The Middle East is once again on the brink of a deep and damaging war between two protagonists that have been facing off against each other for much of the past 45 years. This is now one of the most dangerous moments for the entire region.

Iran, which became an Islamic Republic after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, has long vowed to destroy the state of Israel, which it calls the “Zionist regime”. Israel accuses Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of spreading violence across the Middle East through its allies and proxies, a view shared by several Arab governments.

Israel is poised to retaliate against Iran for Tuesday’s volley of ballistic missiles, some of which penetrated Israel’s air defences.

Iran says that was in response to two assassinations by Israel – of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

So what happens next?

Both Israel and its closest ally, the US, have vowed to punish Iran for launching 180 missiles at Israel. “Iran,” says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, “will pay a heavy price.”

• Follow live updates on this story
• Watch: Video shows Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Explained: What we know about Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Explained: What is Israel’s Iron Dome missile system and how does it work?
• On the ground: First came the alert message, then the boom of interceptions

The restraint that Israel’s allies urged on it the last time there was a standoff like this in April is more muted this time. And given Israel’s determination to take on all its enemies at once – in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Syria – the Netanyahu government seems to be in no mood to hold back.

Israeli planners will likely now be debating not if and when to hit Iran, but how hard.

Aided by US satellite intelligence and by Mossad (Israel’s overseas spy agency) human agents on the ground in Iran, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has a wide range of targets to choose from. These can broadly be divided into three categories:

• Conventional military – An early and obvious target will be the bases from which Iran launched those ballistic missiles. So that means launch pads, command-and-control centres, refuelling tanks and storage bunkers. It could go further and hit bases belonging to the IRGC as well as air defences and other missile batteries. It could even try to assassinate key individuals involved in Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
• Economic – This would include Iran’s most vulnerable state assets – its petrochemical plants, its power generation and possibly its shipping interests. This, however, would be a deeply unpopular move in Iran as it would end up hurting ordinary people’s lives far more than any attack on the military.
• Nuclear – This is the big one for Israel. It is a known fact, established by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, that Iran is enriching uranium well beyond the 20% needed for civil nuclear power. Israel, and others, suspect Iran of trying to reach “breakout point” where it is within a very short timescale of being able to build a nuclear bomb. Sites on Israel’s possible target list include Parchin, the epicentre of Iran’s military nuclear programme, research reactors at Tehran, Bonab and Ramsar, as well as major facilities at Bushehr, Natanz, Isfahan and Ferdow.

A large part of their calculations will involve trying to second guess Iran’s response in turn and how to mitigate it. The Iranian position is that after launching those missiles at what it says were Israeli military targets on Tuesday the score is now settled. But it is warning that if Israel retaliates it will hit back in turn.

“This is only a glimpse of our capabilities,” said Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian. The IRGC reinforced this message, stating: “If the Zionist regime responds to Iran’s operations, it will face crushing attacks.”

Iran cannot defeat Israel militarily. Its air force is old and decrepit, its air defences are porous and it has had to contend with years of Western sanctions.

But it still has an enormous quantity of ballistic and other missiles as well as explosive-laden drones and numerous allied proxy militias around the Middle East. Its next volley of missiles could well target Israeli residential areas, rather than military bases. The attack by an Iran-backed militia on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in 2019 showed just how vulnerable its neighbours are to attack.

The IRGC Navy, which operates in the Gulf, has large flotillas of small, fast missile attack boats which could, potentially, overwhelm the defences of a US Navy 5th Fleet warship in a swarm attack. If it had orders to do so, it could attempt to sow mines in the Strait of Hormuz, interrupting the flow of up to 20% of the world’s daily oil exports, something that would have a major impact on the global economy.

And then there are all the US military bases, dotted up and down the Arabian side of the Gulf, from Kuwait to Oman. Iran has given warning that if it is attacked it won’t just hit back at Israel, it will target any country it perceives as supporting that attack.

These then, are just some of the scenarios that defence planners in Tel Aviv and Washington will now be considering.

The United Nations secretary general has condemned Iranian strikes on Israel, after earlier being banned from the country for his initial response.

Speaking to the UN Security Council, António Guterres said it was high time to stop what he called the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence” in the Middle East.

In an earlier statement, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared Guterres persona non grata and an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists”.

The comments were issued in response to Guterres initially calling for a ceasefire, but not specifically mentioning the Iran attack.

Addressing the council, the UN secretary general said he had condemned the attack in April, and “as should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed, I again strongly condemn yesterday’s massive missile attack by Iran on Israel”.

“These attacks paradoxically do not seem to support the cause of the Palestinian people, or reduce their suffering,” he said.

He also criticised Israel’s actions in the region, calling the military campaign in Gaza “the most deadly and destructive military campaign in my years as secretary general”.

On Tuesday, Iran launched about 180 ballistic missiles into Israel, with Israel saying most of them were intercepted.

In a statement after the attack on social media site X, formerly Twitter, Guterres said he condemned “the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation”.

Prior to Guterres remarks to the UN Security Council, Katz said in a statement that anyone who “cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil”.

He specifically criticised Guterres for “his anti-Israel policy since the beginning of the war”.

Tuesday’s attack by Iran is the latest in a series of escalations, starting almost a year ago with attacks on Israel by Hamas, and recently involving increased fighting between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.

• Live: Latest news on Israel and Hezbollah
• Explained: What to know about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict
• Analysis: What might Hezbollah, Israel and Iran do next?
• Watch: Explosions seen on Israel-Lebanon border
• Bowen: Israel claims its biggest victory yet against Hezbollah

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas gunmen, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Since the attack, a military campaign in Gaza has now killed a total of 41,689 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Over the course of the conflict, there have been a number of clashes between Israel and the United Nations about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

There has also been friction between Israel and the UN over the role of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

In January, Israel alleged that a number of the agency’s staff members had been involved in the 7 October attacks.

In response to this, the agency launched an investigation – with a number of its international funders withdrawing support for it, before later reinstating it. In August, nine staff members were dismissed over potential involvement in the attacks.

During the conflict, UNRWA has criticised Israel for air strikes in Gaza which have killed its staff members.

Three British sisters have spoken of their sadness at being forced to flee their home in Lebanon, saying they had “no choice” but to board a flight to the UK.

Amal Zahereddine, 18, and her sisters Yasmine, 17, and Layla, 22, were among British nationals preparing to leave on a UK government charter flight from Beirut to Birmingham.

“Right now there is no way we can stay. The noises, the situation, is just getting very traumatising so we have no choice,” Amal said.

Israel has stepped up its aerial assault of Beirut in the past week, targeting densely populated areas in the city’s south that it said was home to Hezbollah leaders and military equipment.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told British nationals in Lebanon they “must leave now” as fighting continues.

Speaking to the BBC from the airport in Beirut, university student Amal said she loved Lebanon and was “very upset” at having to leave.

“We’re just going to stay hopeful that it’s not going to be for long and we’re going to come back to our precious country.”

Amal, who was born in Surrey and has lived in Lebanon for five years, said she and her sisters planned to reunite with family in West Sussex.

Her sister Yasmine, who is still in school, said she would have never imagined leaving, but the situation required it.

Another British citizen, Libby, 25, boarded a commercial flight from Beirut to Cairo on Wednesday morning, and described the situation in the Lebanese capital as “terrifying”.

“You can’t sleep because you can hear the Israeli drones over your head, you wake up in the night because you hear strikes,” she told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

As of last week, there were thought to be between 4,000 and 6,000 UK nationals, including dependants, in Lebanon.

The chartered flight leaving Beirut on Wednesday will only be able to take a fraction of them, raising questions about whether additional flights will be needed.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Watch: Video shows Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Explained: What we know about Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Analysis: How could Israel respond, and what might Iran do then?
• Explained: What is Israel’s Iron Dome missile system and how does it work?

Defence Secretary John Healey was in Cyprus on Wednesday to meet some of the British personnel preparing for the possibility of evacuating UK nationals out of Lebanon.

Britons in Lebanon have been advised to register their presence with officials on the government’s website.

Healey’s visit to Cyprus came just hours after Iran carried out a missile attack against Israel on Tuesday night.

The defence secretary said British forces had “played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation”.

He gave no further details but the BBC understands British military jets did not shoot down any Iranian ballistic missiles nor did the Royal Navy Destroyer, HMS Duncan, fire any Sea Viper missiles.

Iran said the attack was, in part, retaliation for the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of its proxy, Hezbollah, in a strike on Beirut last week.

You can get in touch via this form.

Israeli air strikes and a ground operation targeting the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza have killed at least 51 people, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Tanks reportedly advanced into some parts of the city and its surrounding area on Tuesday night, with residents reporting gunfire and heavy shelling.

One wounded man who made it to hospital told the BBC “tanks stormed in” to his village without warning.

Separately, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had struck Hamas targets located in four schools sheltering displaced people in central and northern Gaza.

The IDF said Hamas members were operating inside “command and control centres” embedded inside schools in Muscat, Rimal, Bureij and Nuseirat.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least nine civilians were killed at Muscat School, in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, and that six others were killed at the Al-Amal Institute for Orphans, in the Rimal neighbourhood.

Later, the Al-Amal Institute for Orphans said in a Facebook post that eight people were killed and a large number wounded, including children and women, when an Israeli strike hit one of its buildings housing hundreds of displaced civilians.

Gaza’s Civil Defence officials also said that three people had been killed and 15 injured when Israel on Wednesday bombed Nuseirat Girls’ School in central Gaza, the site of a refugee camp.

Israel’s continued strikes on Gaza come one day after it repelled a barrage of missiles from Iran and launched a ground invasion into Lebanon. It has described Tuesday’s advance into Lebanon as a “limited” operation, targeting sites belonging to the Lebanese-armed group Hezbollah after a year of cross-border fighting.

The IDF is yet to comment on the strikes in southern Gaza, which reportedly occurred at dawn on Wednesday.

But one man from Qizan al-Najjar village, south-east of Khan Younis, told BBC Arabic that some of his relatives had been killed in the attack.

“Tanks stormed into the area, accompanied by quadcopters that directly targeted us,” he said, speaking from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where medical officials also gave updates on the death toll.

Another man at the hospital said: “We were in Qizan al-Najjar when suddenly, shells began to rain down on us from planes and tanks.”

A third man told BBC Arabic: “There was no prior warning. Following the rocket fire from Lebanon, we witnessed complete destruction. I barely survived; my daughter is injured, and my wife has a head injury that may lead to vision loss.”

He said Israeli forces had also “completely destroyed” a house where displaced families had been sheltering.

Gaza’s health ministry on Wednesday warned the death toll could rise, with another 82 people injured in the strikes.

The IDF has launched multiple ground operations targeting Hamas fighters in Khan Younis – Gaza’s second-largest urban area – since December.

The war began when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza that has now killed a total of 41,689 people, according to the health ministry.

More than 160 people are now known to have been killed by Hurricane Helene, one of the deadliest storms to hit the US in recent times.

Hundreds of others remain missing after Helene battered south-eastern states, causing floods, wrecking communities, and cutting power.

Search-and-rescue efforts continue, and aid deliveries have been made by airdrops and mules. The US government has said the clear-up effort could take years.

President Joe Biden is due to visit badly-affected North Carolina on Wednesday, while Vice-President Kamala Harris goes to neighbouring Georgia.

Both happen to be key swing states in November’s presidential election – and the storm has already become political after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took his own trip to Georgia earlier in the week.

Helene hit the US on Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane – the most powerful on record to strike Florida’s Big Bend – before tearing through neighbouring states and downgrading to a tropical storm.

The scale of the rainclouds were unusual, and the storm lingered for relatively long periods. Saturated ground from previous rains was also an aggravating factor.

The BBC’s US partner CBS News has reported 162 deaths, recorded across six states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia.

The toll surpasses that of Hurricane Ian, which in September 2022 became another of the 21st Century’s deadliest storms – claiming at least 156 lives.

• The ‘worst natural disaster we’ve seen,’ says volunteer
• What made Hurricane Helene so bad?
• Helene’s destruction in pictures

According to CBS, almost half of the deaths caused by Helene have been in North Carolina alone, where six months’ worth of rain fell.

The state’s mountainous areas suffered particularly heavy rain – as is typical in storm conditions – which resulted in homes and bridges being washed away.

One emergency official in Buncombe County – which includes the hard-hit city of Asheville – said the state had experienced “biblical devastation”.

A volunteer involved in relief efforts told the BBC on Tuesday they knew someone who had “lost everything” in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and had moved to Asheville, only to be devastated again nearly two decades later.

“Looks like she’s wiped out again,” the volunteer said. “She has no drinking water. No gasoline. The food in her fridge has rotted.”

The extreme weather has also forced the closure of mines in Spruce Pine, a small town that is home to the world’s largest-known source of high-purity quartz.

Rebuilding efforts could take years, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said. Biden has allowed survivors to apply for federal assistance money by making disaster declarations in various states.

On Monday, Biden referenced reports that up to 600 people were unaccounted for. “God willing, they’re alive,” he said. “But there’s no way to contact them again because of the lack of cell phone coverage.”

More than a million people in some of the affected states also remained without power on Wednesday morning, according to monitoring site Poweroutage.us.

Initial analysis of the storm already suggests that human-induced climate change played a significant role in the amount of rainfall that was dumped.

After Helene hit late on Thursday, record flood crests were measured in at least seven locations in North Carolina and Tennessee.

In parts of western North Carolina, records that had stood since the “Great Flood” of July 1916 were smashed.

The Atlantic hurricane season continues until the end of November. The waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean are currently above average temperatures, meaning that it is possible that still more powerful storms could develop.

Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz felt like a civil and relatively restrained conversation about the issues at the top of American voters’ minds going into the 5 November election.

In that, it was unlike the two presidential debates earlier this year.

The two men spent much more time attacking the other’s running mate than each other during 90-plus minutes on the CBS News stage in New York.

Walz had a shaky start but hit his stride when talking about abortion and the Capitol riot.

But the even-tempered, policy-focused debate, with few political body blows, probably served Vance – a polished public speaker – best in the end.

If Vance was picked because he puts ideological meat on the bones of Trump’s conservative populism, on Tuesday night he put a polite, humble face on them, as well.

“Something these guys do is they make a lot of claims about if Donald Trump becomes president, all of these terrible consequences are going to ensue,” he said. “But in reality, Donald Trump was president. Inflation was low. Take-home pay was higher.”

• Debate claims fact-checked
• Six key takeaways from the debate
• Vance refuses to answer whether Trump lost 2020 election
• Walz says he ‘misspoke’ in personal story about Tiananmen Square

There were moments when the Republican candidate bristled at what he thought was unfair fact-checking from the two CBS moderators, and at one point microphones of both candidates were temporarily muted.

But for the most part, the exchanges on stage were even-tempered.

And there were several moments when the two men agreed on issues – and said so.

“There’s a lot of commonality here,” Walz said toward the end of the evening.

When Walz spoke of his 17-year-old son witnessing a shooting at a community center, Vance seemed genuinely concerned.

“I’m sorry about that and I hope he’s doing OK,” he said. “Christ have mercy, it is awful.”

The most vigorous disagreements came toward the end of the debate, on the topic of Trump’s repeated and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Vance, when asked if Trump lost the last presidential election, dodged the question and criticised what he said was Kamala Harris’s censorship.

Walz quickly noted that it was a “damning non-answer”.

“To deny what happened on January 6, the first time an American president or anyone tried to overturn an election, this has got to stop,” he said. “It’s tearing our country apart.”

Walz went on to say that the only reason Mike Pence, Trump’s previous vice-president, was not on stage was because he certified President Joe Biden’s victory.

Vance had no answer to that, highlighting that beyond his friendly demeanour and agreeability, he would not break from Trump’s position.

Vance and Walz entered this debate with different skill sets. Vance has sparred with journalists on television in heated exchanges. Walz is at home on the campaign stump, using his folksy style in contrast to more polished politicians.

In the early part of this debate, with both candidates standing behind podiums in a New York City television studio, Vance seemed much more comfortable. His answers were smooth, and relentlessly on-message, constantly reminding the audience that for all of Vice-President Harris’s promises, Democrats have held the White House for the past three and a half years.

“If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle class problems, then she ought to do them now,” he said.

Walz, for his part, seemed halting and unsure on the opening topic, dealing with Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack on Israel and if the candidates would support an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran. The Minnesota governor rarely talks about foreign policy, and his discomfort on the subject was apparent.

• A quick guide to JD Vance
• A quick guide to Tim Walz

The Democrat settled in as the debate moved along, and during his exchanges with Vance on the topic of immigration – an area of strength for the Republicans – both delivered well-honed messages.

Vance deflected accusations that he amplified false claims about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in Ohio.

“The people I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives ruined by Kamala Harris’s border policies,” he said.

Vance said undocumented migration burdens city resources, drives up prices and pushes down wages.

Walz pointed to Trump’s opposition to proposed bipartisan immigration legislation earlier this year.

“I believe Senator Vance wants to solve this, but by standing with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point, and when it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanise and villainise other human beings.”

• What voters made of VP debate
• Listen: The Americast team analyse Vance v Walz
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump winning?

When the topic turned to abortion rights – an area of strength for Democrats, according to polls – it was Vance who played defence, acknowledging that Republicans had to do more to earn the trust of American voters.

“I want us as a Republican Party to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” he said. “I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies. There’s so much we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options.”

Walz countered by saying that the Democratic view on abortion was simple: “We are pro-women. We are pro-freedom to make your own choice.”

