Judging by some of the headlines today in Russia, Moscow believes that the latest telephone conversation between Presidents Putin and Trump went well – certainly for the Kremlin.

“Putin and Trump agreed to work together on Ukraine resolution,” concludes Izvestia.

“Record-long Putin-Trump call,” declares Komsomolskaya Pravda. The paper’s website adds: “As things stand Russia has scored a diplomatic victory here.”

Why are some in Russia claiming “victory” after this two-hour phone call?

Probably because, by the end of it, Vladimir Putin hadn’t been pressured into making any major concessions to Ukraine or to the United States. On the contrary, he had – in effect – rejected President Trump’s idea of an immediate unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

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Instead of pressuring Moscow with the threat of even tougher sanctions and penalties, to get Russia to sign up to its plan, the US administration reacted by praising the Kremlin leader.

“We had a great call,” Donald Trump told Fox News.

“I would commend President Putin for all he did today on that call to move his country close to a final peace deal,” said Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.

Not only did Moscow not agree to an unconditional ceasefire, President Putin set his own pre-conditions for peace.

They include an end to Western military aid to Kyiv and intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians, as well as a halt to mobilisation in Ukraine. Such conditions are widely viewed as a way of securing Ukraine’s capitulation.

It’s hard to see Kyiv agreeing to any of that.

But could the Trump administration eventually be persuaded, by Moscow, that such conditions are acceptable? And if so, would Washington force Ukraine to accept them?

Much may depend on whether the Kremlin can convince President Trump he has more to gain from developing good ties with Moscow than by defending Ukraine’s corner.

As if to press home the point, in their conversations with the Americans, Russian officials are already dangling various economic and financial carrots and talking about how mutually beneficial the Russia-US relationship could be if the two countries can re-energise bilateral relations and get to work on joint projects.

Vladimir Putin recently raised the prospect of US-Russian cooperation in aluminium production and rare minerals mining.

The message appears to be getting through.

“We’d like to have more trade with Russia,” said Donald Trump on Tuesday in his interview with Fox News.

“They have some very valuable things for us, including rare earth. They have a big chunk of real estate, the biggest in the world. They have things that we could use.”

Moscow may well be hoping – possibly calculating – that Donald Trump will prioritise getting a chunk of that “Russian real estate” over securing an acceptable deal for Ukraine to end the war.

It’s a point echoed today by the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper:

“Moscow’s logic is to make economic relations with America so profitable that severing them would be too costly for the United States.”

After Ukraine had agreed to an unconditional ceasefire a week ago, the US administration publicly announced that “the ball is in [Russia’s] court”.

Now that Vladimir Putin has rejected the deal and set his own conditions, the Kremlin leader has hit it back into America’s “court”.

But Russia and America will continue their discussions – both on Ukraine and on US-Russian ties.

And it’s these negotiations which are likely to influence Donald Trump’s next move.

Former Labour minister Tulip Siddiq has accused the Bangladeshi authorities of mounting a “targeted and baseless” campaign against her.

In a letter to Bangladesh’s Anti Corruption Commission (ACC), the MP’s lawyers say allegations of corruption are “false and vexatious” and have never been formally put to her by investigators, despite being briefed to the media.

Siddiq resigned as economic secretary to the Treasury, with responsibility for tackling corruption in the UK’s financial markets, in January.

The Hampstead and Highgate MP insisted at the time she had done nothing wrong but that she did not want to be a “distraction” to the government.

In a letter accepting her resignation, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, a close friend of Siddiq who represents a neighbouring constituency in North London, said the “door remains open” to her return.

Siddiq had referred herself to the PM’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus when the corruption allegations first surfaced in January.

Sir Laurie said in his report that he had “not identified evidence of improprieties”.

But he added it was “regrettable” that Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt Sheikh Hasina, the deposed prime minister of Bangladesh and leader of Awami League party.

The ACC is examining claims Sheikh Hasina and her family embezzled up to £3.9bn from infrastructure spending in Bangladesh.

The investigation is based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a political opponent of Hasina.

Court documents seen by the BBC show Hajjaj has accused Siddiq of helping to broker a deal with Russia in 2013 that overinflated the price of a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.

In its letter to the ACC, Siddiq’s lawyers, Stephenson Harwood, repeat her claim that she was not involved in the nuclear plant deal in any way, despite being pictured at a signing ceremony in the Kremlin in 2013, with Sheikh Hasina and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“It is not uncommon for family members to be invited to accompany Heads of State on state visits,” the letter says, adding that she had no knowledge of any alleged financial irregularities.

It says claims that a £700,000 flat in London King’s Cross gifted to Siddiq in 2004 was “in some way the fruits of embezzlement” were “absurd” and “cannot be true” because it was 10 years before the nuclear deal.

In his investigation into the allegations, Sir Laurie Magnus said that “over an extended period, she was unaware of the origins of her ownership of her flat in Kings Cross, despite having signed a Land Registry transfer form relating to the gift at the time”.

She “remained under the impression that her parents had bought the property for her”, Sir Laurie added, but had to correct the record when she became a government minister.

He describes this as an “unfortunate misunderstanding” which meant the public had been “inadvertently misled about the identity of the donor of this gift”.

In their letter to the ACC, Siddiq’s lawyers confirm that the King’s Cross flat was given to her by Abdul Motalif, who is described as “an Iman and a very close family friend, akin to Ms Siddiq’s godfather”.

The letter also contains a detailed rebuttal of allegations made by the ACC to the media that Siddiq was involved in the appropriation of land in Dhaka.

It describes ACC briefings to the media as an “unacceptable attempt to interfere with UK politics”.

“At no point have any allegations been put to her fairly, properly and transparently, or indeed at all, by the ACC or anyone else with proper authority on behalf of the Bangladeshi government, ” the letter says.

“We require that you immediately stop manufacturing false and vexatious allegations against Ms Siddiq and further media briefings and public comments designed to harm her reputation.”

The letter says the ACC must put questions to Siddiq “promptly” and “in any event by no later than 25 March 2025″ or ” we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.

The ACC has responded to Siddiq’s lawyers in a letter to them claiming that she had “spent most of her adult life residing in homes owned by cronies of the notoriously venal Awami League” and that this was evidence she had benefitted from the party’s corruption.

The MP’s “claims to have been unaware of the nature of the Hasina regime” strained credulity, the spokesman added, and the ACC would be in touch with her lawyers “in due course”.

The ACC’s chairman, Mohammad Abdul Momen, told The Times: “All allegations raised against Ms Siddiq will be proven in any court, including the ones in the United Kingdom.”

The UN says that one of its workers has been killed and others injured after a compound in Gaza was damaged on Wednesday, adding that the circumstances of the incident remain unclear.

The Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run health ministry blamed an Israeli strike and said five critically injured foreign workers had arrived in hospital. Israel’s military denied striking the UN compound in Deir al-Balah.

It comes after Israel said it was resuming fighting in Gaza following a two-month ceasefire – launching a wave of strikes that killed more than 400 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had “resumed combat in full force”.

The UN initially said two of its workers had been killed but later clarified that the second person was not a staff member.

The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said an “explosive ordnance was dropped or fired” at the building, which was in an “isolated” location.

It added there was no confirmation on the nature of the incident or the type of artillery used.

UNOPS executive director Jorge Moreira da Silva described the incident as “not an accident” and added that “UN personnel and its premises must be protected by all sides”.

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people – two still wearing blue UN flak jackets – arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

Separately, at least 20 people were killed in air strikes across Gaza overnight, after Israel said it was resuming fighting in the Palestinian territory.

Two civilians were killed and five others injured when an Israeli drone hit a tent near the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reports, citing Red Crescent medics.

Israel’s army said it had targeted what it called a Hamas military site, from where the group was preparing to fire into Israel. Vessels controlled by Hamas were also hit, the army said.

The bombing is not of the same scale as it was on Tuesday – but it shows no let-up in Israel’s fresh assault.

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said of Tuesday’s strikes that “the intensity of the killings is now off the scale”.

Wafa says a woman and child were killed in an air strike north of Khan Younis overnight into Wednesday, while four others were killed in a strike in Gaza City.

Gaza’s health ministry said that 436 people had been killed in strikes since Tuesday, including 183 children.

Tuesday’s strikes constituted the heaviest bombardment since a fragile ceasefire and hostage exchange deal came into effect on 19 January, and came after Israel and Hamas failed to agree how to take it beyond an initial phase.

• Why has Israel bombed Gaza and what next for ceasefire deal?
• ‘Once again, fear has gripped the people’

The deal involves three stages, and negotiations on the second stage were meant to have started six weeks ago – but this did not happen.

Under the proposed second phase, Israel would withdraw troops from Gaza – but Israel and the US instead pushed for an extension of the first phase, with more hostages being released in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu cast the resumption of fighting as a return to Israel’s primary aims – to return the hostages and “get rid” of Hamas – but families of hostages have criticised the decision, saying it showed the government had given up on their loved ones.

Thousands of Israelis have joined a protest in Jerusalem, accusing Netanyahu of undermining democracy and restarting the offensive in Gaza without regard for the hostages.

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Egypt, a mediator in talks, said the fresh strikes were a “blatant” violation of the ceasefire.

Israel previously imposed a total halt on all humanitarian aid entering Gaza, causing widespread international alarm.

“For two weeks now, our food supplies are rotting at the borders, the medicines are expiring, the water’s been cut off, the power’s been cut off – and all that to punish civilians further,” Mr Fletcher told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He said he had spoken to the UN security council on Tuesday in a bid to lift the blockade and get the ceasefire deal back on track, including the release of hostages.

“I’m not asking for the moon here,” the UN chief added.

He said his team would “carry on going” in Gaza because they are “determined to do everything they can to save as many survivors as possible.

“They’re saying to us: What does it say about our values that we can’t stop a 21st Century atrocity happening before our eyes – and not just happening, but being cheered on before our eyes?”

Hamas has confirmed that several of its leaders were killed in Tuesday’s strikes, including its de facto head of government, Essam a-Da’lees.

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad – whose fighters participated in the 7 October 2023 attack which triggered the current conflict – said the prominent spokesman of its armed wing, known as Abu Hamza, was killed.

However, there were also many civilians, including dozens of children, thought to be among the dead.

Regional mediators are now said to be pushing Hamas to release some of the Israeli hostages it still holds in exchange for a de-escalation.

But Netanyahu has said that going forward, all ceasefire talks will take place “under fire”.

The 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel saw about 1,200 people killed and the capturing of 251 hostages – 25 of whom were released alive during the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israel responded with a massive military offensive, which has killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry says, as well as causing large-scale destruction to homes and infrastructure.

Turkish authorities have detained the mayor of Istanbul, just days before he was due to be selected as a presidential candidate.

Ekrem Imamoglu, from the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), is seen as one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strongest political rivals.

Prosecutors accused him of corruption and aiding a terrorist group, calling him a “criminal organisation leader suspect”.

Police detained 100 people – including other politicians, journalists and businessmen – as part of the investigation, and the Istanbul governor’s office has imposed four days of restrictions in the city.

Imamoglu said online “the will of the people cannot be silenced”.

In a social media video he said he filmed while police were outside his home, he vowed to “stand resolute” for the people of Turkey “and all who uphold democracy and justice worldwide”.

And in a handwritten note posted on his X account after his arrest, he said the people of Turkey would respond to “the lies, the conspiracies and the traps” against him.

Protests have erupted on Turkey’s streets and university campuses, and in underground stations, with crowds chanting anti-government slogans. It is a display of public anger not seen in years.

There were reports of clashes between protesters and police in Turkey’s largest city. Reuters news agency footage shows police using pepper spray pellets to disperse crowds outside Istanbul University.

The government has banned public gatherings in Istanbul as part of the four days of restrictions. But more protests are anticipated nationwide as opposition leaders, including Imamoglu’s wife, urge people to “raise their voices”.

Many streets in Istanbul have also been closed to traffic, while some metro lines have also cancelled their services.

UK-based internet watchdog Netblocks said on Wednesday Turkey had severely restricted access to social media sites like X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

The arrest comes as part of a major crackdown nationwide in recent months, targeting opposition politicians, municipalities, journalists and figures in the entertainment industry.

Following the Istanbul mayor’s arrest, concerns over Turkey’s shift toward autocracy were expressed on social media, with some calling for an opposition boycott of the upcoming presidential elections, arguing that a fair and democratic vote is no longer possible.

Imamoglu’s party, the CHP, even condemned the arrests as “a coup against our next president”, a sentiment widely echoed by pro-opposition voices.

But Turkey’s justice minister criticised those who linked Erdogan to the arrests.

Yilmaz Tunc said it was “extremely dangerous and wrong” to suggest this was a political move, insisting that nobody was above the law in Turkey.

Erdogan and his party have also denied the claims, insisting that Turkey’s judiciary is independent. He has been in power for 22 years.

Last year, Imamoglu won a second term as Istanbul’s mayor, when his CHP party swept local elections there and in Ankara.

It was the first time since Erdogan came to power that his party was defeated across the country at the ballot box.

The elections were also a personal blow to the president, who grew up in and became mayor of Istanbul on his rise to power.

Dozens of police officers were involved in the early-morning raid on Imamoglu’s house in Istanbul.

The CHP’s presidential candidate selection, in which Imamoglu is the only person running, is set to take place on Sunday.

Imamoglu’s arrest came a day after Istanbul University annulled his degree due to alleged irregularities – a decision which, if upheld, would prevent him from running in presidential elections.

According to the Turkish constitution, presidents must have completed higher education to hold office.

Imamoglu called that move “legally baseless”, adding that universities “must remain independent, free from political interference and dedicated to knowledge”.

Presidential elections are currently scheduled for 2028. Erdogan cannot currently run for office again, as he is in his second term and previously served as prime minister before that.

The only way Erdogan could contest another election would be to change the constitution, or call an early election before his term ends.

As well as being accused of extortion and fraud, Imamoglu is also alleged to have aided the PKK.

The PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – has waged an insurgency since 1984, and is proscribed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.

Earlier this month the group announced its decision to lay down arms, following a call from its imprisoned leader, who had engaged in talks with Turkish officials.

International reaction to the arrest has been negative. Germany’s foreign ministry said it was part of “intensified legal measures” designed to put pressure on Imamoglu, while France said it was “deeply concerned” by the arrests, which could have “heavy consequences on Turkish democracy”.

The Turkish lira, meanwhile, briefly crashed to an all-time low against the US dollar, as markets reacted poorly to the political uncertainty.

While many were shocked to wake up to the news of Imamoglu’s arrest, legal pressure on the popular opposition leader is far from new.

He has faced multiple investigations and was handed a political ban in December 2022 over allegations of insulting Turkey’s electoral board in 2019 – a verdict he appealed, with the final ruling still pending.

Additionally, he has been the subject of cases related to alleged tender irregularities during his tenure as mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikduzu district.

More recently, on 20 January, a new case was filed against him over his criticism of a prosecutor.

