Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Mongolia, his first visit to an International Criminal Court (ICC) member since it issued a warrant for his arrest last year.

He was welcomed by Mongolia’s leader at a lavish ceremony in the Asian nation’s capital Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday.

The Russian leader is wanted by the court for the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

A spokesperson from the Kremlin said it was not concerned Mr Putin would be arrested during the visit.

Soldiers on horseback lined the capital’s Genghis Khan Square as martial anthems were played by a live band to welcome the Russian leader, who met with the Mongolian president Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh.

A small group of protesters gathered at the square on Monday afternoon, holding a sign demanding “Get War Criminal Putin out of here”.

Another protest is planned for midday Tuesday at Ulaanbaatar’s Monument for the Politically Repressed, which commemorates those who suffered under Mongolia’s decades-long Soviet-backed communist regime.

Other protestors were prevented from getting close to the Russian president on his arrival by security forces.

Ahead of his visit, Ukraine had urged Mongolia to arrest Mr Putin.

“We call on the Mongolian authorities to comply with the mandatory international arrest warrant and transfer Putin to the International Criminal Court in the Hague,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Telegram.

The court alleged last year that the Russian president was 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 alleges the crimes were committed in Ukraine from 24 February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Moscow has previously denied the allegations and said the warrants were “outrageous”.

ICC members are expected to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued, but there is no enforcement mechanism.

The Hague-based court last week said members had “an obligation” to take action. Mongolia has not publicly responded to Ukraine or the ICC’s call.

The former Soviet satellite state has maintained friendly relations with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and declined to vote on the conflict at the United Nations.

The landlocked country, which also borders China, also relies on Russia for gas and electricity.

Russia has been in talks for years about building a pipeline to carry 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year from its Yamal region to China via Mongolia.

The project, known as Power of Siberia 2, is part of a strategy to compensate for the drop in gas sales in Europe, following widespread boycott of Russian resources due to the invasion of Ukraine.

The president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has pardoned 57 Bangladeshis who were sentenced to long prison terms for staging protests in the Gulf state against their own government.

Three of the defendants received life sentences in July, while 53 others were jailed for 10 years and one for 11 years. They had been charged with gathering in a public place with the aim of inciting unrest.

The protests were held against the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, in the weeks before she was ousted from power.

Protests are effectively illegal in the UAE, where foreigners make up almost 90% of the population. Bangladeshis are the third largest expatriate group.

• UAE jails 57 Bangladeshis over protests against own government
• What sparked the protests that toppled Bangladesh’s PM?
• ‘Free again’: An uncertain Bangladesh emerges from Sheikh Hasina’s grip

Hundreds were killed during weeks of unrest in Bangladesh, which were sparked by student-led demonstrations against quotas on government jobs. Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country for India on 5 August.

Reports say her attempts to seek asylum in the UK, the US and the UAE have not been successful so far.

President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s pardon will “halt the implementation of sentences” and begin deportation measures for some of the Bangladeshi citizens, the UAE’s state news agency WAM said.

His decision to pardon the protesters follows a telephone call last month with Bangladesh’s interim Prime Minister, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was installed following Ms Hasina’s flight.

According to state media, the 21 July trial of the 57 Bangladeshis heard their protests caused “riots, disruption of public security, obstruction of law enforcement, and endangerment of public and private property”.

Their court-appointed defence lawyer argued that the gatherings had no criminal intent and that the evidence was insufficient, WAM reported.

At the time of the trial Amnesty International condemned what it called the UAE’s “extreme reaction to the mere existence of a public protest” on its soil.

Human Rights Watch later said it had verified six videos of the protests posted to TikTok and X on 19 July.

The videos, filmed in the evening, show peaceful protesters chanting and marching down streets across the UAE.

The organisation said “none of the protesters were engaging in violent acts or using language to incite violence in their chant”.

New Zealand will steeply increase an entry tax for foreign tourists in a move some fear could deter visitors.

The cost of the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy will near triple to NZ$100 (£47.20) from NZ$35 (£16.52) from 1 October.

The government said this is to help economic growth and “ensure visitors contribute to public services and high-quality experiences while visiting New Zealand”.

But Tourism Industry Aotearoa – the country’s independent tourism body – says the higher fee is a barrier to visitors, making it “incredibly expensive to visit”.

The nation is famed for its Māori culture and dramatic scenery, including glaciers, mountains, volcanoes and lakes.

But its location in the South Pacific and associated long-distance air fares have often posed a barrier for visitors.

“New Zealand’s tourism recovery is falling behind the rest of the world, and this will further dent our global competitiveness,” said Rebecca Ingram, the association’s chief executive.

New Zealand first introduced the levy in 2019, as it grappled with the impact of large numbers of visitors on its infrastructure, environment and communities.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the country shut its borders for two and a half years and didn’t allow foreign visitors to return until August 2022.

The country has been struggling to return to the visitor levels it saw before the pandemic, with just under three million international visitors in 2023, roughly three-quarters of pre-pandemic levels.

Tourism Minister Matt Doocey argued the new tax cost would not be a huge deterrant, as NZ$100 would make up less than 3% of most tourists’ average spend in the country.

He said it remained competitive compared with countries such as Australia and UK, and he remained “confident New Zealand will continue to be seen as an attractive visitor destination by many around the world”.

The tax does not need to be paid by visitors from Australia and the Pacific. Most visitors to New Zealand are from Australia, the United States, China and Fiji.

The increased costs will come on top of separate visa fees for some visitors which are also rising from 1 October.

New Zealand is not the only place where tourist taxes exist.

Other countries that charge tourists include Indonesia, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia, Costa Rica, Iceland and Italy.

In most places, the tax is included as part of accommodation, visa or plane ticket costs.

In April, Venice launched a trial where day trippers were charged a €5 tax to visit the city on peak days, in a bid to combat the effects of over-tourism.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says polio vaccinations of children in central Gaza have “surpassed the target” in the first two days of its immunisation campaign.

Dr Rik Peeperkorn, the UN agency’s representative in the Palestinian territories, said 161,030 children under the age of 10 were vaccinated on Sunday and Monday – above the projection of 156,500.

The difference was probably the result of an underestimate of the population crowded into the area, he explained.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a series of localised pauses in the fighting to allow health workers to administer vaccines after Gaza’s first confirmed case of polio in 25 years left a 10-month-old partially paralysed last month.

The pauses are taking effect between 06:00 and 15:00 local time in three separate stages across central, southern and northern parts of Gaza.

The first three-day stage began in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates on Sunday. It will shift to the south governorate of Rafah on Thursday and then move to North Gaza and Gaza City.

Dr Peeperkorn said the pauses had been “going well” until now.

But there were still “10 days to go at least” for the first round of the vaccination campaign, he said, while a second round to repeat the immunisations will start in four weeks.

He said some children were believed to be living outside the agreed zone for the pauses in the south and that negotiations were continuing in order to allow health workers to reach them.

The aim is to vaccinate a total of 640,000 children.

“We need to cover a minimum of 90% of those children to stop the transmission within Gaza and to avoid polio spread, international spread of polio to surrounding countries,” Dr Peeperkorn said.

Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious.

It can cause disfigurement and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

Humanitarian groups have blamed the re-emergence of polio in Gaza on disruption to child vaccination programmes as well as massive damage to water and sanitation systems caused by the war.

The mother of the partially paralysed baby, Abdulrahman Abu Judyan, told the BBC last week that her son was supposed to receive routine vaccinations on 7 October – the day Hamas attacked Israel and triggered Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

“I feel a lot of guilt that he didn’t get the vaccination. But I couldn’t give it to him because of our circumstances,” Niveen said.

She desperately hoped her son could be taken outside Gaza for treatment.

“He wants to live and walk like other children,” she said.

The day Beslan began burying its dead, there were so many cars loaded with coffins that there was gridlock on the road to the cemetery.

In the small Caucasus town, everyone had lost a relative or knew someone killed in the siege of School No. 1.

Launched by heavily armed militants, mainly from Chechnya, the terror attack lasted three days.

Three hundred and thirty-four people died; 186 of them were children.

It’s 20 years today since the siege ended suddenly in devastating explosions, but I can still hear the wailing of Beslan’s mothers; the grief that rolled over the town in waves.

I can picture the white open coffin of 11-year-old Alina, laid out in her front yard with her dolls placed carefully beside her.

And I will always remember Rima, who spent three days crammed into the stifling school gym with her grandchildren and hundreds of other hostages, bombs strung from the basketball hoops above them.

Back then, she confessed that she was ashamed to have survived.

As she and her grandchildren ran for the exit, under fire, they had to climb over the dead body of a small boy.

“God forgive us for that,” Rima begged, through streams of tears.

In 2004, the suffering of Beslan was felt all over Russia and resonated all over the world.

First and foremost, the tragedy was caused by the dozens of men and women who stormed the school, firing in the air and taking hundreds of petrified people hostage.

They had rounded up mothers with babies and balloons, and little girls with big white bows in their hair. Whole families who had been celebrating the first day back to school. The militants stuffed the gym with explosives and began executing the male hostages.

That summer, Vladimir Putin’s brutal war against separatists in Chechnya – launched four years earlier – had already burst beyond the borders of the southern Russian republic.

The day before the Beslan siege, 10 people were killed when a Chechen woman blew herself up outside a Moscow metro station. Before that, suicide bombers blew two planes from the sky and there was a deadly attack on a music festival.

But for two decades now there have been persistent, troubling questions about how Mr Putin and his officials handled the attack on Beslan in their determination not to “give in” to terrorists.

Did they even try to negotiate?

Why claim the attackers made no political demands when they had called for Russian troops to pull out of Chechnya?

Could more children have been freed?

Most critically, why did rescuers fire from tanks and use flamethrowers when there were still hundreds of hostages inside the school?

To many, the siege of Beslan offered crucial early lessons in Putinism, including that he would spare nothing and no one to crush those who challenged him.

It took 20 years for Mr Putin to visit the ruins of School No. 1.

Even then, he didn’t join the anniversary events with the families. He only travelled there two weeks ago, alone.

A few shattered walls of the school were left standing as a memorial, eventually encased in a gold-tinted shroud and hung with framed photographs of the dead.

There, in the middle of the gym where the hostages were held, Mr Putin placed flowers beneath a wooden cross.

For most world leaders, it would be unfathomable not to have visited this spot before. It was Russia’s deadliest ever terror attack. But Mr Putin has always preferred to be filmed in a fighter jet or flanked by soldiers.

The graves of children that he couldn’t save do nothing for his action man image.

In fact, he had been to Beslan before, but barely noticed.

Right after the siege collapsed, he flew in late at night to visit a hospital under cover of darkness. He told Beslan that all Russia was mourning with them but by sunrise he was gone.

“He came far too late,” I remember hearing back then, from grieving families. “He should have stayed with us.”

But President Putin didn’t dare.

Four years earlier, a previous encounter with grieving women had scarred and scared him. When the Kursk submarine sank in 2000 it took him five days to break off his holiday and by the time he met the relatives, they tore shreds off him.

So Mr Putin began making the carefully-choreographed meeting a hallmark of his presidency. Only small, pre-vetted crowds. Everything under control.

Last month in Beslan, just three mothers were brought to meet him.

“It was an awful act of terror that took the lives of 334 people,” Mr Putin described their tragedy to them, for the sake of the state TV camera.

“Of that number, 136 were children.”

The mothers are not in vision at that moment, but they surely winced at his mistake.

Because 186 children were killed in Beslan.

It’s a number engrained on the brains of everyone in that town. It’s the one thing you don’t forget.

But Mr Putin didn’t visit Beslan to empathise. The mothers in black were just a prop.

He was using them to make a point.

Two decades ago, he reminded Russians, he had fought and won his war on terror. Now he was battling “neo-Nazis” and a hostile West in Ukraine, and he vowed he would win that war too.

Distortion and lies were already in the 2004 Putin playbook. Then, officials grossly under reported the number of hostages in Beslan.

I arrived in town on the first day of the siege and soon realised there were three times more hostages captive in that school than officials were admitting to.

Every local told us so. But state TV reporters, under instruction, continued to repeat the lie.

People feared that troops were preparing to storm the school, so the authorities were playing down the potential casualty-count.

I’ve often wondered what would happen to a government in a Western democracy after an attack that ended with many more hostages dead, than terrorists.

I think it would struggle to survive the inevitable official inquiry, or the next election.

Vladimir Putin didn’t have to worry about either.

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had failed in its duty to protect the hostages and used ‘indiscriminate force’ as the siege collapsed. The case was brought by desperate, bereaved mothers, hunting for justice.

But there was no new investigation in Russia itself. No senior officials held to account.

When the 3 Beslan mothers complained to Putin about that in August, at their meeting, he professed surprise and promised to look into it.

He’s had 20 years.

He did address one thing, though, right after the siege.

In 2004, Mr Putin announced he was cancelling direct elections for governors in Russia’s regions, claiming that would help improve security. There was no connection whatsoever to the Beslan attack.

When parliament gathered to vote on the move, opposition politicians picketed the building warning of a creeping dictatorship.

Two decades on, there is no more opposition.

State media has been fully tamed. Democracy has been crushed.

The prime lesson Mr Putin took from the siege of Beslan was one about increasing control.

A Spanish craze encouraging single people to seek partners in supermarkets by using a fruit-based code has caused some chaotic scenes and even led to the police being called to restore order.

In recent days, many single Spaniards have been drawn to branches of supermarket chain Mercadona between 7pm-8pm by claims they can find romance at that time, particularly if they put a pineapple upside down in their shopping trolley.

The phenomenon seems to have been driven in great part by the actor and humourist Vivy Lin, who posted a video on TikTok of her pushing a trolley around a Mercadona store talking about the supposed window.

“The time to hook up in Mercadona is 7pm to 8pm,” she said.

On its official TikTok account, the supermarket posted a pineapple with the caption: “The pineapple on the shelf of Mercadona waiting for you to get a date.”

The pineapple manoeuvre is reportedly completed by pushing your trolley into the wine section of the store and hoping that a person you find attractive responds positively.

As the story has gone viral, it has led to some unusual and sometimes disorderly sights.

In Madrid there have been reports of groups of teenagers pushing trolleys around stores in the evening, without buying products.

One man was dressed as a giant pineapple by his friends inside a store as part of his bachelor party celebrations.

