A meeting meant to soothe tensions between the US and South Africa instead spiralled as President Donald Trump put his counterpart on the defensive with claims that white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.

On Wednesday, a week after the US granted asylum to nearly 60 Afrikaners – a move that rankled South Africa – President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House to reset the countries’ relations.

Instead, Trump surprised Ramaphosa during a live news conference with widely discredited claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa.

He played a video showing a protest exhibit of thousands of crosses lining a road – claiming they were burial sites for murdered white farmers.

Trump said he did not know where in South Africa it was filmed and the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Before Wednesday’s White House meeting, South Africa’s leader stressed that improving trade relations with the US was his priority. South African exports into the US face a 30% tariff once a pause on Trump’s new import taxes ends in July.

Ramaphosa hoped to charm Trump during the meeting, bringing along two famous South African golfers and gifting him a huge book featuring his country’s golf courses.

The meeting came days after the arrival of 59 white South Africans in the US, where they were granted refugee status. Ramaphosa said at the time they were “cowards”.

Still, the Oval Office meeting began cordially, until Trump asked for the lighting to be lowered for a video presentation. The mood shifted.

• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his refugee offer?
• ‘I didn’t come here for fun’ – Afrikaner defends refugee status in US

The film featured the voice of leading South African opposition figure Julius Malema singing: “Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer”. It then showed a field of crosses, which the US president, talking over the images, said was a burial site of white farmers. The crosses actually were part of a protest, not graves, over farmers who have been killed.

He handed Ramaphosa what appeared to be print-outs of stories of white people being attacked in South Africa. Trump said that he would seek an “explanation” from his guest on claims of white “genocide” in South Africa, which have been widely discredited.

Ramaphosa responded to the opposition chants in the video, saying, “What you saw – the speeches that were made… that is not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”

“Our government policy is completely against what he [Malema] was saying even in the parliament and they are a small minority party, which is allowed to exist according to our constitution.”

Ramaphosa said Wednesday that he hoped Trump would listen to the voices of South Africans on this issue. He pointed out the white members of his delegation, including golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert.

“If there was a genocide, these three gentlemen would not be here,” Ramaphosa said.

Trump interrupted: “But you do allow them to take land, and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer nothing happens to them.”

“No,” Ramaphosa responded.

The US leader seemed to be referencing that Malema and his party, who is not part of the government, have the power to confiscate land from white farmers, which they do not.

A controversial law signed by Ramaphosa earlier this year allows the government to seize privately-owned land without compensation in some circumstances. The South African government says no land has been seized yet under the act.

Ramaphosa did acknowledge that there was “criminality in our country… people who do get killed through criminal activity are not only white people, the majority of them are black people”.

Referring to the crosses in the video, Trump said, “The farmers are not black. I don’t say that’s good or bad, but the farmers are not black…”

South Africa does not release race-based crime figures, but the latest figures show that nearly 10,000 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024. Of these, a dozen were killed in farm attacks and of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.

Claims of genocide in South Africa have circulated among right-wing groups for years. In February, a South African judge dismissed the claims as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, when ruling in an inheritance case involving a donation to white supremacist group.

As Trump pressed the issue, Ramaphosa stayed calm – and tried to work his charm by making a joke about offering a plane to the US.

He invoked the name of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, saying South Africa remained committed to racial reconciliation.

When a journalist asked what would happen if white farmers left South Africa, Ramaphosa deflected the question to his white agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, who said that most farmers wanted to stay.

But Trump kept firing salvoes at Ramaphosa, who avoided entering into a shouting match with him – something that happened to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he met Trump in the same room in February.

After the confrontation, Malema mocked the meeting, describing it as “a group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me.”

“No significant amount of intelligence evidence has been produced about white genocide. We will not agree to compromise our political principles on land expropriation without compensation for political expediency,” he posted on X.

Helena Humphrey, former US ambassador to South Africa under then-President Barack Obama, called the meeting “truly embarrassing”.

“It is clear that a trap was set for the South African president. There was every intention to humiliate him, to embarrass South Africa, by extension,” she said.

The head of South Africa’s most prominent Afrikaners interest group told the BBC Wednesday night that “there are real issues that need to be addressed” when asked about the Trump/Ramaphosa meeting.

Asked whether Afriforum, a South African NGO representing Akrifaners in the country, helped make the video shown in the White House Oval Office, CEO Kallie Kriel said the group has “used some of that video footage in some of our videos, but in terms of that specific compilation, we did not make that.”

“That video material is quite easily accessible to many people, but I think that video was very important to just get the shift to a situation that there can’t be denialism, and if there is (sic) going to be solutions, then there are real issues that need to be addressed. And I think that video made the point quite strongly,” she said.

Tensions between South Africa and the US are not new.

Days after Trump took office for his second term in January, Ramaphosa signed into law the controversial bill that allows South Africa’s government to expropriate privately-owned land in cases when it is deemed “equitable and in the public interest”.

The move only served to tarnish the image of Africa’s biggest economy in the eyes of the Trump administration – already angered by its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

In February, the US president announced the suspension of critical aid to South Africa and offered to allow members of the Afrikaner community – who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers – to settle in the US as refugees.

South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was also expelled in March after accusing Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle”.

• Can Mandela’s former negotiator fix fractious relations with Trump?
• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?
• What’s really driving Trump’s fury with South Africa?

Three months into Donald Trump’s second term, foreign leaders should be aware that a coveted trip to the Oval Office comes with the risk of a very public dressing down, often straying into attempts at provocation and humiliation.

Wednesday’s episode with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was a classic of its kind, with the added twist of an ambush involving dimmed lights, a lengthy video screening and stacks of news story clippings.

As television cameras rolled, and after some well-tempered discussion, Trump was asked by a journalist about what it would take for him to be convinced that discredited claims of “white genocide” in South Africa are untrue.

Ramaphosa responded first, by saying the president would have to “listen to the voices of South Africans” on the issue. Trump then came in, asking an assistant to “turn the lights down” and put the television on, so he could show the South African leader “a couple of things”.

Elon Musk, his adviser and a South Africa-born billionaire, watched quietly from behind a couch.

• WATCH: ‘Turn the lights down’ – Trump confronts Ramaphosa with video
• ANALYSIS: Ramaphosa survives mauling by Trump over ‘white genocide’
• WHAT HAPPENED: Trump ambushes S African leader with claim of Afrikaners being ‘persecuted’

What followed was an extraordinary and highly choreographed onslaught of accusations from the US president about the alleged persecution of white South Africans, echoing the aggressive treatment of Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky during his February visit to the White House.