If Walz was more pointed on abortion, he declined to push his attacks when the subject turned to gun control.

After Vance said that it was important to increase security in schools, making doors and windows “stronger”, Walz talked up background checks rather than endorsing Democratic calls for bans on assault weapons and other limitations on firearms.

As a congressman, Walz regularly voted in favour of gun rights and against many gun control measures, winning the praise of the pro-gun National Rifle Association. During the debate, he said his views on gun control changed after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, but some Democrats may be disappointed he did not press Vance more on Tuesday night.

American political history suggests that vice-presidential debates don’t really matter.

In 1988, Democrat Lloyd Bentsen dismantled Republican Dan Quayle. A few months later, Quayle was sworn in as vice-president after his ticket won in a landslide.

It may turn out that this debate is similarly irrelevant to November’s results. Unless there is a last-minute debate announced, however, it will be the last word both parties have on a debate stage before election day.

Walz did no harm to the Democratic ticket and showed some of the Midwestern charm that made him Harris’s choice.

But Vance’s strong performance is likely to buoy Republicans in the days ahead.

And the debate’s lasting impact may be to convince members of his party that the Ohio senator – who is only 40 – has a future in national conservative politics, given his ability to clearly advance their ideological priorities on the brightest of stages.

SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election

FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?

POLICIES: What Harris or Trump would do in power

POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

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

Major US ports will stay shut until pay demands are met, the union boss representing striking dockworkers has said.

Harold Daggett, head of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), made the vow on a picket line in New Jersey on Tuesday, as tens of thousands of dockworkers on the east and gulf coasts walked out in a bid to win a better labour deal.

“We’re going to fight for it and we’re going to win or this port will never open up again,” he said. “I’m not playing games here.”

Businesses are bracing for the possibility of a prolonged ports shut down, which threatens to cause havoc to global trade and the US economy.

President Joe Biden has so far rebuffed calls by some of country’s biggest business groups to use federal power to reopen the ports for 80 days, suspending the strike to provide a cooling-off period for further negotiation.

“It’s only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages as well,” Biden said.

“Now is not the time for ocean carriers to refuse to negotiate a fair wage for these essential workers while raking in record profits.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also backed the striking port workers.

“American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages, especially since the shipping companies are mostly foreign flag vessels”, he said in a statement.

The strike, the first since 1977 for the ILA, has brought to a halt container traffic across 14 of the country’s busiest ports, including in New York, Georgia and Texas.

The ports are estimated by experts to handle more than a third of the US’s imports and exports. Disruption could lead to delays on goods deliveries for businesses and consumers.

The president said officials would be on the alert for signs of prices being unfairly hiked in the event of potential shortages.

Talks on a new deal were stalled for months ahead of the strike, but the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents shipping firms and port associations, said that the two sides had started to trade proposals again.

Under the 2018 contract that expired on Monday, dockworkers earned a base hourly wage of $20-$39, as well as other benefits, including royalties tied to container traffic.

USMX said its most recent offer would boost pay by nearly 50%, triple company contributions to retirement and improve healthcare, among other concessions.

The organisation said the offer exceeded “every other recent union settlement” and called the current stand-off “completely unavoidable”.

“We look forward to hearing from the union about how we can return to the table and actually bargain, which is the only way to reach a resolution,” it said.

However, the ILA’s Mr Daggett said that there had been “nothing” so far to bring the union and companies together to end the strike.

He said he was prepared to keep the ports shut until companies agreed to boost hourly pay by $5 for each year of the contract. The union, which has about 47,000 active members according to federal filings, is also seeking protections against automation.

“I’m going to fight for it because those greedy companies are making billions of dollars and they don’t want to share,” he said. “I want my members taken care of for the rest of their lives and that’s why we’re out here.”

If prolonged, the stoppage is expected to lead to higher prices and shortages in the US, with shipping delays and other impacts rippling out across the world.

“We are seeing now that ships are starting to anchor outside of the ports waiting to see what is going to happen,” said Anne-Sophie Fribourg, a vice president at freight forwarding firm Zencargo, which organises shipments for exporters and importers.

“The disruption is going to be massive if the strike lasts,” she said.

Hamid Moghadam, chief executive of Prologis, one of the biggest warehouse companies in the world and landlord to the likes of Amazon, said while the strike was not a shock, it was “nonetheless” going to hurt the economy.

“It’s going to interfere with the proper functioning of the flow of goods,” he told the BBC.

Already 100,000 containers are in limbo waiting to be unloaded in the New York area, and another 35 ships are expected to arrive this week, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

Danny Reynolds, the owner of Stephenson’s, a 93-year-old clothing store in Elkhart, Indiana, said he had paid extra to expedite shipments of sweaters and coats into the country ahead of the strike.

But about 25% of his inventory has yet to arrive and he has his fingers crossed it has been unloaded. He said he was most worried about potential delays for special-order bridal gowns for November and December weddings.

“Where we get concerned is where we have special order merchandise for people’s wedding days that could be locked up on a ship unable to get to us. That’s a hard thing to explain to a potential bride,” he said.

About 75% of his merchandise is routed through east coast ports, he added. He explained while he expected his business to be able to function through the end of the year, he feared the wider impact.

“I think the results to the economy could be devastating if this goes on,” he suggested, adding that he wanted to see the president step in.

“I think it’s beyond time, quite honestly, for the Biden administration to sit down at the table with them and see what can’t be done to open this things back up.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has survived a second non-confidence motion in parliament in as many weeks.

The motion, brought by the opposition Conservatives, was aimed at bringing down his minority Liberal government and triggering a federal election.

The motion failed after Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre again fell short in his effort to gain the backing of other political parties in parliament.

Poilievre tabled this second non-confidence motion the day after his last one failed.

This motion accused the government of failing Canadians on affordable housing, the cost of living, and crime – key issues that the Conservatives have been using to hammer the Liberals for months.

The vote needed the majority of the 338 members of parliament (MPs) in order for it to pass.

After all the votes were counted, 121 voted for the motion while 207 voted against it.

In a statement following the vote, Poilievre blamed the NDP and the Bloc Québécois for its failure, saying the former had “sold out working Canadians” while the latter is “letting down Quebecers”.

The Bloc Québécois, which represents the interests of Quebec, Canada’s French-speaking province, had issued an ultimatum to the Liberals for its continued support.

The sovereigntist party gave the government a 29 October deadline to pass two bills, one increasing pensions for seniors and one to bolster protections on Canada’s supply management system, which controls production quotas and imports on dairy and poultry products.

On Tuesday, it tabled its own motion calling on the Trudeau government to support their seniors’ bill.

Meanwhile, the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh indicated last week that his party would not support the Conservative motion.

Several other non-confidence motions are expected to be tabled in the coming weeks, including a third that has been put forward by the Conservatives.

Trudeau has been Canada’s prime minister for nine years and has been facing growing pressure to resign over concerns he is a drag on his party’s fortunes.

The Conservatives have been leading the Liberals by a wide margin in opinion surveys for months.

His Liberal party lost two consequential by-elections this summer in Toronto and Montreal, both in strongholds previously held by the party for years.

A deal between the Liberal party and the NDP had helped Trudeau stay in power since Canada’s last federal election in 2021.

The deal collapsed last month after Singh pulled out from the deal, saying that the Liberals are “too weak” to govern.

Russian troops have taken complete control of the eastern city of Vuhledar, which Ukrainian forces have been defending since the beginning of Moscow’s full-scale invasion two and a half years ago.

Ukraine’s eastern military command confirmed on Wednesday that they had told the troops still fighting in parts of the Vuhledar to pull back to avoid becoming surrounded.

For more than two years Russia has been trying to take this city in order to advance further north and reach regional transportation hubs such as Kurakhove and Pokrovsk.

Pro-Kremlin military bloggers had posted several videos the day before showing Russian soldiers with flags on rooftops of different buildings in Vuhledar.

Donetsk regional authorities confirmed on Tuesday that Russian troops had almost reached the city centre, and some reports said Ukrainian forces are still hanging on in some districts.

The BBC has spoken to two soldiers from the 72nd brigade who managed to leave the city before the final assault and take up new positions in the same area. They claim that their troops have withdrawn from the city.

Over the past few days Ukrainian soldiers had to find their own way out of Vuhledar by foot as it was impossible to evacuate them otherwise, a machine-gunner who wished to remain anonymous said.

Many were wounded and killed by Russian drones and artillery as they tried to leave, another soldier, Roman, says. Many more are still missing.

Moscow has launched numerous attacks to seize the city since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, but they all failed up until now. One of the biggest tank battles took place there last year.

Instead of launching frontal assaults, the Russian army recently switched to its favourite tactic – advancing along the flanks to surround the target. Last month they seized the village of Prechystivka to the west and Vodyane to the east to complete a pincer movement.

Moscow’s enormous advantage in weapons and troops – some soldiers have estimated the ratio of forces as seven to one – enabled them to break through Ukrainian defence lines along the flanks and approach Vuhledar.

It became clear that the city was doomed when the Russians effectively cut off the only remaining lifeline route – the road from Vuhledar to Bohoyavlenka. Russian troops advanced so close that their artillery and kamikaze drones targeted anyone and anything moving on that road.

“We tried to send supplies, organise evacuation of our wounded and dead soldiers but without any success,” Roman said. “We lost a number of vehicles and then had to stop [such operations].”

By Tuesday, about 100 civilians remained in Vuhledar, out of a pre-war population of 14,000, according to Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin.

“Thank God, we evacuated all children. Regarding the 107 people who are still there, it’s difficult to reach them and bring them humanitarian aid, drinking water, medicine because an active stage of war is under way.”

The situation became critical when Russian troops entered the city, and Ukrainian units started retreating without waiting for the order to pull out.

“If a withdrawal is not organised, it ends up being chaotic,” the machine-gunner explained. Ukrainian defenders were like Titans trying to stop the Russians, he said. But some groups, he added, had become completely disoriented because of a communication blackout. Their radios were down, and when they came under heavy fire, they had to make quick decisions on their own and often it was to retreat.

Ukrainian defence lines were devastated by Russia’s aviation bombs and thermobaric weapon systems such as its Solntsepek heavy flame-thrower, in addition to drones and multiple rocket launchers.

Facing such an onslaught, withdrawing from certain positions became unavoidable, Roman argued. “You either die or retreat.”

But getting out from a city that had been nearly surrounded was extremely dangerous. During the daytime it became close to a suicide mission.

Ukraine’s troops mostly tried to escape at night, having to cross mine fields via designated paths to avoid the road because it was closely monitored by the Russians.

Until recently, evacuation vehicles had been able to drive in under cover of darkness with their headlights off, Roman explained. But once Russian troops had reached the centre of the city, the only way to escape was on foot.

Those who managed to get out are exhausted and depressed. They are also angry at their commanders for not ordering the retreat earlier, because they argue it was obvious for some time that Ukrainian forces wouldn’t be able to hold the city for long.

“I don’t know why [they didn’t give the order],” the machine-gunner said. “Maybe it’s fear of the military leadership or maybe it was an order from the top [to hold positions] with our blood until the very end.”

Military officials from the 72nd brigade and Ukraine’s operational command in the area refused the BBC’s request to comment.

In their most recent daily briefings, the military’s General Staff kept silent about Vuhledar.

Wednesday morning’s briefing said merely that the “the enemy launched unsuccessful attacks on our positions in Bohoyavlenka’s direction”, without mentioning the situation in Vuhledar at all.

The release of a blockbuster Pakistani film has been put on hold in India after officials in Delhi refused to give permission for its screening, the BBC has learnt.

A remake of a 1979 Punjabi film, The Legend of Maula Jatt, is the highest ever grossing film in Pakistan.

The movie was set to release in the northern Indian state of Punjab on Wednesday, which would have made it the first Pakistani film to hit Indian screens in more than a decade.

The South Asian neighbours share a frosty relationship and tensions often affect cultural exchanges between them.

On Wednesday, a source close to Zee Studios – the film’s distributor in India – confirmed to the BBC that its release had been stalled indefinitely, after the information and broadcasting ministry denied them permission.

It’s not immediately clear why the film was put on hold. The BBC has contacted the ministry for comment.

Starring Pakistan’s biggest stars Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan, the 2022 film tells the story of a local folk hero who takes on the leader of a rival clan.

The film was initially supposed to release in India in 2022, but its screening was postponed indefinitely – until last month when its maker Bilal Lashari announced it would hit Indian theatres soon.

“Two years in, and still house full on weekends in Pakistan! Now, I can’t wait for our Punjabi audience in India to experience the magic of this labour of love!” he wrote on Instagram.

However, the news sparked protests in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, where the regional Maharashtra Navnirman Sena political party said it would not allow the film’s release “under any circumstances”. Mumbai, which is located in the state, is home to Bollywood, India’s largest film industry.

Following tensions, Zee Studios decided to limit the film’s release to Punjab state, which shares a border and language with Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Despite tense relations, Indian and Pakistan have always shared an affinity for each other’s art and culture.

Movies and web series made in India and Pakistan travel widely across the border. India’s Bollywood and Punjabi movies are particularly popular in Pakistan, while Pakistani series enjoy a large viewership in India.

Performers in both the countries also have a history of cross-border collaborations, working together on film and music projects.

But such collaborations came to a halt when Bollywood dropped Pakistani actors in 2016 and Pakistan banned Indian movies in 2019, over military tensions between the countries.

A few Punjabi movies from India have been screened in Pakistan in recent months.

In 2023, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a petition that sought a complete ban on performers from Pakistan, asking the petitioners to not to be “so narrow minded”.

Encouraged by this mild thaw in relations and Maula Jatt’s global success, its makers had hoped the folk drama would attract audiences in India.

The leading actors of Maula Jatt are well-known in India for starring in popular Pakistani dramas. They have also previously appeared in big-budget Bollywood films.

The case of two black women who were allegedly shot and fed to pigs by a white farmer and two of his workers has caused outrage in South Africa.

Maria Makgato, 45, and Lucia Ndlovu, 34, were allegedly looking for food on the farm near Polokwane in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province in August when they were shot.

Their bodies were then alleged to have been given to pigs in an apparent attempt to dispose of the evidence.

A court is now to decide whether to grant bail to farm owner Zachariah Johannes Olivier, 60, and his employees Adrian de Wet, 19, and William Musora, 50, ahead of their murder trial.

The three men have not yet been asked to enter a plea in court, which will happen when the trial begins at a later date.

At previous hearings, protesters have demonstrated outside court demanding that the suspects be denied bail.

Ms Makgato’s brother Walter Mathole has told the BBC the incident has further exacerbated racial tension between black and white people in South Africa.

This is especially rife in rural areas of the country, despite the end of the racist system of apartheid 30 years ago.

• South Africa’s deadly love affair with guns
• The volunteer crime fighters using whistles, whips and guns

The three men in court in Polokwane also face charges of attempted murder for shooting at Ms Ndlovu’s husband , who was with the women at the farm – as well as possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Mabutho Ncube survived the ordeal on the evening of Saturday 17 August – and crawled away and managed to call a doctor for help.

He says he reported the incident to police and officers found the decomposing bodies of his wife and Ms Makgato in the pigsty several days later.

Mr Mathole said he was with officers and saw a horrific sight inside the pig enclosure: his sister’s body which had been partly eaten by the animals.

The group had reportedly gone to the farm in search of edible food from consignments of recently expired or soon-to-be-expired produce. These were sometimes left at the farm and given to the pigs.

The family of Ms Makgato say they are devastated by her killing – especially her four sons, aged between 22 and five years old.

“My mum died a painful death, she was a loving mother who did everything for us. We lacked nothing because of her,” Ranti Makgato, the oldest of her sons, tearfully told the BBC.

“I think I’ll sleep better at night if the alleged killers are denied bail,” he added.

The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has said the farm should be shut down.

“The EFF cannot stand by while products from this farm continue to be sold as they pose a danger to consumers,” it said after the bodies were found.

The South African Human Rights Commission has condemned the killings and called for anti-racism dialogues between affected communities.

Groups representing farmers, who are often white, say farming communities feel under attack in a country with a high rate of crime – though there is no evidence farmers are at any greater risk than anyone else.

There have been two other incidents that have ratcheted up racial tension recently.

In the eastern province of Mpumalanga, a farmer and his security guard were arrested in August for the alleged murder of two men at a farm in Laersdrift near the small town of Middleburg.

It is alleged the two men, whose bodies were burnt beyond recognition, were accused of stealing sheep.

The accused remain in custody while the ashes undergo DNA analysis.

The most recent case involves a 70-year old white farmer who is alleged to have driven over a six-year-old boy, breaking both of his legs, for stealing an orange on his farm.

The bail hearing for Christoffel Stoman, from Lutzville in Western Cape province, is ongoing.

The court has heard that mother and son were walking past the farm as they made their way to town to buy groceries.

It is alleged the six-year-old stopped to pick up an orange that was on the ground – and the mother watched on in horror as the farmer allegedly mowed him down.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the farmer was facing two counts of attempted murder and reckless driving.

NPA spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila told the BBC that the state was opposing the accused’s application for bail.

Two political parties – the African Transformation Movement and the Pan Africanist Congress – are calling for the expropriation of Mr Stoman’s farm following the incident.

• South Africans’ anger over land set to explode
• Are protesters right on South Africa farm murder rate?
• The groups playing on the fears of a ‘white genocide’

A top Sudanese general has said the army will press on with its offensive despite international efforts to broker a ceasefire in the 17-month civil war.