In Bilbao, police were called to a branch of Mercadona during the 7pm-8pm time slot because of rowdy scenes inside, although they were not required to intervene.

A song, circulating online, has further driven the success of the trend, with the words: “In the wine section / My heart races / Looking for someone special / That my soul needs.”

It is not the first time an upside-down pineapple has been used as a code. More traditionally, it has been used to allow people interested in swapping sexual partners, known as swinging, to find each other.

While the latest use of the fruit may have proved popular with some, there have been reports that the pineapple mania has not found favour with many Mercadona employees who are left to clear up unpurchased goods.

One video showed a worker pushing boxes of the fruit away from shelves and towards a storeroom as 7pm approached.

The company says the trend was “not launched by us, it has come about spontaneously”.

Some observers have taken a critical view.

“Falling into the clutches of a campaign designed through social media may be innocent, as is the case with ‘Pineapple-gate’, with all the jokes and childishness that it generates,” wrote social commentator Susana Quadrado in La Vanguardia newspaper.

But she warned it also showed how the virtual world “can condition social behaviour and turn users into loudspeakers for free”.

A school bus ploughed into a crowd of people killing at least 11, including five students, in China’s Shandong province, state media report.

Several others were injured, including one who is in critical condition.

The bus appears to have rammed into the students and parents as they were standing outside the gates of a school in Tai’an city.

The driver “lost control” of the vehicle, state media report, and was taken into custody as police investigate the cause of the incident. It is unclear if the incident was intentional.

“So far, a total of 11 people have died (including six parents and five students),” Chinese state media confirmed, after the bus struck a group of parents and children on the side of the road.

Twelve others are in stable condition.

Images and videos of the incident are being shared on social media, showing people appearing to be trapped under the vehicle.

This comes just days after students returned to school for the start of the new academic year.

Deadly traffic accidents are a frequent occurrence in China. In July this year, police said a vehicle crashed into a group of pedestrians in the central city of Changsha, killing eight people and injuring several others.

Efforts are under way to prevent a tanker targeted by Houthi rebels from spilling around one million barrels of oil into the Red Sea.

The Greek-owned and flagged MV Sounion was abandoned by its crew off the coast of Oman after being struck on 21 August by the Yemeni rebel group.

Private companies under the protection of European Union military forces will attempt to salvage the vessel, which has the potential to trigger one of the largest ever oil leaks from a tanker and was still on fire as of Monday.

The Houthis have targeted several ships in the Red Sea over the last 10 months, a campaign which the Iran-backed group says is in support of Hamas in Gaza.

US military central command said late on Tuesday that the stricken tanker “threatens the possibility of a major environmental disaster”, and accused the Houthis of “reckless acts of terrorism”.

It said a salvage operation was “under way”, although it is not clear if salvage vessels have yet reached the Sounion.

On Monday, the EU’s military operation in the region said several fires were continuing to burn on the tanker’s main deck, though there were no visible signs that an oil spill was already occurring.

The Houthis – who have falsely claimed to only target Israeli, US and UK ships – attacked the Sounion with gunfire, before hitting it with three unidentified projectiles, UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said last week. Its 25 crew members were rescued by a European warship.

The tanker was later attacked again, with footage released by the group showing Houthi militants boarding the ship and lighting fires on its deck.

The leader of the Houthis called the attack “brave and bold” in a recent address.

The US State Department has previously warned a spill from the Sounion could be almost four times as large as the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. That incident saw 2,100km (1,300 miles) of coastline contaminated after a tanker ran aground off Alaska.

The Houthis have continued to target crude oil tankers in the Red Sea in recent days.

On Monday, US military command said two vessels carrying oil were hit with ballistic missiles and a drone, including the Saudi-owned and flagged MV Amjad, which is said to be carrying around two million barrels of oil.

A US-led military operation has carried out strikes in Yemen, where the Houthis control much of the country, in an attempt to disrupt its ability to strike vessels passing through one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The former boss of Volkswagen has appeared in court charged with fraud, market manipulation and perjury, nine years after the carmaker was found to have rigged emissions tests.

Martin Winterkorn was chief executive of the German company in 2015 when it was engulfed in a scandal that sent shockwaves through the entire industry.

It emerged the company had been deliberately manipulating official emissions checks, building cars that could pass laboratory tests while producing illegal levels of pollution in daily use.

Tuesday marked the start of the Mr Winterkorn’s trial. He denies the charges.

“Our client did not defraud or harm anyone, he did not deliberately leave the capital market in the dark so that investors would be harmed, and he told the investigating committee the truth,” his lawyers said.

The so-called “dieselgate” affair erupted in September 2015, when the US Environmental Protection Agency accused Volkswagen of installing illegal software on diesel cars.

It developed into one of the biggest corporate scandals Germany had ever seen, and sparked off a political drive towards electric vehicles which has had a profound effect on the industry around the world.

The former chief executive stands accused of deliberately duping Volkswagen’s customers and shareholders, as well as German politicians. If found guilty, the 77-year-old could face up to 10 years in prison.

The affair had its origins in a drive by the carmaker to increase sales in North America, particularly of diesel cars – which it marketed as “clean diesels”.

The reality, however, was that those cars were not clean. The company had been struggling to get its engines to meet stringent US emissions standards while maintaining high performance and reliability.

The solution its engineers came up with was to develop so-called “defeat devices”. These were software that recognised when a car was being tested in the laboratory, and turned on emissions controls so that it could pass the tests.

When the car was out on the road, it would turn them off again in order to boost performance.

It subsequently emerged that the scam had been operating since 2006, and that more than nine million vehicles in Europe and North America had been fitted with the software.

Brands throughout the Volkswagen corporate empire were affected, including Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda as well as Volkswagen itself.

Volkswagen had to pay hefty fines, issue recalls and compensate consumers. The affair cost it more than €30bn (£25.2bn).

Mr Winterkorn, who had been chief executive since 2007, stepped down within days of the scandal coming to light. Indicted in 2019, he was meant to stand trial in 2021 alongside other executives, but the proceedings were delayed due to concerns about his health.

Two of the charges against him have been brought by prosecutors in Braunschweig, close to Volkswagen’s headquarters in the Lower Saxony town of Wolfsburg.

They have accused him of fraud, because buyers were “deceived about the characteristics” of the cars they were buying and faced collective losses of hundreds of millions of euros as a result of the scandal.

He has also been accused of market manipulation, after allegedly failing to inform investors about the emissions-rigging software once he became aware of it.

A further indictment comes from the Berlin prosecutor’s office. It has accused Mr Winterkorn of giving false testimony to a parliamentary committee that was investigating the scandal in 2017.

Volkswagen chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch and the former head of the brand, Herbert Diess were both charged with market manipulation. But those charges were dropped after the company agreed to pay a fine of €9m

The former Audi chief executive, Rupert Stadler received a fine of €1.1m and a 21-month suspended jail sentence, after admitting to fraud by negligence over his role in the affair.

All were indicted in Germany. By contrast, former engineer Oliver Schmidt went on trial in the US. He was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2017, but was released in 2021.

Mr Winterkorn has already paid €11m to his former company as part of a settlement in relation to the scandal.

Dissident Chinese artist Gao Zhen has been detained on suspicion of “insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs,” his brother and artistic partner Gao Qiang has said.

The Gao Brothers are known for their provocative sculptures, which critique the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, and his regime.

Gao Zhen left China two years ago to live permanently in the United States, but had been visiting family when he was taken by authorities in Hebei province, his brother said in a post on Facebook.

Chinese authorities have not responded to the allegations by Gao Qiang, who said about 30 police officers stormed the brothers’ art studio in Sanhe City on 26 August.

He added that they had confiscated several artworks in addition to detaining Mr Gao.

Since the 1980s, the brothers have been drawing international acclaim for works such as Mao’s Guilt, a bronze statue of the former Communist dictator kneeling remorsefully.

Other works include The Execution of Christ, a statue depicting Jesus facing down a firing squad of Maos, and Miss Mao, a collection of statues of Mao with large breasts and protruding noses.

Mao Zedong, often called Chairman Mao, helped found Communist China in 1949 and led it through a tumultuous period in the 1960s and 1970s known as the Cultural Revolution, in which more than a million people are believed to have died.

During this period, the Gao Brothers’ father was labelled a class enemy and dragged off to a place that was “not a prison, not a police station, but something else”, where he died, Gao Zhen told The New York Times in 2009.

Spoofing or insulting China’s revolutionary “heroes and martyrs” was made a crime in 2021, as part of a newly amended criminal code, under a campaign by China’s leader, Xi Jinping. It carries a penalty of up to three years’ imprisonment.

For most of his career Mr Gao had been able to escape serious punishment from the Chinese authorities – often by choosing to hold secret or invite-only exhibitions.

However in 2022, Gao Zhen decided to emigrate to New York, where he held permanent residency.

This was because his son, who is an American citizen, was reaching school age and also because of the “deteriorating environment in China”, according to his brother Gao Qiang.

Several prominent Chinese artists and creatives have written an open letter calling on authorities to release Mr Gao.

“Today, the Sanhe police department seems to see Gao Zhen’s artistic works as evidence of crime, repeating the persecution of the Cultural Revolution,” the letter said.

The Sanhe public security bureau has so far declined to comment.

The UK has defended its decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the decision “shameful”, saying on social media that it “will only embolden Hamas”.

But Husam Zomlot, the Palestinians’ top envoy to the UK, called the partial ban an “important first step” to the UK’s fulfilment of its “legal obligations under domestic and international law”.

On Monday, the UK suspended around 30 out of 350 weapons export licences to Israel.

But UK Defence Secretary John Healey insisted the UK remained a “staunch ally” of Israel, telling the BBC Israel’s security would not be weakened by the decision.

Government ministers say the weapons could be used in Gaza to violate international law. But human rights group Amnesty International UK said the measures were “too limited”.

Others have criticised the timing of the announcement for coming on the same day funerals took place for six hostages killed by Hamas last week.

Mr Healey told BBC Breakfast it was “agonising” seeing the faces of the dead hostages but explained the timing was “driven by the fact that this was a legal process” and the need to report to Parliament.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Monday the UK would be suspending 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel, affecting equipment such as parts for fighter jets, helicopters and drones.

Talking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Healey said these were chosen because they supplement equipment used in Gaza for “offensive purposes”, while the “vast majority of other parts our country exports to Israel are either not related to the conflict or maybe used for Israel’s defence”.

UK arms sales to Israel are small in comparison to other allies, contributing just 1% of the country’s defence imports.

The UK exports arms to multiple countries including Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The US is by far the largest supplier of arms to Israel, accounting for 69% of its imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In a statement, Mr Zomlot said that the Palestinian Mission to the UK would “continue working” with the UK government towards a “full arms embargo”.

Amnesty International UK accused the government of “gesture politics” given less than 10% of arms export licences were suspended.

The charity’s chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, said the restrictions were “too limited and riddled with loopholes”.

“[The] decision means that while ministers apparently accept that Israel may be committing war crimes in Gaza, [the government] is nevertheless continuing to risk complicity in war crimes, apartheid – and possible genocide – by Israeli forces in Gaza,” he said.

The non-profit organisation has continuously called for a ceasefire and for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza.

On social media, Mr Netanyahu said: “With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future.

“Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas.”

Asked about comments made by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson who accused the government of “abandoning Israel”, Mr Healey insisted the UK would support Israel in defending itself if it came under direct attack.

Criticism has also come from within the Labour Party.

Former shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the timing was “unfortunate”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme on Monday, she said: “I suspect that what was wanted was once they got the legal advice, they wanted to come in and tell Parliament about it straight away, but I think that it was unfortunate given all the funerals.”

Ms Thornberry also said she expected a “detailed summary” of the legal advice the government had received over arms, amid questions over the continued supply of parts for F35 jets.

Mr Healey said components for F35s were “deliberately” not included in the suspension as they are used by 20 countries and it would be “hard to distinguish” which components would go into Israeli jets.

Zarah Sultana, who is currently sitting as an independent MP after being suspended from the Labour Party, has called for an end to all arms sales to Israel.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, the MP for Coventry South described the F35 jets as “the most lethal in the world”.

Former national arms advisor Lord Peter Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the government’s decision was “long overdue”.

Lord Ricketts told the BBC in April following an Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers that the UK should stop selling arms to Israel, claiming there was “abundant evidence” that obligations on civilian safety were not being fulfilled.

In his latest interview with the BBC, he said: “There comes a point when the legal advice is so clear the government has an obligation to follow it.”

Israel has repeatedly denied targeting civilians during its military campaign in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October during which about 1,200 were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Last Saturday, a Telegram message popped up on Heejin’s phone from an anonymous sender. “Your pictures and personal information have been leaked. Let’s discuss.”

As the university student entered the chatroom to read the message, she received a photo of herself taken a few years ago while she was still at school. It was followed by a second image using the same photo, only this one was sexually explicit, and fake.

Terrified, Heejin, which is not her real name, did not respond, but the images kept coming. In all of them, her face had been attached to a body engaged in a sex act, using sophisticated deepfake technology.

Deepfakes, the majority of which combine a real person’s face with a fake, sexually explicit body, are increasingly being generated using artificial intelligence.

“I was petrified, I felt so alone,” Heejin told the BBC.

But she was not alone.

Two days earlier, South Korean journalist Ko Narin had published what would turn into the biggest scoop of her career. It had recently emerged that police were investigating deepfake porn rings at two of the county’s major universities, and Ms Ko was convinced there must be more.

She started searching social media and uncovered dozens of chat groups on the messaging app Telegram where users were sharing photos of women they knew and using AI software to convert them into fake pornographic images within seconds.

“Every minute people were uploading photos of girls they knew and asking them to be turned into deepfakes,” Ms Ko told us.

Ms Ko discovered these groups were not just targeting university students. There were rooms dedicated to specific high schools and even middle schools. If a lot of content was created using images of a particular student, she might even be given her own room. Broadly labelled “humiliation rooms” or “friend of friend rooms”, they often come with strict entry terms.

Ms Ko’s report in the Hankyoreh newspaper has shocked South Korea. On Monday, police announced they were considering opening an investigation into Telegram, following the lead of authorities in France, who recently charged Telegram’s Russian founder for crimes relating to the app. The government has vowed to bring in stricter punishments for those involved, and the president has called for young men to be better educated.

