Five more Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in a second day of raids in the occupied West Bank, with the UN calling for de-escalation.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were “five terrorists who had hidden inside a mosque” in Tulkarm, near the boundary with Israel.

Israel began what it said was a major counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank on Wednesday. There have been conflicting death tolls as the operation unfolded across multiple cities.

The IDF said yesterday that nine militants had been killed, five in Jenin and Tulkarm, and four in al-Faraa refugee camp. The Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday that 12 people had been killed in IDF attacks so far.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to immediately halt its operation, saying it was “fuelling an already explosive situation”.

He urged Israeli forces to “exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when it is strictly unavoidable”.

The IDF said the five Palestinians were killed after “exchanges of fire” in Tulkarm.

It identified one of the fatalities as Mohammed Jaber – also known as Abu Shujaa – who was reportedly the local leader of the Tulkarem Brigade, which is backed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.

The IDF said Jaber was linked to a number of attacks on Israelis, and was planning more.

Elsewhere, in Jenin, ambulances are stopped and checked by military jeeps parked around the government hospital as security forces continue their operation in the city’s refugee camp.

The camp is a base for armed groups, as well as a home to unarmed civilians, and has been the scene of many fierce gun battles in the past.

There’s little news coming out from the camp at the moment, with Israeli forces blocking access and Palestinian phone networks down.

Residents, medics and journalists have been trying to read the situation inside from the occasional explosions and bursts of gunfire heard since last night.

One person inside told the BBC that it appears calm at the moment, and they can hear drones buzzing overhead.

It is the second day of what Israeli media say could be a days-long operation in the West Bank.

The Israeli military said it had made arrests and seized weapons.

Homes and infrastructure were damaged in the attacks, Palestinians said.

It is the largest such action in the West Bank since the days of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, two decades ago.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the operation has a “clear goal: preventing Iranian terror-by-proxy that would harm Israeli civilians”.

In recent days Israeli politicians have accused Iran – which backs both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – of trying to smuggle in explosive devices with the aim of attacking Israel.

Israel “cannot sit idly by and wait for the spectacle of buses and cafes exploding in city centres”, Mr Danon said in a post on X.

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, and the subsequent war in Gaza.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Israel’s operation in the West Bank “must not constitute the premises of a war extension from Gaza”.

Elsewhere on Thursday, Mr Borrell said he was starting the process of asking EU members if they want to impose sanctions on “some Israeli ministers”.

He accused the ministers – who he has not named – of “launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law”.

The son of a renowned Spanish actor has been jailed for life after he killed and dismembered a man on the southern Thai island of Koh Phangan last year.

Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, the son of television star Rodolfo Sancho Aguirre, claimed he killed Colombian plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga in self-defence. He pleaded guilty to the murder in August 2023.

At the time, Sancho, now 30, told Spanish news agency EFE he had been a “hostage” to Arrieta, who he said was obsessed with him.

The case has generated a huge amount of interest in Spain, with scores of Spanish reporters flying to Thailand for the trial.

Sancho was found guilty of premeditated murder, concealing a corpse, and destruction of property.

A court on nearby island Koh Samui, where the case was heard, initially issued a death sentence for murder, but this was commuted to life imprisonment after taking into account his cooperation during the trial.

Sancho, a chef who has his own YouTube channel, was also ordered to pay 4 million baht ($118,000; £89,000) in damages to Arrieta’s family.

Bussakorn Kaewleeled, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said they were satisfied with the outcome.

“The plaintiff is satisfied with the sentence because he (Sancho) will be put in prison for life and they (the plaintiff) receive some financial compensation,” Bussakorn told reporters outside the court on the island of Koh Samui, AFP news agency reported.

Police discovered parts of Arrieta’s body at a landfill in Koh Phangan in early August last year.

Around the same time, Sancho went to the police to report that Arrieta, then 44, was missing.

Sancho admitted to killing Arrieta upon further questioning.

Thai media reported last year that investigations had shown that Sancho had bought, among other things, a knife, rubber gloves and a bottle of cleaning agent – leading police to conclude the murder was premeditated.

Sancho later led police to seven sites around the island, where he disposed of Arrieta’s dismembered body in plastic bags.

Reports said that Sancho and Arrieta had agreed to meet after getting to know each other online.

The defence argued that Sancho acted in self-defence after Arrieta tried to force him to have sex. Sancho said the plastic surgeon “tried to rape [him]”, in a statement published by Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

Sancho hails from a family of actors. His mother is the actress Silvia Bronchalo, while his grandfather is the late actor Félix Ángel Sancho Gracia.

At least 28 people have died and more than 24,000 have been relocated in the western Indian state of Gujarat since Sunday after heavy rains led to massive flooding.

Several rivers and reservoirs are overflowing as water levels have crossed the danger mark, officials said.

The Indian army and national disaster response teams are carrying out relief and rescue operations in the worst-hit areas.

The state is on high alert as the weather department has predicted heavy rains to continue over the next few days.

Gujarat regularly witnesses severe floods during the monsoon season – in 2017, more than 200 people died in floods triggered by unrelenting rain.

According to a government report, many parts of Gujarat are vulnerable to floods because major rivers “pass through a wide stretch of the very flat terrain before reaching the sea”.

Photos showed flooded streets and overflowing rivers. In some places, stranded people had to be rescued in helicopters.

Transport services have been disrupted in several parts and as many as 48 trains in the state were cancelled on Wednesday.

Villages and towns in the Saurashtra region have been worst-affected as they received non-stop rain for nearly 48 hours.

Several farmers told BBC Gujarati that the downpour had caused extensive damage to crops like cotton and groundnut.

Weather officials expect the heavy rains to start tapering off by 1 September as the deep depression in the Arabian Sea shifts towards Pakistan.

An incident which saw two women lock a crying toddler in an aeroplane toilet has sparked an online debate in China on how to manage children in public spaces.

The incident went viral on the Chinese internet after one of the two women, Gou Tingting, posted a video of herself carrying the girl inside the cubicle.

In her post, she presented herself as trying to help others on board, but was swiftly met with backlash.

The airline later said that the girl’s grandmother had given the two women permission to “educate her”.

The incident took place on 24 August onboard a Juneyao Airlines flight from the southwestern city of Guiyang to Shanghai.

The toddler, who was travelling with her grandmother, had started crying during the flight.

The airline said in a statement two days after the incident that the girl’s grandmother had agreed to let two women take the girl to the toilet.

A video posted by Ms Gou on Chinese social media reportedly showed the other woman telling the girl she could leave the cubicle only if she stopped crying.

Local media reports say she was a one-year-old, though the airline has not given that detail.

Shortly after she posted the video, backlash was swift, with many criticising Ms Gou for lacking empathy and “bullying” the child.

Responding to the criticism, Ms Gou said she “prefers to take action rather than be a bystander”.

“I just wanted to calm the child down and let everyone rest,” she wrote on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok.

She also explained that some passengers had “moved to the back of the plane to escape the noise” while others stuffed tissue papers into their ears.

Ms Gou’s account has since been set to private.

“Children cannot control their emotions when they are one or two years old. What’s wrong with crying? Didn’t you cry when you were young too?” one user wrote on Weibo.

Another was concerned about the psychological impact on the girl, saying: “We should be thinking about how public spaces can better accept and accommodate young children.”

But there were some who defended the women, saying their actions were justified as the girl’s grandmother had given her consent.

“To be honest, some children cannot do without some education,” a Weibo user wrote.

There has been growing debate over how to manage what China calls “bear children” – spoilt young kids who kick up a fuss in public spaces such as by screaming or damaging public property.

The use of the word “bear” in this instance suggests some people in China think some children can act in a feral way.

Some public trains have started operating separate compartments for children.

There are mixed views on this elsewhere in the world. South Korea, for example, has designated hundreds of children-free zones in restaurants, museums and theatres.

Lawmakers have called on the government to get rid of these zones, citing the need to recreate a society which are more accepting of children – especially as the country is wrestling with a low birth rate.

Global airlines, including Turkish-Dutch carrier Corendon Airlines and Singapore-based Scoot, offer the option for passengers to pay more to be seated in a child-free zone.

Two journalists who led a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong have been found guilty of sedition.

Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, two editors at the now-defunct Stand News media outlet, could now face a maximum jail term of two years.

This is the first sedition case against journalists in Hong Kong since the territory’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.

Rights groups have condemned the verdict, with Reporters without Borders calling on Hong Kong to “stop its nefarious campaign against press freedom”.

In a written statement, district court judge Kwok Wai-kin said that Stand News had become a “danger to national security”.

Their newspaper’s editorial line supported “Hong Kong local autonomy”, he added.

“It even became a tool to smear and vilify the Central Authorities [in Beijing] and the [Hong Kong] SAR Government,” he said in a written judgement.

Both journalists were charged under a colonial-era sedition law – which until recently had been rarely used by prosecutors – rather than the controversial national security law (NSL).

They are due to be sentenced later on in September.

Stand News was among a handful of relatively new online news portals that especially gained prominence during the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

But since the introduction of the NSL in 2020, a host of media outlets have closed in Hong Kong.

Critics says the law effectively reduces Hong Kong’s judicial autonomy and made it easier to punish demonstrators and activists.

Stand News was among the last openly pro-democratic publications until its closure in December 2021, when more than 200 police officers were sent to raid the publication’s office.

Seven employees arrested and accused of a “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”, which included interviews with pro-democracy activists.

Hong Kong’s current chief executive John Lee supported the police operation at the time, calling those arrested the “evil elements that damage press freedom”.

The case has drawn international scrutiny and condemnation from western countries.

The United States has repeatedly condemned the prosecutions of journalists in Hong Kong, saying that the case against the both editors “creates a chilling effect on others in the press and media”.

The former British colony has seen its standing in press freedom rankings plummet from 18th place to 135th over the past two decades, according to the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

On Thursday, their Asia-Pacific director called the judgement an “appalling verdict [that] sets a very dangerous precedent for journalists”.

“From now on, anyone reporting on facts that are not in line with the authorities’ official narrative could be sentenced for sedition,” said Cédric Alviani in a statement.

“We renew our call on Hong Kong’s authorities to end the continued judicial harassment against two journalists and stop its nefarious campaign against press freedom.”

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has banned mixed martial arts (MMA), saying it is incompatibile with Islamic law.

An official from the Taliban’s sports authority, speaking to local broadcaster TOLOnews on Tuesday, said that MMA was too violent and posed a risk of death.

The order was passed down by Afghanistan’s morality police in the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

It comes after an investigation into the sport’s compliance with Islamic law, or Sharia.

“It was found that the sport is problematic with respect to Sharia and it has many aspects which are contradictory to the teachings of Islam,” the Taliban’s General Directorate on Physical Education and Sport said in a statement sent to the AFP news agency.

“That’s why this decision has been made.”

MMA is a popular sport among young people in Afghanistan, and garnered a passionate local fan base in the two decades leading up to the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

The Mixed Martial Arts Federation was founded in 2008, while the Afghanistan Fighting Championship (AFC) and Truly Grand Fighting Championship (TGFC) held dozens of fights.

Although it does not seem to have been specifically named in official decrees, MMA has been under severe pressure ever since the Taliban took over.

Competitions were effectively outlawed in 2021 when the Taliban introduced legislation prohibiting “face-punching”.

Some fighters also complained of threats and harassment from Taliban officials, according to interviews published in MMA publications.

Yet the authorities did appear to soften their stance on some occasions.

In 2022, leading fighter Ahmad Wali Hotak was able to hold a press conference in the capital Kabul to announce an upcoming fight, which he won in Russia.

On his return to Afghanistan, he was met by government figures who posed for photographs.

Most competitors, however, had long left the country before this latest announcement.

MMA has not yet been recognised by the International Olympic Committee, primarily due to safety concerns.

Four of the 11 Afghan who competed in sports at the Paris Games, on either the national or the Refugee Olympic teams, were originally martial arts athletes.

A $8.5bn (£6.43bn) merger between Disney and Reliance Industries has been provisionally approved by the India’s competition watchdog.

The venture, in which billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries will have majority stake, will create India’s biggest entertainment player which will compete with Sony, Netflix and Amazon.

The joint venture will enjoy broadcasting rights for a majority of India’s sports events, including coveted cricket tournaments.

The merger is expected to be completed in the next six months and will be chaired by Mr Ambani’s wife, Nita Ambani, according to reports.

The deal is “subject to the compliance of voluntary modifications”, India’s competition watchdog said in a press release on Wednesday.

