Global leaders were engaged in intensive diplomacy on Sunday to dissuade Israel from increasing attacks on Lebanon, amid fears that a wider regional war could erupt in response to a rocket strike that killed 12 children playing football in the occupied Golan Heights.

As the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, convened a meeting of his national security cabinet, the White House backed Israeli statements that blamed Saturday’s attack on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, saying: “It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control. It should be universally condemned.”

But the US was “also working on a diplomatic solution … that will end all attacks once and for all”, a statement from the White House’s national security council added.

Speaking in Tokyo, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was clear. “We also don’t want to see the conflict escalate. We don’t want to see it spread,” he said.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has also spoken to Netanyahu, telling him that France remained committed to doing “everything to avoid a new escalation in the region by passing messages to all parties involved in the conflict”, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace.

The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, as well as the UN peacekeeping force deployed along the line that demarcates Israeli from Lebanese territory, urged “maximum restraint”.

Both sides, they said, must “put a stop to the ongoing intensified exchanges of fire”. “It could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief,” they added.

The diplomacy came amid growing anger in Israel over the strike on the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which Israel seized in 1967 and annexed from Syria in 1981.

On Sunday, thousands attended funeral processions for the 12 children, aged from 10 to 16, who were killed in the strike on the town’s football field. “Leave our children out of these wars,” sobbed one woman in the procession, Agence France-Presse reported.

Vowing revenge and promising that Hezbollah would be made to “pay a heavy price”, Netanyahu returned early from a visit to the US, travelling immediately to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters in Tel Aviv. Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon overnight.

Then on Sunday afternoon, Netanyahu convened a meeting with the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with the director general of the defence ministry and the heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet and military intelligence services, to weigh Israel’s response.

After the meeting, Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet had authorised the prime minister and defence minister to determine the “type” and “timing” of Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s attack.

The possibility of a larger Israeli strike on Lebanon, beyond airstrikes across the south of the country that have drawn concern from allies for months, has raised fears of a wider regional war beyond Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Israeli officials and army chiefs said Hezbollah was responsible for the rocket attack. The IDF published images of shrapnel that it said showed the deployment of an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket.

Hezbollah has denied responsibility, although it did say it was behind a volley of rocket fire that it said was intended for Israeli military targets in the occupied Golan Heights earlier the same day. Instead, the Iran-backed organisation said, a falling projectile from Israel’s Iron Dome missile system was responsible.

US envoy Amos Hochstein, who has spearheaded negotiations, spoke to the Lebanese prime minister, Nagib Mikati, the house speaker, Nabih Berry, and the influential Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in an effort to calm tensions in the hours after the strike.

The talks followed fiery statements from Israeli politicians, including the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who said “all of Lebanon must pay the price” for the attack.

The tensions came as mediators, including the head of the CIA, William Burns, David Barnea of the Mossad as well as Qatari and Egyptian officials, met in Rome in the hopes of securing a ceasefire in Gaza, along with the return of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.

Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, has previously said the group would stop its attacks on Israel’s northern border area if an agreement was reached to halt the fighting in Gaza, which has killed more than 39,000 people since Israel began its assault last October.

In a statement following Barnea’s return from the talks, the Israeli government said that mediators discussed new requests submitted by their side, which reportedly include refusing the return of militants to northern Gaza and a long-term presence at the territory’s southern border with Egypt. The talks, which have dragged on for months, are expected to continue.

Hezbollah, along with other militias in southern Lebanon, has intensified attacks aimed at Israeli military installations in recent months, in retaliation for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

In response, Israel has conducted airstrikes deep into Lebanese territory, while Israeli jets frequently break the sound barrier over the capital, Beirut. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the cross-border fire on either side.

Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, had told Reuters that his government had asked the US to ask Israel show to restraint after the attack on the occupied Golan Heights. US officials, he added, had requested that Lebanon’s government pass a message to Hezbollah to also show restraint.

Lebanon’s national carrier, Middle East Airlines, said it had delayed some flights from Sunday night to Monday morning.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the group had evacuated positions in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley “that it thinks could be a target for Israel”.

Towns in northern Israel, beyond communities near the border with Lebanon that were evacuated in recent months, remained on high alert. The University of Haifa told staff who work above the fifth floor of a large 30-storey tower on the campus to work from home.

French police have opened an investigation into death threats received by three Israeli athletes at the Paris Olympic Games, as well as possible antisemitic hate crimes during a football match, the Paris’ prosecutors office said.

The death threats were reported by interior minister Gérald Darmanin and the investigation will be led by the national anti-online hate body.

Last week, Israel’s foreign minister warned his French counterpart of an alleged Iranian-backed plot to target Israeli athletes and tourists during the Paris Olympic Games.

The Iranian mission to the UN said in a statement on Thursday: “Terrorist acts have no place in the principles of resistance groups; lies and deceit cannot switch the roles of the plaintiff and the accused.”

Israeli athletes at the Games are being escorted to and from events by elite tactical units and given 24-hour protection throughout the Olympics, according to officials. Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, is helping with security.

Elsewhere prosecutors said they were probing possible antisemitic hate crimes during an Israel-Paraguay football match on Saturday in Paris, which featured chants and banners about the Gaza war.