Telegram said it “actively combats harmful content on its platform, including illegal pornography,” in a statement provided to the BBC.

The BBC has viewed the descriptions of a number of these chatrooms. One calls for members to post more than four photos of someone along with their name, age and the area they live in.

“I was shocked at how systematic and organised the process was,” said Ms Ko. “The most horrific thing I discovered was a group for underage pupils at one school that had more than 2,000 members.”

In the days after Ms Ko’s article was published, women’s rights activists started to scour Telegram too, and follow leads.

By the end of that week, more than 500 schools and universities had been identified as targets. The actual number impacted is still to be established, but many are believed to be aged under 16, which is South Korea’s age of consent. A large proportion of the suspected perpetrators are teenagers themselves.

Heejin said learning about the scale of the crisis had made her anxiety worse, as she now worried how many people might have viewed her deepfakes. Initially she blamed herself. “I couldn’t stop thinking did this happen because I uploaded my photos to social media, should I have been more careful?”

Scores of women and teenagers across the country have since removed their photos from social media or deactivated their accounts altogether, frightened they could be exploited next.

“We are frustrated and angry that we are having to censor our behaviour and our use of social media when we have done nothing wrong,” said one university student, Ah-eun, whose peers have been targeted.

Ah-eun said one victim at her university was told by police not to bother pursuing her case as it would be too difficult to catch the perpetrator, and it was “not really a crime” as “the photos were fake”.

At the heart of this scandal is the messaging app Telegram. The app is known for having a ‘light touch’ moderation stance and has been accused of not doing enough to police content and particularly groups for years.

This has made it a prime space for criminal behaviour to flourish.

Last week, politicians and the police responded forcefully, promising to investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

On Monday, Seoul National Police Agency announced it would look to investigate Telegram over its role in enabling fake pornographic images of children to be distributed.

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• South Korean women protest in Seoul over hidden sex cameras

The app’s founder, Pavel Durov, was charged in France last week with being complicit in a number of crimes related to the app, including enabling the sharing of child pornography.

But women’s rights activists accuse the authorities in South Korea of allowing sexual abuse on Telegram to simmer unchecked for too long, because Korea has faced this crisis before. In 2019, it emerged that a sex ring was using Telegram to coerce women and children into creating and sharing sexually explicit images of themselves.

Police at the time asked Telegram for help with their investigation, but the app ignored all seven of their requests. Although the ringleader was eventually sentenced to more than 40 years in jail, no action was taken against the platform, because of fears around censorship.

“They sentenced the main actors but otherwise neglected the situation, and I think this has exacerbated the situation,” said Ms Ko.

Park Jihyun, who, as a young student journalist, uncovered the Nth room sex-ring back in 2019, has since become a political advocate for victims of digital sex crimes. She said that since the deepfake scandal broke, pupils and parents had been calling her several times a day crying.

“They have seen their school on the list shared on social media and are terrified.”

Ms Park has been leading calls for the government to regulate or even ban the app in South Korea. “If these tech companies will not cooperate with law enforcement agencies, then the state must regulate them to protect its citizens,” she said.

Before this latest crisis exploded, South Korea’s Advocacy Centre for Online Sexual Abuse victims (ACOSAV) was already noticing a sharp uptick in the number of underage victims of deepfake pornography.

In 2023 they counselled 86 teenage victims. That jumped to 238 in just the first eight months of this year. In the past week alone, another 64 teen victims have come forward.

One of the centre’s leaders, Park Seonghye, said over the past week her staff had been inundated with calls and were working around the clock. “It’s been a full scale emergency for us, like a wartime situation,” she said.

“With the latest deepfake technology there is now so much more footage than there used to be, and we’re worried it’s only going to increase.”

As well as counselling victims, the centre tracks down harmful content and works with online platforms to have it taken down. Ms Park said there had been some instances where Telegram had removed content at their request. “So it’s not impossible,” she noted.

In a statement, Telegram told the BBC that its moderators “proactively monitor public parts of the app, use AI tools and accept user reports in order to remove millions of pieces of content each day that breach Telegram’s terms of service”.

While women’s rights organisations accept that new AI technology is making it easier to exploit victims, they argue this is just the latest form of misogyny to play out online in South Korea.

First women were subjected to waves of verbal abuse online. Then came the spy cam epidemic, where they were secretly filmed using public toilets and changing rooms.

“The root cause of this is structural sexism and the solution is gender equality,” read a statement signed by 84 women’s groups.

This is a direct criticism of the country’s President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has denied the existence of structural sexism, cut funding to victim support groups and is abolishing the government’s gender equality ministry.

Lee Myung-hwa, who treats young sex offenders, agreed that although the outbreak of deepfake abuse might seem sudden, it had long been lurking under the surface. “For teenagers, deepfakes have become part of their culture, they’re seen as a game or a prank,” said the counsellor, who runs the Aha Seoul Youth Cultural Centre.

Ms Lee said it was paramount to educate young men, citing research that shows when you tell offenders exactly what they have done wrong, they become more aware of what counts as sexual abuse, which stops them from reoffending.

Meanwhile, the government has said it will increase the criminal sentences of those who create and share deepfake images, and will also punish those who view the pornography.

It follows criticism that not enough perpetrators were being punished. One of the issues is that the majority of offenders are teenagers, who are typically tried in youth courts, where they receive more lenient sentences.

Since the chatrooms were exposed, many have been closed down, but new ones will almost certainly take their place. A humiliation room has already been created to target the journalists covering this story. Ms Ko, who broke the news, said this had given her sleepless nights. “I keep checking the room to see if my photo has been uploaded,” she said.

Such anxiety has spread to almost every teenage girl and young woman in South Korea. Ah-eun, the university student, said it had made her suspicious of her male acquaintances.

“I now can’t be certain people won’t commit these crimes behind my back, without me knowing,” she said. “I’ve become hyper-vigilant in all my interactions with people, which can’t be good.”

The man who walked out into the rain in Dhaka hadn’t seen the sun in more than five years.

Even on a cloudy day, his eyes struggled to adjust after half a decade locked in a dimly lit room, where his days had been spent listening to the whirr of industrial fans and the screams of the tortured.

Standing on the street, he struggled to remember his sister’s telephone number.

More than 200km away, that same sister was reading about the men emerging from a reported detention facility in Bangladesh’s infamous military intelligence headquarters, known as Aynaghor, or “House of Mirrors”.

They were men who had allegedly been “disappeared” under the increasingly autocratic rule of Sheikh Hasina – largely critics of the government who were there one day, and gone the next.

But Sheikh Hasina had now fled the country, unseated by student-led protests, and these men were being released.

In a remote corner of Bangladesh, the young woman staring at her computer wondered if her brother – whose funeral they had held just two years ago, after every avenue to uncover his whereabouts proved fruitless – might be among them?

The day Michael Chakma was forcefully bundled into a car and blindfolded by a group of burly men in April 2019 in Dhaka, he thought it was the end.

He had come to authorities’ attention after years of campaigning for the rights of the people of Bangladesh’s south-eastern Chittagong Hill region – a Buddhist group which makes up just 2% of Bangladesh’s 170m-strong, mostly Muslim population.

He had, according to rights group Amnesty International, been staunchly vocal against abuses committed by the military in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and has campaigned for an end to military rule in the region.

A day after he was abducted, he was thrown into a cell inside the House of Mirrors, a building hidden inside the compound the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) used in the capital Dhaka.

It was here they gathered local and foreign intelligence, but it would become known as somewhere far more sinister.

The small cell he was kept in, he said, had no windows and no sunlight, only two roaring exhaust fans.

After a while “you lose the sense of time and day”, he recalls.

“I used to hear the cries of other prisoners, though I could not see them, their howling was terrifying.”

The cries, as he would come to know himself, came from his fellow inmates – many of whom were also being interrogated.

“They would tie me to a chair and rotate it very fast. Often, they threatened to electrocute me. They asked why I was criticising Ms Hasina,” Mr Chakma says.

Outside the detention facility, for Minti Chakma the shock of her brother’s disappearance was being replaced with panic.

“We went to several police stations to enquire, but they said they had no information on him and he was not in their custody,” she recalls. “Months passed and we started getting panicky. My father was also getting unwell.”

A massive campaign was launched to find Michael, and Minti filed a writ petition in the High Court in 2020.

Nothing brought any answers.

“The whole family went through a lot of trauma and agony. It was terrible not knowing the whereabouts of my brother,” she says.

Then in August 2020, Michael’s father died during Covid. Some 18 months later, the family decided that Michael must have died as well.

“We gave up hope,” Minti says, simply. “So as per our Buddhist tradition we decided to hold his funeral so that the soul can be freed from his body. With a heavy heart we did that. We all cried a lot.”

Rights groups in Bangladesh say they have documented about 600 cases of alleged enforced disappearances since 2009, the year Sheikh Hasina was elected.

In the years that followed, Sheikh Hasina’s government would be accused of targeting their critics and dissenters in an attempt to stifle any dissent which posed a threat to their rule – an accusation she and the government always denied.

Some of the so-called disappeared were eventually released or produced in court, others were found dead. Human Rights Watch says nearly 100 people remain missing.

Rumours of secret prisons run by various Bangladeshi security agencies circulated among families and friends. Minti watched videos detailing the disappearances, praying her brother was in custody somewhere.

But the existence of such a facility in the capital was only revealed following an investigation by Netra News in May 2022.

The report found it was inside the Dhaka military encampment, right in the heart of the city. It also managed to get hold of first-hand accounts from inside the building – many of which tally with Michael’s description of being held in a cell without sunlight.

The descriptions also echo those of Maroof Zaman, a former Bangladeshi ambassador to Qatar and Vietnam, who was first detained in the House of Mirrors in December 2017.

His interview with the BBC is one of the few times he has spoken of his 15-month ordeal: as part of his release, he agreed with officials not to speak publicly.

Like others who have spoken of what happened behind the complex’s walls, he was fearful of what might happen if he did. The detainee who spoke openly to Netra News in 2022 only did so because he was no longer in Bangladesh.

Maroof Zaman has only felt safe to speak out since Sheikh Hasina fled – and her government collapsed – on 5 August.

He describes how he too was held in a room without sunlight, while two noisy exhaust fans drowned out any sound coming from outside.

The focus of his interrogations were on the articles he had written alleging corruption at the heart of government. Why, the men wanted to know, was he writing articles alleging “unequal agreements” signed with India by Ms Hasina, that favoured Delhi.

“For the first four-and-a-half months, it was like a death zone,” he says. “I was constantly beaten, kicked and threatened at gunpoint. It was unbearable, I thought only death will free me from this torture.”

But unlike Michael, he was moved to a different building.

“For the first time in months I heard the sound of the birds. Oh, it was so good, I cannot describe that feeling,” Maroof recounted.

He was eventually released following a campaign by his daughters and supporters in late March 2019 – a month before Michael found himself thrown into a cell.

Few believe that enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings could have been carried out without the knowledge of the top leadership.

But while people like Mr Chakma were languishing in secret jails for years, Ms Hasina, her ministers and her international affairs advisor Gowher Rizvi were flatly rejecting allegations of abductions.

Ms Hasina’s son, Sajeed Wazed Joy, has continued to reject the allegations, instead turning the blame on “some of our law enforcement leadership [who] acted beyond the law”.

“I absolutely agree that it’s completely illegal. I believe that those orders did not come from the top. I had no knowledge of this. I am shocked to hear it myself,” he told the BBC.

There are those who raise their eyebrows at the denial.

Alongside Michael, far higher profile people emerged from the House of Mirrors – retired brigadier Abdullahi Aman Azmi and barrister Ahmed Bin Quasem. Both had spent about eight years in secret incarceration.

What is clear is that the re-emergence of people like the politicians, and Michael, shows “the urgency for the new authorities in Bangladesh to order and ensure that the security forces to disclose all places of detention and account for those who have been missing”, according to Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights office in Geneva.

Bangladesh’s interim government agreed: earlier this week, it established a five-member commission to investigate cases of enforced disappearances by security agencies during Ms Hasina’s rule since 2009.

And those who have survived the ordeal want justice.

“We want the perpetrators to be punished. All the victims and their families should be compensated,” Maroof Zaman said.

Back on the street outside the House of Mirrors – just two days after Sheikh Hasina fled to India – Michael was struggling to decide what to do. He had only been told about his release 15 minutes before. It was a lot to take in.

“I forgot the last two digits of my sister’s phone number,” he says. “I struggled a lot to remember that, but I couldn’t. Then I called a relative who informed them.”

But Minti already knew: she had seen the news on Facebook.

“I was ecstatic,” she recalls through tears two weeks later. “Next day, he called me, I saw him on that video phone call after five years. We were all crying. I couldn’t recognise him.”

Last week, she saw him in person for the first time in five years: weaker, traumatised – but alive.

“His voice sounds different,” she says.

Michael, meanwhile, is dealing with the long term health implications of being held in the dark for so long.

“I cannot look at contacts or phone numbers properly, it’s a blurred vision. I am getting treatment, and the doctor is giving me spectacles.”

More than that, there is coming to terms with what he has missed. He was told of his father’s death a few days after his release.

And yet, amid the pain, he is hopeful – even happy.

“It’s more than a new lease of life, a resurrection. It feels like I was dead and have come back to life again. I cannot describe this feeling.”

A new show in the Indian capital Delhi showcases a rich collection of early photographs of monuments in the country.

The photographs from the 1850s and 1860s capture a period of experimentation when new technology met uncharted territory.

British India was the first country outside Europe to establish professional photographic studios, and many of these early photographers were celebrated internationally. (Photography was launched in 1839.)

They blended and transformed pictorial conventions, introduced new artistic traditions, and shaped the visual tastes of diverse audiences, ranging from scholars to tourists.

While the works of leading British photographers often reflect a colonial perspective, those by their Indian contemporaries reveal overlooked interactions with this narrative.

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The pictures at the show called Histories in the Making have been gathered from the archives of DAG, a leading art firm. They highlight photography’s crucial role in shaping an understanding of India’s history.

They also contributed to the development of field sciences, fostered networks of knowledge, and connected the histories of politics, fieldwork, and academic disciplines like archaeology.