The footage on the large screen showcased South African political firebrands chanting “Shoot the Boer”, an anti-apartheid song. And Trump, so often critical of the news media, seemed happy to parade pictures of uncertain provenance. Asked where alleged grave sites of white farmers were, he simply answered, “South Africa”.

The US leader also seemed to believe the political leaders in the footage – who are not part of the government – had the power to confiscate land from white farmers. They do not.

While Ramaphosa did sign a controversial bill allowing land seizures without compensation earlier this year, the law has not been implemented. And the South African distanced himself publicly from the language in the political speeches shown.

But the top ally of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and negotiator who helped bring an end to the apartheid regime of white-minority rule came to this meeting prepared.

Trump sometimes appears unaware of transparent efforts made by foreign leaders to flatter and that was clearly part of the South African strategy.

True, Donald Trump is a golf fanatic, but Ramaphosa’s gambit of bringing two top golfers – Ernie Els and Retief Goosen – to a meeting about diplomatic problems and trade policy is not taken from any textbook on international relations I’ve ever read.

However, the US president’s pleasure at having the two white South African golfers there was on show for all to see.

Their prognostications on the fate of white farmers got nearly as much screen time as South Africa’s democratically-elected president, who largely restricted himself to quiet, short interventions.

But Ramaphosa will likely be happy with that. The golfers, along with his white agriculture minister, himself from an opposition party which is part of the national unity government, were there, at least in part, as a shield – a kind of diplomatic golden dome if you will, and it worked.

• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his South African refugee offer?
• White South Africans going to US are cowards, Ramaphosa says

Trump returned repeatedly to the issue of the plight of the farmers – dozens of whom he has welcomed into the US as refugees. But President Ramaphosa wasn’t biting and the provocations were largely left to blow in the breeze.

At one point, he referred to the golfers and an Afrikaner billionaire who had joined his delegation, telling Trump: “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentleman would not be here.”

But even though President Trump didn’t manage to get a rise out of the South African president, that does not mean his efforts over more than an hour were in vain; they certainly were not.

This performative style of diplomacy is aimed as much at the domestic American audience as it is at the latest visitor to the Oval Office.

Central to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) project is keeping up the energy around perceived grievances and resentment and President Trump knows what his supporters want.

If some foreign leaders are learning to navigate these moments with skill, Donald Trump may have to change the playbook a bit to continue to have the impact he wants.

Hundreds of tiles have fallen from the roof of a centuries old tower in China’s Anhui province, smashing to the ground near visitors to the site.

Eyewitness footage showed sections of the roof collapsing, narrowly missing a number of people.

Local media cited a Fengyang County Culture and Tourism Bureau statement that said no one was injured in the incident, which happened at around 18:30 local time (11:30 BST) on Monday.

The Drum Tower – reportedly the largest in China – was built in 1375 during the Ming Dynasty but had undergone an extensive rebuild in 1995.

Officials for the county, around 200 miles away from the capital Beijing, said an investigation was under way, in a post shared on China’s instant messaging app, WeChat.

Fengyang county is famous for being the hometown of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor – Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang.

Local authorities reportedly moved bystanders from the scene following the collapse and secured the area. The investigation will be looking at the repair project’s design and construction, a statement seen by local media added.

Reports say supervision units were also sent to the site with experts invited to assist in the investigation and verification process.

The tower is closed while repairs are carried out, with a reopening date due to be announced at a later date.

Four British former special forces soldiers have set a record by climbing Mount Everest in under five days without acclimatising on the mountain, as part of a high-speed expedition controversially aided by xenon gas.

The team, which included a UK government minister, summited the world’s highest peak early on Wednesday.

Xenon was used to help them pre-acclimatise to low oxygen at high altitudes. Climbers usually spend between six to eight weeks on Everest before summiting.

Organisers said the use of xenon had made such a fast ascent possible. But the science around using the gas remains disputed and many in the mountaineering industry have criticised it.

Although this expedition is a record Everest ascent without acclimatising in the Himalayas, it’s not the fastest Everest time.

That record still belongs to Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa, who climbed from base camp to the summit in 10 hours and 56 minutes in 2003 – but he did this after acclimatising on the mountain.

The xenon-aided team, accompanied by five Sherpa guides and a cameraman, reached the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) summit early on Wednesday, and began their descent soon afterwards.

“They started on the afternoon of 16th May and summited on the morning of the 21st, taking four days and approximately 18 hours,” expedition organiser Lukas Furtenbach told the BBC.

The four former soldiers, who include veterans minister Alastair Carns, slept for six weeks in special tents before travelling to Nepal to help them acclimatise to decreased levels of oxygen at high altitude.

They then flew to Everest base camp from Kathmandu and started climbing straight away, Mr Furtenbach said. They used supplemental oxygen, like other climbers, during the expedition.

Climbers usually spend weeks going up and down between base camp and higher camps before making the final push for the summit.

They need to do that to get used to thinner oxygen levels at high mountain altitudes. Above 8,000m, known as the death zone, available oxygen is only a third of that present at sea level.

But the four British men in the team did none of that.

“The team made a three-month acclimatisation programme in simulated altitude before coming to Nepal,” Mr Furtenbach said.

The simulated altitude was created in what is known as hypoxic tents from which oxygen is sucked out using a generator, bringing it to levels present at high mountain altitudes.

Then the climbers inhaled xenon gas at a clinic in Germany two weeks before the expedition, said Mr Furtenbach.

“It helps to protect the body from altitude sickness,” he said.

Some researchers say xenon increases production of a protein called erythropoietin that fights hypoxia, a condition that occurs when the body can’t get enough oxygen.

They say it does that by increasing the number of red blood cells that contain haemoglobin, which transports oxygen around the body, but this remains a disputed subject and many say further studies are required.

Some in the mountaineering industry have cautioned against the use of xenon gas.

“According to current literature, there is no evidence that breathing in xenon improves performance in the mountains, and inappropriate use can be dangerous,” the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation said in a statement in January.

“Acclimatisation to altitude is a complex process that affects the various organs/systems such as the brain, lungs, heart, kidneys and blood to different degrees, and is not fully understood.

“From a physiological point of view, a single, one-off drug cannot be the key to improved acclimatisation or increased performance.”