“Peace talks can go on, but the army will not stop for that,” Assistant Commander-in-Chief Lt Gen Ibrahim Gabir told the BBC.

He was speaking just days after the army launched an operation to regain control of the capital, Khartoum, from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The two sides have been fighting since April last year, when their leaders fell out over the country’s future. This has created a humanitarian catastrophe with more than half the country facing hunger and millions forced from their homes.

The general also hinted in the wide-ranging interview that the Sudanese authorities had had weapons dealings with Iran, and denied there was famine in the country.

“When the parties agree [to a ceasefire], the army can stop,” he said, repeating army demands that the RSF withdraw from areas that it has occupied.

“Let the international community exert pressure on the militia to stop the fighting and leave the houses that it’s taken,” he said, adding he was “more confident” now that the army had the momentum.

• ‘Rape me, not my daughter’, women tell BBC of civil war experience
• A simple guide to the Sudan war
• ‘Our future is over’: Forced to flee by a year of war

Fresh diplomatic attempts to negotiate a cessation of hostilities have failed to make progress, the US Sudan Envoy Tom Perriello acknowledged this week.

“The situation is extremely dire and those who are in the best position to stop it seem eager instead to accelerate it,” he told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

He did cite some improvement on humanitarian access, noting that a couple of hundred trucks carrying aid had been able to get through to areas that were previously blocked.

“But we obviously need to be at a significantly different scale from that,” he said.

For many months the army had prevented the shipment of aid via a crucial border post controlled by the RSF between Chad and Darfur. In August it agreed to allow them to resume, and the RSF promised to facilitate deliveries in the areas it holds.

Gen Gabir denied allegations that the army was still dragging its feet in approving the necessary paperwork for humanitarian groups, reeling off the number of visas and permits issued.

He emphasised that the RSF had looted humanitarian goods, and was still preventing aid from entering the besieged city of el-Fasher in North Darfur.

And he repeated army denials that there was famine in the country, again blaming the RSF for the hunger crisis.

In August, a group of UN-backed experts concluded there were famine conditions in the Zamzam camp for displaced people outside el-Fasher. It was able to make the determination because it had the data to do so, but said other parts of Sudan were also at risk.

But the Sudanese government has not made an official declaration of famine, which could trigger a UN Security Council resolution empowering agencies to deliver relief across borders.

The army is focused on Darfur’s border with Chad because it says this is a conduit for mercenaries, and weapons supplied in particular by the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE’s alleged support for the RSF “makes a very big difference in the fighting of the war”, Gen Gabril said. “Because the RSF is a militia, and they are being supported with advanced hi-tech arms. But at the end of the day they won’t win the war, this is a militia.”

The UAE denies such support for the RSF, but the UN says there is credible evidence.

A recent investigation published in the New York Times presented extensive detail.

And a report by the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch has documented visual evidence of weapons from the UAE, as well as from China, Iran, Russia and Serbia, with manufacturing dates from last year.

Gen Gabir suggested that the army had discussed weapons purchases with Iran.

“You can find weapons if you have money and facilitation of payment,” he said.

“Iran will not give you any weapons unless you pay in cash. And we don’t have cash… The most important thing is that we are a government, and we have a right to deal with everybody.”

The general denied accusations of war crimes made in a recent UN report, which cited evidence of indiscriminate bombing, attacks on schools and hospitals, and arbitrary detention and torture.

“The Sudanese army are not angels,” he said. “They can commit crimes, but it’s individuals I’m talking about.”

He would not venture to predict how long the war might go on – another Sudanese defence official cited for comparison America’s 20-year-long battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan when asked.

All previous Sudanese civil wars have lasted many years, says the Sudan War Monitor, a group of researchers tracking the conflict.

“The main factor making this a protracted war is that Sudan is a huge country and both warring parties are large, making it impossible for any single battle to determine the outcome of the war,” it told the BBC in an email.

For Gen Gabir, the end game was clear: “Sudan will conquer, and Sudan will be rebuilt.”

• Famine hits Sudan as peace talks fall short yet again
• A photographer’s 11-day trek to flee war-torn Sudan
• Fear and prayers in Sudan city under siege
• What is Sudan like?

On Monday night, just 20 minutes before closing time, chaos erupted at the Ludu International Shopping Plaza in southwestern Shanghai’s Songjiang district.

Police say that a 37-year-old man surnamed Lin, went on a stabbing spree lunging at strangers as he traversed the maze-like shopping centre, past food outlets and upstairs to a Wallmart.

He managed to strike 18 people and killed three of them.

A 28-year-old construction worker identified only as Zheng had just finished eating barbeque with a friend when he saw people “running, hiding and screaming”.

He tells us that he and his friend saw the man with his knives and tried to stop him – running at him and throwing chairs to try to slow him down or knock the weapons out of his hands.

But Zheng says the man was moving too quickly, and they lost him as he moved up to the second floor.

“As everything became chaotic, we could only work out where he had gone to by hearing people’s screams,” Zheng says, adding, “As the attacker was stabbing people, he was shouting expletives in Chinese.”

Zheng says he thought the killer’s route “was definitely pre-planned”.

“I believe he deliberately chose the exits; he must have scouted the area beforehand.”

Two young stallholders on the outside of the building – who saw police bring Lin to the ground – say he strode out of the shopping centre carrying a knife in each hand. Rather than running away from the scene of the carnage he had caused, he appeared calm, as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

They tell the BBC that he carried himself as if he was in control of the situation, even as police officers caught him.

Footage shared on social media captured the moment he was then taken away, his jacket splashed with what appeared to be the blood of his victims.

Police say he had come to Shanghai with the aim of “venting his anger… due to a personal economic dispute” and that their investigations are continuing.

But barely a day later, when the BBC visited the Ludu International Shopping Plaza, it was as if this carnage never happened.

There was no extended crime scene lockdown. Just over 12 hours after the deadly attack, the blood had been mopped up, and the plaza was open for business as usual.

Yet the shock remains.

A young shopkeeper, who had been rostered off at the time of the attack, says she is now scared to come to work. “It’s like a movie. You can’t believe there’d be something so terrifying right next to you”.

She points to the extra security and police now stationed near her clothes shop.

“Look at them,” she says, while admitting that she does feel safer having these officers around.

We ask about her colleagues who were at work and had to run with others who were screaming through the corridors, in order to stay alive.

“Of course they were terrified. None of them came to work today. They say they don’t dare to return,” she says.

One young woman who operates a stall selling phone accessories and other small electrical goods says that if she had delayed shutting shop by just 10 minutes, she would have been in the attacker’s path.

“When I heard about it later, I was so scared I couldn’t sleep. Today I arrived at work obviously still scared.”

She says she feels very lucky but terrified by how close she came to such extreme danger.

This incident is the latest in a spate of knife attacks to hit China this year.

There has been discussion about economic pressures causing rifts in society, not to excuse horrendous acts like this but in an attempt to explain the seemingly inexplicable.

Then there is the question of mental illness here and how it is treated. For many years, knife attacks on strangers have come in waves in this country and they seem to be horrific copycat attempts at gaining attention.

Either way, there is something very troubling in China leading to these bloody assaults.

This week is supposed to be a time to celebrate what China has become, 75 years after the Communist Party came to power, but a killing spree ushered in the seven-day break.

Shocking footage of those who were injured, struggling in pain on the floor, spread on social media.

A woman nursing a stabbed toddler on her lap could be seen sobbing as she tried to telephone for help. Her other hand shook uncontrollably.

At the time of writing, a family member who declined to be identified, told the BBC that the two and a half year old girl was still in intensive care.

The sharing of these images and discussion of the attack is now being censored on China’s tightly controlled social media platforms although some are finding ways to talk about the subject using certain expressions to avoid being blocked.

Yet in online discussion forums, there are still those who’ve welcomed the fact that in this country – as opposed to say the United States – it is very difficult for ordinary people to get hold of guns, as access to automatic weapons would mean many more deaths in cases like this.

Yet the official move to try to erase this incident, and others like it, from the public discourse reveals the extent to which this is troubling for the government.

Managers from Walmart and the entire Ludu Plaza stopped many staff from speaking to us, sometimes even interrupting us mid-interview.

Zheng for his part, says that on returning to the shopping centre the next day, he could not believe everything was simply “cleaned up” – no flowers. Nothing to mark the attack.

“I can only feel sorrow for the victims,” he said.

More than 100 people are to sue rap musician Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs for sexual assault, rape and sexual exploitation, a US lawyer has said.

Texas-based lawyer Tony Buzbee said that some of the alleged victims include minors who were abused when they were as young as nine years old.

“This is an important matter that we intend to aggressively pursue,” Mr Buzbee told reporters.

Erica Wolff, a lawyer representing Mr Combs, said the rapper “emphatically and categorically” denies the allegations, saying they are “false and defamatory”.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Mr Buzbee said he and his team “will leave no stone unturned to find potentially liable parties” in the alleged abuse, or “any individual or entity who participated in or benefited from this egregious behaviour”.

Ms Wolff said in a statement to the BBC that Mr Combs “looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation”.

The legal action is the latest against Mr Combs.

Mr Combs was arrested last month and is facing criminal charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. He is currently in federal custody after he was denied bail, which he is appealing.

He has denied all allegations of criminal wrongdoing.

According to Mr Buzbee, who is licensed to practice law in Texas and New York, the total number of alleged victims he is representing is 120, with half of them being men and the other half women who hail from more than 25 states across the US.

He added that 25 of the alleged victims he is representing were minors. This marks the first time that Mr Combs has been accused of sexually abusing children.

The allegations span between 1991 to as recently as this year with the incidents taking place in Los Angeles, New York and Miami, Mr Buzbee said. He added most of the incidents occurred after 2015.

Most of the plaintiffs, he said, allege they were date raped after parties hosted by Mr Combs that were held at well-known venues, as well as private residences and hotels.

Mr Buzbee said the parties were either to mark an album release, or were New Year’s Eve parties and US Independence Day parties. Others occurred at what he said were auditions.

“Many times, especially young people wanting to break into the industry, were coerced into this type of conduct in the promise of being made a star or the promise of having Sean Combs listen to their tape,” Mr Buzbee said.

One man, who was aged nine at the time, alleges he was sexually abused by Mr Combs and his associates at a recording studio in New York while trying to land a record deal, according to his lawyer.

“Had he not been in power, I feel I could’ve been something great. I quit the industry because of what Sean Combs did to me,” he said in a statement via his lawyer.

Another man, who was also a minor at the time, alleged he was told by Mr Combs he would be made a “star”, but he first needed to visit the rapper alone without his parents.

Once in a private area, his lawyer claimed Mr Combs then requested the boy perform oral sex on him.

Mr Buzbee also raised the case of a then-15-year-old girl who alleges she was flown to New York for a party hosted by Mr Combs and was subsequently raped by him and others.

The lawyer claimed there was a clear modus operandi with alleged victims typically being offered “laced” drinks before being sexually assaulted.

“The biggest secret in the entertainment industry has finally been revealed to the world,” Mr Buzbee said. “The wall of silence has now been broken.”

He added that this is not a class action lawsuit and that there will be individual cases filed for each alleged victim.

Andrew Van Arsdale, an attorney at the AVA law group which is working with Mr Buzbee, said his firm had received more than 3,000 phone calls from people alleging abuse by the music mogul.

In addition to the 120 alleged victims, he said his firm were working to vet another 100 cases.

You can get in touch via this link

Seven people have been killed in a shooting and knife attack in Tel Aviv, police in Israel have confirmed.

Several others were injured – some seriously – when a gunman opened fire at members of the public in the Jaffa area.

The deadly attack began in a rail carriage and continued on the platform, local police said in a statement.

Footage posted on social media showed motionless bodies strewn on the street.

Police said the gunman and another attacker armed with a knife were “neutralised” by members of the public, and described the motive as “terror”.

The identities of the perpetrators have not been released. Some Israeli media outlets earlier reported the death toll as eight, though it is unclear if this included the attackers.

• Iran launches barrage of missiles at Israel – follow live updates
• What we know about Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Video shows missiles fired towards Tel Aviv

The shooting occurred shortly before an Iranian missile attack against Israel began.

Police at the scene were seen taking cover as missiles and air defence rockets flew over the city and air raid sirens blared.

Witnesses described the shooting, including Benjamin Ratzon, who told the Reuters news agency: “People were on the ground and they told me to bend down.

“I saw the terrorist facing me. He wanted to do something and the security forces arrived to the scene and they ran towards him.”

Another witness told the Jerusalem Post they initially mistook the gunfire for fireworks before realising “it was something much worse”.

They added: “There were many gunshots. We dropped to the floor, and people were crying. I saw someone bleeding on the ground.”

A shop owner said they quickly closed their shutters upon seeing “crowds of people running and shouting ‘terror attack'”.

Haartez quoted an eyewitness who was at a synagogue at the time of the attack.

“Among the worshippers were medics who volunteer at the MDA (Israel’s ambulance service).

“We treated a man who was wounded in the synagogue and then ran to the street to help others who were wounded.”

At least 45 people have died and many others are missing after two migrant boats capsized off the coast of Djibouti, officials say.

The boats left Yemen with 310 people on board before sinking in the Red Sea off the east African nation on Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

“To date, 61 individuals are still missing and the search operations are continuing relentlessly,” the Djibouti’s coastguard said.

It is the latest boat disaster to hit the route, described as one of the busiest and most dangerous in the world, used by refugees and migrants from Africa.

A “large-scale search” began early on Monday, supported by the IOM – with 115 survivors now rescued, Djibouti’s coastguard said.

“We remain committed to finding the missing persons and ensuring the safety of the survivors,” the agency said in a statement.

The boats sank just 150m (492ft) from a beach near Djibouti’s north-west Khor Angar region, the coastguard added.

• The migrants who face robbery, extortion and starvation
• ‘I survived the ferry disaster – but lost 17 of my family’

Thousands of African migrants have been sailing across the Red Sea toward the oil-rich Gulf each year, seeking to escape conflict, natural disasters and poor economic prospects.

In June, at least 56 Somali and Ethiopian migrants died and 140 others were reported missing after a boat from Somalia capsized in the Gulf of Aden, off Yemen’s south coast. Among those who lost their lives were 31 women and six children.

The number of migrants arriving in Yemen from the Horn of Africa rose from about 73,000 in 2022 to more than 97,200 last year, according to the IOM.

Most of them are forced to rely on smugglers who use often dangerous and overcrowded boats for the crossings.

• Migrant tragedy: ‘We saw people struggling on board’
• Hundreds of migrants killed by Saudi border guards – report
• Girl, 7, among five dead on Channel migrant boat

South Korean police have detained a North Korean defector for attempting to cross the heavily-guarded border back to the North on a stolen bus.

The man was caught Tuesday on the Unification Bridge that separates the two Koreas, where he ignored soldiers who asked him to stop and crashed the bus into a barricade.

Though some 34,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the Korean peninsula was divided more than 70 years ago, defectors seeking to return to the North are rare.

The man, who is in his 30s, told police he had wanted to return home after experiencing difficulties in the South, according to South Korean media. He reportedly left North Korea about a decade ago.

He reportedly stole the bus at 01:00 local time on Tuesday (16:00 GMT Monday) from a garage in the northern city of Paju and was caught half an hour later.

Surveillance footage from the garage showed the man wearing a hat, trying to open several vehicles until he managed to get into the bus.

He was not found to have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident, reports say.

The man, who has worked as a day labourer in Paju and other cities, told police that he had accumulated several unpaid fines, according to South Korean newspaper The Dong-A Ilbo.

South Korea’s law prohibits citizens, including defectors, from crossing the border to the North without government authorisation. North Korean defectors in the South are automatically granted citizenship. Offenders may be jailed up to ten years if convicted.

South Korea receives over 1,000 defectors from the North each year. In contrast, the number of defectors returning to North Korea totalled just 31 from 2012 to 2022, according to the South’s Unification Ministry.

Some make the return, or attempt to do so, because the lives of defectors in the South sometimes fall short of expectations. The defectors earn around 2.3 million won ($1,740; £1,300) per month on average, according to a survey from Korea Hana Foundation published on Tuesday.

Others want to go back to see their family members.

However these returns are risky. Some returnees have been imprisoned while others have undergone rigorous re-education back in the North.

In January 2022, a defector in his 30s returned to North Korea after a year in the South. He had struggled to resettle in the South as he was “barely scraping a living”, reports said, citing South Korean officials.

When Iran attacked Israel in April, it seemed like it was making a point – but Iran effectively gave notice of the attack in terms of how it carried it out, and everything was pretty much shot out of the air by Israeli and American defences.

This time around it’s different. The Iranians looked like they wanted to do some serious damage and were making a much more aggressive point.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps put out an announcement saying that they were retaliating to the killings of senior leaders in Hamas and Hezbollah, and warned that if Israel retaliated, in turn they would strike back.

Last time around, Joe Biden said to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – “Take the win”, don’t carry out a big response – and they didn’t. This time around in Israel the mood is very different.

• FOLLOW LIVE: Israel and Hezbollah fighting on the ground in Lebanon after Israeli invasion

Look at the tweet from former prime minister Naftali Bennett last night, using very strong language, saying: “This is the greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East.” He was arguing that Israel should go after Iran’s nuclear facilities, in order to “fatally cripple this terrorist regime”.

Now he’s not prime minister (although he is widely tipped to be a future one, so he was making a point to show he is tough) but it does reflect a certain mood in the country.

I would not rule out attacks by Israel on anything at the moment – nuclear sites, petrochemical facilities, anything that could cause damage to the Iranian economy.

