Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has responded to criticism of Kyiv by Donald Trump, by saying his US counterpart is “living in a disinformation space” created by Russia.

On Tuesday, President Trump appeared to blame Ukraine for the war and suggested the Ukrainian leader’s popularity rating was as low as 4%. Trump was speaking after US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia that left out Ukraine.

In his first comments after the talks, Russia’s Vladimir Putin said he rated the talks in Riyadh “very highly” and that Trump had told him that Ukraine would be part of any future talks process.

Zelensky said it was America’s right to discuss bilateral issues, but that the US had helped Putin “to break out of years of isolation”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who took part in the talks, praised President Trump for accepting Moscow’s repeated claim that “one of the root causes” of the war was the Biden administration’s “pushy line of dragging Ukraine into Nato”.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday on a mission to “sit and listen” to Ukraine’s position. Kellogg was not part of the US team that met Russian officials in Riyadh.

Almost three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European nations have been scrambling to respond to this week’s developments.

French President Emmanuel Macron was holding informal talks on Ukraine on Wednesday with leaders from a number of European states as well as Canada.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Zelensky accused Russia of lying during Tuesday’s “notorious meeting” in the Saudi capital, where the US and Russia agreed to start negotiating an end to the war.

“With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader… he is living in this disinformation space,” he said.

He added that Ukraine had “evidence” that Russia was spreading disinformation about his approval rating, and “these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia”.

Zelensky won a five-year term in 2019, and has remained in office because elections have been suspended since martial law was declared after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

When asked about the claims made on his popularity, Zelensky said that while he never commented on popularity ratings, one opinion poll put him at 58%.

He said he wanted Trump’s Ukraine envoy to “walk Kyiv’s streets” and “see everything for himself”.

Zelensky also made clear he would not sell his country in return for future security guarantees that gave the US a big stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources.

He said the war has so far cost $320bn (£254bn), around $200bn (£159bn) of which had come from the US and EU.

He said the US had alleged that 90% of Ukraine’s support had come from them, and while he was grateful for American support, “the truth is somewhere else”.

In a later post on X, he wrote: “We must never forget that Russia is ruled by pathological liars – they cannot be trusted and must be pressured.”

On Tuesday, Trump spoke to journalists at his Mar-a-Lago residence. “I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” he said.

“Well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

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European allies have also started weighing in on Trump’s comments.

“No-one but Putin started or wanted this war in the heart of Europe,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. “We are at an existential waypoint for security and peace in Europe.”

French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas, said: “We struggle to understand the American logic”, while reiterating her country’s support for Ukraine.

On Monday, the leaders of several European member states of Nato gathered in Paris to talk about what could be done to help Ukraine.

One idea proposed was sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, although Sergei Lavrov rejected that as unacceptable.

Trump, on the other hand, called it “great”, saying that he was all for it if that was what they wanted to do, but that US troops would not be deployed as the US was “very far away”.

Before he was kidnapped by Hamas, former Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi told his British wife and daughters “I will be back, I’ll come back to you”.

It was only when he was released, 16 months after being taken that he discovered his wife Lianne, from Bristol, and teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel were murdered by Hamas gunmen shortly after he was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October.

His brother-in-law said it had been that promise which had kept him going throughout his captivity.

But, after being released earlier this month Mr Sharabi was told by an Israeli army officer all three had been killed in the attack.

His brother-in-law Steve Brisley, from Bridgend in south Wales, visited him in hospital in Israel last week, two days after Mr Sharabi became one of the latest hostages to be handed to the Red Cross by Hamas in a choreographed release in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Mr Brisley told the BBC: “They were alive when he was taken out of the house and he said to them ‘whatever happens, whatever they do to me, I will be back. I’ll come back to you’.

“He’s a man of honour. He’s a family man. What kept him in going throughout all of this, was to keep that promise he made to Lianne and the girls.”

On 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw over 250 people taken hostage.

In response, Israel launched a 15-month military offensive in Gaza that killed at least 47,460 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated the area.

A ceasefire was declared on 15 January and began four days later. During the first six-week phase of the ceasefire, a total of 33 hostages should be freed in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel.

At his release on 8 February, Mr Sharabi made a speech on the stage and said he was looking forward to being reunited with his wife and children.

Mr Brisley added: “It wasn’t until he was in the Israeli army vehicle being transferred from Gaza into Israel that he asked ‘are Lianne and the girls waiting for me?’

“One of the soldiers had to tell him that they had in fact been murdered on the 7 October and were not waiting for him.

“It was absolutely devastating for him and not something that he will ever truly recover from. We spoke about that moment and obviously he was extremely emotional.

“We hugged together and cried together. It’s a devastating loss for him, particularly as the promise that he made to Lianne and the girls as he was taken away that I will be back, no matter what happens, I will be back.

“He kept that promise, but unfortunately, they weren’t there to see him.”

Mr Sharabi spent 490 days as a hostage and Mr Brisley said his brother-in-law has not yet spoken much about his time in captivity – but he described the “starvation” he and other hostages faced as some of the hardest moments.

“I’ve spent 16 months speaking on his behalf because he didn’t have a voice, obviously now he’s out he will have his own story and his own truth to tell,” Mr Brisley added.

Mr Brisley told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast the last week had been “intense, emotional, but cathartic”.

He said his wife and daughters were desperately waiting for news on the day before Mr Sharabi was due for release.

“We saw Eli step out of the vehicle but he was unrecognisable,” Mr Brisley said. “All four of us were saying ‘is that Eli?’, he was so drawn and gaunt, emaciated.”

Arriving at the hospital where Mr Sharabi had been transferred, Mr Brisley said: “We just threw our arms around each other, hugged, we told each other that we loved each other.”

Mr Brisley described Mr Sharabi as “incredibly skinny, emaciated, frail”.

“He’s pale, but mentally he’s so strong, it’s been incredible to see the mental strength and fortitude that he’s got,” he added.

“The most distressing thing for us was the darkness in his eyes, the light looked like it had gone.”

Mr Brisley said he wanted to make sure his brother-in-law knew he remained “an integral part of our family”.

“We will never know exactly what happened, what went wrong for them to be killed,” Mr Brisley said.

He said they had sat and talked about memories of Lianne, Noiya and Yahel.

“It was emotional, we shared tears, we shared hugs, obviously he got quite choked at times but he was able to talk about them.”

“I gave him some grief about how rubbish Manchester United have been for the last year and he laughed at that, it was that, seeing the light back in his eyes that reassured me that Eli is still in there.

“I think the most positive thing that came out of my conversations with him is that he does see a future and he does want to go on,” Mr Brisley said.

Travelling to Israel also allowed Mr Brisley to “process the loss of Lianne and the girls” as he said “it was always difficult to fully engage with our grief while Eli was still in captivity”.

He said he visited the Nova festival site and the Sharabi family home which was “cold and dark and devoid of the love and the laughter and the light that had been there 18 months ago”.

“I sat on the floor and sobbed,” he said.

“It was at once beautiful and awful, but cathartic, grief is just love that has no home,” Mr Brisley said. “Now Eli is back we have somewhere to direct that love and I think that will help us to grieve for Lianne and the girls.”

“We’re looking to close a chapter of this whole horrific book, but we’re going to be dealing with it for the rest of our life,” he said.

Lianne grew up in Staple Hill, on the outskirts of Bristol, and first moved to Israel as a volunteer on a kibbutz when she was 19, before relocating to the country permanently.

After just three months in Israel, she met Eli. They had two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, who were 16 and 13 when they were killed.

One of Eli’s brothers, Yossi, was also taken hostage on 7 October, but was later killed in captivity. Hamas said his death was the result of an Israeli airstrike, which Israel said was likely.

The terrible impact on hostages was also highlighted on Wednesday by Mandy Damari, the mother of former British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari who was also recently released.

Speaking for the first time publicly since her daughter was freed in a speech in Israel, she said her daughter now needed further hospital treatment.

“Unfortunately, Emily did not receive humanitarian aid or the correct medical treatment for her gunshot wounds in her hand and leg,” Ms Damari said.

“And therefore, must have corrective surgery this month with a period of recovery and rehabilitation afterwards.

“Many other hostages will be in the same situation as Emily was, in desperate need of food, medicine and more.”

She called for humanitarian aid to go to the hostages still being held and for all of them to be released.

Ms Damari added: “Keep fighting and praying and know that we are all with you and may all the hostages be returned to their families just as Emily, my amazing daughter, who I still love to the moon and back, was returned to me.”

Kevin Spacey has responded to fellow actor Guy Pearce’s allegation that the Oscar-winner “targeted” him during the making of 1997 movie LA Confidential, telling the Australian to “grow up”, adding: “You are not a victim”.

It comes after Pearce – one of the stars of the recent Bafta-winning film The Brutalist – this week expanded on his alleged experiences with the US actor having previously called him “a handsy guy” in 2018.

Spacey – whose career was brought to a halt by a string of allegations – admitted to “being too handsy” and “pushing the boundaries”, in an interview last year with Piers Morgan, while saying he’d not done anything illegal.

In 2023 the actor was found not guilty of all charges of sexual assault against four men between 2001 and 2013 after a trial in London; and in 2022 a US court dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit against him.

Spacey currently faces a civil trial over another allegation, which he denies, that he sexually assaulted a man in 2008.

A further sexual abuse claim was lodged against him last week at the High Court, according to filings.

Pearce told the Hollywood Reporter that the Oscar-winner “targeted me, no question” during the making of the 1997 crime thriller LA Confidential.

“But I did that thing that you do where you brush it off and go, ‘ah, that’s nothing. Ah, no, that’s nothing’. And I did that for five months,” he said.

“And, really, I was sort of scared of Kevin because he’s quite an aggressive man. He’s extremely charming and brilliant at what he does – really impressive etc.

“He holds a room remarkably. But I was young and susceptible, and he targeted me, no question.”

Pearce revealed he had told his wife at the time that he felt safe on set when his co-star Simon Baker was present, because Spacey allegedly focused his attentions on him instead.

He said the #MeToo movement, which saw allegations made against many men in Hollywood from 2017 onwards, had been “a really incredible wake-up call” for him.

The actor said he “broke down and sobbed” and “couldn’t stop” after he saw the allegations against Spacey in the news headlines. “I think it really dawned on me the impact that had occurred and how I sort of brushed it off and how I had either shelved it or blocked it out or whatever.”

On Tuesday, Spacey responded directly to Pearce in a video posted on X, saying: “If I did something then that upset you, you could have reached out to me.

“We could have had that conversation, but instead, you’ve decided to speak to the press, who are now, of course, coming after me, because they would like to know what my response is to the things that you said.

“You really want to know what my response is? Grow up.”

Spacey claimed Pearce omitted to mention he had flown to Georgia a year after LA Confidential was made “just to spend time with me” while he was filming another movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

“I mean, did you tell the press that too, or does that not fit into the victim narrative you have going?” he added.

“I apologise that I didn’t get the message that you don’t like spending time with me. Maybe there was another reason, I don’t know, but that doesn’t make any sense. That you would have just been leading me on, right? But here you are now on a mission, some 28 years later, after I’ve been through hell and back.”

Spacey concluded his message by saying he was happy to have a “conversation” with Pearce “anytime, anyplace”.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said. “But Guy – you need to grow up. You are not a victim.”

Pearce earlier told the US publication he had raised Spacey’s alleged behaviour with him years later, and had “had a couple of confrontations with Kevin” that “got ugly”.

His new strategy these days, he noted, was “just try to be more honest about it now and call it for what it is”.

When he penned his eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution, American journalist John Reed famously titled it Ten Days That Shook The World.

But 10 days is too long for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They’ve shaken things up in a week.

It began with the Putin-Trump telephone conversation on 12 February and their presidential pledges to kickstart relations.

It continued with the Munich Security Conference and a schism between Europe and America.

Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level in-person contacts between the two countries since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It is a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine scrambling to respond, raised fears for European security and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made any concessions to get there.

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One image dominates Wednesday morning’s Russian newspapers: senior Russian and American officials at the negotiating table in Riyadh.

The Kremlin wants the Russian public and the international community to see that Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine have failed.

Russian media are welcoming the prospect of warmer ties with Washington and pouring scorn on European leaders and Kyiv.

“Trump knows he will have to make concessions [to Russia] because he is negotiating with the side that’s winning in Ukraine,” writes pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets. “He will make concessions. Not at America’s expense, but at the expense of Europe and Ukraine.

“For so long Europe had gone around all puffed up, thinking of itself as the civilised world and as a Garden of Eden. It failed to notice it had lost its trousers… now its old comrade across the Atlantic has pointed that out…”

On the streets of Moscow I don’t detect that level of gloating.

Instead, people are watching and waiting to see whether Trump will really turn out to be Russia’s new best friend and whether he can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

“Trump is a businessman. He’s only interested in making money,” Nadezhda tells me. “I don’t think things will be any different. There’s too much that needs to be done to change the situation.”

“Perhaps those talks [in Saudi Arabia] will help,” says Giorgi. “It’s high time we stopped being enemies.”

“Trump is active. He’s energetic. But will he do anything?” wonders Irina.

“We dream that these negotiations will bring peace. It’s a first step. And maybe this will help our economy. Food and other goods keep going up in price here. That’s partly because of the special military operation [the war in Ukraine] and the general international situation.”

Putin and Trump have spoken on the phone; their two teams have met in Saudi Arabia; a presidential summit is expected soon.

But a few days ago the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets tried to imagine what the two leaders had said to each other during last week’s phone call.

They came up with this rendition:

“Trump called Putin.

‘Vladimir! You’ve got a cool country and I’ve got a cool country. Shall we go and divide up the world?’

‘What have I been saying all along? Let’s do it!….”

Make-believe? We’ll see.

Actress Kim Sae-ron‘s death in an apparent suicide has renewed criticism of South Korea’s entertainment industry, which churns out stars but also subjects them to immense pressure and scrutiny.

Kim – who was found dead aged 24 at her home in Seoul on Sunday – had been bombarded with negative press coverage and hate online after a drink-driving conviction in 2022. Police have not provided further details about her death.

Experts found the circumstances leading to it depressingly familiar. Other celebrities also ended up taking their lives after careers upended by cyberbullying.

As Kim was laid to rest on Wednesday, analysts say they are not optimistic her death will lead to meaningful change.

South Korea’s entertainment industry is enjoying massive popularity. Today, there are more than an estimated 220 million fans of Korean entertainment around the world – that’s four times the population of South Korea.

But there is also increasing spotlight on the less glamorous side of the entertainment industry.

South Korea is known for its hyper-competitive culture in most spheres of life – from education to careers. It has one of the highest suicide rates among developed countries. While its overall suicide rate is falling, deaths of those in their 20s are rising.

This pressure is heightened in the case of celebrities. They face immense pressure to be perfect, and are subjected to the demands of obsessive “super fans” who can make or break careers.

That is why even the slightest perceived misstep can be career ending. Kim Sae-ron became so unpopular, scenes featuring her were edited out of shows such as Netflix’s 2023 drama Bloodhounds.

