US Vice-President Kamala Harris has defended changing her mind on key issues in her first interview since entering the presidential race.

The Democratic nominee was pressed on why her policies on immigration and climate have become more moderate since she ran for president in 2019.

“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash.

She also vowed to “turn the page” on the divisive rhetoric of the Trump era, in the joint interview with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Her Republican opponent Donald Trump described the interview as “BORING!!!” on Truth Social when it concluded, and described Ms Harris as a fraud.

The vice-president was forced to defend the White House’s economic track record, as inflation and high cost-of-living prices continue to hurt Americans.

When asked why she hadn’t already implemented her ideas to tackle economic hardship she said they had done a lot of good work already but there was more to do.

Polls suggest that voters would prefer Trump’s handling of the economy.

Here are the key takeaways from the interview.

• Fact-checking Harris’s first interview
• Where Kamala Harris stands on 10 key issues

Pressed on her move from liberal to more moderate policy positions, she said her values were consistent, pointing to her commitment to tackling climate change as an example.

Asked about her reversal on banning fracking, a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock, she said she was confident US climate targets could be met without a ban.

The main Republican line of attack has been to cast Ms Harris as an extremist, pointing to her 2019 statements as evidence.

Back then, she also advocated for the closure of immigration detention centres and the decriminalisation of illegal crossings.

She takes a stronger line on the border now, referring to her time “prosecuting transnational, criminal organisations” as California attorney general.

Earlier this year, she supported a bipartisan border security bill that would have included hundreds of millions of dollars for more wall construction.

Trump pressured Republicans in Congress to kill the deal, which Ms Harris said in the CNN interview was a cynical political move.

Ms Harris also was asked about the war in Gaza, and re-iterated the White House’s position that both Israel and Hamas must “get a deal done” and that the Palestinians deserve to have their own country neighbouring Israel.

“This war must end, and we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out,” she said.

While emphasising the importance of a deal, she offered no specifics on how it would be achieved.

She would not commit to an arms embargo on Israel, as some on her party’s left flank have demanded.

To explain her moderated immigration view, the Democratic nominee told CNN that her travels across the country as vice-president had made her believe in building consensus.

Expanding on that, she said she would include a Republican in her presidential cabinet.

She said it would fulfill her promise to be a president “for all Americans”.

“I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views.”

CNN’s Dana Bash asked Ms Harris, born to immigrant parents from Jamaica and India, about recent comments by Trump in which he suggested she assumed a black identity in later life for political purposes.

The comments caused an outrage but the vice-president had not weighed in.

This time she gave a very short answer.

“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”

When asked later in the interview about the historic nature of her candidacy, she said she believed she was the best person to be president for for all Americans, regardless of race and gender.

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• A 1986 snapshot of student Kamala Harris

Mr Walz was asked about misleading statements he has made about his military service and his personal struggle to have children.

Ms Bash asked him to clarify a comment he made in which he said he “carried” an assault rifle in “war”. The campaign has clarified that Mr Walz was never in a war zone.

The governor said he wore “his emotions on his sleeve” and was “speaking passionately” about the subject of gun crime in schools when he made the inaccurate statement.

That “passion” also extended to his incorrect assertion that his wife had received in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments – which have become a political lightning rod in the US debate over abortion access – to conceive their children.

She received intrauterine insemination, not IVF.

“I spoke about our infertility issues ‘cause it’s hell, and families know this,” he said on CNN.

Ms Harris described the moment that President Biden called her to share that he had decided to end his re-election bid in July.

She said her family was visiting her when she received the phone call. They had just eaten pancakes and bacon and were working on a puzzle.

“My first thought was not about me, to be honest with you, my first thought was about him,” Ms Harris said when asked whether she asked for his endorsement.

The vice-president also maintained that the president could have served again.

“He is so smart, and I have spent hours upon hours with him being in the Oval Office and in the situation room. He has the intelligence, the commitment and judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president.”

She said Trump, by contrast, had none of those qualities.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Harris campaign light on policy so far
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• THIRD-PARTY: Will RFK Jr backing Trump make a difference?
• VOTERS: What young Democrats want from Harris

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has given her first interview since entering the race – a joint conversation alongside running mate Tim Walz.

BBC Verify has looked into claims she made in the CNN interview about fracking, the Biden administration’s record on child tax poverty and investment in clean-energy jobs.

CLAIM: In Thursday’s interview, Ms Harris said she would not ban fracking and maintained that she has “not changed that position”.

VERDICT: This needs context and could be misleading as Ms Harris has changed her public position on fracking. In 2019, she said she was “in favour of banning fracking.”

The following year, in the 2020 vice presidential debate when she was on the Biden ticket, Ms Harris said “Joe Biden will not end fracking” and: “I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe Biden will not ban fracking.”

During the CNN interview on Thursday she was pressed on her 2019 statement, and Ms Harris responded: “I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking. As vice-president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.”

In the debate, Ms Harris was referring to President Joe Biden’s policy plans. She did not state whether her own views at the time differed from this position.

CLAIM: “When we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit, so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50%.”

VERDICT: This is somewhat of an exaggeration and needs context. Child poverty rates did fall, but not by “over 50%” and they rose again the year after, so the impact was only temporary.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) is one measure of poverty in the US and it does show that the child poverty rate fell 46% between 2020 and 2021.

However, after the Covid-era boost to child tax credit ended, the record low child poverty rate of 5.2% in 2021 rose to 12.4% the following year, according to 2022 Census Bureau data.

Americans earning less than $200,000 annually (or $400,000 for joint claimants) can, under the current child tax credit scheme, get $2,000 per year for each of their children under the age of 17.

This amount was increased by President Biden during the Covid pandemic up to a maximum of $3,600 but it reverted back to $2,000 at the end of 2021.

Kamala Harris has said that as president she would restore the child tax credit enhancement and provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life.

CLAIM: “What we’ve already done creating over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs.”

VERDICT: It is true that a large number of clean energy jobs have been created under the Biden administration, but the exact number is uncertain.

Kamala Harris is referring to the jobs created by the Inflation Reduction Act – a law signed by Joe Biden in August 2022 that introduced major investments in clean energy and climate-related projects.

The claim of “over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs” comes from a recent report by Climate Power, a climate communications organisation.

It reported that since August 2022 companies have “announced and advanced 646 new clean energy projects totalling 334,565 new jobs”.

However, not all of these new job roles have necessarily begun, and it is also hard to attribute the whole increase in climate-related employment to the Inflation Reduction Act at a time when clean energy is growing across the world.

Other groups give different numbers. E2, an economics and environment group, estimates around 109,000 clean-energy jobs have been created or announced since the Inflation Reduction Act.

According to the US Department of Energy, in 2023 clean-energy employment grew at a rate twice as large as the US economy overall and the rest of the energy sector.

Three foreign workers trapped inside a collapsed train tunnel have died despite rescue efforts that lasted over five days, Thai authorities have said.

The men, two from China and one from Myanmar, were still thought to be alive as recently as Thursday.

They were trapped when part of the tunnel they were building collapsed on Saturday in Pak Chong district, about 200km (124 mi) north-east of the capital Bangkok.

On Friday, authorities announced all three had died, with initial investigations suggesting this was due to a lack of air.

The tunnel, which was under construction and is part of the Thailand-China high-speed railway project, had collapsed due to a landslide at around 23:40 local time (16:40 GMT) last Saturday.

Rescuers, comprising officials from the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) and a Chinese disaster response team, had been working round-the-clock over the past week with the hope of rescuing the victims.

They had tried to pump oxygen into the tunnel to keep the workers alive, but it is unclear whether the tubes they used reached the workers at all.

On Thursday, rescuers found the body of a Burmese truck driver buried under a pile of soil and rocks.

The bodies of the two Chinese workers, a supervisor and an excavator operator, were found at about 06:00 local time (00:00 GMT) on Friday, the SRT said.

All three bodies were found about 25 metres from the point of the tunnel collapse, officials had said.

Local reports claim rescuers had got within just one metre of one of the men on Wednesday. On the same day, they had purportedly heard faint sounds which they believed were coming from the men.

Scanners and sniffer dogs had also detected vital signs, offering hope that the workers could still be alive.

However rescue efforts progressed slowly due to the ongoing landslide – falling dirt continually blocked the holes made by rescuers to move deeper into the tunnel.

Thailand’s caretaker Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said rescuers were hindered by “the limitation of engineering”.

They had to be careful that their digging would not cause other parts of the tunnel to collapse, he said, adding that the rescuers had to build 3m (9.8ft) high supporting structures for their own safety.

“Nobody wanted [this incident] to happen,” he said at a press conference on Friday.

“We did not only try to save the lives of the victims, we also had to [ensure the safety] of the rescuers and workers,” he said.

The bodies of the three men were brought out of the tunnel on Friday.

Thai police have opened an investigation into the incident, while construction works around the tunnel have been suspended for the time being.

Workers who leave the head office to buy a cup of coffee are costing an Australian mining firm too much money, according to its boss.

Managing director of Mineral Resources Chris Ellison said during a financial results presentation on Wednesday he wants to “hold staff captive all day long”.

“I don’t want them leaving the building,” he said.

The head office in Perth has a restaurant, nine staff psychologists, a gym, and other facilities designed to encourage staff to stay in the office.

“We have a lot of different benefits that we have brought on,” said Mr Ellison, whose company has a strict “no work from home policy”.

“Why have I done that? Because when I get them first thing in the morning, I want to hold them captive all day long. I don’t want them leaving the building.

“I don’t want them walking down the road for a cup of coffee. We kind of figured out a few years ago how much that costs.”

He said the rest of the mining industry should “get on board” with his thinking on the benefits of working in the office rather than at home.

“The industry cannot afford it. We can’t have people working three days a week and picking up five days a week pay – or four days.”

The company culture at Mining Resources also extends to Mr Ellison’s views on parents, with the company building a day-care centre on site big enough for 105 children.

“Another reason for them to come in and enjoy work,” he said.

“Drop their little tykes off next door. We have doctors on board and nurses who are going to feed them, but mum and dad will be working in our office.”

Mr Ellison is not the only boss to enforce a no work from home policy.

Last week, the head of London-based smartphone maker Nothing sent an all-staff email to announce the end of hybrid working and a move to fully office-based work.

“I know this is a controversial decision that may not be a fit for everyone, and there are definitely companies out there that thrive in remote or hybrid setups,” he wrote in the email.

“But that’s not right for our type of business, and won’t help us fully realize our potential as a company.”

Mongolian officials “have the obligation” to arrest Vladimir Putin if he visits the country next week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said.

The trip, expected to happen on Tuesday, will be the first time the Russian leader has visited an ICC member nation since the court ordered his arrest in March 2023.

The court alleges Mr Putin is responsible for war crimes, saying he failed to stop the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia since the conflict began.

Despite officials in Ukraine demanding that Mongolia arrest Mr Putin once he arrives in the country, the Kremlin said it had “no worries” about the visit.

“We have an excellent rapport with our partners from Mongolia,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

“Of course, all aspects of the President’s visit have been carefully prepared.”

Dr Fadi el-Abdallah, a spokesperson for the ICC, told the BBC on Friday that the court relies on its States Parties – including Mongolia – to “execute its decisions”.