Adrian Ballinger, who heads another expedition team climbing Everest from the Chinese side to the north, also makes his clients undergo pre-acclimatisation training like using hypoxic tents to shorten time on the mountains. But he opposes using xenon gas.

“If you’re promoting xenon as a performance enhancer, but you’re not also willing to examine what that means for fairness and integrity in the mountains, it’s a problem,” he told the BBC.

“People are grasping at shortcuts instead of doing the real work of acclimatisation and training.”

But now that the British team have made their groundbreaking Everest ascent, expedition operators think, and some worry, that this method may be used by other climbers too.

“If that happens then it will certainly have a direct, negative impact on the tourism industry as the length of time mountaineers stay will come down significantly,” said Damber Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal.

“Also, acclimatising on the mountains is the basic rule of mountaineering. If that is not done then authorities should not be giving them certificates certifying that they climbed the mountain.”

Nepal’s tourism department officials said they were not aware the British team were climbing Everest without acclimatisation.

“Now that we know about it, we will be discussing the issue and decide on our future course of action,” Narayan Regmi, director general at Nepal’s department of tourism told the BBC.

But why climb the highest peak at such speed?

“A shorter expedition has a lower carbon footprint and less ecological impact,” said Mr Furtenbach.

“And it is safer for climbers because they can climb the mountain in good health and they are exposed to high altitude risks and mountain hazards for shorter time compared to when they are acclimatising on the mountain.”

When Japan’s farm minister declared that he never had to buy rice because his supporters give him “plenty” of it as gifts, he hoped to draw laughs.

Instead Taku Eto drew outrage – and enough of it to force him to resign.

Japan is facing its first cost-of-living crisis in decades, which is hitting a beloved staple: rice. The price has more than doubled in the last year, and imported varieties are few and far between.

Eto apologised, saying he had gone “too far” with his comments on Sunday at a local fundraiser. He resigned after opposition parties threatened a no-confidence motion against him.

His ousting deals a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s minority government, which was already struggling with falling public support.

Rice can be a powerful trigger in Japan, where shortages have caused political upsets before. Riots over the soaring cost of rice even toppled a government in 1918.

So it’s not that surprising that rice prices have a role in Ishiba’s plummeting approval ratings.

“Politicians don’t go to supermarkets to do their grocery shopping so they don’t understand,” 31-year-old Memori Higuchi tells the BBC from her home in Yokohama.

Ms Higuchi is a first-time mother of a seven-month-old. Good food for her postnatal recovery has been crucial, and her daughter will soon start eating solid food.

“I want her to eat well so if prices keep going up, we may have to reduce the amount of rice my husband and I eat.”

It’s a simple issue of supply and demand, agricultural economist Kunio Nishikawa of Ibaraki University says.

But he believes it was caused by a government miscalculation.

Until 1995, the government controlled the amount of rice farmers produced by working closely with agricultural cooperatives. The law was abolished that year but the agriculture ministry continues to publish demand estimates so farmers can avoid producing a glut of rice.

But, Prof Nishikawa says, they got it wrong in 2023 and 2024. They estimated the demand to be 6.8m tonnes, while the actual demand, he adds, was 7.05m tonnes.

Demand for rice went up because of more tourists visiting Japan and a rise in people eating out after the pandemic.

But actual production was even lower than the estimate: 6.61m tonnes, Prof Nishikawa says.

“It is true that the demand for rice jumped, due to several factors – including the fact that rice was relatively affordable compared to other food items and a rise in the number of overseas visitors,” a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry told the BBC.

“The quality of rice wasn’t great due to unusually high temperatures which also resulted in lower rice production.”

Rice farmers have been unable to make enough money for many years, says 59-year-old Kosuke Kasahara, whose family have been in farming for generations.

He explains that it costs approximately 18,500 yen ($125.70; £94.60) to produce 60kg of rice but the cooperative in his area of Niigata on the west coast of Japan offered to buy it last year at 19,000 yen.

“Until three or four years ago, the government would even offer financial incentives to municipalities that agreed to reduce rice production,” he adds.

The ministry spokesperson confirms that the government has offered subsidies to those choosing to produce wheat or soybeans instead of rice.

Meanwhile, younger farmers have been choosing to produce different types of rice that are used for sake, rice crackers or fed to livestock because demand for rice in Japan had been falling until last year.

“I got tired of fighting retailers or restaurants that wanted me to sell rice cheaply for many years,” says Shinya Tabuchi.

But that’s been flipped on its head, with the going rate for 60kg of rice today at 40,000 to 50,000 yen.

While higher prices are bad news for shoppers, it means many struggling farmers will finally be able to make money.

But as the public grew angry with the surge, the government auctioned some of its emergency reserves of rice in March to try to bring prices down.

Many countries have strategic reserves – stockpiles of vital goods – of crude oil or natural gas to prepare for exceptional circumstances. In Asia, many governments also have stockpiles of rice.

In recent years, Japan’s rice stockpile had only been tapped in the wake of natural disasters.

“The government has always told us that they would not release its emergency rice stocks to control the price so we felt betrayed,” Mr Tabuchi says.

Despite the government’s rare decision to release rice, prices have continued to rise.

The cost of rice is also soaring in South East Asia, which accounts for almost 30% of global rice production – economic, political and climate pressures have resulted in shortages in recent years.

In Japan though the issue has become so serious that the country has begun importing rice from South Korea for the first time in a quarter of a century, even though consumers prefer homegrown varieties.

PM Ishiba has also hinted at expanding imports of US rice as his government continues to negotiate a trade deal with Washington.

But shoppers like Ms Higuchi say they are unlikely to buy non-Japanese rice.

“We’ve been saying local production for local consumption for a long time,” she says. “There has to be a way for Japanese farmers to be profitable and consumers to feel safe by being able to afford home-grown produce.”

This divides opinion among farmers.

“You may hear that the industry is ageing and shrinking but that is not necessarily true,” says Mr Tabuchi, who believes the sector has been too protected by the government.

“Many elderly farmers can afford to sell rice cheaply because they have pensions and assets but the younger generation has to be able to make money. Instead of guaranteeing the income of all the farmers and distorting the market, the government should let unprofitable farmers fail.”

Mr Kasahara disagrees: “Farming in rural areas like ours is about being part of a community. If we let those farmers fail, our areas will be in ruins.”