It had previously raised concerns about the control this merger would grant the two companies over broadcasting rights for cricket, the country’s most popular sport with a massive fan base.

Streaming services offered by Disney and Reliance have been attracting Indian subscribers for years by providing free livestreams of cricket matches.

According to Reuters news agency, the two companies have spent $9.5bn on TV and streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL), T20 World Cups and matches held by the International Cricket Council.

The competition watchdog had raised concerns that the new entity could increase advertising prices for these matches.

However, the two companies have reportedly pledged not to raise advertising rates excessively for cricket match streams.

They have also said they would sell seven to eight of their non-sports TV channels to balance out revenues, a source told Reuters.

With the merger, the two companies will also have Indian broadcast rights for the Wimbledon, MotoGP and the English Premier League or EPL.

The deal “creates a huge digital entertainment giant”, Gurmeet Chadha, managing partner of financial consultant Complete Circle, told CNBC-TV18 news channel.

“They have the content muscle and their tech capabilities are well-known. They have the reach in terms of distribution. They have the relative analytics and insight into what content is consumed where,” he said.

In a country with 1.4bn people and 90% internet penetration, “this has huge, huge long-term implications,” he added.

Japan has issued its highest level alert to more than five million people after the country was hit by one of its strongest typhoons in decades.

At least four people have been killed and more than 90 injured after Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in the country’s south-west. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without power.

The level five order issued in parts of the southern island of Kyushu told residents to take immediate life-saving action by moving to a safer location or seeking shelter higher in their homes. In other areas, people have been advised to leave.

After making landfall, the typhoon weakened to a severe tropical storm and is pummelling its way north-east, bringing torrential rain and severe disruption to transport services.

Shanshan landed in Kagoshima prefecture, in the southern island of Kyushu, at around 08:00 local time on Thursday (23:00 GMT Wednesday), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

It has left a trail of destruction in its wake, with many buildings damaged and windows shattered by flying debris, trees uprooted and cars overturned.

Late on Tuesday, three people from the same family – a couple in their 70s and a man in his 30s – were killed by a landslide in central Japan ahead of the typhoon’s arrival. Their home in Gamagori was swept away, while two other female relatives were rescued.

A fourth person was confirmed dead by police on Thursday. The 80-year-old man from Tokushima prefecture was trapped after the roof of a house collapsed about 17:30 local time (08:30 GMT), according to Japan’s national broadcaster NHK.

The fire brigade rescued the man around 50 minutes after the incident but he later died in hospital. The JMA recorded 110mm of rainfall in the area around the time of the incident.

The agency has issued its rare “special warning” for the most violent storms, warning of landslides, flooding and large-scale damage. High winds of up to 252 km/h (157mph) have been reported on Kyushu.

Most of the evacuation orders are in place for the southern island, but some were also issued for central Japan.

Videos online show large trees swaying, tiles blown off houses, and debris being thrown into the air as heavy rains lashed the island.

Major carmakers like Toyota and Nissan shut down their plants, citing the safety of employees as well as potential parts shortages caused by the storm.

Hundreds of flights to and from southern Japan have been cancelled, with some high-speed train services have also been suspended.

JMA expects the storm to move across Japan over the weekend before it reaches the capital Tokyo.

Special typhoon warnings, like the one issued for Shanshan, are declared in Japan in cases of extraordinarily powerful storms. The same warning was issued in September 2022 as Typhoon Nanmadol approached Kyushu – the first such warning declared for a region other than Okinawa.

Shanshan comes in the wake of Typhoon Ampil earlier this month, which caused only minor injuries and damage but still disrupted hundreds of flights and trains.

Before that, northern parts of Japan saw record rainfall when Tropical Storm Maria hit Honshu island.

Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released last month.

The CIA says the suspects in the foiled plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna wanted to kill “a huge number” of people at the event.

The intelligence provided by the agency to Austrian authorities allowed them to disrupt the plot and save “hundreds of lives” , CIA’s deputy director David Cohen said on Wednesday.

Mr Cohen highlighted that there were “tens of thousands of people at this concert, I am sure many Americans”. He added that the suspects’ plans were “advanced”.

Three male teenage suspects were arrested in connection with the foiled attacks, allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group.

Speaking at an annual intelligence summit outside Washington, DC, Mr Cohen said the day of the arrests was a “good day for Langley”, referring to the CIA headquarters. “And not just for Swifties in the office.”

“The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do,” Mr Cohen said.

He did not disclose how his agency had learned about the plot.

Some 200,000 people had been expected to attend one of Swift’s three Vienna concerts, part of the European swing of her multi-continent Eras tour.

On 7 August, the day before the first show, concert organisers announced the shows would be scrapped after a warning about a “planned terrorist attack” from government officials.

• Taylor Swift says she felt ‘fear’ over Vienna attack threat
• Two held in Vienna over Taylor Swift concert threat
• Defiant Swifties take to streets after Vienna plot

Earlier that day, Austrian authorities arrested two of the suspects. The third was arrested two days later.

Authorities said the main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian citizen, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and had focused on the Eras tour as a target.

He hoped to “kill as many people as possible”, authorities said.

Last week, for the first time, Swift commented publicly on the planned attack, writing on Instagram that having to cancel the Vienna shows was “devastating”.

“The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows,” she wrote. “But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”

Swift performed eight concerts at Wembley this summer, overtaking a record for any solo singer, which was previously set by Michael Jackson in 1988.

Her next show as part of The Eras Tour is scheduled for 18 October in Miami, Florida.

The chief executive of Aricell, a South Korean lithium battery company, has been arrested over a massive factory fire in June that killed 23 people and injured nine others.

A court approved the warrant for Park Soon-kwan’s arrest on Wednesday.

Investigators have said Aricell’s management is suspected of workplace safety violations. The fire was one of South Korea’s worst factory disasters in recent years.

Aricells’ parent company, S-Connect, did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

After the fire Mr Park issued an apology: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and would like to express our deepest condolences and apologies to the bereaved families.”

“We take great responsibility and will sincerely provide support to the deceased and their families in every way possible,” he added.

His arrest comes after a police investigation found that the factory had been rushing to meet production deadlines.

Investigators said there were a number of safety issues at the plant, including a failure to address quality defects in batteries and hiring unskilled staff to handle dangerous materials.

It was also alleged that Aricell had been cheating in quality inspections related to contracts with the military.

The blaze broke out on 24 June after several battery cells exploded.

At the time of the fire, the Aricell factory housed an estimated 35,000 battery cells on its second floor, where batteries were inspected and packaged.

As a lithium fire can react intensely with water, firefighters had to use dry sand to extinguish the blaze, which took several hours to get under control.

The victims were mostly foreign workers, from country’s including China and Laos.

South Korea is a leading producer of lithium batteries, which are used in many items from electric cars to laptops.

South Korean singer Taeil has left the K-pop band NCT after being accused of an unspecified sexual crime, his label announced on Wednesday.

The 30-year-old’s agency, SM Entertainment, released a statement on X, saying the NCT member will depart from the boy band after learning he has been “accused in a criminal case related to a sexual crime”.

The label did not specify the nature of the alleged crime but said it “recognised the seriousness of the situation” and decided Taeil, whose legal name is Moon Tae-il, can no longer “continue his activities with the team”.

Taeil has not publicly commented on the allegations.

SM Entertainment added that he is fully cooperating with the police investigation.

“We will provide further statements as the investigation progresses,” the statement, which was posted in Korean and translated by Associated Press, said.

The Bangbae Police Station in Seoul announced it was investigating Taeil in relation to a sexual crime, according to South Korean media.

The BBC was unable to reach police for comment.

Taeil was part of NCT, or Neo Culture Technology, a globally popular South Korean boy band that debuted in 2016.

The group currently has over two dozen members divided into several subunits, including NCT 127, NCT Dream, and NCT Wish.

Taeil was recently active in NCT 127.

On 15 August last year, Taeil got into a car accident in downtown Seoul, in South Korea, while travelling on his motorcycle.

He temporarily suspended his schedules to focus on treatment and recovery.

Known for experimental music spanning various genres, NCT has gained international attention with some releases charting on Billboard lists.

K-pop originated from South Korea and is an amalgamation of pop, R&B and hip-hop.

It has grown into a global phenomenon, particularly after the success of the boy band BTS in the late 2010s.

Swedish pop superstars Abba have complained after their hits like The Winner Takes it All were played at one of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign rallies.

The group’s songs and videos, also including Money, Money, Money and Dancing Queen, were also played at the event in Minnesota in July, according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

In a statement to the Reuters news agency, the band’s record label Universal Music said: “Together with the members of Abba, we have discovered that videos have been released where Abba’s music has been used at Trump events, and we have therefore requested that such use be immediately removed and taken down.”

The label said no permission or licence had been granted to Mr Trump’s campaign.

Abba are the latest in a long list of artists or their estates who have objected to Mr Trump using their music to promote his presidential campaign.

Last month, Celine Dion‘s team condemned the “unauthorised” use of a clip of My Heart Will Go On, and the family of late soul singer Isaac Hayes ordered Mr Trump to stop playing Hold On, I’m Coming and demanded $3m (£2.4m) in licensing fees.

In March, the estate of Sinéad O’Connor demanded he stop playing Nothing Compares 2 U, saying she would have been “disgusted, hurt, and insulted”.

Previously, Adele, REM and the Rolling Stones are among the big names who have demanded he doesn’t use their songs.

However, musicians have only had limited success in stopping politicians from using their music.

In the US, campaigns are required to obtain a Political Entities Licence from music rights body BMI, which gives them access to more than 20 million tracks for use in their rallies.

Artists and publishers can ask for their music to be withdrawn from the list, but it seems that organisers rarely check the database to ensure they have clearance.

A manatee and its calf drift underwater in Hunter Springs, Florida.

An algal bloom in the area had caused a decline in the eelgrass beds that provide them with food, but the local community restored the habitat, resulting in more manatees being recorded than ever before.

The photo taken by Dr Jason Gulley, who is also a geologist, is among several highly commended in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

The competition’s winning photographs will be announced on 8 October, followed by an exhibition at the Natural History Museum, showcasing 100 photographs.

Scroll down to hear more from Jason and see some of the other highly commended photographs.

Jason told the BBC in an interview that he doesn’t normally take photos for competitions.

Manatees are large aquatic mammals commonly known as sea cows.

All three manatee species are listed as vulnerable to extinction due to a variety of threats including boat collisions, hunting and habitat destruction.

“The first time I got into the water with manatees, I saw them being super playful with each other. They were curious and inquisitive,” he said.

“There was one manatee that became super curious about me, and he would leave the other group of manatees and walk on his flippers, and he’d get about halfway towards me and then run back to the group on his flippers.

“A couple of minutes later, he’d come just a little bit closer and then go back, and it just reminded me of experiences like at a dog park.”

“I’ve never seen photographs that capture this behaviour,” Jason said. “I went in to get a few pictures for a project on environmental impacts and conservation, but I got obsessed.”

Sasha had been watching these tawny owlets for several days in a park near his home. He had seen tawny owls in the neighbourhood before but was surprised to discover these so close to the heart of the city.

Highly Commended, 10 Years and Under

Location: Maximiliansanlagen, Munich, Germany

Jose saw this stoat jump mid-air as an “expression of exuberance” as the small mammal hurled itself around in a fresh snowfall.

Highly Commended, Behaviour: Mammals

Location: Athose, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France

The radio alerted Ian that a jaguar had been spotted prowling a tributary of the São Lourenço river. Kneeling in the boat, he was in the perfect position when the cat delivered the skull-crushing bite to the unsuspecting yacare caiman.

Highly Commended, Behaviour: Mammals

Location: Pantanal, Mato Grosso, Brazil

During Chinese New Year, Xingchao tracked a group of Pallas’s cats on the frozen plateau of Inner Mongolia. Before dawn, Xingchao made eye contact with this cat, just as it caught a bird.

Category – Highly Commended, Behaviour: Mammals

Location: Hulun Buir, Inner Mongolia, China

As Lam Soon Tak explored the highlands of Malaysia, he came across this spider, Heteropoda davidbowie, named in 2008 by arachnologist and Bowie fan Dr Peter Jägerthe. Perched on broken branches beside a river, its orange body stood out against the lush green moss.

Highly Commended, Behaviour: Invertebrates

Location: Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia

A standout moment on Tamara’s nine-week expedition in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea was when two seals bobbed up to the surface to take a deeper breath after falling asleep alongside the ship.