Ben & Jerry’s has said its chief executive, David Stever, was being removed by its parent company, Unilever, in a growing dispute over the ice cream company’s political activism.

The allegation was part of a legal case filed in a US court by Ben & Jerry’s that says Unilever violated a merger agreement by trying to silence its “social mission”.

Unilever did not immediately reply to a request for comment from BBC News.

It comes a month after the ice cream company accused Unilever of demanding that it stops publicly criticising US President Donald Trump.

“Unilever has repeatedly threatened Ben & Jerry’s personnel, including CEO David Stever, should they fail to comply with Unilever’s efforts to silence the social mission,” the filing with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York said.

Ben & Jerry’s has long been known for taking a public stance on social issues since it was founded in 1978 by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.

It has often backed campaigns on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and climate change.

The ice cream maker was bought by Unilever in 2000 through a merger agreement that created an independent board tasked with protecting the ice cream brand’s values and mission.

But Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have been at loggerheads for a while. Their relationship soured in 2021 when Ben & Jerry’s announced it was halting sales in the West Bank.

The dispute escalated over the last year as Ben & Jerry’s advocated for a ceasefire in Gaza.

In November, the ice cream company filed a lawsuit saying Unilever had tried to stop it from expressing support for Palestinian refugees.

Last month, in another court filing, Ben & Jerry’s said Unilever had tried to ban it from publicly criticising Donald Trump.

Mr Stever has been with Ben & Jerry’s since joining the firm in 1988 as a tour guide. He was appointed chief executive in 2023.

Ben and Jerry’s court filing said the decision to oust Mr Stever was made without any consultation, as required in the merger agreement between the two companies.

“Unilever…attempted to force the independent board into rubberstamping the decision,” it added.

The Malaysian cabinet has approved a fresh search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, more than a decade after the aircraft vanished.

The search will cover a 15,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean, under a “no find, no fee” agreement with the exploration firm Ocean Infinity.

The company will receive $70m (£56m) if the wreckage is found, transport minister Loke Siew Fook announced.

Flight MH370 disappeared in 2014 with 239 people on board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Its disappearance is one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries, which continues to haunt the families of the passengers.

Despite extensive searches in the years since it vanished, no wreckage has been found. Previous efforts, including a multinational search that cost $150m (£120m), ended in 2017.

The governments of the three nations involved – Malaysia, Australia and China – said the search would only be resumed “should credible new evidence emerge” of the aircraft’s location.

A 2018 search for the wreckage by Ocean Infinity under similar terms ended unsuccessfully after three months.

In December, Malaysia’s government agreed in principle to resume the search. However, the final negotiations were not completed until March.

Malaysia’s final approval on Wednesday will now allow the search to begin.

Loke said in a statement: “The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the MH370 passengers.”

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of 8 March 2014. Less than an hour after takeoff, it lost communication with air traffic control, and radar showed that it had deviated from its planned flight path.

Investigators generally agree that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, though the reason for the crash remains unclear.

Pieces of debris, believed to be from the plane, have washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in the years following its disappearance.

The aircraft’s disappearance has given rise to a host of conspiracy theories, including speculation that the pilot had deliberately brought the plane down and claims that it had been shot down by a foreign military.

An investigation in 2018 into the aircraft’s disappearance found that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but drew no conclusions behind it.

Investigators said at the time that “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found”.

The passengers included people from more than a dozen countries: just under two-thirds were Chinese nationals, followed by 38 Malaysians, with others from Australia, Indonesia, India, France, Ukraine, the US and several other nations.

Family members of missing Chinese MH370 passengers met with officials in Beijing earlier in March to discuss the renewed search for the wreckage and express their hopes for an independent search. Some relatives voiced their frustration over a lack of direct communication from the Malaysian authorities.

“It was promised that we would be informed immediately [but] we can only find out about this kind of news online,” said Li Eryou, a 68-year-old father who lost his 29-year-old son.

“Many families don’t even know how to access this information, so they are completely unaware,” he told AFP.

Grieving families gathered outside the Malaysian embassy in Beijing on the eleventh anniversary of the flight’s disappearance earlier this month, chanting: “Give us back our loved ones!”

Cheng Liping, whose husband had been in Malaysia for a film shoot and had been returning to China on MH370, said she hoped Beijing would communicate more with Malaysia to uncover the truth.

“Everyone has been left trapped in pain,” she told reporters. “What exactly happened is still unknown.”

The fresh search prompted mixed reactions from the families of passengers when it was announced in December – with some calling it a step towards closure, while others describing the news as bittersweet.

Gwyneth Paltrow has said she told an on-set intimacy co-ordinator to “step a little bit back” when filming sex scenes with Timothée Chalamet, because she would feel “very stifled” by someone telling them what to do.

Chalamet, 29, stars in new movie Marty Supreme as a ping pong protégé, while Paltrow, 52, plays the wife of a rival professional who falls into bed with him.

“I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,” Paltrow told Vanity Fair. “There’s a lot – .”

However, she said she had been unaware of the increasingly common use in Hollywood of specialists to oversee such scenes. “There’s now something called an intimacy co-ordinator, which I did not know existed.”

Intimacy co-ordinators became fixtures on film sets to make actors feel safe in the wake of the Me Too movement, which exposed abuse in the industry.

Actress-turned-wellness guru Paltrow, whose last starring film role came 10 years ago, recalled how the Marty Supreme co-ordinator asked if she would be comfortable with a certain move during one intimate scene.

“I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on’,” she said.

“We said, ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back’.”

Paltrow continued: “I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but… if someone is like, ‘OK, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.”

In 2022, Dame Emma Thompson defended the use of intimacy co-ordinators on film and TV sets after fellow actor Sean Bean said they “spoil the spontaneity” of sex scenes.

Paltrow joked that the age difference between her and Chalamet only really dawned on her when they were filming the sex scenes.

“OK, great,” she recalled thinking. “I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.”

She described her co-star, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, as “a thinking man’s sex symbol”.

“He’s just a very polite, properly raised, I was going to say kid… he’s a man who takes his work really seriously and is a fun partner.”

Paltrow won an Oscar in 1999 for the Harvey Weinstein-produced Shakespeare in Love, and was later among the first high-profile people to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment.

She has played Pepper Potts in several Marvel movies in recent years and appeared in the Netflix series The Politician, but said she considers Marty Supreme to be her first serious film role since 2010’s Country Strong.

The US government has released the final batch of documents on the assassination of President John F Kennedy (JFK) – a case that still inspires conspiracy theories more than 60 years later.

It follows an executive order by President Donald Trump that required remaining unredacted files in the case to be made public.

Experts are combing over the papers, not all of which have appeared online. They say the job will take time, and that they do not expect many ground-breaking revelations.

US authorities have previously released hundreds of thousands of JFK documents, but held some back, citing national security concerns. Many Americans still believe the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not act alone.

Kennedy was shot during a visit to Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963.

Trump said beforehand that 80,000 pages would be unsealed.

Of the 1,123 documents included in Tuesday’s release from the National Archives and Records Administration, it was not immediately clear how much material was new. Many documents have previously been released in partially redacted form.

“You got a lot of reading,” Trump told reporters on Monday, previewing the release. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”

But some of the hundreds of files unsealed on Tuesday night did appear to have passages blacked out. Others were hard to read, because they were faded or were poorly scanned photocopies, or appeared to bear little relevance to the JFK case, specialists said.

Non-scholars would probably be “baffled”, commented David Barrett of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, as he reviewed the released material on Tuesday.

Speaking to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, he said the release was “useful”, but he was not expecting “earth-shaking information, either with regard to the assassination or more broadly”.

Other JFK experts suggested the American public might keep wondering about the possible existence of other documents and information.

“I think there may continue to be more record releases,” historian Alice George told Reuters. But she went on to say the passage of time made investigations hard: “It’s much harder to find the truth when most of the people involved are dead.”

• The assassination of JFK: One of the US’s biggest mysteries
• Ex-Secret Service agent reveals new assassination detail

A government commission in the aftermath of the killing determined that President Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine veteran and self-described Marxist who had defected to the Soviet Union and later returned to the US.

Opinion polls over decades have indicated that most Americans don’t believe Oswald was the sole assassin. But no clear alternative narrative is yet to emerge from the latest batch of unsealed documents.

Unanswered questions have long dogged the case, giving rise to theories about the involvement of government agents, the mafia and other nefarious characters – as well as more outlandish claims.

In 1992, Congress passed a law to release all documents related to the investigation within 25 years.

Both Trump, in his first term, and President Joe Biden released piles of JFK-related documents – but thousands remained partially or fully secret.

Trump’s executive order two months ago also called on government archivists to release files related to the killings of presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr, both of whom were gunned down in 1968.

His announcement on Monday that the document release was imminent came as a surprise to his national security team, which had been working since January to prepare the files by removing redactions, according to US media reports.

The Republican president vowed during last year’s White House race to release JFK files, shortly after he secured the endorsement of Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr), the nephew of JFK and son of Robert F Kennedy.

RFK Jr has gone on to become Trump’s health secretary. He is among those who have promoted conspiracy theories about the assassination of his uncle. He was yet to comment on Tuesday’s release of documents.

Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said of the release: “President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency.”

A court in India has sentenced three men to death for the 1981 murder of 24 people from the Dalit (formerly untouchable) community.

The men were part of a gang of bandits who shot the victims, including women and children, in Dehuli village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The special court said on Tuesday that the killings fell into the “rarest of the rare” category, which justifies capital punishment in India.

The men, who insist they are innocent, can appeal against the sentence in a higher court.

All the victims were from the Dalit community, which sits at the bottom of India’s rigid caste hierarchy.

Relatives of the victims have welcomed the sentence but say the decision should have come earlier.

“Justice came very late to us. The accused have lived their lives,” said Sanjay Chaudhry, whose cousin was killed in the firing.

Thirteen of the 17 men accused in the case have died in the 44 years since the crime was committed. Apart from the three men who have been sentenced to death, there is one more accused, who is absconding.

• Why it took 42 years to convict a 90-year-old in India
• Malyana riots: India Muslim victims despair after court order

The crime took place on 18 November 1981, when 17 men – most of them from the upper caste – wearing police uniforms stormed Dehuli and started shooting at villagers.

According to the police complaint registered at the time, the violence followed the murder of a Dalit member of the robbers’ gang by his upper-caste colleagues. The gang members then attacked the village because they suspected that some Dalit villagers were providing information to the police in the murder case.

The survivors of the massacre have vivid memories of the day.

“I was doing household chores when suddenly the firing started,” says Rakesh Kumar, a witness who was a teenager at the time.

“I was hiding behind a stack of paddy and when I came out, I saw that many people, including my mother, were shot,” he said.

Mr Kumar’s mother Chameli Devi, now 80, was hit by a bullet in her leg while running from the gunfire.

“They did not spare anyone, including women or children,” she said. “Whoever they found was killed.”

The firing lasted for more than four hours and the attackers fled the scene before the police arrived, according to media reports.

The crime led to an exodus of Dalits from Dehuli, and the local administration sent police personnel to the village, where they stayed for months in a bid to reassure people. It also triggered a political uproar, and then prime minister Indira Gandhi had visited Dehuli to meet the victims.

In 1984, the case was transferred from a district court to the Allahabad Sessions Court on the orders of the state’s high court. The trial continued there on and off until 2024, when the case was shifted to the special court in Mainpuri which found the men guilty.

It’s not unusual for courts in India to take decades to finish hearing a case and deliver a verdict, especially when the victims are from disadvantaged communities. In 2023, a 90-year-old man was sentenced for life in prison for a caste crime that also took place in 1981.

A former engineer at a Chinese research institute has been sentenced to death for selling classified material to foreign spy agencies, Chinese authorities said.

After he resigned from the institute, the researcher, identified by his surname Liu, came up with a “carefully designed” plan to sell intelligence to foreign agencies, according to an article published on Wednesday by China’s Ministry of State Security.

The ministry did not name Liu’s former employer or the foreign groups that allegedly bought his material.

The announcement comes amid increasing warnings from China that its citizens are being co-opted by foreign entities to serve as spies.

“Desperadoes who want to take shortcuts to heaven will all suffer consequences,” the ministry said in Wednesday’s article.

Believing that he had been treated unfairly at the institute, Liu saved a large amount of classified material before he left, intending to use it for revenge and blackmail, the ministry stated.

He then joined an investment firm and, after failed investments drove him into debt, approached a foreign spy agency which got the material from him at a “very low price”, according to the ministry.

This agency subsequently cut off contact with Liu, the ministry added, and he tried to sell the information abroad.

“In half a year, he secretly travelled to many countries and seriously leaked our country’s secrets,” the article said.

Liu, who confessed after being arrested, has been stripped of political rights for life.

Beijing has been increasingly wary of espionage, and warned that its citizens are being recruited by foreign spy agencies trying to secure Chinese state secrets.

Last November, a former employee at a Chinese state agency was handed the death sentence after his USB work flash drive was allegedly seized by foreign spies and he became their “puppet”, according to Chinese authorities.

In February last year, Australian writer Yang Hengjun, known for blogging about human rights issues in China, was handed a suspended death sentence on espionage charges. That sentence was upheld, and Yang remains behind bars in China, despite Australian leaders calling for his release.

Concerns about Chinese influence and infiltration operations are also brewing among governments across the world, several of which have in recent years stepped up arrests of Chinese nationals on espionage charges.

Don’t judge a blob by its cover.

Once dubbed the world’s ugliest animal for its soft, lumpy appearance, the blobfish has made a stunning comeback: it was crowned this week as Fish of the Year by a New Zealand environmental group.

The annual competition, held by the Mountain to Sea Conservation Trust, aims to raise awareness for New Zealand’s freshwater and marine life.

This year, the blobfish took home the coveted accolade with nearly 1,300 out of more than 5,500 votes cast.

It’s an underdog victory for the blobfish, which burst into mainstream notoriety as the mascot for the Ugly Animal Preservation Society in 2013.

The gelatinous fish lives on the sea bed and grows to about 12in (30cm) in length. They’re mainly found off the coast of Australia, where they live at depths of 2,000-4,000 ft (600-1,200m).

• Why do we love ugly animals?

While the blobfish is known for its misshapen silhouette, in its natural deep-sea habitat it actually resembles a regular fish, with its shape kept together by the high water pressure.

However, when caught and rapidly brought to the water surface its body deforms into its hallmark mushy shape – the same one that has earned it the reputation of being among the ugliest creatures the world has seen.

Coming in second place was the orange roughy, a deep-sea fish in the slimehead family – known for the mucous canals on their heads.

It was “a battle of the deep sea forget-me-nots,” said Kim Jones, co-director of the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust. “A battle of two quirky deep sea critters, with the blobfish’s unconventional beauty helping get voters over the line.”

The orange roughy had appeared on track for the win, until a couple of local radio station hosts started a passionate campaign for the blobfish.

“There is an up and coming fish, it needs your vote,” Sarah Gandy and Paul Flynn, hosts of local radio network More FM, urged listeners on their show last week. “We need the blobfish to win.”