He argues the government should set a guaranteed buying price of 32,000 to 36,000 yen per 60kg of rice which is lower than today’s price but still allows farmers to be profitable.

And given what happened to Eto, it is also a sensitive topic for politicians.

The country is due to hold a key national election this summer so pleasing both consumers and farmers – especially the elderly in both camps who tend to vote more – is crucial.

Sir Keir Starmer is due to sign a deal handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on Thursday.

Under the terms of the deal Mauritius would gain sovereignty of the islands from the UK, but allow the US and UK to continue operating a strategically important military base on one of the islands for an initial period of 99 years in exchange for a multi-billion pound payment.

As first reported in The Telegraph, the prime minister will attend a virtual signing ceremony with representatives from the Mauritian government on Thursday.

The deal previously appeared to have stalled after a change in government in both Mauritius and the US – where aides to Donald Trump were given time to examine the plan.

The plan to hand over control of the Chagos Islands, officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), was announced last October following negotiations with then-Mauritian leader Pravind Jugnauth.

However, following elections, he was replaced by current PM Navin Ramgoolam, who expressed concerns about the deal.

Progress on the deal was also delayed after the election of Trump because negotiators wanted to give the new US administration time to examine the details of the plan.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was one of a chorus of high-profile Republicans who said the deal posed a “serious threat” to US national security, due to Mauritius’ relationship with China.

However, last month Trump indicated he would back the deal.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are working to sign a deal which will safeguard the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia, which is vital to our national security.”

The BBC understands that representatives of the Chagossian community have been invited to meet with Stephen Doughty, the minister for Europe, North America and overseas territories, on Thursday morning for discussions on the sovereignty of the territory.

The meeting is set to include six representatives from three different Chagossian community groups.

“The meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the FCDO’s Chagossian projects and the new Chagossian contact group,” an email sent to the representatives said, without giving further details.

Under the terms of the deal, Britain is expected to give up sovereignty of the island territory to Mauritius, and lease back a crucial military base on the archipelago for 99 years.

The government is yet to spell out the estimated cost of payments the British taxpayer will make under the deal, but it is expected to run into the billions.

The Chagos Archipelago was separated from Mauritius in 1965, when Mauritius was still a British colony.

Britain purchased the islands for £3m, but Mauritius has argued that it was illegally forced to give away the Chagos Islands as part of a deal to get independence from Britain in 1968.

The UK has come under increasing international pressure to hand over control of the archipelago after various United Nations bodies sided with Mauritian sovereignty claims in recent years.

The last Conservative government opened negotiations over the legal status in late 2022, but has since criticised the Labour government for being willing to hand over the islands.

Reform UK has been strongly critical too.

Labour has argued that the best way to guarantee the future of the military base was to do a deal with Mauritius – and that that was in the interests of UK national security too, given the importance of the base.

Following the signing ceremony, MPs will be updated on the terms of the deal in the House of Commons, which could include scope for a 40-year extension to the lease of the military base, the Telegraph said.

Speaking in the House of Commons just this week, Defence Secretary John Healey insisted the base on Diego Garcia was “essential to our security”, and the UK’s security relationship with the US.

“We’ve had to act, as the previous government started to do, to deal with that jeopardy, we’re completing those arrangements and we’ll report to the House when we can,” he added.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

A former leading Ukrainian official has been shot dead outside an American school in the Spanish capital Madrid, authorities have confirmed.

Andriy Portnov, 51, had just dropped his children off at the school in the Pozuelo de Alarcón area of the city and was walking to his car in the school parking area.

At least one unidentified attacker fired several shots at the victim before fleeing into a wooded area in a nearby public park, witnesses said.

Portnov had been an MP and deputy head in the administration of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president ousted in 2014 after months of protests.

He had previously been an MP in Yulia Tymoshenko’s governing party, but switched to Yanukovych’s team when he won the presidential election in 2010.

He left Ukraine after the revolution only to return in 2019 after Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president.

He then left Ukraine again, and in 2021 was sanctioned by the US Treasury, which said he had been “widely known as a court fixer” who had taken steps to control the judiciary and undermine reform efforts.

It was not clear who was behind the shooting that took place at about 09:15 local time (07:15 GMT) on Wednesday, reportedly as children were still entering the school.

Witnesses said there had been five or six shots. One student told Spanish TV he thought they were “firecrackers or fireworks”. A woman who had rushed to Portnov’s aid began to scream, according to El Mundo newspaper.

Police drones and a helicopter searched the area for a gunman who, according to witnesses, was a thin man in a blue tracksuit.

Spanish reports suggested the gunman may have had at least one accomplice riding on a motorbike. Hours after the shooting no arrests had been made.

A similar gun attack took place in 2018, when a Colombian drug trafficker was fatally shot outside a British Council school a few kilometres away.

But the motive behind Wednesday’s attack is not yet known. Emergency services at the scene could only confirm that that Portnov had suffered several bullet wounds in the back and the head.

Portnov’s black Mercedes car was cordoned off and the school wrote to parents to confirm that all the students inside were safe.

His body was later taken away for a post mortem examination.

Portnov had successfully challenged a series of lawsuits against him in recent years, both in Ukraine and abroad.

The European Union imposed sanctions on Portnov, but he challenged the move in court and won the case.

Ukraine’s SBU security service had also opened a case for suspected treason over Russia’s annexation of Crimea but that was dropped when it concluded no offence had been committed.

Although Ukraine’s intelligence services have been linked to several killings in Russia and occupied areas of Ukraine, a fatal attack in Spain in February last year was linked to Russian hitmen.

The victim, a Russian helicopter pilot, was shot dead near Alicante, months after defecting to Ukraine.

Authorities in Kyiv said they had offered to protect Maxim Kuzminov in Ukraine, but he is believed to have moved to Spain’s south-east coast under a false identity.

A member of Irish language hip-hop group Kneecap has been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig.

Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27, has been charged by the Metropolitan Police after an incident on 21 November 2024 at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, London.

Mr Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the name Mo Chara, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 18 June.

Officers from the Met’s counter terrorism command were made aware on 22 April of an online video from the event.

Belfast man Mr Ó hAnnaidh has been charged under the name Liam O’Hanna.

An investigation was carried out, which led to the Crown Prosecution Service authorising charge.

Earlier this month, the Met said it would investigate online videos allegedly showing the group calling for the death of British MPs and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them.

Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim political and military group in Lebanon which has been involved in a series of violent conflicts.