“It is not enough that the celebrities be punished by the law. They become targets of relentless criticism,” Korean culture critic Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.

He referred to K-pop artists Sulli and Goo Hara, who died by suicide in 2019 after long battles with internet trolls, even though they did not have known brushes with the law.

Sulli had offended fans for not conforming to the K-pop mould, while an internet mob had targeted Goo Hara over her relationship with an ex-boyfriend.

Cyberbullying has also become a money-making gig for some, Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.

“YouTubers get the views, forums get the engagement, news outlets get the traffic. I don’t think [Kim’s death] will change the situation.

“There needs to be harsher criminal punishment against leaving nasty comments,” he says.

Kim Sae-ron’s father has blamed a YouTuber for her death, claiming the controversial videos they published caused her deep emotional distress.

Others have pointed fingers at some local media outlets, who reportedly fuelled public animosity against Kim by reporting the unverified claims.

“This cycle of media-driven character assassination must stop,” civic group Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media said in a statement on Tuesday.

Na Jong-ho, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, likened the spate of celebrity deaths in South Korea to a real-life version of Squid Game, the South Korean Netflix blockbuster which sees the indebted fighting to the death for a huge cash prize.

“Our society abandons those who stumble and moves on as if nothing happened.. How many more lives must be lost before we stop inflicting this destructive, suffocating shame on people?” he wrote on Facebook.

“Drunk driving is a big mistake. There would be a problem with our legal system if that goes unpunished. However, a society that buries people who make mistakes without giving them a second chance is not a healthy one,” Prof Na added.

Last year, the BBC reported on how “super fans” in the notorious K-pop industry try to dictate their idols’ private lives – from their romantic relationships to their daily activities outside of work – and can be unforgiving when things go off script.

It is no surprise that Kim Sae-ron chose to withdraw from the public eye after her DUI conviction, for which she was fined 20 million won (£11,000) in April 2023.

It is worth noting however, that not all public figures are subject to the same treatment. Politicians, including opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, also have past drink-driving convictions but have been able to bounce back – polls show Lee is now the country’s top presidential contender.

In South Korea, it is “extremely tough” for artistes to recover when they do something that puts a crack in their “idol” image, says K-pop columnist Jeff Benjamin.

He contrasts this to entertainment industries in the West, where controversies and scandals sometimes even “add a rockstar-like edge” to celebrities’ reputations.

“While no one cheers when a Hollywood celebrity is arrested for DUI [driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs] or sent to jail for significant crimes, it’s not necessarily career-ending,” he says.

While the Korean entertainment industry has made moves to address performers’ mental health concerns, it is unclear how effective these have been.

Real change can only happen when there is no more financial or attention incentives to continue with such intrusive reporting, says Mr Benjamin.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website here.

The chief minister of India’s Uttar Pradesh state has rejected a government report that found high levels of contamination in a key bathing place at the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest gathering.

The report said the waters at Sangam – the confluence of rivers considered holy by Hindus – in Prayagraj city had alarming levels of untreated sewage and bacteria found in human and animal excreta, making it unfit for bathing.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath insisted that the water was not just fit for bathing, but also safe for doing aachman – the Hindu ritual of drinking a handful after bathing.

Authorities say 565 million have bathed since the festival began on 13 January.

The Kumbh Mela (also known as Mahakumbh) – is held once every 12 years.

Hindus believe that taking a dip at Sangam – the confluence of India’s most sacred Ganges river with the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati – will cleanse them of sins, purify their soul and help them attain salvation.

The Mela, which stretches over six weeks, draws devotees from all walks of life and from all around the world. Tens of millions have been bathing in the rivers daily during the festival, which will end on 26 February.

However, health activists and environmentalists have expressed concern over the water quality of the rivers during the festival.

Before the Mela began, India’s top environment court had directed the pollution control boards of the federal and state governments to monitor the water in the rivers regularly and to take adequate steps to maintain its quality.

But a report submitted by the federal government’s Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) earlier this month stated that the waters of the Ganges and Yamuna had high coliform levels.

Coliform level is a key indicator of the presence of untreated sewage and faecal bacteria in water.

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The report said that the coliform levels in the Ganges were 1,400 times more than the acceptable limit, and in the Yamuna river, they were 660 times more.

The CPCB analysed water samples from both the rivers on five separate days in January, but the coliform levels never met standards, the report added.

Chief Minister Adityanath, however, insisted that his government was continuously monitoring water in the rivers to maintain its quality.

“All the pipes and the drains in and around Sangam have been taped and the water is being released only after purification,” he said.

“The reasons for increased faecal coliform can be several, such as sewage leakage and animal waste, but the amount of faecal coliform in Prayagraj is as per the standards,” he added.

He accused the opposition of running a “false campaign” to defame the Kumbh Mela.

This is not the first time that the Uttar Pradesh government has come under scrutiny for the way it has organised and is managing the Kumbh Mela.

On one of the most auspicious bathing days in January, at least 30 people died in a crush that took place near the Sangam.

On Sunday, another crush at the New Delhi Railway Station – where thousands of devotees had gathered to board trains for Prayagraj – killed around 18 people.

Authorities in one of the Philippines’ most densely-populated urban centres are offering a cash reward for mosquitoes in an attempt to stop the spread of dengue.

Carlito Cernal, village chief of Barangay Addition Hills in central Manila, announced the bounty of one peso (less than two US cents) for every five mosquitoes.

While news of the bounty has provoked scorn on social media, Mr Cernal has defended it as necessary for the community’s health.

The move follows a recent spike in cases of dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes, in the Philippines.

The programme, which will run for at least a month, was started after two students in Mr Cernal’s neighbourhood died from the disease.

The bounty applies to all mosquitoes – dead or alive – and their larvae, Mr Cernal added. Live mosquitoes will be exterminated using ultraviolet light.

A total of 21 people have already claimed their reward, bringing in a total of 700 mosquitoes and larvae so far, he told the BBC.

The bounty drew swift ridicule after it was announced late on Tuesday.

“Mosquito farming is coming,” one social media comment read. “Will a mosquito get rejected if it has only one wing?” read another.

The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) told the BBC that it “appreciates the good intentions of local government executives to fight dengue”.

It declined further comment, however, when asked if catching mosquitoes in exchange for cash is an effective way of stopping dengue.

“We urge all concerned to please consult and coordinate with their local health officers or the DOH regional office in their area for evidence-based practices that are known to work,” it said.

Mr Cernal said he was aware that the bounty had been bashed on social media, but added: “This is one of the biggest and most dense areas. We have to do something to help the local government.”

He pointed out that local health authorities recorded 44 cases of dengue in the community during the most recent surge of infections.

Barangay Addition Hills is home to nearly 70,000 people, crammed into a 162-hectare patch at the heart of the capital, Metro Manila.

Mr Cernal said the bounty was meant to supplement existing measures such as cleaning the streets and preventing the build-up of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes lay their eggs.

Dengue is endemic in tropical countries, and outbreaks often occur in urban areas with poor sanitation which allows virus-carrying mosquitoes to multiply.

In severe cases, dengue causes internal bleeding which can lead to death. Its symptoms include headaches, nausea, joint and muscle pain.

Philippine authorities have recently flagged a rise in dengue cases nationwide due to seasonal rains. The DOH said it recorded 28,234 cases on 1 February, a 40% jump from the previous year.

The department has advised the public to maintain the cleanliness of their surroundings, destroy potential mosquito breeding sites such as tyres, wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers and apply mosquito repellent.

Aside from dengue, the DOH said the rains have also fuelled a spike in influenza-like diseases and cases of leptospirosis, a rat-borne disease that people get when wading in flood waters.

A man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the attempted murder of Japan’s former prime minister Fumio Kishida in 2023.

Ryuji Kimura, 25, hurled a pipe bomb at Kishida as the country’s leader approached a crowd for a speech during an election event in the city of Wakayama.

Although Kishida was unharmed, the explosion of the homemade device caused minor injuries to a police officer and a member of the public.

The attack shocked Japan as it came less than a year after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot dead at an outdoor election campaign event.

Kimura, who was sentenced on Wednesday, claimed during questioning his intention was not to kill Kishida, but to object to the country’s election age regulation which prevented him from getting into politics.

The minimum age to become a member of parliament in Japan is 25 for the House of Representatives and 30 for the House of Councillors.

Kimura further added that he threw the bomb to bring attention to a civil lawsuit he filed in 2022, claiming the age restriction was unconstitutional, which was dismissed.

Kimura’s defence argued he should not face a charge of attempted murder, as he did not expect the bomb to cause injuries, and that a three-year prison sentence would be reasonable given the extent of those injuries.

The court stated, however, that the explosives were powerful enough to cause fatal damage.

When handing down the ruling, presiding judge Keiko Fukushima noted that “targeting a serving prime minister caused significant anxiety to society as a whole.”

In addition to the attempted murder charge, Kimura was also found guilty of violating explosives regulations and firearms control laws.

His 10-year sentence is five years less than what prosecutors had sought.

While violent attacks are extremely rare in Japan, anxiety around politicians’ security has surged in the wake of Abe’s assassination in 2022.

The attempted attack on Kishida, which came less than a year later, raised questions as to why there was not a tighter security presence around the country’s leader at that time.

Australian police have charged a 31-year-old woman for assaulting two Muslim women at a shopping centre in Melbourne last week.

The woman from Pascoe Vale suburb is due in court on Wednesday, where it will be alleged that she targeted the two victims on 13 February because of their head coverings, local media report.

She allegedly grabbed and choked a 30-year-old pregnant woman using the latter’s hijab at Epping shopping centre before pushing and slapping another 26-year-old woman in a separate assault 10 minutes later.

This comes two weeks after the country passed tough new laws against hate crimes following a recent string of high-profile antisemitic attacks.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday condemned the incident as “reprehensible”. He rejected criticism that his government was taking Islamophobic attacks less seriously compared to antisemitic attacks.

“I take all attacks on people on the basis of their faith seriously, and they should all face the full force of the law,” he told reporters.

Melbourne police say they are investigating reports of online threats against one of the two victims in the shopping centre. Both suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

On Tuesday, Australia’s anti-Islamophobia envoy, Aftab Malik, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that “all forms of hate need to stop” and that the country’s leaders must condemn the incident in Melbourne.

Earlier in the week, the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Rateb Jneid, expressed alarm over attacks on Muslims in the country and called the government’s response “grossly insufficient”.

Australia’s government has described new laws passed in early February as the “toughest laws Australia has ever had against hate crimes”.

It imposes mandatory jail terms ranging from one to six years for the use of hate symbols such as the Nazi salute.

The reforms come as attacks on Jewish targets have become a topic of fierce debate in the country.

Last week, two Australian nurses were suspended after a video appeared to show them threatening to kill Israeli patients and boasting about refusing to treat them.

In late January, Sydney police found a caravan containing explosives and an antisemitic note. A week before that, set alight and sprayed with antisemitic messages

Seven men have been charged in connection with a spree of burglaries targeting professional athletes across the US.

Goods worth more than $2m (£1.58m) were stolen from the homes of NBA and NFL players in a series of break-ins which began in October 2024.

Kansas City Chiefs stars Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes were among those targeted as they were competing in games late last year, as were players from the Milwaukee Bucks and Cincinnati Bengals.

According to a federal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, all seven men charged over the burglaries are Chilean nationals. It alleges they are members of a South American theft group that targeted high-profile athletes.

The complaint names the men as Pablo Zuniga Cartes, Ignacio Zuniga Cartes, Bastian Jimenez Freraut, Jordan Quiroga Sanchez, Bastian Orellano Morales, Alexander Huiaguil Chavez, and Sergio Ortega Cabello.

The group, who are aged between 23 and 38, all face a maximum of 10 years in jail if convicted over the burglaries.

It is not yet clear if they have legal representation. Four of the defendants – Mr Cabello, Mr Chavez, Mr Morales, and Mr Sanchez – pleaded not guilty to initial charges in Ohio last month.

While the federal complaint does not name the victims, it said the Kansas City homes of two Chiefs players were burgled in October.

Kelce’s home was robbed on 7 October as he was starting a game against the New Orleans Saints. Officials said $20,000 (£15,900) in cash was stolen from his $6m home.

And Mahomes’s residence was burgled on 5 October, police said at the time.

The complaint also alleges the seven men were involved in the November burglary of a home belonging to a Milwaukee Bucks basketball player. The date of this incident is when forward Bobby Portis reported a burglary.

A safe containing watches, chains, jewellery, and cash was stolen along with a designer suitcase and designer bags. In total, the items stolen were worth more than $1.5m.

The athletes make for easy targets in part because they have valuable belongings and public schedules, security experts told the BBC last year.

“In any professional football event, for instance, there’s 106 players, 53 on each team, that are not going to be home, not including coaches. And some of those players may have very lucrative contracts and live in nice places,” said former FBI agent Jeff Lanza.

The NFL has been warning players about the crimes, sending a memo last year which said “organised and skilled groups” appeared to be targeting them. The memo said the groups were tracking the players’ whereabouts on social media and through public records.

Australian authorities are euthanising about 90 false killer whales which survived a mass stranding on a remote beach in Tasmania.

A team of experts at the site said complex conditions have made it impossible to save them.

They are part of a pod of 157 whales that had beached near Arthur River, in the island’s north west. The rest had died shortly after the stranding.

Tasmania has seen a series of mass whale strandings in recent years – including the country’s worst-ever in 2020 – but false killer whales haven’t mass stranded there in over 50 years.

False killer whales are technically one of world’s largest dolphin species, like their orca namesakes. They can grow up to 6m (19ft) and weigh 1.5 tonnes.

Authorities on Wednesday said the pod had been stranded at the site for 24 to 48 hours, and the surviving animals were already under extreme stress.

Local resident Jocelyn Flint told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she had travelled to the site on Wednesday morning after her son noticed the pod while out shark fishing overnight.

“There are babies… There’s just families of them. Their eyes are open, they’re looking at me, like ‘help’.”

“It’s just absolutely horrific.”

The site – about 300km (186 miles) from the city of Launceston – is extremely difficult to access and transport any rescue equipment to, marine biologist Kris Carlyon told media.

“This is possibly the trickiest location I’ve seen in 16 years of doing this role in Tasmania,” he said.

“We’re talking a very rough, steep, single lane road into the site. We can get four-wheel drives in there, but not a lot else.”

Rough conditions meant returning the animals to the sea at the location they stranded was impossible, so an expert team tried to relocate two and refloat them, but were unsuccessful.

“The animals just can’t get past the break to get out. They just keep turning around and coming back towards the beach,” said Shelley Graham, from Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service.

With conditions for the next two days forecast to be similar, expert wildlife veterinarians made the “tough” and “confronting” decision to euthanise the remaining whales.

“The longer these animals are out stranded, the longer they are suffering. All alternative options have been unsuccessful, euthanasia is always a last resort,” Dr Carlyon said.