News of the blobfish’s victory has been celebrated by the radio hosts.

“The blobfish had been sitting patiently on the ocean floor, mouth open waiting for the next mollusc to come through to eat,” the pair said. “He has been bullied his whole life and we thought, ‘Stuff this, it’s time for the blobfish to have his moment in the sun’, and what a glorious moment it is!”

Besides molluscs, the blobfish also eats custaceans like crabs and lobsters, as well as sea urchins.

Instead of a skeleton and scales, the blobfish has a soft body and flabby skin.

Nine of the ten nominees for fish of the year are considered by conservation groups to be vulnerable, according to the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust. This includes the blobfish, which are vulnerable to deep-sea trawling.

New Zealand also has a Bird of the Year contest, organised by conservation organisation Forest & Bird. The latest winner, crowned last September, was the hoiho, a rare penguin species.

Six years ago, Amber Clare was a devoted One Direction fan.

Scrolling through Twitter for information about the band’s solo projects, she saw a reply that said “Listen to Icy by Itzy”.

Intrigued, she clicked on the link. It changed her life.

“I’d never listened to K-Pop before that point but I immediately became a fan,” she says.

“And now Itzy is the reason I have my job.”

Today, Clare is the marketing and social media manager for K-Stars, the UK’s first and biggest shop devoted to Korean pop music.

Based in Manchester, it started as a small business in Manchester’s Affleck’s Palace in 2019.

“You’d order things by PayPal, and then the CEO would pack them up by himself and ship everything out,” Clare recalls.

Now it’s a two-storey emporium, based on Deansgate, with a staff of more than 20 dedicated K-Pop enthusiasts.

It’s a sign of how the genre has exploded in the UK, even though radio and television has largely shunned all but the biggest acts, like BTS, aespa and Blackpink.

“It’s still kind of a niche – but it’s not a small niche,” says Clare. “In my head I’m the only Itzy fan, but when I went to see them in concert, it was sold out.

“I was like, ‘Wow, where have all you people been hiding?'”

In fact, the UK is now among the top 10 countries that follow K-Pop on Spotify, with the boyband Ateez placing two records in the top five of the UK album charts last year.

This summer, Blackpink will play two nights at Wembley Stadium, with Stray Kids pulling off the same feat in Tottenham.

Meanwhile, Twickenham Stadium will say “” to one of K-pop’s longest-running festivals.

Established in 2008, the SM Town Live festival is a showcase for artists signed to the SM Entertainment Label, one of the industry’s key players.

To celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary, they’re transplanting the event from Seoul to Middlesex.

“It’s essentially a multi-day festival all in one, because you’ve got so many artists all at the same venue, jam packed into the space of three or four hours,” says Reese Carter, of boyband Dear Alice, who’ll be among the performers in Twickenham.

“It’s non-stop. You’ve got to prep yourself, because you’ll definitely want to dance.”

“It’s very down to earth but it goes straight to your heart,” adds Ten from K-Pop group WayV.

SM holds a unique place in Korea’s musical history. Founded in 1995 by Lee Soo-man, it is widely credited with establishing the K-Pop template.

It was the first company to introduce the trainee system, where young talent goes through intensive training that lasts months, or even years, before making their “debut”.

And it dominated what’s known as the “first generation” of K-Pop idols, with bands like H.O.T. and S.E.S.

The Twickenham show will pay tribute to that three-decade journey, with a line-up that includes everyone from Red Velvet, EXO and Girl’s Generation to current chart-toppers like aespa, Riize and all of the sub-units of boyband NCT – which boasts more than 20 members.

“That’s very rare,” says Ten, one of the group’s most recognisable (and chatty) stars.

“The last time we had an NCT concert as a whole was two years ago. It’s so difficult to schedule every group to be in the same spot at the same time.”

But that’s not all. The concert will also feature what’s been billed as “a group of promising trainees”, known for now as SMTR25 – showcasing the future of the label.

“Performing alongside the senior artists we’ve admired since our trainee days, as well as our talented junior artists, makes this an incredibly meaningful experience for us,” said aespa in an email to the BBC.

The hope is that shows like this will open a few doors – because, for all the strides K-Pop has made in the last couple of years, bands have consistently prioritised America over Europe.

It’s a logical step. The US is the world’s biggest music market, so it offers more opportunities for touring and merchandise sales, while an MTV Award performance or a concert for NPR’s Tiny Desk series travels further internationally than an appearance at the Brit Awards.

“The situation here isn’t as good as what the American industry gets,” acknowledges Amber Clare.

“Every single K-Pop group, if they announce a world tour, America will always be on the map – but European countries are always left wondering if they’re going to be included or not.”

Things are changing, though.

In a crowded market, labels are increasingly turning their attention to the UK – where the anglophone media has international reach, and there’s a baked-in affection for boy and girl groups like Take That, Spice Girls, Girls Aloud and Little Mix.

To make inroads, bands have teamed up with some of Britain’s biggest artists.

Aespa’s 2023 single Better Things was co-written by Raye, while Le Sserafim collaborated with PinkPantheress on club anthem Crazy and with Jungle on their latest song, Come Over.

Last year, SM went one further – creating a British boyband and putting them through the K-Pop machinery.

That group was Dear Alice, whose gruelling traineeship was documented in BBC series Made In Korea.

Having survived the process, the five-piece finally premiered their debut single, Ariana, at a massive SM Town concert in Seoul in January.

“These shows are timed down to the second,” says singer Blaise Noon. “When we got our time to go on stage, it was literally like, 8:30 and 48 seconds. It just shows how so well thought out is.”

Bringing the production to London is evidence that SM has its sights trained on the UK, he confirms.

“In the UK, we produce some really amazing boy groups, so I think we have that connection in the culture. So I think they definitely want to hit it. I can see it getting bigger and bigger every day.”

Ten, who releases a new solo album, Stunner, next week, says he’s already experienced the devotion of UK fans.

When his group WayV last visited England in 2023, “we were surprised that people could sing along to our songs, because we sing in Chinese”, he says.

“This opportunity with SM Town, I feel like it’s going to open a bigger market for K-Pop in the UK.

“I hope so, because I’d like to come and perform my solo stuff to my UK fans too.”

The opportunity is there.

Nine of the 10 best-selling albums in the world last year were by South Korean artists, illustrating the music’s broad appeal – but none of those records charted in the UK’s Top 50.

Lack of radio exposure is one factor – but listeners can also be put off by clunky English lyrics or the sudden-but-deliberate stylistic shifts that characterise K-Pop.

If you’re willing to dig into the genre, though, you can find some of the most audacious and indelible hooks music has to offer.

One by-product of K-pop’s (relative) obscurity is the bond it creates among fans. There’s a sense of belonging that comes from discovering and nurturing your “bias”, outside the glare of the mainstream.

It’s a relationship bands foster by a fire hose stream of social media content, where dance challenges, video diaries and photoshoots are posted daily.

Dear Alice experienced the impact of that effort at a UK meet-and-greet last weekend.

“It felt like we were hanging out with a bunch of our mates,” says Dexter Greenwood.

“They were just cool people,” adds James Sharp. “We’re starting to recognise faces and remember people on this journey – and I think there’s going to be more and more.”

By the time they play Twickenham in June, the group promise to have more new music to showcase.

In the meantime, though, they want to introduce their labelmates to some of the UK’s finer customs.

“We’ve got to order a bunch of Greggs for the SM family,” says Noon.

“A whole banquet of sausage rolls.”

It took Arun George half a working life to scrape together £15,000 ($19,460) in savings, which he used to secure a care worker job for his wife in the UK.

But in barely a few months, he lost it all.

Mr George – not his real name as his wife doesn’t want to be identified within their small community for the shame associated with having returned without a job – paid the money in late 2023 to the managers of Alchita Care.

The BBC has seen evidence of the payment to Alchita Care, the private domiciliary care home in Bradford that sponsored his family’s visa. He did it at the behest of a local agent in his town in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

It was the promise of a better life for their child who has special needs that prodded the couple to dip into their savings and take such a risk. But when they got to the UK there was no work.

“We kept chasing the care home, but they made up excuses. After I pleaded with them, they forced us to undergo some unpaid training and gave my wife just three days of work,” Mr George said. “We couldn’t carry on and came back to India a few months later.”

Mr George believes he has been scammed by the company and says the ordeal has set him back at least by a decade financially. His family is just one among hundreds of people from Kerala seeking work in the UK who have been exploited by recruiters, care homes and middlemen.

Most have now given up hope of getting justice or their money.

Alchita Care in Bradford has not responded to the BBC’s questions. Their sponsorship licence – which allows care homes to issue certificates of sponsorship to foreign care workers applying for visas – was removed by the Home Office last year.

But at least three other care workers who sent thousands of pounds to Alchita Care and uprooted their lives from Kerala told us that the jobs they had been promised did not materialise.

One of them, still in the UK, said his condition was so precarious that he was surviving on “bread and milk” from charity shops for the past few months.

Like Mr George, Sridevi (not her real name) says she was charged £15,000 for a visa sponsorship by Alchita Care. She spent another £3,000 to get to the UK in 2023.

She’s unable to return to India, scared of facing family members and friends from whom she took a loan to make the trip.

“I struggle to even pay for my rent and meals,” she said. Her job is a far cry from the stable eight-hour work she was promised, she says. She is sometimes on call from 4am to 9pm, driving from one patient’s home to another, but gets paid only for the few hours she is actually with the patient, and not the full shift.

Thousands of nurses from Kerala, desperate to migrate to the UK every year, are estimated to have been exploited after the government added care workers to the UK’s shortage occupation list during Covid. This allowed people to be recruited from overseas as long as they were sponsored.

• The carers crossing the globe to fill UK shortage

For many, the care worker visa was a golden ticket to a better life as they could take family along.

Baiju Thittala, a Labour party member and the mayor of Cambridge, told the BBC he had represented at least 10 such victims over the last three years.

But the cross-border nature of these exploitative schemes means it has been incredibly hard to pursue justice, he said. Very often the victims have made payments to care homes or middlemen domiciled outside India which leads to “jurisdiction problems”, he added.

Secondly, lawyers are expensive and most care workers, already in deep debt, can hardly afford to fight it out in the courts.

Thittala estimates at least 1,000-2,000 people from Kerala, directly or indirectly victims of these schemes, are still in the UK.

There are also hundreds of people scattered across Kerala’s towns who lost money before they could even leave home.

In the town of Kothamangalam, the BBC spoke to some 30 people who had collectively lost millions of dollars while trying to obtain a care visa that allows professionals to come to – or stay – in the UK to work in the social care sector.

All of them accused one agent – Henry Poulos and his agency Grace International in the UK and India – of robbing them of their life savings through fake job offers and sponsorship letters.

Mr Poulos even made some of them take a 2,500km journey to Delhi for visa appointments that were non-existent, they said.

Shilpa, who lives in the town of Alleppey, told the BBC she had taken out a bank loan at a 13% interest rate to pay Mr Poulos, who gave her a fake certificate of sponsorship.

“I thought the UK would offer a good future for my three daughters, but now I am struggling to pay their school fees,” she told the BBC.

“I have lost everything. My wife had left her job in Israel so that we could move to the UK,” said another victim, Binu, breaking down. He made a comfortable £1,500 with his wife in Israel but has now been forced to take his children out of private school in Kerala because there’s no money anymore.

Neither Mr Poulos nor Grace International responded to the BBC, despite repeated attempts to get in touch with them. The police in Kothamangalam said Mr Poulos was absconding in the UK, and they had sealed his local offices after receiving complaints from six people.

The previous Conservative government in the UK admitted last year that there was “clear evidence” that care workers were being offered visas under false pretences and paid far below the minimum wage required for their work.

Rules to reduce its misuse were tightened in 2024, including increasing the minimum salary. Care workers are also now restricted from taking dependents, making it a less attractive proposition for families.

Since July 2022, about 450 licences allowing employers to recruit foreign workers have been revoked in the care sector.

Since the beginning of this year, sponsors are now also explicitly prohibited by the Home Office from passing on the cost of the sponsor licence fee or associated administrative costs to prospective employees.

Top police officials in Kerala, meanwhile, told the BBC they were still investigating these cases in India and would work with Interpol agencies to crack down on agents, if necessary.

But for the hundreds who’ve already been exploited, justice remains elusive, and still very much a distant dream.

It was late at night on 10 December 1987 when prison officers had woken Mzolisi Dyasi in his cell in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.

He remembers the bumpy drive to a hospital morgue where he was asked to identify the bodies of his pregnant girlfriend, his cousin and a fellow anti-apartheid fighter.

In response, he had dropped to one knee, raised his fist in the air, and attempted to shout “amandla!” (“power” in Zulu), in an act of defiance.

But the word caught in his throat as he was “totally broken”, Mr Dyasi tells the BBC, recalling the sight of his loved ones under the cold, bright lights.

Four decades on, Mr Dyasi sleeps with the lights on to ward off memories of the physical and mental torture he suffered during his four years in prison.

He says that he struggled to build a life for himself in the society he fought for as an underground operative for uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the-then banned African National Congress (ANC).

The ANC led the struggle against the racist system of apartheid, which ended in 1994 with the party’s rise to power in South Africa’s first multi-racial election.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was co-chaired by the internationally renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was established to uncover the atrocities committed by the apartheid regime, and a state reparations fund was set up to assist some of the victims.

But much of that money has largely gone unspent.

Mr Dyasi was among about 17,000 people who received a one-off payment of 30,000 rand ($3,900; £2,400 at the time) from it in 2003, but he says that has done very little to help him.

He had wanted to complete his university education but has still not paid for courses he took in 1997.

Now in his 60s, he suffers from chronic health issues and finds it difficult to afford medication on the special pension he receives for veterans who participated in the struggle for freedom and democracy.

Professor Tshepo Madlingozi – a member of South Africa’s Human Rights Commission who spoke to the BBC in his personal capacity – says the effects of apartheid continue to be devastating.

“It was not only about the killing of people, the disappearance of people, it was about locking people into intergenerational impoverishment.”

He says that despite the progress made over the past 30 years, many of the “born-free generation” – South Africans born after 1994 – have inherited the cycle.

The reparations fund has about $110m untouched, with no clarity on why this is the case.

“What is the money being used for? Is the money still there?” Prof Madlingozi commented.

The government did not respond to a BBC request for comment.

Lawyer Howard Varney has spent much of his career representing victims of apartheid-era crimes and says that the story of reparations in South Africa is one of “deep betrayal” for the families affected.

He is currently representing a group of victims’ families and survivors who are suing the South African government for $9m over what they say is its failure to adequately handle cases of political crimes that were highlighted by the now-disbanded TRC for further investigations and prosecutions.

Brian Mphahlele was polite and soft-spoken; he would pause before responding to a question, as if waiting for his thoughts to pool in his mind.

He suffered from memory loss, just one aspect of the lasting impact of the physical and psychological torture he had undergone at Cape Town’s notorious Pollsmoor Prison.