Kneecap say they have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah and would not incite violence against any individual. They say the video in question has been taken out of context.

A number of gigs featuring the band have been called off since the videos emerged.

They are currently scheduled to headline Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park, south London, on Friday.

Kneecap are an Irish-speaking rap trio who have courted controversy with their provocative lyrics and merchandise.

The group was formed in 2017 by three friends who go by the stage names of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí.

Their rise to fame inspired a semi-fictionalised film starring Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender.

The film won a British Academy of Film Award (Bafta) in February 2025.

In April, the group faced criticism and commercial consequences after displaying messages about the war in Gaza during their set at US music festival Coachella last month.

They were dropped by their sponsor and booking agent Independent Artist Group (IAG) and former X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne called for Kneecap’s US work visas to be revoked.

Following this, footage emerged from previous gigs, which were investigation by counter-terrorism officers.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch shared one of the videos and renewed her criticism of the Labour government for last year settling a legal case brought by the group.

It related to a decision Badenoch made when she was a minister to withdraw an arts grant.

Mosquitoes should be given malaria drugs to clear their infection so they can no longer spread the disease, say US researchers.

Malaria parasites, which kill nearly 600,000 people a year, mostly children, are spread by female mosquitoes when they drink blood.

Current efforts aim to kill mosquitoes with insecticide rather than curing them of malaria.

But a team at Harvard University has found a pair of drugs which can successfully rid the insects of malaria when absorbed through their legs. Coating bed nets in the drug cocktail is the long-term aim.

Sleeping under a bed net has been one of the most successful ways of preventing malaria as the main malaria-spreading mosquitoes hunt at night.

Vaccines to protect children living in high-risk malaria areas are also recommended.

Nets are both a physical barrier and also contain insecticides which kill mosquitoes that land on them.

But mosquitoes have become resistant to insecticide in many countries so the chemicals no longer kill the insects as effectively as they used to.

“We haven’t really tried to directly kill parasites in the mosquito before this, because we were just killing the mosquito,” says researcher Dr Alexandra Probst, from Harvard.

However, she says that approach is “no longer cutting it”.

The researchers analysed malaria’s DNA to find possible weak spots while it is infecting mosquitoes.

They took a large library of potential drugs and narrowed it down to a shortlist of 22. These were tested when female mosquitoes were given a blood-meal contaminated with malaria.

In their article in Nature, the scientists describe two highly effective drugs that killed 100% of the parasites.

The drugs were tested on material similar to bed nets.

“Even if that mosquito survives contact with the bed net, the parasites within are killed and so it’s still not transmitting malaria,” said Dr Probst.

“I think this is a really exciting approach, because it’s a totally new way of targeting mosquitoes themselves.”

She says the malaria parasite is less likely to become resistant to the drugs as there are billions of them in each infected person, but less than five in each mosquito.

The effect of the drugs lasts for a year on the nets, potentially making it a cheap and long-lasting alternative to insecticide, the researchers say.

This approach has been proven in the laboratory. The next stage is already planned in Ethiopia to see if the anti-malarial bed nets are effective in the real world.

It will take at least six years before all the studies are completed to know if this approach will work.

But the vision is to have bed nets treated with both anti-malaria drugs and insecticide so that if one approach doesn’t work, then the other will.

The Marks & Spencer website is down, leaving users unable to browse, as the retailer continues to deal with the aftermath of a cyber-attack last month.

Customers have been unable to make online orders for weeks but on Wednesday evening users were met with a screen reading: “Sorry you can’t browse the site currently. We’re making some updates and will be back soon.”

M&S has been contacted for comment.

Earlier in the day, the retailer said it estimates that the cyber-attack will hit this year’s profits by around £300m. It added that its online services would continue to be disrupted until July, with a gradual return to normal.

Following the cyber attack, M&S said some personal customer data was stolen in the recent cyber attack, which could include telephone numbers, home addresses and dates of birth.

The High Street giant assured customers that the data theft did not include useable payment or card details, or any account passwords, but added that online order histories could be included in the personal data stolen.

The attack took place over the Easter weekend, initially affecting click-and-collect and contactless payments. A few days later M&S put a banner on its website apologising that online ordering was not available.

M&S estimates that the cyber attack will hit this year’s profits by around £300m – more than analysts had expected and the equivalent to a third of its profit – a sum that would only partly be covered by any insurance pay-out.

“Over the last few weeks, we have been managing a highly sophisticated and targeted cyber-attack, which has led to a limited period of disruption,” said M&S chief executive Stuart Machin.

Police are focusing on a notorious group of English-speaking hackers, known as Scattered Spider, the BBC has learned.

The same group is believed to have been behind attacks on the Co-op and Harrods, but it was M&S that suffered the biggest impact.

The UK has exposed what it says is a “malicious cyber campaign” targeting multiple organisations, including those involved in delivering foreign assistance to Ukraine

After a joint investigation with allies including the US, Germany and France, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said a Russian military unit had been targeting both public and private organisations since 2022.

These include organisations involved in supplying defence, IT services and logistics support.

The security bodies of 10 Nato countries and Australia said Russian spies had used a combination of hacking techniques to gain access to networks.

Some of the targets were internet-connected cameras at Ukrainian borders which monitored aid shipments going into the country.

The report also says a rough estimate of 10,000 cameras were accessed near “military installations, and rail stations, to track the movement of materials into Ukraine.

It adds the “actors also used legitimate municipal services, such as traffic cams.”

The Russian military unit blamed for the espionage is called GRU Unit 26165 but goes by a number of informal names, including Fancy Bear.

The notorious hacking team is known to have previously leaked World Anti-Doping Agency data, and played a key role in the 2016 cyber-attack on the US’s Democratic National Committee, according to security experts.

“This malicious campaign by Russia’s military intelligence service presents a serious risk to targeted organisations, including those involved in the delivery of assistance to Ukraine,” Paul Chichester, NCSC Director of Operations, said in a statement.

“We strongly encourage organisations to familiarise themselves with the threat and mitigation advice included in the advisory to help defend their networks,” he added.

Anyone involved in moving goods into Ukraine “should consider themselves targeted” by Russian military intelligence, John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said.

“Beyond the interest in identifying support to the battlefield, there is an interest in disrupting that support through either physical or cyber means,” he said.

“These incidents could be precursors to other serious actions.”