The scenario always was that Iran had a forward defence in the shape of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with a massive arsenal of sophisticated weapons, to be used, in theory, if Iran and its nuclear facilities were attacked.

But in the last couple of weeks, Israel has decapitated the Hezbollah organisation, destroyed half of its weapons, according to American and Israeli authorities; and invaded Lebanon.

• Explained: What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
• BBC Verify: Analysing footage of Israeli strikes on Beirut
• What are Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow missile defences?

The deterrent Iran had, you could argue, is not just gone – it’s smashed into a thousand pieces. So I think the Israelis are feeling more free to act. And Joe Biden is moving another carrier battle group to the Mediterranean, signalling to the Iranians that if you hit Israel, you hit the US too.

This is why people were talking about the fear of the war spreading: the instability, the turbulence that comes from everything that’s been happening – now we are seeing it play out and it leaves very little room for diplomacy at this moment.

Kenya’s embattled Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, calls himself the “truthful man”, attributing his remarkable rise to the fact that he speaks truth to power.

But as he faces impeachment proceedings, he says these troubles are also a result of his outspoken nature.

Before he was elected MP in 2017, little was known about the man who would, in five short years, rise to become Kenya’s second-in-command.

Not many people outside Gachagua’s central Kenya constituency had heard of him or his style of politics.

Gachagua captured the limelight in the run-up to the 2022 elections, when he vehemently opposed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s choice of preferred successor.

Kenyatta was campaigning heavily for former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

But Gachagua allied himself with William Ruto, Kenyatta’s then deputy, who was angling for the presidency that his boss did not want to bequeath to him.

• How Kenya’s president has fallen out with his deputy

At political rallies and in media circles, Gachagua railed against Kenyatta, often in words that other politicians would find cringeworthy.

“Don’t kill me the way your father killed JM Kariuki,” he said at a rally in July 2022, referring to an MP who was killed in 1975 during the administration of Jomo Kenyatta, the nation’s first president and the father of Uhuru Kenyatta.

To this day, no one has been found guilty of Kariuki’s death.

Before he became Kenya’s deputy president, police raided Gachagua’s home and arrested him in relation to a corruption and money-laundering case. The charges were dropped after he and Ruto took power following the 2022 election.

He had helped Ruto win by marshalling support in Mount Kenya – the biggest voting bloc in the country. Both Gachagua and Kenyatta come from there. Kenyatta had tried to rally Mount Kenya’s voters to throw their weight behind Odinga, but he failed.

Long before Kenyatta became president in 2013, Gachagua had worked closely with him, including as his personal assistant for five years.

But after teaming up with Ruto, Gachagua went from being Kenyatta’s “confidant” to one of his harshest critics.

However, since falling out with his current boss, Gachagua has apologised to Kenyatta, saying it was “foolish” of him to have “fought my own brother”.

This humility is in sharp contrast to his rhetoric as Ruto’s running-mate – analyst Javas Bigamo had even described Gachagua as a “feared political bulldog that Ruto needed to be able to counter President Kenyatta in the central region”.

Gachagua was praised as an excellent mobiliser, who had the ear of ordinary people on the ground.

Yet he was probably not the person many expected to take the deputy position, given that Gachagua had only being a politician for five years and was up against more seasoned candidates.

Ruto explained he had chosen Gachagua because “he is one of those leaders who are passionate about ordinary people”.

Politics expert Bobby Mkangi previously told the BBC that Gachagua’s ability to negotiate his way to the top “considering other names that were fronted and were known nationally” was “quite something”.

But just two years after ascending to power, that ability seems to have fizzled out – leaving Gachagua butting heads with the president and in a position where many legislators are pushing for his removal.

He stands accused of corruption, money-laundering, gross misconduct, insubordination and bullying public officers and six other acts of wrongdoing.

As the motion was being tabled in parliament on Tuesday, the MP introducing the motion, Mwengi Mutuse, said that 291 out of 349 MPs had signed the document pushing for Gachagua’s removal.

The signatures of two-thirds – or 233 – of all MPs are required to impeach him.

Mkangi now says the deputy president has been “unable to consolidate the support of his base and the politicians around him”.

Gachagua has always been accused of being brash and aggressive – it was one of the reasons some argued against his selection to the running mate position prior to the 2022 election. But in recent months, this criticism has increased.

He denies this assessment of his character, along with assertions that he alienates his fellow politicians.

He says all he does is “speak the truth”, which he insists has made him unpopular within certain political factions.

“I will not compromise my principles,” he said over the weekend as calls for his impeachment came to a crescendo.

Gachagua has often identified himself as a child of the Mau Mau freedom fighters, who battled British colonial rule.

He was born in 1965 to parents who he has said were well known for their involvement in the struggle for freedom. His father built and serviced guns and his mother was a courier of ammunition and food for the fighters, Gachagua said.

His lineage has painted him as a champion of people in central Kenya, many of whom are descendants of independence struggle icons, but still continue to fight for economic freedom.

A popular catchphrase associated with the deputy president is “don’t touch the mountain”, a reference to his support base in the Mount Kenya region. However, he has also been accused of promoting tribalism rather than being a unifying figure.

But Gachagua has defended himself, insisting that speaking for the central Kenya region is not the same as antagonising other communities.

• Batons, tear gas, live fire – Kenyans face police brutality
• Kenyan president’s humbling shows power of African youth

Before joining politics, Gachagua had had a long career.

After completing university, he began working as a public administrator in government, and as a district officer in different locations across the country.

The district administrators of that time, during Daniel arap Moi’s presidency, were known for their high-handedness. It is an accusation that has stuck with him, including in present circumstances.

He worked as Kenyatta’s personal assistant between 2001 and 2006 – at a time when Kenyatta was a minister, presidential candidate and later the leader of the opposition.

Gachagua is a wealthy politician, having built a fortune in business over the years. He is married to a pastor, Dorcas, and they have two adult sons.

In 2017, he vied for the Mathira constituency seat, winning the position that had earlier been held by his elder brother, Nderitu Gachagua.

It is at this time that Gachagua’s fiery character and political abilities started attracting attention.

Yet his public utterances, before and since he became deputy president, have at times been seen as blunders or straight-up disgraceful comments.

He said last year that government was like a shareholding company, with those that voted for the current administration being more deserving of government appointments and contracts.

Senator Danson Mungatana last week said Gachagua’s words have “marginalised sections of Kenyans, created and continue to heighten ethnic tensions”.

Gachagua has often defended himself, but recently he acknowledged that in the end, it may be the very same thing that catapulted him to the top that will lead to his downfall: his way with words.

• How Kenya’s president has fallen out with his deputy
• Batons, tear gas, live fire – Kenyans face police brutality
• Kenyan president’s humbling shows power of African youth

The BBC has been given rare access inside MI5’s headquarters in London to meet a senior intelligence officer who shares what it was like to discover he was neurodivergent.

Liam was chairing a top-level national security meeting when he suddenly realised something was wrong.

An intense pain developed in his head and he began to lose focus. He tried to keep talking and pay attention to the papers his colleagues were discussing, as his phone lit up with new work messages. But with the pain intensifying, Liam rushed from the room.

“I had a sensory overload and started losing the ability to see,” Liam told the BBC’s Access All podcast. “My colleagues had to come and rescue me.”

Liam – not his real name – has worked for MI5 for many years. He’s travelled abroad and worked on complex investigations – some involved disrupting threats that could harm British citizens.

He had always prided himself on his reliability to get the job done, an essential trait for an intelligence officer. But completing tasks came with huge amounts of stress.

“I would be listening in to a meeting, and at the same time I’d be reading emails, at the same time I’d also be thinking about what I would want to write in a report,” he says.

Liam found it difficult to know what to prioritise and often didn’t feel across the detail in a way that he would have liked.

After the meeting, Liam took some time off from his job and spoke to several specialists. He learned he’d experienced autistic burnout, a state of physical and mental fatigue and heightened stress which had built up over years.

Some days he was relieved to understand what had happened – other days he was anxious about whether he would have to find a new job.

“I struggled being off work,” he says. “I was so tired, there were lots of thoughts running through my mind. I was worried how I would be viewed.”

Despite the anxieties, Liam was supported by colleagues when he returned to work. He was offered sessions with occupational health and well-being teams, and neurodiversity coaches helped him learn how to work with his autism.

He learned about the importance of doing one task at a time, having routines, and having conversations about what to prioritise.

Over time things got easier. Liam joined a neurodiverse staff network and was encouraged to share that he is autistic.

He says he can now see the strength in the way he approaches tasks and describes intelligence work as like solving a complex jigsaw puzzle, where neurodivergent people may be able to offer alternative perspectives, and help plug knowledge gaps.

He says his hyperfocus, attention to detail, and good memory have also proved fruitful in the field.

Keeping secrets is a big part of working for MI5 and only Liam’s close family know what he does for a living, but he says his burnout was never linked to this aspect of the job.

“I keep a lot of information inside,” he says. “Keeping secrets is never an issue for me.”

MI5 is a Disability Confident employer, which means it has taken steps to provide equal opportunities to disabled people. It employs about 5,000 people, about 4% of whom are disabled, according to figures released in 2022. The think tank, the Institute for Government, says this is below average for civil servants which in 2022 was 14% and 15.5% for the UK working population.

Historically, security services have found recruiting disabled people and other groups such as black and minority ethnic difficult, but MI5 says it has worked hard to change this. Its latest pay gap report shows a quarter of all new joiners in 2022/23 were from an ethnic minority background, and almost 48% were women.

MI5 did not provide information on how many of its neurodiverse staff end up in senior positions, but Liam says being autistic has not held him back. His promotion to senior manager came after his burnout experience and he says he knows others who have also succeeded in the organisation.

“Some people are on the ADHD side, some autistic and some are highly sensitive,” he says. “Being neurodiverse brings strength to MI5.”

Gordon Corera, the BBC’s Security Correspondent, says there is a real emphasis on diversifying staff in the UK’s security agencies.

“It’s partly to reflect the population, to be open to the best people, and also to avoid the ‘groupthink’ which comes from only having one type of background or one way of understanding the world.”

He says of the three main agencies – MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – the latter appeared to have more visibly disabled staff “and it’s often looking for people with neurodiversity”.

But adds: “MI5 always looked more diverse in terms of ethnic background and has more women in senior positions.”

Kamran Mallick from Disability Rights UK says UK work culture is evolving with regard to neurodivergent people.

“Organisations like MI5 play a crucial role in leading the way to more inclusive and supportive environments for people with conditions like autism,” he says.

But according to the Office for National Statistics, in 2022/23 only 30% of autistic people were in work.

“Often a lack of awareness and understanding about neurodivergent conditions among employers, leads to misconceptions and insufficient support,” says Mr Mallick.

Liam says he has everything he needs to do his job well and is keen to share his story. But when pressed for information about the social spaces where his colleagues might meet to share their experiences, Liam gives nothing away.

“ I can neither confirm or deny whether there is an MI5 pub.”

BBC Sounds

China’s sputtering economy has its worried leaders pulling out all the stops.

They have unveiled stimulus measures, offered rare cash handouts, held a surprise meeting to kickstart growth and tried to shake up an ailing property market with a raft of decisions – they did all of this in the last week.

On Monday, Xi himself spoke of “potential dangers” and being “well-prepared” to overcome grave challenges, which many believe was a reference to the economy.

What is less clear is how the slowdown has affected ordinary Chinese people, whose expectations and frustrations are often heavily censored.

But two new pieces of research offer some insight. The first, a survey of Chinese attitudes towards the economy, found that people were growing pessimistic and disillusioned about their prospects. The second is a record of protests, both physical and online, that noted a rise in incidents driven by economic grievances.

Although far from complete, the picture neverthless provides a rare glimpse into the current economic climate, and how Chinese people feel about their future.

Beyond the crisis in real estate, steep public debt and rising unemployment have hit savings and spending. The world’s second-largest economy may miss its own growth target – 5% – this year.

That is sobering for the Chinese Communist Party. Explosive growth turned China into a global power, and stable prosperity was the carrot offered by a repressive regime that would never loosen its grip on the stick.

The slowdown hit as the pandemic ended, partly driven by three years of sudden and complete lockdowns, which strangled economic activity.

And that contrast between the years before and after the pandemic is evident in the research by American professors Martin Whyte of Harvard University, Scott Rozelle of Stanford University’s Center on China’s Economy and Stanford masters student Michael Alisky.

They conducted their surveys in 2004 and 2009, before Xi Jinping became China’s leader, and during his rule in 2014 and 2023. The sample sizes varied, ranging between 3,000 and 7,500.

In 2004, nearly 60% of the respondents said their families’ economic situation had improved over the past five years – and just as many of them felt optimistic about the next five years.

The figures jumped in 2009 and 2014 – with 72.4% and 76.5% respectively saying things had improved, while 68.8% and 73% were hopeful about the future.

However in 2023, only 38.8% felt life had got better for their families. And less than half – about 47% – believed things would improve over the next five years.

Meanwhile, the proportion of those who felt pessimistic about the future rose, from just 2.3% in 2004 to 16% in 2023.

While the surveys were of a nationally representative sample aged 20 to 60, getting access to a broad range of opinions is a challenge in authoritarian China.

Respondents were from 26 Chinese provinces and administrative regions. The 2023 surveys excluded Xinjiang and parts of Tibet – Mr Whyte said it was “a combination of extra costs due to remote locations and political sensitivity”. Home to ethnic minorities, these tightly controlled areas in the north-west have long bristled under Beijing’s rule.

Those who were not willing to speak their minds did not participate in the survey, the researchers said. Those who did shared their views when they were told it was for academic purposes, and would remain confidential.

Their anxieties are reflected in the choices that are being made by many young Chinese people. With unemployment on the rise, millions of college graduates have been forced to accept low-wage jobs, while others have embraced a “lie flat” attitude, pushing back against relentless work. Still others have opted to be “full-time children”, returning home to their parents because they cannot find a job, or are burnt out.

Analysts believe China’s iron-fisted management of Covid-19 played a big role in undoing people’s optimism.

“[It] was a turning point for many… It reminded everyone of how authoritarian the state was. People felt policed like never before,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

Many people were depressed and the subsequent pay cuts “reinforced the confidence crisis,” he added.

Moxi, 38, was one of them. He left his job as a psychiatrist and moved to Dali, a lakeside city in southwestern China now popular with young people who want a break from high-pressure jobs.

“When I was still a psychiatrist, I didn’t even have the time or energy to think about where my life was heading,” he told the BBC. “There was no room for optimism or pessimism. It was just work.”

Work, however, no longer seems to signal a promising future, according to the survey.

In 2004, 2009 and 2014, more than six in 10 respondents agreed that “effort is always rewarded” in China. Those who disagreed hovered around 15%.

Come 2023, the sentiment flipped. Only 28.3% believed that their hard work would pay off, while a third of them disagreed. The disagreement was strongest among lower-income families, who earned less than 50,000 yuan ($6,989; £5,442) a year.

Chinese people are often told that the years spent studying and chasing degrees will be rewarded with financial success. Part of this expectation has been shaped by a tumultuous history, where people gritted their teeth through the pain of wars and famine, and plodded on.

Chinese leaders, too, have touted such a work ethic. Xi’s Chinese Dream, for example, echoes the American Dream, where hard work and talent pay off. He has urged young people to “eat bitterness”, a Chinese phrase for enduring hardship.

But in 2023, a majority of the respondents in the Whyte and Rozelle study believed people were rich because of the privilege afforded by their families and connections. A decade earlier, respondents had attributed wealth to ability, talent, a good education and hard work.

This is despite Xi’s signature “common prosperity” policy aimed at narrowing the wealth gap, although critics say it has only resulted in a crackdown on businesses.

There are other indicators of discontent, such as an 18% rise in protests in the second quarter of 2024, compared with the same period last year, according to the China Dissent Monitor (CDM).

The study defines protests as any instance when people voice grievances or advance their interests in ways that are in contention with authority – this could happen physically or online. Such episodes, however small, are still telling in China, where even lone protesters are swiftly tracked down and detained.

A least three in four cases are due to economic grievances, said Kevin Slaten, one of the CDM study’s four editors.

Starting in June 2022, the group has documented nearly 6,400 such events so far.

They saw a rise in protests led by rural residents and blue-collar workers over land grabs and low wages, but also noted middle-class citizens organising because of the real estate crisis. Protests by homeowners and construction workers made up 44% of the cases across more than 370 cities.

“This does not immediately mean China’s economy is imploding,” Mr Slaten was quick to stress.

Although, he added, “it is difficult to predict” how such “dissent may accelerate if the economy keeps getting worse”.

Chinese leaders are certainly concerned.

Between August 2023 and Janaury 2024, Beijing stopped releasing youth unemployment figures after they hit a record high. At one point, officials coined the term “slow employment” to describe those who were taking time to find a job – a separate category, they said, from the jobless.

Censors have been cracking down on any source of financial frustration – vocal online posts are promptly scrubbed, while influencers have been blocked on social media for flaunting luxurious tastes. State media has defended the bans as part of the effort to create a “civilised, healthy and harmonious” environment. More alarming perhaps are reports last week that a top economist, Zhu Hengpeng, has been detained for criticising Xi’s handling of the economy.

The Communist Party tries to control the narrative by “shaping what information people have access to, or what is perceived as negative”, Mr Slaten said.

CDM’s research shows that, despite the level of state control, discontent has fuelled protests – and that will worry Beijing.