Mr Mphahlele told the BBC that the 30,000 rand pay-out, which he had received for the violations he endured during his 10 years in prison, was an insult.

“It went through my fingers. It went through everybody’s fingers, it was so little,” the 68-year-old said on the phone last year from his nephew’s home in Langa township in Cape Town, where he lived.

He felt that a more substantial payment would have enabled him to buy his own home and described his frustration at his life in Langa, where he ate at a soup kitchen three times a week.

Since he spoke to the BBC, Mr Mphahlele has died, his hope of a more comfortable life unfulfilled.

Prof Madlingozi says that South Africa became the “poster child” of racial reconciliation following the end of apartheid, and inspired the world in many ways.

“But we have also unintentionally given a wrong message, which is that a crime against humanity can be committed without consequence,” he says.

Though he feels things can still be turned around.

“South Africa has an opportunity 30 years into democracy to show that you can make mistakes and fix those mistakes.”

Mr Dyasi still remembers the sense of freedom and optimism he felt when he left prison in 1990 after South Africa’s last white ruler FW de Klerk unbanned the ANC and other liberation movements, paving the way for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela to become the first black president four years later.

But Mr Dyasi says he does not feel proud of who he is today, and his disappointment is felt by many who fought alongside him and their families.

“We don’t want to be millionaires,” he says. “But if the government could just look at the healthcare of these people, if it could look after their livelihood, involve them in the economic system of the country.”

“There were children that were orphaned by the struggle. Some children wanted to go to school but they still can’t. Some people are homeless.

“And some people would say, ‘You were in prison, you were shot at. But what is it that you can show for it?'”

The Chinese government has promised new child care subsidies, increased wages and better paid leave to revive a slowing economy. That is on top of a $41bn discount programme for all sorts of things, from dishwashers and home decor to electric vehicles and smartwatches.

Beijing is going on a spending spree that will encourage Chinese people to crack open their wallets.

Simply put, they are not spending enough.

Monday brought some positive news. Official data said retail sales grew 4% in the first two months of 2025, a positive sign for consumption data. But, with a few exceptions like Shanghai aside, new and existing home prices continued to decline compared to last year.

While the US and other major powers have struggled with post-Covid inflation, China is experiencing the opposite: deflation – when the rate of inflation falls below zero, meaning that prices decrease. In China, prices fell for 18 months in a row in the past two years.

Prices dropping might sound like good news for consumers. But a persistent decline in consumption – a measure of what households buy – signals deeper economic trouble. When people stop spending, businesses cut prices to attract buyers. The more this happens, the less money they make, hiring slows, wages stagnate and economic momentum grinds to a halt.

That is a cycle China wants to avoid, given it’s already battling sluggish growth in the wake of a prolonged crisis in the property market, steep government debt and unemployment.

The cause of low consumption is straightforward: Chinese consumers either don’t have enough money or don’t feel confident enough about their future to spend it.

But their reluctance comes at a critical moment. With the economy aiming to grow at 5% this year, boosting consumption is a top priority for President Xi Jinping. He is hoping that rising domestic consumption will absorb the blow US tariffs will inflict on Chinese exports.

So, will Beijing’s plan work?

To tackle its ailing economy and weak domestic demand, Beijing wrapped up its annual National People’s Congress last week with increased investment in social welfare programmes as part of its grand economic plan for 2025.

Then came this week’s announcement with bigger promises, such as employment support plans, but scant details.

Some say it is a welcome move, with the caveat that China’s leaders need to do more to step up support. Still, it signals Beijing’s awareness of the changes needed for a stronger Chinese consumer market – higher wages, a stronger social safety net and policies that make people feel secure enough to spend rather than save.

A quarter of China’s labour force is made up of low-paid migrant workers, who lack full access to urban social benefits. This makes them particularly vulnerable during periods of economic uncertainty, such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rising wages during the 2010s masked some of these problems, with average incomes growing by around 10% annually. But as wage growth slowed in the 2020s, savings once again became a lifeline.

The Chinese government, however, has been slow to expand social benefits, focusing instead on boosting consumption through short-term measures, such as trade-in programmes for household appliances and electronics. But that has not addressed a root problem, says Gerard DiPippo, a senior researcher at the Rand think tank: “Household incomes are lower, and savings are higher”.

The near-collapse of the property market has also made Chinese consumers more risk-averse, leading them to cut back on spending.

“The property market matters not only for real economic activity but also for household sentiment, since Chinese households have invested so much of their wealth in their homes,” Mr DiPippo says. “I don’t think China’s consumption will fully recover until it’s clear that the property sector has bottomed out and therefore many households’ primary assets are starting to recover.”

Some analysts are encouraged by Beijing’s seriousness in targeting longer-term challenges like falling birth rates as more young couples opt out of the costs of parenthood.

A 2024 study by Chinese think tank YuWa estimated that raising a child to adulthood in China costs 6.8 times the country’s GDP per capita – among the highest in the world, compared to the US (4.1), Japan (4.3) and Germany (3.6).

These financial pressures have only reinforced a deeply ingrained saving culture. Even in a struggling economy, Chinese households managed to save 32% of their disposable income in 2024.

That’s not too surprising in China, where consumption has never been particularly high. To put this in perspective, domestic consumption drives more than 80% of growth in the US and UK, and about 70% in India. China’s share has typically ranged between 50% to 55% over the past decade.

But this wasn’t really a problem – until now.

There was a time when Chinese shoppers joked about the irresistible allure of e-commerce deals, calling themselves “hand-choppers” – only chopping off their hands could stop them from hitting the checkout button.

As rising incomes fuelled their spending power, 11 November in China, or Double 11, came to be crowned as the world’s busiest shopping day. Explosive sales pulled in over 410 billion yuan ($57bn; £44bn) in just 24 hours in 2019.

But the last one “was a dud,” a Beijing-based coffee bean online seller told the BBC. “If anything, it caused more trouble than it was worth.”

Chinese consumers have grown frugal since the pandemic, and this caution has persisted even after restrictions were lifted in late 2022.

That’s the year Alibaba and JD.com stopped publishing their sales figures, a significant shift for companies that once headlined their record-breaking revenues. A source familiar with the matter told the BBC that Chinese authorities cautioned platforms against releasing numbers, fearing that underwhelming results could further dent consumer confidence.

The spending crunch has even hit high-end brands – last year, LVMH, Burberry and Richemont all reported sales declines in China, once a backbone of the global luxury market.

On RedNote, a Chinese social media app, posts tagged with “consumption downgrade” have racked up more than a billion views in recent months. Users are swapping tips on how to replace expensive purchases with budget-friendly alternatives. “Tiger Balm is the new coffee,” said one user, while another quipped, “I apply perfume between my nose and lips now – saving it just for myself.”

Even at its peak, China’s consumer boom was never a match for its exports. Trade was also the focus of generous state-backed investment in highways, ports and special economic zones. China relied on low-wage workers and high household savings, which fuelled growth but left consumers with limited disposable income.

But now, as geopolitical uncertainties grow, countries are diversifying supply chains away from China, reducing reliance on Chinese exports. Local governments are burdened by debt, after years of borrowing heavily to invest, particularly in infrastructure.

Xi Jinping has already vowed “to make domestic demand the main driving force and stabilising anchor of growth”. Caiyun Wang, a National People’s Congress representative, said, “With a population of 1.4 billion, even a 1% rise in demand creates a market of 14 million people.”

But there’s a catch in Beijing’s plan.

For consumption to drive growth, many analysts say, the Chinese Communist Party would have to restore the consumer confidence of a generation of Covid graduates that is struggling to own a home or find a job. It would also require triggering a cultural shift, from saving to spending.

“China’s extraordinarily low consumption level is not an accident,” according to Michael Pettis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is fundamental to the country’s economic growth model, around which three-four decades of political, financial, legal and business institutions in China have evolved. Changing this won’t be easy.”

The more households spend, the less there is in the pool of savings that China’s state-controlled banks rely on to fund key industries – currently that includes AI and innovative tech that would give Beijing an edge over Washington, both economically and strategically.

That is why some analysts doubt that China’s leaders want to create a consumer-driven economy.

“One way to think about this is that Beijing’s primary goal is not to enhance the welfare of Chinese households, but rather the welfare of the Chinese nation,” David Lubin, a research fellow at Chatham House wrote.

Shifting power from the state to the individual may not be what Beijing wants.

China’s leaders did do that in the past, when they began trading with the world, encouraging businesses and inviting foreign investment. And it transformed their economy. But the question is whether Xi Jinping wants to do that again.

Debra Eichenbaum had not thought about the measles virus for 20 years when she got her two young children vaccinated against the highly contagious disease.

But then cases across the US began to climb this year, and the 62-year-old worried about how best to protect her husband, David, who is immunocompromised after surviving pancreatic cancer.

So she got another measles shot, and emailed friends her age, encouraging them to check with their doctors to make sure they were still immunised.

“There’s no downside to it,” she said. “For me, that was a no-brainer.”

Ms Eichenbaum is just one adult who debated an extra shot when cases spiked across the US. Others are thinking about their children, who may not yet have been immunised against the virus.

“There is a lot of confusion out there right now, especially in light of differences in how different age groups of the population have been vaccinated based on what the recommendations were at the time of their vaccination,” said Donald Dumford III, an infectious disease specialist at Cleveland Clinic.

The US declared it had eliminated measles from the country in 2000, after decades of access to a safe and effective vaccine. But since the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase in vaccine scepticism, the number of measles outbreaks has risen.

There have been over 300 cases in 2025 across more than a dozen states. This year, the US saw the first measles death in a decade: a 6-year-old girl in western Texas, the epicentre of an outbreak that has spread to neighbouring New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Measles is a dangerous virus that has no cure and can lead to a host of complications, including pneumonia and brain swelling. It can be deadly.

Vaccination rates must be 95% or higher for the broader population to be protected, but several communities where the virus is spreading have rates well below that. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases that exists, spreading very easily if people are unprotected, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine-sceptic, has sent mixed messages about the outbreak, at times encouraging people to talk to their doctor about vaccines, and at other moments, promoting alternative treatments not recommended by public health experts.

The federal government has not offered any guidance about whether certain adults should talk to their doctor about getting another shot – or whether parents in hotspots should consider getting their young children vaccinated sooner.

Asked for comment, the US Department of Health and Human Services referred the BBC to existing measles vaccine guidance from the CDC.

Ms Eichenbaum decided on another measles vaccine over concerns that some people vaccinated in the 1960s may have received a less effective dose.

Those vaccinated between 1963 and 1967 may have received what is known as an inactivated measles vaccine, and should consider getting an additional shot, said Melissa Stockwell, a professor of paediatrics at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Those who are unsure about their vaccination status can either search for their written vaccination records or have their antibody levels checked with a blood test, doctors say.

Adults born earlier than 1957 likely had measles as a child and are considered immune, Dr Stockwell said.

“The recommendation is that anyone who does not have presumptive immunity should be vaccinated,” she said.

For weeks before his new baby was born, Kyle Rable and his pregnant wife exchanged anxious messages throughout the day, wondering how they could best keep their future son safe from measles.

“It’s basically both of our constant thoughts all the time,” said Mr Rable, whose wife gave birth to their son, Steven, earlier this month in the same hospital in Lubbock, Texas, where a child died of measles just a week before.

The outbreak in western Texas has raised the alarm for parents across the state and in the wider region, especially those who have young babies who cannot yet be immunised.

The measles vaccine is not generally recommended for children who are under a year old because the shots do not work as well before that age, doctors say.

It is a two-dose vaccine. Typically, children are given their first shot between the ages of 12 and 15 months, and then another between ages 4 and 6.

But for young children who live near a measles outbreak, paediatricians may recommend a shot at an earlier age, between six and 11 months, said Stuart Ray, professor of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Mr Rable plans to ask about vaccination plans at his son’s two-week checkup, and will “100%” vaccinate his child early if the doctor recommends it.

Children vaccinated before they are a year old still need two additional standard doses of the measles vaccine later on, Dr Ray said.

“There’s no harm in getting the additional doses,” said Tony Moody, a paediatrics professor at Duke University School of Medicine. “The decision about getting an early MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) should be a conversation between the family and their paediatrician.”

Children can get a second dose as soon as 28 days after their first shot.

“The vaccine starts providing some protection within weeks of the first dose,” Dr Ray said.

Parents hoping to get their children vaccinated against measles, or adults looking for another dose, can make an appointment at a pharmacy.

However, some pharmacies – especially in Texas, the epicentre of the outbreak – have seen vaccine shortages because of higher demand.

The CDC has provided thousands of doses to the state.

Local health departments in western Texas also are holding vaccination clinics, while many across the US offer the shot free of charge.

In the early hours of 14 September 2019, Eleanor Paice jolted awake to the sound of smashing glass.

Living in a staff flat above Blenheim Palace, the guest services supervisor was used to strange noises. But when fire alarms began to blare, she knew something was wrong.

She quickly began evacuating to the great courtyard. But unbeknown to her, she was running straight into the final moments of an audacious heist.

Five men had smashed their way into the palace, ripped out a £4.8m solid gold toilet and fled in a stolen Volkswagen Golf.

The working loo, entitled America, had been on display for just two days at the 18th Century stately home, plumbed in as part of an exhibition by the Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Now, more than five years on, a total of three men have been convicted in connection to the heist.

James Sheen, 40, from Oxford, pleaded guilty to burglary and transferring criminal property in 2024, while Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, was found guilty of burglary at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday.

Fred Doe, 36, from Windsor, was convicted of conspiracy to transfer criminal property. Bora Guccuk, 41, from west London, was cleared of the same charge.

It was a crime that intrigued art lovers, delighted the press and coined countless potty-themed puns.

Now, the BBC has gained exclusive behind-the-scenes access to staff at Blenheim Palace to understand the heist and security failures from their perspective.

It was the night before, Blenheim chief executive Dominic Hare was at a glamorous exhibition launch party being held at the palace, hosted by Cattelan himself.

It was America’s first time on display outside of New York and the artwork’s presence was creating a buzz.

He remembers slipping away from the festivities, hoping for a turn on the fully usable toilet. But when confronted with a line, he told himself “that’s okay, there’s no point queuing. You can come back tomorrow and have a look”.

But just a few hours later, his colleague Ms Paice was witnessing the final moments as the 98kg (216lbs) artwork was being heaved into a boot.

She recalls a confusing and fast-moving scene: “It was just shadows and quick movement. I just saw them move towards the car, get in the car….and then the car just sped straight off.”

From the burglars entering and exiting the courtyard, the audacious heist had taken just five minutes.

Police arrived shortly after, and it was only when staff searched the palace they realised what had been stolen.

“That was when… I felt my stomach drop,” Ms Paice says. “And I thought, this is big.”

Soon, the chief executive’s phone was buzzing him awake: “Dom, we’ve been hit.”

He said it took him a few moments to realise he was not dreaming before rushing to the palace.