The joint cyber-security advisory said Fancy Bear had targeted organisations linked to critical infrastructure including ports, airports, air traffic management and the defence industry.

These were in 12 mainland European countries and the US.

The hackers used a combination of techniques to gain access, the report said, including guessing passwords.

Another method used is called spearphishing, where fake emails are targeted at specific people who have access to systems.

They are presented with a fake page where they enter their login details, or encouraged to click a link which then installs malicious software.

“The subjects of spearphishing emails were diverse and ranged from professional topics to adult themes,” the report said.

A vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook was also exploited to collect credentials “via specially crafted Outlook calendar appointment invitations”.

These kinds of techniques have been “a staple tactic of this group for over a decade,” Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at Sophos Counter Threat Unit, said.

Camera access “would assist in the understanding of what goods were being transported, when, in what volumes and support kinetic [weapons] targeting,” he added.

Cyber security firm Dragos told the BBC it had been tracking hacking activity linked to that reported by the NCSC.

It’s chief executive Robert M. Lee said that the hackers it followed were not only interested in gaining a foothold in corporate computer networks but would infiltrate industrial control systems where they would be able to “steal important intellectual property and insights for espionage, or position themselves for disruptive attacks”.

Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

India’s top court has granted interim bail to an Indian professor who was arrested over his remarks about the recent military hostilities between India and Pakistan.

Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an associate professor at Ashoka University, was arrested from his home in Delhi on Sunday.

He has been accused of endangering national sovereignty and promoting enmity between groups, based on a complaint filed by a youth member of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He denies the allegations.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ordered Mr Mahmudabad’s release but refused to put a hold on the investigation against him.

“Having regard to the two online posts that have led to the FIR [complaint], we are satisfied that no case of staying the investigation is made out,” the court said, adding that a three-member special investigation team will further look into the case.

The judges have also barred Mr Mahmudabad from writing any online article or making speeches online related to the posts that are being investigated.

Shortly after the verdict, Ashoka University released a statement saying it was “heartened” by the court’s decision to grant Mr Mahmudabad bail.

“It has provided great comfort to his family and all of us at Ashoka University,” it said.

Mr Mahmudabad’s arrest had sparked criticism from academics and rights groups, who called the allegations “baseless” and the arrest a form of “censorship”.

The case stems from two public social media posts written by Mr Mahmudabad, in which he talked about India’s military action against Pakistan.

Earlier this month, tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours reached an unprecedented high after India launched air strikes against Pakistan in response to a deadly attack in the tourist town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people. Delhi accused Islamabad of supporting militant groups involved in the killings, a charge Pakistan denied. This was followed by four days of military escalations, which ended with a ceasefire brokered by the US.

“There are those who are mindlessly advocating for war,” the 42-year-old professor wrote in one post on 8 May, “but they have never seen one, let alone lived in or visited a conflict zone”.

In the same post, he expressed support for India’s response while warning of the brutality inherent in any war. He also highlighted the significance of two women officers – one of whom is Muslim – presenting the operation’s details during daily media briefings.

“I am very happy to see so many right wing commentators applauding Colonel Sofiya Qureshi,” he wrote, but “they should also demand that the victims of mob lynching, arbitrary demolitions [of houses], others who are victims of the BJP’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens”. Several rights groups have pointed out that there has been a rise in violence and hate speech against Muslims in India in the past decade.

Two police complaints have been filed against the professor based on the interpretation of his online remarks.

The first complaint was filed by a BJP youth activist Yogesh (he uses only one name), on Saturday, on the basis of which Mr Mahmudabad was arrested, his lawyer Mohammad Nizam Pasha said.

While the second complaint was filed by Renu Bhatia, the head of Haryana’s State Commission for Women on Sunday.

The women’s commission first issued a notice to the professor on 12 May, alleging that Mr Mahmudabad’s social media posts had “disparaged” the two women defence officers and “undermined their role” in the armed forces.

In response, Mr Mahmudabad sent a written reply to the commission’s notice and his lawyers also appeared before the commission on 14 May, but it refused to hear the lawyers, Mr Pasha said.

In his written response, which he shared on social media, the academic said that his remarks had been “misunderstood” and that, contrary to the allegations, his post had actually praised the decision to have two women officers lead the military briefings.

“There is nothing remotely misogynistic about my comments that could be construed as anti-women,” he said.

Several academics, activists, opposition politicians and civil society members have spoken against Mr Mahmudabad’s arrest.

Mr Mahmudabad is a teacher of political science and his known for his works on religion, with a focus on Indian Muslim history.

He comes from an aristocratic family from Uttar Pradesh state and is a member of the regional Samajwadi Party.

After his arrest, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav posted a couplet on X, which included an indirect reference to the professor being arrested for telling the truth.

President of the main opposition Congress party, Mallikarjun Kharge, said the arrest of the professor shows how the BJP is “fearful” of any opinion disliked by them.

As Israel’s war in Gaza enters a new, violent phase, a growing number of voices within the country are speaking out against it – and how it’s being fought.

Yair Golan, a left-wing politician and former deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), sparked outrage on Monday when he said: “Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country.

“A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set itself the goal of depopulating the population,” he told Israeli public radio’s popular morning news programme.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back, describing the comments as “blood libel”.

But on Wednesday, a former Israeli minister of defence and IDF chief of staff – Moshe “Bogi” Ya’alon – went further.

“This is not a ‘hobby’,” he wrote in a post on X, “but a government policy, whose ultimate goal is to hold on to power. And it is leading us to destruction.”

Just 19 months ago, when Hamas gunmen crossed the fence into Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages – statements like these seemed almost unthinkable.

But now Gaza is in ruins, Israel has launched a new military offensive, and, though it has also agreed to lift its 11-week blockade on the territory, just a trickle of aid has so far entered.

Recent polling by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 61% of Israelis want to end the war and see the hostages returned. Just 25% support expanding the fighting and occupying Gaza.

The Israeli government insists it will destroy Hamas and rescue the remaining hostages. Netanyahu says he can achieve “total victory” – and he maintains a strong core of supporters.

But the mood among others in Israeli society “is one of despair, trauma, and a lack of a sense of ability to change anything”, says former Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin.

“The overwhelming majority of all the hostage families think that the war has to end, and there has to be an agreement,” he adds.

“A small minority think that the primary goal of finishing off Hamas is what has to be done, and then the hostages will be freed”.