In November 2022, a deadly fire – which killed at least 10 people who were not allowed to leave the building during a Covid lockdown – brought thousands onto the streets in different parts of China to protest against crushing zero-Covid policies.

Whyte, Rozelle and Alisky don’t think their findings suggest “popular anger about… inequality is likely to explode in a social volcano of protest”.

But the economic slowdown has begun to “undermine” the legitimacy the Party has built up through “decades of sustained economic growth and improved living standards”, they write.

The pandemic still haunts many Chinese people, said Yun Zhou, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan. Beijing’s “stringent yet mercurial responses” during the pandemic have heightened people’s insecurity about the future.

And this is particularly visceral among marginalised groups, she added, such as women caught in a “severely discriminatory” labour market and rural residents who have long been excluded from welfare coverage.

Under China’s contentious “hukou” system of household registration, migrant workers in cities are not allowed to use public services, such as enrolling their children in government-run schools.

But young people from cities – like Moxi – have flocked to remote towns, drawn by low rents, picturesque landscapes and greater freedom to chase their dreams.

Moxi is relieved to have found a slower pace of life in Dali. “The number of patients who came to me for depression and anxiety disorders only increased as the economy boomed,” he said, recalling his past work as a psychiatrist.

“There’s a big difference between China doing well, and Chinese people doing well.”

Whyte, Rozelle and Alisky’s research is based on four sets of academic surveys conducted between 2004 and 2023.

In-person surveys were conducted together with colleagues at Peking University’s Research Center on Contemporary China (RCCC) in 2004, 2009 and 2014. Participants ranged in age from 18-70 and came from 29 provinces. Tibet and Xingiang were excluded.

In 2023, three rounds of online surveys, at the end of the second, third and fourth quarters, were conducted by the Survey and Research Centre for China Household Finance (CHFS) at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China. Participants ranged in age from 20-60.

The same questions were used in all surveys. To make responses comparable across all four years, the researchers excluded participants aged 18-19 and 61-70 and reweighted all answers to be nationally representative. All surveys contain a margin of error.

The study has been accepted for publication by The China Journal and is expected to be published in 2025.

Researchers for the China Dissent Monitor (CDM) have collected data on “dissent events” across China since June 2022 from a variety of non-government sources including news reports, social media platforms operating in the country and civil society organisations.

Dissent events are defined as instances where a person or persons use public and non-official means of expressing their dissatisfaction. Each event is highly visible and also subject to or at risk of government response, through physical repression or censorship.

These can include viral social media posts, demonstrations, banner drops and strikes, among others. Many events are difficult to independently verify.

Last week, authorities in the Indian city of Kolkata announced plans to eliminate trams entirely, retaining only a small heritage loop. In response, a group of activists is fighting to ensure that trams remain a vital mode of transport rather than mere nostalgic joyrides. Sandip Roy reports.

In February 2023, Kolkata celebrated 150 years of its tramways with music, cake, a beauty parade of vintage trams, including a century-old wooden car, and a cheerful tram conductor, Roberto D’Andrea, who travelled all the way from Melbourne, Australia.

Melbourne and Kolkata boast two of the oldest operational tramways in the world. Melbourne’s trams date back to 1885. Kolkata’s first tram, a horse-drawn one, started in 1873.

That’s where the similarities end.

Melbourne’s tram system is going strong despite the government once attempting to get rid of them. The system has been upgraded and some trams are solar-powered.

• In pictures: India’s fading trams

Kolkata’s trams have been steadily declining over the years. From 52 routes in the 1970s, down to 25 in 2015 and now to just three.

The tram cars rattle and wheeze, having not been updated in years. Even the signs inside have not changed. “Beware of pickpockets”, “No change available for 100 rupees ($1.19; $0.89) or 50” and “To stop the car please ring the bell only once”.

Now, the state government has announced that it wants to do away with trams entirely, save for one small loop as a heritage route.

But a dogged group of tram activists is fighting back.

“It’s a huge backward step as cities worldwide are ‘decarbonising transport’ because of global warming and climate change,” says Mr D’Andrea, who has helped foster a Kolkata-Melbourne tram friendship over the years.

“More than 400 cities run tram systems. Cities that dismantled their tramways are rebuilding them at great expense in places like Sydney and Helsinki and all over France. Hong Kong runs trams at high frequency on narrow streets,” he says.

But West Bengal transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty told the media: “The population and vehicular count of Kolkata have multiplied several times but the city’s roads have not widened. Road space continues to hover around 6% which is way less than Mumbai’s 18% and Delhi’s 10%.”

Both those cities once had trams. Mumbai had double-decker ones. Both have done away with them, leaving Kolkata as the only Indian city to hold onto the trundling streetcars.

In a way they have become emblematic of the city itself.

The city has other landmarks – the steel Howrah bridge, the white-domed Victoria Memorial monument, the colonial buildings in the city’s centre. But just as London has its iconic red double-decker buses, Kolkata has its trams. The ding-ding sound of the first tram of the day rattling down streets was the alarm clock many in Kolkata woke up to.

They are a familiar sight in films made in the state.

“I have used trams in two of my films and the tram depot as well,” says filmmaker Anjan Dutt.

Mahanagar (1963), by celebrated filmmaker Satyajit Ray, opens with a stunning two-minute-long tram sequence, sparks flying from the overhead cables before the camera moves inside to settle on the protagonist’s tired face as he returns home from work. Here, the tram stands in for the city itself, both its dreams and the daily grind.

In fact, Kolkata’s Belgachia tram depot, once bustling with workmen repairing, maintaining, even building trams, nowadays often doubles as a film set. “Even on a working day I saw films being shot in the workshop,” says Subir Bose, a tram company worker who retired in 2022 after 39 years of service. “A Kolkata film means they have to show a tram.”

Trams are very much part of the history of the city and its sense of itself.

In 1902, Calcutta as it was known then, became the first Asian city with electric trams. Even after independence, the Calcutta Tramways Company was run from London and was listed on the London Stock Exchange till 1968. The cars were built by companies with names like Burn Standard and Jessop.

And it wasn’t just a transportation system. The tram lines knit the city together.

When bloody Hindu-Muslim riots gripped Calcutta during partition in 1947, tram workers patrolled the city in empty trams to help restore normalcy.

“My own father helped save some people from a mob,” says tram driver Gopal Ram. “Tram workers were like a family. It didn’t matter if you were Hindu or Muslim.”

Mr Ram’s great grandfather Antu Ram was a tram employee from the steam-powered days. His grandfather Mahavir and father Jagannath worked for the trams as well. Mr Ram retired recently, the fourth and last generation of his family in Kolkata trams.

In some ways, the mystery is that Kolkata’s trams have survived this long.

“In the 1950s and 60s, during the personal automobile boom, people were getting rid of trams everywhere, not just in India,” says transport consultant Suvendu Seth.

“Now they are making a comeback. The light rail in many cities in the United States is just a newer version of trams. It’s sad that we had it all the time and are neglecting it instead of improving it.”

Mr Seth says that instead of complaining about lack of road space, an innovative solution could be to make some roads open only to pedestrians and trams.

Debashis Bhattacharyya, a retired academic and president of the Calcutta Tram Users Association, thinks trams survived in Kolkata all these years because they connected the city’s schools, hospitals and cinemas.

In the 1990s, as the count of cars and buses increased, the then Communist government in the state called trams “obsolete” and wanted to get rid of them.

“I protested,” says Mr Bhattacharyya. “If trams went, I felt my whole existence was threatened. I did exhibitions, slide shows, brought in foreign experts. The government should be applying for UNESCO heritage status for trams instead of trying to kill it off. ”

Recently, activists have been trying to use culture to save trams.

Since 1996, filmmaker Mahadeb Shi has been organising the Tramjatra festival, often in collaboration with Mr D’Andrea. Art students paint the trams and local bands perform in the streetcars.

Each Tramjatra has a theme, like Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali or the city’s Durga Puja festival.

“Tramjatra helped expose younger people to trams too,” says Shi.

One north Kolkata tram route was reopened recently. The West Bengal Transport Corporation also tried to make trams cool again with special projects like a tram library, an Independence Day special tram and a short-lived Tram World museum.

When Kolkata received a C40 Cities “Green Mobility” award in Copenhagen in 2019, mayor Firhad Hakim said trams were a key part of his vision to make the city’s transportation all-electric by 2030.

But now he seems to have forgotten that pledge. The government admits trams are a “green” mode of transport but says they are investing in other forms instead – electric buses and cars and expanding the underground metro system.

Mr Bhattacharyya says tram routes have been gobbled up by tuk-tuks which generate more employment and votes for the government. The tram depots also sit on valuable real estate the government can sell.

But Shi insists the final bell hasn’t rung yet, as the issue is now with the Calcutta High Court, which formed an advisory committee last year to explore how Kolkata’s tram services can be restored and maintained, with the state awaiting the committee’s report before taking further action.

Mr Bose, the retired tram worker, says the government could have shut down the trams long ago, but that something held it back every time. Perhaps because it too senses what trams mean for the city, he says.

“Three things made Kolkata Kolkata – the Howrah Bridge, the Victoria Memorial and the trams. It’s heart-breaking to think we could be losing one of them.”

How would you like to spend your 80s?

Some gardening, maybe learning a language, a bit of travelling, spending time with the grandchildren.

Or perhaps entering an international beauty contest with the ultimate aim of launching your modelling career on the world stage.

For Choi Soon-hwa, it was a no-brainer.

This week, the 81-year-old took to the stage with women a quarter of her age for Miss Universe South Korea, hoping to make it to the finals in Mexico later this year.

The question, though, is why?

“After raising children and going through hardships, it’s just two people left, and that’s when you need to find what you want to do,” the former hospital worker explained to the BBC shortly after she came off stage.

“Once you find it, it becomes the energy that drives your life, leading to a positive outlook and healthier relationships with people, which in turn helps your well-being.”

For Ms Choi, the thing she wanted to do has been modelling, ever since a patient suggested she take it up at the spritely age of 72.

The comment gave her the confidence to take the leap after several years of financial hardship, which had pushed her and her family to the brink of ruin.

In the years since, she has become a familiar face in South Korea – including walking the runway at fashion week – but launching a career outside the country has proved difficult.

So when Miss Universe, the famed beauty pageant which began nine years after Ms Choi was born, decided to throw out rules banning entrants over the age of 28 earlier this year, she jumped at the chance to take part – making her the oldest ever contestant so far to take part.

“It was something I couldn’t have imagined,” she says. “For several years, I had wished to step onto the international stage as a model.

“However, there was no clear path or guidance for me, but since the Universe competition had no age restriction, I participated with the goal of reaching the global stage.”

The removal of age restrictrions come as the Miss Universe competition has moved towards becoming more diverse in recent years – allowing married women, transgender women and single mothers to take part.

But her entry still caused quite the stir – not least among her competition.

“The participants were surprised to see me, and when they learned I was 80, they expressed admiration, saying, I want to age like you,” she admits.

And it has brought her the international interest she was hoping: Ms Choi has garnered headlines around the world.

What it did not buy was a ticket to Mexico: the Miss Universe South Korea crown went instead to Han Ariel, 22.

Ms Choi didn’t walk away completely empty handed however – but with the title of “Best Dressed”.

“Just being able to participate is an amazing and honourable experience”, she says, adding that she hopes she is the first of many older women to compete for the crown and, by extension, challenge beauty norms.

“Since this is still new, there’s a lot of buzz, but as more seniors participate, perspectives on them will shift, and there will come a time when seniors can compete in world competitions,” she says. “But for now, it’s still time for the young to take the stage.”

And whatever happens next, she knows some of her biggest fans will always be at home in the form of her grandsons, aged 23 and 24.

“My grandchildren cheer me on, saying, ‘Our grandma is so cool, pretty, beautiful, and the best!'”

On a freezing cold November day in 2023, we’re driving up to a school on the outskirts of London. It appears disused and unremarkable – but then a sign reading ‘Truham High’ gives the game away.

This abandoned-looking building is actually the set of Netflix sensation Heartstopper, and on the day we visit, shooting for series three is well under way. The new episodes will be released on 3 October.

Inside, the hustle and bustle you might expect in a school corridor has been replaced with the organised chaos of a film set. The plain school interior is covered with colourful murals painted in the style of Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, which inspired the show.

Mr Ajayai’s art classroom is instantly recognisable.

In the first two series it’s been a safe space for Joe Locke’s character, Charlie, to go to when he’s having a hard time. During our visit he’s joined by Kit Connor, who plays Nick – and the conversation they’re filming looks difficult.

They’re sitting in a corner and speaking in hushed tones.

While the producers are tight-lipped about the detail of what they’re shooting, they do tell us “it’s quite an intense scene”.

They’re protective over how many people are in the room with the actors during more emotional scenes. Dozens of silent crew members are crammed into a room next door, watching intently on monitors while the actors do several takes.

The third series of the show deals with more serious topics than the first two; Charlie’s eating disorder will be a key storyline, and some characters will be having sex for the first time.

“We’ve always said the show grows up with the characters, which is definitely the case this year,” Locke says, speaking to us in a quick break before his next scene.

“The show deals with some more heavy topics like mental health, and growing up, so there’s a lot of ‘teenageness’.”

The show has been praised for showcasing “queer joy” – shining a light on the positive elements of growing up as part of the LGBTQ+ community – but Locke says it feels important to make sure it is still realistic.

“It’s all about authenticity, and trying to make your portrayal of a topic that is quite intense and quite close to people’s hearts as true as possible,” he says.

Connor and Locke joked it was hard getting used to kissing your friend on camera, and with the actors all being so close, they admit some of the more passionate scenes can feel strange to film.

Connor tells us: “When you’re shooting for seven-and-a-half hours as we did [for] a slightly steamier scene, it’s like, what is my job?”

During our visit it’s clear the cast members’ chemistry goes beyond their time on-screen. Throughout our interviews they have in-jokes and gently make fun of each other, which Connor says helps with the more difficult days on set.

“After filming we all just sort of pile into someone’s flat and spend time together, we have a great way of doing it where we don’t talk about work or anything like that,” he says.

“We all just go home, make dinner and criticise each other’s cooking skills.

“[Joe Locke] actually cooked a good chilli this time… last time it was a very, very bad chilli. This time Will, who plays Tao, had seconds… but he will eat anything.”

While the friendships might be real, some of the most iconic locations in the show are actually flat-packed and assembled inside the school, as and when required.

During our visit, Nick’s bedroom is assembled in what would have been the school’s sports hall.

There are no lights as no scenes are planned here today, so we explore using our phone torches instead. Even in the semi-darkness, the attention to detail is clear.

From books about bisexuality, to Polaroid pictures of Nick and Charlie together, they’ve gone to painstaking lengths to make the bedroom a true reflection of the character’s journey throughout the series.

“The fans really notice everything, and have theories about even the tiniest of details… you should see some of the TikToks they make,” a member of the crew tells us.

Just down the corridor from Nick’s flat-pack bedroom is the costume department, where designer Adam Dee says he likes giving mega-fans things to spot.

“If they’ve got a scene with an open wardrobe, [we’ll] sneak in some iconic pieces from previous series so the audience can spot them,” he says.

“With Elle, she has a sewing station in her room, so we managed to add in some bits and pieces to her wardrobe that are made from two other items we’ve sewed together, or vintage scarves we’ve turned into tops.”

Heartstopper was somewhat of a surprise hit for Netflix, and series one launched with very little promotion.

It became one of the top 10 most-watched English-language series within two days of its release and received an almost-unheard-of 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – something many critics have put down to the diverse on-screen representation.

Season three involves some of the show’s older characters turning 16 and starting to have sex.

Yasmin Finney’s character, Elle, who is transgender, will be shown starting a sexual relationship with her on-screen boyfriend Tao (William Gao).

The sex lives of transgender characters are often left out of TV storylines.

Finney tells us: “It’s nice to have that representation of a trans person being able to have those sorts of relationships.

“It’s very sweet and I’m very blessed to be able to deliver that performance with Will.”

In the second series, Tobie Donovan’s character Isaac discovers he is asexual, meaning he experiences little or no sexual attraction. It’s another topic few TV shows have featured.

Donovan tells us he felt he wanted to do “lots of research” to make sure “he was doing justice to this community”.

He added: “There’s been sort of nothing like this on TV before, so I really wanted to make sure I got it right.

“I feel like, from our season two response, people were quite happy that even just to have anyone on screen that’s like a little bit of their story. It’s great for all of us.”

Just before we leave, we catch the show’s executive producer, Patrick Walters, on the set of Mr Ajayai’s classroom.

Walters came up with the idea of turning Alice Oseman’s graphic novels into a TV series after “falling in love” with the books.

The show’s diversity is something he’s particularly proud of.

He says: “It’s amazing to think it is an important show for LGBT youth.

“I like to think young people really see themselves in the characters, and that’s why it connects.”

On Tuesday night, JD Vance and Tim Walz launched attacks on their presidential opponents, sparring over international conflict, the US economy, immigration and abortion rights.

Despite those heated moments – and at least one muted microphone – it was perhaps the most civil debate of the 2024 election campaign. There were even points of common ground between the two men.

Here are some of the most memorable parts of the first and only scheduled TV showdown between the running mates of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

• WHO WON? Anthony Zurcher analyses the showdown
• VOTER PANEL: Midwest voters praise tone of VP debate
• BBC VERIFY: Immigration, Project 2025, taxes – the debate fact-checked
• POLL-TRACKER: Who’s leading the US presidential race?