That grim task – which involves shooting the animals – is expected to begin on Wednesday but continue on Thursday.

Authorities are still working out how to dispose of the carcasses. The site has important cultural heritage for Aboriginal people so a department spokesperson earlier suggested “it may be a case of… letting nature run its course”.

Authorities have asked members of the public to avoid the site, with bushfires burning nearby and limited road access.

More than 80% of Australian whale strandings take place in Tasmania – often on its west coast.

Around 470 pilot whales were stranded further south at Macquarie Harbour in 2020 and about 350 of them died despite rescue efforts. Another 200 become stranded in the same harbour in 2022.

Whales are highly social mammals and are well known for stranding in groups because they travel in large, close-knit communities which rely on constant communication.

There are a range of theories for why beachings occur. Some experts say the animals can become disorientated after following fish they hunt to the shore.

Others believe that one individual can mistakenly lead whole groups to shore.

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US President Donald Trump has appeared to accuse Ukraine of being responsible for the war with Russia, in a flurry of claims from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.

Speaking to reporters, Trump also made claims about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s popularity and observed that Ukraine had yet to hold scheduled elections due to martial law.

Trump’s comments – some of which appeared to mirror common Russian talking points about the war – came just hours after US officials met with a Russian delegation in Riyadh to open talks to end the conflict, which has raged for almost three years.

Zelensky later accused Trump of “living in a disinformation space” created by Russia.

BBC Verify has fact-checked Trump’s claims.

Ukrainian authorities expressed dissatisfaction over not being part of Tuesday’s talks in Riyadh. But Trump dismissed these concerns, telling reporters that Ukraine had had three years to end the war, before appearing to blame Kyiv for starting the conflict.

“You should have never started it,” he said. The Kremlin has previously accused Ukraine of starting the war against Russia.

“It was they who started the war in 2014. Our goal is to stop this war. And we did not start this war in 2022,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told US talk show host Tucker Carlson in February 2024.

Ukraine didn’t start the war. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, having annexed Crimea in 2014.

The annexation came after Ukraine’s pro-Russian president was ousted by popular demonstrations.

• Trump says Ukraine could have made a deal earlier
• Rosenberg: How Putin and Trump shook up the world in a week
• Who was at the table at US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia?

Russia also backed proxy forces who seized areas of eastern Ukraine, and it accused the new government in Kyiv of discrimination and genocide against Russian speakers. The International Court of Justice has rejected Moscow’s claims.

After the failure of agreements which aimed to end the post-2014 conflict – Russia began a massive build-up of troops on its border with Ukraine in late 2021.

Putin launched the invasion on 24 February 2022, stating that the aim of the operation was to “demilitarise and denazify” the pro-Western government of Volodymyr Zelensky and prevent the country from joining Nato.

In Ukraine’s last parliamentary elections, support for far-right candidates was 2%. It should also be noted that Zelensky is Jewish and that his party has been regarded as centrist.

And while Nato officials said in 2021 that Ukraine was a candidate to join the Western alliance in the future, it was not part of any formal process.

President Trump also claimed that Zelensky’s approval rating has fallen to 4%.

It’s unclear what source the president was citing as he didn’t provide evidence. We have asked the White House to clarify this.

A survey conducted this month found that 57% of Ukrainians said they trusted the president, according to the Ukraine-based Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

However, that was down from 77% at the end of 2023, and 90% in May 2022 – suggesting that the president has suffered a drop-off in his popularity.

Some other polls suggest Zelensky trailing his nearest rival, former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in the first round of any future election, indicating the two would face each other in a run-off.

Official polling is limited and it is extremely difficult to carry out accurate surveys during a time of war. Millions of Ukrainians have fled and Russia has occupied around a fifth of the country.

In the wake of Trump’s comments, some major Russian media outlets seized on the claim and cited a poll carried out by Ukrainian MP and Zelensky critic, Oleksandr Dubinsky, on Telegram which they claimed backed up Trump’s assessment.

Dubinsky has been charged with treason in Ukraine, and accused of “operating at the behest of Russian intelligence” – which he denies.

Trump also drew attention to the fact that Ukraine has not held a presidential election since 2019, when Zelensky – previously a comedian with no political base – swept to power.

His first five-year term of office was due to come to an end in May 2024. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since the Russian invasion in February 2022, which means elections are suspended.

Ukraine’s martial laws were drafted in 2015 – shortly after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and years before Zelensky and his Servant of the People party came to power.

In November all parties in Ukraine’s parliament backed postponing elections until the war ends, a position which a survey suggests is popular with Ukrainians.

Some 60% of people were opposed to holding elections to replace Zelensky during the war, according to a survey of Ukrainians conducted in September and October by the International Republican Institute.

Zelensky has vowed to hold a new election once the conflict ends and has yet to confirm that he intends to stand. Some experts have observed that holding elections in Ukraine before the conflict ends would be practically impossible, as Russian attacks on many cities persist and millions of citizens are displaced abroad or living under Russian occupation.

Trump’s intervention on the subject came just hours after the Kremlin questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy as his term in office has ended, a claim Moscow has repeatedly made in the past months. On 28 January, Putin called Zelensky “illegitimate” in an interview with Russian media.

Referring to the electoral situation, Trump appeared aware that it has been a frequent Russian allegation, saying: “That’s not a Russian thing, that’s something coming from me, from other countries.”

For his part, Zelensky has previously said it would be “absolutely irresponsible to throw the topic of elections” in the middle of the conflict.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The Russians and Americans are talking again, as European leaders and diplomats contemplate the hard choices forced on them by US President Donald Trump.

Without question, Trump’s diplomatic ultimatum to Ukraine and America’s Western European allies has cracked the transatlantic alliance, perhaps beyond repair.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks rattled by the abrupt change of attitude coming from the White House, though some of his many critics at home say he should have seen it coming. Well before he won re-election, Donald Trump made it clear that he was not going to continue Joe Biden’s policies.

As he arrived in Turkey on his latest trip, Zelensky deplored the fact that negotiations to end the war were happening “behind the back of key parties affected by the consequences of Russian aggression”.

But it feels like a long way from the air-conditioned room in Saudi Arabia where the Russian and American delegations faced each other across a broad and highly polished mahogany table, to the bitter cold of north-eastern Ukraine.

In dug-outs and military bases here in the snow-bound villages and forests on the border with Russia, Ukrainian soldiers are getting on with business as usual – fighting the war.

In an underground bunker at a base in the forest somewhere near Sumy, a Ukrainian officer told me he didn’t have much time to follow the news. As far as he was concerned, Donald Trump’s decision to talk to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin was “just noise”.

The commander, who asked to be referred to only by his call sign “White” has more pressing matters to consider.

Ignoring the diplomatic bombshell that has rattled Western leaders, as well as his own president, is probably the right thing to do for a battlefield officer preparing to lead his men back into the fight. Soon they will cross back into Kursk, to rejoin the fight to keep the land Ukraine has seized from Russia.

As a condition of access to Ukrainian soldiers, we agreed not to disclose precise locations or identities, except to say they are in the borderlands around the town of Sumy, and all part of Ukraine’s continuing fight in Kursk.

In a small room in a workshop tucked away in a village there was a formidable display of killing power on shelves made of planks from the sawmill propped up by wooden ammunition boxes.

On the shelves were hundreds of drones, all made in Ukraine. Each one costs around £300 ($380). The soldiers who were checking them before packing them into cardboard boxes to send them into the Kursk battlefields said that when they are armed – and flown by a skilled pilot – they could even destroy a tank.

One of them, called Andrew, was a drone pilot until his leg was blown off. He said he hadn’t thought too hard about what had been said far from here by the Americans – but none of them trusted President Vladimir Putin.

Their drones a few hours earlier had destroyed a Russian armoured unit advancing in broad daylight across a frozen snow-covered field. They showed us the video. Some of the vehicles they hit were flying the red banner of the Soviet Union instead of the Russian flag.

Sumy is busy enough during the day, with shops open and well-stocked. But once it gets dark the streets are almost deserted. Air raid alerts come frequently.

Anti-aircraft guns fire tracer into the sky for hours, aimed at the waves of Russian drones that cross the border near here to attack targets much deeper inside Ukraine – and sometimes in Sumy itself.

A big block of flats has a hole three storeys high ripped out of it. Eleven people were killed here in a Russian drone attack a fortnight or so ago. Since then, the block has been evacuated as engineers fear it is so badly damaged it might collapse.

It is part of a housing estate of identical monumental blocks built during the Soviet era. Residents still living next to the wrecked and unsafe building were going about their business, walking to the shops or their cars, swaddled against the intense cold.

Mykola, a man of 50, stopped to talk as he was walking home with his young son. He lives in the next block to the one the Russians destroyed.

I asked him what he thought of Donald Trump’s idea of peace in Ukraine.

“We need peace,” he said. “It’s necessary because there is no point in war. War doesn’t lead to anything. If you look at how much territory Russia has occupied so far, for the Russians to eventually get to Kyiv, they’ll have to keep fighting for 14 years. It’s only the people who are suffering. It needs to end.”

But no deal worth having, Mykola believed, would emerge from Putin and Trump sitting together without Zelensky and the Europeans.

Yuliia, 33, another neighbour, was out walking her Jack Russell. She was at home when the Russians attacked the block of flats next door.

“It all happened just past midnight, when we were about to go to bed. We heard a loud explosion, and we saw a massive red flash through our window. We saw this horror. It was very scary.

“Many people were outside. And I remember there was a woman hanging out – she was screaming for help – we couldn’t see her immediately but eventually she was saved from the debris.”

Peace is possible, she believes, “but they need to stop bombing us first. There can only be peace when they stop doing that. It needs to come from their side because they started this horror.

“Of course, you can’t trust Putin.”

As the last rays of the sun disappeared, Borys, a spry and upright retired colonel of 70 who served 30 years in the Soviet army stopped on his way to his car. His son and grandson, he said, are both in uniform fighting for Ukraine.

“Peace is possible,” he said. “But I don’t really believe in it. I think that justice will prevail for Ukraine. You have to be cautious.

“While Putin is there, you cannot trust Russians. Because they believe in him as if he is a religion. You won’t change them. It needs time.”

So what’s the answer – keep fighting or a peace deal?

“Ukraine needs to think about peace. But we shouldn’t surrender. I don’t see any point. We will resist until we are stronger. Europe seems like they are ready to help us. There is just no point in surrendering.”

Donald Trump, a man who seems convinced that the principles of a real-estate deal can be applied to ending a war will discover that making peace is much more complicated than just getting a ceasefire and deciding how much land each side keeps.

President Putin has made very clear that he wants to break Ukraine’s sovereignty and destroy its ability to act as an independent nation.

Whether or not Ukraine’s President Zelensky has a seat at President Trump’s conference table, he won’t agree to that. Making a peace that lasts, if it’s possible, will be a long and slow process.

If Donald Trump wants a quick peace dividend, he should look elsewhere.

French President Emmanuel Macron got straight on the phone to Donald Trump and, separately, to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday night, after fellow leaders of Europe’s biggest military powers left the glittering Élysée Palace in Paris.

What achievements could the French president boast? Was his emergency security summit a success?

What frustrates Europe’s detractors is there’s rarely a clear answer. Different European nations speak with different voices, though they share many values and goals.

But in the current climate of black-and-white thinking prevalent in Washington and Moscow, where the world is divided into the powerful and the weak, European nuance can count as weakness.

Under that unforgiving spotlight, Monday’s meeting failed.

Leaders had raised expectations. The summit dominated headlines as soon as it was called.

The head of the West’s defence alliance Nato, European Union chiefs and leaders of Europe’s most influential military nations scrambled together at speed.

They wanted to hijack Donald Trump’s attention. To impress him. To elbow themselves a seat at the negotiating table at the peace talks he plans with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to discuss the future of Ukraine.

Europe was – it still is – smarting at being sidelined.

Ukraine is a European nation. Its fate will impact the whole continent.

Depending how bullish President Putin emerges from any peace talks, Europe’s security services fear he could turn his attention to upending the sovereignty of other nations.

The Baltic states that neighbour Russia feel particularly exposed.

But leaders didn’t help their case on Monday.

Yes, they say they’ll spend more on their own defence, as Donald Trump demands. Despite domestic concerns about limited government budgets and a cost of living crisis.

The Paris meeting even discussed the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine to oversee an eventual ceasefire – unthinkable even a few weeks ago for Europe.

That’s what the US president wants.

But ultimately those leaders in Paris failed to deliver a strong, united, sum-it-up-in-a-line-tweet response, that might have made the impatient businessman-cum-US president sit up and really take notice.

The reasons for this are many, despite the sense of urgency in Europe about Ukraine and European security more broadly.

A number of Europe’s leaders are furious at feeling they have to dance to Donald Trump’s tune.

The frustration that poured out of the mouth of the normally phlegmatic German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was palpable when he left the Paris meeting.

“It is completely premature and a completely wrong time to have this discussion [on sending European troops to Ukraine] now. I’m even a little irritated by these debates.”

He insisted that there must be equal division between the US and Europe on responsibilities in Ukraine.

Scholz is likely to be out of a job soon. There are elections in Germany on Sunday, which he is widely expected to lose.

He’s had a couple of uncharacteristically emotional outbursts at home too of late, presumably under the strain.

Still, it’s important to note that he is far from alone amongst European leaders, who suspect Donald Trump is in a hurry to wash his hands of Ukraine and pivot his attention elsewhere. Perhaps China?

They worry too that the US president not only intends to deplete the defence umbrella his country has offered its European allies since the end of World War Two, but that Europe may now need to defend itself against him and his policies.

The tone the UK prime minister struck after the Paris meeting was in stark contrast to these darker European broodings.

He is openly keen to use the “special relationship” the UK hopes it still has with Washington as a bridge between Europe and the US.

One that Sir Keir Starmer is determined not to burn, telling voters at home that European security was in their national interest.

He appeared determinedly unfazed at Russia’s face-to-face preparation talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.

No date for that big-ticket summit between Trump and Putin has yet been set.

Sir Keir hopes to grab a window of opportunity to press Europe’s case when he heads to Washington for a meeting of his own with the US president next week.

The US must stay by its allies’ side, the prime minister has declared.

If it doesn’t, Europe’s leaders will have to keep meeting untill they can agree a way forward for Ukraine and their common security.

Should they fail again, long shadows over the stability of this continent will grow.

The sight of senior Russian and American officials back around a giant negotiating table is extraordinary.

For many, most of all Ukrainians, it will have been very hard to take.

In Saudi Arabia, Moscow achieved something major: after three years of all-out war on its neighbour and isolation by the West, it was back at the “top table” of global diplomacy.

Not only that, Russia looked for all the world like it was the one calling the shots.

Even as air raid sirens continue to sound across Ukraine, that’s exactly the image Moscow wants to project.

This was not a defeated Russia, forced to the negotiating table. It was more like the US inviting the aggressor to set out its terms.

True, US officials went into the process saying they wanted to feel out Russia, check whether it’s serious about peace.