He said Mongolia, like other ICC signatories, has the “obligation to cooperate”. This includes complying with arrest warrants such as the one the court issued for Mr Putin’s arrest in 2023.

The court alleged the Russian president is responsible for war crimes, focusing on the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. It has also issued a warrant for the arrest of Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the same crimes.

It said the crimes were committed in Ukraine from 24 February 2022 – when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Moscow has previously denied the allegations and labelled the warrants as “outrageous”.

Dr Abdallah said ICC judges will look into cases of “non-cooperation” by its signatories and inform the Assembly of States Parties, which may “take any measure it deems appropriate”.

The ICC has no powers to arrest suspects, and can only exercise jurisdiction within its member countries.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it hoped Mongolia was “aware of the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal” and called on the country’s authorities to arrest the Russian leader and hand him over to prosecutors at The Hague, the seat of the ICC in the Netherlands.

Last year, Mr Putin cancelled a visit to a summit in South Africa following the ICC warrant for his arrest.

As a signatory to the court, South Africa should detain suspects in its territory, but President Ramaphosa warned Russia would see this as a declaration of war.

Mr Ramaphosa said the decision for the Russian leader to not attend was “mutual”.

The BBC has contacted the Mongolian Embassy for a comment.

Almost 40,000 people died alone in their homes in Japan during the first half of 2024, a report by the country’s police shows.

Of that number, nearly 4,000 people were discovered more than a month after they died, and 130 bodies went unmissed for a year before they were found, according to the National Police Agency.

Japan currently has the world’s oldest population, according to the United Nations.

The agency hopes its report will shed light on the country’s growing issue of vast numbers of its aging population who live, and die, alone.

Taken from the first half of 2024, the National Police Agency data shows that a total of 37,227 people living alone were found dead at home, with those aged 65 and over accounting for more than 70%.

While an estimated 40% of people who died alone at home were found within a day, the police report found that nearly 3,939 bodies were discovered more than a month after death, and 130 had laid unnoticed for at least a year before discovery.

Accounting for 7,498 of the bodies found, the dataset’s largest group belonged to 85-year-olds and above, followed by 75-79-year-olds at 5,920. People aged between 70 and 74 accounted for 5,635 of the bodies found.

According to Japanese public TV network NHK, the police agency will give its findings to a government group looking into the unattended deaths.

Earlier this year, the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, said the number of elderly citizens (aged 65 and above) living alone is expected to reach 10.8m by the year 2050.

The overall number of single-person households is estimated to hit 23.3m in the same year.

In April, the Japanese government introduced a bill tackling the country’s decades-long loneliness and isolation problem, partly caused by the country’s ageing population.

Japan has long tried to counter its ageing and declining population, but the shift is becoming hard for the country to manage.

Last year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its declining birth rate.

Some neighbouring countries are facing similar demographic challenges.

In 2022, China’s population fell for the first time since 1961, while South Korea has repeatedly reported the lowest fertility rate in the world.

Families’ homes are being demolished near Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste, in the area where Pope Francis will celebrate mass next month.

Nearly 90 people have been told by the government that they must find somewhere new to live before he arrives, according to evicted residents who spoke to the BBC.

The Timor-Leste government denies the evictions are connected to the Pope’s visit, insisting that the residents are living there illegally.

Authorities have spent around $18m (£13.6m) on the pontiff’s three-day visit, which begins on 9 September.

“We are very sad,” Zerita Correia, a local resident, told BBC News.

“They even demolished our belongings inside the house. Now we have to rent nearby because my children are still in school in this area,” she added.

A spokesman for the residents said that 11 families will have been moved before Pope Francis arrives in Timor-Leste. The government has paid them between $7,000 and $10,000 for their homes.

“The amount is not enough for each household to meet its needs,” said Venancio Ximenes, speaking to the BBC

“The next phase of evictions will come after Pope Francis leaves and that will involve more than 1,300 families,” he added.

The homes are located in Tasitolu, a wetland area just outside of Dili. Over the past decade, hundreds of people moved there from rural parts of the country.

Many came looking for work in the capital and built basic homes in the area. The government says they are squatting and have no right to live on the land.

Speaking to the BBC, a government minister said that residents were made aware of plans to clear the area in September 2023.

“It is time for the state to take back its property,” said Germano Santa Brites Dias, Secretary of State for Toponymy and Urban Organisation.

“Last year, we spoke heart-to-heart with the community and now they must leave and go back to their villages,” he added.

An estimated 700,000 people are expected to attend Pope Francis’ open-air mass in Tasitolu, where an area of 23 hectares – equivalent to about 40 football pitches – is being prepared.

Aside from the government’s controversial plans to evict residents, critics have also questioned the decision to spend such large amounts of money on the visit – including $1m on a brand new altar for Pope Francis.

According to the UN, nearly half of the population of Timor Leste currently lives below the national poverty line.

“The annual budget to increase food production in the country is only about $4.7m,” said Mariano Fereira, a researcher at the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis, speaking to UCA News.

“All this spending can hardly do any good to the availability of food,” he added.

Next month will mark the first papal trip to Timor-Leste since Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, when the country was still under Indonesian occupation.

Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor, has a population of 1.3m – the vast majority of whom identify as Catholic.

When Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975, only around 20% of East Timorese people were Catholic. That figure now stands at 97%.

Enthusiasm for the pontiff’s upcoming visit is huge, but the Pope is being urged by campaigners to address a recent abuse scandal that tarnished the Church in the country.

In 2022, the Vatican acknowledged that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys.

A Vatican spokesman said the church had been aware of the case in 2019 and had imposed disciplinary measures in 2020, including restrictions on Belo’s movements and a ban on voluntary contact with minors.

It is unclear whether Pope Francis will apologise for the scandal, meet with victims or even whether Bishop Belo will appear alongside him in Dili.

An Aboriginal teenager has died by suicide at a youth prison in Perth, Western Australia (WA).

The 17-year-old had spent only two days in custody before he was found unresponsive in his cell on Thursday and could not be revived, state authorities say.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the most incarcerated people on the planet and as a result are far more likely to die in custody than non-Indigenous Australians.

Deaths in juvenile detention centres are rare, though this is the second in the state in under a year.

“This is a horrible, horrible event,” WA premier Roger Cook said when announcing an investigation on Friday morning.

“Clearly a failure has taken place and we will undertake the important task of understanding the circumstances.”

The teenager – who has not been identified – had arrived at the centre on Tuesday in an intoxicated state and so had been placed in an intensive supervision unit due to concerns for his health.

However there were no signs of mental distress, Commissioner of Corrective Services Brad Royce told reporters.

The boy had spent most of Thursday afternoon outside of his cell, and had been checked on by staff ten times in the hours before his death.

The incident comes ten months after 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd became the first recorded death at youth detention centre in the state.

Investigators this year cleared prison staff of serious misconduct, but found significant failures in the lead up to his death.

Mr Royce said he had reviewed footage from the detention centre on Thursday and was satisfied the response of staff in this case was “appropriate”.

The condition of youth jails across the state had improved since Cleveland’s death, Mr Cook said.

“I have more confidence than ever before in terms of the way we are managing our juvenile detention facilities,” he said.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up less than 4% of Australia’s population, but last year accounted for about a third of the adult prison population and two-thirds of people in youth detention. They also made up 28% of deaths in custody.

Australia has been under international pressure to raise the age of criminal responsibility – which in some state is as low as 10, and disproportionately affects First Nations kids.

The conditions in youth detention centres have also drawn international criticism, including from the UN, which claims they breach international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“This was a preventable death. How many times, by how many experts, does the WA government need to be warned about the dangers of their youth detention centres?” Amnesty International’s Kacey Teerman said in a statement.

Responding to questions about these long-held concerns, Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia on Thursday said there was “no obvious, immediate, systemic change” needed.

“We’re responding with anything we can and anything that’s required.”

Russia is withdrawing 100 of its paramilitary officers from Burkina Faso to help in the war in Ukraine.

They are part of about 300 soldiers from the Bear Brigade – a Russian private military company – who arrived in the West African nation in May to support the country’s military junta.

On its Telegram channel, the group said its forces would return home to support Russia’s defence against Ukraine’s recent offensive in the Kursk region.

There are fears the pull-out could embolden Islamist insurgents in Burkina Faso, who recently killed up to 300 people in one of the biggest attacks in years.

Burkina Faso has since 2015 suffered regular jihadist attacks, with more than two million people displaced in what aid groups call the world’s “most neglected” crisis.

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The junta under interim President Capt Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a coup in September 2022, promised to end the attacks but has struggled, even after seeking new security partnerships with Russia.

With nearly half the country outside government control, jihadist groups are increasingly targeting civilians and military units.

Survivors say up to 300 people were killed on Saturday in the northern town of Barsalogho, in an attack which was claimed by an al-Qaeda-linked armed group, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

They were reportedly both civilians and military personnel helping to dig trenches to help protect the town against jihadist attacks.

The authorities have not said how many people were killed but Communication Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo called the attack “barbaric”.

The Bear Brigade is said to be responsible for guarding senior Burkinabè officials, including Capt Traoré, whose leadership has been threatened before.

They arrived in the same month when gunshots were fired in the Burkinabè capital near the presidential palace, heightening speculation about growing opposition to the junta leader, who claimed to have thwarted a coup attempt last year.

Videos which circulated on social media and reportedly confirmed by the group showed the Burkinabè military leader being guarded by men in uniforms featuring Russian flags.

The group says it is guarding the Russian ambassador in Ouagadougou, the Burkina Faso capital.

About 100 members of this specialised unit are set to leave the West African country, only three months after arriving.

Their sudden departure is linked to the recent Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.

“When the enemy arrives on our Russian territory, all Russian soldiers forget about internal problems and unite against a common enemy,” Bears Brigade commander Viktor Yermolaev told France’s Le Monde newspaper (in French).

On Tuesday, the group posted on its Telegram channel that the unit was returning to its base in Russian-occupied Crimea “in connection with recent events.”

It is not clear how the Burkina Faso junta plans to compensate for the loss of military support after the partial withdrawal of the Bear Brigade.

Burkina’s Faso, like its neighbours, Mali and Niger, is battling various Islamist groups, which operate in the semi-arid Sahel region, south of the Sahara Desert.

The military has seized power in all three countries, and formed the Alliance of Sahel States.

They have cut ties with former colonial power France and befriended Russia instead, buying weapons and deploying fighters with the mercenary Wagner Group, now known as the Africa Corps.

However, armed groups have stepped up their attacks, particularly in Burkina Faso, despite massive recruitment by the paramilitary Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a self-defence militia.

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A military alliance between Somalia and Egypt is ruffling feathers in the fragile Horn of Africa, upsetting Ethiopia in particular – and there are worries the fallout could become more than a war of words.

The tensions ratcheted up this week with the arrival of two Egyptian C-130 military aeroplanes in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, signalling the beginning of the deal signed earlier in August during a state visit by the Somali president to Cairo.

The plan is for up to 5,000 Egyptian soldiers to join a new-look African Union force at the end of the year, with another 5,000 reportedly to be deployed separately.

Ethiopia, which has been a key ally of Somalia in its fight against al-Qaeda-linked militants and is at loggerheads with Egypt over a mega dam it built on the River Nile, said it could not “stand idle while other actors take measures to destabilise the region”.