His relief that staff were unharmed then mingled with the horror of a flooded, shattered crime scene.

“If the golden toilet in situ had looked beautiful and perfect and majestic and untainted, this was the total opposite,” Mr Hare said. “This was brutalised, smashed up. This is a palace. Palaces don’t get smashed up”.

When the palace reopened a day later, the controversy was addressed with a theatrical flourish.

Staff re-strung police tape across the shattered cubicle, just metres from the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, and exhibited the crime scene as part of the now toilet-less Cattelan show.

Mr Hare said despite his embarrassment, his anger had prompted him to keep it visible but he also realised it could be a draw to the public.

It worked. In the following days Ms Paice said the palace was “slammed”, with hordes wanting to glimpse the destruction.

“People were more interested to see where the golden toilet had been stolen from than to come and see the golden toilet itself,” she added.

Palace staff say they did see the humour in how the press and public approached the crime, but they were still deeply rattled by the raid.

Ms Paice said Blenheim, a safe and secure home for her, did not feel “settled in the same way” for a long time.

“There was always this anxiousness. If that’s happened, anything could happen,” she said.

Mr Hare said he felt both emotional and grateful no-one was harmed, calling the burglars the “most dangerous people who’d ever visited Blenheim Palace”.

“That toilet survived New York City. And if it survived New York City, it should have survived Blenheim Palace,” says Christopher Marinello, an art recovery lawyer brought in by insurers to look at the case.

In his view, Blenheim’s security “failed miserably”.

What is strikingly clear from interviews with palace staff, the 18-carat gold toilet had not been deemed a security risk.

A month before the burglary, Edward Spencer-Churchill, the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, told the Sunday Times: “It’s not going to be the easiest thing to nick.

“Firstly, it’s plumbed in and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”

Mr Hare said they were “far more worried” about other controversial artworks in the exhibition – a statue of a meteor-struck pope, union flags the public walked on and a statue of a praying Adolf Hitler.

He admitted the toilet’s status as a quirky art object had eclipsed the fact it was worth £2.8m in gold alone.

It was left unguarded during closing hours, with no CCTV monitoring the cubicle door.

But the gang exploited other security flaws that night, including no patrols and easily breached gates.

Even after the raid, staff did not immediately realise the toilet had been the target.

Ms Paice says she fleetingly imagined they had come for Churchill’s childhood lock of hair, which the palace displays.

In the weeks that followed, Mr Hare was motivated to overhaul security at top speed.

He took full responsibility for the failures that night.

“It’s not a democratic decision that we had a certain level of security, it was really mine. In that sense I made Blenheim vulnerable. And we are not vulnerable anymore,” he said.

The palace has seen its security overhauled with a “very significant upgrade”, while it has also been a wake-up call for other stately homes.

The stolen gold has never been recovered but the story will live on as a quirky footnote in the history of one of Britain’s most popular palaces.

“There’s big and serious history here, wars which changed the course of history on a continent. Put it against that, it’s small fry,” Mr Hare remarked.

“[But] in the histories of the normal people of Blenheim, the people who’ve lived here and breathed life into this place, it was a very threatening moment.

“I can imagine guides in 150 years’ time, it’s the sort of story they might refer to.”

A Palestinian student activist, who was detained by US immigration officers earlier this month, has spoken out for the first time about his arrest.

In a letter dictated over the phone to his family from an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, Mahmoud Khalil said he is a “political prisoner” and that he believes he was targeted for “exercising my right to free speech”.

Born in Syria, Mr Khalil is a green card holder and recent graduate of Columbia University. He was a prominent figure during the Gaza war protests on campus in the spring of 2024.

His arrest has been linked to President Donald Trump’s promise to crack down on student demonstrators he accuses of “un-American activity.”

Trump has alleged repeatedly that pro-Palestinian activists, including Mr Khalil, support Hamas, group designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US. The president argues these protesters should be deported and called Mr Khalil’s arrest “the first of many to come”.

The day after, Mr Khalil’s arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the administration’s stance, posting on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

The 30-year-old’s lawyers have argued that he was exercising free speech rights to demonstrate in support of Palestinians in Gaza and against US support for Israel. They accused the government of “open repression of student activism and political speech”.

In his letter, released Tuesday, Mr Khalil said he believes he was arrested because he “advocated for a free Palestine”.

He also detailed his arrest, saying he and his wife were “accosted” on their way home from dinner by Department of Homeland Security agents “who refused to provide a warrant”.

“Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed me and forced me into an unmarked car,” he said, adding that he was not told anything for hours, including the cause for his arrest.

Mr Khalil said he spent the night at 26 Federal Plaza, a federal office building in New York that includes an immigration court. Later, he was transported to a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he said he was refused a blanket and forced to sleep on the ground.

He was transferred again to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he remains in custody. Mr Khalil’s lawyers have been in court since to fight for his release.

Last week, his lawyers pushed to bring him back to New York and accused the Trump administration of attempting to restrict access to their client. The judge did not issue a ruling at the hearing, but directed prosecutors to prove why the case should take place elsewhere.

In his letter, Mr Khalil called his detention “unjust” and said it was “indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months.”

He added that both administrations have “continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention”. He noted Israel’s resumption of air strikes on Gaza on Monday night that killed 400, according to the Hamas-run health authority.

Mr Khalil also took aim at Columbia University’s leadership for its disciplining of pro-Palestinian students, saying that the school’s actions laid the groundwork for students like him to be targeted.

Columbia University has stated that law enforcement can enter campus property with a warrant, but the school denied that university leadership had invited ICE agents.

Amid the protests early last year, Mr Khalil was briefly suspended from the university, after police swarmed the campus following the occupation of a building.

At the time, he told the BBC that while he was acting as a key protest negotiator with Columbia officials, he had not participated directly in the student encampment because he was worried it could affect his student visa.

Back then, he said that he would continue protesting. But more recently, Mr Khalil’s wife said her husband had grown worried about deportation, after facing online attacks that “were simply not based in reality”.

She said he sent Columbia University an email asking for urgent legal help on 7 March, the day before immigration agents arrested him. Mr Khalil’s wife, who is a US citizen, is now eight months pregnant.

The White House has continued to defend its move.

“This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organisations that have killed Americans,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary.

Mr Khalil said his story is a warning to others in the US, saying it is part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to “suppress dissent.”

“Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs,” he warned.

A young South African girl who disappeared last year aged six was allegedly sought by a traditional healer for her eyes and fair complexion, a court has heard.

This is among the allegations that have emerged at the ongoing trial of Joshlin Smith’s mother, Kelly Smith, who has been accused of orchestrating her kidnapping.

Ms Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno van Rhyn have pleaded not guilty to charges of human trafficking and kidnapping.

Joshlin’s disappearance in February 2024 from outside her home in Saldanha Bay, near Cape Town, sent shockwaves across South Africa and, despite a highly publicised search for her, she is yet to be found.

Ms Smith initially said that Joshlin, who has a fair complexion and blue-green eyes, had gone missing after she had left her in Mr Appollis’s care.

Prosecutors later accused her of having “sold, delivered or exchanged” the six-year-old and lied about her disappearance.

The trial, which is now in its third week, is being held at a community centre in Saldanha.

During the first week of the trial, the court heard details about the day Joshlin went missing, including that Ms Smith only alerted the police more than six hours after she had first noticed that the young girl had disappeared.

The court also heard that she appeared calm during the frantic search and seemed more concerned about her boyfriend’s whereabouts than the missing child.

More shocking claims emerged in the second week.

A local pastor said that as far back as 2023, he had heard Ms Smith – a mother of three – talk of selling her children for 20,000 rand ($1,100, £850) each, though she had said she was willing to accept a lower figure of $275.

Joshlin’s teacher then alleged in court that Ms Smith had told her during the search that her daughter was already “on a ship, inside a container, and they were on the way to West Africa”.

These revelations paled in comparison to the explosive details made by Lourentia Lombaard, a friend and neighbour of Ms Smith, who turned state witness.

She took the stand last Thursday and, over three days, detailed the events in the lead up to Joshlin’s disappearance that involved a traditional healer, known in South Africa as a “sangoma”.

Ms Lombaard alleged that her friend confessed to her: “I did something silly … I sold my child to a sangoma”, adding that she had been driven by a desperate need for money.

Joshlin’s mother promised those who knew of the plan some money in return for their silence, Ms Lombaard said.

She told the court that she later witnessed Ms Smith pack some clothes for Joshlin into a black bag, which she then saw her carry as the two walked to meet a woman Ms Lombaard believes was the sangoma.

Mother and daughter got into a white car and drove away with the woman, Ms Lombaard said.

Speaking on Monday, her last day on the stand, Ms Lombaard told the court that the “person who [allegedly took] Joshlin wanted her for her eyes and skin”.

It was not made clear in court why a sangoma would want a child like this.

A woman believed to be a traditional healer was initially arrested and charged alongside Ms Smith and her co-accused last year, but the charges against her were eventually dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Sangomas are legally recognised in South Africa under the Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2007, alongside herbalists, traditional birth attendants and traditional surgeons.

It is believed that ancestral spirits are able to provide advice and healing through these culturally respected practitioners.

Some charlatans are involved in unscrupulous traditional so-called cures, and have been known to sell good luck charms that involve body parts.

Ms Lombaard expressed sorrow over her role in Joshlin’s disappearance, saying that she had tried, without success, to stop Ms Smith from selling her daughter.

She appealed to whoever had taken the young girl to “please bring her back alive”.

The trial is expected to run until 28 March.

A curfew has been imposed in parts of a city in India’s western state of Maharashtra after Hindu groups demanded the removal of the tomb of Aurangzeb, a 17th-Century Mughal emperor, sparking violence on Monday night.

Vehicles were set on fire and stones were thrown in the Mahal area of ​​Nagpur city.

Police say the situation is now under control and are appealing to people to keep the peace.

The tomb of Aurangzeb, who died more than 300 years ago, has in recent years become a political flashpoint amid growing calls for its removal by hardline Hindu groups.

It is located about 500km (311 miles) from Nagpur in the state’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, which was earlier called Aurangabad after the emperor.

Monday’s violence broke out after two Hindu organisations, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, burnt the emperor’s effigy and chanted slogans demanding the removal of his tomb, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the state assembly.

This sparked rumours that some religious symbols had been desecrated. Fadnavis said this led to violence that looked like “a well-planned attack”.

He said after evening prayers, a crowd of 250 Muslim men gathered and started shouting slogans. “When people started saying they would set vehicles on fire, police used force,” he added.

More than 50 people have been detained and 33 policemen were injured in the incident, Nagpur police commissioner Ravinder Singal told ANI news agency.

Shops and businesses in the central areas of Nagpur remain closed and security has been tightened across the city.

Meanwhile, opposition parties have criticised the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government saying “law and order in the state has collapsed”.

The trigger for this week’s violence has been a recent Bollywood film about Sambhaji – a Maratha ruler who clashed with Aurangzeb but lost – and its graphic depiction of him being tortured.

The movie has “ignited people’s anger against Aurangzeb”, Fadnavis told the state assembly on Tuesday.

The issue has been making headlines in the state for days with politicians from Hindu nationalist parties criticising Aurangzeb and calling for his tomb to be removed.

The protesters were also angered earlier this month when Abu Azmi, a regional politician, said that Aurangzeb was not a “cruel administrator” and had “built many temples”.

Azmi also said the emperor’s reign saw India’s borders reaching Afghanistan and present-day Myanmar, and the country was referred to as a golden bird, with its gross domestic product accounting for a quarter of the world’s GDP.

He later told a court his remarks were misinterpreted, but he was suspended from Maharashtra’s state assembly and an investigation was ordered against him.

In 2022, Aurangzeb’s name was trending on social media when the dispute over a mosque – built on the ruins of the Vishwanath temple, a grand 17th-Century Hindu shrine destroyed on Aurangzeb’s orders – broke out as a court ordered a survey to ascertain if the mosque had been built over what was originally a Hindu temple.

His tomb was shut for visitors after a regional politician questioned “the need for its existence” and called for its destruction.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke about “Aurangzeb’s atrocities and “his terror” at an event in Varanasi that year. “He tried to change civilisation by the sword. He tried to crush culture with fanaticism,” Modi said.

Aurangzeb was the sixth emperor of the Mughal kingdom who ruled India for nearly five decades from 1658 to 1707.

He is often described as a devout Muslim who lived the life of an ascetic, but was ruthless in his pursuit of expanding the empire, imposing strict sharia laws and discriminatory taxes.

He was accused of razing Hindu temples, though some critics point out he also built a few.

A court in India has sentenced three men to death for the 1981 murder of 24 people from the Dalit (formerly untouchable) community.

The men were part of a gang of bandits who shot the victims, including women and children, in Dehuli village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The special court said on Tuesday that the killings fell into the “rarest of the rare” category, which justifies capital punishment in India.

The men, who insist they are innocent, can appeal against the sentence in a higher court.

All the victims were from the Dalit community, which sits at the bottom of India’s rigid caste hierarchy.

Relatives of the victims have welcomed the sentence but say the decision should have come earlier.

“Justice came very late to us. The accused have lived their lives,” said Sanjay Chaudhry, whose cousin was killed in the firing.

Thirteen of the 17 men accused in the case have died in the 44 years since the crime was committed. Apart from the three men who have been sentenced to death, there is one more accused, who is absconding.

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The crime took place on 18 November 1981, when 17 men – most of them from the upper caste – wearing police uniforms stormed Dehuli and started shooting at villagers.

According to the police complaint registered at the time, the violence followed the murder of a Dalit member of the robbers’ gang by his upper-caste colleagues. The gang members then attacked the village because they suspected that some Dalit villagers were providing information to the police in the murder case.

The survivors of the massacre have vivid memories of the day.

“I was doing household chores when suddenly the firing started,” says Rakesh Kumar, a witness who was a teenager at the time.

“I was hiding behind a stack of paddy and when I came out, I saw that many people, including my mother, were shot,” he said.

Mr Kumar’s mother Chameli Devi, now 80, was hit by a bullet in her leg while running from the gunfire.

“They did not spare anyone, including women or children,” she said. “Whoever they found was killed.”

The firing lasted for more than four hours and the attackers fled the scene before the police arrived, according to media reports.

The crime led to an exodus of Dalits from Dehuli, and the local administration sent police personnel to the village, where they stayed for months in a bid to reassure people. It also triggered a political uproar, and then prime minister Indira Gandhi had visited Dehuli to meet the victims.

In 1984, the case was transferred from a district court to the Allahabad Sessions Court on the orders of the state’s high court. The trial continued there on and off until 2024, when the case was shifted to the special court in Mainpuri which found the men guilty.

It’s not unusual for courts in India to take decades to finish hearing a case and deliver a verdict, especially when the victims are from disadvantaged communities. In 2023, a 90-year-old man was sentenced for life in prison for a caste crime that also took place in 1981.

Poland and the Baltic states have announced plans to withdraw from a key international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, citing the rising threat from Russia.