“These images capture a moment in history when the British Empire was consolidating its power in India, and the documentation of the subcontinent’s monuments served both as a means of asserting control and as a way to showcase the empire’s achievements to audiences back in Europe,” says Ashish Anand, CEO of DAG.

This is a a picture of Caves of Elephanta taken by William Johnson and William Henderson.

The Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage site, are a group of temples primarily dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in the state of Maharashtra.

William Johnson began his photographic career in Bombay (now Mumbai) around 1852, initially working as a daguerreotypist – the daguerreotype was an early photographic process that produced a single image on a metal plate.

In the mid-1850s, Johnson partnered with William Henderson, a commercial studio owner in Bombay, to establish the firm Johnson & Henderson.

Together, they produced The Indian Amateur’s Photographic Album, a monthly series published from 1856 to 1858.

Linnaeus Tripe arrived in India in 1839 at the age of 17, joining the Madras regiment of the East India Company.

He began practicing photography and in December 1854, captured images in the towns of Halebidu, Belur, and Shravanabelagola.

Sixty-eight of these photographs, primarily of temples, were exhibited in 1855 at an exhibition in Madras (now a major city called Chennai), earning him a first-class medal for the “best series of photographic views on paper”.

In 1857, Tripe became the photographer for the Madras Presidency – a former province of British India – and photographed sites at Srirangam, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Pudukkottai, and Thanjavur.

Over 50 of these photographs were displayed at the Photographic Society of Madras exhibition the following year, where they were widely praised as the best exhibits.

John Murray, a surgeon in the Bengal Indian Medical Service, began photographing in India in the late 1840s.

Appointed civil surgeon in the city of Agra in 1848, he spent the next 20 years producing a series of studies on Mughal architecture in Agra and the neighbouring cities of Sikandra, and Delhi.

In 1864, he created a comprehensive set of pictures documenting the iconic Taj Mahal.

Throughout his career, Murray used paper negatives and the calotype process – a technique of creating “positive” prints from one negative – to produce his images.

Thomas Biggs arrived in India in 1842 and joined the Bombay Artillery as a captain in the British East India Company.

He soon took up photography and became a founding member of the Photographic Society of Bombay in 1854.

After exhibiting his work at the Society’s first exhibition in January 1855, he was appointed as the government photographer for the Bombay Presidency, tasked with documenting architectural and archaeological sites.

He photographed Bijapur, Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal, Dharwad, and Mysore before being recalled to military service in December 1855.

Biggs experimented with the calotype process, producing “positive” prints from one negative.

Felice Beato, one of the most renowned war and travel photographers of the 19th Century, arrived in India in 1858 to document the aftermath of the 1857 mutiny.

Indian soldiers, known as sepoys, had set off a rebellion against the British rule, often referred to as the first war of independence.

Although the mutiny was nearly over when Beato arrived, he photographed its aftermath with a focus on capturing the immediacy of events.

He extensively documented cities deeply affected by the uprising, including Lucknow, Delhi, and Kanpur, with notable images of Sikandar Bagh, Kashmiri Gate, and the barracks of Kanpur. His chilling photograph of the hanging of sepoys, stands out for its stark depiction.

As a commercial photographer, Beato aimed to sell his work widely, spending over two years in India photographing iconic sites. In 1860, Beato left India for China to photograph the Second Opium War.

Andrew Neill, a Scottish doctor in the Indian Medical Service in Madras, was also a photographer who documented ancient monuments for the Bombay Presidency.

His calotypes were featured in the 1855 exhibition of the Photographic Society of Madras and in March 1857, and 20 of his architectural views of Mysore and Bellary were shown by the Photographic Society of Bengal.

Neill also documented Lucknow after the 1857 revolt.

Edmund Lyon, who served in the British Army from 1845 to 1854 and briefly as governor of Dublin District Military Prison, arrived in India in 1865 and established a photographic studio in the southern city of Ooty.

Working as a commercial photographer until 1869, Lyon gained significant recognition, particularly for his photographs of the Nilgiris mountain range, which were showcased at the 1867 Paris Exposition.

Accompanied by his wife, Anne Grace, Lyon also captured southern India’s archaeological sites and architectural antiquities.

His work resulted in a remarkable collection of 300 photographs documenting sites in Trichinopoly, Madurai, Tanjore, Halebid, Bellary, and Vijayanagara

Samuel Bourne’s stunning images of India, especially from his Himalayan expeditions between 1863 and 1866, stand among the finest examples of 19th-Century travel photography. A former bank clerk, Bourne left his job in 1857 to pursue photography full-time.

Arriving in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1863, he soon moved to Shimla, where he partnered with William Howard to establish the Howard & Bourne studio.

Later that year, Charles Shepherd joined them, forming ‘Howard, Bourne & Shepherd’. When Howard left, the studio became ‘Bourne & Shepherd,’ a name that would become iconic.

Bourne embarked on three major Himalayan expeditions, covering vast regions including Kashmir and the challenging terrain of Spiti. His 1866 photographs of the Manirung Pass, at over 18,600ft (5,669m), gained international acclaim.

In 1870, Bourne returned to England, selling his shares, though Bourne & Shepherd continued to operate in Calcutta and Simla. The studio, which later documented the spectacular Delhi Durbar – the ‘Court of India’ of 1911, an event that saw 20,000 soldiers marching or riding past the silk-robed Emperor and Empress – had a remarkable 176-year legacy before closing in 2016.

Through the street outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house passed a slow procession of empty coffins – carried by protesters in a sea of Israeli flags.

Since six Israeli hostages were found dead in a Gaza tunnel last weekend, the weight of the war there has hung heavier on Israel’s leader.

Israel said Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino were shot and killed by Hamas shortly before Israeli troops made the discovery.

“I think the fact that they were alive and murdered right before they could have been saved – that broke it,” said Anna Rubin, who joined a protest in Tel Aviv.

“That’s a breaking point for a lot of people – [they] are on the edge of their seat, and they realise that sitting at home is not going to do anything.”

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets again on Monday, after mass demonstrations flooded Tel Aviv last night. Many want to see this moment as a turning point, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has been here before.

He’s lived through months of these street protests – and years of similar ones. Protected by a parliamentary majority, his strategy has largely been to ignore their demands.

But then, if Mr Netanyahu isn’t listening, many people in Israel are not protesting.

A one-day general strike, called by the country’s labour union, was very patchily observed – even in Tel Aviv, the country’s beach-side liberal heartland.

Shops and restaurants in the city centre were mostly open, after briefly closing in solidarity with the protest on Sunday night.

“I don’t agree with the decision,” one of the staff at local cafe told me. “We should have closed.”

Tamara was picking up a street scooter, in large shades and perfect lipstick. “I don’t agree with the strike,” she said. “We want the hostages back – but we can’t stop everything; we need to live.”

Twenty-three-year-old Niva said she was surprised to see so many places open. “The country is in a very confrontational mood now,” she said.

But the most striking confrontation isn’t happening in the streets.

In a live press conference on Monday night, Mr Netanyahu defied anyone to demand more concessions from Israel in its negotiations over a hostage and ceasefire deal, brokered by the US.

“These murderers executed six of our hostages; they shot them in the back of the head,” he said. “And now, after this, we’re asked to show seriousness? We’re asked to make concessions?”

The message that would send to Hamas, he said, would be: “kill more hostages [and] you’ll get more concessions.”

He said no-one who was serious about achieving peace and freeing the hostages – including US President Joe Biden – would ask him to make more concessions.

A short while earlier, Mr Biden, when asked by reporters, said he didn’t think Israel’s prime minister was doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal.

A key demand of Hamas is that Israel withdraws all its forces from a strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Israel’s security chiefs, including the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, have been widely reported in local media as supporting alternatives to keeping troops on the ground.

Mr Gallant has publicly pressed the cabinet to back a proposed compromise.

The most dangerous moment of Israel’s previous mass protests, sparked by Mr Netanyahu’s judicial reform plans, was when he tried to sack Mr Gallant – and was then forced to reinstate him.

If he tried that again, says political analyst Tamar Hermann of Israel’s Democracy Institute, that could be the real turning point for protests here.

The threat to him from demonstrators now, she says, is “zero”.

Most are left-leaning critics whose opposition to the prime minister runs far deeper than the hostage crisis in Gaza.

“Netanyahu knows better than I do,” she said, “the best thing is to let it play as a safety valve – let people say, ‘we hate you, you are a murderer’.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu, protected by his parliamentary majority, seems to believe he can ride out the demands for a deal being made from the street, at least for now.

But the demands from his own defence minister, from the US president, could prove harder to ignore.

The excitement about the Oasis reunion turned sour for some fans when they were faced with prices that had more than doubled while they had spent hours in a virtual queue. Will the ensuing row over “dynamic pricing” have a lasting impact?

Oasis fan John and his family planned a major operation to buy Oasis tickets on Saturday – him on his phone and iPad while at work, in Burnley, his wife and son on their phones and laptop at home, in Cumbria, and his daughter on her phone, in Leeds.

“My wife and son were travelling across on the train over to Leeds, changing trains, and were on their phones constantly, in the queue,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“My wife said she saw loads of other people in the same situation, all staring at their phones, trying to buy tickets.”

By mid-afternoon, after six hours in the online queue, John had given up, but his wife was eventually offered tickets – for £355 each.

“I find that just disgraceful,” he said.

Oasis have “built their career on the connection they’ve got with ordinary folk”, John said.

“But when you’ve queued all day and the price of the ticket has more than doubled, I just think they’ve broken their contract with the working class.

“They’re pretty dead to me now.”

John and his family were among many stung by dynamic pricing for the Britpop band’s long-awaited reunion tour.

Some standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees were relabelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees.

“You can’t spend your whole day online trying to buy tickets expecting to pay one price, and you get to the front of the queue and it more than doubles,” John said.

“It’s outrageous.”

Another fan, Nicholas, from Macclesfield, in Cheshire, told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell: “It’s greed, purely and simply.

“They will be looked at very differently.

“There should be difficult questions asked of the band.”

Ticketmaster has said it does not set the prices, which are down to the “event organiser”, who “has priced these tickets according to their market value”.

Performers can opt in or out of the dynamic-pricing system but it is hard to know how much the Gallagher brothers themselves actually knew about the arrangement.

The “event organiser” ultimately means the promoters – SJM, Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, MCD and DF.

The tour deal would also have involved the band’s booking agents and managers, who would have discussed it with the two reuniting bandmates.

And opting in to dynamic pricing would mean a bigger payday.

But were those choices offered to the Gallaghers themselves?

In the past, some artists and their teams have decided against using dynamic pricing – Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran are not thought to have used it for their latest UK tours.

And The Cure frontman Robert Smith has called it “a greedy scam”.

“All artists have the choice not to participate,” he wrote in 2023.

“If no artists participated, it would cease to exist.”

Other stars have said they had it applied without their direct knowledge.

In 2020, Crowded House said: “The band had no prior knowledge of these ‘In Demand’ tickets and did not approve this programme.”

So they told Live Nation to refund the difference between the original face value price and the higher “in demand” cost.

Live Nation has tried to make dynamic pricing a common feature in recent years, especially in the US.

But there was a furore when it was used for Bruce Springsteen’s 2022 US tour, as top ticket prices briefly rose to $5,000 (£3,800), before dynamically dropping again.

The Boss later said most of his tickets were “totally affordable” but the money should go into the pocket of the artist and not a tout who would only resell the ticket for a similar or higher price.

“I’m going, ‘Hey, why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?'” he told Rolling Stone.

“It [dynamic pricing] created an opportunity for that to occur.

“And so at that point, we went for it.

“I know it was unpopular with some fans.

“But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”

Live Nation’s boss has also said dynamic pricing reduces touting – and he wants to use it more widely in Europe as well as the US.

“Promoters are anxious for it,” chief executive Michael Rapino said in February.

“Artists are anxious for it because they see, when they sell an arena in Baltimore versus Milan right now, they look at the grosses and say, ‘Wow, we’re leaving too much on the table for the scalpers. Let’s price this better.'”

Better for whom, though?

Ultimately, the Oasis shows did sell out by Saturday evening.

“It basically comes down to demand and supply,” Schellion Horn, competition economist at accounting firm Grant Thornton, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“There are people out there for whom this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and people are willing to pay that [much].”

But the real issue was a “lack of transparency”.

People expected prices to vary for other services such as flights and hotels – but “here, people had in their mind that they were going to get these lower ticket prices”.

“A lot of people finally got to the front of the queue, had invested four, five, six hours of their life [and] felt very invested, and suddenly had five minutes to decide whether to pay these higher prices,” Ms Horn said.

Music journalist John Robb, who recently interviewed Noel Gallagher for his site Louder Than War, told BBC Radio 4 the price fluctuations were “unfair”.

“The price should be the price,” he said.

“But maybe that’s an old-fashioned British way of looking at things.”

There should be legislation to regulate dynamic pricing, he added.

That is now a prospect, after the Oasis outcry led the government to add the issue to a review of ticket reselling it had already announced.

“There are a number of techniques going on here where people are buying a lot of tickets, reselling them at a huge price,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told 5 Live on Monday.

“And that’s just not fair – it’s just pricing people out of the market.”

Will the controversy tarnish Oasis’ reputation?

Possibly, but the reunion shows are not for almost a year – by which time the fans who did buy tickets might just have paid off their overdrafts and credit-card bills, and be ready to forget the cost and revel in the music.

As African leaders gather in Beijing this week for the triennial China-Africa summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping may have one thing under his belt to boast about – satellite TV.

Almost nine years ago, President Xi promised the heads of state attending the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Johannesburg that China would provide over 10,000 remote villages in 23 African countries with digital TV access.

With over 9,600 villages having received satellite infrastructure, the project is now nearing completion.

The ambitious pledge, revealed during a period of warm China-Africa relations and funded by China’s aid budget, was entrusted to StarTimes, a private Chinese company already operating in several African countries.

It was an apparent show of goodwill and an opportunity for China to flex its soft power in a strategically important region.

• PODCAST: Why is China giving satellite TV to 10,000 African villages?

As China’s economy struggles and Beijing re-calibrates its Africa strategy, the BBC World Service visited four villages in Kenya to find out if this “soft power” initiative had paid off.

In the village of Olasiti, about three hours’ drive west of the capital, Nairobi, Nicholas Nguku gathered his friends and family to watch Kenyan athletes running at the Paris Olympics on television.