Highly Commended, Animals in their Environment

Location: Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Mussels bind themselves to rocks or other mussels on the ocean floor using their hair-like ‘beards’, also called byssal threads. Theo likes to take pictures of species that are not considered beautiful or important, to highlight their unappreciated significance.

Highly Commended, Animals in their Environment

Location: Praia da Ursa, Sintra, Portugal

Thomas used his drone to capture this image, which is a stitched panorama of 26 individual frames, to provide a spectacular view of meltwater plunging over the edge of the Bråsvellbreen glacierglacier.

Highly Commended, Oceans: The Bigger Picture

Location: Svalbard, Norway

On the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, Tommy photographed a requiem shark, its body arched in a final act of resistance. He was on a research expedition to document bycatch or accidental capture of sharks by tuna and swordfish fishing boats.

Highly Commended, Oceans: The Bigger Picture

Location: International waters, South Atlantic Ocean

Shreyovi spotted the two Indian peafowl while walking in the forest with her parents.

Runner-Up, 10 Years and Under.

Location: Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan, India

All photos subject to copyright.

You can see Highly Commended photographs from all of the categories at the Natural History Museum website.

Can AI help restaurant owners come up with tasty new menus to tempt customers, or is this just a recipe for disaster?

“We asked [popular AI chatbot] ChatGPT to create a recipe – the best pizza for Dubai,” says Spartak Arutyunyan, who heads menu development for the city’s branch of restaurant and delivery chain Dodo Pizza.

“And it did create a recipe. We launched it, it was actually a huge hit, and it’s still on the menu.”

With 90% of Dubai’s three million people being immigrants, “there’s so many cultures here”, says Mr Arutyunyan. “Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Arab people, European guys.”

He asked ChatGPT to come up with a pizza that represented that cultural mix. Its response was a topping comprising Arab shawarma chicken, Indian grilled paneer cheese, Middle Eastern Za’atar herbs, and tahini sauce.

And Dodo Pizza’s customers apparently cannot get enough of it. “As a chef, I wouldn’t mix these ingredients ever on a pizza, but still, the mix of flavours was surprisingly good,” says Mr Arutyunyan.

Yet other pizzas dreamed up by the AI did not make it to the menu, for example strawberries and pasta, and blueberries and breakfast cereal.

A world away in the US, Venecia Willis conducted a similar AI experiment at Dallas’ Velvet Taco, where she is culinary director.

She became “really curious” about AI, so she let ChatGPT loose on devising one of their tacos of the week.

For prompts, Ms Willis says she told it to “use, like, eight ingredients, and it could only select one tortilla and one protein”.

Some recipe results were rather less than moreish.

“There were some funky combinations, and I was like, I’m not really sure if red curry, coconut tofu and pineapple are going to be delicious together,” says Ms Willis.

But she made three of the recipes that looked more promising, and ultimately chose a prawns and steak taco to go on public sale. They sold 22,000 in a week.

“I think AI is a great tool to use when you’re in a bit of a creative slump, to get the brain going again – ‘that combination might actually work, let’s try it’. The AI can suggest something maybe I wouldn’t have thought of.”

But Ms Willis adds that she “wouldn’t go completely rogue with AI. There has to be a human element to validate recipes.”

Not everyone in the food trade loves the idea of AI though. London-based cocktail creator Julian de Feral says he avoids AI because it “seems very counter-intuitive”, with its choices lacking common sense.

AI chatbots are “not magic”, warns Emily Bender, a linguistics professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says that they have instead learned from what they have read online.

“If you can get ChatGPT to spit out something that looks like a recipe, then it’s because there are recipes on the internet.”

She adds that the AI could have grabbed the recipe from someone’s cookery blog, thereby decreasing their reader numbers, and their ability to make a living from subscriptions or advertising revenue.

However, Prof Bender does concede that in the future more sophisticated AI may be helpful in recipe creation.

She says that the AI could be asked to “categorise ingredients as sweet, or acidic, and so on”, find those that the internet says should taste good together, and then come up with endless detailed recipes. “However, you have to have a well-defined research question [to give the AI] to get that kind of benefit,” she adds.

Still, UK supermarket chain Waitrose is using AI to spot rising food trends on social media. Currently these include “smash burgers” – crispy burgers made by squashing ground beef onto a super-hot pan – and “crookies” – a croissant filled with cookie dough and chocolate chips.

“We saw smash burgers trending all over social media,” says Lizzie Haywood, Waitrose’s innovations manager. “Now three or four dedicated smash burger restaurants opening up in the UK has coincided with us launching our smash burgers.”

As for crookies, she says the AI saw that the mention of them had “jumped 80 to 90% from last year on social media, and we managed to launch them into trial stores in three months”.

In Singapore, Italian expat Stefano Cantù has created an AI-powered app that can suggest recipes in response to you telling it what ingredients you have in your fridge and cupboards. In a nod to the app being powered by ChatGPT he has called it “ChefGPT”.

“I’m Italian, so of course I cook stuff,” says Mr Cantù, whose day job is at a software company. He says he came up with the idea “over a weekend” after asking ChatGPT for recipe inspirations.

The app also has drop-down menus and toggles, to let a user specify tools they have in their kitchen, or if they’re in a hurry or not a very good cook. The AI then comes up with a recipe and a picture of the dish.

Mr Cantù says he got 30,000 users within a week and a half of launching last year. But then he got “quite a big bill from OpenAI”, the company behind ChatGPT.

He now continues to pay OpenAI a regular fee for using its AI. Mr Cantù explains that this is a standard arrangement when a start-up like his builds its app on top of another company’s technology.

He adds that he is continuing to try to find “the right balance between advertising and subscriptions, and the right level of usage to give free users”. And how he can “monetise free users without selling their data”.

Back in Dubai, Spartak Arutyunyan at Dodo Pizza says AI should be seen as more of a fun thing to use rather than something you’d base your entire menu around.

Yet Dodo Pizza is now enabling customers in Dubai, who order via its app, to try using AI themselves to dream up unusual pizza toppings. And the firm says it aims to extend the AI function to its other branches around the world.

A new flashpoint has emerged in the ongoing maritime dispute between China and the Philippines, with both countries clashing over yet another spot in the South China Sea.

Both China and the Philippines have staked their claims on various islands and zones in the Sea – their dispute increasingly escalating over the years with more vessel collisions, scuffles, and allegations of armed threats.

But last week, things came to a head when Beijing and Manila’s vessels collided near the Sabina Shoal- both accusing the other of ramming them on purpose.

The shoal, claimed by China as Xianbin Jiao and as Escoda Shoal by the Philippines, is located some 75 nautical miles from the Philippines’ west coast and 630 nautical miles from China.

On 19 August, several Chinese and Philippine vessels collided near the shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands – an area rich in oil and gas, which has been claimed by both countries for years.

The Chinese coast guard said that the Philippine vessel “deliberately collided” into them, while the Philippines said the Chinese vessels were conducting “aggressive manoeuvres”.

A second round of collisions took place on Sunday, with both sides once again blaming each other. Several other countries including the UK, Japan, Australia and South Korea, as well as the EU, have criticised China’s actions.

On Monday, the Philippines said 40 Chinese ships prevented two of their boats from conducting a “humanitarian mission” to restock the Teresa Magbuana, a Philippine coast guard ship deployed months earlier to the shoal.

The Philippines suspects China is attempting to reclaim land at Sabina Shoal. It has pointed to underwater mounds of crushed coral on Sabina’s sandbars, which its coast guard filmed, saying Beijing is using that material to expand the shoal. Chinese state media has called such accusations “groundless”.

Authorities sent the Teresa Magbuana to Sabina in April as part of a prolonged presence they plan to maintain at the shoal. Manila sees it as key to their efforts to explore the Spratlys for oil and gas.

China meanwhile sees the presence of the Teresa Magbuana as evidence of the Philippines’ intentions to occupy the shoal.

A recent commentary by Chinese state news outlet Xinhua pointed to a decrepit World War Two era ship grounded by the Philippines in 1999 on the Second Thomas Shoal, known in Chinese as the Ren’ai Jiao.

A handful of soldiers are still stationed there and require regular rations. For years, the ship has been a source of constant friction between both countries, with China routinely attempting to block re-supply missions to the ship.

“25 years on, it is still there. Clearly, the Philippines is attempting to repeat this scenario at Xianbin Jiao,” said the commentary.

“China will never be deceived by the Philippines again.”

There has been a string of dangerous encounters in recent months as the two sides sought to enforce their claims on disputed reefs and outcrops, including the Second Thomas Shoal and the Scarborough Shoal.

The collisions usually arise from the cat-and-mouse games the boats engage in, as they attempt to chase the other side away.

China has increasingly blasted powerful water cannon and lasers at Philippine ships, with the Filipinos also accusing the Chinese of boarding their boats, leading to scuffles, as well as confiscating items and puncturing their inflatable vessels.

One of the latest accusations from Manila was that Chinese coast guard personnel armed with knives, spears and swords boarded one of their military ships and threatened their soldiers.

“We are struggling against a more powerful adversary,” the Philippines defence chief Gilberto Teodoro said on Tuesday, while appealing to the international community to issue “a strong call-out against China”.

So far there have been no fatalities, though the Philippines says several of its soldiers have sustained injuries. But President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has warned that any Filipino deaths resulting from China’s actions would be considered an “act of war”.

Observers worry their dispute could eventually spark a larger confrontation in the South China Sea.

A previous attempt by the Philippines to get the United Nations to arbitrate ended with the decision that China had no lawful claims within its so-called nine dash line, the boundary it uses to claim a large swathe of the South China Sea. Beijing has refused to recognise the ruling.

But in recent weeks both countries have made an attempt to de-escalate the immediate conflicts out at sea.

Last month they agreed to allow the Philippines to restock the outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal with food, supplies and personnel. Since then this has taken place with no reported clashes.

The incidents at Sabina Shoal however raise the question of whether such attempts at de-escalation are effective when the dispute can simply shift to a new site.

Jake Sullivan has been welcomed to China on his first visit as US national security adviser. He will hold talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi as the two countries try to stabilise relations.

Mr Sullivan and Mr Wang have met four times over 16 months in Vienna, Malta, Washington and Bangkok. Their last meeting in January was shortly after a high-stakes summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden that sought to reset frosty ties.

This week’s talks – scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday – signal that China is still a priority for the Biden administration, even as the retiring president enters his final months in office.

Both Mr Sullivan and Mr Wang have already acknowledged a need to find common ground after disagreements between their nations.

Could another presidential summit be on the cards?

The White House is trying not to explicitly link Mr Sullivan’s trip to the US presidential election. But it’s hard to ignore the timing.

If Mr Sullivan is able to lay the groundwork for a final Biden-Xi summit, his trip would tie up the ends of the US president’s most consequential – and fraught – foreign policy relationship.

US and Chinese diplomats always acknowledge that talks between Washington and Beijing are never easy. And there is a lot to talk about.

With the unexpected turn the US election has taken with Biden bowing out in favour of Kamala Harris, China is watching closely for what the next presidency might have in store.

Donald Trump has made it clear he will raise tariffs further on Chinese goods, potentially deepening the trade war he kicked off in 2019.

While Mr Biden’s administration saw merit in diplomacy, he didn’t reverse Trump-era tariffs and has added more – in May he announced steep duties on Chinese-made electric cars, solar panels, and steel.

Mr Biden has also strengthened alliances across Asia to combat China’s rising influence and beefed up Washington’s military presence – which, in turn, has rattled Beijing.

So far, the Harris campaign has not given many clues about how she plans to manage the relationship with China.

And the White House has made clear that Mr Sullivan’s visit is meant to continue the work of the Biden administration, rather than set the tone for the next president.

But China is likely looking ahead anyway.

Beijing will use this opportunity with Mr Sullivan to clarify its own priorities. It will hope that all parties in America are listening – China’s ministry of foreign affairs has described this as a “critical juncture” between the world’s two biggest economies.

For China, the red line is and always will be Taiwan. It claims the self-governing island and has repeatedly said it will not tolerate any signs that Washington is encouraging Taiwanese independence.

High-profile diplomatic visits, such as a controversial one by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022, or recognition of Taiwan’s elections or its elected leaders, fall into that category.

Chinese state media has said Beijing will focus on expressing grave concerns, stating its position, and making serious demands on matters such as the “Taiwan question”.