In a joint statement, the defence ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland said that since signing the Ottawa Treaty, threats from Moscow and its ally Belarus have “significantly increased”.

It is “paramount” to give their troops “flexibility and freedom of choice” to defend Nato’s eastern flank, they said.

The Ottawa Treaty, also known as the Mine Ban Treaty, came into force in 1997. It aims to ban anti-personnel mines – those aimed at humans – worldwide, and has been signed by more than 160 countries.

But some major military powers – including China, India, Russia, Pakistan, and the US – never signed up to it.

All of the Baltic states had signed the convention by 2005, while Poland joined in 2012.

In their joint statement on Tuesday, the nations’ defence ministers said, however, that the security situation in their region since signing the treaty had “significantly deteriorated”.

“In light of these considerations, we… unanimously recommend withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention.

“With this decision, we are sending a clear message: our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our territory and freedom,” the defence ministers wrote.

But they stressed that despite plans to leave the treaty, Poland and the Baltic states are still committed to international humanitarian laws, “including the protection of civilians during armed conflict”.

“Our nations will continue to uphold these principles while addressing our security needs,” they wrote.

All four countries are in the Nato alliance, and all four share borders with Russia.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Baltic states and Poland have hugely increased military spending, and leant a great deal of support to Ukraine.

According to the Kiel Institute think tank, by percentage of GDP, the Baltic States and Poland are among the highest donors of aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine is a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty, although it has received land mines from the US during Russia’s full-scale invasion, and in the past has told the UN that due to Russia’s invasion it cannot guarantee it is abiding by the treaty.

Article 20 of the convention specifically states however that a nation cannot withdraw from the treaty if it is currently at war.

The UN estimates the Ukraine is now the most mined nation in the world.

Neighbours star Ian Smith, who was diagnosed with a rare terminal cancer last year, has said his treatment “seems to be working”.

Smith first played Harold Bishop on the Australian TV soap in 1987 but left in December 2024 after revealing his diagnosis.

In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, the 86-year-old said he had originally been told “he was supposed to die in March” but seems “to be defying the odds”.

Smith has received immunotherapy treatment for a rare form of lung cancer called pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma, which he said had helped shrink his tumours significantly.

The actor, who has also worked as a screenwriter and television producer, said he now accepts the original timeframe for his survival “isn’t happening”.

“I’m now thinking of buying a new car. That’s not what you do if you’re going to die in March,” he told 5 Live’s Adrian Chiles.

“I’m determined to have an electric car before I die. And I was speaking to a salesman. I said, ‘Now, what about the delivery? Can you get to me before I’m dead?’ And he’s so shocked! I said, ‘Come on, let’s have a giggle’.”

Smith said he was grateful to have more time.

“I’m an atheist. I couldn’t say, ‘Thank you God’. I just had to say, ‘Thank you someone’ for giving me a second chance.

“And I took the second chance and I had to say to myself, what are you going to do with it?

“I’m still not sure I’ve worked out the answer to that, but I’m certainly not going to mope around.”

When he first revealed his diagnosis in December, Smith said he wanted “be a guinea pig” for treatment options.

The actor, who made several returns to the Australian soap before finally leaving last year, said he was “leading the way” with his treatment.

Immunotherapy uses the body’s own immune system to fight the disease.

He added that his oncologists were also “very happy” to say he was defying the odds… because I think they think they’re going to be famous!”

But despite the positive news, he said he was suffering “a lot from depression” because cancer had become “the elephant in the room”.

“I’m in this limbo of not knowing what to plan for… I’d love to go to Japan. I’ve never been to Japan, but I just don’t trust this body to get me there and I don’t want to be a bother to anyone else.”

Smith lost his wife Gail to cancer in 2019 after more than 50 years of marriage.

“People are saying that thing, ‘Oh, it’s wonderful what they can do these days'”, he told 5 Live.

“Yes, I know it’s wonderful. Of course, we are very clever human beings, we can do all of this, but it’s still there and from the time I wake up in the morning, cancer is there as a reminder all the time, you can’t get away from it.”

Nigeria is facing an escalating political crisis after President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency in the oil-rich Rivers state and suspended the governor, his deputy and all lawmakers in the state parliament for six months.

In a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday evening Tinubu said he had received “disturbing security reports detailing incidents of vandalisation of pipelines by some militants without the governor taking any action to curtail them”.

He added that he could not allow the “grave situation” to continue.

But lawyers and opposition politicians are questioning the legality of the president’s decision.

Tinubu made the announcement after one of the country’s highest producing crude oil pipelines, the Trans-Niger Pipeline, suffered significant damage due to a blast.

Attacks on pipelines have in the past been carried out by criminal gangs or militants, halting production and exports.

At current prices, the oil flowing through the affected pipeline fetches around $14m (£11m) a day, according to the online publication Africa Report.

But against the backdrop of the blast, there has been a political rift in Rivers state that has reached boiling point.

Governor Siminalayi Fubara is a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which has been plagued by reports of in-fighting. At a national level, the PDP is the main party opposed to the president’s All Progressives Congress.

Tinubu said that politicians have not been able to work together effectively because of the ongoing turmoil. He alleged that allies of Fubara had threatened “fire and brimstone” against the governor’s enemies and that had had not “disowned” these comments.

Rivers state lawmakers had threatened to impeach the governor and his deputy, according to Reuters news agency.

Tinubu said this political crisis has left Rivers state at a “standstill” adding that this latest measure is based on the need to restore peace and order to the state.

Fubara gave a measured response to the state of emergency.

He said there have been “political disagreements, but good governance has continued”.

“Rivers state is safe, secure and peaceful under our watch,” he said.

The state of emergency will allow the government to run the state in the interim and send security forces if needed.

But many groups see Tinubu’s action as draconian.

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said it was “unconstitutional” to remove an elected governor, deputy governor, or members of a state’s legislature.

The PDP rejected the emergency rule, calling it an attempt at “state capture”. It accused Tinubu of trying to turn Nigeria into a one-party country.

“It is the climax of a well-oiled plot to forcefully take over Rivers state,” it said.

Peter Obi, a former presidential candidate for the Labour Party, criticised the move which he described as “reckless” on X.

This is not the first time a state of emergency has been declared in Nigeria. Former presidents resorted to the action in a bid to curb insurgency and instability in different parts of the country.

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Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has told the BBC he wants US, European and Brazilian armies to join his “war” against criminal gangs.

He added he wants US President Donald Trump to designate Ecuadorean gangs as terrorist groups, as he has done for some Mexican and Venezuelan cartels.

He also said Ecuadorean law would be respected when asked about his recent partnership with Erik Prince, an ally of Trump and founder of controversial private military firm Blackwater.

Violence has soared in Ecuador in recent years, with gangs battling to control drug trafficking routes. Most of the world’s cocaine is trafficked through Ecuador’s ports.

President Noboa has previously indicated he would like foreign military aid to help tackle drug cartels – but this is the first time he has singled out the US, Brazil and Europe.

Security – and how he is dealing with it – is a top issue for voters ahead of a run-off vote in Ecuador’s presidential election on 13 April.

Noboa has defined his 16 months in office through a tough crackdown on gangs and militarising the streets and prisons – however he has also come under fire from critics who see his tactics as too heavy-handed.

During his term, the murder rate decreased by approximately 16% from 2023 to 2024 but it remains far higher than previous years, and in January 2025 killings hit a record 781 in one month.

In an interview with BBC News, the incumbent president said: “We need to have more soldiers to fight this war.”

“Seventy per cent of the world’s cocaine exits via Ecuador. We need the help of international forces.”

He said what started as “criminal gangs” are now “international narco-terrorist” groups of 14,000 armed individuals.

Donald Trump’s decision to designate some Latin American cartels as terrorist groups has given US law enforcement further powers to fight them.

Noboa told the BBC he wants his US counterpart to do the same with Ecuadorean gangs: “I would be glad if he considers Los Lobos, Los Choneros, Los Tiguerones as terrorist groups because that’s what they really are.”

Noboa has already ordered the foreign ministry to seek cooperation agreements with “allied nations” to support Ecuador’s police and army, and is also seeking parliamentary approval to change the constitution to allow foreign military bases in Ecuador again.

As well as constitutional changes, it would require other nations to be willing to offer this. Deploying armies abroad can be risky and expensive but there is some precedent for it. The US had a military base for its anti-narcotic operations in Ecuador until 2009, before these were banned by former President Rafael Correa.

President Noboa’s challenge will be convincing figures like Donald Trump in the US, or leaders in Europe where many drugs are shipped to, that it is in their interests too to stop cartels and drug trafficking.

On the alliance with Trump ally Erik Prince, which he announced a few days ago, he said: “We’re fighting an unconventional, urban guerilla war. He has the experience. He’s advising our armed forces, our police.”

Mr Prince founded the private military firm Blackwater that has provided security services to US governments but has also been embroiled in controversy. He sold the company in 2010.

Four Blackwater contractors were convicted and jailed for killing 14 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007 and were later pardoned by Trump in 2020.

Does President Noboa want Mr Prince to bring mercenaries to the country?

“Not necessarily mercenaries,” he said. “We are talking about armies. US, European, Brazilian special forces. This could be a great help for us.”

While some supported the move, some Ecuadoreans cited Mr Prince’s past record and feared rights abuses in the country.

When asked about some of Erik Prince’s past controversies, Mr Noboa said Ecuador’s laws must be respected and warfare conducted legally.

But, he added, cartels had “violated every single human right possible for the last five years”.

“They’ve mutilated people. They’ve raped thousands of women. They’ve trafficked human organs. They’ve traded illegal gold. And moved more than 1,000 tonnes of cocaine a year.”

Last year, his iron-fist approach came under fire after four boys were arrested by soldiers over an alleged theft and later found mutilated and burned.

Noboa said those soldiers were in jail pending an investigation but that he would “fight until the end” to convict those responsible.

He maintained the armed forces were acting proportionately in tackling crime and noted an imbalance between his 35,000-strong military and 40,000 armed gang members.

With the record number of killings in January, leading critics argue his strict approach is failing.

During a campaign rally, his left-wing challenger Luisa González said: “The campaign promises made in 2023 were to be delivered in a year and a half. Not two. Not three. Did he deliver? No!”

Noboa said it was normal to see rising violence before elections in his country, but reiterated that Ecuador could not fight this problem alone: “This is a transnational crime without a transnational security policy.”

While Albanian, Mexican and Colombian cartels worked together, there was not a joint security policy among countries affected by drug violence, he said.

Ecuador needs help, he argued, because its economy is smaller than many in Europe or the US where most drugs are shipped to.

He added drug trafficking and illegal mining generated $30bn (£23bn) – around 27% of GDP – annually in Ecuador.

He urged countries where consumption of cocaine is high, like the UK, to do more to tackle this arguing: “The product they’re consuming has a chain of violence and misery.”

Violence and post-pandemic unemployment have driven many Ecuadoreans to flee northward.

They are now one of the top nationalities crossing the dangerous Darien Gap jungle from South to North America.

President Noboa is willing to take back Ecuadorean migrants from the US, but not other nationalities, and said the country was giving returnees technical training and a minimum wage for three months.

For him, the solution is improving “opportunities”.

“We need to develop, as an export-based economy, jobs in Ecuador for these people.”

While he said he “100%” empathised with people fleeing violence, he blamed a past “lack of strong security policy”.

His message to Ecuadoreans now? “Stay – and you’ll see positive results. We’re reducing inflation. Companies are hiring. The economy is recovering.”

Daniel Noboa will face Luisa González in the run-off vote next month.

He received only 0.5% more votes than her in the first round, suggesting the second round could be very close and polarising.

With security the top issue for voters, his success – or not – may depend on whether Ecuadoreans think progress has been good enough.

Judging by some of the headlines today in Russia, Moscow believes that the latest telephone conversation between Presidents Putin and Trump went well – certainly for the Kremlin.

“Putin and Trump agreed to work together on Ukraine resolution,” concludes Izvestia.

“Record-long Putin-Trump call,” declares Komsomolskaya Pravda. The paper’s website adds: “As things stand Russia has scored a diplomatic victory here.”

Why are some in Russia claiming “victory” after this two-hour phone call?

Probably because, by the end of it, Vladimir Putin hadn’t been pressured into making any major concessions to Ukraine or to the United States. On the contrary, he had – in effect – rejected President Trump’s idea of an immediate unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

• Follow latest updates on this story

Instead of pressuring Moscow with the threat of even tougher sanctions and penalties, to get Russia to sign up to its plan, the US administration reacted by praising the Kremlin leader.

“We had a great call,” Donald Trump told Fox News.

“I would commend President Putin for all he did today on that call to move his country close to a final peace deal,” said Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.

Not only did Moscow not agree to an unconditional ceasefire, President Putin set his own pre-conditions for peace.

They include an end to Western military aid to Kyiv and intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians, as well as a halt to mobilisation in Ukraine. Such conditions are widely viewed as a way of securing Ukraine’s capitulation.

It’s hard to see Kyiv agreeing to any of that.

But could the Trump administration eventually be persuaded, by Moscow, that such conditions are acceptable? And if so, would Washington force Ukraine to accept them?

Much may depend on whether the Kremlin can convince President Trump he has more to gain from developing good ties with Moscow than by defending Ukraine’s corner.

As if to press home the point, in their conversations with the Americans, Russian officials are already dangling various economic and financial carrots and talking about how mutually beneficial the Russia-US relationship could be if the two countries can re-energise bilateral relations and get to work on joint projects.

Vladimir Putin recently raised the prospect of US-Russian cooperation in aluminium production and rare minerals mining.

The message appears to be getting through.

“We’d like to have more trade with Russia,” said Donald Trump on Tuesday in his interview with Fox News.

“They have some very valuable things for us, including rare earth. They have a big chunk of real estate, the biggest in the world. They have things that we could use.”

Moscow may well be hoping – possibly calculating – that Donald Trump will prioritise getting a chunk of that “Russian real estate” over securing an acceptable deal for Ukraine to end the war.

It’s a point echoed today by the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper:

“Moscow’s logic is to make economic relations with America so profitable that severing them would be too costly for the United States.”

After Ukraine had agreed to an unconditional ceasefire a week ago, the US administration publicly announced that “the ball is in [Russia’s] court”.

Now that Vladimir Putin has rejected the deal and set his own conditions, the Kremlin leader has hit it back into America’s “court”.

But Russia and America will continue their discussions – both on Ukraine and on US-Russian ties.

And it’s these negotiations which are likely to influence Donald Trump’s next move.

After nine months in space, Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have finally arrived back on Earth.

Their SpaceX capsule made a fast and fiery re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere, before four parachutes opened to take them to a gentle splashdown off the coast of Florida.

A pod of dolphins circled the craft.

After a recovery ship lifted it out of the water, the astronauts beamed and waved as they were helped out of the hatch, along with fellow crew members astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

“The crew’s doing great,” Steve Stich, manager, Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program, said at a news conference.

It brings to an end a mission that was supposed to last for just eight days.