“I’m very happy to see the Olympics, which for many years we had not been able to see before we got StarTimes,” he said, speaking of the company’s installation of satellite dishes about four years ago.

He is far from the only beneficiary of StarTimes’ presence across Africa. First introduced to the continent in 2008, StarTimes is now one of the largest private digital TV providers in sub-Saharan Africa, with more than 16 million subscribers.

Analysts say that low pricing initially helped to secure its foothold.

In Kenya, monthly digital TV packages range from 329 shillings ($2.50; £2) to 1,799 shillings ($14; £10.50).

In comparison, a monthly package for DStv, owned by MultiChoice, another major player in the African digital TV market, costs between 700 and 10,500 shillings.

While StarTimes partly relies on subscriptions for its core revenue, the “10,000 Villages Project” is funded by China’s state–run South-South Assistance Fund.

The satellite dishes all feature the StarTimes logo, Kenya’s Ministry of Information emblem, and a red “China Aid” logo. During the installation of these dishes, StarTimes representatives said that this was a “gift” from China, several villagers recalled.

According to Dr Angela Lewis, an academic who has written extensively on StarTimes in Africa, the project had the potential to leave a positive image of China for African audiences.

Villagers under the project ostensibly received everything for free, including the infrastructure, such as a satellite dish, battery, and installation, as well as a subscription to StarTimes’ content.

This was a “game-changer,” according to Dr Lewis, as remote villages in Africa previously mostly had access to choppy and unreliable analogue TV.

• LISTEN: How China sees itself in Africa

For many, this was their first access to satellite dishes, altering the way villagers interacted with the outside world, she said.

For community centres like hospitals and schools in Ainomoi village in western Kenya, subscriptions remain free.

At the local clinic a digital TV in the waiting room helps patients pass the time. And at a primary school, pupils enjoy watching cartoons after school.

“After we finish schoolwork, we’ll all watch cartoons together and it’s a very enjoyable and bonding experience,” said Ruth Chelang’at, an eighth-grade student at the school.

However, several Kenyan households interviewed by the BBC say the free trial unexpectedly lasted only a limited amount of time.

Despite its relatively cheap price, extending subscriptions was considered a significant financial burden for many.

With that, the initial excitement has waned among some of the project’s beneficiaries, putting a dent in China’s push to build up goodwill.

“We were all very happy when we first got the satellite dish, but it was only free for a few months, and after that we had to pay,” said Rose Chepkemoi, from Chemori village in Kericho county. “It was too much so we stopped using it.”

Without a subscription, only certain free-to-air channels, such as the Kenyan Broadcasting Cooperation, are available, according to those who no longer subscribe to StarTimes packages.

During the BBC’s visit to four different villages that received StarTimes dishes from 2018 to 2020, many villagers reported stopping their use of StarTimes after the free trial ended. The chief of Ainamoi village said that many of the original 25 households who received the satellite dishes in his village opted not to subscribe.

The BBC contacted StarTimes for comment on the free trials but did not receive a reply.

China’s influence extends to the content broadcast on StarTimes channels, with mixed results. Even the cheapest packages include channels like Kung Fu and Sino Drama, showcasing predominantly Chinese movies and series.

In 2023, over 1,000 Chinese movies and TV shows were dubbed into local languages, Ma Shaoyong, StarTimes’ head of public relations, told local media. In Kenya’s case, in 2014, the company launched a channel called ST Swahili, dedicated to Swahili content.

Among villagers who have watched Chinese shows, many said they found the programming outdated, portraying Chinese characters in a one-dimensional way, with shows often centred around stereotypical themes.

A quick flick through the guide shows a plethora of dating or romance-centric shows, including a popular reality show called Hello, Mr. Right, where contestants seek to find their perfect match. The format was modelled on a similar show in China called If You Are the One.

For some at least, that content is a reason to continue the subscription. Ariana Nation Ngotiek, a 21-year-old from Olasiti village, is “obsessed” with certain shows, like the Chinese series Eternal Love, which is dubbed into English. “I won’t go to sleep without watching it,” she said.

But football remains the ultimate attraction for African audiences. In 2023, for example, the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) had a record number of nearly two billion viewers globally, according to the Confederation of African Football.

Aware of this business opportunity, StarTimes has heavily invested in securing broadcasting rights for football matches, including Afcon, Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga.

“Sports broadcasting is where StarTimes made its name,” explained Dr Lewis.

Competition is fierce, however, and SuperSport, a subsidiary of MultiChoice, reportedly pays over $200m (£152m) annually for rights to broadcast the coveted English Premier League.

After French football megastar Kylian Mbappé announced he was joining Spain’s Real Madrid, StarTimes seized the opportunity and erected huge billboards in Nairobi that read “Feel the full thrill of La Liga”, followed by the StarTimes logo.

However, this does not work for everyone.

One football fan told the BBC he would “rather enjoy the thrill of Premier League.”

“The majority of Kenyans are not into La Liga, it’s the English Premier League that draws the audience,” explained Levi Obonyo, a professor at Nairobi’s Daystar University.

While China’s international-facing state broadcaster CGTN, is included in its cheapest package, unlike the BBC and CNN, it does not draw in the viewers.

“Yes, we also have Chinese news, but I don’t watch it,” said Lily Ruto, a retired teacher in Kericho county. “What’s it called again? C something N? T something N?” she laughed as she shrugged her shoulders.

Dr Dani Madrid-Morales, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield, echoes that StarTimes has not revolutionised the [African] news environment.

Most villagers say they prefer local news channels. StarTimes understands that. In fact, with over 95% of its 5,000-strong African staff being local, according to a company spokesperson, it aims to present itself as prioritising African voices.

One consultant to Chinese media companies in Africa said that StarTimes was trying to avoid a repeat of what has happened to the likes of TikTok or Huawei, whose overt Chinese-ness have attracted a high level of scrutiny in the West.

Dr Lewis’ study of news stories from 2015 to 2019 reinforces this, noting that most news stories mentioning StarTimes did not reference China or China-Africa relations. The company appears careful not to overtly showcase its Chinese roots.

StarTimes as a private company has seen substantial success over the years, and the “10,000 Villages Project” has pushed the company to a new level of fame.

However, as Beijing hosts yet another FOCAC, the image-building effect of the project that China had hoped for has failed to materialise.

“There was an attempt for the government to rebalance the information flow that would put China under a positive light, but that has not materialised,” said Dr Madrid-Morales. “The amount of money that has gone into this hasn’t really benefitted the Chinese government all that much.”

Many villagers the BBC spoke to were mostly concerned about content and costs. As rusty as several of the satellite dishes themselves, the project, once the talk of the town, has seemingly been relegated to a footnote in China’s soft-power outreach.

“Yes, we know it comes from China, but it makes no difference if no-one is using it,” said Ms Chepkemoi, who has cancelled her StarTimes subscription.

• PODCAST: How China sees itself in Africa
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A web series about the 1999 hijacking of an Indian passenger plane has sparked a controversy in the country over the portrayal of some of the characters.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha for Netflix, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack recounts the events surrounding the hijacking of a Kathmandu-Delhi flight which was taken to Taliban-ruled Kandahar to demand the release of militants jailed in India.

The negotiations lasted eight days, resulting in the Indian government releasing three militants, including Masood Azhar, in exchange for the passengers.

India has blamed Azhar, who founded the Jaish-e-Mohammad group after his release, for several attacks in the country. He has also been designated as a terrorist by the United Nations.

The decision to release Azhar and others remains controversial in India, with the opposition often criticising the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was also in power in 1999, for the move.

Now, a new series about the hijacking has sparked a row.

What is the controversy?

The six-episode mini-series is based on Flight Into Fear: The Captain’s Story, a book by Devi Sharan, who captained the hijacked plane, and journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury.

The series, which was released last week, begins with the hijackers making their way into the flight at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

Within minutes of take-off, the militants announce the flight – carrying 179 passengers including the five hijackers and 11 crew members – has been hijacked.

The series focuses on the interactions between the hijackers, the crew and the passengers, and it also shows Indian government officials working to resolve the crisis.

The row began after some social media users criticised the filmmakers for depicting the hijackers calling each other common Hindu names such as Bhola and Shankar, even though their names were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir. All of them were from Pakistan.

BJP leader Amit Malviya said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that by using the hijackers’ “non-Muslim” aliases in the series, the filmmakers had ensured that people would “think Hindus hijacked IC-814”.

A Hindu right-wing organisation has filed a case in a Delhi court seeking a ban on the series. PTI news agency reported that the petition has accused the filmmaker of distorting crucial facts and misrepresenting historical events.

Several Indian media outlets, citing sources, reported that the federal government held a meeting with a senior Netflix executive regarding the issue.

Netflix and India’s information and broadcasting ministry have not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

What are the facts?

Many have also defended the series, saying that it is factually accurate.

A statement issued by India’s home ministry in 2000 confirms that the hijackers used such names as aliases to communicate inside and outside the aircraft.

“To the passengers of the hijacked place these hijackers came to be known respectively as (1) Chief, (2) Doctor, (3) Burger, (4) Bhola, and (5) Shankar, the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another,” the statement said.

Witnesses and journalists who reported on the incident have also corroborated this in the past.

Kollattu Ravikumar, a survivor of the hijacking who worked as a merchant navy captain for a US-based firm, confirmed the aliases in an article on Rediff news portal in 2000.

“The four hijackers who were watching over us also had a leader called Berger. It was Berger who used to often shout. As Berger called them, I caught the names of the others – Bola, Shankar and Doctor,” he said.

This isn’t the first time that international streaming platforms have received backlash over content on their platforms in India.

In January, Netflix removed a Tamil-language film after members of hard-line Hindu organisations objected to several scenes. In 2021, the cast and crew of an Amazon Prime show, Tandav, apologised after being accused of mocking Hindu gods.

Ugandan athlete Rebecca Cheptegei is in a critical condition in a Kenyan hospital, after allegedly being doused with petrol and set on fire by a former boyfriend.

The 33-year-old marathon runner, who competed at the recent Paris Olympics, had suffered burns to more than 75% of her body, police said.

She was attacked at her home in western Kenya, where she had been training.

There are concerns about the increasing cases of violence against female athletes in Kenya, some of which have resulted in death.

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Ms Cheptegei is said to have been rescued by neighbours after the incident that happened on Sunday at her home in the small town of Endebess.

She was returning from church with her two children when she was targeted.

The alleged attacker also sustained serious burns, local police chief Jeremiah ole Kosiom told journalists.

The two are being treated at Moi Referral Hospital in Eldoret, the main town in the region.

“The couple were heard quarrelling outside their house. During the altercation, the boyfriend was seen pouring a liquid on the woman before burning her,” Mr Kosiom was quoted as saying.

Ms Cheptegei, from a region just across the border in Uganda, is said to have bought a piece of land in Trans Nzoia county and built a house, to be near Kenya’s many athletic training centres.

A report filed by a local administrator said the two had been wrangling over the piece of land. Police say an investigation is under way.

Ms Cheptegei finished 44th in the marathon at the recent Paris Olympics.

She also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.

In April 2022, another female runner, Damaris Mutua, was found strangled in a home with a pillow over her face in the Rift Valley town of Iten.

It came months after record-breaking long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was found stabbed to death in the same town.

In both cases, their partners have been identified by the authorities as the main suspects.

Ms Tirop’s husband is currently facing murder charges, which he denies, while a search for Ms Mutua’s boyfriend continues.

Men have also been targeted.

Last December, another Ugandan athlete, Benjamin Kiplagat was stabbed to death by assailants in Eldoret.

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China and the Philippines have accused each other of ramming coast guard vessels in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

The Philippines has claimed a Chinese ship “directly and intentionally rammed” into its vessel, while Beijing has accused the Philippines of “deliberately” crashing into a Chinese ship.

Saturday’s collision near the Sabina Shoal is the latest in a long-running – and escalating – row between the two countries over various islands and zones in the South China Sea.

Within the past two weeks, there have been at least three other incidents in the same area involving ships belonging to the two countries.

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

The South China Sea is a major shipping route through which $3 trillion worth of trade passes through a year. Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Following the latest clash, China’s coast guard called on the Philippines to withdraw from the Sabina Shoal while pledging to “resolutely thwart all acts of provocation, nuisance and infringement”.

The Philippines coast guard said it would not move its vessel – the Teresa Magbanua – “despite the harassment, the bullying activities and escalatory action of the Chinese coast guard”.

There were no casualties following the crash but Philippines Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela said that the 97-meter (318-feet) Teresa Magbanua had sustained some damage after being hit “several times” by the Chinese ship.

The US ambassador to the Phillipines, MaryKay L Carlson, criticised what she called China’s dangerous actions in the region.

“The US condemns the multiple dangerous violations of international law by the [People’s Republic of China], including today’s intentional ramming of the BRP Teresa Magbanua while it was conducting lawful operations within the[Philippines] EEZ.” she wrote in a post to X.

“We stand with the Philippines in upholding international law.”

China has repeatedly blamed the Philippines and its ally the US for the escalating tensions. Last week, a defence ministry spokesperson said Washington was “emboldening” Manila to make “reckless provocations”.

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

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

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

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

Brazil’s Supreme Court has upheld a ban on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The judges voted unanimously in favour of the measure, meaning the ban will stay in place.

X has been suspended in Brazil since the early hours of Saturday after it failed to appoint a new legal representative in the country before a court-imposed deadline.

It is the latest development in a feud between Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and X’s owner Elon Musk which began in April, when the judge ordered the suspension of dozens of accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation.

Justice Moraes had called for the five-member panel to rule on the suspension, which has caused division in Brazil.

One of the justices, Flávio Dino, argued that “freedom of expression is closely linked to a duty of responsibility”.

“The first can’t exist without the second, and vice-versa,” he added.

Reacting to the decision to ban X, Mr Musk had earlier said: “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes.”

In his ruling, Justice Moraes gave companies, including Apple and Google, a five-day deadline to remove X from its app stores and block its use on iOS and Android devices.

He added that individuals or businesses that are found to still be accessing X by using virtual private networks (VPNs) could be fined R$50,000 ($8,910; £6,780).