But Donald Trump had already drawn his conclusions. Last week, after he spoke to Vladimir Putin by phone, he announced that the Russian leader “wants to see people stop dying”.

Trump could have responded by telling him to withdraw all his troops.

Instead, he clearly wants to cut a deal with Moscow to end the war, as he promised voters, and move on.

• Russia won’t accept Nato troops in Ukraine, Lavrov says after talks with US
• Who was at the table at US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia?
• Europe’s leaders divided over their tactics with Trump

After more than four hours of talks in Riyadh, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerged to the press and announced the first steps towards negotiations had been agreed, with teams to be formed on both sides.

He’d concluded that Russia was ready to engage in a “serious process” to end the war.

But why was he so sure?

Across the table was Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, still under sanctions for what the US Treasury called Russia’s “brutal war of choice”.

When Lavrov met the Russian media, he told them the US had proposed a moratorium on attacking energy infrastructure.

“We explained that we have never endangered the civilian energy supply and only target what directly serves Ukraine’s military,” was the minister’s reply.

That’s not true.

I have personally walked through the ruins of civilian power plants that have been directly targeted by Russian missiles.

This is the country that the US is attempting to engage with, although there is ample evidence that it can’t be trusted.

Russia has also shown zero sign of conceding any ground: why would it, when the Trump administration has already agreed that Ukraine will never join Nato, as Moscow demands, and won’t get its occupied land back?

That’s why, for Ukraine’s allies, it won’t only be the image of US and Russian officials seated at the shiny Saudi table that jarred. It’s also how they talked.

“Laying the ground” for future investment sounds like a promise of dropping sanctions: no reckoning for Russia’s war of aggression, then, just reward.

These are, of course, the earliest of early days.

But in Moscow, officials and state media sense the start of Russia’s return to where it believes it belongs: face to face with the US, as an equal.

Actress Kim Sae-ron‘s death in an apparent suicide has renewed criticism of South Korea’s entertainment industry, which churns out stars but also subjects them to immense pressure and scrutiny.

Kim – who was found dead aged 24 at her home in Seoul on Sunday – had been bombarded with negative press coverage and hate online after a drink-driving conviction in 2022. Police have not provided further details about her death.

Experts found the circumstances leading to it depressingly familiar. Other celebrities also ended up taking their lives after careers upended by cyberbullying.

As Kim was laid to rest on Wednesday, analysts say they are not optimistic her death will lead to meaningful change.

South Korea’s entertainment industry is enjoying massive popularity. Today, there are more than an estimated 220 million fans of Korean entertainment around the world – that’s four times the population of South Korea.

But there is also increasing spotlight on the less glamorous side of the entertainment industry.

South Korea is known for its hyper-competitive culture in most spheres of life – from education to careers. It has one of the highest suicide rates among developed countries. While its overall suicide rate is falling, deaths of those in their 20s are rising.

This pressure is heightened in the case of celebrities. They face immense pressure to be perfect, and are subjected to the demands of obsessive “super fans” who can make or break careers.

That is why even the slightest perceived misstep can be career ending. Kim Sae-ron became so unpopular, scenes featuring her were edited out of shows such as Netflix’s 2023 drama Bloodhounds.

“It is not enough that the celebrities be punished by the law. They become targets of relentless criticism,” Korean culture critic Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.

He referred to K-pop artists Sulli and Goo Hara, who died by suicide in 2019 after long battles with internet trolls, even though they did not have known brushes with the law.

Sulli had offended fans for not conforming to the K-pop mould, while an internet mob had targeted Goo Hara over her relationship with an ex-boyfriend.

Cyberbullying has also become a money-making gig for some, Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.

“YouTubers get the views, forums get the engagement, news outlets get the traffic. I don’t think [Kim’s death] will change the situation.

“There needs to be harsher criminal punishment against leaving nasty comments,” he says.

Kim Sae-ron’s father has blamed a YouTuber for her death, claiming the controversial videos they published caused her deep emotional distress.

Others have pointed fingers at some local media outlets, who reportedly fuelled public animosity against Kim by reporting the unverified claims.

“This cycle of media-driven character assassination must stop,” civic group Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media said in a statement on Tuesday.

Na Jong-ho, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, likened the spate of celebrity deaths in South Korea to a real-life version of Squid Game, the South Korean Netflix blockbuster which sees the indebted fighting to the death for a huge cash prize.

“Our society abandons those who stumble and moves on as if nothing happened.. How many more lives must be lost before we stop inflicting this destructive, suffocating shame on people?” he wrote on Facebook.

“Drunk driving is a big mistake. There would be a problem with our legal system if that goes unpunished. However, a society that buries people who make mistakes without giving them a second chance is not a healthy one,” Prof Na added.

Last year, the BBC reported on how “super fans” in the notorious K-pop industry try to dictate their idols’ private lives – from their romantic relationships to their daily activities outside of work – and can be unforgiving when things go off script.

It is no surprise that Kim Sae-ron chose to withdraw from the public eye after her DUI conviction, for which she was fined 20 million won (£11,000) in April 2023.

It is worth noting however, that not all public figures are subject to the same treatment. Politicians, including opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, also have past drink-driving convictions but have been able to bounce back – polls show Lee is now the country’s top presidential contender.

In South Korea, it is “extremely tough” for artistes to recover when they do something that puts a crack in their “idol” image, says K-pop columnist Jeff Benjamin.

He contrasts this to entertainment industries in the West, where controversies and scandals sometimes even “add a rockstar-like edge” to celebrities’ reputations.

“While no one cheers when a Hollywood celebrity is arrested for DUI [driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs] or sent to jail for significant crimes, it’s not necessarily career-ending,” he says.

While the Korean entertainment industry has made moves to address performers’ mental health concerns, it is unclear how effective these have been.

Real change can only happen when there is no more financial or attention incentives to continue with such intrusive reporting, says Mr Benjamin.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website here.

Two years after ChatGPT took the world by storm, China’s DeepSeek has sent ripples through the tech industry by collapsing the cost for developing generative artificial intelligence applications.

But as the global race for AI supremacy heats up, India appears to have fallen behind, especially in creating its own foundational language model that’s used to power things like chatbots.

The government claims a homegrown equivalent to DeepSeek isn’t far away. It is supplying startups, universities and researchers with thousands of high-end chips needed to develop it in under 10 months.

A flurry of global AI leaders have also been talking up India’s capabilities recently.

After being initially dismissive, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this month said India should be playing a leading role in the AI revolution. The country is now OpenAI’s second largest market by users.

Others like Microsoft have put serious money on the table – committing $3bn (£2.4bn) for cloud and AI infrastructure. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang also spoke of India’s “unmatched” technical talent as a key to unlocking its future potential.

With 200 startups working on generative AI, there’s enough entrepreneurial activity under way too.

But despite having key ingredients for success in place, India risks lagging behind without basic structural fixes to education, research and state policy, experts say.

China and the US already have a “four to five year head-start”, having invested heavily in research and academia and developed AI for military applications, law enforcement and now large language models, technology analyst Prasanto Roy told the BBC.

Though in the top five globally on Stanford’s AI Vibrancy Index – which ranks countries on metrics such as patents, funding, policy and research – India is still far behind the two superpowers in many key areas.

China and the US were granted 60% and 20% of the world’s total AI patents between 2010 and 2022 respectively. India got less than half a percent.

India’s AI startups also received a fraction of the private investment that US and Chinese companies got in 2023.

India’s state-funded AI mission, meanwhile, is worth a trifling $1bn compared with the staggering $500bn the US has earmarked for Stargate – a plan to build massive AI infrastructure in the US – or China’s reported $137bn initiative to become an AI hub by 2030.

While DeepSeek’s success has demonstrated that AI models can be built on older, less expensive chips – something India can take solace from – lack of “patient” or long-term capital from either industry or government is a major problem, says Jaspreet Bindra, founder of a consultancy that builds AI literacy in organisations.

“Despite what has been heard about DeepSeek developing a model with $5.6m, there was much more capital behind it.”

Lack of high-quality India-specific datasets required for training AI models in regional languages such as Hindi, Marathi or Tamil is another problem, especially given India’s language diversity.

But for all its issues, India punches far above its weight on talent – with 15% of the world’s AI workers coming from the country.

The issue though, as Stanford’s AI talent migration research shows, is that more and more of them are choosing to leave the country.

This is partly because “foundational AI innovations typically come from deep R&D in universities and corporate research labs”, Mr Bindra says.

And India lacks a supporting research environment, with few deep-tech breakthroughs emerging from its academic and corporate sectors.

The enormous success of India’s payments revolution was due to strong government-industry-academia collaboration – a similar model, he says, needs to be replicated for the AI push.

The Unified Payment Interface (UPI), a digital payment system developed by a government organisation, has revolutionised digital payments in India, allowing millions to transact at the click of a button or by scanning a QR code.

Bengaluru’s $200bn outsourcing industry, home to millions of coders, should have ideally been at the forefront of India’s AI ambitions. But the IT companies have never really shifted their focus from cheap service-based work to developing foundational consumer AI technologies.

“It’s a huge gap which they left to the startups to fill,” says Mr Roy.

He’s unsure though whether startups and government missions can do this heavy lifting quickly enough, adding that the 10-month timeline set by the minster was a knee-jerk reaction to DeepSeek’s sudden emergence.

“I don’t think India will be able to produce anything like DeepSeek at least for the next few years,” he adds. It is a view many others share.

India can, however, continue to build and tweak applications upon existing open source platforms like DeepSeek “to leapfrog our own AI progress”, Bhavish Agarwal, founder of one of India’s earliest AI startups Krutrim, recently wrote on X.

In the longer run though, developing a foundational model will be critical to have strategic autonomy in the sector and reduce import dependencies and threats of sanctions, say experts.

India will also need to increase its computational power or hardware infrastructure to run such models, which means manufacturing semiconductors – something that’s not taken off yet.

Much of this will need to fall in place before the gap with the US and China is narrowed meaningfully.

Asha Roy, 17, was excited to take part in a women’s football tournament, but her hopes were dashed as Islamists forced the organisers to cancel the match in northern Bangladesh.

Shortly before the game began earlier this month, the Islami Andolan Bangladesh group announced a protest rally against the event in Rangpur region, saying it was un-Islamic.

Fearing trouble, local police stepped in and the women’s team members were asked to return to their home for their safety.

“I was frustrated and frightened. We had never faced such a situation before. It was disappointing that we came back without playing,” Ms Roy told the BBC.

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation, is currently undergoing a political transition after widespread protests ousted its authoritarian government last year.

An interim administration is currently in charge but there are concerns that Islamist groups, which had been pushed to the fringes, have become emboldened again.

The women’s football match was the third to be cancelled in northern Bangladesh in less than two weeks due to the objections of religious hardliners.

In the Dinajpur area, roughly 70km (43 miles) west of Rangpur, Islamists protesting against a game clashed with locals who supported it, leaving four people injured.

• Is once-in-a-generation chance lost for Bangladesh’s women?
• Sheikh Hasina: The pro-democracy icon who became an autocrat

For girls such as Asha Roy, who come from rural areas, football and other sports are a source of female empowerment and a way out of poverty. Those who shine can be selected to play for sponsored teams and some go on to represent Bangladesh internationally.

Many girls have been inspired to take up football thanks to the success of the national women’s team, who are considered heroes after winning two consecutive South Asia Football Championships in recent years.

Ms Roy’s teammate, Musammat Tara Moni, said she would not stop playing despite the threats.

“It’s my dream to represent our national team. My family supports me, so I am not losing hope,” the 16-year-old said.

For their coach Nurul Islam, the objections came as a surprise. “I have taken the team to many tournaments for the past seven years, but it’s the first time we have faced a situation like this,” he said.

The Islamists insist that the match they stopped was against their religious values and say that they are determined to prevent any future football games.

“If women want to play football, they should cover their entire body, and they can play only in front of female spectators. Men cannot watch them play,” Maulana Ashraf Ali, the leader of the Islami Andolan Bangladesh in the Taraganj area of Rangpur, told the BBC.

Mr Ali also insisted that the group “definitely” want hard-line Islamic Sharia law in Bangladesh.

The cancellation of the women’s football matches caused an uproar on social media, leading the authorities to reorganise one of them. They have also launched an investigation into the incidents but say the fear of radicalism is exaggerated.

“There is no truth in the allegations that the government is pandering to Islamists,” Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to interim leader Muhammad Yunus, told the BBC.

Mr Alam pointed out that hundreds of women’s sports matches were held as part of a national youth festival in January, and that they were played across the country without any trouble.

Some people are not reassured. Samina Luthfa, assistant professor of sociology in the University of Dhaka, told the BBC the cancellation of the women’s football matches was “definitely alarming”.

“The women of Bangladesh will not stop playing football and will not stop from going to work or doing their things,” she said, adding that “everyone will fight” efforts to remove women from public spaces.

Other decisions made by the interim government since it assumed power in August in relation to Islamist hardliners have also raised concerns.

They include revoking a ban on the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which was introduced in the last days of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Jashimuddin Rahmani, the leader of banned Islamist militant group Ansarullah Bangladesh (ABT) – now known as Ansar al Islam – was released in August after a court granted him bail. He was sentenced to five years in prison in connection with the killing of a secular blogger in 2013, but had been kept behind bars because of other pending cases.

According to local media reports, several other people accused of having links with extremist groups have also been given bail in the past few months.

“Though security forces say they will monitor those released, it will be difficult for them to put everybody under surveillance given the limitations,” says Dr Tawohidul Haque, a crime analyst from the University of Dhaka.

While most Bangladeshis practise moderate Islam and secular values dominate society, Islamic extremism is not a new phenomenon in the country. A decade ago, religious zealots targeted secular bloggers, atheists, minorities, foreigners and others in a spate of attacks – killing dozens and sending others fleeing abroad.

In one such incident, a group of Islamist gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka in 2016, killing 20 people.

It is not just women’s football games that have been targeted recently either. Last week, dozens of Islamist students vandalised a book stall at Dhaka’s famous Ekushey Book Fair.

The protesters were angry over the display a book by the exiled feminist author Taslima Nasrin, who has in the past received death threats from Islamist groups for what they say are her blasphemous writings.

Muhammad Yunus condemned the incident saying the attack “shows contempt for both the rights of Bangladeshi citizens and for the laws of our country.” The police are investigating.

Meanwhile, one of the country’s best-known actors, Pori Moni said she was stopped from inaugurating a department store in the northern town of Tangail after reported objections from religious groups.

“Now I’m really feeling helpless, as well as insecure. It’s part of my job to take part in opening a showroom or a similar event. No one has stopped me all these years,” Ms Moni told the BBC Bengali service.

Similar events involving two other actors, Apu Biswas and Mehazabien Chowdhury, have also been cancelled following threats by Islamists.

Minority groups like the Sufi Muslims say they are also witnessing increasing attacks on their places of worship. Islamist extremists view Sufism as heretical.