China will also have some strong words for Mr Sullivan on trade. Beijing has described US tariffs on Chinese goods as “unreasonable” and has urged Washington to “stop politicising and securitising economic and trade issues” and “take more measures to facilitate people-to-people exchanges between the two countries”.

When he came to power, Mr Biden wanted to set ties with China on an even keel after what he saw as the chaos and unpredictability of the Trump White House.

His administration has wanted to “responsibly manage” rivalry with Beijing; to demonstrate American power and competition with China through stealth not bravado.

But that strategy has been upended amid the turbulence of events.

Last year, crisis engulfed the direct relationship when an American fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over US territory.

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have further sharpened the tone.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in April with a warning – Washington would act if China did not stop supplying Russia with microchips and machine parts to build weapons used in its war in Ukraine.

He accused his Chinese counterparts of “helping to fuel the biggest threat” to European security since the Cold War.

His warning materialised with a raft of sanctions on Chinese firms over their alleged support of the Russian military.

This is a tricky subject that China keeps trying to bat away, but Washington is insistent, and Mr Sullivan is likely to bring it up again.

China’s increasing assertiveness in Asia has also made the US wary of the impact of those ties further afield – particularly with Iran, which allies itself with Moscow and also arms Israel’s adversaries.

Finally, in America, there is the devastating domestic impact of Chinese-manufactured “pre-cursor” chemicals to make synthetic opioids like fentanyl, overdoses of which are killing more Americans than ever and the crisis has laid waste to entire towns.

Last year’s summit between Mr Biden and Mr Xi in San Fransisco was meant to make progress on these issues.

Since then, despite the tariffs and the stern rhetoric, Washington and Beijing have acknowledged their differences – and reports of the two sides striking a deal on curbing fentanyl production are a good sign.

In April, when the BBC accompanied US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his visit to Shanghai and Beijing, the public elements of some of his meetings with senior Chinese officials felt like a steely stand-off.

It was a show of diplomatic strength meant for each side’s domestic audience. And this will undoubtedly be a part of Mr Sullivan’s trip too, as he tries to bolster Mr Biden’s diplomacy in the waning months of his presidency.

But these meetings serve another fundamental purpose – face-to-face time between two rival, inter-dependent economies as they battle mutual distrust and try to probe each other’s real intentions.

It seems that Jake Sullivan’s previous meetings with Wang Yi have quietly laid the groundwork for what both sides call “stable relations”.

In a recent speech at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, Mr Sullivan said that he and Mr Wang had “increasingly gotten to the point of setting aside the talking points and really having strategic conversations”.

He described the character of those conversations as “direct”, including one on the war in Ukraine.

“Both of us left feeling that we didn’t agree or see eye-to-eye on everything but that there was a lot of work to carry forward.”

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, has been placed under formal investigation in France as part of a probe into organised crime on the messaging app.

Prosecutors in Paris also said the 39-year-old billionaire has not been remanded in custody, but placed under judicial supervision, and has to pay a €5m (£4.2m; $5.6m) deposit.

Mr Durov, who is also a French national, has to show up at a French police station twice a week and is not allowed to leave French territory.

The actions from the prosecutors in France is the latest stage in this ongoing story, which has caused considerable shock in the world of technology.

It is unprecedented for the owner of a social media or messaging platform to be arrested because of the way in which that platform is being used, and it has fuelled a debate about freedom of speech, accountability and the role of social media and messaging company bosses within all of that.

Mr Durov’s lawyer, David-Olivier Kaminski, said Telegram complied in every respect with European digital regulations and was moderated to the same standards as other social networks.

He said it was “absurd” to suggest his client could be involved “in criminal acts that don’t concern him either directly or indirectly”.

Mr Durov is a multi-billionaire who is originally from Russia.

He founded the popular Russian social media company VKontakte.

In 2014, Mr Durov left Russia after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the platform.

A year earlier, he had founded Telegram and now runs the firm from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where he now lives.

He holds citizenship of the UAE and France, but Russia has said it still regards him as a citizen.

After he was arrested, Telegram said Mr Durov travelled in Europe frequently.

In an interview with the conservative US media personality Tucker Carlson in April, Mr Durov said he would refuse certain requests from authorities to remove content from his platform.

He said: “Where we thought it would be crossing the line – it wouldn’t be aligning with our values of freedom of speech and protecting people’s private correspondence – we would ignore.”

Telegram is one of the world’s biggest social media and messaging platforms along with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.

In July, Mr Durov claimed that Telegram reached 950 million monthly active users. It is popular in Russia and Ukraine, while pro-democracy groups in Iran and Hong Kong also use it.

Telegram does offer end to end encryption, which means the messages can only be read on the device that sends them and the device that receives them, but this is not the default setting for the user.

The big difference between Telegram and similar services like WhatsApp is the size of groups you can be in on Telegram.

WhatsApp limits group sizes to 1,000 users whereas up to 200,000 can be in a group on Telegram.

The platform has faced criticism that disinformation can spread in these huge groups.

Critics have argued the platform has seen the sharing of conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content.

In the UK, the app was scrutinised for hosting far-right channels that were instrumental in organising this month’s violent disorder in English cities and cybersecurity experts say its moderation of extremist and illegal content is significantly weaker than other social media companies and messenger apps.

Following Mr Durov’s arrest, Telegram said its moderation “is within industry standards and constantly improving”.

It said it abides by European Union laws, including the Digital Services Act, which aims to ensure a safe and accountable online environment.

“Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information,” the app’s statement read.

“We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”

In Wednesday’s statement, the Paris prosecutors said Mr Durov was put under formal investigation over alleged offences that included:

• Complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable illicit transactions by an organised gang

• Refusal to communicate with authorities

• Complicity in organised criminal distribution of sexual images of children

In France, being put under formal investigation does not imply guilt or necessarily result in a trial – but it indicates that judges consider there is enough of a case to proceed with an investigation.

Elon Musk, the owner of X, has been defending Mr Durov for several days in a series of posts on his platform, formerly known as Twitter.

He said moderation is a “propaganda word” for censorship, and called for Mr Durov’s release.

Chris Pavlovski, the founder of a controversial video-sharing app called Rumble, said he had fled Europe following Mr Durov’s detention.

Earlier this week Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who now lives in Russia after revealing extensive internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence, said on X that Mr Durov’s arrest was “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association”.

He added: “I am surprised and deeply saddened that [French President Emmanuel] Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France, but the world.”

After some details of the arrest had emerged, Vyacheslav Volodin – a prominent Russian politician and ally of Vladimir Putin – accused the US of being behind the arrest of Mr Durov.

“Telegram is one of the few and at the same time the largest internet platforms over which the United States has no influence,” he said in a post on the platform.

President Macron posted on social media on Monday that he had seen “false information” regarding France following Mr Durov’s arrest, and added: “This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.”

In the Palestinian village of Battir, where ancient terraces are irrigated by a natural spring, life carries on as it has for centuries.

Part of a Unesco World Heritage site, Battir is known for its olive groves and vineyards. But now it is the latest flashpoint over settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has approved a new Jewish settlement here, taking away privately owned land for new settler houses and new outposts have been set up without even Israeli authorisation.

“They are stealing our land to build their dreams on our catastrophe,” says Ghassan Olyan, whose property is among that seized.

Unesco says it is concerned by the settlers’ plans around Battir, but the village is far from an isolated example. All settlements are seen as illegal under international law, although Israel disagrees.

“They are not caring about the international law, or local law, and even God’s law,” Mr Olyan says.

Last week, Israel’s domestic intelligence chief Ronen Bar wrote to ministers warning that Jewish extremists in the West Bank were carrying out acts of “terror” against Palestinians and causing “indescribable damage” to the country.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been an acceleration in settlement growth in the occupied West Bank.

Extremists in Israel’s government boast that these changes will prevent an independent Palestinian state from ever being created.

There are fears, too, that they seek to prolong the war in Gaza to suit their goals.

Yonatan Mizrahi from Peace Now, an Israeli organisation that monitors settlement growth, says Jewish extremists in the West Bank are exacerbating an already tense and volatile situation, and making it harder than ever to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

He believes a “mix of rage and fear” in Israeli society after the 7 October attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed is driving settlers to seize more land, with fewer people questioning them.

A June survey by the Pew Research Center suggested that 40% of Israelis believed settlements made the country safer, up from 27% in 2013. Meanwhile, 35% of people polled said that the settlements hurt Israel’s security, down from 42%.

Mr Mizrahi worries that Jewish extremists in the West Bank are exacerbating an already tense and volatile situation, making it harder than ever to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. “I think it’s extremely dangerous,” he says. “It’s increasing the hate on both sides.”

Since the outbreak of the war, settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank has surged.

It had already been on the rise, but in the past 10 months the UN has documented around 1,270 attacks, compared with 856 in all of 2022.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, during the same period Israeli settler harassment has forced Palestinians out of at least 18 villages in the West Bank, the Palestinian territory between Israel and Jordan that was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and has been occupied ever since.

Between 7 October and August 2024, 589 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank – at least 570 by Israeli forces and at least 11 by settlers, according to the UN. They include some said to have been planning attacks as well as unarmed civilians. In the same period, Palestinians killed five settlers and nine members of Israel’s security forces.

This week, a Palestinian man aged 40 was reportedly shot dead after settlers and Israeli soldiers entered Wadi al-Rahhel, near Bethlehem. The Israeli military said stones had previously been thrown at an Israeli vehicle nearby.

Last month, a 22-year-old Palestinian man was killed when dozens of settlers rampaged through the village of Jit, prompting international condemnation. Israeli security forces have made four arrests and have described the incident as a “severe terror event”.

But the track record in such cases is one of virtual impunity. Israeli civil rights group Yesh Din found that, between 2005 and 2023, just 3% of official investigations into settler violence ended in a conviction.

In the letter by Ronen Bar, which was leaked to Israeli media, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service said that radical settlers were emboldened by light-handed law enforcement.

Settlers live in exclusively Jewish communities set up in parts of the West Bank.

Many settlements have the legal support of the Israeli government; others, known as outposts, and often as simple as caravans and corrugated iron sheds, are illegal even under Israeli law. But extremists build them regardless in a bid to seize more land.

In July, when the UN’s top court found for the first time that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was illegal, it said the country should halt all settlement activity and withdraw as soon as possible.

Israel’s Western allies have repeatedly described settlements as an obstacle to peace. Israel rejected the finding, saying: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land.”

Now there are fears that extremists are working to make settlements in the West Bank irreversible.

They have rapidly expanded their control over the territory, with the support of the most far-right government in Israel’s history. These extremists are advancing annexation plans in the West Bank and also openly call for settling Gaza once the war is over. Settlers now serve at the heart of Israel’s government, in key ministries.

At the very time that world leaders opposed to settlements are voicing renewed enthusiasm for a two-state solution – a long-hoped for peace plan that would create a separate Palestinian state – Israeli religious nationalists, who believe all these lands rightfully belong to Israel, are vowing to make the dream of an independent Palestinian state impossible.

Analysts think this is why some politicians are refusing to accept any ceasefire deal.

“The reason they don’t want to end the conflict or go into a hostage deal is because they believe that Israel should keep on fighting until it can reach a point where it can stay inside Gaza,” says Tal Schneider, political correspondent for The Times of Israel.

“They think for the long term their ideology is more righteous,” she adds. “This is their own logic.”

Israeli authorities, meanwhile, have announced plans for five new settlements, including the one in Battir, and declared a record area of land, at least 23 sq km, for the state. This means Israel considers it Israeli land, regardless of whether it is in the occupied Palestinian territories, or privately owned by Palestinians, or both, and Palestinians are prevented from using it.

By changing facts on the ground, as the settlers describe it, they hope to move enough Israelis on to the land and build enough on it to make their presence irreversible. Their long-term hope is that Israel formally annexes the land.

Outside state-sanctioned land seizures, extremists have also rapidly established settlement outposts.

In one by al-Qanoub, north of Hebron, satellite images showed new caravans and roads had appeared in the months since the start of the war. Meanwhile, an entire Palestinian community has been forced off the land.

We drove to al-Qanoub with Ibrahim Shalalda, 50, and his 80-year-old uncle Mohammed, who told us their homes had been destroyed by settlers last November.

As we approached, an extremist settler blocked the road with his car.

Armed Israelis soon arrived. The group – some Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, with insignia on their uniforms and one identified as a settlement security officer – stopped us for checks.

The settlement guard forced the two Palestinian farmers from the car and searched them. After two hours, the IDF soldiers dispersed the settlers and allowed the BBC car to leave.