It was dramatically extended after the spacecraft Butch and Suni had used to travel to the International Space Station suffered technical problems.

“It is awesome to have crew 9 home, just a beautiful landing,” said Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, Nasa’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.

Thanking the astronauts for their resilience and flexibility, he said SpaceX had been a “great partner”.

The journey home took 17 hours.

The astronauts were helped on to a stretcher, which is standard practice after spending so long in the weightless environment.

They will be checked over by a medical team, and then reunited with their families.

“The big thing will be seeing friends and family and the people who they were expecting to spend Christmas with,” said Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut.

“All of those family celebrations, the birthdays and the other events that they thought they were going to be part of – now, suddenly they can perhaps catch up on a bit of lost time.”

The saga of Butch and Suni began in June 2024.

They were taking part in the first crewed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, developed by aerospace company Boeing.

But the capsule suffered several technical problems during its journey to the space station, and it was deemed too risky to take the astronauts home.

Starliner returned safely to Earth empty in early September, but it meant the pair needed a new ride for their return.

So Nasa opted for the next scheduled flight: a SpaceX capsule that arrived at the ISS in late September.

It flew with two astronauts instead of four, leaving two seats spare for Butch and Suni’s return.

The only catch was this had a planned six-month mission, extending the astronauts stay until now.

The Nasa pair embraced their longer-than-expected stay in space.

They carried out an array of experiments on board the orbiting lab and conducted spacewalks, with Suni breaking the record for the woman who spent the most hours outside of the space station. And at Christmas, the team dressed in Santa hats and reindeer antlers – sending a festive message for a Christmas that they had originally planned to spend at home.

And despite the astronauts being described as “stranded” they never really were.

Throughout their mission there have always been spacecraft attached to the space station to get them – and the rest of those onboard – home if there was an emergency.

Now the astronauts have arrived home, they will soon be taken to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, where they will be checked over by medical experts.

Long-duration missions in space take a toll on the body, astronauts lose bone density and suffer muscle loss. Blood circulation is also affected, and fluid shifts can also impact eyesight.

It can take a long time for the body to return to normal, so the pair will be given an extensive exercise regime as their bodies re-adapt to living with gravity.

British astronaut Tim Peake said it could take a while to re-adjust.

“Your body feels great, it feels like a holiday,” he told the BBC.

“Your heart is having an easy time, your muscles and bones are having an easy time. You’re floating around the space station in this wonderful zero gravity environment.

“But you must keep up the exercise regime. Because you’re staying fit in space, not for space itself, but for when you return back to the punishing gravity environment of Earth. Those first two or three days back on Earth can be really punishing.”

In interviews while onboard, Butch and Suni have said they were well prepared for their longer than expected stay – but there were things they were looking forward to when they got home.

Speaking to CBS last month, Suni Williams said: “I’m looking forward to seeing my family, my dogs and jumping in the ocean. That will be really nice – to be back on Earth and feel Earth.”

The US government has released the final batch of documents on the assassination of President John F Kennedy (JFK) – a case that still inspires conspiracy theories more than 60 years later.

It follows an executive order by President Donald Trump that required remaining unredacted files in the case to be made public.

Experts are combing over the papers, not all of which have appeared online. They say the job will take time, and that they do not expect many ground-breaking revelations.

US authorities have previously released hundreds of thousands of JFK documents, but held some back, citing national security concerns. Many Americans still believe the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not act alone.

Kennedy was shot during a visit to Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963.

Trump said beforehand that 80,000 pages would be unsealed.

Of the 1,123 documents included in Tuesday’s release from the National Archives and Records Administration, it was not immediately clear how much material was new. Many documents have previously been released in partially redacted form.

“You got a lot of reading,” Trump told reporters on Monday, previewing the release. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”

But some of the hundreds of files unsealed on Tuesday night did appear to have passages blacked out. Others were hard to read, because they were faded or were poorly scanned photocopies, or appeared to bear little relevance to the JFK case, specialists said.

Non-scholars would probably be “baffled”, commented David Barrett of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, as he reviewed the released material on Tuesday.

Speaking to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, he said the release was “useful”, but he was not expecting “earth-shaking information, either with regard to the assassination or more broadly”.

Other JFK experts suggested the American public might keep wondering about the possible existence of other documents and information.

“I think there may continue to be more record releases,” historian Alice George told Reuters. But she went on to say the passage of time made investigations hard: “It’s much harder to find the truth when most of the people involved are dead.”

• The assassination of JFK: One of the US’s biggest mysteries
• Ex-Secret Service agent reveals new assassination detail

A government commission in the aftermath of the killing determined that President Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine veteran and self-described Marxist who had defected to the Soviet Union and later returned to the US.

Opinion polls over decades have indicated that most Americans don’t believe Oswald was the sole assassin. But no clear alternative narrative is yet to emerge from the latest batch of unsealed documents.

Unanswered questions have long dogged the case, giving rise to theories about the involvement of government agents, the mafia and other nefarious characters – as well as more outlandish claims.

In 1992, Congress passed a law to release all documents related to the investigation within 25 years.

Both Trump, in his first term, and President Joe Biden released piles of JFK-related documents – but thousands remained partially or fully secret.

Trump’s executive order two months ago also called on government archivists to release files related to the killings of presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr, both of whom were gunned down in 1968.

His announcement on Monday that the document release was imminent came as a surprise to his national security team, which had been working since January to prepare the files by removing redactions, according to US media reports.

The Republican president vowed during last year’s White House race to release JFK files, shortly after he secured the endorsement of Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr), the nephew of JFK and son of Robert F Kennedy.

RFK Jr has gone on to become Trump’s health secretary. He is among those who have promoted conspiracy theories about the assassination of his uncle. He was yet to comment on Tuesday’s release of documents.

Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said of the release: “President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency.”

Don’t judge a blob by its cover.

Once dubbed the world’s ugliest animal for its soft, lumpy appearance, the blobfish has made a stunning comeback: it was crowned this week as Fish of the Year by a New Zealand environmental group.

The annual competition, held by the Mountain to Sea Conservation Trust, aims to raise awareness for New Zealand’s freshwater and marine life.

This year, the blobfish took home the coveted accolade with nearly 1,300 out of more than 5,500 votes cast.

It’s an underdog victory for the blobfish, which burst into mainstream notoriety as the mascot for the Ugly Animal Preservation Society in 2013.

The gelatinous fish lives on the sea bed and grows to about 12in (30cm) in length. They’re mainly found off the coast of Australia, where they live at depths of 2,000-4,000 ft (600-1,200m).

• Why do we love ugly animals?

While the blobfish is known for its misshapen silhouette, in its natural deep-sea habitat it actually resembles a regular fish, with its shape kept together by the high water pressure.

However, when caught and rapidly brought to the water surface its body deforms into its hallmark mushy shape – the same one that has earned it the reputation of being among the ugliest creatures the world has seen.

Coming in second place was the orange roughy, a deep-sea fish in the slimehead family – known for the mucous canals on their heads.

It was “a battle of the deep sea forget-me-nots,” said Kim Jones, co-director of the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust. “A battle of two quirky deep sea critters, with the blobfish’s unconventional beauty helping get voters over the line.”

The orange roughy had appeared on track for the win, until a couple of local radio station hosts started a passionate campaign for the blobfish.

“There is an up and coming fish, it needs your vote,” Sarah Gandy and Paul Flynn, hosts of local radio network More FM, urged listeners on their show last week. “We need the blobfish to win.”

News of the blobfish’s victory has been celebrated by the radio hosts.

“The blobfish had been sitting patiently on the ocean floor, mouth open waiting for the next mollusc to come through to eat,” the pair said. “He has been bullied his whole life and we thought, ‘Stuff this, it’s time for the blobfish to have his moment in the sun’, and what a glorious moment it is!”

Besides molluscs, the blobfish also eats custaceans like crabs and lobsters, as well as sea urchins.

Instead of a skeleton and scales, the blobfish has a soft body and flabby skin.

Nine of the ten nominees for fish of the year are considered by conservation groups to be vulnerable, according to the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust. This includes the blobfish, which are vulnerable to deep-sea trawling.

New Zealand also has a Bird of the Year contest, organised by conservation organisation Forest & Bird. The latest winner, crowned last September, was the hoiho, a rare penguin species.

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Russia’s Kursk region have described scenes “like a horror movie” as they retreated from the front lines.

The BBC has received extensive accounts from Ukrainian troops, who recount a “catastrophic” withdrawal in the face of heavy fire, and columns of military equipment destroyed and constant attacks from swarms of Russian drones.

The soldiers, who spoke over social media, were given aliases to protect their identity. Some gave accounts of a “collapse” as Ukraine lost Sudzha, the largest town it held.

Ukrainian restrictions on travel to the front have meant it is not possible to get a full picture of the situation. But this is how five Ukrainian soldiers described to us what had happened.

On 9 March, “Volodymyr” sent a Telegram post to the BBC saying he was still in Sudzha, where there was “panic and collapse of the front”.

Ukrainian troops “are trying to leave – columns of troops and equipment. Some of them are burned by Russian drones on the road. It is impossible to leave during the day.”

Movement of men, logistics and equipment had been reliant on one major route between Sudzha and Ukraine’s Sumy region.

Volodymyr said it was possible to travel on that road relatively safely a month ago. By 9 March it was “all under the fire control of the enemy – drones around the clock. In one minute you can see two to three drones. That’s a lot,” he said.

“We have all the logistics here on one Sudzha-Sumy highway. And everyone knew that the [Russians] would try to cut it. But this again came as a surprise to our command.”

At the time of writing, just before Russia retook Sudzha, Volodymyr said Ukrainian forces were being pressed from three sides.

By 11 March, Ukrainian forces were battling to prevent the road being cut, according to Telegram messages from “Maksym”.

“A few days ago, we received an order to leave the defence lines in an organised retreat,” he said, adding that Russia had amassed a significant force to retake the town, “including large numbers of North Korean soldiers”.

Military experts estimate Russia had amassed a force of up to 70,000 troops to retake Kursk – including about 12,000 North Koreans.

Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and was using kamikaze and first-person-view (FPV) variants to “take fire control of the main logistics routes”.

They included drones linked to operators by fibre-optic wires – which are impossible to jam with electronic counter-measures.

Maksym said as a result “the enemy managed to destroy dozens of units of equipment”, and that wrecks had “created congestion on supply routes”.

The situation on that day, 11 March, was described as “catastrophic” by “Anton”.

The third soldier spoken to by the BBC was serving in the headquarters for the Kursk front.

He too highlighted the damage caused by Russian FPV drones. “We used to have an advantage in drones, now we do not,” he said. He added that Russia had an advantage with more accurate air strikes and a greater number of troops.

Anton said supply routes had been cut. “Logistics no longer work – organised deliveries of weapons, ammunition, food and water are no longer possible.”

Anton said he managed to leave Sudzha by foot, at night – “We almost died several times. Drones are in the sky all the time.”

The soldier predicted Ukraine’s entire foothold in Kursk would be lost but that “from a military point of view, the Kursk direction has exhausted itself. There is no point in keeping it any more”.

Western officials estimate that Ukraine’s Kursk offensive involved about 12,000 troops. They were some of their best-trained soldiers, equipped with Western-supplied weapons including tanks and armoured vehicles.

Russian bloggers published videos showing some of that equipment being destroyed or captured. On 13 March, Russia said the situation in Kursk was “fully under our control” and that Ukraine had “abandoned” much of its material.

In social media posts on 11-12 March, a fourth soldier, “Dmytro” likened the retreat from the front to “a scene from a horror movie”.

“The roads are littered with hundreds of destroyed cars, armoured vehicles and ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). There are a lot of wounded and dead.”

Vehicles were often hunted by multiple drones, he said.

He described his own narrow escape when the car he was travelling in got bogged down. He and his fellow soldiers were trying to push the vehicle free when they were targeted by another FPV drone.

It missed the vehicle, but injured one of his comrades. He said they had to hide in a forest for two hours before they were rescued.

Dmytro said many Ukrainians retreated on foot with “guys walking 15km to 20km”. The situation, he said, had turned from “difficult and critical to catastrophic”.

In a message on 14 March, Dmytro added: “Everything is finished in the Kursk region… the operation was not successful.”

He estimated that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had died since the first crossing into Russia in August.

A fifth soldier sounded less gloomy about the situation. On 13 March, “Artem” sent a Telegram message from a military hospital, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds suffered in a drone attack.

Artem said he had been fighting further west – near the village of Loknya, where Ukrainian forces were putting up a stiff resistance and “fighting like lions”.

He believed the operation had achieved some success.

“It’s important that so far the Armed Forces of Ukraine have created this buffer zone, thanks to which the Russians cannot enter Sumy,” he said.

Ukraine’s top general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, insists that Ukrainian forces have pulled back to “more favourable positions”, remain in Kursk, and would do so “for as long as it is expedient and necessary”.

He said Russia had suffered more than 50,000 losses during the operation – including those killed, injured or captured.

However, the situation now is very different to last August. Military analysts estimate two-thirds of the 1,000 sq km gained at the outset have since been lost.

Any hopes that Ukraine would be able to trade Kursk territory for some of its own have significantly diminished.

Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed the Kursk operation had “accomplished its task” by forcing Russia to pull troops from the east and relieve pressure on Pokrovsk.

But it is not yet clear at what cost.

The Malaysian cabinet has approved a fresh search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, more than a decade after the aircraft vanished.

The search will cover a 15,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean, under a “no find, no fee” agreement with the exploration firm Ocean Infinity.

The company will receive $70m (£56m) if the wreckage is found, transport minister Loke Siew Fook announced.

Flight MH370 disappeared in 2014 with 239 people on board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Its disappearance is one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries, which continues to haunt the families of the passengers.

Despite extensive searches in the years since it vanished, no wreckage has been found. Previous efforts, including a multinational search that cost $150m (£120m), ended in 2017.

The governments of the three nations involved – Malaysia, Australia and China – said the search would only be resumed “should credible new evidence emerge” of the aircraft’s location.

A 2018 search for the wreckage by Ocean Infinity under similar terms ended unsuccessfully after three months.

In December, Malaysia’s government agreed in principle to resume the search. However, the final negotiations were not completed until March.

Malaysia’s final approval on Wednesday will now allow the search to begin.

Loke said in a statement: “The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the MH370 passengers.”

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of 8 March 2014. Less than an hour after takeoff, it lost communication with air traffic control, and radar showed that it had deviated from its planned flight path.

Investigators generally agree that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, though the reason for the crash remains unclear.

Pieces of debris, believed to be from the plane, have washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in the years following its disappearance.

The aircraft’s disappearance has given rise to a host of conspiracy theories, including speculation that the pilot had deliberately brought the plane down and claims that it had been shot down by a foreign military.

An investigation in 2018 into the aircraft’s disappearance found that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but drew no conclusions behind it.

Investigators said at the time that “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found”.

