unconfirmed number of Hezbollah fighters.

Israel’s death toll was 160, according to the government, most of them soldiers.

By Hussein’s side there is a large poster of Sally, in her headscarf and paramedic uniform. He speaks of his daughter with pride and with anguish.

“She loved to help people,” he says. “Any problem that happened, she rushed there. She was well-loved in the village. She always had a smile on her face.”

As we speak there is a loud boom which rattles the windows.

Hussein says it is a normal, daily occurrence.

“Since a long time, Israel killed our people here,” he says.

“We can’t forgive them. There is no hope of peace with them.”

This time, there is no death or destruction. Instead, Israeli warplanes are breaking the sound barrier to spread fear.

And, since October, Israel has been spreading something else in southern Lebanon – choking, searing clumps of white phosphorus, contained in munitions.

The chemical substance ignites immediately on contact with oxygen. It sticks to skin and clothing and can burn through bone, according to the World Health Organization.

Moussa al-Moussa – a farmer stooped by his 77 years – knows only too well.

He says Israel fired white phosphorous shells at his land in the village of al-Bustan every day for over a month, robbing him of breath, and his livelihood.

“I had my scarf on, and I wrapped it around my mouth and nose until I was brought to the hospital,” he tells me, gesturing to the red and white keffiyeh – the traditional Arab scarf – on his head.

“We didn’t have any masks. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see a metre in front of me. And if you touch a fragment a week later it will ignite and burn again.”

The international campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has verified the use of white phosphorus over several populated areas in southern Lebanon, including al-Bustan.

It says Israel’s use of white phosphorus is “unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dispute this, saying the use of white phosphorus shells to create a smokescreen “is lawful under international law”. It says these shells are not used in densely populated areas “with certain exceptions”.

Like many farmers along the border, Moussa fears Israel has poisoned his tobacco crop and his olive groves.

“White phosphorous burns the ground, it burns people and the crops and buildings,” he says.

Even if he can return home, he is afraid to bring in a harvest in case it harms his family or his buyers.

He lives in limbo – in classroom 4B of a vocational school in Tyre. About 30 families who fled the border area are sheltering in the building. Washing is strung across the school yard. A lone little boy races up and down the empty corridors on a bicycle.

When I ask Moussa how many wars he has seen, he begins to laugh.

“We spent our lives in wars,” he says. “Only God knows if another one is coming.”

As one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, was a wanted man. He fought Israel in 2006, and before, and went on to fight in Syria and Iraq. In recent months he “planned, led and supervised many military operations against the Israeli enemy”, according to Hezbollah.

Israel tracked him down in Tyre on 3 July. Death came from the sky in broad daylight, with an air strike which turned his car into a fireball.

In the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut, he was given a hero’s funeral, or rather a “martyr’s” one.

The event was carefully choreographed and strictly segregated – men in one area, women in another – including the press.

His coffin, draped in the yellow flag of Hezbollah, was carried by pall bearers in camouflage uniforms and red berets. Many more fighters stood to attention, lines deep. There was a brass band in spotless white uniforms, if not in perfect harmony.

It had the feel of a state funeral – in a country that lacks a functioning state.

Lebanon has no president, a caretaker government and a shattered economy. It is carved up by sect, and hollowed out by corruption, its citizens left to fend for themselves. Many Lebanese are weary. The last thing they want is another war.

Hezbollah sees things different.

As the funeral prayers concluded, the talk among mourners was of “martyrdom” not death, and of readiness for war, if it comes.

Hassan Hamieh, a 35-year-old nurse, told us he would fight. “We are not afraid,” he said.

“In fact, we are longing for an all-out war. Martyrdom is the shortest path to God. Young or old, we will all take part in this war, if it is forced upon us.”

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has stressed the armed group is ready, but not eager, for war. He says if there is a ceasefire agreed in Gaza, Hezbollah will cease fire too, immediately.

Will that satisfy Israel? Maybe not.

It sees Hezbollah as a permanent threat too close for comfort. At the very least, it wants its heavily armed enemy to pull back from the border.

There have been plenty of bellicose threats. Israel’s Education Minister, Yoav Kish, said Lebanon would be “annihilated”. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant chimed in, saying the country would be returned “to the stone age”.

The IDF approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” a month ago.

For now, no tanks are rolling over the border. There has been no political decision to attack. Israel is still waging war in Gaza and fighting on two fronts could overstretch the military.

But without a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah – two old enemies – all-out war may be coming, if not now, then later.

Schools and universities across Bangladesh have been shut until further notice after six people were killed in protests over quotas in government jobs.

University students have been holding rallies for days against the system of reserving some public sector jobs for the relatives of war heroes, who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Some jobs are also reserved for women, ethnic minorities and the disabled.

A third of posts are kept for the family members of those categorised as war heroes. The students argue that the system is discriminatory, and they want recruitment based on merit.

Several cities, including the capital Dhaka, this week witnessed clashes between supporters of the anti-quota movement and their opponents, particularly the student wing of the governing Awami League known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).

Student groups attacked each other with bricks and sticks. Police fired tear gas and used rubber bullets to disperse the clashing groups. Student activists said hundreds of people had been injured in the attacks.

“We blame the BCL members for the violence. They killed the protesters. Police didn’t intervene to save the ordinary students,” Abdullah Shaleheen Oyon, one of the co-ordinators of the anti-quota movement, told the BBC.

Government jobs are highly coveted in Bangladesh because they pay well. In total, more than half of the positions – amounting to hundreds of thousands of jobs – are reserved for certain groups.

Critics say the system unfairly benefits the families of pro-government groups who support Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won her fourth straight election in January.