Israel began settling the West Bank soon after capturing it from Jordan and occupying it more than five decades ago. Successive governments since then have allowed creeping settlement expansion.

Today, an estimated three million Palestinians live on the land – excluding Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem – alongside about half a million Jewish Israelis in more than 130 settlements.

But a prominent far-right government figure who took office in 2022 is promising to double the number of settlers to a million.

Bezalel Smotrich believes that Jews have a God-given right to these lands. He heads one of two far-right, pro-settler parties that veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought into his governing coalition after the 2022 elections returned him to power.

Mr Smotrich serves as finance minister but also has a post in the defence ministry, which has allowed him to make sweeping changes to Israeli policies in the West Bank.

He has massively invested state finances in settlements, including new roads and infrastructure. But he has also created a new bureaucracy, taking powers from the military, to fast-track settler construction.

In secretly recorded remarks to supporters, Mr Smotrich boasted that he was working towards “changing the DNA” of the system and for de facto annexation that would be “easier to swallow in the international and legal context”.

Religious nationalists have sat on the fringes of Israeli politics for decades.

But their ideology has slowly become more popular. In the 2022 election, these parties took 13 seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament and became kingmakers in Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.

During the war, Bezalel Smotrich and fellow radical Itamar Ben-Gvir, now Israel’s national security minister, have repeatedly made comments stoking social division and provoking Israel’s Western allies.

After Israel’s military arrested reservists accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee, Mr Ben Gvir said it was “shameful” for Israel to arrest “our best heroes”. This month, Mr Smotrich suggested it might be “justified and moral” to starve Gazans.

But it is in the West Bank and Gaza that the far right seeks to make permanent changes. “This is a group of Israelis who have been against any type of compromise with the Palestinians or Israel’s other Arab neighbours,” says Anshel Pfeffer, a veteran Israeli journalist and correspondent for The Economist.

And with the war in Gaza, the far right sees a fresh opportunity. Mr Smotrich has called for Palestinian residents to leave, making way for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”.

Although Mr Netanyahu has ruled out restoring Jewish settlements in Gaza, he remains beholden to far-right parties who threaten to collapse his coalition if he signs a “reckless” ceasefire deal to bring home Israeli hostages currently held by Hamas.

The logic of the extremists may be one that only a minority of Israelis follow. But it is helping to prolong the war, and dramatically transforming the landscape of the West Bank – causing long-term damage to chances of peace.

It may be an innocent enough racquet sport, but Hong Kong’s Education Bureau has unintentionally given badminton a whole new meaning.

In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could “go out to play badminton together” instead.

The materials also include a form called “My Commitment” aimed at getting “young lovers” to attest that they would exercise “self-discipline, self-control, and resistance to pornography”.

The new materials have raised eyebrows and attracted criticism for being “out of touch”. But officials have defended the decision.

Meanwhile social media has been flooded with jokes centered around “playing badminton”.

“FWB [Friends with benefits]?? Friends with badminton,” read one comment on Instagram that had more than 1,000 likes.

“In English: Netflix and chill? In Cantonese, play badminton together?” read a Facebook post which was shared more than 500 times.

Even Olympics badminton player Tse Ying Suet could not resist a comment.

“Everyone is making an appointment to play badminton. Is everyone really into badminton?” she asked on Threads with a smirking face emoji.

For some people it was also about the practicalities.

Local lawmaker Doreen Kong said the documents showed that the education bureau did not understand young people. She specifically criticised the badminton suggestion as unrealistic.

“How could they borrow a badminton racket on the spot if it happens?” She asked.

To Thomas Tang, who is an amateur badminton player, the jokes and sudden increased interest in the sport have made it slightly embarrassing for players like him.

“In the past this was just a healthy sport, but now if you ask people to play badminton they make a lot of jokes,” he said, adding that the irony was that badminton was actually a good way for guys to meet girls.

The Education Bureau documents also told teachers that one of the objectives of the module was to help students master ways of coping with sexual fantasies and impulses, and the module was not created to encourage them to start dating or engaging in sexual behaviour.

Some suggested discussion activities in the documents include advising students to “dress appropriately to present a healthy image and to avoid visual stimulation from sexy clothing”, and “firmly refuse sex before marriage” if they are unable to cope with the “consequences of premarital sex”.

Education Secretary Christine Choi has stood firm in the face of all the criticism.

“We wish to protect the teenagers,” she said while defending the documents in an interview on Sunday, adding that it is illegal to have sex with an underage person.

She has received support from the city’s leader John Lee, who said that while there could be different opinions on education, the government plays a “leading role in determining the kind of society it aims to build”.

But to Henry Chan, a father of a 13-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy, these efforts are ridiculous.

“The Hong Kong government is always out of touch. They are making a fool of themselves,” he said.

“My wife and I will probably do that [sex education] ourselves. That’s not something I would count on schools and the government to do.”

Allegations. Resignations. Police complaints.

These words have been dominating headlines and shaking up a bustling film industry in the southern Indian state of Kerala since last week.

The state has been witnessing a flurry of sexual abuse allegations against some top male stars since a landmark report that looked into problems faced by women in the industry was released last week.

The industry, which makes around 150-200 Malayalam-language films a year, is a vital, vibrant business that has made some of the most critically acclaimed and progressive cinema emerging from India.

But the 290-page report by a three-member panel – called the Hema committee – detailed the problems faced by women in Malayalam cinema, including poor working conditions and rampant sexual harassment. Parts of the report have been redacted to hide the identities of the survivors as well as those accused of harassment.

• The Hema committee report slams Kerala’s film industry

Since its release, a number of women – some of whom have now given up acting – have publicly spoken about facing sexual assault and harassment in the industry.

More than a dozen police complaints have been filed against some male stars, two of whom have also filed counter-complaints.

The shake-up has been so huge that the entire top governing body of the state’s biggest film group – the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) – was dissolved after its president, superstar Mohanlal, resigned on “moral grounds” after some members faced accusations.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. Only a few have spoken up till now. More serious issues may emerge,’’ actor Mala Parvathy told BBC Hindi.

The reactions to the first-of-its-kind report are being closely watched by people in India’s many film industries, including Bollywood. During the #MeToo movement, several women had made sexual harassment allegations against actors and filmmakers in different states but few of these have been investigated.

• Indian actress breaks silence on sexual assault

The government set up the Hema committee, headed by a former judge of the Kerala High Court, in 2017 in the aftermath of the shocking sexual assault on a leading actress. One of Kerala’s biggest actors, Dileep, was named by police as an accused and charged with criminal conspiracy. He has denied the charges, but was arrested and held in custody for three months before being released on bail. The case is still being heard in court.

After the release of the report, the first public allegation came from Bengali actress Sreelekha Mitra, who accused well-known director Ranjith of sexually harassing her a few years ago. He has denied this but resigned as chairman of the state’s prestigious motion picture academy. Mitra has filed a police complaint.

Many of the other complaints echo some of the revelations made by unnamed women in the Hema committee report that they were repeatedly asked to “compromise” and “adjust” in exchange for opportunities.

Minu Muneer told BBC Hindi as well as several other news channels that an actor had hugged and kissed her without her consent while they were shooting a film. She has also detailed instances of sexual misconduct by others in the industry, including prominent actor and lawmaker Mukesh.

Mukesh has denied the allegations against him and accused Muneer of trying to blackmail him.

“I welcome any investigation into allegations made against me and others in the film industry,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

Two actresses have accused a director of knocking on the doors of their hotel rooms in the middle of the night. He has not responded to the allegation.

One actress has accused well-known actor Siddique of raping her in 2016 and filed a police complaint against him. Siddique, who resigned as AMMA general secretary after the accusation, has denied this and accused the complainant of trying to “tarnish his reputation”.

While the Kerala government had been praised for being the first to set up such a committee, the report’s release has also put it on the back foot.

The report, which was submitted in 2019, was released only last week after nearly five years of delay and multiple legal challenges by members of the film industry. The government then said that while it would investigate all complaints filed before the police, it would not take up any cases on its own. But as pressure mounted, it has set up a special team to investigate complaints.

The Kerala High Court has also asked the government to submit the entire report – including the 54 redacted pages – to it.

Within the Malayalam film industry, reactions to the report have been mixed. Superstars such as Mohanlal and Mammotty have been criticised for not making a public comment yet.

Some actors have welcomed the release of the report and called for the government to launch a proper investigation into the allegations. A prominent film employees’ federation has asked the government to disclose the names of those accused in the report.

Others have lamented that the report is being used to brand all men in the industry as abusers.

But many have also argued that the report and the subsequent shake-up are positive, much-needed changes in an industry often celebrated for making progressive films.

“I am not ok with people saying, ‘Malayalam industry is so rotten inside’. No, we are good inside, which is why we are fixing it,” actress Parvathy Thiruvothu, a founding member of the Women in Cinema Collective, an organisation formed in the aftermath of the 2017 assault, told a news channel.

It was the industries “you don’t hear anything about” that people should be “worried about”, she added.

Western technology and finance are helping Ukraine carry out hundreds of long-range strikes inside Russia.

That is despite Nato allies still refusing to give Ukraine permission to use Western-supplied munitions to do so – mostly because of fears of escalation.

Ukraine has been stepping up its long-range strikes inside Russia over the past few months, launching scores of drones simultaneously at strategic targets several times a week.

The targets include air force bases, oil and ammunition depots and command centres.

Ukrainian firms are now producing hundreds of armed one-way attack drones a month, at a fraction of the cost it takes to produce a similar drone in the West.

One company told the BBC it was already creating a disproportionate impact on Russia’s war economy at a relatively small expense.

The BBC has been briefed by a number of those involved in these missions. They include one of Ukraine’s largest one-way attack drone manufacturers, as well as a big data company which has helped develop software for Ukraine to carry out these strikes.

Francisco Serra-Martins says the strategy is already creating huge dilemmas for Moscow. He believes that with extra investment, it will turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favour.

Eighteen months ago, the company he co-founded, Terminal Autonomy, didn’t even exist. It is now producing more than a hundred AQ400 Scythe long-range drones a month, with a range of 750km (465 miles). The company also makes hundreds of shorter range AQ100 Bayonet drones a month, which can fly a few hundred kilometres.

The drones are made of wood and are being assembled in former furniture factories in Ukraine.

Mr Serra-Martins, a former Australian Army Royal Engineer, set up the company with his Ukrainian co-founder, backed by US finance. It is one of at least three companies now producing drones in Ukraine at scale.

He describes his drones as “basically flying furniture – we assemble it like Ikea”.

It takes about an hour to build the fuselage and half that time to put the brains inside it – the electronics, motor and explosives.

The company’s Bayonet drone costs a few thousand dollars. In contrast, a Russian air defence missile used to shoot it down can cost more than $1m.

It is not only cheap drones making the difference.

Palantir, a large US data analysis company, was one of the first Western tech companies to aid Ukraine’s war effort. It started by providing software to improve the speed and accuracy of its artillery strikes. Now it has given Ukraine new tools to plan its long-range drone strikes.

British engineers from Palantir, working with Ukrainian counterparts, have designed a programme to generate and map the best ways to reach a target. Palantir makes clear it is not involved in the missions, but has helped train more than 1,000 Ukrainians how to use its software.

The BBC has been shown how it works in principle. Using streams of data, it can map Russia’s air defences, radar and electronic jammers. The end product looks similar to a topographical chart.

The tighter the contours, the heavier the air defences. The locations have already been identified by Ukraine using commercial satellite imagery and signals intelligence.

Louis Mosley of Palantir says the programme is helping Ukraine to skirt around Russia’s electronic warfare and air defence systems to reach their target.

“Understanding and visualising what that looks like across the entire battle space is really critical to optimising these missions,” he says.

The execution of the long-range drone strikes is being co-ordinated by Ukraine’s intelligence agencies, who work in secrecy. But the BBC has been told by other sources about some of the detail.

Scores of drones can be fired for any one mission – as many as 60 at one target.

The attacks are mostly carried out at night. Most will be shot down. As few as 10% may reach the target. Some drones are even shot down along the way by friendly fire – Ukraine’s own air defences.

Ukraine has had to work out ways to counter Russian electronic jamming. Terminal Autonomy’s Scythe drone uses visual positioning – navigating its course and examining the terrain by Artificial Intelligence. There is no pilot involved.

Palantir software will have already mapped the best routes. Mr Serra-Martins says flying a lot of drones is key to overwhelming and exhausting Russia’s air defences. So too is making the drones cheaper than the missiles trying to shoot them down, or the targets they are trying to hit.