The match at the Paris Saint Germain stadium saw fans “dressed in black, masked and carrying Palestinian flags unfurl a banner saying ‘Genocide Olympics’” and one of them “made gestures of an antisemitic nature”, a separate statement said.

The Paris Olympics organisers lodged a complaint with police, the prosecutors’ statement said.

An AFP reporter at the stadium said about 50 so-called “ultra” fans in the crowd sang chants in French against Israel and about the Gaza war. The chants, in French, included “Israel Killer” and “Israel is killing Palestine’s children”.

The Israeli anthem was booed by part of the crowd. Some Israeli fans in the stadium chanted back “Free the hostages”.

The fans could be charged with aggravated incitement to racial hatred, the statement from the prosecutor’s office said.

Anti-cybercrime officers are also investigating the release of athletes’ personal data on social networks on Friday and seeking to have it removed, prosecutors said in a statement.

Personal details of Israeli athletes’ were leaked on social media including blood test results and login credentials.

Israel on Thursday warned France about cyber harassment of its athletes and leaks of personal data that it blamed on Iran-backed groups.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Iran’s new president has been formally inaugurated by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, opening up the slim hope of improved relations with the west, less internal censorship and a fresh approach to the economy.

In a ceremony on Sunday marking the start of his four-year presidency, Masoud Pezeshkian said the Iranian people had voted for change and promised constructive engagement with the west, a step he regards as a precondition for Tehran curbing inflation and securing growth.

Elected in a runoff on 5 July on a turnout of 49.7%, Pezeshkian, a reformist, is expected to make a raft of cabinet appointments in the next few days, including a new foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. In his first official act in office, Pezeshkian appointed Mohammad Reza Aref, 72, a reformist and close ally of the former president, as his first vice-president.

At the inauguration ceremony in Tehran attended by diplomats and Iran’s political elite, Khamenei, the man that sets the parameters of Iranian policy, said it would be a foreign policy priority to remain close to countries that had supported Iran during the period of sanctions. But he said he did not rule out closer relations with European powers if they modified their behaviour.

Khamenei, broadly an advocate of looking to the east for Iran’s partners, said many European powers had been “behaving badly to us” through the imposition of oil sales embargos and by launching fake attacks on human rights. He praised Pezeshkian as a deserving president, saying he was “wise, popular, honest and scholarly”.

Pezeshkian, a medical surgeon, parliamentarian and briefly a health minister, has no intention of differing with Khamenei in public, knowing the supreme Leader is ideologically closer to conservatives such as Pezeshkian’s predecessor as president, Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi’s death in a helicopter accident in May upended Iranian politics, but it remains unclear how far Pezeshkian will go in challenging some of the suppressive norms of Iranian society. He also faces a rightwing parliament that will be quick to pounce on his mistakes, and as a result is making every effort to emphasise political unity.

In two encouraging signs, the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami met with Pezeshkian to discuss appointments and the dissident Majid Tavakoli was released from jail pending a retrial after his six-year sentence. On the other hand, the revolutionary court has just issued a death sentence against Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish political prisoner held in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

The internal and external pressures facing the new government were well illustrated on Sunday. The climate crisis, and lack of internal electricity generation capacity, was underscored when government offices and banks closed due to extreme heat. Temperatures have soared over 40 degrees in many cities.

Externally the Iranian foreign ministry warned Israel not to launch a war against the Lebanese-based militia Hezbollah after a deadly strike on a town in the occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah denies it launched the attack, which killed 11 young people.

Pezeshkian sent a letter to the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, pledging further help.

Yet Pezeshkian, in the brief election campaign, also insisted Iran could not hope to achieve the economic growth it desired without obtaining relief from US sanctions and getting off the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog against terrorism financing and money laundering. Ties with Russia and China could not make up for the impact of sanctions, he argued.

That means Iran will have to reopen diplomacy with the west over its nuclear programme, after negotiations have been stalled for more than a year.

The tension between those that argue Iran can best maintain independence by resisting western sanctions and others who insist they enchain Iran will be one of the main controversies of the new presidency.

Ellie Geranmayeh, Middle East specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the election required a western response. She said Germany, France and the UK “should coordinate with Washington and their Arab allies to create viable pathways to concrete economic relief – but only if Iran is prepared to immediately roll back its nuclear programme”.

Gunmen from a notorious militia roamed Sudan’s capital gang-raping “countless” women and girls, some as young as nine, according to an investigation documenting the shocking prevalence of sexual violence in Khartoum during the country’s civil war.

Some of the attacks by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were so brutal that women and girls died “due to the violence associated with the act of rape”, according to the research by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Accounts from women and girls in areas of Khartoum seized by the RSF indicate many were abducted, tortured and imprisoned as sex slaves. Mothers were raped attempting to protect their daughters.

Some girls told RSF fighters they were married and not virgins in an attempt to avoid being attacked, added the report.

“The RSF have raped, gang-raped, and forced into marriage countless women and girls in residential areas in Sudan’s capital,” said Laetitia Bader, HRW’s Horn of Africa director.

Shortly after the civil war erupted between the RSF and the Sudanese military 15 months ago, the RSF overran parts of Khartoum and its sister cities, Omdurman and Khartoum North.

Access to the capital has since been hampered by fighting, but HRW researchers interviewed 42 care providers, social workers, lawyers and emergency volunteers in Khartoum to establish how women and girls had been treated.