On Sunday, around 500 protesters, many wearing T-shirts with the inscription “Stop the horrors in Gaza” and carrying pictures of babies killed by Israeli air strikes, attempted to march from the town of Sderot to the Gaza border, in protest at Israel’s new offensive.

They were led by Standing Together – a small but growing anti-war group of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. After attempting to block a road, the leader of the group Alon-Lee Green was arrested, along with eight others.

From house arrest, Mr Green told the BBC: “I think it’s obvious that you can see an awakening within the Israeli public. You can see that more and more people are taking a position.”

Another Standing Together activist, Uri Weltmann, said he thinks there’s a growing belief that continuing the war is “not only harmful to the Palestinian civilian population, but also risks the lives of hostages, risks the lives of soldiers, risks the lives of all of us”.

In April, thousands of Israeli reservists – from all branches of the military – signed letters demanding that Netanyahu’s government stop the fighting and concentrate instead on reaching a deal to bring back the remaining hostages.

Yet, many in Israel hold differing views.

At the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza on Wednesday, the BBC spoke to Gideon Hashavit, who was part of a group protesting against aid being allowed in.

“They’re not innocent people,” he said of those in Gaza, “they make their choice, they chose a terrorist organisation.”

It is against some of Israel’s most extreme parts of society – settler groups – that the UK on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions.

In its strongest move yet, the UK also suspended talks on a trade deal with Israel and summoned the country’s ambassador – with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling the military escalation in Gaza “morally unjustifiable”.

The EU said it is reviewing its association agreement with Israel, which governs its political and economic relationship – with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying a “strong majority” of members favoured looking again at the 25-year-old agreement.

On Monday night, the UK joined France and Canada in signing a strongly worded joint statement, condemning Israel’s military action and warning of “further concrete actions” if the humanitarian situation in Gaza did not improve.

“The mood is changing,” says Weltmann, “the wind is starting to blow in the other direction.”

Intensified Israeli ground operations and new evacuation orders are stretching Gaza’s health system beyond breaking point, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Indonesian, Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals in the northern towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia were inside an evacuation zone announced on Tuesday. Another two hospitals are within 1km (0.6 miles) of it.

Kamal Adwan was out of service due to hostilities nearby and the Indonesian hospital was inaccessible because of the presence of Israeli forces around it, he added.

Al-Awda hospital is still functioning, but its director told the BBC on Wednesday that it was “totally under siege”.

“Nobody can move out and we can’t receive any cases from outside the hospital,” Dr Mohammed Salha said.

He added that there was a quadcopter drone “shooting in the surroundings of the hospital and the outdoor area of the hospital”.

“We also hear shooting from the tanks… maybe 400 or 500 metres [away].”

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that it was “operating in the area against terror targets”, but that it was “not aware of any siege on the hospital itself”.

Dr Tedros said: “Even if health facilities are not attacked or forced to evacuate, hostilities and military presence obstruct patients and staff from accessing care, and WHO from resupplying hospitals, which can quickly make them non-functional.”

“We’ve seen this too many times – it must not be allowed to happen again.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also said that at least 20 medical facilities across Gaza had been damaged, or forced partially or completely out of service, in the past week by Israeli ground operations, air strikes and evacuation orders.

The charity demanded that Israeli authorities stop what it called the “deliberate asphyxiation of Gaza and the annihilation of its healthcare system”.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining 58 hostages, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

After several days of intense bombardment, the IDF launched an expanded offensive on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would see ground forces “take control of all areas” of Gaza. The plan reportedly includes completely clearing the north of civilians and forcibly displacing them to the south.

More than 600 people have been killed and 2,000 injured across Gaza over the past week, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The UN says tens of thousands of people have been newly displaced.

Netanyahu also said Israel would allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine. But the UN has so far been unable to collect the dozens of lorry loads of supplies allowed in since Monday.

MSF said the volume of aid allowed in so far was not nearly enough, describing it as “a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over”.

On Tuesday, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories said he had recently returned from Gaza and witnessed how the health system was facing attacks and acute shortages of supplies.

“Every time you get into Gaza you always think it cannot get worse. But it gets worse,” Dr Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva.

He described how al-Awda hospital was “overwhelmed with injuries” and running low on supplies. Hostilities had damaged the facility, disrupted access and deterred people from seeking healthcare, he added.

He said the Indonesian hospital was barely functioning, almost inaccessible, and that most patients had left last week after a staff member was killed, one patient was injured and the facility was damaged during intensified hostilities.

Only 15 people, including patients and staff, were still inside the hospital as of Tuesday, urgently in need of food and water, he added.

The hospital’s generator was also struck by an Israeli quadcopter on Monday night, causing a large fire and a blackout, according to MER-C Indonesia, the NGO that built the facility.

On Wednesday, a woman inside the hospital told the BBC by telephone that two of the patients were in a “serious condition”.

In the background of the call, crashes could be heard.

“Five minutes ago, there was intense shooting in the surroundings of the hospital,” she said, adding that she could see tanks.

The woman also said that they still had supplies of food inside the hospital, but were “facing a water crisis”.

The IDF told the BBC it was operating in the area around the hospital and targeting “terrorist infrastructure sites”, but that it was not targeting the hospital itself.

In another incident on Tuesday, a paramedic said his ambulance was shot at by an Israeli drone while he was transporting staff and food between al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals.

Khaled Sadeh said he was with another ambulance when bullets hit both vehicles’ windshields. Nobody was injured.

Dr Salha shared photos of the ambulances and confirmed that Mr Sadeh was unable to return to al-Awda because of the threat of Israeli fire.

The BBC supplied details of the allegations and photos to the IDF, but it said it “could not confirm” the reports.

Hospitals and medical personnel are specially protected under international humanitarian law.

Hospitals only lose that protection in certain circumstances. They include being used as a base from which to launch an attack, as a weapons depot, or to hide healthy fighters.

The IDF has insisted that its forces operate in accordance with international law. In most instances where it has attacked hospitals, it has said they were being used improperly by Hamas – an allegation the group has denied.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the European hospital – the only facility providing neurosurgery, cardiac care and cancer treatment in Gaza – has been out of service since 13 May.

That day, the hospital’s courtyard and surrounding area was hit by a series of Israeli air strikes that Israel’s defence minister said targeted an underground bunker where the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Sinwar, was hiding. Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said the attack killed at least 28 people, but it is not clear yet whether Sinwar died.