Abortion rights, a top issue in the 2024 election, sparked one of the longest and most heated exchanges of the night.

It’s an issue Democrats have used to galvanize voters, regularly framing Trump as a threat to women’s autonomy because of his role in appointing a conservative majority to the Supreme Court. The court later overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling that had protected abortion rights in the US for decades.

Walz cited the stories of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two women from Georgia whose deaths were connected to abortion restrictions in their home state.

Vance, meanwhile, said his opinion on the issue had changed. He previously supported some type of national restrictions on abortion, but said his position shifted when he saw the majority of Ohio voters supported access to abortion.

He also said his party had to do “so much better… at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue, where they frankly just don’t trust us”.

Walz had his best moment of the night near the end when the focus shifted to the 6 January 2021 riot and election denialism.

In a tense exchange, Vance refused to say that Trump had lost the 2020 election, prompting some disbelief from Walz who called it a “damning non-answer”.

The moderators also raised Vance’s previous comments that he would not have certified the 2020 election results if he had been vice-president at the time.

Vance maintained his support for Trump, saying the former president had asked demonstrators on the day of the Capitol riot to protest peacefully.

He added that Walz would have his best wishes if the Democrats win the 5 November election, but said there were legitimate questions to raise about voting fraud and security.

Walz said he and his opponent were “miles apart” on the issue of 6 January and election integrity.

Walz and Vance took the stage just hours after Iran launched a missile attack on Israel – whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed retaliation.

The ongoing tensions in the Middle East formed the basis of the first question.

Appearing nervous, Walz stumbled as he repeated Harris’s promise of iron-clad support for Israel.

Vance, meanwhile, reiterated one of Trump’s main talking points: that no new world conflicts broke out during the former president’s time in office.

Neither man would say if they approved of a pre-emptive strike by Israel on Iran.

Immigration was a key topic throughout the 90-minute head-to-head. Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, frequently returned to the issue of the US southern border and immigration – viewed by many voters as a weakness for his opponents.

Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, countered that Trump helped torpedo bipartisan legislation that would have enacted some of the toughest immigration policy in US history.

The discussion ultimately turned tense when Vance was asked about false claims he made about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Vance and Trump previously shared conspiracy theories that illegal migrants were eating pets in the small city.

When a CBS News moderator tried to correct Vance, the Ohio senator spoke over the hosts – who went on to mute his microphone.

Just before the debate, a claim of Walz’s collapsed under scrutiny – that he had been in Hong Kong when the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre occurred in Beijing.

“I’m a knucklehead at times,” Walz said when asked about it on Tuesday night.

The Minnesota governor clarified that he had misspoken, saying he was influenced by the events because he had arrived in China that summer.

Vance also was asked to answer for some past comments, including prior attacks on his running mate, Trump, who he once called “America’s Hitler”.

The Ohio senator said he, like many people, has made mistakes in the past. “I was wrong about Donald Trump,” he said.

The tone was in stark contrast to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s first encounter last month, when insults flew and interruptions were frequent.

Starting off the night with a handshake, both Vance and Walz proceeded to address each other politely and with civility. The two even exchanged smiles periodically, agreeing from time to time with what their rival had said.

They did direct some fire at the top of the ticket, however – Vance taking aim at Harris and Walz at Trump.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?
• POLICIES: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

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

• Tim Walz: Harris’s pick for vice-president
• Donald Trump: A quick guide to the Republican candidate
• Kamala Harris: A quick guide to the Democratic candidate

• JD Vance: Trump’s second in command
• Kamala Harris: A quick guide to the Democratic candidate
• Donald Trump: A quick guide to the Republican candidate

Voters in the US go to the polls on 5 November to elect their next president.

The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The big question now is – will America get its first woman president or a second Donald Trump term?

As election day approaches, we’ll be keeping track of the polls and seeing what effect the campaign has on the race for the White House.

Harris has been ahead of Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July, as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.

The two candidates went head to head in a televised debate in Pennsylvania on 10 September that just over 67 million people tuned in to watch.

A majority of national polls carried out in the week after suggested Harris’s performance had helped her make some small gains, with her lead increasing from 2.5 percentage points on the day of the debate to 3.3 points just over a week later.

That marginal boost was mostly down to Trump’s numbers though. His average had been rising ahead of the debate, but it fell by half a percentage point in the week afterwards.

You can see those small changes in the poll tracker chart below, with the trend lines showing how the averages have changed and the dots showing the individual poll results for each candidate.

While these national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, they’re not necessarily an accurate way to predict the result of the election.

That’s because the US uses an electoral college system, in which each state is given a number of votes roughly in line with the size of its population. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs, so a candidate needs to hit 270 to win.

There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states or swing states.

• What is the electoral college?

Right now, the polls are very tight in the seven states considered battlegrounds in this election with just one or two percentage points separating the candidates.

That includes Pennsylvania, which is key as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven states and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in these seven states.

One thing to note is that there are fewer state polls than national polls being carried out at the moment so we have less data to go on and every poll has a margin of error that means the numbers could be higher or lower.

But looking at the trends since Harris joined the race does help highlight the states in which she seems to be in a stronger position, according to the polling averages.

In the chart below you can see that Harris has been leading in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin since the start of August.

All three had all been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same this year then she will be on course to win the election.

The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collects the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.

As part of its quality control, 538 only includes polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).

You can read more about the 538 methodology here.

At the moment, the polls suggest that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are within a couple of percentage points of each other in swing states – and when the race is that close, it’s very hard to predict winners.

Polls underestimated support for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Polling companies will be trying to fix that problem in a number of ways, including how to make their results reflect the make-up of the voting population.

Those adjustments are difficult to get right and pollsters still have to make educated guesses about other factors like who will actually turn up to vote on 5 November.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Harris goads Trump into flustered performance
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• IMMIGRATION: Could Trump really deport a million migrants?
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger or weaker under Trump?
• Read more about: Kamala Harris | Donald Trump | US election

Players from Pakistan have been dominating the professional Tekken scene – but the game’s director says he has no idea how it got so big in the country.

First launched 30 years ago, the Japan-developed fighting game released its eighth numbered instalment at the start of this year.

The competitive Tekken scene used to be ruled by players from the Far East, but the current top ten contains four players from Pakistan.

Speaking at a recent tournament, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada told BBC Asian Network the dominance of pros from the country “came out of nowhere”.

Tekken is a 3D beat ’em up where players fight each other in one-on-one bouts in best-of-three matches.

Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique became an overnight superstar on the competitive circuit when he claimed victory in the 2019 EVO fighting game tournament.

He went on to win the coveted title four more times, earning him all-timer status in the eyes of many fans.

Arslan, 29, is currently ranked 10th in the world after an early exit from the Red Bull Golden Letters Tournament in London, but fellow Pakistani pro Atif Butt holds the second spot in the world list.

It’s clear that the country’s become a force on the global stage, but the game’s director still isn’t sure how it got there.

“We never knew they were playing Tekken,” Harada-san says.

“Even now we’ve never been to Pakistan, so I’m still quite interested to hear why they became so obsessed with Tekken and so good at the game.”

The game’s producer Michael Murray tells Asian Network that he “loved it when Arslan came on the scene”.

“No-one knew him,” he says.

“Then out of nowhere someone no-one’s talking about comes along and you find this other community and then Arslan says it’s not just him.

“He says they’re all strong in Pakistan, and everyone’s like ‘what?’

“It was just such an amazing story and I still remember how exciting it was to hear that.”

At the recent contest in London, Lim “Ulsan” Soo-hoon from South Korea won first place, beating Jae-hyun “CherryBerryMango” Kim in the grand final.

They were joined by players from the USA, Japan and Europe, demonstrating the global popularity of Tekken.

Harada-san has been working on the series for 30 years, and says the competitive scene really kicked off around the release of Tekken 7.

He tells Asian Network his mother cried when he first told her he wanted to pursue a career in video games, but now his family is “quite proud” when they see him in magazines.

“They’re like, ‘wow, you’re actually doing something with it, that’s good,” he says.

Harada-san says he’s glad Tekken “has continued for a long time and we’ve been able to come this far”.

But he does confess to being “a bit sad” that it’s the “only remaining major 3D fighting game franchise”.

“It would be more interesting if there were other rivals, right?” he says.

TV and Broadway star Gavin Creel has died from a “rare and aggressive” cancer at the age of 48, his publicist Matt Polk has announced.

Creel was best known as a stage star in shows such as Hello Dolly! opposite Bette Midler, which earned him a Tony award in 2017.

He played Cornelius Hackl opposite Midler in the titular role.

Midler paid tribute on Instagram, describing Creel as a “radiant actor… he was fantastic. I can’t believe he’s gone. What a loss.”

Creel also starred in the West End, picking up a prestigious Olivier award for best actor in a musical in 2014 for his turn as Elder Price in The Book Of Mormon, a role he went on to play on Broadway.

British star Hannah Waddingham said she was “shaken to my core” following his death.

“I’ve just had to sit down. I keep re-reading his name thinking everyone’s got it wrong. Not this man, not this beautiful, smiley, talented man,” she posted on X.

“The absolute real deal, talent pouring out of every pore. I’m heartbroken you’ve gone Gavin. I hope to see you again my friend.”

Actor, producer and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda also paid tribute to Creel, who was cast as his first King George III when hit musical Hamilton was at the early workshop stage.

“Gavin Creel was our first King when all we had was 11 songs and he wrapped the audience around his finger with nothing but a Burger King crown and his mind-blowing charisma and talent,” he wrote on Instagram.

“He is so loved and it is unimaginable that he’s no longer with us.

“My heart goes out to all the friends and family and collaborators lucky enough to be in his orbit.”

Frozen star’s Idina Menzel and Josh Gad also posted tribute on social media.

Creel’s first major Broadway role was as Jimmy Smith, opposite fellow newcomer Sutton Foster, in a revival of Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002, which landed him his first Tony nomination for best leading actor in a musical.

“My sweet friend. I will love you forever,” Foster said in a post on Instagram.

Creel also played Claude Hooper Bukowski in the 2009 revival of Hair on Broadway.

He made his West End debut in 2006 as Bert in Mary Poppins and reprised his role in the West End transfer of Hair in 2010.

Other roles included Dr Pomatter in Sara Bareilles’ musical Waitress on Broadway in 2019, a role he took to the West End a year later.

Creel’s TV career included a two-episode stint in Ryan Murphy’s miniseries American Horror Stories, opposite Matt Bomer in 2021.

He also appeared opposite Dame Julie Andrews in TV movies Eloise At The Plaza and Eloise At Christmastime in the early 2000s.

The star also co-founded Broadway Impact, a grassroots organisation aimed at mobilising the theatre community to support marriage equality.

He was born in Findlay, Ohio and was a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music.

Creel’s publicist said there will be a small private gathering for the family and a celebration of his life will be held for the theatre community at a date yet to be announced.

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers, caused by climate change.

Part of the area affected will be beneath the Matterhorn, one of Europe’s tallest mountains, and close to a number of popular ski resorts.

Large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are determined by glacier ridgelines or areas of perpetual snow, but melting glaciers have caused these natural boundaries to shift, leading to both countries seeking to rectify the border.

Switzerland officially approved the agreement on the change on Friday, but Italy is yet to do the same. This follows a draft agreement by a joint Swiss-Italian commission back in May 2023.

Statistics published last September showed that Switzerland’s glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second biggest loss ever after 2022’s record melt of 6%.

An annual report is issued each year by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), which attributed the record losses to consecutive very warm summers, and 2022 winter’s very low snowfall. Researchers say that if these weather patterns continue, the thaw will only accelerate.

On Friday, Switzerland said that the redefined borders had been drawn up in accordance with the economic interests of both parties.

It is thought that clarifying the borders will help both countries determine which is responsible for the upkeep of specific natural areas.

Swiss-Italian boundaries will be changed in the region of Plateau Rosa, the Carrel refuge and Gobba di Rollin – all are near the Matterhorn and popular ski resorts including Zermatt.

The exact border changes will be implemented and the agreement published once both countries have signed it.

Switzerland says that the approval process for signing the agreement is under way in Italy.

Last year, Glamos warned that some Swiss glaciers are shrinking so fast that it is unlikely they can be saved, even if global temperatures are kept within the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5C target rise.

Experts say that without a reduction in greenhouse gases linked to global warning, bigger glaciers like the Aletsch – which is not on the border – could disappear within a generation.

A number of discoveries have been made on Swiss glaciers in recent years due to their melting and rapid shrinking.

Last July, human remains found close to Matterhorn were confirmed to be those of a German climber missing since 1986.

Climbers crossing the Theodul glacier above Zermatt noticed a hiking boot and crampons emerging from the ice.

In 2022, the wreckage of a plane that crashed in 1968 emerged from the Aletsch glacier.

And the body of missing British climber Jonathan Conville was discovered in 2014 by a helicopter pilot who spotted something unusual while delivering supplies to a mountain refuge on the Matterhorn.

A judge in Georgia has struck down the state’s abortion law that has prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy since it took effect in 2022.

Georgia’s Life Act was fully nullified by Judge Robert McBurney’s decision, meaning that the state must now allow abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

The judge wrote in his order that “liberty in Georgia” includes “the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices”.

Georgia passed the Life Act in 2019 but it only came into force in 2022, after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and opened the door for state bans.

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective filed the original lawsuit with other plaintiffs in 2019, shortly after Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, signed the act into law.

When Judge McBurney reviewed the case in 2022, he struck down the law, ruling that it violated the US Constitution.

The Georgia Supreme Court later took up the case, however, and allowed the six-week limit to stand.

The case has since returned to Judge McBurney, who found this time that it violated the state constitution after a review “of our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty'”.

“[D]oes a Georgian’s right to liberty of privacy encompass the right to make personal healthcare decisions? Plainly it does,” the judge wrote in his decision.

Gov Kemp’s office criticised the judge’s ruling on Monday.

“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge,” Garrison Douglas, Kemp’s spokesperson, said in a statement.

“Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn.”

This ruling could affect more than just Georgians, however.

It could open up abortion access in the US South, where several Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed laws that have severely limited access to abortion procedures.

These laws have meant people in the region sometimes travel hundreds of miles to states like North Carolina, Kansas and Illinois for legal abortions.

Judge McBurney noted the danger a six-week limit could have on women in his order, writing that “for many women, their pregnancy was unintended, unexpected, and often unknown until well after the embryonic heartbeat began”.

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women, called the ruling “a significant step in the right direction”.

“We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy. At the same time, we can’t forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long – and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.”

Thurman and Miller were named in a pair of ProPublica reports that found their deaths were connected to Georgia’s abortion ban. Their cases have been highlighted by Vice-President Kamala Harris, who has made reproductive rights a centerpiece of her campaign for the White House.

Three people died and 15 others were injured after a man went on a stabbing rampage inside a Walmart supermarket in Shanghai on Monday night.

Chinese police said they arrested a 37-year-old man surnamed Lin at the scene, adding that he had come to Shanghai to “vent his anger due to a personal economic dispute”. Further investigations are continuing.

The incident took place at a shopping mall in Songjiang, a densely populated district in the city’s south-west, which is also home to several universities.

Police said the three people who died succumbed to their injuries at hospital. The others “did not sustain life-threatening wounds” and are not believed to be in danger.

“There was blood everywhere,” an eyewitnes surnamed Shi told BBC News.

Mr Shi, who runs a jewellery store at the ground floor of the Ludu International Commercial Plaza, said dozens of firefighters and special weapons and tactics (SWAT) officers entered the mall, and asked people to evacuate.

“I didn’t know what was happening, but suddenly, I saw people running in a panic,” he said.

“No one had ever experienced something like this, and we weren’t mentally prepared for it… This kind of random incident is terrifying and unsettling,” he said, adding that he had “narrowly escaped” death.

Discussions about the incident now appear to have been censored on Chinese social media.

The supermarket was open for business on Tuesday but with additional security.

Firearms are banned in China but the country has seen a spate of knife attacks in recent months.

Last month, a 10-year-old Japanese student died a day after he was stabbed near his school in southern China.

In June this year, four US college instructors were stabbed in a public park in the northeast city of Jilin. In May, a man stabbed dead two people and wounded 21 others at a hospital in the southern province of Yunnan.

A Chinese woman has been arrested in Leipzig on suspicion of passing information about Leipzig/Halle airport, which is used as a key transport hub for the German defence industry, to Chinese intelligence.

German prosecutors said that Yaqi X, 38, had been working for a company providing logistics services at the airport.

Prosecutors said she had repeatedly sent details on flights, passengers and military cargo transport to another figure who worked for China’s secret services. The airport is considered an important centre for defence exports, particularly to Ukraine.

A second suspect, Jian G, was detained earlier this year.

He had worked as an aide for a member of the European Parliament from Germany’s far-right AfD party.

Yaqi X was remanded in custody and her home and workplace searched.

Between August 2023 and February 2024, prosecutors allege she had given Jian G information on the transport of military equipment and people linked to an unnamed German arms company.

German sources told public broadcaster ARD that the defence company involved was Rheinmetall, Germany’s biggest defence firm which has been heavily involved in supplying Ukraine with weapons, armoured vehicles and military equipment.

Yaqi X’s case appears to be linked to a spying case that unfolded last April involving parliamentary aide Jian G.

The MEP he had worked for, Maximilian Krah, dismissed Jian G as his assistant. Krah’s office in Brussels was searched by police, although there was no indication that he was involved.