At least 262 survivors of sexual violence were documented, aged between nine and 60.

On several occasions, emergency volunteers were themselves raped by RSF fighters as they tried to help survivors of sexual violence, the report said.

Collectively, the testimony reveals a hellish existence for huge numbers of women and girls in the Sudanese capital. One 20-year-old woman told researchers: “I slept with a knife under my pillow for months in fear from the raids that lead to rape by RSF. It is not safe any more to be a woman living in Khartoum under RSF.”

A midwife in Khartoum told researchers of the constant anxiety women faced: “We are afraid all the time from RSF raids into our homes. We can’t sleep from this fear. Daily there is a raid on a house, they try to rape women.”

At least four women and girls died from their injuries after being raped with many others hospitalised, said the report. One teenage girl was shot in the thigh after being raped by a group of RSF soldiers and died in hospital “from heavy bleeding caused by the bullets”.

Bader urged the African Union and United Nations to deploy a civilian protection force to prevent further war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The report also accused soldiers belonging to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of sexual violence against the people of Khartoum. Although fewer cases were attributed to the state military, researchers documented an “uptick” in cases after SAF took control of Omdurman in early 2024. Men and boys have also been raped, including in detention, according to the report.

HRW said both sides had blocked survivors’ access to critical emergency healthcare and had attacked healthcare workers, a war crime.

It said SAF was “wilfully restricting humanitarian supplies”, including medical supplies, by imposing a de facto blockade on aid entering RSF-controlled areas of Khartoum since October.

Neither side, added the report, had taken “meaningful steps” to prevent its forces from committing rape or attacking health workers or even to independently and transparently investigate crimes committed by their forces.

However a statement from Babikir Elamin, spokesperson of the Sudanese government’s foreign ministry, contested the report’s findings, adding: “As far as Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are concerned, this report contains unsubstantiated allegations that have obviously never been cross-examined or put forward to SAF to respond to.

“We categorically deny the defamatory suggestion by the report’s author that SAF or the Government of Sudan condones sexual violence at any time.

“Equally there is no truth in accusing SAF of targeting health care providers. The report offers no evidence to prove this accusation. Currently working hospitals and health facilities in areas controlled by SAF are confined to areas controlled and protected by SAF, including around 400 out of 540 governmental hospitals.

“Contrary to the claims in the report that SAF blocks delivery of medical supplies, it is SAF who protects, guards, and often undertakes delivery of these supplies including using air dropping.”

A number of accounts given by survivors revealed that they were raped by as many as five RSF fighters.

The RSF also “regularly abducted” women and girls and confined them in homes, according to the report. Some women were detained for weeks. Many were beaten, tortured, and denied access to food in conditions researchers said constitute sexual slavery.

“Two girls, sisters, we supported told me that RSF raped them and the other women in the house every day, for the three days they spent in detention,” said a service provider and women’s rights defender.

She added that the sisters were held in a big house alongside a large number of women and girls from South Sudan and Ethiopia. “They described being beaten, deprived of food, and forced to wash the clothes of the forces every day,” stated the report.

Health professionals interviewed said they were “shocked” by the targeting of young girls.

At least three pregnancies of 15-year-old girls resulting from rape by the RSF and one case by the Sudanese military, in Khartoum North, were documented in the report.

The RSF wrote to HRW last week to reject claims that it occupies any hospitals or medical centres in Khartoum, but did not offer any evidence it had conducted investigations into allegations of sexual violence by its forces.

Elamin, the foreign ministry spokesperson added: “SAF is an ancient national army, almost a hundred years old, whose leadership as well as file and ranks are highly disciplined, professional and well versed in international humanitarian law and the best known military norms and rules.

“Protecting civilians, especially women and children, is on the top of the SAF and government of Sudan’s priorities.”

He added that the government had a robust “unit for protecting women and children under its ministry of social development and welfare” and pointed out that a number of organisations including the Campaign to Counter Violence Against Women, have never accused SAF of such heinous crimes.

Elamin also contested the report’s reference to “warring parties” as “unfair and misleading.”

He said the army could not be compared to an “externally backed militia, made up essentially of mercenaries” that employs the same tactics and brutalities used by ISIS [Islamic State].”

Venezuela’s future was on a knife-edge on Sunday night after millions of voters headed to the polls to choose a new president and potentially end 25 years of socialist rule amid a historic economic and humanitarian meltdown.

A quarter of a century after the paratrooper turned left-wing icon Hugo Chávez was democratically elected in 1998, opinion polls suggested the comandante’s strongman successor, Nicolás Maduro, was facing possible defeat after presiding over one of the worst peacetime economic collapses in modern history.

As polls closed on Sunday evening Jorge Rodríguez, a top Chavista politician, told reporters in the capital Caracas that he was confident Maduro would be returned to power for his third six-year term. “The voice of the people has spoken,” Rodríguez said, predicting that his camp had secured “a great victory”.

But there was similar confidence from allies of Maduro’s rival for the presidency, an until recently little-known ex-diplomat called Edmundo González Urrutia. González is supported by the prominent conservative congresswoman María Corina Machado, whose place he took after she was banned from running.

“We are going to celebrate in peace,” González told journalists as citizens of the oil-rich South American country waited anxiously for results.