“About a hundred of our shrines [mazars] and centres have been attacked in the past six months,” Anisur Rahman Jafri, Secretary General of the Sufism Universal Foundation, told the BBC.

“We have not seen this kind of sudden extremist attack on us since the country’s independence in 1971,” he added, warning that the country was at risk of “Talibanisation” if the situation continued.

Police said only 40 shrines were damaged and that they had stepped up security around religious sites.

The authorities have also been struggling to maintain law and order in the wake of Sheikh Hasina’s departure. Earlier this month, thousands of protesters vandalised homes and buildings connected to Hasina and senior leaders of her Awami League party.

People from other groups and parties, including Islamists, joined in other demonstrations in the capital, Dhaka, and across the country.

The authorities have defended the security forces for not intervening, saying doing so would have cost lives.

Rights groups have expressed concern over the security situation.

“If the government fails to act, then Islamists are going to feel emboldened. There will be more self-censorship for women and girls, they will be more intimidated participating in public events,” Shireen Huq, a prominent women’s rights activist, told the BBC.

“I am still optimistic that this phenomenon will not sustain,” she added.

The execution-style killing of an openly gay imam, Muhsin Hendricks, in South Africa has left people in the LGBTQ+ community fearful for their safety – but also determined to forge ahead with the campaign to end their marginalisation in religious circles.

Reverend Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe, an openly gay Christian cleric, told the BBC that Hendricks was a “gentle spirit” who brought light into any room he occupied.

“The gap Muhsin leaves is massive,” she said, adding that she knew for a fact that there were “a large number of queer Muslims around the world who are grief stricken”.

The 57-year-old was shot dead in what appeared to be a hit on Saturday in the small coastal city of Gqeberha.

Initial reports that Cape Town-based Hendricks had been in Gqeberha to perform the wedding ceremony of a gay couple have been dismissed as untrue by his Al-Gurbaah Foundation.

“He was visiting Gqeberha to officiate the marriages of two interfaith heterosexual couples when he was tragically shot and killed,” it said in a statement.

It is unclear why the couples had asked Hendricks to oversee their ceremonies, but it suggests that he was pushing the boundaries, even in the last seconds of his life.

Traditional imams in South Africa rarely, if ever, perform the marriage of a Muslim to a non-Muslim – something that Hendricks clearly had no issue with.

He had, according to a faith leader that the BBC spoke to, conducted one such marriage ceremony and was on his way to conduct the next one when he was gunned down in his vehicle.

Two leading bodies that represent imams – the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) and the United Ulama Council of South Africa (UUCSA) – condemned Hendricks’ killing.

“As members of a democratic, pluralistic society, the MJC remains steadfast in advocating for peaceful coexistence and mutual respect, even amidst divergent views,” the MJC said, while the UUCSA said it condemned “all forms of extra-judicial killings”.

However, Hendricks – who did his Islamic studies in Pakistan – was a pariah in their circles, as they hold the view that Islam prohibits same-sex relations.

They pointedly referred to him as “Mr Hendricks”, rather than by religious titles like imam or sheikh.

In contrast, Hendricks’ supporters hailed him as the world’s first openly gay imam who made it possible for them to reconcile their sexuality with their Islamic faith.

That he was a trail-blazer is not surprising – South Africa’s constitution, adopted in 1996 after the end of white-minority rule, was the first in the world to protect people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

Then in 2006, South Africa became the first country in Africa to legalise same-sex marriage.

Once in a heterosexual marriage with children, Hendricks came out as gay in 1996 – and, according to The Conversation, he later broke another taboo by marrying a Hindu man.

He then spearheaded the formation of The Inner Circle as “an underground social and support group” for queer Muslims.

It started out at his home in Cape Town, and has “proven to be very successful in helping Muslims who are queer to reconcile Islam with their sexuality”, The Inner Circle’s website says.

Despite South Africa having a thriving LGBTQ+ scene, members of the community still face some stigmatisation and violence.

Only a few of the country’s religious groups have adopted policies that are more favourable towards the community, among them the Dutch Reformed Church and the Methodist Church of Southern Africa.

The Dutch Reformed Church was in 2019 forced by the courts to reinstate a policy it had introduced four years earlier, but then scrapped, allowing same-sex marriages and for gay and lesbian pastors to be in romantic relationships.

The following year, the Methodist Church said that while it was “not yet ready to apply for its ministers to officiate at same-sex marriages”, no congregant residing in a member country that recognised civil unions would be “prevented from entering into such a union which can be as same-sex or opposite sex couples”.

Reverend Ecclesia de Lange, the director at Inclusive and Affirming Ministries (IAM), told the BBC that even in instances where faith groups had adopted inclusive policies there were still “pockets of very strong conservatism”.

“The traditional interpretations of sacred texts continue to exclude LGBTQ+ people, so the struggle for acceptance within faith communities remains ongoing,” she said.

Senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at South Africa’s University of the Western Cape, Dr Fatima Essop, reflected on the “distressing” vitriolic content circulating on social media in the wake of Hendricks’ killing.

“I just find that completely shocking and so far removed from our… Islamic tradition, which is all about compassion and mercy and preservation of human life,” she told the BBC.

Dr Essop added that while she understood some of the strong feelings against Hendricks’ work, there was “absolutely no justification, Islamic or otherwise, for this kind of violence”.

And while the motive is unclear, Hendricks’ killing – and the negative comments that followed – was likely to make people fearful to “speak about their sexuality or sexual orientation”, Dr Essop said.

Reverend Kruger-Ayebazibwe said that while Hendricks’ shooting would make LGBTQ+ leaders rethink their security, it would not deter them from campaigning for change “because the work matters too much”.

Hendricks has already been buried at a private ceremony, though his Al-Gurbaah Foundation has pledged to organise a memorial in the near future to “honour his immense contributions”.

For Teboho Klaas, the religion programme officer at The Other Foundation, which champions LGBTQ+ rights in southern Africa, his killers may have cut his life short “but not his legacy because he has multiplied himself”.

• Born free, killed by hate – the price of being gay in South Africa
• Gay rights: Africa, the new frontier
• The long road to legalise same sex marriage in Thailand
• Uganda anti-gay laws: Beaten and forced to flee for being LGBT

A couple in north-east Pakistan has been detained on suspicion of murdering a 13-year-old girl who worked for them as a maid, for allegedly stealing chocolates.

The girl who goes only by one name, Iqra, succumbed to multiple injuries in hospital last Wednesday. A preliminary police investigation said she had been tortured.

The case in Rawalpindi has sparked widespread outrage and posts with the hashtag #JusticeforIqra having garnered tens of thousands of views, and reignited a debate over child labour and the mistreatment of domestic workers.

Laws pertaining to child labour can vary across the country, but children under the age of 15 cannot be employed as domestic workers in the province of Punjab.

“I felt completely shattered inside when she died,” Iqra’s father, Sana Ullah, told the BBC.

He said that he had received a call from the police about Iqra last Wednesday. When he rushed to the hospital, he saw Iqra lying on a bed, unconscious. She died minutes later.

Iqra began working as a maid from the age of eight. Her father, a 45-year-old farmer, said he had sent her to work because he was in debt.

After working for a few employers, she went to work for the couple two years ago, who have eight children of their own. She was earning about £23 ($28) per month.

Police said Iqra had been accused of stealing chocolates from her employers, adding that a preliminary investigation showed that Iqra had been tortured.

Police also say there was evidence of frequent abuse. Pictures and videos obtained by the BBC showed multiple fractures in her legs and arms, as well as a serious injury to her head.

An autopsy is being conducted to assess the full extent of her injuries, and the police has told the BBC that they were still awaiting the final medical report.

“My heart cries tears of blood. How many… are subjected to violence in their homes every day for a trivial job of a few thousand?” activist Shehr Bano wrote on X. “How long will the poor continue to lower their daughters into graves in this way?”

Others have pointed out that her murder was allegedly triggered by something so minor.

“She died over chocolate?” asked one Pakistani user on X.

“This is not just a crime, it’s a reflection of [a] system that enables [the] rich to treat [the] poor as disposable,” another said.

Iqra’s employers, Rashid Shafiq and his wife Sana, have been arrested, along with a Quran teacher, who worked for the family. The teacher had brought Iqra to the hospital and left after telling hospital staff that the girl’s father had died and her mother was not around.

Police told the BBC it was unclear if she believed this to be the truth.

Iqra’s father says he wants to see “those responsible for my daughter’s death punished”.

Despite the public outrage such cases usually garner, they are typically settled out of court and it’s rare for suspects to be successfully prosecuted.

In 2018, a judge and his wife were sentenced to three years in jail for torturing their then 10-year-old maid in what had been a highly publicised case that sparked outrage across the country. But they later had their sentences reduced to one year.

Tayyaba was found with severe injuries, which the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science said included burns to her hands and feet. Pictures of the girl also showed cuts and bruising to her face, along with a swollen left eye. She told prosecutors she was beaten for losing a broom.

Under Pakistani law, victims or their families have the right to forgive suspects in a number of serious crimes. To do so, they have to state in court that they forgive a suspect “in the name of God”.

In reality, legal observers say that the primary motive for that “forgiveness” is normally financial, and paying victims is not illegal.

About 3.3 million children in Pakistan are engaged in child labour, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). Moreover, women and young girls make up the vast majority of Pakistan’s 8.5 million domestic workers, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Dr Rosemary Coogan – Northern Ireland’s first ever astronaut – has said the space sector is “very much changing in terms of having more and more commercial partners”.

The astrophysicist, who was speaking to BBC News NI, is currently in the US for pre-assignment training and is undergoing rigorous spacewalk training.

Last year, Dr Coogan completed basic training with the European Space Agency and received her graduation certificate at a special ceremony in Cologne in Germany.

On Wednesday, she will be discussing her work at the Northern Ireland Science Festival, where she is hoping to inspire the next generation of scientists to pursue a career in the industry.

Dr Coogan’s pre-assignment training will last six months and she described her current spacewalk training as “really exciting”.

It happens underwater in a giant pool, complete with a spacesuit and a mock-up of the space station, she explained.

“I absolutely love the water, but it feels nothing like diving,” said Dr Coogan.

“Of course we have a lot of the same constraints in terms of safety underwater, decompression considerations.

“But in a spacesuit you can’t swim, in space there is nothing to push against.

“It’s physically hard work,” she said, adding it seems ironic that a ‘spacewalk’ is mostly achieved through upper arm work.

The landing of the first commercial spacecraft on the Moon last year sparked excitement about a new age of possibilities in the Solar System.

Several months later, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew returned to Earth after five days in orbit, following a historic mission featuring the world’s first commercial spacewalk.

The US space agency Nasa said the mission represented “a giant leap forward” for the commercial space industry.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster programme from the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, USA, Dr Coogan said the space industry is “very much changing”.

“Of course, there is a need for a huge amount of people who need to be regulating what we do and why, both government and commercial,” she said.

“There are benefits to having that commercial side, we now are going up to the International Space Station in commercial vehicles and, without that, it’s difficult to say where we would be.”

Dr Coogan emphasised the science being conducted in space is “very, very important”.

“[It] cannot really be replaced in any other context. That’s why I do this job.”

She pointed out that while exciting experiments are happening in micro-gravity environments on Earth, these can only last for a brief period.

“Removing that gravity element is completely irreplaceable,” she said.

Dr Coogan added that as space is used more for various purposes, it’s crucial to protect both the space environment and the Earth’s environment.

“What we do in space really is for the benefit of Earth,” she added.

Regarding satellites, she mentioned that while they play a role in Earth research, scientists must also consider the issue of space debris.

“When we send these new technologies into space it is very much a push now to have an end-of-life plan for the satellite,” she said.

“How is it going to be de-orbited or send into a higher orbit where it is out of harms way?”

On Wednesday, Dr Coogan will be speaking to the NI Space Office about her journey as part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival.

“There is a real pull to say yes to these events, particularly when you are engaging with young people,” she said.

“School children wrote in and recorded their questions, it is fascinating for me to see what young people are interested in and try my best to give them answers.

“Every now and then there will be a question you’ll have never imagined before.”

Actress Kim Sae-ron‘s death in an apparent suicide has renewed criticism of South Korea’s entertainment industry, which churns out stars but also subjects them to immense pressure and scrutiny.

Kim – who was found dead aged 24 at her home in Seoul on Sunday – had been bombarded with negative press coverage and hate online after a drink-driving conviction in 2022. Police have not provided further details about her death.

Experts found the circumstances leading to it depressingly familiar. Other celebrities also ended up taking their lives after careers upended by cyberbullying.

As Kim was laid to rest on Wednesday, analysts say they are not optimistic her death will lead to meaningful change.

South Korea’s entertainment industry is enjoying massive popularity. Today, there are more than an estimated 220 million fans of Korean entertainment around the world – that’s four times the population of South Korea.

But there is also increasing spotlight on the less glamorous side of the entertainment industry.

South Korea is known for its hyper-competitive culture in most spheres of life – from education to careers. It has one of the highest suicide rates among developed countries. While its overall suicide rate is falling, deaths of those in their 20s are rising.

This pressure is heightened in the case of celebrities. They face immense pressure to be perfect, and are subjected to the demands of obsessive “super fans” who can make or break careers.

That is why even the slightest perceived misstep can be career ending. Kim Sae-ron became so unpopular, scenes featuring her were edited out of shows such as Netflix’s 2023 drama Bloodhounds.

“It is not enough that the celebrities be punished by the law. They become targets of relentless criticism,” Korean culture critic Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.

He referred to K-pop artists Sulli and Goo Hara, who died by suicide in 2019 after long battles with internet trolls, even though they did not have known brushes with the law.

Sulli had offended fans for not conforming to the K-pop mould, while an internet mob had targeted Goo Hara over her relationship with an ex-boyfriend.

Cyberbullying has also become a money-making gig for some, Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.

“YouTubers get the views, forums get the engagement, news outlets get the traffic. I don’t think [Kim’s death] will change the situation.

“There needs to be harsher criminal punishment against leaving nasty comments,” he says.

Kim Sae-ron’s father has blamed a YouTuber for her death, claiming the controversial videos they published caused her deep emotional distress.

Others have pointed fingers at some local media outlets, who reportedly fuelled public animosity against Kim by reporting the unverified claims.

“This cycle of media-driven character assassination must stop,” civic group Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media said in a statement on Tuesday.

Na Jong-ho, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, likened the spate of celebrity deaths in South Korea to a real-life version of Squid Game, the South Korean Netflix blockbuster which sees the indebted fighting to the death for a huge cash prize.

“Our society abandons those who stumble and moves on as if nothing happened.. How many more lives must be lost before we stop inflicting this destructive, suffocating shame on people?” he wrote on Facebook.

“Drunk driving is a big mistake. There would be a problem with our legal system if that goes unpunished. However, a society that buries people who make mistakes without giving them a second chance is not a healthy one,” Prof Na added.

Last year, the BBC reported on how “super fans” in the notorious K-pop industry try to dictate their idols’ private lives – from their romantic relationships to their daily activities outside of work – and can be unforgiving when things go off script.