Jian G was alleged to have spied on Chinese dissidents in Germany as well as passing information on the European Parliament to Chinese intelligence.

He had previously worked for dissident groups and had taken up German citizenship after coming to Germany in 2002.

The Middle East is once again on the brink of a deep and damaging war between two protagonists that have been facing off against each other for much of the past 45 years. This is now one of the most dangerous moments for the entire region.

Iran, which became an Islamic Republic after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, has long vowed to destroy the state of Israel, which it calls the “Zionist regime”. Israel accuses Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of spreading violence across the Middle East through its allies and proxies, a view shared by several Arab governments.

Israel is poised to retaliate against Iran for Tuesday’s volley of ballistic missiles, some of which penetrated Israel’s air defences.

Iran says that was in response to two assassinations by Israel – of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

So what happens next?

Both Israel and its closest ally, the US, have vowed to punish Iran for launching 180 missiles at Israel. “Iran,” says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, “will pay a heavy price.”

• Follow live updates on this story
• Watch: Video shows Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Explained: What we know about Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Explained: What is Israel’s Iron Dome missile system and how does it work?
• On the ground: First came the alert message, then the boom of interceptions

The restraint that Israel’s allies urged on it the last time there was a standoff like this in April is more muted this time. And given Israel’s determination to take on all its enemies at once – in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Syria – the Netanyahu government seems to be in no mood to hold back.

Israeli planners will likely now be debating not if and when to hit Iran, but how hard.

Aided by US satellite intelligence and by Mossad (Israel’s overseas spy agency) human agents on the ground in Iran, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has a wide range of targets to choose from. These can broadly be divided into three categories:

• Conventional military – An early and obvious target will be the bases from which Iran launched those ballistic missiles. So that means launch pads, command-and-control centres, refuelling tanks and storage bunkers. It could go further and hit bases belonging to the IRGC as well as air defences and other missile batteries. It could even try to assassinate key individuals involved in Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
• Economic – This would include Iran’s most vulnerable state assets – its petrochemical plants, its power generation and possibly its shipping interests. This, however, would be a deeply unpopular move in Iran as it would end up hurting ordinary people’s lives far more than any attack on the military.
• Nuclear – This is the big one for Israel. It is a known fact, established by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, that Iran is enriching uranium well beyond the 20% needed for civil nuclear power. Israel, and others, suspect Iran of trying to reach “breakout point” where it is within a very short timescale of being able to build a nuclear bomb. Sites on Israel’s possible target list include Parchin, the epicentre of Iran’s military nuclear programme, research reactors at Tehran, Bonab and Ramsar, as well as major facilities at Bushehr, Natanz, Isfahan and Ferdow.

A large part of their calculations will involve trying to second guess Iran’s response in turn and how to mitigate it. The Iranian position is that after launching those missiles at what it says were Israeli military targets on Tuesday the score is now settled. But it is warning that if Israel retaliates it will hit back in turn.

“This is only a glimpse of our capabilities,” said Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian. The IRGC reinforced this message, stating: “If the Zionist regime responds to Iran’s operations, it will face crushing attacks.”

Iran cannot defeat Israel militarily. Its air force is old and decrepit, its air defences are porous and it has had to contend with years of Western sanctions.

But it still has an enormous quantity of ballistic and other missiles as well as explosive-laden drones and numerous allied proxy militias around the Middle East. Its next volley of missiles could well target Israeli residential areas, rather than military bases. The attack by an Iran-backed militia on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in 2019 showed just how vulnerable its neighbours are to attack.

The IRGC Navy, which operates in the Gulf, has large flotillas of small, fast missile attack boats which could, potentially, overwhelm the defences of a US Navy 5th Fleet warship in a swarm attack. If it had orders to do so, it could attempt to sow mines in the Strait of Hormuz, interrupting the flow of up to 20% of the world’s daily oil exports, something that would have a major impact on the global economy.

And then there are all the US military bases, dotted up and down the Arabian side of the Gulf, from Kuwait to Oman. Iran has given warning that if it is attacked it won’t just hit back at Israel, it will target any country it perceives as supporting that attack.

These then, are just some of the scenarios that defence planners in Tel Aviv and Washington will now be considering.

Iran launched almost 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel on Tuesday night.

The Israeli military said most of the missiles were intercepted, but that a small number struck central and southern Israel. The only person reported to have been killed was a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank.

It was Iran’s second such attack on Israel this year, after it launched about 300 missiles and drones in April.

Here’s what we know so far.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the attack involved more than 180 missiles, which tallied with Iranian state media reports saying that about 200 missiles were launched.

The US said the attack was “nearly twice the scope” of what happened in April.

Sirens sounded as Israel’s entire 10 million population was told to head into bomb shelters at about 19:30 local time (16:30 GMT) on Tuesday.

Social media videos verified by the BBC showed missiles flying over the densely populated cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem less than 15 minutes later. Explosions could be heard overhead as air defences intercepted the incoming missiles.

The footage also showed several missiles hitting areas around the Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert and the headquarters of the Mossad spy agency near Tel Aviv.

“There were a small number of hits in the centre of Israel, and other hits in southern Israel,” said IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari. “The majority of the incoming missiles were intercepted by Israel and a defensive coalition led by the United States.”

Iranian state media cited the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) as saying the missiles hit Nevatim, Hatzerim and Tel Nof airbases, as well as Israeli tanks in Netzarim – a reference to an Israeli military corridor in central Gaza – and gas installations in the southern city of Ashkelon.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said Iran had for the first time used Fattah hypersonic missiles that it claimed “cannot be intercepted”, as well as Emad and Qadr ballistic missiles.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Video shows Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• First came the alert message, then the boom of interceptions
• US says it helped Israel shoot down Iran missiles
• UK forces involved in response to Iran attacks on Israel

Israeli authorities are still assessing the damage caused by the night-time attack.

Just north of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, close to the Mossad’s headquarters, a BBC correspondent found several badly damaged cars and a pile of earth next to a road where a missile impact was said to have caused a crater between 8m and 10m deep.

The nearby municipality of Hod HaSharon also said about 100 houses were damaged by a missile explosion and shrapnel.

And a video released by the IDF showed the head of its Home Front Command visiting a school that was hit by a missile in the Gedera area, just to the east of Ashkelon, causing extensive damage to a classroom.

The Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying that missiles that targeted Nevatim airbase caused minor damage. However, the IDF declined to comment, saying it would not provide information that would help Iran understand the effectiveness of its attack.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service paramedics treated two people with light injuries from shrapnel in the Tel Aviv area, as well as some people with minor injuries caused by falling as they moved to shelters.

However, the Palestinian Civil Defence authority said a Palestinian man was killed when he was hit by a falling missile fragment in the West Bank city of Jericho.

CCTV footage showed the rear half of a large, black missile plummeting directly on to a man as he walks along a road at night. It was not clear if the missile had been intercepted.

The New York Times identified him as Sameh al-Asali, a 37-year-old Palestinian construction worker from Gaza who had been sheltering in Jericho since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas last October.

The IDF has not provided details about how the missiles were intercepted, besides saying that Israeli and US-led forces were involved.

It also did not say exactly how many were shot down or landed. The IDF previously claimed that 99% of the Iranian projectiles launched in April’s attack were intercepted.

Israel has a sophisticated system of air defences, the best-known of which is the Iron Dome. It is designed to intercept short-range rockets of the sort fired by Hamas and Hezbollah.

While it was used to defend against some elements of Iran’s last attack in April, other elements of the country’s “layered” defence systems probably did the bulk of the work on Tuesday.

David’s Sling – a joint US-Israeli manufactured system – is used to intercept medium to long-range rockets, as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. And when it comes to long-range ballistic missiles, which fly outside the Earth’s atmosphere, Israel has the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors.

The Pentagon said two US Navy destroyers deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean fired a dozen interceptors as part of the efforts to defend Israel, but that it was not known whether they took down any of the missiles.

UK Defence Secretary John Healey said British forces had “played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation”. But the BBC understands that British military jets did not shoot down any Iranian missiles.

Verified footage also showed missile interceptions over the Jordanian capital, Amman. The Arab kingdom’s forces also shot down a number of missiles during Iran’s last attack in April.

• How do Israel’s air defence systems work?

The IRGC said in a statement that the missile barrage was retaliation for what it called the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty and the martyrdom” of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by an explosion in Tehran in July that Iranian officials blamed on Israel, but Israeli officials did not claim.

The statement described the barrage as having been “in line with the legitimate right of the nation to defend itself”.

It also said the attack was in response to the Israeli air strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut last Friday that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Brig-Gen Abbas Nilforoushan, the operations commander of the IRGC’s overseas arm, the Quds Force.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters news agency the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had personally given the order for Tuesday’s missile attack.

The escalation also came hours after Israeli troops began an invasion of southern Lebanon to remove what the military said were “Hezbollah terror targets” in border villages that posed a threat to residents of northern Israel.

Israel has gone on the offensive against the Shia Islamist political and military organisation after almost a year of cross-border hostilities sparked by the war with Hamas in Gaza. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran and designated as terrorist organisations by Israel, the US, UK and others.

Iran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and seeks its eradication. It has spent years building a network of armed groups across the Middle East, known as the “Axis of Resistance”, which are opposed to Israel and the US.

Israel believes that Iran poses an existential threat and has spent years engaged in a shadow war with Iran that has is now increasingly out in the open.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday night that Iran’s missile attack “failed”, having been “thwarted thanks to Israel’s air defence array”.

“Iran made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it,” he added. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies.”

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also vowed vengeance.

“Iran has not learned a simple lesson – those who attack the state of Israel pay a heavy price,” he said in a statement.

US President Joe Biden reaffirmed US support for Israel after the missile attack, describing it as “defeated and ineffective”.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also condemned what he called “this outrageous act of aggression by Iran”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the UK stood with Israel and recognised her “right to self-defence”.

France and Japan also condemned Iran’s attack, but also called on all parties to avoid further escalation.

The US told Israel before the attack that it had intelligence indicating that Iran was preparing to launch ballistic missiles imminently, which allowed the IDF to warn Israeli civilians to be prepared to seek shelter.

However, US officials said after the attack that they had received no warning from the Iranian government.

Iran’s mission to the UN also said in a statement: “No notice was given to the United States prior to our response.”

The Wall Street Journal citing Arab officials in the region as saying that Iran “telegraphed” to Arab countries on Monday night that it was going to launch an attack similar in scale to April’s.

The officials also said Israel had sent clear messages back to Iran that it would respond to any attack on Israeli territory with a strikes that targeted Iranian nuclear or oil facilities.

The IDF’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said: “We will choose when to exact the price and demonstrate our precise and surprising offensive capabilities, in accordance with the directive of the political echelon.”

Axos cited Israeli officials as saying that Israel’s response would be “significant” and that it could target oil production facilities inside Iran and other strategic sites.

Some analysts suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities could also be targeted.

President Biden said the US was “fully supportive of Israel” and that he would discuss a response with Israel’s prime minister.

The IRGC warned that Iran’s response would be “crushing” if Israel dared to retaliate.

Israel responded to April’s attack by launching a missile that hit an air defence battery at an Iranian airbase, following Western calls for restraint.

The United Nations secretary general has condemned Iranian strikes on Israel, after earlier being banned from the country for his initial response.

Speaking to the UN Security Council, António Guterres said it was high time to stop what he called the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence” in the Middle East.

In an earlier statement, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared Guterres persona non grata and an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists”.

The comments were issued in response to Guterres initially calling for a ceasefire, but not specifically mentioning the Iran attack.

Addressing the council, the UN secretary general said he had condemned the attack in April, and “as should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed, I again strongly condemn yesterday’s massive missile attack by Iran on Israel”.

“These attacks paradoxically do not seem to support the cause of the Palestinian people, or reduce their suffering,” he said.

He also criticised Israel’s actions in the region, calling the military campaign in Gaza “the most deadly and destructive military campaign in my years as secretary general”.

On Tuesday, Iran launched about 180 ballistic missiles into Israel, with Israel saying most of them were intercepted.

In a statement after the attack on social media site X, formerly Twitter, Guterres said he condemned “the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation”.

Prior to Guterres remarks to the UN Security Council, Katz said in a statement that anyone who “cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil”.

He specifically criticised Guterres for “his anti-Israel policy since the beginning of the war”.

Tuesday’s attack by Iran is the latest in a series of escalations, starting almost a year ago with attacks on Israel by Hamas, and recently involving increased fighting between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.

• Live: Latest news on Israel and Hezbollah
• Explained: What to know about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict
• Analysis: What might Hezbollah, Israel and Iran do next?
• Watch: Explosions seen on Israel-Lebanon border
• Bowen: Israel claims its biggest victory yet against Hezbollah

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas gunmen, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Since the attack, a military campaign in Gaza has now killed a total of 41,689 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Over the course of the conflict, there have been a number of clashes between Israel and the United Nations about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

There has also been friction between Israel and the UN over the role of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

In January, Israel alleged that a number of the agency’s staff members had been involved in the 7 October attacks.

In response to this, the agency launched an investigation – with a number of its international funders withdrawing support for it, before later reinstating it. In August, nine staff members were dismissed over potential involvement in the attacks.

During the conflict, UNRWA has criticised Israel for air strikes in Gaza which have killed its staff members.

Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz felt like a civil and relatively restrained conversation about the issues at the top of American voters’ minds going into the 5 November election.

In that, it was unlike the two presidential debates earlier this year.

The two men spent much more time attacking the other’s running mate than each other during 90-plus minutes on the CBS News stage in New York.

Walz had a shaky start but hit his stride when talking about abortion and the Capitol riot.

But the even-tempered, policy-focused debate, with few political body blows, probably served Vance – a polished public speaker – best in the end.

If Vance was picked because he puts ideological meat on the bones of Trump’s conservative populism, on Tuesday night he put a polite, humble face on them, as well.

“Something these guys do is they make a lot of claims about if Donald Trump becomes president, all of these terrible consequences are going to ensue,” he said. “But in reality, Donald Trump was president. Inflation was low. Take-home pay was higher.”

• Debate claims fact-checked
• Six key takeaways from the debate
• Vance refuses to answer whether Trump lost 2020 election
• Walz says he ‘misspoke’ in personal story about Tiananmen Square

There were moments when the Republican candidate bristled at what he thought was unfair fact-checking from the two CBS moderators, and at one point microphones of both candidates were temporarily muted.

But for the most part, the exchanges on stage were even-tempered.

And there were several moments when the two men agreed on issues – and said so.

“There’s a lot of commonality here,” Walz said toward the end of the evening.

When Walz spoke of his 17-year-old son witnessing a shooting at a community center, Vance seemed genuinely concerned.

“I’m sorry about that and I hope he’s doing OK,” he said. “Christ have mercy, it is awful.”

The most vigorous disagreements came toward the end of the debate, on the topic of Trump’s repeated and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Vance, when asked if Trump lost the last presidential election, dodged the question and criticised what he said was Kamala Harris’s censorship.

Walz quickly noted that it was a “damning non-answer”.

“To deny what happened on January 6, the first time an American president or anyone tried to overturn an election, this has got to stop,” he said. “It’s tearing our country apart.”

Walz went on to say that the only reason Mike Pence, Trump’s previous vice-president, was not on stage was because he certified President Joe Biden’s victory.

Vance had no answer to that, highlighting that beyond his friendly demeanour and agreeability, he would not break from Trump’s position.

Vance and Walz entered this debate with different skill sets. Vance has sparred with journalists on television in heated exchanges. Walz is at home on the campaign stump, using his folksy style in contrast to more polished politicians.

In the early part of this debate, with both candidates standing behind podiums in a New York City television studio, Vance seemed much more comfortable. His answers were smooth, and relentlessly on-message, constantly reminding the audience that for all of Vice-President Harris’s promises, Democrats have held the White House for the past three and a half years.

“If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle class problems, then she ought to do them now,” he said.

Walz, for his part, seemed halting and unsure on the opening topic, dealing with Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack on Israel and if the candidates would support an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran. The Minnesota governor rarely talks about foreign policy, and his discomfort on the subject was apparent.

• A quick guide to JD Vance
• A quick guide to Tim Walz

The Democrat settled in as the debate moved along, and during his exchanges with Vance on the topic of immigration – an area of strength for the Republicans – both delivered well-honed messages.

Vance deflected accusations that he amplified false claims about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in Ohio.

“The people I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives ruined by Kamala Harris’s border policies,” he said.

Vance said undocumented migration burdens city resources, drives up prices and pushes down wages.

Walz pointed to Trump’s opposition to proposed bipartisan immigration legislation earlier this year.

“I believe Senator Vance wants to solve this, but by standing with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point, and when it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanise and villainise other human beings.”

• What voters made of VP debate
• Listen: The Americast team analyse Vance v Walz
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump winning?

When the topic turned to abortion rights – an area of strength for Democrats, according to polls – it was Vance who played defence, acknowledging that Republicans had to do more to earn the trust of American voters.

“I want us as a Republican Party to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” he said. “I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies. There’s so much we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options.”

Walz countered by saying that the Democratic view on abortion was simple: “We are pro-women. We are pro-freedom to make your own choice.”

If Walz was more pointed on abortion, he declined to push his attacks when the subject turned to gun control.

After Vance said that it was important to increase security in schools, making doors and windows “stronger”, Walz talked up background checks rather than endorsing Democratic calls for bans on assault weapons and other limitations on firearms.