Earlier in the day, the 74-year-old grandfather and former ambassador sent a video message to supporters urging them to vote. “Today is the day. Today is your day,” González told them.

In an interview with the BBC on the eve of the hotly awaited election, Machado claimed the oil-rich South American country was approaching a “huge, unique, epic event that will change not only the history of Venezuela but also the whole region”.

“The system is cracking for the first time in 25 years,” Machado claimed of Chavismo, predicting a “huge, historic turnout” that would sweep Maduro from power.

Throughout the day opposition voters turned out in large numbers across the country hoping to vote Maduro – who they blame for leading Venezuela into a crippling economic and social crisis – out of power.

“I voted for Edmundo González because I believe he is the only hope of change that we have here,” said Anabella Donzella, a 23-year-old economics student as she cast her vote in El Marqués, a middle-class area in Caracas.

Donzella and her sister, Sofía, said they had made their choice because they feared being forced to abandon their country, as nearly eight million Venezuelans have done since Maduro was narrowly elected in 2013 and a punishing economic crisis began to accelerate.

“I’m here because it’s my right and I don’t want to end up stuck with the thought that I did nothing,” said Sofía Donzella, 27, admitting she was sceptical that change could really be achieved, amid widespread fears Maduro’s administration would refuse to relinquish power and concerns over whether the vote would be free and fair.

José Martínez, a 23-year-old shoe shop caretaker from the working-class neighbourhood of Petare, said he was voting for Maduro. “I served [in the army] and during that time the president helped me a lot. He helped my family and I cannot let him die,” Martínez said.

Maduro, who was elected after Chávez’s premature death from cancer and returned to office in a widely criticized 2018 election boycotted by the opposition, voiced confidence as he visited his late leader’s tomb in Caracas to lay a wreath before dawn on Sunday.

Wearing a pink guayabera and flanked by the first lady, Cilia Flores, Maduro compared the election – which was timed to coincide with what would have been Chávez’s 70th birthday – to one of the most famous military showdowns in Venezuela’s struggle for independence from Spain. “This is our Battle of Carabobo and we are heading straight for victory,” he declared, dedicating his campaign to Chávez, under whom he served as foreign minister and vice-president. “This victory is yours, comandante!” Maduro added on X.

A few hours later, after voting, Maduro addressed reporters wearing a tracksuit top stamped with the colours of the country critics accuse him of destroying. “I am certain that everything will work out well and that tomorrow will be a beautiful day,” the 61-year-old said.

But there was tension and nervousness on Sunday night as citizens waited for an official announcement about the vote from the pro-Maduro election authority. It was not clear when those results will be announced.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay said they were closely following events in Venezuela and believed it was crucial that the results represented the popular will of Venezuelan voters.

The US vice-president Kamala Harris tweeted: “The United States stands with the people of Venezuela who expressed their voice in today’s historic presidential election. The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected.”

Venezuela’s future was on a knife-edge on Sunday night after millions of voters headed to the polls to choose a new president and potentially end 25 years of socialist rule amid a historic economic and humanitarian meltdown.

A quarter of a century after the paratrooper turned left-wing icon Hugo Chávez was democratically elected in 1998, opinion polls suggested the comandante’s strongman successor, Nicolás Maduro, was facing possible defeat after presiding over one of the worst peacetime economic collapses in modern history.

As polls closed on Sunday evening Jorge Rodríguez, a top Chavista politician, told reporters in the capital Caracas that he was confident Maduro would be returned to power for his third six-year term. “The voice of the people has spoken,” Rodríguez said, predicting that his camp had secured “a great victory”.

But there was similar confidence from allies of Maduro’s rival for the presidency, an until recently little-known ex-diplomat called Edmundo González Urrutia. González is supported by the prominent conservative congresswoman María Corina Machado, whose place he took after she was banned from running.

“We are going to celebrate in peace,” González told journalists as citizens of the oil-rich South American country waited anxiously for results.

Earlier in the day, the 74-year-old grandfather and former ambassador sent a video message to supporters urging them to vote. “Today is the day. Today is your day,” González told them.

In an interview with the BBC on the eve of the hotly awaited election, Machado claimed the oil-rich South American country was approaching a “huge, unique, epic event that will change not only the history of Venezuela but also the whole region”.

“The system is cracking for the first time in 25 years,” Machado claimed of Chavismo, predicting a “huge, historic turnout” that would sweep Maduro from power.

Throughout the day opposition voters turned out in large numbers across the country hoping to vote Maduro – who they blame for leading Venezuela into a crippling economic and social crisis – out of power.

“I voted for Edmundo González because I believe he is the only hope of change that we have here,” said Anabella Donzella, a 23-year-old economics student as she cast her vote in El Marqués, a middle-class area in Caracas.

Donzella and her sister, Sofía, said they had made their choice because they feared being forced to abandon their country, as nearly eight million Venezuelans have done since Maduro was narrowly elected in 2013 and a punishing economic crisis began to accelerate.

“I’m here because it’s my right and I don’t want to end up stuck with the thought that I did nothing,” said Sofía Donzella, 27, admitting she was sceptical that change could really be achieved, amid widespread fears Maduro’s administration would refuse to relinquish power and concerns over whether the vote would be free and fair.