Prof Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute says Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks are creating dilemmas for Moscow. Although Russia has a lot of air defences, it still cannot protect everything.

Prof Bronk says Ukraine’s long-range strikes are showing ordinary Russians that “the state can’t defend them fully and that Russia is vulnerable”.

Ukrainian drones have been spotted more than 1,000km (620 miles) inside Russia. They have been shot down over Moscow.

But the focus has been on military sites. The map below highlights just a handful of the dozen targets hit over the past few months. They include five Russian airbases.

Prof Justin Bronk says targeting Russian airbases has so far been the only effective way Ukraine has to respond to Russia’s glide bombs.

It has forced Russia to move aircraft to bases further away and reduce the frequency of their attacks. Satellite imagery shows how Ukrainian drones have successfully damaged hangars at its Marinovka airbase.

Ukraine clearly believes it could do even more with the help of Western-made long-range weapons. But so far, allies have rejected Kyiv’s pleas.

There is still a lingering fear, especially in Washington and Berlin, that it could drag the West further into the conflict. But that hasn’t stopped Western companies and finance from helping Ukraine.

Ukraine is still largely having to rely on its home-grown efforts, convinced that bringing the war to Russia is a key to winning this war.

Francisco Serra-Martins also believes Western manufacturers are still “woefully unprepared” to fight high-intensity warfare – producing far fewer long-range weapons at a much higher cost. He says what Ukraine really needs now “is a lot of good enough systems”.

The BBC has talked to one Ukrainian company which is already developing a new cruise missile, at least 10 times cheaper than a British-made Storm Shadow missile.

Despite the West’s misgivings, Ukraine is planning to step up its attacks on Russia. Mr Serra-Martins says: “What you’re seeing now is like nothing compared to what you’ll see by the end of the year.”

The chief executive of Aricell, a South Korean lithium battery company, has been arrested over a massive factory fire in June that killed 23 people and injured nine others.

A court approved the warrant for Park Soon-kwan’s arrest on Wednesday.

Investigators have said Aricell’s management is suspected of workplace safety violations. The fire was one of South Korea’s worst factory disasters in recent years.

Aricells’ parent company, S-Connect, did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

After the fire Mr Park issued an apology: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and would like to express our deepest condolences and apologies to the bereaved families.”

“We take great responsibility and will sincerely provide support to the deceased and their families in every way possible,” he added.

His arrest comes after a police investigation found that the factory had been rushing to meet production deadlines.

Investigators said there were a number of safety issues at the plant, including a failure to address quality defects in batteries and hiring unskilled staff to handle dangerous materials.

It was also alleged that Aricell had been cheating in quality inspections related to contracts with the military.

The blaze broke out on 24 June after several battery cells exploded.

At the time of the fire, the Aricell factory housed an estimated 35,000 battery cells on its second floor, where batteries were inspected and packaged.

As a lithium fire can react intensely with water, firefighters had to use dry sand to extinguish the blaze, which took several hours to get under control.

The victims were mostly foreign workers, from country’s including China and Laos.

South Korea is a leading producer of lithium batteries, which are used in many items from electric cars to laptops.

A former Nevada politician has been found guilty of first degree murder for the death of a journalist who wrote critical stories about his time in office.

Robert Telles, 47, has been held in jail without bail since 2022 for the stabbing of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German.

During trial, prosecutors presented the jury with DNA evidence found under Mr German’s fingernails that they said belonged to Telles – who had pleaded not guilty.

A jury of 12 returned a guilty verdict on Wednesday, after deliberating for two days. Several hours later, the same jury sentenced Telles to life in prison.

Telles, who was elected Clark County public administrator in 2018, sat blank faced in court on Wednesday as the judge called in the jury.

He then bowed his head as the guilty verdict was read.

“The jury unanimously finds the murder willful, deliberate and premeditated,” juror number two told the court.

Telles was given a life sentence in a separate hearing later on Wednesday. He is eligible for parole after he serves 20 years in prison.

The seven women and five men that composed the jury deliberated for roughly 12 hours, beginning on Monday, before the panel reached its conclusion.

The trial had stretched across two weeks.

Testimony in court came from dozens of witnesses, including detectives, forensic experts, those who knew the ex-politician, and Telles himself.

He alleged that he had been framed.

“This thing has been kind of a nightmare,” he said about a week into the trial. “I want to say unequivocally – I’m innocent. I didn’t kill Mr German.”

In September 2022, Mr German, 69, was found after he had been stabbed seven times in the neck and torso outside his Nevada home.

Prosecutors accused Telles of killing Mr German over unflattering articles the journalist had written about his behaviour as an elected official.

One alleged that Telles had an “inappropriate” relationship with a member of his staff, and several others alleged hostile behaviour in his Las Vegas office.

Telles, a Democrat, lost his primary for a second term as public administrator in 2022 after Mr German’s stories were published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal ahead of the election.

Security footage recovered by police and shown to the jury caught Mr German’s assailant wearing a large, straw hat and sneakers outside the journalist’s home.

Authorities later found the remnants of similar items at Telles’s house, though they had been cut up.

The prosecution alleged that it was Telles who had appeared in the security video, claiming that he had hid in the bushes outside Mr German’s house and then attempted to dispose of evidence.

Telles’s defense attorneys argued that the shredded evidence had been planted at the ex-politician’s home as part of an effort to frame their client. They disputed that Mr German’s articles were “a motive for a murder”.

But prosecutors shared the DNA evidence, a timeline and video of Telles’s SUV driving on the streets near Mr German’s home just before his murder. The driver of the car is wearing an outfit similar to the one worn by the person seen in the security footage.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom on Wednesday, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson celebrated the jury’s decision.

“The jury hit the ball out of the park this time,” he said. “They hit a home run by getting the right verdict.”

A veteran reporter, Mr German had spent more than four decades covering the city and corruption.

He had one more article to publish about Telles at the time of his death.

Glenn Cook, the executive editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, issued a statement that said the “jury delivered a measure of justice” for Mr German with its verdict.

“Jeff (German) was killed for doing the kind of work in which he took great pride: His reporting held an elected official accountable for bad behavior and empowered voters to choose someone else for the job.”

Two journalists who led a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong have been found guilty of sedition.

Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, two editors at the now-defunct Stand News media outlet, could now face a maximum jail term of two years.

This is the first sedition case against journalists in Hong Kong since the territory’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.

Rights groups have condemned the verdict, with Reporters without Borders calling on Hong Kong to “stop its nefarious campaign against press freedom”.

In a written statement, district court judge Kwok Wai-kin said that Stand News had become a “danger to national security”.

Their newspaper’s editorial line supported “Hong Kong local autonomy”, he added.

“It even became a tool to smear and vilify the Central Authorities [in Beijing] and the [Hong Kong] SAR Government,” he said in a written judgement.

Both journalists were charged under a colonial-era sedition law – which until recently had been rarely used by prosecutors – rather than the controversial national security law (NSL).

They are due to be sentenced later on in September.

Stand News was among a handful of relatively new online news portals that especially gained prominence during the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

But since the introduction of the NSL in 2020, a host of media outlets have closed in Hong Kong.

Critics says the law effectively reduces Hong Kong’s judicial autonomy and made it easier to punish demonstrators and activists.

Stand News was among the last openly pro-democratic publications until its closure in December 2021, when more than 200 police officers were sent to raid the publication’s office.

Seven employees arrested and accused of a “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”, which included interviews with pro-democracy activists.

Hong Kong’s current chief executive John Lee supported the police operation at the time, calling those arrested the “evil elements that damage press freedom”.

The case has drawn international scrutiny and condemnation from western countries.

The United States has repeatedly condemned the prosecutions of journalists in Hong Kong, saying that the case against the both editors “creates a chilling effect on others in the press and media”.

The former British colony has seen its standing in press freedom rankings plummet from 18th place to 135th over the past two decades, according to the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

On Thursday, their Asia-Pacific director called the judgement an “appalling verdict [that] sets a very dangerous precedent for journalists”.

“From now on, anyone reporting on facts that are not in line with the authorities’ official narrative could be sentenced for sedition,” said Cédric Alviani in a statement.

“We renew our call on Hong Kong’s authorities to end the continued judicial harassment against two journalists and stop its nefarious campaign against press freedom.”

Italian authorities are expanding their investigation into the deaths of seven people on the yacht, the Bayesian, to include two crew members as well as the captain, according to Italian news agencies.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and six others lost their lives when the 56m (184ft) yacht, flying a British flag, sank off the coast of northern Sicily on 19 August.

The investigation is now said to include ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith.

Being investigated does not equate to being charged and is a procedural step.

The boat went down within minutes during a pre-dawn storm while the yacht was anchored off the northern coast of Sicily.

On Monday, the yacht’s 51-year-old captain, New Zealand national James Cutfield, was reportedly placed under investigation for manslaughter and causing the shipwreck.

During questioning on Tuesday, he declined to answer the prosecutors’ inquiries.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, one of the captain’s lawyers, Giovanni Rizzuti, said: “The captain exercised his right to remain silent for two fundamental reasons. First, he’s very worn out. Second, we were appointed only on Monday and for a thorough and correct defence case, we need to acquire a set of data that at the moment, we don’t have.”

Tim Parker Eaton is understood to have been in charge of adequately securing the yacht’s engine room and operational systems, while Matthew Griffith was on watch duty during the night of the disaster.

The sinking has left naval experts baffled, as they believe a yacht of Bayesian’s calibre, constructed by the prestigious Italian yacht builder Perini, should have been able to withstand the storm and certainly should not have sunk as rapidly as it did.

Prosecutors based in Termini Imerese, near Palermo, have indicated that their investigation will be lengthy and will require the salvage of the wreckage.

The head of the company that built the Bayesian, Giovanni Costantino, told the BBC he was convinced there had been a litany of errors on board.

“At the back of the boat, a hatch must have been left open,” he said, “but also perhaps a side entrance for water to have poured inside.

“Before the storm, the captain should have closed every opening, lifted anchor, turned on the engine, pointed into the wind and lowered the keel.”

The keel is a large, fin-like part of the boat that protrudes from its base.

“That would have stabilised the vessel, they would have been able to traverse the storm and continue their cruise in comfort,” he said.

Currently, the Bayesian rests on its right side at a depth of approximately 50m (164ft).

Meanwhile, the Italian Coast Guard has been conducting environmental monitoring activities at the site of the sinking, to prevent possible hydrocarbon spills from the hull.

At the moment, the are no leaks from the tanks and no traces of oil pollution, the Coast Guard said in a statement on Wednesday.

The son of a renowned Spanish actor has been jailed for life after he killed and dismembered a man on the southern Thai island of Koh Phangan last year.

Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, the son of television star Rodolfo Sancho Aguirre, claimed he killed Colombian plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga in self-defence. He pleaded guilty to the murder in August 2023.

At the time, Sancho, now 30, told Spanish news agency EFE he had been a “hostage” to Arrieta, who he said was obsessed with him.

The case has generated a huge amount of interest in Spain, with scores of Spanish reporters flying to Thailand for the trial.

Sancho was found guilty of premeditated murder, concealing a corpse, and destruction of property.

A court on nearby island Koh Samui, where the case was heard, initially issued a death sentence for murder, but this was commuted to life imprisonment after taking into account his cooperation during the trial.

Sancho, a chef who has his own YouTube channel, was also ordered to pay 4 million baht ($118,000; £89,000) in damages to Arrieta’s family.

Bussakorn Kaewleeled, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said they were satisfied with the outcome.

“The plaintiff is satisfied with the sentence because he (Sancho) will be put in prison for life and they (the plaintiff) receive some financial compensation,” Bussakorn told reporters outside the court on the island of Koh Samui, AFP news agency reported.

Police discovered parts of Arrieta’s body at a landfill in Koh Phangan in early August last year.

Around the same time, Sancho went to the police to report that Arrieta, then 44, was missing.

Sancho admitted to killing Arrieta upon further questioning.

Thai media reported last year that investigations had shown that Sancho had bought, among other things, a knife, rubber gloves and a bottle of cleaning agent – leading police to conclude the murder was premeditated.

Sancho later led police to seven sites around the island, where he disposed of Arrieta’s dismembered body in plastic bags.

Reports said that Sancho and Arrieta had agreed to meet after getting to know each other online.