X closed its office in Brazil last month, saying its representative had been threatened with arrest if she did not comply with orders it described as “censorship”, which it said was illegal under Brazilian law.

Justice Moraes had ordered that X accounts accused of spreading disinformation – many of which belonged to supporters of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro – must be blocked while they are under investigation.

Brazil is said to be one of the largest markets for Mr Musk’s social media network.

With access to X blocked, many Brazilians have been turning to microblogging platform Bluesky as an alternative.

Bluesky announced on Saturday that it had registered half a million new users in the South American country over the two previous days alone.

Among those pointing followers to his Bluesky account was Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who on Thursday tweeted links to his social media accounts on platforms other than X.

Lula’s Bluesky profile was top of the list, which also included links to his Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, TikTok and Facebook accounts.

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber expressed her delight at the influx of new users, posting in Portuguese and English: “Good job Brazil, you made the right choice.”

Pope Francis has arrived in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, kicking off the longest and farthest trip of his tenure to the Asia Pacific region.

He is expected to highlight environmental concerns and the importance of interfaith dialogue during the 12 day trip, which will also see him travel to Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Timor-Leste – the only one of the four countries that is predominantly Catholic.

It’s a particularly challenging journey for a man who turns 88 in December and has been battling a spate of health issues.

Asia Pacific is one of only a few places in the world where the Catholic Church is growing in terms of baptised faithful and religious vocations.

Parts of the Pope’s trip, which was originally scheduled in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, will retrace the steps of St John Paul II, who also visited the four nations during his 27-year pontificate.

“Today I begin an Apostolic Journey to several countries in Asia and Oceania,” he wrote on X on Monday. “Please pray that this journey may bear fruit.”

Since his election in 2013, the Pope has urged the Catholic Church to bring God’s comfort “toward the periphery” – referring to communities who are marginalised or far away.

He is only the third pope to visit Indonesia, which has the largest population of Muslims globally.

During his four days there, he is expected to visit the Indonesian capital’s main mosque, meet with outgoing president Joko Widodo and hold a mass for some 70,000 people, according to the Vatican News.

Nasaruddin Umar, the grand imam at the Jakarta mosque, told news agency AP he hopes the visit will offer opportunities to “discuss the common ground between religious communities and emphasise the commonalities between religions, ethnicities, and beliefs”.

Observers say the visit to Indonesia highlights the Pope’s interest in deepening dialogue between Christian and Muslim communities.

“For the longest time, there [have been] tensions. [Both groups have had] misunderstandings over the course of history,” said Jonathan Tan, a religious studies expert at the Case Western Reserve University in the US.

“I think what the Pope wants to do is to do a new way forward, a new way of relating to one another, not a defensive way,” he said.

In Papua New Guinea, the Pope will travel to the remote city of Vanimo to meet with missionaries from his native Argentina who have been reaching out to tribal communities.

Miguel de la Calle, an Argentine missionary in Papua New Guinea’s north-western-most city, said he hoped the Pope’s visit would “significantly boost” ongoing evangelisation efforts in the territory.

People have been travelling from all Papua New Guinea – and even across the border from Indonesia – to see the Pope, he told Vatican News.

“Some have been walking for days due to the scarcity of transportation,” Father Miguel said.

In Timor-Leste, the Pope will officiate mass in the capital Dili, on the same seaside esplanade where John Paul II spoke in 1989 to comfort local Catholics who suffered under Indonesia’s occupation of the territory. Timor-Leste gained independence in 2002.

The sheen of Pope Francis’s visit to the country has dimmed in recent days, however, following revelations that hundreds of homes in the area were bulldozed. Nearly 90 residents were told to find somewhere new to live before he arrives.

Francis will wrap up his trip with a visit to Singapore, where he will celebrate Mass at the 55,000-seater National Stadium.

For the past decade, the Pope has been increasing his engagements with Asia.

Early in his pontificate, he made four long-distance trips to the region: to South Korea, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Japan. Only 0.5% of Japan’s population identified as Catholic at the time.

He has also visited Bangladesh, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Thailand.

No pope, however, has been able to visit China to date, as relations between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party have been strained by disputes over who can appoint bishops in the country.

Both sides are believed to have reached a deal on this in 2018, which gives the Vatican a say on such appointments.

During his trip, Francis will be accompanied by a doctor and two nurses. Concerns have been raised over the impact of such an ambitious itinerary on his ailing health.

Francis, who has had part of one lung removed in his younger days, had been struggling with respiratory and mobility problems of late – some of which have led him to miss his weekly Sunday blessings.

In November last year, he cancelled his trip to Dubai for the annual United Nations climate meeting because of a lung inflammation.

A beauty queen who received xenophobic abuse in South Africa and became the subject of a government investigation has told the BBC she will be seeking therapy because of the saga.

Chidimma Adetshina, who was a finalist in the Miss South Africa beauty contest, sparked criticism as despite being a South African citizen, her father is Nigerian and her mother has Mozambican roots.

She quit the contest last month – the day after the home affairs department announced that her mother may have committed “identity theft” to become a South African national.

Ms Adetshina was then invited to enter Miss Universe Nigeria – which she won – but said she had been “suppressing her emotions” throughout.

“It’s just not a nice feeling, I think I’ve been avoiding it a lot and only now it’s started to cloud me,” the 23-year-old told BBC Pidgin in her first round of interviews since winning Saturday’s contest.

“It’s something I will work on and see a therapist,” she added with tears running down her face, “because I feel like I have been suppressing my emotions… because what has happened… it wasn’t a minor thing, it was actually really major.”

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Ms Adetshina, who previously said she was born in the South African township of Soweto, told BBC Pidgin she could not comment on the South African government’s ongoing investigation into her nationality, as it was a “legal matter”.

Despite having a difficult few weeks, the law student said becoming Miss Universe Nigeria was a “very powerful moment”.

“Even though it was a rough path for you, you really stepped up,” Ms Adetshina said, describing a message she had been telling herself.

“I think I really give myself that title of a strong black African woman.”

Although many Nigerians were pleased to see her triumph, some felt the way she had entered the competition was unfair on the other contestants.

Ms Adetshina only competed in the final stages of the competition, whereas the other contestants had waged a longer campaign.

“I do get where people are coming from, but at the end of the day I also had my own journey, I had my fair share of going through the process,” Ms Adetshina said.

“There might have been a slight difference, but I feel like I also went through the journey that they went through.”

“I still see myself proudly South African… I still see myself proudly Nigerian,” she told the BBC.

Nigeria’s newest beauty queen said she had extended her stay in the country of her father’s birth.

Having only visited as a young child 20 years ago, she plans to “get to know” more of Nigeria – then in November, she will be off to Mexico for the international Miss Universe competition.

As Nigeria’s representative, she will compete against beauty queens from across the world, including Mia le Roux, who won this year’s Miss South Africa contest.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s investigation into Ms Adetshina’s nationality continues.

In its initial report, the home affairs department said that although her mother may have committed identity theft, Ms Adetshina “could not have participated in the alleged unlawful actions of her mother as she was an infant at the time”.

Asked what message she would send the world following her turbulent experience, Ms Adetshina said: “Set those goals for yourself.

“It might seem too scary but set them and always do everything in your power to make sure you achieve them.”

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The US has seized a plane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, claiming it was bought illegally for $13m (£9.8m) and smuggled out of the country.

According to the US justice department, the Falcon 900EX aircraft was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the US state of Florida.

It is unclear how and when the plane ended up in the Dominican Republic. Tracking data showed it leaving La Isabela airport near the capital Santo Domingo on Monday, arriving at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida soon after.

Venezuela has denounced the seizure, saying that it amounted to an act of “piracy”.

Foreign Minister Yván Gil said the US had justified itself “with the coercive measures that they unilaterally and illegally impose around the world”.

In a statement, the Venezuelan government said it “reserves the right to take any legal action to repair this damage to the nation”.

US officials said the plane was seized for suspected violations of US export control and sanctions laws.

They added that an investigation found that people affiliated with Mr Maduro had allegedly used a Caribbean-based shell company to hide their involvement in the plane’s illegal purchase from a company based in Florida in late 2022 and early 2023.

The aircraft was then illegally exported from the United States to Venezuela through the Caribbean in April 2023.

The argument by US officials that the plane’s sale and export was in violation of US sanctions is unlikely to carry much weight with President Maduro, who has repeatedly accused the US of meddling in his country’s internal affairs.

A spokesperson for the White House national security council said the action represented “an important step to ensure that Maduro continues to feel the consequences from his misgovernance of Venezuela”.

Markenzy Lapointe, US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said the Dominican Republic authorities had given the US government “invaluable assistance” in organising the seizure.

“It doesn’t matter how fancy the private jet or how powerful the officials – we will work relentlessly with our partners here and across the globe to identify and return any aircraft illegally smuggled outside of the United States,” said Matthew S Axelrod from the department of commerce – one of the federal agencies involved in the operation to recover the plane.

The plane appeared to be flown to the Venezuelan capital Caracas after arriving in Kingstown in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in April 2023, according to data held by the Flightradar24 website.

US officials said it subsequently flew “almost exclusively to and from a military base in Venezuela”. It is unclear how and when the plane arrived in the Dominican Republic.

But US officials said the jet had been used by Mr Maduro “on visits to other countries”.

The Venezuelan government announced in late July that it was temporarily suspending commercial flights to both the Dominican Republic and Panama following the controversial re-election of Mr Maduro.

Venezuela’s opposition has released polling data which suggests its unity candidate, Edmundo González, won a convincing victory. However, his win has not been recognised by an electoral council loyal to Mr Maduro.

The European Union has refused to recognise Maduro as having won re-election in July without seeing voting results.

Several Latin American countries have also withheld their support, with Mr Maduro’s former ally, President Lula of Brazil, among those calling for full transparency by the Venezuelan government.

The US has recognised Mr González as the winner, saying there is “overwhelming” evidence of Maduro’s defeat.

This is not the first time Mr Maduro or Venezuela’s government have been targeted by US federal authorities over alleged corruption.

In 2020, the justice department charged Mr Maduro and 14 Venezuelan officials with narco-terrorism, corruption, and drug trafficking, among other charges.

The state department has offered a reward of up to $15m for information leading to Mr Maduro’s arrest or conviction.

The day Beslan began burying its dead, there were so many cars loaded with coffins that there was gridlock on the road to the cemetery.

In the small Caucasus town, everyone had lost a relative or knew someone killed in the siege of School No. 1.

Launched by heavily armed militants, mainly from Chechnya, the terror attack lasted three days.

Three hundred and thirty-four people died; 186 of them were children.

It’s 20 years today since the siege ended suddenly in devastating explosions, but I can still hear the wailing of Beslan’s mothers; the grief that rolled over the town in waves.

I can picture the white open coffin of 11-year-old Alina, laid out in her front yard with her dolls placed carefully beside her.

And I will always remember Rima, who spent three days crammed into the stifling school gym with her grandchildren and hundreds of other hostages, bombs strung from the basketball hoops above them.

Back then, she confessed that she was ashamed to have survived.

As she and her grandchildren ran for the exit, under fire, they had to climb over the dead body of a small boy.

“God forgive us for that,” Rima begged, through streams of tears.

In 2004, the suffering of Beslan was felt all over Russia and resonated all over the world.

First and foremost, the tragedy was caused by the dozens of men and women who stormed the school, firing in the air and taking hundreds of petrified people hostage.

They had rounded up mothers with babies and balloons, and little girls with big white bows in their hair. Whole families who had been celebrating the first day back to school. The militants stuffed the gym with explosives and began executing the male hostages.

That summer, Vladimir Putin’s brutal war against separatists in Chechnya – launched four years earlier – had already burst beyond the borders of the southern Russian republic.

The day before the Beslan siege, 10 people were killed when a Chechen woman blew herself up outside a Moscow metro station. Before that, suicide bombers blew two planes from the sky and there was a deadly attack on a music festival.

But for two decades now there have been persistent, troubling questions about how Mr Putin and his officials handled the attack on Beslan in their determination not to “give in” to terrorists.

Did they even try to negotiate?

Why claim the attackers made no political demands when they had called for Russian troops to pull out of Chechnya?

Could more children have been freed?

Most critically, why did rescuers fire from tanks and use flamethrowers when there were still hundreds of hostages inside the school?

To many, the siege of Beslan offered crucial early lessons in Putinism, including that he would spare nothing and no one to crush those who challenged him.

It took 20 years for Mr Putin to visit the ruins of School No. 1.

Even then, he didn’t join the anniversary events with the families. He only travelled there two weeks ago, alone.

A few shattered walls of the school were left standing as a memorial, eventually encased in a gold-tinted shroud and hung with framed photographs of the dead.

There, in the middle of the gym where the hostages were held, Mr Putin placed flowers beneath a wooden cross.

For most world leaders, it would be unfathomable not to have visited this spot before. It was Russia’s deadliest ever terror attack. But Mr Putin has always preferred to be filmed in a fighter jet or flanked by soldiers.

The graves of children that he couldn’t save do nothing for his action man image.

In fact, he had been to Beslan before, but barely noticed.

Right after the siege collapsed, he flew in late at night to visit a hospital under cover of darkness. He told Beslan that all Russia was mourning with them but by sunrise he was gone.

“He came far too late,” I remember hearing back then, from grieving families. “He should have stayed with us.”

But President Putin didn’t dare.

Four years earlier, a previous encounter with grieving women had scarred and scared him. When the Kursk submarine sank in 2000 it took him five days to break off his holiday and by the time he met the relatives, they tore shreds off him.

So Mr Putin began making the carefully-choreographed meeting a hallmark of his presidency. Only small, pre-vetted crowds. Everything under control.

Last month in Beslan, just three mothers were brought to meet him.

“It was an awful act of terror that took the lives of 334 people,” Mr Putin described their tragedy to them, for the sake of the state TV camera.

“Of that number, 136 were children.”

The mothers are not in vision at that moment, but they surely winced at his mistake.

Because 186 children were killed in Beslan.

It’s a number engrained on the brains of everyone in that town. It’s the one thing you don’t forget.

But Mr Putin didn’t visit Beslan to empathise. The mothers in black were just a prop.

He was using them to make a point.

Two decades ago, he reminded Russians, he had fought and won his war on terror. Now he was battling “neo-Nazis” and a hostile West in Ukraine, and he vowed he would win that war too.