Somalia’s defence minister hit back, saying Ethiopia should stop “wailing” as everyone “will reap what they sowed” – a reference to their diplomatic relations that have been on a downward spiral for months.

It all comes down to the ambitions of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who wants his landlocked country to have a port. Ethiopia lost its access to the sea when Eritrea seceded in the early 1990s.

On New Year’s Day, Mr Abiy signed a controversial deal with the self-declared republic of Somaliland to lease a 20km (12-mile) section of its coastline for 50 years to set up a naval base.

It could also potentially lead to Ethiopia officially recognising the breakaway republic – something Somaliland is pushing hard for.

Somaliland broke away from Somalia more than 30 years ago, but Mogadishu regards it very much as part of its territory – and described the deal as an act of “aggression”.

Somalia fears such a move might set a precedent and encourage other countries to recognise Somaliland’s independence, geopolitical analyst Jonathan Fenton-Harvey told the BBC.

He added that neighbouring Djibouti was also worried it could harm its own port-dependent economy, as Ethiopia has traditionally relied on Djibouti for imports.

In fact in an attempt to deescalate tensions, Djibouti’s foreign minister has told the BBC his country is ready to offer Ethiopia “100%” access to one of its ports.

“It will be in the port of Tadjoura – 100km [62 miles] from the Ethiopia border,” Mahmoud Ali Youssouf told BBC Focus on Africa TV.

This is definitely a change of tune for as recently as last year, a senior presidential adviser said Djibouti was reluctant to offer its neighbour unfettered access to the Red Sea.

Attempts so far to calm tensions – by Turkey – have failed, with Somalia insisting it will not budge until Ethiopia recognises its sovereignty over Somaliland.

Somalia has not only brought its Nile enemy Egypt into the mix, but also announced that Ethiopian troops would not be part of the AU force from next January.

This is when the AU’s third peace support operation begins – the first one was deployed in 2007 months after Ethiopian troops crossed over the border to help fight al-Shabab Islamist militants, who then controlled the Somali capital.

There are at least 3,000 Ethiopian troops under the current AU mission, according to the Reuters news agency.

Last week, the Somali prime minister also said Ethiopia would have to withdraw its other 5-7,000 soldiers stationed in several regions under separate bilateral agreements – unless it withdrew from the port deal with Somaliland.

Ethiopia sees this as a slap in the face for, as its foreign minister put it, “the sacrifices Ethiopian soldiers have paid” for Somalia.

The withdrawal of troops would also leave Ethiopia vulnerable to jihadist attacks, Christopher Hockney, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC.

The planned deployment of Egyptian troops along its eastern border would also make Ethiopia particularly apprehensive, he added.

Egypt sees Ethiopia’s Nile dam – in the west of the country – as an existential threat – and has warned in the past that it will take “measures” should its security be threatened.

Egypt accuses Ethiopia of threatening its supply of water with the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd).

This began in 2011 on the Blue Nile tributary in Ethiopia’s northern-western highlands, from where 85% of the Nile’s water flow.

Egypt said Ethiopia pushed forward with the project in complete “disregard” of the interests and rights of downstream countries and their water security.

It also argued that a 2% reduction in water from the Nile could result in the loss of around 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) of irrigated land.

For Ethiopia the dam is seen as a way of revolutionising the country by producing electricity for 60% of the population and providing a constant flow of electricity for businesses.

The latest diplomatic efforts to work out how the dam should operate – and determine how much water will flow downstream to Sudan and Egypt – fell apart last December.

Egypt sees its military deal with Somalia as “historic” – in the words of Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi – and a possible chance to settle scores over the mega dam.

Indeed the Nile dispute may well play out in Somalia, warns Dr Hassan Khannenje, the director of the Horn International Institute for Strategic Studies.

It could potentially lead to a “low-scale inter-state conflict” between Ethiopia and Egypt if their troops meet at the Somalia border.

Somaliland has also warned that the establishment of Egyptian military bases within Somalia could destabilise the region.

Both Ethiopia and Somalia are already coping with their own internal strife – Ethiopia with low-level rebellions in several regions and Somalia, recovering from a destructive 30-year civil war, still has al-Shabab to contend with.

Experts say neither can afford further warfare – and more unrest would inevitably lead to further migration.

Dr Khannenje told the BBC that if a conflict broke out, it could further complicate the geopolitics of the Red Sea by drawing in other players and further affect global trade.

At least 17,000 ships go through the Suez Canal each year, meaning that 12% of annual global trade passes through the Red Sea, amounting to $1tn (£842bn) worth of goods, according to shipping monitor Lloyd’s List.

For this reason, countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey have been keen to forge partnerships with African nations like Somalia that border the Red Sea.

According to Mr Harvey, Turkey and the UAE stand a better chance at mediating and finding a middle ground.

The UAE has heavily invested in Somaliland’s Berbera port and holds significant influence over Ethiopia because of its investments there.

All eyes will be on the next diplomatic push by Turkey, which has ties with both Ethiopia and Somalia. Talks are due to start in mid-September.

• Why is Egypt worried about Ethiopia’s dam on the Nile?
• Can the Horn of Africa rift be healed?
• Ethiopia PM eyes Red Sea port, inflaming tensions

The Israeli military says it has killed the head of the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Jenin and two other fighters, as a major operation continues for a third day in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli security forces shot dead Wissam Khazem and then carried out air strikes on the other two as they attempted to flee, a statement said.

The Palestinian health ministry said the three men were killed overnight near the town of Zababdeh, south-east of Jenin. Hamas also confirmed their deaths.

Gunfire and explosions continued to be heard inside Jenin itself on Friday, while Israeli forces pulled out of Tulkarm and its refugee camps.

There has been no confirmation of the withdrawal from the military, which said on Thursday that it had killed five members of armed groups in Tulkarm, including their local leader.

At least 19 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Israeli operation, which is one of the biggest in the West Bank in two decades, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Most of those killed have been identified as fighters. But the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said children and one person with disabilities were reportedly among the dead.

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

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, saying they are trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

On Friday morning, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Shin Bet domestic security agency and Israel Border Police put out a joint statement announcing that Wissam Khazem had been killed during an operation in the Jenin area.

It said Border Police forces had “encountered and eliminated” Khazem in a car, and accused him of carrying out and directing shooting and bombing attacks.

Shortly afterwards, it added, an IDF aircraft had “eliminated two additional terrorists while they attempted to flee from the vehicle”. It named them as Maysara Masharqa and Arafat Amer, and alleged that they had taken part in shooting attacks.

The Palestinian health ministry said the three men had been killed in Zababdeh and that their bodies had been taken away by Israeli forces.

Residents of the town found the burned-out wreck of a car riddled with bullet holes and reported that there had been two drone strikes.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed that Khazem was a leader in Jenin camp and that Masharqa and Amer were members.

Israeli forces also continued their operation in Jenin itself for a third consecutive day.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that several soldiers had raided the al-Ansar mosque in the urban Jenin refugee camp, in the west of the city.

Meanwhile, residents of Tulkarm and its refugee camps inspected the damage to homes and infrastructure following the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

“There’s no difference between us and Gaza, we’re the second Gaza,” Nayef Alajma told AFP news agency in Nur Shams camp.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had killed “five terrorists who were hiding in a mosque”, including Mohammed Jaber, the leader of the local Tulkarm Brigade, which is affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Wafa said four Palestinians had been killed during the 48-hour operation.

Also on Thursday, the Israeli military announced that forces had pulled out of the al-Faraa refugee camp near Tubas after completing what it called “the objective of foiling terror, exposing terrorist infrastructure and eliminating armed terrorists”.

The head of the Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, said tens of thousands of people in four refugee camps had been affected by the raids, and that the agency had been forced to suspend services in several camps.

With the war in Gaza still raging, the Israeli operation is causing international alarm.

The UK said on Friday that while it recognised Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, it was “deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure”.

“The risk of instability is serious and the need for de-escalation urgent,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said.

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday that the raids were “fuelling an already explosive situation”.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has said it expects to be blocked in Brazil after failing to meet a deadline to name a new legal representative for the company.

The social media network closed its office in the country earlier this month, saying its representative had been threatened with arrest if she did not comply with orders it described as “censorship”.

The months-long row began with Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes in April ordering the suspension of dozens of X accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation.

X owner Elon Musk has threatened to reactivate the accounts, and has described Justice Moraes as a “tyrant” and a “dictator”.

Justice Moraes gave X 24 hours to name a new legal representative or face suspension, with the deadline coming just after 20:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Thursday.

The order said a ban would remain in effect until X names a legal representative in the country and pays fines for alleged violations of Brazilian law.

But in a post from one of its official accounts shortly after the deadline expired, X made clear that it had not complied with the order.

“Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” the post said.

“The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.”

X said it would not comply “in secret with illegal orders”, adding that it would publish the judge’s demands in the coming days “in the interests of transparency”.

Justice Moraes had ordered that X accounts accused of spreading disinformation – many supporters of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro – must be blocked while they are under investigation. He said the company’s legal representatives would be held liable if any accounts were reactivated.

Meanwhile, the bank accounts of Mr Musk’s satellite internet firm Starlink have been frozen in Brazil following an order by the country’s Supreme Court.

Starlink responded with a post on X which said the “order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied – unconstitutionally – against X.”

Mr Musk also said on X that “SpaceX and X are two completely different companies with different shareholders.”

Starlink is a subsidiary of Mr Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX.

In 2022, the government of then-President Bolsonaro gave Starlink the green light to operate in Brazil.

As South America’s largest country, Brazil and its remote regions in the Amazon have huge potential for Starlink, which specialises in providing internet services to isolated areas.

Justice Moraes gained prominence after his decisions to restrict social media platforms in the country.

He is also investigating Mr Bolsonaro and his supporters for their roles in an alleged attempted coup on 8 January last year.

X is not the first social media company to come under pressure from authorities in Brazil.

Last year, Telegram was temporarily banned over its failure to cooperate with requests to block certain profiles.

Meta’s messaging service Whatsapp also faced temporary bans in 2015 and 2016 for refusing to comply with police requests for user data.

For the Pacific Islands, climate change, geopolitics and security have often been the bread and butter of any summit.

But at this year’s Pacific Island Forum Leader’s Meeting – the region’s biggest diary event – there was another hot topic thrown into the mix: that of New Caledonia and the unrest that hit the French overseas territory back in May.

A controversial French proposal to extend voting rights to people who had lived on the islands for more than 10 years sparked deadly protests. Eleven people have since died – nine civilians and two French gendarmes – and there are still French police on the ground.

President Emmanuel Macron visited New Caledonia and, in June, halted the reform. But tensions remain high, with a growing push towards independence among the Indigenous Kanaks, who make up 41% of the population.

The French have said they want to set the record straight. They were on a PR mission in Tonga, where leaders from all 18 island nations and territories gathered this past week, including New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou.

But small island nations were sceptical – the violence in New Caledonia had seen support for the French wane. And many saw it as an attempt by France to hold on to a strategic part of the world where the US and China were fighting for sway.

“We’ve seen lots of nice press about the French delegation throughout this week,” Véronique Roger-Lacan, France’s ambassador to the Pacific, said on Thursday, breaking into an ironic laugh.