The defence argued that Sancho acted in self-defence after Arrieta tried to force him to have sex. Sancho said the plastic surgeon “tried to rape [him]”, in a statement published by Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

Sancho hails from a family of actors. His mother is the actress Silvia Bronchalo, while his grandfather is the late actor Félix Ángel Sancho Gracia.

Western technology and finance are helping Ukraine carry out hundreds of long-range strikes inside Russia.

That is despite Nato allies still refusing to give Ukraine permission to use Western-supplied munitions to do so – mostly because of fears of escalation.

Ukraine has been stepping up its long-range strikes inside Russia over the past few months, launching scores of drones simultaneously at strategic targets several times a week.

The targets include air force bases, oil and ammunition depots and command centres.

Ukrainian firms are now producing hundreds of armed one-way attack drones a month, at a fraction of the cost it takes to produce a similar drone in the West.

One company told the BBC it was already creating a disproportionate impact on Russia’s war economy at a relatively small expense.

The BBC has been briefed by a number of those involved in these missions. They include one of Ukraine’s largest one-way attack drone manufacturers, as well as a big data company which has helped develop software for Ukraine to carry out these strikes.

Francisco Serra-Martins says the strategy is already creating huge dilemmas for Moscow. He believes that with extra investment, it will turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favour.

Eighteen months ago, the company he co-founded, Terminal Autonomy, didn’t even exist. It is now producing more than a hundred AQ400 Scythe long-range drones a month, with a range of 750km (465 miles). The company also makes hundreds of shorter range AQ100 Bayonet drones a month, which can fly a few hundred kilometres.

The drones are made of wood and are being assembled in former furniture factories in Ukraine.

Mr Serra-Martins, a former Australian Army Royal Engineer, set up the company with his Ukrainian co-founder, backed by US finance. It is one of at least three companies now producing drones in Ukraine at scale.

He describes his drones as “basically flying furniture – we assemble it like Ikea”.

It takes about an hour to build the fuselage and half that time to put the brains inside it – the electronics, motor and explosives.

The company’s Bayonet drone costs a few thousand dollars. In contrast, a Russian air defence missile used to shoot it down can cost more than $1m.

It is not only cheap drones making the difference.

Palantir, a large US data analysis company, was one of the first Western tech companies to aid Ukraine’s war effort. It started by providing software to improve the speed and accuracy of its artillery strikes. Now it has given Ukraine new tools to plan its long-range drone strikes.

British engineers from Palantir, working with Ukrainian counterparts, have designed a programme to generate and map the best ways to reach a target. Palantir makes clear it is not involved in the missions, but has helped train more than 1,000 Ukrainians how to use its software.

The BBC has been shown how it works in principle. Using streams of data, it can map Russia’s air defences, radar and electronic jammers. The end product looks similar to a topographical chart.

The tighter the contours, the heavier the air defences. The locations have already been identified by Ukraine using commercial satellite imagery and signals intelligence.

Louis Mosley of Palantir says the programme is helping Ukraine to skirt around Russia’s electronic warfare and air defence systems to reach their target.

“Understanding and visualising what that looks like across the entire battle space is really critical to optimising these missions,” he says.

The execution of the long-range drone strikes is being co-ordinated by Ukraine’s intelligence agencies, who work in secrecy. But the BBC has been told by other sources about some of the detail.

Scores of drones can be fired for any one mission – as many as 60 at one target.

The attacks are mostly carried out at night. Most will be shot down. As few as 10% may reach the target. Some drones are even shot down along the way by friendly fire – Ukraine’s own air defences.

Ukraine has had to work out ways to counter Russian electronic jamming. Terminal Autonomy’s Scythe drone uses visual positioning – navigating its course and examining the terrain by Artificial Intelligence. There is no pilot involved.

Palantir software will have already mapped the best routes. Mr Serra-Martins says flying a lot of drones is key to overwhelming and exhausting Russia’s air defences. So too is making the drones cheaper than the missiles trying to shoot them down, or the targets they are trying to hit.

Prof Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute says Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks are creating dilemmas for Moscow. Although Russia has a lot of air defences, it still cannot protect everything.

Prof Bronk says Ukraine’s long-range strikes are showing ordinary Russians that “the state can’t defend them fully and that Russia is vulnerable”.

Ukrainian drones have been spotted more than 1,000km (620 miles) inside Russia. They have been shot down over Moscow.

But the focus has been on military sites. The map below highlights just a handful of the dozen targets hit over the past few months. They include five Russian airbases.

Prof Justin Bronk says targeting Russian airbases has so far been the only effective way Ukraine has to respond to Russia’s glide bombs.

It has forced Russia to move aircraft to bases further away and reduce the frequency of their attacks. Satellite imagery shows how Ukrainian drones have successfully damaged hangars at its Marinovka airbase.

Ukraine clearly believes it could do even more with the help of Western-made long-range weapons. But so far, allies have rejected Kyiv’s pleas.

There is still a lingering fear, especially in Washington and Berlin, that it could drag the West further into the conflict. But that hasn’t stopped Western companies and finance from helping Ukraine.

Ukraine is still largely having to rely on its home-grown efforts, convinced that bringing the war to Russia is a key to winning this war.

Francisco Serra-Martins also believes Western manufacturers are still “woefully unprepared” to fight high-intensity warfare – producing far fewer long-range weapons at a much higher cost. He says what Ukraine really needs now “is a lot of good enough systems”.

The BBC has talked to one Ukrainian company which is already developing a new cruise missile, at least 10 times cheaper than a British-made Storm Shadow missile.

Despite the West’s misgivings, Ukraine is planning to step up its attacks on Russia. Mr Serra-Martins says: “What you’re seeing now is like nothing compared to what you’ll see by the end of the year.”

It may be an innocent enough racquet sport, but Hong Kong’s Education Bureau has unintentionally given badminton a whole new meaning.

In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could “go out to play badminton together” instead.

The materials also include a form called “My Commitment” aimed at getting “young lovers” to attest that they would exercise “self-discipline, self-control, and resistance to pornography”.

The new materials have raised eyebrows and attracted criticism for being “out of touch”. But officials have defended the decision.

Meanwhile social media has been flooded with jokes centered around “playing badminton”.

“FWB [Friends with benefits]?? Friends with badminton,” read one comment on Instagram that had more than 1,000 likes.

“In English: Netflix and chill? In Cantonese, play badminton together?” read a Facebook post which was shared more than 500 times.

Even Olympics badminton player Tse Ying Suet could not resist a comment.

“Everyone is making an appointment to play badminton. Is everyone really into badminton?” she asked on Threads with a smirking face emoji.

For some people it was also about the practicalities.

Local lawmaker Doreen Kong said the documents showed that the education bureau did not understand young people. She specifically criticised the badminton suggestion as unrealistic.

“How could they borrow a badminton racket on the spot if it happens?” She asked.

To Thomas Tang, who is an amateur badminton player, the jokes and sudden increased interest in the sport have made it slightly embarrassing for players like him.

“In the past this was just a healthy sport, but now if you ask people to play badminton they make a lot of jokes,” he said, adding that the irony was that badminton was actually a good way for guys to meet girls.

The Education Bureau documents also told teachers that one of the objectives of the module was to help students master ways of coping with sexual fantasies and impulses, and the module was not created to encourage them to start dating or engaging in sexual behaviour.

Some suggested discussion activities in the documents include advising students to “dress appropriately to present a healthy image and to avoid visual stimulation from sexy clothing”, and “firmly refuse sex before marriage” if they are unable to cope with the “consequences of premarital sex”.

Education Secretary Christine Choi has stood firm in the face of all the criticism.

“We wish to protect the teenagers,” she said while defending the documents in an interview on Sunday, adding that it is illegal to have sex with an underage person.

She has received support from the city’s leader John Lee, who said that while there could be different opinions on education, the government plays a “leading role in determining the kind of society it aims to build”.

But to Henry Chan, a father of a 13-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy, these efforts are ridiculous.

“The Hong Kong government is always out of touch. They are making a fool of themselves,” he said.

“My wife and I will probably do that [sex education] ourselves. That’s not something I would count on schools and the government to do.”

A 3,500-year-old jar has been accidentally smashed into pieces by a four-year-old boy during a trip to a museum in Israel.

The Hecht Museum in Haifa told the BBC the crockery dated back to the Bronze Age between 2200 and 1500BC – and was a rare artefact because it was so intact.

It had been on display near the entrance of the museum without glass, as the museum believes there is “special charm” in showing archaeological finds “without obstructions”.

The boy’s father, Alex, said his son “pulled the jar slightly” because he was “curious about what was inside”, causing it to fall.

Alex also said he was “in shock” to see his son next to the smashed jar and at first thought “it wasn’t my child that did it”.

However, after calming the boy down he spoke to the security guard, Alex told the BBC.

The Hecht Museum said the child has been invited back to the exhibition with his family for an organised tour after the incident happened a few days ago.

“There are instances where display items are intentionally damaged, and such cases are treated with great severity, including involving the police,” Lihi Laszlo from the museum told the BBC.

“In this case, however, this was not the situation. The jar was accidentally damaged by a young child visiting the museum, and the response will be accordingly.”

A specialist in conservation has also been appointed to restore the jar, and it will be returned to its spot “in a short time”.

The boy’s father Alex said they will feel “relieved” to see the jar restored but added they are “sorry” because “it will no longer be the same item”.

The museum told the BBC that “whenever possible, items are displayed without barriers or glass walls”.

And “despite the rare incident” the museum said it intends to continue this tradition.

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The jar was most likely originally intended to be used to carry local supplies, such as wine and olive oil.

It predates the time of the Biblical King David and King Solomon and is characteristic of the Canaan region on the eastern Mediterranean coast.

Similar items of pottery found during archaeological digs are usually broken or incomplete when unearthed, making this intact jar “an impressive find” when it was discovered, the museum added.

The Hecht Museum is in the grounds of the University of Haifa in northern Israel and collects items of archaeology and art.

Japan has issued its highest level alert to more than five million people after the country was hit by one of its strongest typhoons in decades.

At least four people have been killed and more than 90 injured after Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in the country’s south-west. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without power.

The level five order issued in parts of the southern island of Kyushu told residents to take immediate life-saving action by moving to a safer location or seeking shelter higher in their homes. In other areas, people have been advised to leave.

After making landfall, the typhoon weakened to a severe tropical storm and is pummelling its way north-east, bringing torrential rain and severe disruption to transport services.

Shanshan landed in Kagoshima prefecture, in the southern island of Kyushu, at around 08:00 local time on Thursday (23:00 GMT Wednesday), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

It has left a trail of destruction in its wake, with many buildings damaged and windows shattered by flying debris, trees uprooted and cars overturned.

Late on Tuesday, three people from the same family – a couple in their 70s and a man in his 30s – were killed by a landslide in central Japan ahead of the typhoon’s arrival. Their home in Gamagori was swept away, while two other female relatives were rescued.

A fourth person was confirmed dead by police on Thursday. The 80-year-old man from Tokushima prefecture was trapped after the roof of a house collapsed about 17:30 local time (08:30 GMT), according to Japan’s national broadcaster NHK.

The fire brigade rescued the man around 50 minutes after the incident but he later died in hospital. The JMA recorded 110mm of rainfall in the area around the time of the incident.

The agency has issued its rare “special warning” for the most violent storms, warning of landslides, flooding and large-scale damage. High winds of up to 252 km/h (157mph) have been reported on Kyushu.

Most of the evacuation orders are in place for the southern island, but some were also issued for central Japan.

Videos online show large trees swaying, tiles blown off houses, and debris being thrown into the air as heavy rains lashed the island.

Major carmakers like Toyota and Nissan shut down their plants, citing the safety of employees as well as potential parts shortages caused by the storm.

Hundreds of flights to and from southern Japan have been cancelled, with some high-speed train services have also been suspended.

JMA expects the storm to move across Japan over the weekend before it reaches the capital Tokyo.

Special typhoon warnings, like the one issued for Shanshan, are declared in Japan in cases of extraordinarily powerful storms. The same warning was issued in September 2022 as Typhoon Nanmadol approached Kyushu – the first such warning declared for a region other than Okinawa.

Shanshan comes in the wake of Typhoon Ampil earlier this month, which caused only minor injuries and damage but still disrupted hundreds of flights and trains.

Before that, northern parts of Japan saw record rainfall when Tropical Storm Maria hit Honshu island.

Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released last month.

South Korea’s president has urged authorities to do more to “eradicate” the country’s digital sex crime epidemic, amid a flood of deepfake pornography targeting young women.

Authorities, journalists and social media users recently identified a large number of chat groups where members were creating and sharing sexually explicit “deepfake” images – including some of underage girls.