Distortion and lies were already in the 2004 Putin playbook. Then, officials grossly under reported the number of hostages in Beslan.

I arrived in town on the first day of the siege and soon realised there were three times more hostages captive in that school than officials were admitting to.

Every local told us so. But state TV reporters, under instruction, continued to repeat the lie.

People feared that troops were preparing to storm the school, so the authorities were playing down the potential casualty-count.

I’ve often wondered what would happen to a government in a Western democracy after an attack that ended with many more hostages dead, than terrorists.

I think it would struggle to survive the inevitable official inquiry, or the next election.

Vladimir Putin didn’t have to worry about either.

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had failed in its duty to protect the hostages and used ‘indiscriminate force’ as the siege collapsed. The case was brought by desperate, bereaved mothers, hunting for justice.

But there was no new investigation in Russia itself. No senior officials held to account.

When the 3 Beslan mothers complained to Putin about that in August, at their meeting, he professed surprise and promised to look into it.

He’s had 20 years.

He did address one thing, though, right after the siege.

In 2004, Mr Putin announced he was cancelling direct elections for governors in Russia’s regions, claiming that would help improve security. There was no connection whatsoever to the Beslan attack.

When parliament gathered to vote on the move, opposition politicians picketed the building warning of a creeping dictatorship.

Two decades on, there is no more opposition.

State media has been fully tamed. Democracy has been crushed.

The prime lesson Mr Putin took from the siege of Beslan was one about increasing control.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Mongolia, his first visit to an International Criminal Court (ICC) member since it issued a warrant for his arrest last year.

He was welcomed by Mongolia’s leader at a lavish ceremony in the Asian nation’s capital Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday.

The Russian leader is wanted by the court for the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

A spokesperson from the Kremlin said it was not concerned Mr Putin would be arrested during the visit.

Soldiers on horseback lined the capital’s Genghis Khan Square as martial anthems were played by a live band to welcome the Russian leader, who met with the Mongolian president Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh.

A small group of protesters gathered at the square on Monday afternoon, holding a sign demanding “Get War Criminal Putin out of here”.

Another protest is planned for midday Tuesday at Ulaanbaatar’s Monument for the Politically Repressed, which commemorates those who suffered under Mongolia’s decades-long Soviet-backed communist regime.

Other protestors were prevented from getting close to the Russian president on his arrival by security forces.

Ahead of his visit, Ukraine had urged Mongolia to arrest Mr Putin.

“We call on the Mongolian authorities to comply with the mandatory international arrest warrant and transfer Putin to the International Criminal Court in the Hague,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Telegram.

The court alleged last year that the Russian president was 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 alleges the crimes were committed in Ukraine from 24 February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Moscow has previously denied the allegations and said the warrants were “outrageous”.

ICC members are expected to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued, but there is no enforcement mechanism.

The Hague-based court last week said members had “an obligation” to take action. Mongolia has not publicly responded to Ukraine or the ICC’s call.

The former Soviet satellite state has maintained friendly relations with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and declined to vote on the conflict at the United Nations.

The landlocked country, which also borders China, also relies on Russia for gas and electricity.

Russia has been in talks for years about building a pipeline to carry 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year from its Yamal region to China via Mongolia.

The project, known as Power of Siberia 2, is part of a strategy to compensate for the drop in gas sales in Europe, following widespread boycott of Russian resources due to the invasion of Ukraine.

A Spanish craze encouraging single people to seek partners in supermarkets by using a fruit-based code has caused some chaotic scenes and even led to the police being called to restore order.

In recent days, many single Spaniards have been drawn to branches of supermarket chain Mercadona between 7pm-8pm by claims they can find romance at that time, particularly if they put a pineapple upside down in their shopping trolley.

The phenomenon seems to have been driven in great part by the actor and humourist Vivy Lin, who posted a video on TikTok of her pushing a trolley around a Mercadona store talking about the supposed window.

“The time to hook up in Mercadona is 7pm to 8pm,” she said.

On its official TikTok account, the supermarket posted a pineapple with the caption: “The pineapple on the shelf of Mercadona waiting for you to get a date.”

The pineapple manoeuvre is reportedly completed by pushing your trolley into the wine section of the store and hoping that a person you find attractive responds positively.

As the story has gone viral, it has led to some unusual and sometimes disorderly sights.

In Madrid there have been reports of groups of teenagers pushing trolleys around stores in the evening, without buying products.

One man was dressed as a giant pineapple by his friends inside a store as part of his bachelor party celebrations.

In Bilbao, police were called to a branch of Mercadona during the 7pm-8pm time slot because of rowdy scenes inside, although they were not required to intervene.

A song, circulating online, has further driven the success of the trend, with the words: “In the wine section / My heart races / Looking for someone special / That my soul needs.”

It is not the first time an upside-down pineapple has been used as a code. More traditionally, it has been used to allow people interested in swapping sexual partners, known as swinging, to find each other.

While the latest use of the fruit may have proved popular with some, there have been reports that the pineapple mania has not found favour with many Mercadona employees who are left to clear up unpurchased goods.

One video showed a worker pushing boxes of the fruit away from shelves and towards a storeroom as 7pm approached.

The company says the trend was “not launched by us, it has come about spontaneously”.

Some observers have taken a critical view.

“Falling into the clutches of a campaign designed through social media may be innocent, as is the case with ‘Pineapple-gate’, with all the jokes and childishness that it generates,” wrote social commentator Susana Quadrado in La Vanguardia newspaper.

But she warned it also showed how the virtual world “can condition social behaviour and turn users into loudspeakers for free”.

The collapse of a massive statue of a 17th Century ruler has sparked protests and a political controversy in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

Shivaji Shahaji Bhosale was a warrior king whose exploits against the Mughals made him a hero during his own lifetime. He is revered in the state and celebrated as an icon of the Hindu right.

So the statue’s collapse, weeks before elections are due in Maharashtra, has put the state’s ruling coalition on the back foot and given opposition parties a potent issue to raise.

It even drew an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who inaugurated the statue in December and whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is part of Maharashtra’s ruling coalition.

“I extend my apologies to all those who worship Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (Emperor Shivaji) as their revered deity. I know their sentiments are hurt,” he said on Friday.

The BJP is part of an alliance which runs the state government along with breakaway factions of two regional parties, the Shiv Sena and the National Congress Party (NCP).

Even members of the NCP held “silent protests” last week, demanding action from the state government that they are part of.

Built at a cost of 23.6m rupees ($281,285; £214,185), the 35-ft (10.6m) statue in Sindhudurg district collapsed on 26 August amid heavy monsoon rains.

The opposition has demanded Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s resignation, alleging corruption in its construction.

Senior opposition leader Sharad Pawar said during a protest rally that numerous statues of Shivaji across the state were still standing but only the newly installed one had collapsed.

“There was corruption in the process of installing the statue. This is an insult to Chhatrapati Maharaj,” he alleged.

Mr Shinde has denied the charges, saying the statue collapsed because of strong winds in the coastal town.

Ravindra Chavan, a state minister, said that the public works department, which he heads, had already informed the Indian Navy – responsible for overseeing the statue’s construction – about rust in its nuts and bolts.”

Ashish Shelar, the BJP’s Mumbai chief, has also apologised publicly, saying the mistake will be rectified and the culprits will face punishment. Police have arrested one person, the structural consultant on the project, and say they are on the lookout for the statue’s sculptor.

Formally crowned as Chhatrapati – king in Sanskrit – in 1674 at Raigad fort, Shivaji ruled over a Maratha kingdom which included parts of western, central and southern India. He was seen as an astute leader who successfully made alliances with or militarily resisted the ruling powers of his time.

He has become an increasingly central figure in Maharashtra’s politics of late and no political party can afford to ignore him or be accused of insulting him. Marathas from Shivaji’s caste dominate the political landscape of the state – 12 of 20 chief ministers since the state’s formation have been Marathas.

Politicians would also not prefer to inflame the sentiments of the Maratha community, who have repeatedly protested in recent years demanding quotas in government jobs and educational institutions.

So the opposition will hope to frame the issue as an insult to the state and Maratha pride.

The opposition alliance, called Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has organised state-wide protests. In response, the BJP has held counter-protests, accusing the MVA of politicising the issue.

It’s been nearly a month since former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina hurriedly landed at a military base near Delhi after a chaotic exit from her country.

Ms Hasina’s dramatic ouster on 5 August followed weeks of student-led protests which spiralled into deadly, nationwide unrest. She was initially expected to stay in India for just a short period, but reports say her attempts to seek asylum in the UK, the US and the UAE have not been successful so far.

Her continued presence in India has generated challenges for Delhi in developing a strong relationship with the new interim government in Dhaka. 

For India, Bangladesh is not just any neighbouring country. It’s a strategic partner and a close ally crucial to India’s border security, particularly in the north-eastern states. 

The two countries share a porous border 4,096km (2,545 miles) long which makes it relatively easy for armed insurgent groups from India’s north-eastern states to cross into Bangladesh for a safe haven. 

• Sheikh Hasina: The pro-democracy icon who became an autocrat

After Ms Hasina’s Awami League party came to power in 2009, it cracked down on some of these ethnic militant groups. Ms Hasina also amicably settled several border disputes with India.  

While border security is at the core of the relationship, there are financial aspects too. During Ms Hasina’s 15-year rule, trade relations and connectivity between the two countries flourished. India has gained road, river and train access via Bangladesh to transport goods to its north-eastern states. 

Since 2010, India has also given more than $7bn (£5.3bn) as a line of credit to Bangladesh for infrastructure and development projects. 

Ms Hasina’s sudden exit means that Delhi has to work hard to ensure that these gains are not lost. 

“It’s a setback in the sense that any turbulence in our neighbourhood is always unwanted,” says Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, a former Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka. 

But the former diplomat insists that Delhi will work with the interim government in Dhaka because “there is no choice” and “you can’t dictate what they do internally”. 

The Indian government has wasted no time in reaching out to the interim government in Dhaka, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a telephone conversation with leader Muhammad Yunus.

However, it will take a while for Delhi to assuage the anger in Bangladesh over its unwavering support for Ms Hasina and her Awami League for the last 15 years.  

Many Bangladeshis attribute the anger against India to Delhi’s swift endorsement of three controversial elections won by Ms Hasina’s party amid allegations of widespread vote-rigging. 

With Ms Hasina’s fall, Delhi’s “neighbourhood first” policy has taken another jolt with Bangladesh joining the Maldives and Nepal in resisting any attempt at dominance by India. 

Analysts say that Delhi can’t afford to lose its influence in another neighbouring country if it wants to protect its status as a regional powerhouse – especially as rival China is also jostling for influence in the region. 

Just last year, Mohamed Muizzu won the presidency in the Maldives on the back of his very public anti-India stand. 

“It’s time for India to do some introspection regarding its regional policy,” says Debapriya Bhattacharya, a senior economist with the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka.

Delhi needs to look at whether it has adequately taken on board the perspectives of its regional partners, he says.

“I am not only talking about Bangladesh, [but also] almost all other countries in the region,” adds Mr Bhattacharya, who heads a committee appointed by the interim government to prepare a white paper on the state of Bangladesh’s economy.

• Can India help its special ally Bangladesh defuse the crisis?

For example, in the case of Bangladesh, analysts point out that successive Indian governments have failed to engage with other opposition parties, particularly the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). 

“India somehow thought that the Awami League and its government are the only allies inside Bangladesh. That was a strategic blunder,” says Abdul Moyeen Khan, a senior leader of the BNP.  

If free and fair elections are held in Bangladesh in the coming months, BNP leaders are confident of victory.

That will pose a diplomatic challenge for Delhi. There is a perceived trust deficit between India and the BNP, which is led by Begum Khaleda Zia, who had been prime minister for two terms earlier. 

Ms Zia, who spent most of her time in jail since 2018, has always denied corruption charges against her and has accused Ms Hasina of political vendetta. She has now been released from jail and is recovering from her illness.  

In the coming days, Delhi and the BNP leaders will have to find a way to work past their differences.

During the previous BNP-led coalition government from 2001 to 2006, the bilateral relationship deteriorated with Delhi accusing Dhaka of harbouring insurgents from India’s north-east.

During Ms Zia’s rule, Hindu leaders in Bangladesh said there were a series of attacks against them – including murder, looting and rape – by Islamist parties and the BNP which began as the election results were announced in 2001. 

The BNP denies the charges of giving shelter to anti-Indian insurgents and also of carrying out attacks on minority Hindus in 2001.

BNP leaders, including Mr Khan, say India hasn’t been forthcoming in engaging with them, adding that “now it’s time for a policy shift on the part of Delhi”.

He also stresses that given India’s proximity, population, geographical size and its growing economic and military might, a party like the BNP cannot afford to make the mistake of harbouring any anti-Indian insurgents within Bangladesh.

• ‘There is no law and order. And Hindus are being targeted again’

There are other factors also behind the anger against India. India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and the sharing of water resources is a contentious issue.

The recent floods triggered by heavy rains in eastern Bangladesh are an example of how misinformation can fuel suspicions between the two countries. 

Following a sudden heavy downpour in the Indian state of Tripura, the excess water flowed into the Gumti river – which flows between the two countries – inundating vast areas inside the state as well as downstream in neighbouring Bangladesh.  

Millions of people were affected with many losing their houses, belongings and farmland. Many villagers and social media users accused India of deliberately releasing water from a dam in the night, leading to the floods. 

The Indian external affairs ministry was forced to issue a statement denying this, explaining that the floods had been caused by heavy rains in the catchment areas of the Gumti river. 

Then there is another factor – China. Beijing is keen to extend its footprint in Bangladesh as it battles for regional supremacy with India. 

It rolled out the red carpet for Mr Muizzu when he chose China for his first state visit after winning the Maldives election.

Delhi would want to avoid the same fate with Bangladesh. And it would hope that Bangladesh’s reliance on Indian goods and trade will buy it some time to work out its diplomatic strategy and change its image. 

So Delhi will have to tread carefully around Ms Hasina’s presence in India, especially if the new government makes a formal extradition request.

A statement issued on her behalf by her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy last month had already stoked anger in Bangladesh. 

But India wouldn’t want to ask Ms Hasina to leave the country when her future remains uncertain and come across as leaving a formidable former ally in the lurch. 