José Martínez, a 23-year-old shoe shop caretaker from the working-class neighbourhood of Petare, said he was voting for Maduro. “I served [in the army] and during that time the president helped me a lot. He helped my family and I cannot let him die,” Martínez said.

Maduro, who was elected after Chávez’s premature death from cancer and returned to office in a widely criticized 2018 election boycotted by the opposition, voiced confidence as he visited his late leader’s tomb in Caracas to lay a wreath before dawn on Sunday.

Wearing a pink guayabera and flanked by the first lady, Cilia Flores, Maduro compared the election – which was timed to coincide with what would have been Chávez’s 70th birthday – to one of the most famous military showdowns in Venezuela’s struggle for independence from Spain. “This is our Battle of Carabobo and we are heading straight for victory,” he declared, dedicating his campaign to Chávez, under whom he served as foreign minister and vice-president. “This victory is yours, comandante!” Maduro added on X.

A few hours later, after voting, Maduro addressed reporters wearing a tracksuit top stamped with the colours of the country critics accuse him of destroying. “I am certain that everything will work out well and that tomorrow will be a beautiful day,” the 61-year-old said.

But there was tension and nervousness on Sunday night as citizens waited for an official announcement about the vote from the pro-Maduro election authority. It was not clear when those results will be announced.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay said they were closely following events in Venezuela and believed it was crucial that the results represented the popular will of Venezuelan voters.

The US vice-president Kamala Harris tweeted: “The United States stands with the people of Venezuela who expressed their voice in today’s historic presidential election. The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected.”

Japanese and US defense chiefs, as well as top diplomats, agreed to further bolster their military cooperation by upgrading the command and control of US forces in the east Asian country and strengthening American-licensed missile production there, describing the rising threat from China as “the greatest strategic challenge.”

US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, joined their Japanese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Minoru Kihara, at the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee in Tokyo – known as “2+2” security talks – where they reaffirmed their bilateral alliance in the wake of President Joe Biden ’s withdrawal from the November presidential race.

The talks took place in the run up to the Quad meeting of foreign ministers from Australia, Japan, the US and India.

Japan is home to more than 50,000 US troops, but the commander for the US Forces Japan (USFJ) headquartered in Yokota in the western suburbs of Tokyo, has no commanding authority. Instead, instructions come from the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) in Hawaii. The new plans will give the USFJ greater capability while still reporting to INDOPACOM.

The command upgrade “will be the most significant change to the US Forces Japan since its creation and one of the strongest improvements in our military ties with Japan in 70 years,” Austin said. “These new operational capabilities and responsibilities will advance our collective deterrence.”

“We are standing at a historic turning point as the rules-based, free and open international order is shaken to the core,” Kamikawa said. “Now is a critical phase when our decision today determines our future.”

Austin, in his opening remarks, said China is “engaging in coercive behaviour, trying to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas, around Taiwan and throughout the region,” adding that North Korea’s nuclear program and its deepening cooperation with Russia “threaten regional and global security.”

In a joint statement issued after the talks, the ministers said China’s foreign policy “seeks to reshape the international order for its own benefit at the expense of others” and that “such behaviour is a serious concern to the alliance and the entire international community and represents the greatest strategic challenge in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.”

China has been at odds with many countries in the Asia-Pacific for years because of its sweeping maritime claims over the crucial South China Sea. It also claims self-governing Taiwan as its territory, and intends to annex it, by force if necessary. In March, Beijing announced a 7.2% increase in its defence budget, already the world’s second-highest behind the United States, marking a massive military expansion.

The ministers said the changes to US command – set for March to be in line with Japan’s own command updates – aimed “to facilitate deeper interoperability and cooperation on joint bilateral operations in peacetime and during contingencies” and enhance intelligence coordination, surveillance, reconnaissance and cybersecurity.

The new US command in Japan will be led by a three-star general, not the four-star sought by Japan, but Austin said “we haven’t ruled that out” and will keep negotiating.

Japan has long suffered from cybersecurity threats that Washington believes are of grave concern. Lately, Japan’s space agency revealed it suffered a series of cyber-attacks, and though sensitive information related to space and defense was not affected, it has triggered worry and pushed the agency to pursue preventive measures.

In a joint statement the ministers reaffirmed the US commitment to “extended deterrence”, which includes atomic weapons – amid nuclear threats from Russia and China. It’s a shift from Japan’s earlier reluctance to openly discuss the sensitive issue, as the world’s only country to have suffered atomic attacks.

Japan has been accelerating its military buildup and has increased joint operations with the US as well as South Korea while trying to strengthen its largely domestic defence industry.

Japan and the US have also been accelerating arms industry cooperation after an April agreement between Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and Biden. The two sides have set up working groups for missile co-production and for the maintenance and repair of US Navy ships and air force aircraft in the region.

In Tokyo on Monday, Blinken was due to meet with counterparts from the Quad, a grouping that is viewed warily by China, for talks expected to focus on maritime security and initiatives to build up cyber defences.

“We all know our region and our world are being reshaped. We all understand we face the most confronting circumstances in our region in decades,” Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong said in opening remarks at the start of the talks.

“We all cherish the region’s peace, stability and prosperity and we all know it is not a given, we all know we can’t take it for granted.”

With Associated Press and Reuters

US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.

In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”

At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as “just plain weird”.

“I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.