It is no surprise that Kim Sae-ron chose to withdraw from the public eye after her DUI conviction, for which she was fined 20 million won (£11,000) in April 2023.

It is worth noting however, that not all public figures are subject to the same treatment. Politicians, including opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, also have past drink-driving convictions but have been able to bounce back – polls show Lee is now the country’s top presidential contender.

In South Korea, it is “extremely tough” for artistes to recover when they do something that puts a crack in their “idol” image, says K-pop columnist Jeff Benjamin.

He contrasts this to entertainment industries in the West, where controversies and scandals sometimes even “add a rockstar-like edge” to celebrities’ reputations.

“While no one cheers when a Hollywood celebrity is arrested for DUI [driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs] or sent to jail for significant crimes, it’s not necessarily career-ending,” he says.

While the Korean entertainment industry has made moves to address performers’ mental health concerns, it is unclear how effective these have been.

Real change can only happen when there is no more financial or attention incentives to continue with such intrusive reporting, says Mr Benjamin.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website here.

US President Donald Trump has appeared to accuse Ukraine of being responsible for the war with Russia, in a flurry of claims from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.

Speaking to reporters, Trump also made claims about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s popularity and observed that Ukraine had yet to hold scheduled elections due to martial law.

Trump’s comments – some of which appeared to mirror common Russian talking points about the war – came just hours after US officials met with a Russian delegation in Riyadh to open talks to end the conflict, which has raged for almost three years.

Zelensky later accused Trump of “living in a disinformation space” created by Russia.

BBC Verify has fact-checked Trump’s claims.

Ukrainian authorities expressed dissatisfaction over not being part of Tuesday’s talks in Riyadh. But Trump dismissed these concerns, telling reporters that Ukraine had had three years to end the war, before appearing to blame Kyiv for starting the conflict.

“You should have never started it,” he said. The Kremlin has previously accused Ukraine of starting the war against Russia.

“It was they who started the war in 2014. Our goal is to stop this war. And we did not start this war in 2022,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told US talk show host Tucker Carlson in February 2024.

Ukraine didn’t start the war. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, having annexed Crimea in 2014.

The annexation came after Ukraine’s pro-Russian president was ousted by popular demonstrations.

• Trump says Ukraine could have made a deal earlier
• Rosenberg: How Putin and Trump shook up the world in a week
• Who was at the table at US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia?

Russia also backed proxy forces who seized areas of eastern Ukraine, and it accused the new government in Kyiv of discrimination and genocide against Russian speakers. The International Court of Justice has rejected Moscow’s claims.

After the failure of agreements which aimed to end the post-2014 conflict – Russia began a massive build-up of troops on its border with Ukraine in late 2021.

Putin launched the invasion on 24 February 2022, stating that the aim of the operation was to “demilitarise and denazify” the pro-Western government of Volodymyr Zelensky and prevent the country from joining Nato.

In Ukraine’s last parliamentary elections, support for far-right candidates was 2%. It should also be noted that Zelensky is Jewish and that his party has been regarded as centrist.

And while Nato officials said in 2021 that Ukraine was a candidate to join the Western alliance in the future, it was not part of any formal process.

President Trump also claimed that Zelensky’s approval rating has fallen to 4%.

It’s unclear what source the president was citing as he didn’t provide evidence. We have asked the White House to clarify this.

A survey conducted this month found that 57% of Ukrainians said they trusted the president, according to the Ukraine-based Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

However, that was down from 77% at the end of 2023, and 90% in May 2022 – suggesting that the president has suffered a drop-off in his popularity.

Some other polls suggest Zelensky trailing his nearest rival, former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in the first round of any future election, indicating the two would face each other in a run-off.

Official polling is limited and it is extremely difficult to carry out accurate surveys during a time of war. Millions of Ukrainians have fled and Russia has occupied around a fifth of the country.

In the wake of Trump’s comments, some major Russian media outlets seized on the claim and cited a poll carried out by Ukrainian MP and Zelensky critic, Oleksandr Dubinsky, on Telegram which they claimed backed up Trump’s assessment.

Dubinsky has been charged with treason in Ukraine, and accused of “operating at the behest of Russian intelligence” – which he denies.

Trump also drew attention to the fact that Ukraine has not held a presidential election since 2019, when Zelensky – previously a comedian with no political base – swept to power.

His first five-year term of office was due to come to an end in May 2024. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since the Russian invasion in February 2022, which means elections are suspended.

Ukraine’s martial laws were drafted in 2015 – shortly after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and years before Zelensky and his Servant of the People party came to power.

In November all parties in Ukraine’s parliament backed postponing elections until the war ends, a position which a survey suggests is popular with Ukrainians.

Some 60% of people were opposed to holding elections to replace Zelensky during the war, according to a survey of Ukrainians conducted in September and October by the International Republican Institute.

Zelensky has vowed to hold a new election once the conflict ends and has yet to confirm that he intends to stand. Some experts have observed that holding elections in Ukraine before the conflict ends would be practically impossible, as Russian attacks on many cities persist and millions of citizens are displaced abroad or living under Russian occupation.

Trump’s intervention on the subject came just hours after the Kremlin questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy as his term in office has ended, a claim Moscow has repeatedly made in the past months. On 28 January, Putin called Zelensky “illegitimate” in an interview with Russian media.

Referring to the electoral situation, Trump appeared aware that it has been a frequent Russian allegation, saying: “That’s not a Russian thing, that’s something coming from me, from other countries.”

For his part, Zelensky has previously said it would be “absolutely irresponsible to throw the topic of elections” in the middle of the conflict.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

When he penned his eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution, American journalist John Reed famously titled it Ten Days That Shook The World.

But 10 days is too long for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They’ve shaken things up in a week.

It began with the Putin-Trump telephone conversation on 12 February and their presidential pledges to kickstart relations.

It continued with the Munich Security Conference and a schism between Europe and America.

Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level in-person contacts between the two countries since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It is a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine scrambling to respond, raised fears for European security and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made any concessions to get there.

• Follow the latest developments live
• Sarah Rainsford: Moscow is back at the table
• Who was at the US-Russia talks?
• Jeremy Bowen: No sign of a quick piece dividend for Trump

One image dominates Wednesday morning’s Russian newspapers: senior Russian and American officials at the negotiating table in Riyadh.

The Kremlin wants the Russian public and the international community to see that Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine have failed.

Russian media are welcoming the prospect of warmer ties with Washington and pouring scorn on European leaders and Kyiv.

“Trump knows he will have to make concessions [to Russia] because he is negotiating with the side that’s winning in Ukraine,” writes pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets. “He will make concessions. Not at America’s expense, but at the expense of Europe and Ukraine.

“For so long Europe had gone around all puffed up, thinking of itself as the civilised world and as a Garden of Eden. It failed to notice it had lost its trousers… now its old comrade across the Atlantic has pointed that out…”

On the streets of Moscow I don’t detect that level of gloating.

Instead, people are watching and waiting to see whether Trump will really turn out to be Russia’s new best friend and whether he can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

“Trump is a businessman. He’s only interested in making money,” Nadezhda tells me. “I don’t think things will be any different. There’s too much that needs to be done to change the situation.”

“Perhaps those talks [in Saudi Arabia] will help,” says Giorgi. “It’s high time we stopped being enemies.”

“Trump is active. He’s energetic. But will he do anything?” wonders Irina.

“We dream that these negotiations will bring peace. It’s a first step. And maybe this will help our economy. Food and other goods keep going up in price here. That’s partly because of the special military operation [the war in Ukraine] and the general international situation.”

Putin and Trump have spoken on the phone; their two teams have met in Saudi Arabia; a presidential summit is expected soon.

But a few days ago the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets tried to imagine what the two leaders had said to each other during last week’s phone call.

They came up with this rendition:

“Trump called Putin.

‘Vladimir! You’ve got a cool country and I’ve got a cool country. Shall we go and divide up the world?’

‘What have I been saying all along? Let’s do it!….”

Make-believe? We’ll see.

Before he was kidnapped by Hamas, former Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi told his British wife and daughters “I will be back, I’ll come back to you”.

It was only when he was released, 16 months after being taken that he discovered his wife Lianne, from Bristol, and teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel were murdered by Hamas gunmen shortly after he was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October.

His brother-in-law said it had been that promise which had kept him going throughout his captivity.

But, after being released earlier this month Mr Sharabi was told by an Israeli army officer all three had been killed in the attack.

His brother-in-law Steve Brisley, from Bridgend in south Wales, visited him in hospital in Israel last week, two days after Mr Sharabi became one of the latest hostages to be handed to the Red Cross by Hamas in a choreographed release in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Mr Brisley told the BBC: “They were alive when he was taken out of the house and he said to them ‘whatever happens, whatever they do to me, I will be back. I’ll come back to you’.

“He’s a man of honour. He’s a family man. What kept him in going throughout all of this, was to keep that promise he made to Lianne and the girls.”

On 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw over 250 people taken hostage.

In response, Israel launched a 15-month military offensive in Gaza that killed at least 47,460 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated the area.

A ceasefire was declared on 15 January and began four days later. During the first six-week phase of the ceasefire, a total of 33 hostages should be freed in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel.

At his release on 8 February, Mr Sharabi made a speech on the stage and said he was looking forward to being reunited with his wife and children.

Mr Brisley added: “It wasn’t until he was in the Israeli army vehicle being transferred from Gaza into Israel that he asked ‘are Lianne and the girls waiting for me?’

“One of the soldiers had to tell him that they had in fact been murdered on the 7 October and were not waiting for him.

“It was absolutely devastating for him and not something that he will ever truly recover from. We spoke about that moment and obviously he was extremely emotional.

“We hugged together and cried together. It’s a devastating loss for him, particularly as the promise that he made to Lianne and the girls as he was taken away that I will be back, no matter what happens, I will be back.

“He kept that promise, but unfortunately, they weren’t there to see him.”

Mr Sharabi spent 490 days as a hostage and Mr Brisley said his brother-in-law has not yet spoken much about his time in captivity – but he described the “starvation” he and other hostages faced as some of the hardest moments.

“I’ve spent 16 months speaking on his behalf because he didn’t have a voice, obviously now he’s out he will have his own story and his own truth to tell,” Mr Brisley added.

Mr Brisley told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast the last week had been “intense, emotional, but cathartic”.

He said his wife and daughters were desperately waiting for news on the day before Mr Sharabi was due for release.

“We saw Eli step out of the vehicle but he was unrecognisable,” Mr Brisley said. “All four of us were saying ‘is that Eli?’, he was so drawn and gaunt, emaciated.”

Arriving at the hospital where Mr Sharabi had been transferred, Mr Brisley said: “We just threw our arms around each other, hugged, we told each other that we loved each other.”

Mr Brisley described Mr Sharabi as “incredibly skinny, emaciated, frail”.

“He’s pale, but mentally he’s so strong, it’s been incredible to see the mental strength and fortitude that he’s got,” he added.

“The most distressing thing for us was the darkness in his eyes, the light looked like it had gone.”

Mr Brisley said he wanted to make sure his brother-in-law knew he remained “an integral part of our family”.

“We will never know exactly what happened, what went wrong for them to be killed,” Mr Brisley said.

He said they had sat and talked about memories of Lianne, Noiya and Yahel.

“It was emotional, we shared tears, we shared hugs, obviously he got quite choked at times but he was able to talk about them.”

“I gave him some grief about how rubbish Manchester United have been for the last year and he laughed at that, it was that, seeing the light back in his eyes that reassured me that Eli is still in there.

“I think the most positive thing that came out of my conversations with him is that he does see a future and he does want to go on,” Mr Brisley said.

Travelling to Israel also allowed Mr Brisley to “process the loss of Lianne and the girls” as he said “it was always difficult to fully engage with our grief while Eli was still in captivity”.

He said he visited the Nova festival site and the Sharabi family home which was “cold and dark and devoid of the love and the laughter and the light that had been there 18 months ago”.

“I sat on the floor and sobbed,” he said.

“It was at once beautiful and awful, but cathartic, grief is just love that has no home,” Mr Brisley said. “Now Eli is back we have somewhere to direct that love and I think that will help us to grieve for Lianne and the girls.”

“We’re looking to close a chapter of this whole horrific book, but we’re going to be dealing with it for the rest of our life,” he said.

Lianne grew up in Staple Hill, on the outskirts of Bristol, and first moved to Israel as a volunteer on a kibbutz when she was 19, before relocating to the country permanently.

After just three months in Israel, she met Eli. They had two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, who were 16 and 13 when they were killed.

One of Eli’s brothers, Yossi, was also taken hostage on 7 October, but was later killed in captivity. Hamas said his death was the result of an Israeli airstrike, which Israel said was likely.

The terrible impact on hostages was also highlighted on Wednesday by Mandy Damari, the mother of former British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari who was also recently released.

Speaking for the first time publicly since her daughter was freed in a speech in Israel, she said her daughter now needed further hospital treatment.

“Unfortunately, Emily did not receive humanitarian aid or the correct medical treatment for her gunshot wounds in her hand and leg,” Ms Damari said.

“And therefore, must have corrective surgery this month with a period of recovery and rehabilitation afterwards.

“Many other hostages will be in the same situation as Emily was, in desperate need of food, medicine and more.”

She called for humanitarian aid to go to the hostages still being held and for all of them to be released.

Ms Damari added: “Keep fighting and praying and know that we are all with you and may all the hostages be returned to their families just as Emily, my amazing daughter, who I still love to the moon and back, was returned to me.”

The chief minister of India’s Uttar Pradesh state has rejected a government report that found high levels of contamination in a key bathing place at the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest gathering.

The report said the waters at Sangam – the confluence of rivers considered holy by Hindus – in Prayagraj city had alarming levels of untreated sewage and bacteria found in human and animal excreta, making it unfit for bathing.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath insisted that the water was not just fit for bathing, but also safe for doing aachman – the Hindu ritual of drinking a handful after bathing.

Authorities say 565 million have bathed since the festival began on 13 January.

The Kumbh Mela (also known as Mahakumbh) – is held once every 12 years.

Hindus believe that taking a dip at Sangam – the confluence of India’s most sacred Ganges river with the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati – will cleanse them of sins, purify their soul and help them attain salvation.

The Mela, which stretches over six weeks, draws devotees from all walks of life and from all around the world. Tens of millions have been bathing in the rivers daily during the festival, which will end on 26 February.

However, health activists and environmentalists have expressed concern over the water quality of the rivers during the festival.

Before the Mela began, India’s top environment court had directed the pollution control boards of the federal and state governments to monitor the water in the rivers regularly and to take adequate steps to maintain its quality.

But a report submitted by the federal government’s Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) earlier this month stated that the waters of the Ganges and Yamuna had high coliform levels.

Coliform level is a key indicator of the presence of untreated sewage and faecal bacteria in water.

• Millions start bathing in holy rivers at India’s biggest Hindu festival
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The report said that the coliform levels in the Ganges were 1,400 times more than the acceptable limit, and in the Yamuna river, they were 660 times more.