She was holding a press briefing that had been heavily publicised, her team consistently encouraging media to attend. She made it clear they were there to answer questions and show transparency in what had been a bruising few months not just for New Caledonia but for France’s reputation in the region.

The French delegation attended as a “dialogue partner” – one of 21 such countries with interests in the region, inlcuding Washington and Beijing.

As an overseas French territory, New Caledonia’s defence, foreign affairs and policing are coordinated by France. To many here, it looked like France was chaperoning the pro-independence leader.

“Being a country in the Pacific we can feel that we are part of a community of challenges,” François-Xavier Léger, the French Ambassador to Fiji, said at the briefing. And before that, Ambassador Roger-Lacan said that “New Caledonia is France”.

These comments ruffled feathers at the forum, where there was much discussion of decolonisation and independence.

“In making this kind of statement, it’s not really helping the discussion,” said Reverend Billy Wetewea, a pastor at the Protestant Church of Kanaky who also attended the forum.

Reverend Wetewea has worked with many of the Kanaky youth in New Caledonia who led the protests. “I don’t justify the violence, but I think it can be explained through social dynamics,” he said, adding that years of inequality in education, health and social issues had taken their toll.

New Caledonia is on the United Nation’s list of non-self-governing territories – countries the UN monitors in their progress towards independence.

France has been clear it is following the steps towards decolonisation. The Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998, put the territory onto a path of more autonomy. The intention was that over a 20-year period, a more independent New Caledonia would emerge.

Three referendums were also tabled. In the first, held in 2018, voters rejected independence by 56.7%. Then in 2020, there was a narrower victory for the anti-independence side – 53%. In 2021, independence parties boycotted the final referendum, arguing that the vote was being rushed through. The Covid pandemic had made campaigning impossible and Indigenous Kanaks were still taking part in rituals to bury their dead.

Unsurprisingly, the pro-France side won with an overwhelming majority. That last referendum has set the tone for the past few years of strain between France and the Kanaks, who feel that France playing isn’t fair in their path to decolonisation.

When asked by the BBC what France could do to change that view, Ambasssador Roger-Lacan was resolute they are doing everything by the book.

“This is the ongoing job in New Caledonia with you all in the press,” she said. “Things have to be portrayed in a neutral manner, everywhere, disinformation has to be stopped, right information has to be put to the people on this self-determination and democratic process.”

While France may blame the media for not reporting their side, many here blamed France’s tone – and questioned their interests.

“They want to maintain their presence in the Pacific geopolitically [with] the fear of China taking over the Pacific,” Reverend Billy Wetewea said.

China sent its largest-ever delegation to the forum this year. And the US delegation was led by Kurt Campbell, President Joe Biden’s Deputy Secretary of State, widely credited as the architect of Washington’s recent alliance-building in Asia.

France’s position in the Pacific was brought into sharp focus in 2021, when Australia cancelled a multi-billion dollar contract with a French firm to build nuclear submarines. Instead it signed a new, key defence pact with the US and the UK.

This, researcher Benoît Trépied said, altered France’s approach with New Caledonia: “Suddenly there was a huge new interest of French officials in the Pacific. [The] colonial, imperial reflex which was – no, if we want to be powerful in the Pacific, New Caledonia has to stay French. Period.”

Despite the stand-off, this week’s meeting was fruitful. Leaders endorsed a planned fact-finding mission to visit New Caledonia, which was meant to happen earlier but disagreements over who was in control of the mission made the timing slip.

But for Reverend Wetewea, there needs to be more dialogue.

“They cannot take decisions without consulting the people,” he said. “If they make their own decisions, it will be really tense again. Now the youth want their voice to be heard.”

“My heart is filled with so much pain. Even today, I cry when I think about how that one encounter destroyed my life.”

The year was 1992. Sushma* said she was 18 when a man she knew took her to an abandoned warehouse under the pretext of watching video tapes. There, six to seven men tied her up, raped her and took photographs of the act.

The men belonged to rich, influential families in Ajmer, a city in the western Indian state of Rajasthan.

“After they raped me, one of them gave me 200 rupees [$2; £1] to buy lipstick. I didn’t take the money,” she said.

Last week, 32 years later, Sushma saw a court convict her rapists and sentence them to life imprisonment.

“I am 50 years old today and I finally feel like I got justice,” she said. “But it cannot bring back all that I have lost.”

She said she had endured years of slander and taunts from society because of what happened to her, and both her marriages ended in divorce when her husbands discovered her past.

Sushma is one of 16 survivors – all schoolchildren or students – who were raped and blackmailed by a group of powerful men in different places in Ajmer city over several months in 1992. The case became a massive scandal and sparked huge protests.

Last week, the court handed out life sentences to six of the 18 accused: Nafis Chishty, Iqbal Bhat, Saleem Chishty, Sayed Jamir Hussain, Naseem – also known as Tarzan – and Suhail Ghani.

They have not confessed to the crime and their lawyers said they will appeal the verdict in a higher court.

So what happened to the remaining 12 accused?

Eight were sentenced to life in 1998, but four were acquitted by a higher court, and the others had their sentences reduced to 10 years.

Of the remaining four, one died by suicide. Another was sentenced to life in 2007 but was acquitted six years later. One was convicted in a related minor case but later acquitted, and one of the accused is still absconding.

“Can you even call this [the 20 August verdict] justice? A judgement is not justice,” said Santosh Gupta, a journalist who had written about the case and has appeared as a witness for the prosecution.

It is a thought echoed by Supreme Court lawyer Rebecca John, who called it yet another case of “justice delayed is justice denied”.

“This points to a problem that extends far beyond the legal system. Our patriarchal society is broken. What we need is a mindset change, but how long is that going to take?”

The accused men used their power and influence to deceive, threaten and lure their victims, said prosecution lawyer Virendra Singh Rathore.

They took compromising photographs and videos of their victims and used them to blackmail them into silence or bring in more victims, he added.

“In one instance, the accused invited a man they knew to a party and got him drunk. They took compromising photos of him and threatened to make them public if he didn’t bring his female friends to meet them,” he said. “That’s how they kept getting victims.”

The accused also had strong political and social connections. Some of them were associated with a famous dargah (Muslim religious shrine) in the city.

“They roamed around on bikes and cars in what was a small-town city at the time,” Mr Gupta said. “Some people were afraid of these men, some wanted to get closer to them and some wanted to be like them.”

He said that it was their power and connections that had helped keep the case under wraps for months. But there were people – like those working at the studio where the photos were developed and even some police officers – who were aware of what was going on.

One day, some of the photographs taken by the accused reached Mr Gupta. They had a chilling effect on him.

“Here were some of the city’s most powerful men committing heinous acts with innocent, young girls – and there was proof of it. But there was no major reaction from the police or the public,” he said.

He wrote a few reports about it but none managed to blow the case wide open.

Then one day, his paper “made a daring decision”, he said.

It published a photo that showed a young girl, naked to the waist, pressed between two men who were fondling her breasts. One of the men was smiling at the camera. Only the girl’s face was blurred.

The report sent shock waves through the city. The public was outraged and shut the city down in protest for days. Anger spread through Rajasthan like raging fire.

“Finally, there was some concrete action from the government. Police registered a case of rape and blackmail against the accused and it was handed over to the the state’s Criminal Investigation Department [CID],” Mr Rathore said.

Mr Rathore explained that the trial had dragged on for 32 years because of several factors, including the staggered arrests of the accused, alleged delaying tactics by the defence, an underfunded prosecution and systemic issues within the justice system.

When police filed the initial charges in 1992, six of the accused – who were only convicted last week – were left out because they were absconding.

Mr Rathore believes this was a mistake, as when the police finally filed charges against the six in 2002, they were still on the run. Two of them were arrested in 2003, another in 2005 and two more in 2012, while the last one was apprehended in 2018.

Every time one of the accused was arrested, the trial would begin afresh with the defence recalling survivors and witnesses brought by the prosecution to give their testimonies.

“Under the law, the accused has the right to be present in court when witnesses are testifying and the defence has the right to cross-examine them,” explained Mr Rathore.

This put the survivors in the horrifying position of having to relive their trauma over and over again.

Mr Rathore recalled how often the survivors, who were now in their 40s and 50s, would scream at the judge, asking why there were being dragged to court, years after they had been raped.

As time passed, the police also found it challenging to track down witnesses.

“Many didn’t want to be associated with the case as their lives had moved on,” Mr Rathore said.

“Even now, one of the accused is absconding. If he is arrested, or if the other accused appeal against the verdict in a higher court, the survivors and witnesses will be called to testify again.”

Sushma – who was one of three survivors whose testimony played a key role in convicting the six accused – said that she had been talking to the media about her ordeal because she was telling the truth.

“I never changed my story. I was young and innocent when these people did this to me. It robbed me of everything. I have nothing to lose now,” she said.

There’s something missing from Gary Oldman’s trophy cabinet.

One of the most decorated actors of his generation, he won a best actor Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe for playing Sir Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, plus two Baftas for Nil by Mouth, which he wrote and directed.

Next month he could pick up his first Emmy award, for his role as Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses, a man who spends a lot more time insulting his MI5 colleagues than he does on his personal hygiene.

However, unlike those acting knights of the realm, such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Daniel Day Lewis and Sir Kenneth Branagh, he says that he has been completely overlooked by the honours system.

“I don’t know why. You should ask them. No nod from the royals, but there we are,” he tells the BBC.

In recent years, Oscar wins in major categories have tended to be quickly followed up with royal recognition.

Mark Rylance was knighted the year after he won best supporting actor for Bridge of Spies, while Olivia Colman, Colin Firth and Eddie Redmayne were all honoured in the months following their triumphs.

In fact, Oldman is the only British winner of best actor or best actress this century not to be the recipient of some kind of honour, but he strongly refutes any suggestion that he has turned one down, by repeating “no” four times in succession.

“Maybe it’s in my future,” he adds wistfully.

Oldman has not exactly been short of plaudits during a career lasting more than 40 years, in which he has played Sid Vicious, Lee Harvey Oswald, Dracula, Gotham City’s police commissioner Jim Gordon and even made a cameo as President Truman in Oppenheimer.

But for the first time in his career, he is part of what is becoming a long-running TV show. Apple TV+’s Slow Horses is about to start its fourth series and is a real genuine word of mouth hit.

Speaking down the line from Palm Springs, where he now lives, Gary Oldman shares how he describes the show to people who have yet to see it: “The sort of slightly shady, dirty side of espionage. It’s your PG Tips, Tescos version of it I guess.”

Slow Horses focuses on the agents who have been discarded or are in trouble with the British Secret Service, and have been left to rot at Slough House, an establishment run by Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, a character so shabby and dishevelled, that the actor has given a lot of thought to how he smells.

“He’s a whisky drinker, so obviously, that’s sort of coming out of the pores.

“It’s that stale booze and cigarettes and some B.O., a bit of underarm thrown in.”

Lamb’s trademark move is breaking wind. A lot of discussion goes into how many farts he should have each series, and what they should sound like. Season five does get off to a windy start.

“These are the conversations and email exchanges that you have with the director,” Oldman laughs.