The Harris campaign, working to redefine the race with particular attention to the youth vote, including colorizing online HarrisHQ banners lime green after Charli xcx’s “brat” endorsement, has sought to draw attention to Trump’s rally storytelling. Particularly, they have highlighted his frequent but references to fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the Lambs fame as well as the choice between being shocked by a sinking electric boat or being eaten by a shark.

But “weird” is what seems to be sticking, in part as an apparent simplification of warnings about the threat to democracy that Trump poses – which dominated 15 months of Biden’s re-election campaign.

Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz appears to have started the “weird” political trendline. He posted on X, “Say it with me: Weird,” in response to a video of Trump speaking about Lecter. Walz later followed up with “these guys are weird” to describe Trump and Vance.

During a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Walz was asked if “weird” had replaced existential threat to democracy as a more effective attack strategy. The retired high school educator and football coach replied: “It’s an observation because being a schoolteacher I see a lot of things.”

Walz added that a second Trump presidency could indeed put women’s lives at risk over reproductive rights after three of his US supreme court appointees helped eliminate federal abortion rights in 2022. He also said Trump could end other constitutional liberties – but musing about his embodiment of a threat to democracy “gives him way too much power,” Walz argued.

“Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and whatever crazy thing pops into his mind,” Walz said.

“I think we give him way too much credit. If you just ratchet down some of the scariness and just name it what it is. Have you seen the guy laugh? It seems very weird to me that an adult can go through six-and-a-half years of being in the public eye and when he laughs it’s at someone – not with them.”

“That’s very weird behavior,” Walz explained on State of the Union. “I don’t think you call it anything else. It’s simply what we’re observing.”

The US transport secretary Pete Buttigieg, also an outside contender for Harris’ vice president pick, tried a slightly amended line, telling Fox News that Trump is “clearly older and stranger than when America first got to know him”.

The 78-year-old Trump’s campaign, he added, has maintained its candidate “is strong as an ox, leaps tall buildings in … bounds, but we don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side”.

“I’m pretty sure voters are worried about the age and acuity of president Trump compared to Kamala Harris, who represents being a generation younger,” Buttigieg said. “And how could anybody not watch the stuff he’s saying, the rambling on the trail, and not be just a little bit concerned?”

The new Democratic line on Trump comes after several days of criticism aimed at Vance not only about the “childless cat” lady comment – but also because of reportedly resurfaced comments calling Trump “morally reprehensible” and expressing his hatred for police officers, who generally enjoy the support of Republicans.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer described Vance’s selection as an “incredibly bad choice” to CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, adding that the Ohio Republican senator “seems to be more erratic and more extreme than President Trump”.

“I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there scratching his head and wondering, why did I pick this guy? The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats,” Schumer said.

The discursions come as a new ABC News/Ipsos poll on Sunday found that Harris’ favorability rating had jumped to 43% from 35% a week earlier. It found a major jump in her favorability rating among electorally crucial independent voters, with 44% saying they viewed her favorably compared to 28% the previous week.

Also significant is the 59-year-old Harris’s numbers within the swing group of “double haters” – voters who liked neither Biden nor Trump. Within that group, the number who liked neither candidate has dropped from 15% to 7%.

Thousands of firefighters continued to battle the Park fire in northern California which, propelled by extreme fire weather conditions, has become the state’s seventh-largest on record after burning for less than a week.

The Park fire, about 90 miles (144km) north of the state capital of Sacramento, had more than doubled in size in a 24-hour span to burn upwards of 350,000 acres (141640 hectares) – an area about the size of Los Angeles – and stretched over four counties: Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire.

“This fire is surprising a lot of people with its explosive growth,” said Jay Tracy, a spokesperson at the Park fire headquarters. “It is kind of unparalleled.”

Cooler temperatures and more humid air were expected in the region, potentially helping efforts to slow the spread of the fire, which was 12% contained as of Sunday morning. Authorities had reassessed the damage the blaze has caused and reported that 66 structures have been destroyed and thousands more remain under threat; however no deaths have been reported.

“Unfortunately, that number will probably go up,” Tracy said. “Each day that number has potential to grow – our teams obviously don’t do damage inspections when there is active fire in an area.”

The Park fire’s intensity and rapid spread led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the disastrous Camp fire in 2018, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 11,000 homes and became the deadliest fire in California’s history. Paradise was once again under evacuation orders as were several other communities in each of the four counties.

Jeremy Pierce, Cal Fire operations section chief, had some good news for the area, saying around midday that the Park fire’s southernmost front, which is closest to Paradise, was “looking really good”, with crews focusing on mopping up the area over the next three days. He also said they don’t expect it to move farther into Chico, a city of about 100,000 people just west of Paradise.

Joe Biden has been briefed on the fire and has directed his team to do everything possible to support efforts to fight it, a White House official said.

Gavin Newsom made an emergency declaration for the counties of Plumas, Butte and Tehama as thousands of residents were fleeing their homes.

“We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires,” the California governor said in a statement.

More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 sq miles (7,250 sq km) were burning in the US on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with the climate crisis increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions.

The Park fire was caused by arson after authorities say a man identified as Ronnie Dean Stout was seen pushing a burning car into a ravine near Chico on Wednesday, according to the Sacramento Bee. Police said they arrested him Thursday after he fled the scene with others as the fire spread.