“It doesn’t matter how she is accorded hospitality in India. But it matters to Bangladeshis how she intervenes in the domestic matters staying over there. If she speaks against the current interim government, that would be considered as an act of hostility,” Mr Bhattacharya warned.  

Diplomats in Delhi will hope that Ms Hasina makes a choice for herself without forcing India’s hand.

A web series about the 1999 hijacking of an Indian passenger plane has sparked a controversy in the country over the portrayal of some of the characters.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha for Netflix, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack recounts the events surrounding the hijacking of a Kathmandu-Delhi flight which was taken to Taliban-ruled Kandahar to demand the release of militants jailed in India.

The negotiations lasted eight days, resulting in the Indian government releasing three militants, including Masood Azhar, in exchange for the passengers.

India has blamed Azhar, who founded the Jaish-e-Mohammad group after his release, for several attacks in the country. He has also been designated as a terrorist by the United Nations.

The decision to release Azhar and others remains controversial in India, with the opposition often criticising the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was also in power in 1999, for the move.

Now, a new series about the hijacking has sparked a row.

What is the controversy?

The six-episode mini-series is based on Flight Into Fear: The Captain’s Story, a book by Devi Sharan, who captained the hijacked plane, and journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury.

The series, which was released last week, begins with the hijackers making their way into the flight at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

Within minutes of take-off, the militants announce the flight – carrying 179 passengers including the five hijackers and 11 crew members – has been hijacked.

The series focuses on the interactions between the hijackers, the crew and the passengers, and it also shows Indian government officials working to resolve the crisis.

The row began after some social media users criticised the filmmakers for depicting the hijackers calling each other common Hindu names such as Bhola and Shankar, even though their names were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir. All of them were from Pakistan.

BJP leader Amit Malviya said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that by using the hijackers’ “non-Muslim” aliases in the series, the filmmakers had ensured that people would “think Hindus hijacked IC-814”.

A Hindu right-wing organisation has filed a case in a Delhi court seeking a ban on the series. PTI news agency reported that the petition has accused the filmmaker of distorting crucial facts and misrepresenting historical events.

Several Indian media outlets, citing sources, reported that the federal government held a meeting with a senior Netflix executive regarding the issue.

Netflix and India’s information and broadcasting ministry have not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

What are the facts?

Many have also defended the series, saying that it is factually accurate.

A statement issued by India’s home ministry in 2000 confirms that the hijackers used such names as aliases to communicate inside and outside the aircraft.

“To the passengers of the hijacked place these hijackers came to be known respectively as (1) Chief, (2) Doctor, (3) Burger, (4) Bhola, and (5) Shankar, the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another,” the statement said.

Witnesses and journalists who reported on the incident have also corroborated this in the past.

Kollattu Ravikumar, a survivor of the hijacking who worked as a merchant navy captain for a US-based firm, confirmed the aliases in an article on Rediff news portal in 2000.

“The four hijackers who were watching over us also had a leader called Berger. It was Berger who used to often shout. As Berger called them, I caught the names of the others – Bola, Shankar and Doctor,” he said.

This isn’t the first time that international streaming platforms have received backlash over content on their platforms in India.

In January, Netflix removed a Tamil-language film after members of hard-line Hindu organisations objected to several scenes. In 2021, the cast and crew of an Amazon Prime show, Tandav, apologised after being accused of mocking Hindu gods.

The president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has pardoned 57 Bangladeshis who were sentenced to long prison terms for staging protests in the Gulf state against their own government.

Three of the defendants received life sentences in July, while 53 others were jailed for 10 years and one for 11 years. They had been charged with gathering in a public place with the aim of inciting unrest.

The protests were held against the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, in the weeks before she was ousted from power.

Protests are effectively illegal in the UAE, where foreigners make up almost 90% of the population. Bangladeshis are the third largest expatriate group.

• UAE jails 57 Bangladeshis over protests against own government
• What sparked the protests that toppled Bangladesh’s PM?
• ‘Free again’: An uncertain Bangladesh emerges from Sheikh Hasina’s grip

Hundreds were killed during weeks of unrest in Bangladesh, which were sparked by student-led demonstrations against quotas on government jobs. Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country for India on 5 August.

Reports say her attempts to seek asylum in the UK, the US and the UAE have not been successful so far.

President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s pardon will “halt the implementation of sentences” and begin deportation measures for some of the Bangladeshi citizens, the UAE’s state news agency WAM said.

His decision to pardon the protesters follows a telephone call last month with Bangladesh’s interim Prime Minister, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was installed following Ms Hasina’s flight.

According to state media, the 21 July trial of the 57 Bangladeshis heard their protests caused “riots, disruption of public security, obstruction of law enforcement, and endangerment of public and private property”.

Their court-appointed defence lawyer argued that the gatherings had no criminal intent and that the evidence was insufficient, WAM reported.

At the time of the trial Amnesty International condemned what it called the UAE’s “extreme reaction to the mere existence of a public protest” on its soil.

Human Rights Watch later said it had verified six videos of the protests posted to TikTok and X on 19 July.

The videos, filmed in the evening, show peaceful protesters chanting and marching down streets across the UAE.

The organisation said “none of the protesters were engaging in violent acts or using language to incite violence in their chant”.

New Zealand will steeply increase an entry tax for foreign tourists in a move some fear could deter visitors.

The cost of the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy will near triple to NZ$100 (£47.20) from NZ$35 (£16.52) from 1 October.

The government said this is to help economic growth and “ensure visitors contribute to public services and high-quality experiences while visiting New Zealand”.

But Tourism Industry Aotearoa – the country’s independent tourism body – says the higher fee is a barrier to visitors, making it “incredibly expensive to visit”.

The nation is famed for its Māori culture and dramatic scenery, including glaciers, mountains, volcanoes and lakes.

But its location in the South Pacific and associated long-distance air fares have often posed a barrier for visitors.

“New Zealand’s tourism recovery is falling behind the rest of the world, and this will further dent our global competitiveness,” said Rebecca Ingram, the association’s chief executive.

New Zealand first introduced the levy in 2019, as it grappled with the impact of large numbers of visitors on its infrastructure, environment and communities.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the country shut its borders for two and a half years and didn’t allow foreign visitors to return until August 2022.

The country has been struggling to return to the visitor levels it saw before the pandemic, with just under three million international visitors in 2023, roughly three-quarters of pre-pandemic levels.

Tourism Minister Matt Doocey argued the new tax cost would not be a huge deterrant, as NZ$100 would make up less than 3% of most tourists’ average spend in the country.

He said it remained competitive compared with countries such as Australia and UK, and he remained “confident New Zealand will continue to be seen as an attractive visitor destination by many around the world”.

The tax does not need to be paid by visitors from Australia and the Pacific. Most visitors to New Zealand are from Australia, the United States, China and Fiji.

The increased costs will come on top of separate visa fees for some visitors which are also rising from 1 October.

New Zealand is not the only place where tourist taxes exist.

Other countries that charge tourists include Indonesia, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia, Costa Rica, Iceland and Italy.

In most places, the tax is included as part of accommodation, visa or plane ticket costs.

In April, Venice launched a trial where day trippers were charged a €5 tax to visit the city on peak days, in a bid to combat the effects of over-tourism.

It has been a recurrent theme of this US presidential campaign – has the US economy performed better under Joe Biden or Donald Trump?

“By many indicators our economy is the strongest in the world,” Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris has claimed.

Trump, the Republican nominee and former president, says he created the “greatest economy in the history of our country”, and the Biden-Harris administration has ruined it.

We have looked at some key indicators to compare economic performance under the two presidencies.

Although the impact of Covid has made comparison difficult, both presidents can count some notable economic successes despite wages struggling to keep up with price increases in recent years.

First, let’s look at economic growth using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the value of all goods and services in the US economy.

There was a dramatic collapse in this figure during Covid as many businesses shut.

Following the pandemic, the economy bounced back strongly under Trump and recovered better than many other western countries.

This has continued under Mr Biden, with the US producing the strongest pandemic recovery within the G7 as measured by GDP.

But over Trump’s four years in office, it was not the greatest economy in US history, as he likes to claim.

Between January 2017 and January 2021, average annual growth rate was 2.3%.

This period includes the slowdown and recovery of the economy as a result of the Covid pandemic.

Under the Biden administration so far, this figure is 2.2% – so almost the same.

There have been periods in the past when GDP growth was significantly higher than the average under both Trump and Biden, such as in the 1970s.

The rate at which prices are rising has been a big issue in the campaign.

Prices rose significantly during the first two years under Mr Biden – hitting a peak of 9.1% in June 2022.

Trump has said the US has experienced “the worst inflation we’ve ever had”.

But that’s not true – inflation was last above 9% in 1981, and it has been much higher than that at several other points in US history.

Inflation has now fallen to around 3% – but it remains higher than when Trump left office.

Grocery prices, for example, increased by 13.5% over the year ending in August 2022.

This was the peak under the Biden administration, and prices have stabilised somewhat since, with the cost of groceries rising by 1.1% from July 2023 to July this year.

The recent trend is comparable with many other Western countries which experienced high inflation rates in 2021 and 2022, as global supply chain issues driven by Covid and the war in Ukraine contributed to rising prices.

But some economists say Mr Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.5tn) American Rescue Plan, which passed in 2021, was also a factor – as the injection of cash into the economy led to prices rising further.

The Biden administration has repeatedly pointed to strong job growth as a major achievement.

Before big job losses in 2020 due to Covid, in the first three years of Trump’s presidency almost 6.7 million jobs were added, according to data for non-farm jobs (which covers about 80% of workers in the labour force).

There’s been an increase of almost 16 million jobs since the Biden administration took over in January 2021.

Mr Biden claims this is the “fastest job growth at any point of any president in all of American history”.

That’s correct – if you look at the available data since records began in 1939.

But his administration has benefited from a sharp rebound in economic activity as the country emerged from pandemic lockdowns.

“Many of the jobs would have come back if Trump had won in 2020 – but the American Rescue Plan played a major role in the speed and aggressiveness of the labour market recovery,” says Professor Mark Strain, an economist at Georgetown University.

This spending plan passed under the Biden administration in 2021 was designed to help stimulate the economy following the pandemic.

Weaker than expected job growth in July led to fears of a sudden downturn in the US economy and stock markets were hit as a result, but they’ve since stabilised.

Both administrations have pointed to low unemployment levels under their leadership.

Prior to the pandemic, Mr Trump delivered an unemployment rate of 3.5%.

As in many parts of the world, Covid lockdown measures led to soaring levels of unemployment in the US – but the unemployment levels had dropped back down to around 7% when Trump left office.

Under the Biden administration unemployment continued to fall to a low of 3.4% in January 2023 – the lowest rate in more than 50 years – but it it has since ticked up to 4.3%.

In terms of wages, these did rise under Trump but at a similar rate to his predecessor Barack Obama, up until the pandemic hit.

Workers’ wages increased rapidly at the start of 2020 during the Covid pandemic – but the sudden uptick in wages was linked to lower paid workers being more likely to be laid off, which raised the average wage of people who were still employed.

Under Mr Biden, average weekly earnings have grown, but they have struggled to keep up with the increase in prices caused by high levels of inflation.

When adjusted for inflation, average weekly wages are less than when Mr Biden came into office.

The US stock market isn’t necessarily a reflection of the broader economy, but many Americans have investments, so its performance holds some importance.

The Dow Jones Index is a measure of the performance of 30 large companies listed on US stock exchanges.

It reached record highs during Trump’s presidency, but crashed as markets reacted to the pandemic, wiping out all the gains made under Trump.

However, the financial markets recovered to above pre-pandemic levels by the time Trump left office in January 2021.

They have continued to grow under Mr Biden, and although there have been recent wobbles, they have reached record levels under his administration as well.

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The Duke of Sussex is not planning a permanent move back to the UK, according to well-placed sources.

Despite reports that Prince Harry could be seeking a phased return, sources suggest he will continue to be based in the United States, where he lives with his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, and their children.

It is understood that concern over his and his family’s security in the UK remains an issue.

Prince Harry and Meghan are also said to be unlikely to want to give up on the philanthropic and business projects that they have built while in the US.

There have been reports of a prince restless in California, approaching his 40th birthday discontented with a life among the rootless wealthy and seeking to rebuild links with his old life in the UK, before he stepped down as a working royal.

• Why did Harry and Meghan leave the Royal Family?

But a different narrative has been claimed by well-placed sources, who say such a return to royal life in the UK is not on the cards.

They suggest Prince Harry is equally able to support his charities and projects from the US and can return to the UK for visits.

He travelled to the UK last week for his uncle’s memorial service – and has since flown back to the US.

Much of the attention over the event was focused on claims Prince Harry hadn’t spoken to Prince William while at the church service in Norfolk, in what has become an icy distance between the brothers.

The service was for the late Lord Robert Fellowes, brother-in-law of Princess Diana, on the Spencer side of the family, to which Prince Harry seems to have remained well connected.

At an Invictus Games service in St Paul’s Cathedral earlier this summer, the prince was seen close to his Spencer relatives at an event not attended by senior royals.

The prince was quick to return to the UK when it was revealed King Charles had been diagnosed with cancer – with father and son having a brief meeting in London.

There have also been trips to the law courts in London, including his battle with the tabloid press over claims of unlawful information gathering.

There is an ongoing, labyrinthine legal wrangle with the Home Office over his security status in the UK – which has become a thorny issue in any discussion about a return.

In an interview with ITV, the prince said that anxiety over safety was a reason he wouldn’t “bring my wife back to this country”.

But having made such a well-documented departure from royal life in the UK – in a Netflix film and his book Spare – the couple are now inevitably facing speculation about what comes next.

Without a royal role and in an online world, Prince Harry and Meghan could live anywhere – and at present that means WFC (working from California).

They have charities and causes, and Meghan has put out social media teasers for a lifestyle cookery brand.

Although with the presidential election looming in the US, it is hard to think they won’t want to stir more than pots of jam when issues they’ve raised, such as online misinformation, are likely to be up for debate.

There have been trips too, most recently to Colombia, but with so many of the trappings of a royal visit, that raised questions about whether they were recreating the royal world they wanted to escape.

With the big milestone of his 40th birthday fast approaching, and with such intense public interest, there will be more questions about where Prince Harry sees his long-term future role.

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