“You know: ‘This one is on a leather chair, so it should be more robust’. We have these ridiculous conversations about the frequency.”

With chat like this, surely the knighthood is now secured.

Slow Horses is often described as the “anti-Bond” and Gary Oldman could have had an 007 past of his own. He turned down the chance to be a Bond baddie in the pre-Daniel Craig era.

“I was asked quite a few years ago,” he confirms, although claims to have forgotten which film it was.

“The Bond villain didn’t ring with me,” he says without a hint of regret.

His Slow Horses co-star Jack Lowden, agent River Cartwright in the series, is one of the names which gets mentioned during discussions on who could be the next James Bond, and Oldman has an idea.

“I’d like to see a sort of prequel with him (Bond) in the Navy or something and becoming 007.”

It is clear he has given this a lot of prior thought.

“Jack’s probably a little young at the minute, but he could be a young Bond coming up through the ranks.”

One hugely successful British film series in which Oldman did star was Harry Potter, playing Sirius Black, and there is something he would like to clear up.

“I know fans got terribly upset saying: ‘Oh he couldn’t be bothered’ and ‘he didn’t read the books’. That’s not true.”

The point which Oldman wants to clarify, is that when he started filming his role, JK Rowling was still finishing off the books, and everything was “shrouded in such secrecy that you could only read the current book and you could never know what the next chapter and the next episode would be.

“If I had been able to read the books, I may have seen that arc and I would have known where Sirius Black was heading.

“I would have maybe approached the character a little differently, but there were no more books.”

“So I have hopefully put that to bed,” he says with a flourish of which Sirius Black himself would have been proud.

It should be pointed out that Slow Horses is based on a series of books by Mick Herron and Oldman has read all eight.

Starring in a long-running TV series may be a new experience for Oldman, but it is not for another member of his family.

His big sister, Laila Morse, made her acting debut at the age of 51, in the only film Oldman has ever directed, Nil by Mouth.

Since then, for almost a quarter of a century, Morse has, on and off, played Big Mo in EastEnders, returning to Albert Square once again this May.

Oldman is adamant that his sister has no problems with him now treading on her small screen turf. “She took a break and is back. I don’t see the show,” he admits, before adding with a laugh: “But then Mo doesn’t really look at my stuff either. I don’t think she’s running out to see Oppenheimer.”

Sadly, the idea of Oldman making a cameo on EastEnders holds no appeal to him.

“I don’t think that’ll be on the cards,” he flat bats, before continuing:

“But, we’re happy. She’s got the Square, and I’ve got Slough House, so we’re quite happy where we are.”

And with that there is just time for Gary Oldman to say that series five of Slow Horses has already been filmed and as for the future, he is “in it for the long run” if they want him.

Slow Horses seems set to bring him more honours, just perhaps not of the royal variety.

A selection of the week’s best photos from across the African continent and beyond:

• Why South Africans are flocking to a Chinese hospital ship
• World’s police in tech arms race with Nigerian mafia
• ‘I found out on social media that my son had died’

The messages come through on the Israeli phone network – scraps of information from inside Jenin’s refugee camp.

“I don’t dare go on the roof, in case I’m shot,” one resident says, speaking anonymously.

Information inside the camp is scarce, he says, and the streets are empty, as residents stay inside.

“It’s mostly old people and children here,” he tells me. “The young people left before the army arrived – it’s bad luck for those who can’t get out.”

Jenin, the focus of news networks today, has been living through a news blackout.

The Palestinian phone network was down for much of the day – lines cut by the Israeli military operation here, the telecoms company said.

The resident I speak to says his family still has water and electricity, and that a small shop nearby was open and selling supplies, under the constant buzz of military drones.

As we talk, a few scattered gunshots reverberate over the rooftops from the direction of the camp.

• UN calls for de-escalation as Israeli West Bank raids continue

“Yes, I heard them too,” he says. “The sound of the drones has increased.”

As he is speaking, an armoured bulldozer rumbles towards one of the camp’s main entrances, the road deserted and baking in the afternoon sun.

For a few hours last night, explosions and gunfire erupted from the alleyways there, disrupting sleep.

But since then, this man says it had been largely quiet – with no sign of house-to-house searches in his neighbourhood, nor of fighters from the camp.

“It’s abnormally quiet,” he said.

The camp has been sealed off by the army since it arrived before dawn on Wednesday – part of a wide, coordinated operation across several centres of the occupied West Bank.

Jenin camp is a base for armed Palestinian fighters, but also unarmed civilians. There have been fierce gun battles here in recent months, as Israeli forces have raided, again and again, looking for them.

Army vehicles are also stationed around two of Jenin’s main hospitals.

Ambulances are stopped as they approach – approaching and reversing in response to terse instructions broadcast in Arabic from loudspeakers on the army Jeeps.

We watched paramedics get out to open the back doors of their ambulance, to show what – or who – was inside. Two female patients were also made to get out and present themselves to soldiers in the Jeeps.

Behind them, one of Jenin’s main commercial districts is shuttered and deserted. Cardboard boxes are scattered across the empty road; fruit sits abandoned on carts under thin cotton covers – the sickly-sweet smell of rotting mangoes fills the silent street.

One small grocery shop has been opening in the afternoon – an urban oasis for those who can reach it.

Thaeer Shana’at is stocking up on food to deliver to local families in the eastern neighbourhood, where Israeli forces were blocking access, he says.

“The whole of the eastern area – a population of about 20,000 – is sealed off,” he said.

“Only ambulances can deliver food. If we go there, we get fired at. There are many areas where we can’t deliver people any food or drink.”

He says his wife and baby are still in Jenin camp, as he couldn’t get them out before the army arrived.

“They are scared to open the door,” he says. “A sniper is directly stationed in front of the house.”

Munir Garwan, who used to work for the municipality, is also waiting to buy food.

He says he was a member of the West Bank’s main political party, Fatah, and had spent six years in an Israeli jail for shooting at the army, and belonging to a “hostile organisation”.

“The occupation [Israel] claims it is trying to stop terrorism. But when the young men get killed, new ones take their place. They are getting nowhere like that.”

“We are not fighting to make someone victorious over the other,” he said. “We are fighting for our rights.”

As night fell, loud explosions and gunfire were heard again from the direction of the camp.

Information has begun to flow again, as communication networks begin to return, circulating details of the ongoing incursion, and the identities of those injured and killed.

The news blackout in Jenin is ending, but the news is the last thing people here want to hear.

A man in Singapore who attempted to frame his estranged wife by planting cannabis in her car has been sentenced to almost four years in jail.

Tan Xianglong, 37, planted what he thought was more than half a kilo of cannabis between the rear passenger seats of his wife’s car, assuming it was enough to warrant the death penalty for drug trafficking.

Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws, which the government says are necessary to deter drug-related crimes.

Less than half of the substance Tan planted turned out to be cannabis, though. The rest was filler.

Tan “intended to scare the involved party and to also get her in trouble with the law,” according to court documents.

“He understood that the involved party would be wrongly arrested and charged with a serious crime if his plan succeeded.”

He was sentenced on Thursday to three years and 10 months in prison for cannabis possession. The court also considered a second charge of illegal planting of evidence.

Tan and his wife married in 2021 and separated a year later. They could not file for divorce because Singapore allows it only for couples who have been married for at least three years.

Tan believed he might be granted to exception to that rule if his wife had a criminal record.

In Telegram chats with his girlfriend last year, he said he had hatched the “perfect crime” to frame his wife.

On 16 October, he bought a brick of cannabis from a Telegram chat group, weighing it to make sure it exceeded 500g (1.1lbs), and placed it in her car the next day.

What Tan seemingly didn’t account for was the fact that his wife’s car was equipped with a camera, which sent her a phone notification alerting her to a “parking impact”.

When she checked the live footage, she saw her estranged husband walking around her vehicle and reported him to the police for harassment.

In the course of their investigation, police searched the car, found the drugs and arrested Tan’s wife.

But after finding no incriminating evidence against her, they then turned their investigation towards Tan himself, and arrested him.

Tan’s lawyer tried to argue that he was suffering from depression when he committed the crime, but the court rejected this, citing doctors’ findings that he was not suffering from any mental disorder.

Depending on the substance and the amount seized, drug possession in Singapore is punishable by imprisonment while drug trafficking can be punishable by death.

Although Tan was liable to be sentenced to five years in prison, he got a lower term because he co-operated in the proceedings and pleaded guilty early in the trial, according to court documents.

Last year, Singapore executed two convicted drug traffickers over a five-month period, defying opposition from international human rights groups.

Festivities have begun for the wedding of Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise and her American partner, self-styled shaman Durek Verrett.

Hundreds of guests arrived in the town of Alesund, in western Norway, on Thursday for a “meet and greet” in a historic hotel.

On Friday, they were travelling by sea to the scenic town of Geiranger, on the shores of a fjord designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. The wedding programme says guests will enjoy a “light lunch on the boat while witnessing the majestic mountains and waterfalls”.

The couple will then tie the knot at a private event on Saturday.

Members of the Swedish royal family are said to be attending alongside various social media influencers and TV personalities, including US reality star and model Cynthia Bailey.

According to Norwegian media, guests have been asked not to use mobile phones or cameras during the celebrations and not to post anything on social media.

Princess Märtha Louise, 52, and Mr Verrett, 49, announced their engagement in 2022.

The princess – a former equestrian and the eldest of Norwegian King Harald’s two children – was previously married to the late writer and artist Ari Behn, with whom she had three daughters – Maud, Leah and Emma. The two divorced in 2017. Mr Behn, who had discussed suffering from depression, died on Christmas Day 2019.

Märtha Louise has long attracted controversy in Norway for decades for her involvement in alternative treatments. She lost her honorific “Her Royal Highness” title in 2002 so as to be allowed to start her own business. In 2007, she announced she was clairvoyant and, until 2018, ran a school which she said taught students to “create miracles” and talk to angels.

Last year, Märtha Louise told the BBC’s Katty Kay that there had been so much “turmoil” concerning her decision to take a different path than that of a “traditional royal”.

“There’s been a lot of criticism over the years, especially with me being spiritual – and in Norway, that’s taboo,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mr Verrett says on his site that he is a sixth generation shaman, “servant of god and energy activator” who “demystifies spirituality” through his “no-nonsense teachings”.

In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, he claimed to have risen from the dead and said that when he was a child a relative had predicted he would one day marry the princess of Norway.

Princess Märtha Louise announced her relationship with Mr Verrett with an Instagram post in 2019. Perhaps hoping to pre-empt potential criticism, she wrote: “To those of you who feel the need to criticise: Hold your horses. It is not up to you to choose for me or to judge me. Shaman Durek is merely a man I love spending my time with and who fulfils me.”

However, many Norwegians have not yet fully accepted Mr Verrett. “They think he has said very strange things and there are many cultural differences,” said royal correspondent for Norway’s NRK TV Kristi Marie Skrede. ”Many people here are very critical of what Mr Verrett says and does in his role as a shaman.”

Despite the couple’s spiritual beliefs, this weekend’s wedding ceremony will follow a more traditional canon, with Parish Priest Margit Lovise Holte officiating according to the Norwegian Church’s wedding liturgy.

When the engagement was first announced, Norway’s state broadcaster NRK reported Mr Verrett would move to Norway and join the royal family without holding a title. He and Märtha Louise have now reportedly bought a house in Norway.