Stout remained in the Butte county jail on Saturday and was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.

The fire was the largest of dozens of active blazes across the country that have burned more than 2m acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

In Oregon, several fires were burning, including the Durkee fire, which had scorched more than 288,000 acres in the eastern part of the state, authorities said.

A firefighter died after a single-engine tanker crashed near the Falls fire in south-eastern Oregon, the US Forest Service said in a statement on Friday.

Thousands of firefighters continued to battle the Park fire in northern California which, propelled by extreme fire weather conditions, has become the state’s seventh-largest on record after burning for less than a week.

The Park fire, about 90 miles (144km) north of the state capital of Sacramento, had more than doubled in size in a 24-hour span to burn upwards of 350,000 acres (141640 hectares) – an area about the size of Los Angeles – and stretched over four counties: Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire.

“This fire is surprising a lot of people with its explosive growth,” said Jay Tracy, a spokesperson at the Park fire headquarters. “It is kind of unparalleled.”

Cooler temperatures and more humid air were expected in the region, potentially helping efforts to slow the spread of the fire, which was 12% contained as of Sunday morning. Authorities had reassessed the damage the blaze has caused and reported that 66 structures have been destroyed and thousands more remain under threat; however no deaths have been reported.

“Unfortunately, that number will probably go up,” Tracy said. “Each day that number has potential to grow – our teams obviously don’t do damage inspections when there is active fire in an area.”

The Park fire’s intensity and rapid spread led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the disastrous Camp fire in 2018, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 11,000 homes and became the deadliest fire in California’s history. Paradise was once again under evacuation orders as were several other communities in each of the four counties.

Jeremy Pierce, Cal Fire operations section chief, had some good news for the area, saying around midday that the Park fire’s southernmost front, which is closest to Paradise, was “looking really good”, with crews focusing on mopping up the area over the next three days. He also said they don’t expect it to move farther into Chico, a city of about 100,000 people just west of Paradise.

Joe Biden has been briefed on the fire and has directed his team to do everything possible to support efforts to fight it, a White House official said.

Gavin Newsom made an emergency declaration for the counties of Plumas, Butte and Tehama as thousands of residents were fleeing their homes.

“We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires,” the California governor said in a statement.

More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 sq miles (7,250 sq km) were burning in the US on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with the climate crisis increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions.

The Park fire was caused by arson after authorities say a man identified as Ronnie Dean Stout was seen pushing a burning car into a ravine near Chico on Wednesday, according to the Sacramento Bee. Police said they arrested him Thursday after he fled the scene with others as the fire spread.

Stout remained in the Butte county jail on Saturday and was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.

The fire was the largest of dozens of active blazes across the country that have burned more than 2m acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

In Oregon, several fires were burning, including the Durkee fire, which had scorched more than 288,000 acres in the eastern part of the state, authorities said.

A firefighter died after a single-engine tanker crashed near the Falls fire in south-eastern Oregon, the US Forest Service said in a statement on Friday.

• Russia said on Sunday its forces had captured two villages in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Progres and Yevgenivka, a few kilometres apart, as they push towards the city of Pokrovsk, northwest of the regional capital. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged Kyiv’s forces were under pressure in the region during his evening address on Sunday. “It is extremely challenging in the Donetsk directions, and it is in the Pokrovsk direction that there have been the biggest number of Russian assaults these weeks – the most intense enemy attacks are precisely there,” he said.

• Kyiv launched more than two dozen drones on the Russian region of Kursk in several waves of attacks that started Saturday night and damaged an oil depot, the acting governor of the region that borders Ukraine said late on Sunday.
  At least 13 drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems late on Sunday, Andrei Smirnov, the governor, said on the Telegram messaging app. That follows 19 drones destroyed over the region during the day, he said. Firefighters were still trying to put out an oil depot fire in the region, sparked by Ukraine’s drone attack Saturday night, he added.

• Vladimir Putin has warned the US that if Washington deploys long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 as planned, Russia will station similar missiles within striking distance of the west. In a speech on Sunday to sailors from Russia, China, Algeria and India in St Petersburg, Putin said: “The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes. We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”

• Ukrainians urged their government to do more to get Russia to release prisoners of war, voicing their anger on Sunday at a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50. Several thousand soldiers and civilians gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square to commemorate the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 Ukrainians that Russia was holding in the Olenivka prison barracks. “I was there in Olenivka. I was rocked by the explosion,” said Sgt. Kyrylo Masalitin, who was later released. “Never before have I felt so helpless. And those still in captivity feel that helplessness every day. They must know that we have done everything we can do to get them released.”

• Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Ukraine in August, various Indian media outlets have reported in recent days, which would be his first visit to the country since Russia invaded in February 2022 and would come just weeks after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had expressed unhappiness and disappointment with Modi’s visit to Russia. India has refrained from directly criticising Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, while urging the two nations to resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

• Russia’s state-run Tass news agency said the Olympic organising committee revoked accreditations for four of its journalists in Paris on Sunday and that the committee attributed the move to a decision by French authorities but gave Moscow no further explanation. French interior minister Gérald Darmanin’s office declined to comment on the case but noted that decisions to withdraw accreditation lie with the Games’ organiser, Paris 2024, based on information provided by the government.