As a congressman, Walz regularly voted in favour of gun rights and against many gun control measures, winning the praise of the pro-gun National Rifle Association. During the debate, he said his views on gun control changed after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, but some Democrats may be disappointed he did not press Vance more on Tuesday night.

American political history suggests that vice-presidential debates don’t really matter.

In 1988, Democrat Lloyd Bentsen dismantled Republican Dan Quayle. A few months later, Quayle was sworn in as vice-president after his ticket won in a landslide.

It may turn out that this debate is similarly irrelevant to November’s results. Unless there is a last-minute debate announced, however, it will be the last word both parties have on a debate stage before election day.

Walz did no harm to the Democratic ticket and showed some of the Midwestern charm that made him Harris’s choice.

But Vance’s strong performance is likely to buoy Republicans in the days ahead.

And the debate’s lasting impact may be to convince members of his party that the Ohio senator – who is only 40 – has a future in national conservative politics, given his ability to clearly advance their ideological priorities on the brightest of stages.

SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election

FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?

POLICIES: What Harris or Trump would do in power

POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

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

The release of a blockbuster Pakistani film has been put on hold in India after officials in Delhi refused to give permission for its screening, the BBC has learnt.

A remake of a 1979 Punjabi film, The Legend of Maula Jatt, is the highest ever grossing film in Pakistan.

The movie was set to release in the northern Indian state of Punjab on Wednesday, which would have made it the first Pakistani film to hit Indian screens in more than a decade.

The South Asian neighbours share a frosty relationship and tensions often affect cultural exchanges between them.

On Wednesday, a source close to Zee Studios – the film’s distributor in India – confirmed to the BBC that its release had been stalled indefinitely, after the information and broadcasting ministry denied them permission.

It’s not immediately clear why the film was put on hold. The BBC has contacted the ministry for comment.

Starring Pakistan’s biggest stars Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan, the 2022 film tells the story of a local folk hero who takes on the leader of a rival clan.

The film was initially supposed to release in India in 2022, but its screening was postponed indefinitely – until last month when its maker Bilal Lashari announced it would hit Indian theatres soon.

“Two years in, and still house full on weekends in Pakistan! Now, I can’t wait for our Punjabi audience in India to experience the magic of this labour of love!” he wrote on Instagram.

However, the news sparked protests in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, where the regional Maharashtra Navnirman Sena political party said it would not allow the film’s release “under any circumstances”. Mumbai, which is located in the state, is home to Bollywood, India’s largest film industry.

Following tensions, Zee Studios decided to limit the film’s release to Punjab state, which shares a border and language with Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Despite tense relations, Indian and Pakistan have always shared an affinity for each other’s art and culture.

Movies and web series made in India and Pakistan travel widely across the border. India’s Bollywood and Punjabi movies are particularly popular in Pakistan, while Pakistani series enjoy a large viewership in India.

Performers in both the countries also have a history of cross-border collaborations, working together on film and music projects.

But such collaborations came to a halt when Bollywood dropped Pakistani actors in 2016 and Pakistan banned Indian movies in 2019, over military tensions between the countries.

A few Punjabi movies from India have been screened in Pakistan in recent months.

In 2023, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a petition that sought a complete ban on performers from Pakistan, asking the petitioners to not to be “so narrow minded”.

Encouraged by this mild thaw in relations and Maula Jatt’s global success, its makers had hoped the folk drama would attract audiences in India.

The leading actors of Maula Jatt are well-known in India for starring in popular Pakistani dramas. They have also previously appeared in big-budget Bollywood films.

UK forces were involved in supporting Israel after Iran launched ballistic missiles on the country, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey, who was in Cyprus to visit military personnel, said British forces had “played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation” on Tuesday, later adding that RAF jets were ready to engage with Iranian targets but “didn’t need to do so”.

The BBC understands British military jets did not shoot down any Iranian ballistic missiles nor did the Royal Navy Destroyer, HMS Duncan, fire any of her Sea Viper missiles.

In April RAF Typhoon jets based in Cyprus shot down Iranian drones but they are not equipped to track and shoot down ballistic missiles.

Healey said RAF Typhoons were in the air when Iran began its attack on Tuesday night, saying it was “part of the wider effort to prevent further escalation and to show the UK steadfast support for Israel’s right to self defence and to security.”

When asked why the Typhoons did not engage with targets, he said it was because the nature of the attack was different compared with April and that Israel’s own defence dealt with the “massive attack”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the UK “stands with Israel” and recognises its right to self-defence.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had launched the missiles in retaliation for recent attacks that killed the leaders of the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups, as well as a senior Iranian commander.

Israel said most of the 180 missiles fired were intercepted.

Mark Savill, military sciences director at the UK defence think tank RUSI, said RAF Typhoon jets are “not well-equipped to shoot down ballistic missiles”.

“It’s possible the UK instead provided intelligence, surveillance or other tracking data,” he said.

Healey thanked British personnel involved for their courage and professionalism.

“The UK stands fully behind Israel’s right to defend its country and its people against threats.”

Healey is meeting some of the British personnel who are in Cyprus preparing for the possibility of evacuating British nationals from Lebanon.

Britons in Lebanon have been advised to register their presence with officials on the government’s website and a UK-chartered plane left Beirut on Wednesday.

The defence secretary said: “We’ve been booking extra seats on commercial flights that are still leaving Beirut airport, and today, we’ve also booked the first special chartered commercial flight out, so those who are wanting to leave and ready to leave and responding to our government urging to leave, can do so and continue to do so.”

But some told the BBC they had received no confirmation or details about their booking on the government-chartered flight, despite paying for a seat.

British citizen Libby, 25, was about to board a commercial flight from Beirut to Cairo on Wednesday morning, and described the situation in the Lebanese capital as “terrifying”.

“You can’t sleep because you can hear the Israeli drones over your head, you wake up in the night because you hear strikes,” she told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

In April British jets shot down a number of drones fired at Israel from Iran.

The drones were intercepted in Syrian and Iraqi airspace, where the RAF was already operating as part of the Operation Shader mission against the Islamic State group.

The decision to use jets in April was taken by the previous Conservative government and supported at the time and since by Sir Keir.

Sir Keir used the address from Downing Street to condemn Iran’s attack on Israel, saying he was “deeply concerned that the region is on the brink”.

“We stand with Israel and we recognise her right to self-defence in the face of this aggression,” he said.

Calling on Iran to stop its attacks, he added: “Together with its proxies like Hezbollah, Iran has menaced the Middle East for far too long, chaos and destruction brought not just to Israel, but to the people they live amongst in Lebanon and beyond.

“Make no mistake, Britain stands full square against such violence. We support Israel’s reasonable demand for the security of its people.”

Sir Keir was on the phone to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu when the Iranian attacks began.

The two men had been speaking for around 15 minutes – about the prospect of missiles being fired by Tehran – when Netanyahu had to abandon the call because he had been told the attacks were under way.

During their call, Sir Keir also underlined the importance of a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza.

Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak said: “We stand unequivocally by Israel’s right to defend itself including against Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

• Follow live updates on this story
• Video shows Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• What we know about Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• First came the alert message, then the boom of interceptions
• US says it helped Israel shoot down Iran missiles

In his statement, the prime minister repeated his advice to British nationals to leave Lebanon, warning the situation was becoming “increasingly grave”.

He added: “If you have the means to leave, the time is now. Do not wait.”

As of last week, there were thought to be between 4,000 and 6,000 UK nationals, including dependants, in Lebanon.

The missile attack came hours after Israel launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, in what it has described as “limited, localised and targeted” raids against Hezbollah.

Lebanese officials say more than 1,000 people have been killed following Israeli air strikes over the past two weeks. Hezbollah has responded by firing hundreds of rockets into northern Israel.

The previously sporadic cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated on 8 October 2023 – the day after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip – when Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions, in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to read top political analysis, gain insight from across the UK and stay up to speed with the big moments.

It’ll be delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

Three British sisters have spoken of their sadness at being forced to flee their home in Lebanon, saying they had “no choice” but to board a flight to the UK.

Amal Zahereddine, 18, and her sisters Yasmine, 17, and Layla, 22, were among British nationals preparing to leave on a UK government charter flight from Beirut to Birmingham.

“Right now there is no way we can stay. The noises, the situation, is just getting very traumatising so we have no choice,” Amal said.

Israel has stepped up its aerial assault of Beirut in the past week, targeting densely populated areas in the city’s south that it said was home to Hezbollah leaders and military equipment.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told British nationals in Lebanon they “must leave now” as fighting continues.

Speaking to the BBC from the airport in Beirut, university student Amal said she loved Lebanon and was “very upset” at having to leave.

“We’re just going to stay hopeful that it’s not going to be for long and we’re going to come back to our precious country.”

Amal, who was born in Surrey and has lived in Lebanon for five years, said she and her sisters planned to reunite with family in West Sussex.

Her sister Yasmine, who is still in school, said she would have never imagined leaving, but the situation required it.

Another British citizen, Libby, 25, boarded a commercial flight from Beirut to Cairo on Wednesday morning, and described the situation in the Lebanese capital as “terrifying”.

“You can’t sleep because you can hear the Israeli drones over your head, you wake up in the night because you hear strikes,” she told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

As of last week, there were thought to be between 4,000 and 6,000 UK nationals, including dependants, in Lebanon.

The chartered flight leaving Beirut on Wednesday will only be able to take a fraction of them, raising questions about whether additional flights will be needed.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Watch: Video shows Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Explained: What we know about Iran’s missile attack on Israel
• Analysis: How could Israel respond, and what might Iran do then?
• Explained: What is Israel’s Iron Dome missile system and how does it work?

Defence Secretary John Healey was in Cyprus on Wednesday to meet some of the British personnel preparing for the possibility of evacuating UK nationals out of Lebanon.

Britons in Lebanon have been advised to register their presence with officials on the government’s website.

Healey’s visit to Cyprus came just hours after Iran carried out a missile attack against Israel on Tuesday night.

The defence secretary said British forces had “played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation”.

He gave no further details but the BBC understands British military jets did not shoot down any Iranian ballistic missiles nor did the Royal Navy Destroyer, HMS Duncan, fire any Sea Viper missiles.

Iran said the attack was, in part, retaliation for the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of its proxy, Hezbollah, in a strike on Beirut last week.

You can get in touch via this form.

The case of two black women who were allegedly shot and fed to pigs by a white farmer and two of his workers has caused outrage in South Africa.

Maria Makgato, 45, and Lucia Ndlovu, 34, were allegedly looking for food on the farm near Polokwane in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province in August when they were shot.

Their bodies were then alleged to have been given to pigs in an apparent attempt to dispose of the evidence.

A court is now to decide whether to grant bail to farm owner Zachariah Johannes Olivier, 60, and his employees Adrian de Wet, 19, and William Musora, 50, ahead of their murder trial.

The three men have not yet been asked to enter a plea in court, which will happen when the trial begins at a later date.

At previous hearings, protesters have demonstrated outside court demanding that the suspects be denied bail.

Ms Makgato’s brother Walter Mathole has told the BBC the incident has further exacerbated racial tension between black and white people in South Africa.

This is especially rife in rural areas of the country, despite the end of the racist system of apartheid 30 years ago.

• South Africa’s deadly love affair with guns
• The volunteer crime fighters using whistles, whips and guns

The three men in court in Polokwane also face charges of attempted murder for shooting at Ms Ndlovu’s husband , who was with the women at the farm – as well as possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Mabutho Ncube survived the ordeal on the evening of Saturday 17 August – and crawled away and managed to call a doctor for help.

He says he reported the incident to police and officers found the decomposing bodies of his wife and Ms Makgato in the pigsty several days later.

Mr Mathole said he was with officers and saw a horrific sight inside the pig enclosure: his sister’s body which had been partly eaten by the animals.

The group had reportedly gone to the farm in search of edible food from consignments of recently expired or soon-to-be-expired produce. These were sometimes left at the farm and given to the pigs.

The family of Ms Makgato say they are devastated by her killing – especially her four sons, aged between 22 and five years old.

“My mum died a painful death, she was a loving mother who did everything for us. We lacked nothing because of her,” Ranti Makgato, the oldest of her sons, tearfully told the BBC.

“I think I’ll sleep better at night if the alleged killers are denied bail,” he added.

The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has said the farm should be shut down.

“The EFF cannot stand by while products from this farm continue to be sold as they pose a danger to consumers,” it said after the bodies were found.

The South African Human Rights Commission has condemned the killings and called for anti-racism dialogues between affected communities.

Groups representing farmers, who are often white, say farming communities feel under attack in a country with a high rate of crime – though there is no evidence farmers are at any greater risk than anyone else.

There have been two other incidents that have ratcheted up racial tension recently.

In the eastern province of Mpumalanga, a farmer and his security guard were arrested in August for the alleged murder of two men at a farm in Laersdrift near the small town of Middleburg.

It is alleged the two men, whose bodies were burnt beyond recognition, were accused of stealing sheep.

The accused remain in custody while the ashes undergo DNA analysis.

The most recent case involves a 70-year old white farmer who is alleged to have driven over a six-year-old boy, breaking both of his legs, for stealing an orange on his farm.

The bail hearing for Christoffel Stoman, from Lutzville in Western Cape province, is ongoing.

The court has heard that mother and son were walking past the farm as they made their way to town to buy groceries.

It is alleged the six-year-old stopped to pick up an orange that was on the ground – and the mother watched on in horror as the farmer allegedly mowed him down.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the farmer was facing two counts of attempted murder and reckless driving.

NPA spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila told the BBC that the state was opposing the accused’s application for bail.

Two political parties – the African Transformation Movement and the Pan Africanist Congress – are calling for the expropriation of Mr Stoman’s farm following the incident.

• South Africans’ anger over land set to explode
• Are protesters right on South Africa farm murder rate?
• The groups playing on the fears of a ‘white genocide’

When Iran attacked Israel in April, it seemed like it was making a point – but Iran effectively gave notice of the attack in terms of how it carried it out, and everything was pretty much shot out of the air by Israeli and American defences.

This time around it’s different. The Iranians looked like they wanted to do some serious damage and were making a much more aggressive point.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps put out an announcement saying that they were retaliating to the killings of senior leaders in Hamas and Hezbollah, and warned that if Israel retaliated, in turn they would strike back.

Last time around, Joe Biden said to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – “Take the win”, don’t carry out a big response – and they didn’t. This time around in Israel the mood is very different.

• FOLLOW LIVE: Israel and Hezbollah fighting on the ground in Lebanon after Israeli invasion

Look at the tweet from former prime minister Naftali Bennett last night, using very strong language, saying: “This is the greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East.” He was arguing that Israel should go after Iran’s nuclear facilities, in order to “fatally cripple this terrorist regime”.

Now he’s not prime minister (although he is widely tipped to be a future one, so he was making a point to show he is tough) but it does reflect a certain mood in the country.

I would not rule out attacks by Israel on anything at the moment – nuclear sites, petrochemical facilities, anything that could cause damage to the Iranian economy.

The scenario always was that Iran had a forward defence in the shape of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with a massive arsenal of sophisticated weapons, to be used, in theory, if Iran and its nuclear facilities were attacked.

But in the last couple of weeks, Israel has decapitated the Hezbollah organisation, destroyed half of its weapons, according to American and Israeli authorities; and invaded Lebanon.

• Explained: What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
• BBC Verify: Analysing footage of Israeli strikes on Beirut
• What are Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow missile defences?

The deterrent Iran had, you could argue, is not just gone – it’s smashed into a thousand pieces. So I think the Israelis are feeling more free to act. And Joe Biden is moving another carrier battle group to the Mediterranean, signalling to the Iranians that if you hit Israel, you hit the US too.

This is why people were talking about the fear of the war spreading: the instability, the turbulence that comes from everything that’s been happening – now we are seeing it play out and it leaves very little room for diplomacy at this moment.

The bodies of 20 children and three teachers have been recovered after a bus transporting school pupils crashed and caught fire outside Bangkok.

The bus was returning to the Thai capital after a school trip to the north of the country.

Videos from the scene showed flames engulfing the bus as it burned under an overpass, with huge clouds of dense black smoke billowing into the sky.

The driver handed himself in to police 100km (61 miles) north of Bangkok, according to local media.

Footage taken shortly after the fatal crash showed the driver attempting to extinguish the fire but he reportedly fled the scene.

Witnesses say the bus crashed into the concrete barrier dividing the highway just north of Bangkok, after a front tyre burst.

The bus was quickly consumed by an intense fire, and many on board were unable to get out. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Nineteen children and three teachers are reported to have survived, sixteen of whom are being treated in hospital for their injuries.

Transport Minister Suriyahe Juangroongruangkit said the bus was powered by “extremely risky” compressed natural gas.

“This is a very tragic incident,” Mr Suriyahe told reporters at the scene.

“The ministry must find a measure… if possible, for passenger vehicles like this to be banned from using this type of fuel because it’s extremely risky.”

Piyalak Thinkaew, who was leading the search, said it was hard to identify the bodies because they were so badly burnt.

“Some of the bodies we found were very, very small,” he told reporters at the scene, adding that the fire started at the front of the bus.

“The kids’ instinct was to escape to the back so the bodies were there,” he said.

Forensic police said of the 23 bodies found, eleven were male, seven female and a further five were unidentifiable.

The ages of the children on board remains unclear, but the school caters for pupils between three and 15 years old.

Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the world, with unsafe vehicles and poor driving contributing to roughly 20,000 fatalities a year.

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, said an investigation was underway. “We have to investigate the trace of driving from the tire marks, the burning trace, and CCTV footage,” he said.