The passengers included people from more than a dozen countries: just under two-thirds were Chinese nationals, followed by 38 Malaysians, with others from Australia, Indonesia, India, France, Ukraine, the US and several other nations.

Family members of missing Chinese MH370 passengers met with officials in Beijing earlier in March to discuss the renewed search for the wreckage and express their hopes for an independent search. Some relatives voiced their frustration over a lack of direct communication from the Malaysian authorities.

“It was promised that we would be informed immediately [but] we can only find out about this kind of news online,” said Li Eryou, a 68-year-old father who lost his 29-year-old son.

“Many families don’t even know how to access this information, so they are completely unaware,” he told AFP.

Grieving families gathered outside the Malaysian embassy in Beijing on the eleventh anniversary of the flight’s disappearance earlier this month, chanting: “Give us back our loved ones!”

Cheng Liping, whose husband had been in Malaysia for a film shoot and had been returning to China on MH370, said she hoped Beijing would communicate more with Malaysia to uncover the truth.

“Everyone has been left trapped in pain,” she told reporters. “What exactly happened is still unknown.”

The fresh search prompted mixed reactions from the families of passengers when it was announced in December – with some calling it a step towards closure, while others describing the news as bittersweet.

Turkish authorities have detained the mayor of Istanbul, just days before he was due to be selected as a presidential candidate.

Ekrem Imamoglu, from the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), is seen as one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strongest political rivals.

Prosecutors accused him of corruption and aiding a terrorist group, calling him a “criminal organisation leader suspect”.

Police detained 100 people – including other politicians, journalists and businessmen – as part of the investigation, and the Istanbul governor’s office has imposed four days of restrictions in the city.

Imamoglu said online “the will of the people cannot be silenced”.

In a social media video he said he filmed while police were outside his home, he vowed to “stand resolute” for the people of Turkey “and all who uphold democracy and justice worldwide”.

And in a handwritten note posted on his X account after his arrest, he said the people of Turkey would respond to “the lies, the conspiracies and the traps” against him.

Protests have erupted on Turkey’s streets and university campuses, and in underground stations, with crowds chanting anti-government slogans. It is a display of public anger not seen in years.

There were reports of clashes between protesters and police in Turkey’s largest city. Reuters news agency footage shows police using pepper spray pellets to disperse crowds outside Istanbul University.

The government has banned public gatherings in Istanbul as part of the four days of restrictions. But more protests are anticipated nationwide as opposition leaders, including Imamoglu’s wife, urge people to “raise their voices”.

Many streets in Istanbul have also been closed to traffic, while some metro lines have also cancelled their services.

UK-based internet watchdog Netblocks said on Wednesday Turkey had severely restricted access to social media sites like X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

The arrest comes as part of a major crackdown nationwide in recent months, targeting opposition politicians, municipalities, journalists and figures in the entertainment industry.

Following the Istanbul mayor’s arrest, concerns over Turkey’s shift toward autocracy were expressed on social media, with some calling for an opposition boycott of the upcoming presidential elections, arguing that a fair and democratic vote is no longer possible.

Imamoglu’s party, the CHP, even condemned the arrests as “a coup against our next president”, a sentiment widely echoed by pro-opposition voices.

But Turkey’s justice minister criticised those who linked Erdogan to the arrests.

Yilmaz Tunc said it was “extremely dangerous and wrong” to suggest this was a political move, insisting that nobody was above the law in Turkey.

Erdogan and his party have also denied the claims, insisting that Turkey’s judiciary is independent. He has been in power for 22 years.

Last year, Imamoglu won a second term as Istanbul’s mayor, when his CHP party swept local elections there and in Ankara.

It was the first time since Erdogan came to power that his party was defeated across the country at the ballot box.

The elections were also a personal blow to the president, who grew up in and became mayor of Istanbul on his rise to power.

Dozens of police officers were involved in the early-morning raid on Imamoglu’s house in Istanbul.

The CHP’s presidential candidate selection, in which Imamoglu is the only person running, is set to take place on Sunday.

Imamoglu’s arrest came a day after Istanbul University annulled his degree due to alleged irregularities – a decision which, if upheld, would prevent him from running in presidential elections.

According to the Turkish constitution, presidents must have completed higher education to hold office.

Imamoglu called that move “legally baseless”, adding that universities “must remain independent, free from political interference and dedicated to knowledge”.

Presidential elections are currently scheduled for 2028. Erdogan cannot currently run for office again, as he is in his second term and previously served as prime minister before that.

The only way Erdogan could contest another election would be to change the constitution, or call an early election before his term ends.

As well as being accused of extortion and fraud, Imamoglu is also alleged to have aided the PKK.

The PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – has waged an insurgency since 1984, and is proscribed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.

Earlier this month the group announced its decision to lay down arms, following a call from its imprisoned leader, who had engaged in talks with Turkish officials.

International reaction to the arrest has been negative. Germany’s foreign ministry said it was part of “intensified legal measures” designed to put pressure on Imamoglu, while France said it was “deeply concerned” by the arrests, which could have “heavy consequences on Turkish democracy”.

The Turkish lira, meanwhile, briefly crashed to an all-time low against the US dollar, as markets reacted poorly to the political uncertainty.

While many were shocked to wake up to the news of Imamoglu’s arrest, legal pressure on the popular opposition leader is far from new.

He has faced multiple investigations and was handed a political ban in December 2022 over allegations of insulting Turkey’s electoral board in 2019 – a verdict he appealed, with the final ruling still pending.

Additionally, he has been the subject of cases related to alleged tender irregularities during his tenure as mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikduzu district.

More recently, on 20 January, a new case was filed against him over his criticism of a prosecutor.

A few days after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, Amber Walliser stocked up, spending $2,000 (£1,538) on appliances she believed would get more expensive as the White House started to put new taxes on imports.

But that was a temporary splurge. These days, her family is buckling down, worried about job security, and a possible economic downturn, which experts believe could be more likely because of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

It means no new car, or big vacation this year. They have even shelved plans to start trying for a second child.

“We are saving as much as possible, just hoarding cash, trying to bulk up our emergency fund,” the 32-year-old accountant from Ohio said.

Amber’s worries are being echoed across the US, as tariffs and other changes by the White House hit the stock market, spark turmoil for businesses, and add to inflation concerns.

That is the tricky scenario that officials at the US central bank will have to address at their interest rates meeting on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve, which is supposed to keep both prices and employment stable, typically lowers borrowing costs to help support the economy, or raises them to slow down price rises, as it did when prices shot up in 2022.

Though analysts widely expect the Fed to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, they are far more divided about what to expect in the months ahead, as tariffs could both raises prices and slow economic growth.

“Their job has become a lot harder,” said Jay Bryson, chief economist at Wells Fargo.

In a speech earlier this month, the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, noted that surveys of sentiment have not been good indicators of spending decisions in recent years, when the economy has performed well across many mainstream metrics, despite sour views.

He said policymakers could afford to wait to see the overall impact of the White House policy changes before responding.

But households are responding to the uncertainty now.

After his investments were hit in the recent stock market sell-off, Dave Gold drew up a budget and started slashing his spending.

He cancelled Netflix, challenged himself to avoid Amazon purchases for a month, and scaled back his travel, managing to cut his expenses in half.

“It’s just really hard to plan and be confident about what next month looks like,” said the 37-year-old, who lives in Wyoming and works in finance.

“I thought it was time to reel it back in and protect myself in case things do happen.”

Dave is not the only American reining in their spending. Retail sales also fell last month, while firms from Walmart to Delta Air Lines have warned of slackening demand.

Meanwhile, job growth has slowed and the stock market is now trading at its lowest levels since September.

In this month’s survey of consumer sentiment by the University of Michigan, concerns about the job market surged to the highest level since the Great Recession, while household expectations of long-term inflation also jumped, in the biggest one-month rise since 1993.

Those are troubling signals for the US, in which consumer spending accounts for roughly two thirds of the economy.

“It’s not like the consumer is falling apart, but we’re seeing some cracks,” said Mr Bryson, who puts the odds of a recession at one in three, up from one in five at the start of the year.

“If consumers retrench…the entire economy is going to go down with it,” he said.

White House officials have acknowledged the likelihood of “a little disturbance”, while promising that the short-term pain will lead to long-term gain.

But polls suggest Trump’s handling of the economy is a point of concern for the public, especially for Democrats and independents, but increasingly for Republicans as well.

Software engineer Jim Frazer, who did not vote for Trump, said the administration’s assurances have done little to ease his concerns, as he sees policies change by the hour, the stock market sink, and prices for staples such as eggs rise.

Around the end of last year, the 49-year-old, who lives in Nebraska, purchased a new phone and television, betting such items would be affected by the tariffs Trump said he planned to put on imports from China.

More recently however, he’s trying to cut back, both as a buffer against rising costs and because he has been spooked by the Trump administration’s talk – not just about tariffs, but other moves, like annexing Canada as the 51st state.

He and his wife recently hit pause on their plan to replace an old loveseat, and have scaled back their ambitions for renovating the bathroom.

“I just feel like right now, we need that money squirrelled away in a safe spot,” he said.

“It’s that feeling like we’re heading towards something and we’ve got to get prepared.”

The UN says that one of its workers has been killed and others injured after a compound in Gaza was damaged on Wednesday, adding that the circumstances of the incident remain unclear.

The Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run health ministry blamed an Israeli strike and said five critically injured foreign workers had arrived in hospital. Israel’s military denied striking the UN compound in Deir al-Balah.

It comes after Israel said it was resuming fighting in Gaza following a two-month ceasefire – launching a wave of strikes that killed more than 400 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had “resumed combat in full force”.

The UN initially said two of its workers had been killed but later clarified that the second person was not a staff member.

The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said an “explosive ordnance was dropped or fired” at the building, which was in an “isolated” location.

It added there was no confirmation on the nature of the incident or the type of artillery used.

UNOPS executive director Jorge Moreira da Silva described the incident as “not an accident” and added that “UN personnel and its premises must be protected by all sides”.

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people – two still wearing blue UN flak jackets – arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

Separately, at least 20 people were killed in air strikes across Gaza overnight, after Israel said it was resuming fighting in the Palestinian territory.

Two civilians were killed and five others injured when an Israeli drone hit a tent near the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reports, citing Red Crescent medics.

Israel’s army said it had targeted what it called a Hamas military site, from where the group was preparing to fire into Israel. Vessels controlled by Hamas were also hit, the army said.

The bombing is not of the same scale as it was on Tuesday – but it shows no let-up in Israel’s fresh assault.

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said of Tuesday’s strikes that “the intensity of the killings is now off the scale”.

Wafa says a woman and child were killed in an air strike north of Khan Younis overnight into Wednesday, while four others were killed in a strike in Gaza City.

Gaza’s health ministry said that 436 people had been killed in strikes since Tuesday, including 183 children.

Tuesday’s strikes constituted the heaviest bombardment since a fragile ceasefire and hostage exchange deal came into effect on 19 January, and came after Israel and Hamas failed to agree how to take it beyond an initial phase.

• Why has Israel bombed Gaza and what next for ceasefire deal?
• ‘Once again, fear has gripped the people’

The deal involves three stages, and negotiations on the second stage were meant to have started six weeks ago – but this did not happen.

Under the proposed second phase, Israel would withdraw troops from Gaza – but Israel and the US instead pushed for an extension of the first phase, with more hostages being released in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu cast the resumption of fighting as a return to Israel’s primary aims – to return the hostages and “get rid” of Hamas – but families of hostages have criticised the decision, saying it showed the government had given up on their loved ones.

Thousands of Israelis have joined a protest in Jerusalem, accusing Netanyahu of undermining democracy and restarting the offensive in Gaza without regard for the hostages.

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Egypt, a mediator in talks, said the fresh strikes were a “blatant” violation of the ceasefire.

Israel previously imposed a total halt on all humanitarian aid entering Gaza, causing widespread international alarm.

“For two weeks now, our food supplies are rotting at the borders, the medicines are expiring, the water’s been cut off, the power’s been cut off – and all that to punish civilians further,” Mr Fletcher told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He said he had spoken to the UN security council on Tuesday in a bid to lift the blockade and get the ceasefire deal back on track, including the release of hostages.

“I’m not asking for the moon here,” the UN chief added.

He said his team would “carry on going” in Gaza because they are “determined to do everything they can to save as many survivors as possible.

“They’re saying to us: What does it say about our values that we can’t stop a 21st Century atrocity happening before our eyes – and not just happening, but being cheered on before our eyes?”

Hamas has confirmed that several of its leaders were killed in Tuesday’s strikes, including its de facto head of government, Essam a-Da’lees.

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad – whose fighters participated in the 7 October 2023 attack which triggered the current conflict – said the prominent spokesman of its armed wing, known as Abu Hamza, was killed.

However, there were also many civilians, including dozens of children, thought to be among the dead.

Regional mediators are now said to be pushing Hamas to release some of the Israeli hostages it still holds in exchange for a de-escalation.

But Netanyahu has said that going forward, all ceasefire talks will take place “under fire”.

The 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel saw about 1,200 people killed and the capturing of 251 hostages – 25 of whom were released alive during the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israel responded with a massive military offensive, which has killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry says, as well as causing large-scale destruction to homes and infrastructure.

A former engineer at a Chinese research institute has been sentenced to death for selling classified material to foreign spy agencies, Chinese authorities said.

After he resigned from the institute, the researcher, identified by his surname Liu, came up with a “carefully designed” plan to sell intelligence to foreign agencies, according to an article published on Wednesday by China’s Ministry of State Security.

The ministry did not name Liu’s former employer or the foreign groups that allegedly bought his material.

The announcement comes amid increasing warnings from China that its citizens are being co-opted by foreign entities to serve as spies.

“Desperadoes who want to take shortcuts to heaven will all suffer consequences,” the ministry said in Wednesday’s article.

Believing that he had been treated unfairly at the institute, Liu saved a large amount of classified material before he left, intending to use it for revenge and blackmail, the ministry stated.

He then joined an investment firm and, after failed investments drove him into debt, approached a foreign spy agency which got the material from him at a “very low price”, according to the ministry.

This agency subsequently cut off contact with Liu, the ministry added, and he tried to sell the information abroad.

“In half a year, he secretly travelled to many countries and seriously leaked our country’s secrets,” the article said.

Liu, who confessed after being arrested, has been stripped of political rights for life.

Beijing has been increasingly wary of espionage, and warned that its citizens are being recruited by foreign spy agencies trying to secure Chinese state secrets.

Last November, a former employee at a Chinese state agency was handed the death sentence after his USB work flash drive was allegedly seized by foreign spies and he became their “puppet”, according to Chinese authorities.

In February last year, Australian writer Yang Hengjun, known for blogging about human rights issues in China, was handed a suspended death sentence on espionage charges. That sentence was upheld, and Yang remains behind bars in China, despite Australian leaders calling for his release.

Concerns about Chinese influence and infiltration operations are also brewing among governments across the world, several of which have in recent years stepped up arrests of Chinese nationals on espionage charges.