In 2022, the Norwegian palace announced Märtha Louise would “relinquish her patronage role” as she and Mr Verrett sought to “distinguish more clearly between their activities and the Royal House of Norway” and to “prevent misunderstandings regarding the Royal House”.

It added that King Harald had decided she would keep her title but that the princess would not use it in her commercial endeavours.

At the time, King Harald told Norwegian reporters that Mr Verrett was “a great guy” and that the two of them “laughed a lot, even in this difficult time. I think both we and he have gained a greater understanding of what this is about, and we’ve agreed to disagree.”

However, over the summer Märtha Louise came under fire after her name and royal title appeared on the label of a commemorative wedding gin created to mark her nuptials.

Ms Skrede said many Norwegians are “tired of this behaviour”, which some feel shows the princess “disrespects” her father. Beloved King Harald, 88, ascended to the throne in 1991 and is one of Europe’s longest-serving monarchs. In April, plans were announced to reduce his public engagements “out of consideration for his age”.

Locals are also upset that Norwegian media is excluded from covering the wedding as the couple has signed deals with Hello! magazine for exclusive coverage. “This means the public won’t know or see anything about it unless they buy the magazine,” Ms Skrede said.

On Wednesday, it was also revealed that the couple has been working with Netflix for a year on what the streaming giant called an “in-depth and moving documentary” on their relationship.

“We’re going more global and there’s nothing more powerful than the love that fuels us,” Mr Verrett wrote on Instagram.

Princess Märtha Louise is King Harald’s eldest child and fourth in line to the throne. Her younger brother, Crown Prince Haakon, will succeed his father as king.

The Māori king in New Zealand – Kiingi Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII – has died peacefully at age 69, surrounded by his wife and three children.

The Kiingitanga, or Māori king movement, announced the news on social media on Friday morning local time (Thursday evening GMT).

Spokesman Rahui Papa said the king had been in hospital recovering from heart surgery, just days after celebrating the 18th anniversary of his coronation.

“The death of Kiingi Tuheitia is a moment of great sadness for followers of Te Kiingitanga, Maaoridom and the entire nation,” the spokesman said. “A chief who has passed to the great beyond. Rest in love.”

The king was born Tūheitia Paki in 1955. He was crowned in 2006 following the death of his mother, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu.

Like his mother, King Tuheitia was seen as a great unifying figure – recently calling on Māori to stand together in the face of policies targeting them.

“Let’s keep pushing forward while we are currently facing a storm, there’s no need to worry. In this storm we are strong. Together. The wind in our sails is kotahitanga [unity], and with that we will reach our destination.”

King Tuheitia’s successor will be chosen by leaders within the Kiingitanga and may not be announced until the end of his funeral rites.

New Zealand media reported the king was expected to lie in state at Turangawaewae Marae, the seat of the Māori king, for five days, then would be taken to rest on Taupiri Mountain.

The Māori king position dates back to 1858, when Māori decided to create a unifying figure similar to that of a European monarch in order to try and prevent the widespread loss of land to New Zealand’s British colonisers and to preserve Māori culture. The role is largely ceremonial.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon paid tribute to the king on social media, saying: “His unwavering commitment to his people and his tireless efforts to uphold the values and traditions of the Kiingitanga have left an indelible mark on our nation.”

Former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern addressed King Tuheitia in her tribute, saying: “You have been an advocate for Māori, for fairness, justice and prosperity. You wanted children, young people, and those who have been left behind to have opportunities and hope”.

The Māori king attended King Charles III’s coronation in May 2023 and privately met the British monarch before the celebration.

The two also met during a visit by then-Prince Charles and his wife Camilla to New Zealand in 2015.

In a statement, King Charles said he and Queen Camilla were “profoundly saddened to learn of the death of Kiingi Tuheitia” and that he had had the “greatest pleasure” of knowing the king for decades.

“He was deeply committed to forging a strong future for Māori and Aotearoa New Zealand founded upon culture, traditions and healing, which he carried out with wisdom and compassion.”

“Kua hinga te tōtara i Te Waonui a Tāne. (A mighty Totora tree has fallen),” added King Charles in Māori, referring to a native New Zealand tree considered to be sacred and a symbol of strength.

In 2014, the king declined to meet Prince William and Princess Kate, the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, on their tour to New Zealand because he said the 60 to 90 minutes allocated for the visit was not enough time to carry out the cultural customs befitting their status.

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 was left to reach the summit on his own at about 11:30 local time (17:30 GMT).

Evan Brady, the public information officer for Chaffee County Search and Rescue South, told the New York Times the man had stopped for a break while his co-workers continued on the route.

“He’s lucky to be alive,” Mr Brady said.

The man became disoriented on the descent, “finding belongings left in the boulder field to mark the descent by the previous group having been picked up as they hiked down”.

Concerned, he sent a pin drop to colleagues, who are said to have told him that he was on the wrong route, and suggested that he climb back up to the right trail.

Shortly after sending them a second message, a strong storm passed through the area, bringing “high winds and freezing rain” and leaving him without a 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.

Mr Brady also told the New York Times that the suggestion the hiker had been abandoned by colleagues was overblown.

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.

Noel Gallagher’s daughter has said there is “ageism and the misogyny” from long-time Oasis fans who feel they deserve tickets to the band’s reunion tour more than young women who have discovered them more recently.

Anais Gallagher’s dad has buried the hatchet with her uncle Liam to announce the Britpop giants’ first tour for 15 years.

The 24-year-old posted on TikTok after some fans complained about young people now jumping on the Oasis bandwagon.

Anais wrote: “One thing I won’t stand for is the ageism and the misogyny around people getting tickets.

“Sorry if a 19-year-old girl in a pink cowboy hat wants to be there, I will have my friendship bracelets ready.”

She was responding to a video posted by another user, Josie, who said she had seen people online complaining that “everyone now suddenly loves Oasis”.

“What do you mean everyone suddenly loves them? Everyone has always loved them,” Josie said in the video.

“They’re one of the most famous bands in the whole entire world.”

In a follow-up, she said her video was meant to be “a fun little laugh, and people are getting very, very heated in my comments section”.

She added: “It was just a point in that don’t try and gatekeep Oasis because you can’t gatekeep probably the most famous band to come out of the UK, if we’re disregarding The Beatles and stuff like that, but definitely the most famous Britpop band. You can’t gatekeep them.”

As well as Anais Gallagher’s response, the replies to the original video included one saying: “I don’t think it’s a case of ageism; it’s would just be disappointing if long-time fans miss the chance, because some people who barely know them go for the sake of it – without being fans.”

Another said they went to see Liam Gallagher’s recent solo tour performing Oasis’ debut album Definitely Maybe, and “the amount of people around me that didn’t know half the songs was amazing, while loads of my family that are die-hard fans couldn’t get tickets”.

However, one wrote: “I think it’s actually impossible to be born in Britain and not know Oasis like regardless of age.”

Another said: “Literally the entirety of Britain are Oasis fans.”

Demand for tickets is expected to be huge to see the Gallagher brothers at 17 major outdoor shows in Cardiff, Manchester, London and Edinburgh next summer.

More dates could be added when tickets go on general sale at 09:00 BST on Saturday.

National Hockey League star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother were killed in a car accident in New Jersey on Thursday night.

The Columbus Blue Jackets player – who was 31 – and his younger brother Matthew, 29, were riding their bicycles on a rural road in Oldsman Township when a car struck them, New Jersey police told the BBC.

The driver of the car, Sean Higgins, 43, has been arrested and charged with two counts of death by auto, according to officials.

In a statement, Gaudreau’s team called the incident an “unimaginable tragedy”.

“Johnny was not only a great hockey player, but more significantly a loving husband, father, son, brother and friend,” the Columbus Blue Jackets said.

Gaudreau’s brother Matthew was also a professional hockey player who previously played for the Reading Royals team in Pennsylvania.

The Gaudreau brothers were in New Jersey to attend their sister’s wedding on Friday in Philadelphia, where they were supposed to be groomsmen, according to the Columbus Dispatch, a local outlet.

Police said Mr Higgins hit the brothers with his car from behind as he attempted to pass two other vehicles on the road.

Mr Higgins was suspected of driving while under the influence of alcohol and is currently being held in the Salem County Correctional Facility, New Jersey police said.

Nicknamed “Johnny Hockey”, Gaudreau was the Blue Jackets’ forward who scored 243 goals over the course of his 11-year NHL career.

Johnny Gaudreau joined the Ohio team in 2022 after previously playing for the Calgary Flames in Canada.

Gaudreau “played the game with great joy which was felt by everyone that saw him on the ice”, the Columbus Blue Jackets said in their statement.

“He thrilled fans in a way only Johnny Hockey could,” the team added.

Germany says it has carried out its first deportation of convicted Afghan offenders since the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan three years ago.

The flight came a week after three people were fatally stabbed at a street festival in the western town of Solingen.

The killings shocked Germany and sparked an intense debate over asylum rules when it emerged the main suspect was a 26-year-old Syrian refugee facing deportation. An Afghan man was detained after another deadly attack in May.

The government in Berlin has already announced a series of measures ahead of elections on Sunday in eastern Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany is riding high in the polls.

Asylum seekers facing deportation are to lose benefits and carrying knives will be banned at most public events and on public transport, ministers say.

Sunday’s votes in Thuringia and Saxony could end in humiliation for the three parties running the federal government as they are all running below 10% in the polls.

In Thuringia, the AfD are being tipped to come first, ahead of the conservative CDU, while in Saxony, opinion polls put the two parties neck and neck.

The anti-immigration party has little chance of coming to power in either state as no other group is prepared to help the AfD form a majority.

Friday’s chartered flight from Leipzig shortly before 07:00 (05:00 GMT) was carrying 28 Afghan men on board a Boeing 787 to Kabul, German reports said.

“These were Afghan nationals, all of whom were convicted offenders who had no right to remain in Germany and against whom deportation orders had been issued,” said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.

Germany halted deportations in 2021 as the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan and the security situation deteriorated.

Although Germany has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the deportation of Afghans and Syrians would be allowed after the knife attack in Mannheim last May in which a police officer was killed. A 25-year-old Afghan man was arrested.

Last Friday’s attack in Solingen, in which three people died and eight others were wounded, has caused outrage in Germany.

Issa Al H, 26, is being investigated for murder and links to militant group Islamic State (IS).

The Syrian should have been deported to Bulgaria last year but German reports suggest that the attempt failed because officials had failed to find him.

During a visit to Solingen this week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the government would do all it could to ensure “those who cannot and must not stay here in Germany are repatriated and deported”.

Ministers from the three ruling parties – the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberal FDP – announced what they said were far-reaching measures in response to the attack.

Knives are to be banned at most public events including markets and sport as well as on public transport, and there will be a blanket ban on flick knives.

Foreigners ordered to leave the country will have to be deported more quickly and efficiently, they say. Anyone facing a jail term for knife crime would face fast deportation.

A task force for the prevention of Islamism is being proposed and biometric facial recognition will be used to help identify suspects. IS said it was behind the Solingen attack and a day afterwards released a video purportedly showing the suspect in a mask.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said asylum seekers who had already registered in another European Union country would lose their rights to welfare benefits.