Sinéad O’Connor died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and bronchial asthma, her death certificate has confirmed.

The news was first reported on Sunday by the Irish Independent, one year after the Irish artist and activist’s death at age 56.

O’Connor’s first husband and close friend, John Reynolds, registered the death certificate in London last Wednesday.

The document noted that O’Connor died from “exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection”.

O’Connor died on 26 July last year in her south London home, where police found her “unresponsive”. At the time, they said they did not treat her death as suspicious.

In January, a coroner determined that she died of natural causes.

During her three-decade career, O’Connor had a global hit with her 1990 cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U – a track which propelled her into the spotlight, sometimes against her wishes.

In the public eye, she became known as an outspoken activist – including, famously, for ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul II during a Saturday Night Live performance in 1992.

Her death drew an outpouring of tributes from friends, peers, collaborators and public figures.

Ireland’s taoiseach at the time, Leo Varadkar, said: “Her music was loved around the world and her talent was unmatched and beyond compare.”

O’Connor’s death came 18 months after her 17-year-old son, Shane, died after going missing. She is survived by her three living children.

• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

The number of plastic bags washed up on UK beaches has fallen by 80% over a decade, since a mandatory fee was imposed on shoppers who opt to pick up single-use carrier bags at the checkout.

According to the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) annual litter survey, volunteers found an average of one plastic bag every 100 metres of coastline surveyed last year, compared to an average of five carrier bags every 100 metres in 2014.

The charity, which has monitored beach litter for the past three decades, said the drop was undoubtedly due to the introduction of mandatory charges, which can range from 5p to 25p, for single-use plastic bags.

Lizzie Price, Beachwatch programme manager at MCS, said: “It is brilliant to see policies on single-use plastics such as carrier bags working.”

Large retailers in Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England have been required to charge for single-use plastic bags by laws introduced in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively. The charge was increased from 5p to 10p in 2021 for England and Scotland and is 25p in Northern Ireland. Wales, where the minimum charge remains 5p, has said it will ban the bags altogether by 2026.

Price urged the devolved UK governments to push forward with their policies to charge for, ban or reduce more single-use items, and take action such as speeding up the proposed deposit scheme for plastic bottles, cans and glass. All four UK nations have been working together to try to agree a joint approach to the scheme, which has now been delayed until 2027.

“We must move quicker towards a society that repairs, reuses and recycles,” said Price.

The number of plastic bags found along the coastline began to dramatically drop across the UK in 2015, according to the charity. In Scotland, the average number found was 11 per 100 metres in 2014, but had dropped to six in 2015, a year after the charge was introduced.

The MCS’s 2023 beach litter report, which included 1,199 separate surveys, found that 97% of beaches had drinks-related litter, such as bottle and cans. It found 4,684 plastic bags.

The society’s beach cleaning effort takes place all year round, but it collects a third of its data during its Great British Beach Clean events. Last year, thousands of volunteers found that drinks-related litter had increased by 14% in Scotland and 7% in England, compared with 2022. Overall, it recorded a 1.2 % increase in plastic litter across the UK, with an average of 167 items per 100 metres.

The most common five items found were plastic pieces measuring 2.5-30cm, packets such as crisp and sandwich wrappers, caps and lids, plastic string and cord, and plastic bottles and containers.

More than 100 litter-picks have been organised for this year’s Great British Beach Clean, which will take place 20-29 September on shores from Bude in Cornwall to Aikerness in the Orkney Islands.

Princess Leia’s famous gold bikini worn by the late Carrie Fisher in Star Wars has sold at auction for $175,000 (£136,000, A$266,000).

The costume, made famous from the 1983 film Return of the Jedi when Fisher’s character wore it while chained to Jabba the Hutt’s throne, was bought at a sale by Heritage Auctions on Friday in the US.

The seven-piece ensemble, which includes a bikini brassiere, bikini plates, hip rings, an armlet and bracelet, was designed by the late Richard Miller, the chief sculptor for Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas.

A miniature aircraft from the first Star Wars film, A New Hope, also sold for US$1.55m (£1.2m, A$2.36m) at the auction. The miniature Y-Wing Starfighter, which helped bring down the Death Star in A New Hope, was one of only two miniatures created for the production.

It was designed by US artist Colin Cantwell, after Lucas gave the direction that he wanted the film’s aircraft to have “distinct shapes so that the audience could immediately tell whether a ship was a ‘good guy’ or ‘a bad guy’”, according to Heritage Auctions.

The Hollywood auction also included a movie poster from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Bob Peak, which sold for $106,250; a Thor hammer from Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, which sold for $81,250; and a Mandalorian helmet, bought for $40,000.

The wand used by Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban sold for $52,000, while an outfit worn by Macauley Culkin in the first Home Alone film sold for $47,500.

Princess Leia’s costume has become one of the most famous costumes in film history. It last sold for $96,000 at a Star Wars memorabilia auction in 2015.

Fisher, who shared her strong feelings about the costume over the years, revealed in 2016 that she thought Lucas was “kidding” when he first showed her the bikini, saying she felt “nearly naked, which is not a style choice for me … It wasn’t my choice.”

Miller added soft material to the costume so that Fisher would be more comfortable in it. “However, she still didn’t like it. I don’t blame her,” he once said in an interview. “I did put leather on the back of it to help it feel better.”