The CPCB analysed water samples from both the rivers on five separate days in January, but the coliform levels never met standards, the report added.

Chief Minister Adityanath, however, insisted that his government was continuously monitoring water in the rivers to maintain its quality.

“All the pipes and the drains in and around Sangam have been taped and the water is being released only after purification,” he said.

“The reasons for increased faecal coliform can be several, such as sewage leakage and animal waste, but the amount of faecal coliform in Prayagraj is as per the standards,” he added.

He accused the opposition of running a “false campaign” to defame the Kumbh Mela.

This is not the first time that the Uttar Pradesh government has come under scrutiny for the way it has organised and is managing the Kumbh Mela.

On one of the most auspicious bathing days in January, at least 30 people died in a crush that took place near the Sangam.

On Sunday, another crush at the New Delhi Railway Station – where thousands of devotees had gathered to board trains for Prayagraj – killed around 18 people.

Kevin Spacey has responded to fellow actor Guy Pearce’s allegation that the Oscar-winner “targeted” him during the making of 1997 movie LA Confidential, telling the Australian to “grow up”, adding: “You are not a victim”.

It comes after Pearce – one of the stars of the recent Bafta-winning film The Brutalist – this week expanded on his alleged experiences with the US actor having previously called him “a handsy guy” in 2018.

Spacey – whose career was brought to a halt by a string of allegations – admitted to “being too handsy” and “pushing the boundaries”, in an interview last year with Piers Morgan, while saying he’d not done anything illegal.

In 2023 the actor was found not guilty of all charges of sexual assault against four men between 2001 and 2013 after a trial in London; and in 2022 a US court dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit against him.

Spacey currently faces a civil trial over another allegation, which he denies, that he sexually assaulted a man in 2008.

A further sexual abuse claim was lodged against him last week at the High Court, according to filings.

Pearce told the Hollywood Reporter that the Oscar-winner “targeted me, no question” during the making of the 1997 crime thriller LA Confidential.

“But I did that thing that you do where you brush it off and go, ‘ah, that’s nothing. Ah, no, that’s nothing’. And I did that for five months,” he said.

“And, really, I was sort of scared of Kevin because he’s quite an aggressive man. He’s extremely charming and brilliant at what he does – really impressive etc.

“He holds a room remarkably. But I was young and susceptible, and he targeted me, no question.”

Pearce revealed he had told his wife at the time that he felt safe on set when his co-star Simon Baker was present, because Spacey allegedly focused his attentions on him instead.

He said the #MeToo movement, which saw allegations made against many men in Hollywood from 2017 onwards, had been “a really incredible wake-up call” for him.

The actor said he “broke down and sobbed” and “couldn’t stop” after he saw the allegations against Spacey in the news headlines. “I think it really dawned on me the impact that had occurred and how I sort of brushed it off and how I had either shelved it or blocked it out or whatever.”

On Tuesday, Spacey responded directly to Pearce in a video posted on X, saying: “If I did something then that upset you, you could have reached out to me.

“We could have had that conversation, but instead, you’ve decided to speak to the press, who are now, of course, coming after me, because they would like to know what my response is to the things that you said.

“You really want to know what my response is? Grow up.”

Spacey claimed Pearce omitted to mention he had flown to Georgia a year after LA Confidential was made “just to spend time with me” while he was filming another movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

“I mean, did you tell the press that too, or does that not fit into the victim narrative you have going?” he added.

“I apologise that I didn’t get the message that you don’t like spending time with me. Maybe there was another reason, I don’t know, but that doesn’t make any sense. That you would have just been leading me on, right? But here you are now on a mission, some 28 years later, after I’ve been through hell and back.”

Spacey concluded his message by saying he was happy to have a “conversation” with Pearce “anytime, anyplace”.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said. “But Guy – you need to grow up. You are not a victim.”

Pearce earlier told the US publication he had raised Spacey’s alleged behaviour with him years later, and had “had a couple of confrontations with Kevin” that “got ugly”.

His new strategy these days, he noted, was “just try to be more honest about it now and call it for what it is”.

A US woman who unknowingly carried and delivered a baby boy who was not biologically hers is launching legal proceedings against an IVF clinic over the mix-up, after being forced to give up custody.

Krystena Murray, from the state of Georgia, became pregnant after IVF treatment at the Coastal Fertility clinic in May 2023.

But it became clear that the embryo she had been carrying in fact belonged to another couple – after Ms Murray gave birth to a boy who was of a different ethnicity to both her and the sperm donor she had chosen.

Despite the error, Ms Murray wanted to keep the child, and raised the baby for several months until the biological parents were granted custody.

In a statement released through her lawyer, Ms Murray said: “To carry a baby, fall in love with him, deliver him, and build the uniquely special bond between mother and baby, all to have him taken away. I’ll never fully recover from this.”

Ms Murray, a white woman, gave birth to a black baby in December 2023. She never posted photos of the child online or allowed her friends and family to see him.

She eventually purchased an at-home DNA kit, and the test results she received in late January 2024 confirmed they were not biologically related, according to the complaint filed against the clinic.

She informed the clinic about the mix-up the following month. It alerted the biological parents, who sued for custody when the baby was three months old.

Ms Murray voluntarily gave up custody after being told by her legal team she stood no chance of winning in family court. The baby now lives with his biological parents in another state under a different name.

The complaint says to this day Ms Murray does not know whether the clinic, Coastal Fertility Specialists, mistakenly transferred her embryo to a different couple, or what might have happened to it afterwards.

In a statement to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, Coastal Fertility acknowledged the mistake and apologised for the distress that was caused.

“This was an isolated event with no further patients affected,” the statement said. “The same day this error was discovered we immediately conducted an in-depth review and put additional safeguards in place to further protect patients and to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.”

There have been several lawsuits in recent years brought against US fertility clinics over IVF mix-ups.

IVF is a procedure during which a woman’s eggs are fertilised by a man’s sperm in a laboratory before the embryos are implanted into a woman’s uterus.

Authorities in one of the Philippines’ most densely-populated urban centres are offering a cash reward for mosquitoes in an attempt to stop the spread of dengue.

Carlito Cernal, village chief of Barangay Addition Hills in central Manila, announced the bounty of one peso (less than two US cents) for every five mosquitoes.

While news of the bounty has provoked scorn on social media, Mr Cernal has defended it as necessary for the community’s health.

The move follows a recent spike in cases of dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes, in the Philippines.

The programme, which will run for at least a month, was started after two students in Mr Cernal’s neighbourhood died from the disease.

The bounty applies to all mosquitoes – dead or alive – and their larvae, Mr Cernal added. Live mosquitoes will be exterminated using ultraviolet light.

A total of 21 people have already claimed their reward, bringing in a total of 700 mosquitoes and larvae so far, he told the BBC.

The bounty drew swift ridicule after it was announced late on Tuesday.

“Mosquito farming is coming,” one social media comment read. “Will a mosquito get rejected if it has only one wing?” read another.

The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) told the BBC that it “appreciates the good intentions of local government executives to fight dengue”.

It declined further comment, however, when asked if catching mosquitoes in exchange for cash is an effective way of stopping dengue.

“We urge all concerned to please consult and coordinate with their local health officers or the DOH regional office in their area for evidence-based practices that are known to work,” it said.

Mr Cernal said he was aware that the bounty had been bashed on social media, but added: “This is one of the biggest and most dense areas. We have to do something to help the local government.”

He pointed out that local health authorities recorded 44 cases of dengue in the community during the most recent surge of infections.

Barangay Addition Hills is home to nearly 70,000 people, crammed into a 162-hectare patch at the heart of the capital, Metro Manila.

Mr Cernal said the bounty was meant to supplement existing measures such as cleaning the streets and preventing the build-up of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes lay their eggs.

Dengue is endemic in tropical countries, and outbreaks often occur in urban areas with poor sanitation which allows virus-carrying mosquitoes to multiply.

In severe cases, dengue causes internal bleeding which can lead to death. Its symptoms include headaches, nausea, joint and muscle pain.

Philippine authorities have recently flagged a rise in dengue cases nationwide due to seasonal rains. The DOH said it recorded 28,234 cases on 1 February, a 40% jump from the previous year.

The department has advised the public to maintain the cleanliness of their surroundings, destroy potential mosquito breeding sites such as tyres, wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers and apply mosquito repellent.

Aside from dengue, the DOH said the rains have also fuelled a spike in influenza-like diseases and cases of leptospirosis, a rat-borne disease that people get when wading in flood waters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has responded to criticism of Kyiv by Donald Trump, by saying his US counterpart is “living in a disinformation space” created by Russia.

On Tuesday, President Trump appeared to blame Ukraine for the war and suggested the Ukrainian leader’s popularity rating was as low as 4%. Trump was speaking after US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia that left out Ukraine.

In his first comments after the talks, Russia’s Vladimir Putin said he rated the talks in Riyadh “very highly” and that Trump had told him that Ukraine would be part of any future talks process.

Zelensky said it was America’s right to discuss bilateral issues, but that the US had helped Putin “to break out of years of isolation”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who took part in the talks, praised President Trump for accepting Moscow’s repeated claim that “one of the root causes” of the war was the Biden administration’s “pushy line of dragging Ukraine into Nato”.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday on a mission to “sit and listen” to Ukraine’s position. Kellogg was not part of the US team that met Russian officials in Riyadh.

Almost three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European nations have been scrambling to respond to this week’s developments.

French President Emmanuel Macron was holding informal talks on Ukraine on Wednesday with leaders from a number of European states as well as Canada.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Zelensky accused Russia of lying during Tuesday’s “notorious meeting” in the Saudi capital, where the US and Russia agreed to start negotiating an end to the war.

“With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader… he is living in this disinformation space,” he said.

He added that Ukraine had “evidence” that Russia was spreading disinformation about his approval rating, and “these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia”.

Zelensky won a five-year term in 2019, and has remained in office because elections have been suspended since martial law was declared after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

When asked about the claims made on his popularity, Zelensky said that while he never commented on popularity ratings, one opinion poll put him at 58%.

He said he wanted Trump’s Ukraine envoy to “walk Kyiv’s streets” and “see everything for himself”.

Zelensky also made clear he would not sell his country in return for future security guarantees that gave the US a big stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources.

He said the war has so far cost $320bn (£254bn), around $200bn (£159bn) of which had come from the US and EU.

He said the US had alleged that 90% of Ukraine’s support had come from them, and while he was grateful for American support, “the truth is somewhere else”.

In a later post on X, he wrote: “We must never forget that Russia is ruled by pathological liars – they cannot be trusted and must be pressured.”

On Tuesday, Trump spoke to journalists at his Mar-a-Lago residence. “I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” he said.

“Well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

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European allies have also started weighing in on Trump’s comments.

“No-one but Putin started or wanted this war in the heart of Europe,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. “We are at an existential waypoint for security and peace in Europe.”

French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas, said: “We struggle to understand the American logic”, while reiterating her country’s support for Ukraine.

On Monday, the leaders of several European member states of Nato gathered in Paris to talk about what could be done to help Ukraine.

One idea proposed was sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, although Sergei Lavrov rejected that as unacceptable.

Trump, on the other hand, called it “great”, saying that he was all for it if that was what they wanted to do, but that US troops would not be deployed as the US was “very far away”.

Passengers have described their amazement after most of them escaped unscathed from a plane that crash landed in Toronto on Monday afternoon.

The Delta flight skidded along the runway in flames before flipping over and coming to a dramatic halt upside down, losing its tail and an entire wing in the process.

Some of the 80 people on board were then left hanging upside down while still strapped to their seats, before they scrambled over luggage to escape onto the snowy runway.

No deaths have been reported after the incident, which is under investigation.

Analysts have suggested the harsh winter weather may be to blame, or that the plane landed badly. They have also credited the plane’s safety features with saving lives.

The incident took place shortly after 14:00 local time on Monday (19:00 GMT).

It involved a model CRJ-900 plane, operating as Delta Air Lines flight DL4819.

The aircraft arrived at Toronto from the US city of Minneapolis and was carrying 76 passengers and four crew members.

As it landed, the plane appears to have struck the runway, slid for some distance and then flipped over, observed Dan Ronan, a journalist and pilot licensed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who spoke to BBC News.

In a video statement released on Tuesday, Transportation Safety Board senior investigator Ken Webster said that after the initial impact parts of the aircraft separated.

The fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side of the runway, upside down and facing the other direction, he said.

Footage obtained by TMZ showed part of the aircraft bursting into flames as the landing happened. Firefighters rushed to put these out.

Passenger Pete Carlson told broadcaster CBC it was “a very forceful event”, recalling the sound of “concrete and metal” at the moment of impact.

He and others on board were suspended upside down in their seats, and had to release themselves onto the cabin ceiling before leaving the inverted aircraft.

All 80 people on board survived. On Tuesday morning, Delta said 21 injured passengers were initially transported to local hospitals – with 19 later released.

Delta has promised to give more updates.

Mr Webster said investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the wreckage as part of their investigation.

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BBC Verify has analysed recordings of communications between the plane and air traffic control.

At no point in discussions was there anything to suggest trouble was anticipated with the landing.

This was confirmed by Marco Chan, a former pilot and a senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK, and plane crash investigator Ismo Aaltonen, who also listened to the audio recording.

Mr Chan also said the plane appeared to have made a hard landing – involving an unusually high rate of descent.

It seems to have touched down with one wheel first, Mr Chan told the BBC, which might have caused the landing gear to collapse on impact. This could have lead to the right wing hitting the runway and in turn causing the plane to roll.

The weather may also have been significant. The airport fire chief stated that the runway was dry at the time of the incident.

Airport authorities had said earlier that although recent heavy snow had stopped, “frigid temperatures and high winds [were] moving in”.

As the plane came in to land, air traffic controllers told the pilots of 38mph (61km/h) gusts and the possibility of a “slight bump in the glide path”, CNN reported.

The pilots appear to have attempted what is known as a crab manoeuvre, Mr Ronan said. This involves turning a plane into the wind, and then directly onto the runway at the last moment.

“The sheer survivability of this is really amazing,” Mr Ronan told the BBC, pointing out that the aeroplane’s fuselage (body) had stayed intact.

Other commentators hailed the craft’s safety features. CNN analyst and former FAA inspector David Soucie said the plane had broken apart as it had meant to, with the detachment of the wings stopping the fuselage ripping apart.

Graham Braithwaite, professor of safety and accident investigation at the UK’s Cranfield University, said planes were also designed so that air passengers involved in an accident did not hit things likely to cause injury.

“Even the design of the seat back or the tray table is all part of how we consider making that survivable space,” he told the BBC. “And the seatbelt that people have is so important – that is the ultimate thing that stops people being thrown around the cabin like this,” he added.

The flight attendants have also been praised for getting everyone off the flipped aeroplane quickly. Emergency crews on the ground were labelled “heroic” by the airport chief after reaching the crash site in a matter of minutes.