Ms Faeser insisted that nobody would be left hungry or sleeping on the streets, as the other EU country would be responsible for paying their benefits.

The suspect in custody in the western city of Düsseldorf had sought asylum in Germany but he was turned down because he had first entered the EU in Bulgaria.

Under the EU’s Dublin Regulation, an application for asylum has to be made in the country of arrival.

The leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, who met the chancellor this week, had called for a halt on allowing refugees from Afghanistan and Syria to enter Germany, but that was rejected by Mr Scholz.

All the planned measures will have to go before parliament before they come into force.

Mongolian officials “have the obligation” to arrest Vladimir Putin if he visits the country next week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said.

The trip, expected to happen on Tuesday, will be the first time the Russian leader has visited an ICC member nation since the court ordered his arrest in March 2023.

The court alleges Mr Putin is responsible for war crimes, saying he failed to stop the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia since the conflict began.

Despite officials in Ukraine demanding that Mongolia arrest Mr Putin once he arrives in the country, the Kremlin said it had “no worries” about the visit.

“We have an excellent rapport with our partners from Mongolia,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

“Of course, all aspects of the President’s visit have been carefully prepared.”

Dr Fadi el-Abdallah, a spokesperson for the ICC, told the BBC on Friday that the court relies on its States Parties – including Mongolia – to “execute its decisions”.

He said Mongolia, like other ICC signatories, has the “obligation to cooperate”. This includes complying with arrest warrants such as the one the court issued for Mr Putin’s arrest in 2023.

The court alleged the Russian president is responsible for war crimes, focusing on the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. It has also issued a warrant for the arrest of Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the same crimes.

It said the crimes were committed in Ukraine from 24 February 2022 – when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Moscow has previously denied the allegations and labelled the warrants as “outrageous”.

Dr Abdallah said ICC judges will look into cases of “non-cooperation” by its signatories and inform the Assembly of States Parties, which may “take any measure it deems appropriate”.

The ICC has no powers to arrest suspects, and can only exercise jurisdiction within its member countries.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it hoped Mongolia was “aware of the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal” and called on the country’s authorities to arrest the Russian leader and hand him over to prosecutors at The Hague, the seat of the ICC in the Netherlands.

Last year, Mr Putin cancelled a visit to a summit in South Africa following the ICC warrant for his arrest.

As a signatory to the court, South Africa should detain suspects in its territory, but President Ramaphosa warned Russia would see this as a declaration of war.

Mr Ramaphosa said the decision for the Russian leader to not attend was “mutual”.

The BBC has contacted the Mongolian Embassy for a comment.

Russia is withdrawing 100 of its paramilitary officers from Burkina Faso to help in the war in Ukraine.

They are part of about 300 soldiers from the Bear Brigade – a Russian private military company – who arrived in the West African nation in May to support the country’s military junta.

On its Telegram channel, the group said its forces would return home to support Russia’s defence against Ukraine’s recent offensive in the Kursk region.

There are fears the pull-out could embolden Islamist insurgents in Burkina Faso, who recently killed up to 300 people in one of the biggest attacks in years.

Burkina Faso has since 2015 suffered regular jihadist attacks, with more than two million people displaced in what aid groups call the world’s “most neglected” crisis.

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The junta under interim President Capt Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a coup in September 2022, promised to end the attacks but has struggled, even after seeking new security partnerships with Russia.

With nearly half the country outside government control, jihadist groups are increasingly targeting civilians and military units.

Survivors say up to 300 people were killed on Saturday in the northern town of Barsalogho, in an attack which was claimed by an al-Qaeda-linked armed group, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

They were reportedly both civilians and military personnel helping to dig trenches to help protect the town against jihadist attacks.

The authorities have not said how many people were killed but Communication Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo called the attack “barbaric”.

The Bear Brigade is said to be responsible for guarding senior Burkinabè officials, including Capt Traoré, whose leadership has been threatened before.

They arrived in the same month when gunshots were fired in the Burkinabè capital near the presidential palace, heightening speculation about growing opposition to the junta leader, who claimed to have thwarted a coup attempt last year.

Videos which circulated on social media and reportedly confirmed by the group showed the Burkinabè military leader being guarded by men in uniforms featuring Russian flags.

The group says it is guarding the Russian ambassador in Ouagadougou, the Burkina Faso capital.

About 100 members of this specialised unit are set to leave the West African country, only three months after arriving.

Their sudden departure is linked to the recent Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.

“When the enemy arrives on our Russian territory, all Russian soldiers forget about internal problems and unite against a common enemy,” Bears Brigade commander Viktor Yermolaev told France’s Le Monde newspaper (in French).

On Tuesday, the group posted on its Telegram channel that the unit was returning to its base in Russian-occupied Crimea “in connection with recent events.”

It is not clear how the Burkina Faso junta plans to compensate for the loss of military support after the partial withdrawal of the Bear Brigade.

Burkina’s Faso, like its neighbours, Mali and Niger, is battling various Islamist groups, which operate in the semi-arid Sahel region, south of the Sahara Desert.

The military has seized power in all three countries, and formed the Alliance of Sahel States.

They have cut ties with former colonial power France and befriended Russia instead, buying weapons and deploying fighters with the mercenary Wagner Group, now known as the Africa Corps.

However, armed groups have stepped up their attacks, particularly in Burkina Faso, despite massive recruitment by the paramilitary Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a self-defence militia.

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Almost 40,000 people died alone in their homes in Japan during the first half of 2024, a report by the country’s police shows.

Of that number, nearly 4,000 people were discovered more than a month after they died, and 130 bodies went unmissed for a year before they were found, according to the National Police Agency.

Japan currently has the world’s oldest population, according to the United Nations.

The agency hopes its report will shed light on the country’s growing issue of vast numbers of its aging population who live, and die, alone.

Taken from the first half of 2024, the National Police Agency data shows that a total of 37,227 people living alone were found dead at home, with those aged 65 and over accounting for more than 70%.

While an estimated 40% of people who died alone at home were found within a day, the police report found that nearly 3,939 bodies were discovered more than a month after death, and 130 had laid unnoticed for at least a year before discovery.

Accounting for 7,498 of the bodies found, the dataset’s largest group belonged to 85-year-olds and above, followed by 75-79-year-olds at 5,920. People aged between 70 and 74 accounted for 5,635 of the bodies found.

According to Japanese public TV network NHK, the police agency will give its findings to a government group looking into the unattended deaths.

Earlier this year, the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, said the number of elderly citizens (aged 65 and above) living alone is expected to reach 10.8m by the year 2050.

The overall number of single-person households is estimated to hit 23.3m in the same year.

In April, the Japanese government introduced a bill tackling the country’s decades-long loneliness and isolation problem, partly caused by the country’s ageing population.

Japan has long tried to counter its ageing and declining population, but the shift is becoming hard for the country to manage.

Last year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its declining birth rate.

Some neighbouring countries are facing similar demographic challenges.

In 2022, China’s population fell for the first time since 1961, while South Korea has repeatedly reported the lowest fertility rate in the world.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris has defended changing her mind on key issues in her first interview since entering the presidential race.

The Democratic nominee was pressed on why her policies on immigration and climate have become more moderate since she ran for president in 2019.

“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash.

She also vowed to “turn the page” on the divisive rhetoric of the Trump era, in the joint interview with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Her Republican opponent Donald Trump described the interview as “BORING!!!” on Truth Social when it concluded, and described Ms Harris as a fraud.

The vice-president was forced to defend the White House’s economic track record, as inflation and high cost-of-living prices continue to hurt Americans.

When asked why she hadn’t already implemented her ideas to tackle economic hardship she said they had done a lot of good work already but there was more to do.

Polls suggest that voters would prefer Trump’s handling of the economy.

Here are the key takeaways from the interview.

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Pressed on her move from liberal to more moderate policy positions, she said her values were consistent, pointing to her commitment to tackling climate change as an example.

Asked about her reversal on banning fracking, a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock, she said she was confident US climate targets could be met without a ban.

The main Republican line of attack has been to cast Ms Harris as an extremist, pointing to her 2019 statements as evidence.

Back then, she also advocated for the closure of immigration detention centres and the decriminalisation of illegal crossings.

She takes a stronger line on the border now, referring to her time “prosecuting transnational, criminal organisations” as California attorney general.

Earlier this year, she supported a bipartisan border security bill that would have included hundreds of millions of dollars for more wall construction.

Trump pressured Republicans in Congress to kill the deal, which Ms Harris said in the CNN interview was a cynical political move.

Ms Harris also was asked about the war in Gaza, and re-iterated the White House’s position that both Israel and Hamas must “get a deal done” and that the Palestinians deserve to have their own country neighbouring Israel.

“This war must end, and we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out,” she said.

While emphasising the importance of a deal, she offered no specifics on how it would be achieved.

She would not commit to an arms embargo on Israel, as some on her party’s left flank have demanded.

To explain her moderated immigration view, the Democratic nominee told CNN that her travels across the country as vice-president had made her believe in building consensus.

Expanding on that, she said she would include a Republican in her presidential cabinet.

She said it would fulfill her promise to be a president “for all Americans”.

“I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views.”

CNN’s Dana Bash asked Ms Harris, born to immigrant parents from Jamaica and India, about recent comments by Trump in which he suggested she assumed a black identity in later life for political purposes.

The comments caused an outrage but the vice-president had not weighed in.

This time she gave a very short answer.

“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”

When asked later in the interview about the historic nature of her candidacy, she said she believed she was the best person to be president for for all Americans, regardless of race and gender.

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Mr Walz was asked about misleading statements he has made about his military service and his personal struggle to have children.

Ms Bash asked him to clarify a comment he made in which he said he “carried” an assault rifle in “war”. The campaign has clarified that Mr Walz was never in a war zone.

The governor said he wore “his emotions on his sleeve” and was “speaking passionately” about the subject of gun crime in schools when he made the inaccurate statement.

That “passion” also extended to his incorrect assertion that his wife had received in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments – which have become a political lightning rod in the US debate over abortion access – to conceive their children.

She received intrauterine insemination, not IVF.

“I spoke about our infertility issues ‘cause it’s hell, and families know this,” he said on CNN.

Ms Harris described the moment that President Biden called her to share that he had decided to end his re-election bid in July.

She said her family was visiting her when she received the phone call. They had just eaten pancakes and bacon and were working on a puzzle.

“My first thought was not about me, to be honest with you, my first thought was about him,” Ms Harris said when asked whether she asked for his endorsement.

The vice-president also maintained that the president could have served again.

“He is so smart, and I have spent hours upon hours with him being in the Oval Office and in the situation room. He has the intelligence, the commitment and judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president.”

She said Trump, by contrast, had none of those qualities.

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North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Festivities have begun for the wedding of Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise and her American partner, self-styled shaman Durek Verrett.

Hundreds of guests arrived in the town of Alesund, in western Norway, on Thursday for a “meet and greet” in a historic hotel.

On Friday, they were travelling by sea to the scenic town of Geiranger, on the shores of a fjord designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. The wedding programme says guests will enjoy a “light lunch on the boat while witnessing the majestic mountains and waterfalls”.

The couple will then tie the knot at a private event on Saturday.