Deepfakes are generated using artificial intelligence, and often combine the face of a real person with a fake body.

South Korea’s media regulator is holding an emergency meeting in the wake of the discoveries.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday instructed authorities to “thoroughly investigate and address these digital sex crimes to eradicate them”.

“Recently, deepfake videos targeting an unspecified number of people have been circulating rapidly on social media,” President Yoon said at a cabinet meeting.

“The victims are often minors and the perpetrators are mostly teenagers.”

The spate of chat groups, linked to individual schools and universities across the country, were discovered on the social media app Telegram over the past week.

Users, mainly teenage students, would upload photos of people they knew – both classmates and teachers – and other users would then turn them into sexually explicit deepfake images.

The discoveries follow the arrest of the Russian-born founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, on Saturday, after it was alleged that child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud were taking place on the encrypted messaging app.

South Korea has a dark history of digital sex crimes.

In 2019 it emerged that men were using a Telegram chatroom to blackmail dozens of young women into performing sexual acts, in a scandal known as nth-room. The group’s ring-leader, Cho Ju-bin, was sentenced to 42 years in jail.

Online deepfake sex crimes have surged, according to South Korean police. A total of 297 cases were reported in the first seven months of this year, up from 180 in the whole of last year and 160 in 2021. Teenagers were responsible for more than two-thirds of the offences over the past three years.

The Korean Teachers Union, meanwhile, believes more than 200 schools have been affected in this latest string of incidents. The number of deepfakes targeting teachers has surged in the past couple of years, according to the Ministry of Education.

Park Ji-hyun, a women’s rights activist and former interim leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said the government needed to declare a “national emergency” in response to South Korea’s deepfake porn problem.

“Deepfake sexual abuse materials can be created in just one minute, and anyone can enter the chatroom without any verification process,” Ms Park wrote on X.

“Such incidents are occurring in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country.”

To build a “healthy media culture”, President Yoon said young men needed to be better educated.

“Although it is often dismissed as ‘just a prank,’ it is clearly a criminal act that exploits technology to hide behind the shield of anonymity,” he said.

Korea’s media regulator is meeting on Wednesday to discuss how to tackle this latest crisis, but opponents of the government have questioned whether it is up to the job.

“I don’t believe this government, which dismisses structural gender discrimination as mere ‘personal disputes’, can effectively address these issues,” Bae Bok-joo, a women’s rights activist and a former member of the minor Justice Party, told the AFP news agency.

Before coming into office, President Yoon said South Korean women did not suffer from “systemic gender discrimination”, despite evidence to the contrary.

Women hold just 5.8% of the executive positions in South Korea’s publicly listed companies, and are paid on average a third less than South Korean men – giving the country the worst gender pay gap of any rich nation in the world.

To this can be added a pervasive culture of sexual harassment, fuelled by the booming tech industry, which has contributed to an explosion of digital sex crimes.

These have previously included cases of women being filmed by tiny hidden cameras, or “spycams”, as they used the toilet or undressed in changing rooms.

Five more Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in a second day of raids in the occupied West Bank, with the UN calling for de-escalation.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were “five terrorists who had hidden inside a mosque” in Tulkarm, near the boundary with Israel.

Israel began what it said was a major counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank on Wednesday. There have been conflicting death tolls as the operation unfolded across multiple cities.

The IDF said yesterday that nine militants had been killed, five in Jenin and Tulkarm, and four in al-Faraa refugee camp. The Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday that 12 people had been killed in IDF attacks so far.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to immediately halt its operation, saying it was “fuelling an already explosive situation”.

He urged Israeli forces to “exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when it is strictly unavoidable”.

The IDF said the five Palestinians were killed after “exchanges of fire” in Tulkarm.

It identified one of the fatalities as Mohammed Jaber – also known as Abu Shujaa – who was reportedly the local leader of the Tulkarem Brigade, which is backed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.

The IDF said Jaber was linked to a number of attacks on Israelis, and was planning more.

Elsewhere, in Jenin, ambulances are stopped and checked by military jeeps parked around the government hospital as security forces continue their operation in the city’s refugee camp.

The camp is a base for armed groups, as well as a home to unarmed civilians, and has been the scene of many fierce gun battles in the past.

There’s little news coming out from the camp at the moment, with Israeli forces blocking access and Palestinian phone networks down.

Residents, medics and journalists have been trying to read the situation inside from the occasional explosions and bursts of gunfire heard since last night.

One person inside told the BBC that it appears calm at the moment, and they can hear drones buzzing overhead.

It is the second day of what Israeli media say could be a days-long operation in the West Bank.

The Israeli military said it had made arrests and seized weapons.

Homes and infrastructure were damaged in the attacks, Palestinians said.

It is the largest such action in the West Bank since the days of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, two decades ago.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the operation has a “clear goal: preventing Iranian terror-by-proxy that would harm Israeli civilians”.

In recent days Israeli politicians have accused Iran – which backs both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – of trying to smuggle in explosive devices with the aim of attacking Israel.

Israel “cannot sit idly by and wait for the spectacle of buses and cafes exploding in city centres”, Mr Danon said in a post on X.

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, and the subsequent war in Gaza.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Israel’s operation in the West Bank “must not constitute the premises of a war extension from Gaza”.

Elsewhere on Thursday, Mr Borrell said he was starting the process of asking EU members if they want to impose sanctions on “some Israeli ministers”.

He accused the ministers – who he has not named – of “launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law”.

A hiker was rescued from a mountain in the US state of Colorado after being apparently left behind the previous day by his colleagues during an office retreat.

The unnamed man got lost and found himself without phone signal after being left by colleagues who went ahead without him, the Chaffee County Search and Rescue team said.

He endured stormy weather and multiple falls before being found in a “large search effort” the next morning. He was stabilised and taken to hospital, but there has been no further update on his condition.

The officials suggested the incident “might cause some awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks”.

The drama unfolded on Friday as a 15-strong group from the company – which has also not been named – ventured along a trail up Mt Shavano, which is 14,000ft (4,300m) high.

In their statement, officials said the hiker reached the summit on his own at about 11:30 local time (17:30 GMT), but became “disorientated” on his descent.

His colleagues are said to have told him that he was on the wrong route, and suggested that he regain the trail.

But their teammate became still more lost after a strong storm passed by, bringing “high winds and freezing rain” and leaving him without phone signal.

Chaffee County Search and Rescue received an alert at 21:00 that evening, dispatching two teams and a drone pilot who were thwarted by the bad weather.

A helicopter was also sent, but despite tracing the man’s last known movements, the rescuers could not find him. He was wearing dark clothing.

Extra help was summoned from multiple agencies in neighbouring areas on Saturday morning, resulting in what the officials called a “large search effort”.

Eventually, the missing man recovered enough phone signal to make an emergency call, and he was located in a gully.

He reported that he had fallen at least 20 times and was left unable to get up.

His rescue ultimately involved technical rope lowers and “phenomenal cooperation and teamwork”, the officials added.

The man’s health remains unknown after being taken for hospital care. The BBC has contacted Chaffee County Search and Rescue for further comment.

In their statement, they warned people never to hike alone, and to pack bright clothing and essential supplies.

“This hiker was phenomenally lucky to have regained cell service when he did, and to still have enough consciousness and wherewithal to call 911,” they said.

An incident which saw two women lock a crying toddler in an aeroplane toilet has sparked an online debate in China on how to manage children in public spaces.

The incident went viral on the Chinese internet after one of the two women, Gou Tingting, posted a video of herself carrying the girl inside the cubicle.

In her post, she presented herself as trying to help others on board, but was swiftly met with backlash.

The airline later said that the girl’s grandmother had given the two women permission to “educate her”.

The incident took place on 24 August onboard a Juneyao Airlines flight from the southwestern city of Guiyang to Shanghai.

The toddler, who was travelling with her grandmother, had started crying during the flight.

The airline said in a statement two days after the incident that the girl’s grandmother had agreed to let two women take the girl to the toilet.

A video posted by Ms Gou on Chinese social media reportedly showed the other woman telling the girl she could leave the cubicle only if she stopped crying.

Local media reports say she was a one-year-old, though the airline has not given that detail.

Shortly after she posted the video, backlash was swift, with many criticising Ms Gou for lacking empathy and “bullying” the child.

Responding to the criticism, Ms Gou said she “prefers to take action rather than be a bystander”.

“I just wanted to calm the child down and let everyone rest,” she wrote on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok.

She also explained that some passengers had “moved to the back of the plane to escape the noise” while others stuffed tissue papers into their ears.

Ms Gou’s account has since been set to private.

“Children cannot control their emotions when they are one or two years old. What’s wrong with crying? Didn’t you cry when you were young too?” one user wrote on Weibo.

Another was concerned about the psychological impact on the girl, saying: “We should be thinking about how public spaces can better accept and accommodate young children.”

But there were some who defended the women, saying their actions were justified as the girl’s grandmother had given her consent.

“To be honest, some children cannot do without some education,” a Weibo user wrote.

There has been growing debate over how to manage what China calls “bear children” – spoilt young kids who kick up a fuss in public spaces such as by screaming or damaging public property.

The use of the word “bear” in this instance suggests some people in China think some children can act in a feral way.

Some public trains have started operating separate compartments for children.

There are mixed views on this elsewhere in the world. South Korea, for example, has designated hundreds of children-free zones in restaurants, museums and theatres.

Lawmakers have called on the government to get rid of these zones, citing the need to recreate a society which are more accepting of children – especially as the country is wrestling with a low birth rate.

Global airlines, including Turkish-Dutch carrier Corendon Airlines and Singapore-based Scoot, offer the option for passengers to pay more to be seated in a child-free zone.

Passengers on a round-the-world cruise have been left stranded in Belfast for three months after their voyage was beset by delays.

Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey arrived at Queen’s Island in the Northern Ireland capital to be outfitted before it was scheduled to leave on 30 May for the first leg of a three-year cruise.

But the ship has still not left yet thanks to problems with its rudders and gearbox.

Florida resident Holly Hennessey is among those on board to have “hunkered down” and made the city their unexpected home.

Travelling with her cat, Captain, has meant the self-proclaimed “cruise addict” has been unable to leave Belfast while waiting for the ship to be ready.

Passengers are allowed to spend time on the ship during the day, but must disembark in the evenings.

“We can spend all day aboard the ship, and they provide shuttle buses to get on and off,” Ms Hennessey said.

“We can have all of our meals and they even have movies and trivia entertainment, almost like cruising except we’re at the dock.”

Despite enjoying the sights, the damp weather has been a shock for the US native.

“I’ve never had so much use for my umbrella in my life, and I carry my raincoat everywhere I go.”

Passengers on the cruise were given the option of buying their cabin outright rather than paying a daily rate for their room like a traditional hotel.

It allows them to remain onboard beyond the Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey’s initial three-year tour.

“I want to stay just as long as I am able,” she said. “I have always wanted to live on a ship, and it will be a dream come true for me.”

Villa Vie Residences’ website states that the cost of buying a cabin can range from $99,999 to $899,000.

Ms Hennessey’s cabin has space for a double bed, small living area with room for the cat and a balcony.

“Villa Vie is a community and a real community has pets,” she said.

The company says they are trying to do everything they can to “relieve the anxiety” of passengers by planning trips and other cruises or putting them up in hotels.

Angela and Stephen Theriac lived in Nicaragua and have made the most of their wait.

Since May they have travelled by train around Spain, taken weekend trips to England, and visited Greenland.

“We are travellers, and we want to make the most of the place we are in,” said Ms Theriac.

“We keep teasing we will apply for residency here in Belfast.”

Her husband Stephen says they have settled in with the locals.

“We have eaten in every restaurant and had a Guinness in every pub,” he said.

“It is just all part of our adventure.”

Dr David Austin, from Georgia in the United States, says he has “stopped counting down” the days until the ship launches.

“The payoff of seeing the world in this fashion is too great to feel too disappointed with each delay announcement,” he said.

“I was committed, having sold my house right before my arrival, and I’ve stayed committed to this adventure with every delay.”

CEO Mike Petterson said that he expects the ship to launch by the end of next week.

“We’re not focused on the next days or weeks, we are focused on the rest of our lives and what this company will do for the residents and the industry,” he said.

Mr Petterson explained that Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the first “affordable” residential cruise ship.

“When you’re the first at doing something, you will run into hiccups, but we’re definitely getting there, and although we are late, we will launch,” he added.