Mr Carlson said the passengers themselves had worked together very effectively. “What I saw was everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another,” he said.

Mr Ronan highlighted the importance of the plane’s high-impact 16g seats, which he said were “designed to absorb a great deal of punishment”.

The seats can withstand deceleration of 16 times the force of gravity, and must pass rigorous testing using human dummies to model crash dynamics.

The seat legs, attached to a track on the floor, must be able to pitch down 10 degrees on one side and roll 10 degrees on the other side so that they do not break, said Kevin Campbell, founder of Aviation Consulting & Engineering Solutions, who is FAA-authorised to approve seats that are required to comply with the regulations.

In previous accidents, the FAA had seen seats piled up in the fronts of aircrafts, with bodies still attached in many cases, Mr Campbell said.

Mr Ronan said the regulations keep “the seat in place and bolted to the floor, so you have a higher degree of survivability in your seat itself and you have less likelihood that the seat is going to become detached, where you’re now strapped into a moving object that’s being bounced around the cabin.”

The regulations also require a passenger to be able to withstand hitting their head and legs on the seat in front of them, and seats help absorb weight in their spine so that they do not break their back. Seatbelts are also less stretchy than they used to be so the restraint is more secure.

“As a result of that aircrafts are much, much safer,” Mr Campbell said, and those factors were “absolutely” at play in improving safety in this crash.

“It really is remarkable that the seats did exactly what they were supposed to do, they stayed intact… the seatbelts worked just as they were supposed to, and the seats did not become detached from the floor,” Mr Ronan said.

“Think of how many head injuries we would have had, spinal injuries we would have had, if the seat became detached.”

This marks the fourth major air crash in North America in less than a month, and other recent incidents remain under investigation.

• All 67 people on board a passenger aeroplane and military helicopter died after the two aircraft collided in mid-air near Washington DC on 29 January
• Seven people were killed on 1 February when a medical transportation plane carrying six people crashed in Philadelphia. Another person was killed on the ground
• All 10 people were killed when a small plane came down in Alaska on 6 February

Those incidents followed another high-profile crash in South Korea in December, in which 179 people were killed.

Despite these, experts say air travel remains overwhelmingly safe – and increasingly so.

Brazil’s chief prosecutor has accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of leading an attempted coup after the ex-leader was defeated by his left-wing rival in the 2022 presidential election.

According to the prosecutor, the alleged plot aimed to prevent Bolsonaro’s successor in office, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office and included a plan to poison Lula.

Bolsonaro, 69, denies any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt.

It is now up to Brazil’s Supreme Court to decide whether to accept the prosecutor’s charges and put Bolsonaro and 33 other accused on trial.

In a sign of how divided Brazil remains two-and-a-half years after the bitterly fought presidential election, critics of Bolsonaro celebrated news of the charges, saying that the former president belonged in jail, while his supporters insisted he was innocent.

The focus is now on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who will have to weigh up the merits of the accusations made by the chief prosecutor and decide whether the case should proceed to the trial stage.

There is no deadline for Mr Moraes to make his decision, but legal experts quoted in Brazilian media said they expected him to rule in favour of a trial, which could get under way later this year.

Political analysts say a potential trial could have an impact on the 2026 presidential election.

While Bolsonaro is barred from running for office until 2030 for falsely claiming that Brazil’s voting system was vulnerable to fraud, he remains a strong political force.

Many think he could use a potential trial as a platform for his agenda.

In his 272-page report, Attorney-General Paulo Gonet said that he had concluded that Bolsonaro and the 33 other accused had formed a criminal group which had tried to instigate a coup against Lula’s newly elected government – an allegation those named have denied.

The document alleges that Bolsonaro and his vice-presidential candidate Walter Braga Netto led the group.

“Allied with other individuals, including civilians and military personnel, they attempted to prevent, in a co-ordinated manner, the result of the 2022 presidential elections from being fulfilled,” it reads.

According to the report, the alleged plot included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Alexandre de Moraes – the same Supreme Court justice now tasked with deciding whether the case should proceed to trial.

The prosecutor’s charges are based on a police investigation into the events leading up to 8 January 2023, when Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.

Parts of the buildings were ransacked and police arrested 1,500 people.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and has always denied any links to the rioters. But the prosecutor’s report alleges that he started sowing doubts about Brazil’s voting system as early as July 2021, which are thought to have encouraged those storming Congress.

Lawyers representing the former president said they were “astonished” by the accusations levelled against their client and insisted that he had never supported any movement aimed at dismantling Brazil’s democratic rule of law or the institutions that uphold it.

The said the prosecutor had come up with a “fanciful narrative” that would not stand up to legal scrutiny.

A US woman who unknowingly carried and delivered a baby boy who was not biologically hers is launching legal proceedings against an IVF clinic over the mix-up, after being forced to give up custody.

Krystena Murray, from the state of Georgia, became pregnant after IVF treatment at the Coastal Fertility clinic in May 2023.

But it became clear that the embryo she had been carrying in fact belonged to another couple – after Ms Murray gave birth to a boy who was of a different ethnicity to both her and the sperm donor she had chosen.

Despite the error, Ms Murray wanted to keep the child, and raised the baby for several months until the biological parents were granted custody.

In a statement released through her lawyer, Ms Murray said: “To carry a baby, fall in love with him, deliver him, and build the uniquely special bond between mother and baby, all to have him taken away. I’ll never fully recover from this.”

Ms Murray, a white woman, gave birth to a black baby in December 2023. She never posted photos of the child online or allowed her friends and family to see him.

She eventually purchased an at-home DNA kit, and the test results she received in late January 2024 confirmed they were not biologically related, according to the complaint filed against the clinic.

She informed the clinic about the mix-up the following month. It alerted the biological parents, who sued for custody when the baby was three months old.

Ms Murray voluntarily gave up custody after being told by her legal team she stood no chance of winning in family court. The baby now lives with his biological parents in another state under a different name.

The complaint says to this day Ms Murray does not know whether the clinic, Coastal Fertility Specialists, mistakenly transferred her embryo to a different couple, or what might have happened to it afterwards.

In a statement to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, Coastal Fertility acknowledged the mistake and apologised for the distress that was caused.

“This was an isolated event with no further patients affected,” the statement said. “The same day this error was discovered we immediately conducted an in-depth review and put additional safeguards in place to further protect patients and to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.”

There have been several lawsuits in recent years brought against US fertility clinics over IVF mix-ups.

IVF is a procedure during which a woman’s eggs are fertilised by a man’s sperm in a laboratory before the embryos are implanted into a woman’s uterus.

KFC, the fast-food restaurant chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is moving its corporate headquarters in the US from Kentucky to Texas, its owner has announced.

Yum Brands said it will shift the office from Louisville to Plano though KFC will keep some operations in Kentucky, including its KFC Foundation.

However, Andy Beshear, governor of the state of Kentucky, said: “I am disappointed by this decision and believe the company’s founder would be, too.

In recent years, many companies have relocated to Texas attracted by the state’s lower taxes and business-friendly policies.

The decision by Yum Brands is part of a plan to have two headquarters for its main brands. KFC and Pizza Hut will be in Plano while Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill will remain in Irvine, California.

Yum Brands’ chief executive David Gibbs, said: “These changes position us for sustainable growth and will help us better serve our customers, employees, franchisees and shareholders.”

But Beshear said: “This company’s name starts with Kentucky, and it has marketed our state’s heritage and culture in the sale of its product.”

KFC’s history in the state dates back to the 1930s, when its founder Colonel Harland Sanders began selling fried chicken at a service station in Corbin.

Today, Sanders’ face is emblazoned on the shop fronts of more than 24,000 KFC restaurants in over 145 countries and territories around the world.

Since the pandemic, many US companies have moved their headquarters.

According to a report by real estate services firm CBRE, Austin and other Texan cities have been particularly successful due to the state’s business-friendly environment.

Depending on how you read it, New Zealand’s latest tourism tagline can be a well-meaning plea for people to visit – or a threat to kick Kiwis out.

“Everyone Must Go!” reads a slogan printed across posters of people in New Zealand’s majestic landscapes – part of a NZ$500,000 ($285,000; £227,000) campaign unveiled on Sunday.

But what was meant as a catchy call to action aimed at Australian tourists has been accused of being tone-deaf, as New Zealand deals with record emigration rates and unemployment.

The government has defended the campaign, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon saying he “[appreciates] there’s lots of chat about whether everyone loves the slogan or not”.

“The fact that we’re talking about it is a good thing. It’s a great thing,” he added.

Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, tourism spokesperson for the opposition Labour Party, told local news outlet Radio New Zealand (RNZ) that the new slogan “makes New Zealand sound like we’re in a clearance bin at a sale”.

“The irony of that messaging is, that’s how Aotearoa New Zealanders are feeling right now,” she said, pointing to the “many cuts” that residents have experienced.

Job cuts to the public sector over the past year, as part of the government’s austerity push, have affected thousands of people.

Meanwhile, people are moving out of the country in record numbers. Official figures show that there were nearly 130,000 departures last year – though that was offset by the arrival of nearly 160,000 immigrants.

“New Zealanders are voting with their feet, leaving in record high numbers,” Labour MP Barbara Edmonds wrote on X on Monday. “Is their real tourism plan ‘Everyone Must Go’ – for Kiwis?”

Others associated the slogan with demand for lavatories.

“I think ‘Everyone Must Go’ might refer to the need for toilets in some of our high-tourist spots. I mean, the queues are ridiculous,” Green Party MP Celia Wade-Brown told RNZ.

“They don’t go kayaking, they don’t go diving, but, my goodness, they queue at the toilets.”

Tourism minister Louise Upston said in a statement on Sunday that “the campaign tagline of ‘Everyone must go’ lets Australia know that New Zealand is a ‘must visit’ destination, and that we’re ready and waiting to welcome them now”.

New Zealand’s tourism numbers have yet to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, and authorities are channelling efforts into attracting visitors from neighbouring Australia, its largest source of tourists.

Last year, New Zealand welcomed more than 1.2 million visitors from Australia. But Upston said visitors numbers were only 88% of that in 2019.

Luxon said he hoped the latest campaign would boost Australian visitor numbers by 5%.

“It would be totally and utterly tragic if those Australians don’t get here before they do die,” he said.

The month-long tourism campaign is set to start on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to rehire officials with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) who worked on the government response to bird flu before being fired over the weekend, US media report.

The layoffs were a part of a cost-cutting mission across the US government by Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) leader Elon Musk.

The terminations came as the latest outbreak of the bird flu has wreaked havoc on poultry and cattle farms, causing egg prices to skyrocket and raising concerns among public health experts.

A USDA spokesperson told the BBC that although “several” officials working on bird flu were “notified of their terminations” over the weekend, “we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters”.

“USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfil our statutory mission,” the spokesperson added.

Bird flu has circulated among American poultry flocks for years, but the virus found a new foothold in the US last year when it began to infect dairy cows.

Since then, dozens of humans in close contact with the animals have been infected as well, including a Louisiana patient who was the first to die from the virus in the US last month.

At the same time, the outbreak has worsened on poultry farms, forcing farmers to cull their chickens, leading to egg shortages and high prices.

Earlier this week, the US reached an agreement to buy 15,000 tonnes of liquid egg from Turkey to help plug the shortage, a Turkish trade official told the BBC.

Ibrahim Afyon, the president of the Egg Producers Central Union in Turkey, said the egg products would be sent to the US in two batches by the end of June.

• What is Doge and why is Musk cutting so many jobs?

Trump launched his mass cost-cutting programme in an effort to weed out what he sees as taxpayers’ money being wasted. Polling suggests cutting government spending has widespread support.

But the USDA firings are not the first time the administration has attempted to rehire federal employees within days of laying them off.

After firing officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration last week, US media reported that the government was trying to reinstate some of those employees, but was struggling to get in contact with them.

The layoffs were in addition to an estimated 75,000 workers who have accepted buyout offers from the White House to leave voluntarily.

Several Democratic states have filed lawsuits attempting to block some of these mass government layoffs as well as the newly formed Doge’s access to sensitive data.

But in a victory for Trump and Musk, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected one of these requests on Tuesday, arguing Democratic states had failed to link Trump’s layoffs to “imminent harm” in their states.

Trump and Musk appeared on Fox News on Tuesday night to defend the mass cuts they are making across the government, with Musk claiming Doge is just trying to “restore the will of the people through the president”.

“What we’re finding is that there’s an unelected bureaucracy,” he said.

The chief minister of India’s Uttar Pradesh state has rejected a government report that found high levels of contamination in a key bathing place at the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest gathering.

The report said the waters at Sangam – the confluence of rivers considered holy by Hindus – in Prayagraj city had alarming levels of untreated sewage and bacteria found in human and animal excreta, making it unfit for bathing.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath insisted that the water was not just fit for bathing, but also safe for doing aachman – the Hindu ritual of drinking a handful after bathing.

Authorities say 565 million have bathed since the festival began on 13 January.

The Kumbh Mela (also known as Mahakumbh) – is held once every 12 years.

Hindus believe that taking a dip at Sangam – the confluence of India’s most sacred Ganges river with the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati – will cleanse them of sins, purify their soul and help them attain salvation.

The Mela, which stretches over six weeks, draws devotees from all walks of life and from all around the world. Tens of millions have been bathing in the rivers daily during the festival, which will end on 26 February.

However, health activists and environmentalists have expressed concern over the water quality of the rivers during the festival.

Before the Mela began, India’s top environment court had directed the pollution control boards of the federal and state governments to monitor the water in the rivers regularly and to take adequate steps to maintain its quality.

But a report submitted by the federal government’s Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) earlier this month stated that the waters of the Ganges and Yamuna had high coliform levels.

Coliform level is a key indicator of the presence of untreated sewage and faecal bacteria in water.

• Millions start bathing in holy rivers at India’s biggest Hindu festival
• Thirty killed in crowd crush at India’s Kumbh Mela festival
• What is Kumbh Mela and why is this Hindu festival important?

The report said that the coliform levels in the Ganges were 1,400 times more than the acceptable limit, and in the Yamuna river, they were 660 times more.

The CPCB analysed water samples from both the rivers on five separate days in January, but the coliform levels never met standards, the report added.

Chief Minister Adityanath, however, insisted that his government was continuously monitoring water in the rivers to maintain its quality.

“All the pipes and the drains in and around Sangam have been taped and the water is being released only after purification,” he said.

“The reasons for increased faecal coliform can be several, such as sewage leakage and animal waste, but the amount of faecal coliform in Prayagraj is as per the standards,” he added.

He accused the opposition of running a “false campaign” to defame the Kumbh Mela.

This is not the first time that the Uttar Pradesh government has come under scrutiny for the way it has organised and is managing the Kumbh Mela.

On one of the most auspicious bathing days in January, at least 30 people died in a crush that took place near the Sangam.

On Sunday, another crush at the New Delhi Railway Station – where thousands of devotees had gathered to board trains for Prayagraj – killed around 18 people.