Members of the Swedish royal family are said to be attending alongside various social media influencers and TV personalities, including US reality star and model Cynthia Bailey.

According to Norwegian media, guests have been asked not to use mobile phones or cameras during the celebrations and not to post anything on social media.

Princess Märtha Louise, 52, and Mr Verrett, 49, announced their engagement in 2022.

The princess – a former equestrian and the eldest of Norwegian King Harald’s two children – was previously married to the late writer and artist Ari Behn, with whom she had three daughters – Maud, Leah and Emma. The two divorced in 2017. Mr Behn, who had discussed suffering from depression, died on Christmas Day 2019.

Märtha Louise has long attracted controversy in Norway for decades for her involvement in alternative treatments. She lost her honorific “Her Royal Highness” title in 2002 so as to be allowed to start her own business. In 2007, she announced she was clairvoyant and, until 2018, ran a school which she said taught students to “create miracles” and talk to angels.

Last year, Märtha Louise told the BBC’s Katty Kay that there had been so much “turmoil” concerning her decision to take a different path than that of a “traditional royal”.

“There’s been a lot of criticism over the years, especially with me being spiritual – and in Norway, that’s taboo,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mr Verrett says on his site that he is a sixth generation shaman, “servant of god and energy activator” who “demystifies spirituality” through his “no-nonsense teachings”.

In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, he claimed to have risen from the dead and said that when he was a child a relative had predicted he would one day marry the princess of Norway.

Princess Märtha Louise announced her relationship with Mr Verrett with an Instagram post in 2019. Perhaps hoping to pre-empt potential criticism, she wrote: “To those of you who feel the need to criticise: Hold your horses. It is not up to you to choose for me or to judge me. Shaman Durek is merely a man I love spending my time with and who fulfils me.”

However, many Norwegians have not yet fully accepted Mr Verrett. “They think he has said very strange things and there are many cultural differences,” said royal correspondent for Norway’s NRK TV Kristi Marie Skrede. ”Many people here are very critical of what Mr Verrett says and does in his role as a shaman.”

Despite the couple’s spiritual beliefs, this weekend’s wedding ceremony will follow a more traditional canon, with Parish Priest Margit Lovise Holte officiating according to the Norwegian Church’s wedding liturgy.

When the engagement was first announced, Norway’s state broadcaster NRK reported Mr Verrett would move to Norway and join the royal family without holding a title. He and Märtha Louise have now reportedly bought a house in Norway.

In 2022, the Norwegian palace announced Märtha Louise would “relinquish her patronage role” as she and Mr Verrett sought to “distinguish more clearly between their activities and the Royal House of Norway” and to “prevent misunderstandings regarding the Royal House”.

It added that King Harald had decided she would keep her title but that the princess would not use it in her commercial endeavours.

At the time, King Harald told Norwegian reporters that Mr Verrett was “a great guy” and that the two of them “laughed a lot, even in this difficult time. I think both we and he have gained a greater understanding of what this is about, and we’ve agreed to disagree.”

However, over the summer Märtha Louise came under fire after her name and royal title appeared on the label of a commemorative wedding gin created to mark her nuptials.

Ms Skrede said many Norwegians are “tired of this behaviour”, which some feel shows the princess “disrespects” her father. Beloved King Harald, 88, ascended to the throne in 1991 and is one of Europe’s longest-serving monarchs. In April, plans were announced to reduce his public engagements “out of consideration for his age”.

Locals are also upset that Norwegian media is excluded from covering the wedding as the couple has signed deals with Hello! magazine for exclusive coverage. “This means the public won’t know or see anything about it unless they buy the magazine,” Ms Skrede said.

On Wednesday, it was also revealed that the couple has been working with Netflix for a year on what the streaming giant called an “in-depth and moving documentary” on their relationship.

“We’re going more global and there’s nothing more powerful than the love that fuels us,” Mr Verrett wrote on Instagram.

Princess Märtha Louise is King Harald’s eldest child and fourth in line to the throne. Her younger brother, Crown Prince Haakon, will succeed his father as king.

An animal park has said it is experiencing a “baby boom”, including new flamingo chicks that have hatched.

Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire has also recently welcomed rare Amur tiger cubs and an endangered cotton top tamarin monkey baby.

Flamingos lay a single egg on top of a tall cone nest, keepers at the safari park said.

Darren Beasley, head of animal operations at Longleat, said: “It is proving to be an exciting year for new arrivals and the flamingo chicks should be relatively easy for people to spot.”

All flamingo chicks are born with white plumage, which they keep for about three years, and a straight bill which gradually droops down as the bird grows.

“It’s interesting to note that while the babies initially have white or grey feathers as they grow and develop, they will become pink. This is because the colour comes through from their diet,” said Mr Beasley.

“In the wild flamingos eat small crustaceans and other microscopic animals and plants which are obtained by filter feeding.

“At Longleat they eat a special flamingo diet that contains pigments essential for maintaining their distinct colour.”

Fully grown the birds are about 1.5m (4.9 ft) tall and can weigh anywhere up to 7kgs.

They live 15-20 years in the wild, however in captivity and safe from predators, they can reach ages of 70 years.

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.

National Hockey League star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother were killed in a car accident in New Jersey on Thursday night.

The Columbus Blue Jackets player – who was 31 – and his younger brother Matthew, 29, were riding their bicycles on a rural road in Oldsman Township when a car struck them, New Jersey police told the BBC.

The driver of the car, Sean Higgins, 43, has been arrested and charged with two counts of death by auto, according to officials.

In a statement, Gaudreau’s team called the incident an “unimaginable tragedy”.

“Johnny was not only a great hockey player, but more significantly a loving husband, father, son, brother and friend,” the Columbus Blue Jackets said.

Gaudreau’s brother Matthew was also a professional hockey player who previously played for the Reading Royals team in Pennsylvania.

The Gaudreau brothers were in New Jersey to attend their sister’s wedding on Friday in Philadelphia, where they were supposed to be groomsmen, according to the Columbus Dispatch, a local outlet.

Police said Mr Higgins hit the brothers with his car from behind as he attempted to pass two other vehicles on the road.

Mr Higgins was suspected of driving while under the influence of alcohol and is currently being held in the Salem County Correctional Facility, New Jersey police said.

Nicknamed “Johnny Hockey”, Gaudreau was the Blue Jackets’ forward who scored 243 goals over the course of his 11-year NHL career.

Johnny Gaudreau joined the Ohio team in 2022 after previously playing for the Calgary Flames in Canada.

Gaudreau “played the game with great joy which was felt by everyone that saw him on the ice”, the Columbus Blue Jackets said in their statement.

“He thrilled fans in a way only Johnny Hockey could,” the team added.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has given her first interview since entering the race – a joint conversation alongside running mate Tim Walz.

BBC Verify has looked into claims she made in the CNN interview about fracking, the Biden administration’s record on child tax poverty and investment in clean-energy jobs.

CLAIM: In Thursday’s interview, Ms Harris said she would not ban fracking and maintained that she has “not changed that position”.

VERDICT: This needs context and could be misleading as Ms Harris has changed her public position on fracking. In 2019, she said she was “in favour of banning fracking.”

The following year, in the 2020 vice presidential debate when she was on the Biden ticket, Ms Harris said “Joe Biden will not end fracking” and: “I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe Biden will not ban fracking.”

During the CNN interview on Thursday she was pressed on her 2019 statement, and Ms Harris responded: “I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking. As vice-president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.”

In the debate, Ms Harris was referring to President Joe Biden’s policy plans. She did not state whether her own views at the time differed from this position.

CLAIM: “When we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit, so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50%.”

VERDICT: This is somewhat of an exaggeration and needs context. Child poverty rates did fall, but not by “over 50%” and they rose again the year after, so the impact was only temporary.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) is one measure of poverty in the US and it does show that the child poverty rate fell 46% between 2020 and 2021.

However, after the Covid-era boost to child tax credit ended, the record low child poverty rate of 5.2% in 2021 rose to 12.4% the following year, according to 2022 Census Bureau data.

Americans earning less than $200,000 annually (or $400,000 for joint claimants) can, under the current child tax credit scheme, get $2,000 per year for each of their children under the age of 17.

This amount was increased by President Biden during the Covid pandemic up to a maximum of $3,600 but it reverted back to $2,000 at the end of 2021.

Kamala Harris has said that as president she would restore the child tax credit enhancement and provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life.

CLAIM: “What we’ve already done creating over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs.”

VERDICT: It is true that a large number of clean energy jobs have been created under the Biden administration, but the exact number is uncertain.

Kamala Harris is referring to the jobs created by the Inflation Reduction Act – a law signed by Joe Biden in August 2022 that introduced major investments in clean energy and climate-related projects.

The claim of “over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs” comes from a recent report by Climate Power, a climate communications organisation.

It reported that since August 2022 companies have “announced and advanced 646 new clean energy projects totalling 334,565 new jobs”.

However, not all of these new job roles have necessarily begun, and it is also hard to attribute the whole increase in climate-related employment to the Inflation Reduction Act at a time when clean energy is growing across the world.

Other groups give different numbers. E2, an economics and environment group, estimates around 109,000 clean-energy jobs have been created or announced since the Inflation Reduction Act.

According to the US Department of Energy, in 2023 clean-energy employment grew at a rate twice as large as the US economy overall and the rest of the energy sector.

One of the F-16 fighter jets sent from Nato allies to Ukraine has been destroyed, a Ukrainian military source has told the BBC.

The aircraft went down amid a barrage of Russian missiles on Monday, killing pilot Oleksiy Mes, Ukraine’s military said. It marks the first loss of its kind since the planes were delivered earlier this month.

The cause of the crash was not a direct result of an enemy missile strike, the Ukrainian military claims.

It said the pilot destroyed three cruise missiles and one drone in Russia’s largest aerial attack to date.

• Ukraine receives first F-16 fighter jets

“Oleksiy saved Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles,” the Ukrainian Air Force wrote in a statement on social media.

“Unfortunately, at the cost of his own life.”

The statement did not specify the type of plane involved, but a military source told the BBC the pilot was flying an F-16.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially confirmed on Tuesday the US-made F-16s were being deployed to shoot down Russian drones and missiles.

This week, he asked allies to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to hit targets further into Russia.

Dutch Chief of Defence Gen Onno Eichelsheim confirmed the Netherlands will provide Ukraine with 24 of the jets, in addition to more weapons.

There will be no restrictions on their usage apart from complying with humanitarian law, he told a conference in Washington on Wednesday – meaning Kyiv could launch deeper strikes into Russian territory.

Around 65 F-16s have been pledged by Nato countries since US President Joe Biden first authorised willing European allies to send them to Ukraine in August 2023.

Ukraine’s F-16s work alongside a limited number of Western-supplied surface-to-air missile systems such as Patriot and Nasams which are already on the ground.

They also help defend against Russian glide bombs – dumb munitions fitted with pop-out wing kits and guidance modules to deliver precision strike stand-off capabilities, similar to the JDAM munitions from the United States.

The destruction of the aircraft is a blow to President Zelensky, who said he will deliver a “victory plan” to US President Joe Biden next month.

He also revealed Ukraine had recently carried out the first successful test of a domestically-produced ballistic missile, but declined to share any more details.