Ms Hasina’s government abolished the reservation in 2018, following protests. But a court ordered the authorities to reinstate the quotas in early June, triggering the latest round of protests.

Officials say three people were killed in the southern port city of Chittagong and two in Dhaka, while one student was killed in the northern city of Rangpur by a stray bullet.

Media reports say at least three of those killed were students, though there is no official confirmation yet.

The government blames opposition groups for the violence.

“The student fronts of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP] have infiltrated this anti-quota movement. They are the ones who initiated the violence,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told the BBC.

Bangladesh’s top court suspended the current system last week, but protests are expected to continue until it is permanently removed.

“The case has been listed for hearing on 7 August. Students have been given an opportunity to present their argument in the court,” Mr Huq said.

In a late-night operation on Tuesday, police raided the headquarters of the BNP, the main opposition party, in Dhaka, following the violent clashes.

Senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said the raid was nothing but a drama and it was a message for the students to return home.

The protests have seen students blocking roads in Dhaka and other major cities, bringing traffic to a halt.

Student leaders said they were angered by recent comments by Ms Hasina who, they say, described those opposed to the job quotas as – a term used for those who allegedly collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war.

Several student leaders said Ms Hasina had insulted them by comparing them to . The comparison, they said, also encouraged BCL members to attack them.

“They want to suppress our voices through creating a reign of terror in the country. If I don’t protest today, they will beat me another day. That’s why I am on the streets to protest,” Rupaiya Sherstha, a female student at Dhaka University, told the BBC.

But government ministers say Ms Hasina’s comments were misinterpreted, and she did not call the students .

Mohammad Ali Arafat, state minister for information and broadcasting, denied allegations that the student wing of the Awami League triggered the violence.

He said the trouble began after anti-quota students intimidated residents of a hall in Dhaka.

“If there’s chaos on the university campuses, there’s no benefit for the government. We want peace to be maintained,” Mr Arafat told the BBC.

UN Secretary General António Guterres called on the government to “protect the demonstrators against any form of threat or violence”, according to his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The students have vowed to continue their protests until their demands are met.

The government has strengthened security by deploying the paramilitary, Border Guards Bangladesh, in five main cities, including Dhaka and Chittagong.

Self-exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has been convicted by a US court of defrauding his online followers in a billion-dollar scam.

He was found guilty on nine of the 12 criminal counts he faced, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering.

Guo’s sentencing has been scheduled for 19 November, when he could face decades behind bars. He has been in prison since his arrest in March 2023.

He is a critic of the Chinese Communist party and was an associate of Stephen Bannon, an ex-White House chief strategist under former president Donald Trump.

Guo goes by several aliases, including Miles Guo, Miles Kwok and “Brother Seven”. He was named as Ho Wan Kwok when he was indicted in 2023.

Prosecutors said Guo raised more than $1bn (£770m) from online followers, who joined him in investment and cryptocurrency schemes between 2018 and 2023.

The money he raised was used to fund Guo’s lavish lifestyle which included a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $1m Lamborghini and a $37m yacht, they said.

“Thousands of Guo’s online followers were victimised so that Guo could live a life of excess,” the US Attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, said after the verdict.

Guo’s political activism and his links to high-profile, right-wing US politicians and activists earned him hundreds of thousands of online followers, most of them Chinese people living in Western countries.

Guo’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to sway the jury by saying their client was not driven by money.

Instead, they portrayed him as a fervent opponent of China’s political system and his ostentatious lifestyle was a critique of the Chinese Communist Party.

After his arrival in the US in 2017, Guo’s outspoken opposition to China’s rulers inspired several ventures with Bannon.

They appeared frequently together in online videos, and in 2020 they launched a campaign called the New Federal State of China, with the goal of overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party.

Later that year, Bannon was arrested over an unrelated fraud case while on Guo’s yacht in Connecticut. He was later pardoned by then-president Donald Trump.

Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.

Fourteen high school students in Tokyo were rushed to hospital after eating “super spicy” potato chips on Tuesday, police said.

Around 30 students ate the crisps after one of them brought them to school, local media reported.

Soon, some of them started complaining of nausea and acute pain around their mouth, prompting emergency calls to the fire department and police.

The 13 girls and one boy who were taken to hospital were conscious and reportedly had minor symptoms.

The company that makes the snack, Isoyama Corp, put out a statement, apologising for “any inconvenience” to customers, and wished the students a swift recovery.

The school and the company have not responded to the BBC’s questions so far.

The company website is full of warnings for those who may wish to try the crisps.

It “forbids” those under 18 from consuming the crisps which are called “R 18+ curry chips”, because of how spicy they are – and it warns even those who love hot food to “eat with caution”. The crisps are “so spicy that they may cause you pain”, it says.

The spiciness comes from the potent “ghost pepper”, cultivated in northeastern India, where it’s known as bhut jolokia. Although it is used in recipes in India and elsewhere, it’s known to be among the world’s hottest chillis.

The Japanese firm, in fact, advises people not to “eat the chips when they are alone” and says they could cause diarrhea if eaten “excessively”.

Those with high blood pressure and weak stomachs “are absolutely prohibited” from eating the crisps, according to the company’s website. It warns people who have cuts on their fingers to be careful while opening the packets.

Those who are “timid or too scared” are also discouraged from trying the snack.

One media report said one of the students, a boy, brought the crisps to school “just for fun”.

Responding to news about the hospitalisations, some X users posted a “spicy meter” to demonstrate how hot the crisps were, while others shared videos of their agonising experience of eating them.

In one video, a user who appears to be wincing, described it as “painful” and said it reminded him of the time he had urinary stones.

X owner Elon Musk also weighed in, saying “they must be next-level spicy!”