The facility has also been inside an Israeli-designated evacuation zone covering almost the entire eastern half of Khan Younis since Monday.

Dr Tedros said Nasser, al-Amal and al-Aqsa hospitals, as well as one field hospital, were within 1km of the zone.

Dr Victoria Rose, a British surgeon working at Nasser hospital, said in a video posted on social media on Wednesday that she was very worried about the facility being evacuated or cut off by an Israeli troops advance from al-Aqsa, which in the central town of Deir al-Balah.

“If we get cut off from the Middle Area, there really are no other hospitals around us that could cope with the evacuation of Nasser,” she explained.

“We have some amazing field hospitals… but none of them are capable of doing the type of surgery that we’re doing here. And none of them have ICU capacity or generated oxygen. So, even all of them together couldn’t cope with the amount of patients that we have.”

She warned: “If Nasser is evacuated, we really are looking at the imminent death of hundreds of patients because we won’t be able to take them anywhere.”

Nasser was also hit by an Israeli strike on 13 May, killing two people including a Palestinian journalist who was being treated for injuries he sustained in a previous strike on a tented camp at the complex. The attack also destroyed 18 beds in a burns unit, according to the WHO.

The IDF accused the journalist of being a Hamas operative and alleged that the hospital was being used by the group to “carry out terrorist plots”.

Another strike on Monday severely damaged Nasser’s medical warehouse and destroyed critical WHO supplies, according to the hospital’s director.

Suha Shaath, a pharmacist from Khan Younis who has been told by the IDF to evacuate and head to camps in the coastal al-Mawasi area, told the BBC in a voice note: “I have not left my house until now because I haven’t found any place to set up my tent.”

“The humanitarian situation is very serious – no water, no food, no fuel. The shelling is hitting everywhere,” she added.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 53,655 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,509 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Palestinians have taken to the streets in southern Gaza for a third day to protest against Hamas.

Hundreds of demonstrators were seen in videos posted on social media calling for an end to the war and for the removal of the armed group from Gaza. “Out! Out! Out! All of Hamas, out!” they chanted.

Speaking out against Hamas can be dangerous in Gaza and threats circulated on journalists’ WhatsApp groups on Tuesday, forbidding them from publishing any “negative news that could affect the morale of the people”.

Activists said young people started the protests on Monday and were joined by others on their way to get food from community kitchens, who were still holding their pots.

The protesters directed their anger at Hamas’s leadership after an interview with senior official Sami Abu Zuhri circulated on social media.

Speaking on a podcast which originally aired in late March, he said that the war with Israel was “eternal”, adding: “We will rebuild the houses and produce dozens more babies for each martyr.”

Videos from the protests in Khan Younis show young men criticizing Hamas for selling their “blood for a dollar… To those with Hamas, be aware the people of Gaza will dig your grave”.

In recent months, protests against Hamas have been on the rise in northern Gaza, but activists say the group’s presence in the south has remained strong and it has successfully suppressed public dissent until now.

International journalists including those with the BBC are blocked by Israel from reporting in Gaza and anti-Hamas sentiment remains difficult to assess from afar.

Israel has carried out daily air strikes on Khan Younis since Monday, when the Israeli army issued residents with one of the largest evacuation orders this year, telling those in the eastern half of the city to head immediately towards camps in the coastal al-Mawasi area.

One man, who we are calling Alaa, was among those who started the protests. He agreed to speak to the BBC on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals from Hamas.

“The people do not care any more about Hamas’ attempts to suppress their voice because they are literally dying from hunger, evacuation, and the bombings,” he said.

Alaa, who is originally from northern Gaza, said he had had to move around 20 times over the course of the 19-month war and could not afford to buy a tent for shelter.

Previously imprisoned for taking part in anti-Hamas protests in 2019, Alaa said Hamas needed to leave.

“Resistance was not born with Hamas, and even if Hamas is gone, there will be other faces of resistance [to the Israeli occupation]. But this current policy will cost us all of Palestine and the nation.”

“We just want our children to live in peace, and we deliver a message to the whole world, to try their best in pressuring Israel and Hamas so we can save us and our children from this war.”

In Gaza, public criticism of Hamas carries significant risks.

In March, 22-year old Oday a-Rubai was abducted and tortured to death by armed gunmen after taking part in anti-Hamas protests in Gaza City.

There are reports that others have been beaten, shot or killed for publicly opposing the group.

Alaa said that as their protest approached Nasser hospital on Monday a group of men told them to stop.

“There was one man who wanted to pull out his gun, but his friend stopped him. They couldn’t do anything because they were outnumbered by the number of protesters.”

Moumen al-Natour, who is a lawyer, former political prisoner, and co-founder of the anti-Hamas protest movement, We Want to Live, said: “The fatigue, effort and cost of displacement is pushing people to revolt against Hamas who refuse to surrender and hand over their weapons.”

The United Nations says that since 15 May, more than 57,000 people have been displaced in southern Gaza due to the fighting and evacuation orders.

More than 53,000 people have been killed across Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, 82 of them in the past 24 hours.

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas after the group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Fish similar to those made famous by the movie Finding Nemo are shrinking to cope with marine heatwaves, a study has found.

The research recorded clownfish living on coral reefs slimmed down drastically when ocean temperatures rocketed in 2023.

Scientists say the discovery was a big surprise and could help explain the rapidly declining size of other fish in the world’s oceans.

A growing body of evidence suggests animals are shape shifting to cope with climate change, including birds, lizards and insects.

“Nemos can shrink, and they do it to survive these heat stress events,” said Dr Theresa Rueger, senior lecturer in Tropical Marine Sciences at Newcastle University.

The researchers studied pairs of clownfish living in reefs off Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea, a hot spot of marine biodiversity

The wild clownfish are almost identical to the ones depicted in the movie Finding Nemo, in which a timid clownfish living off the Great Barrier Reef goes in search of his son.

The scientific study took place in the summer of 2023, when temperatures shot up in the oceans, leading to large swathes of coral turning white.

The scientists took multiple measurements of individual clownfish coping with the heat.

They found the tiny fish didn’t just lose weight but got shorter by several millimetres. And it wasn’t a one-off – 75% of fish shrunk at least once during the heatwave.

Dr Rueger explained: “It’s not just them going on a diet and losing lots of weight, but they’re actively changing their size and making themselves into a smaller individual that needs less food and is more efficient with oxygen.”

The fish may be absorbing fat and bone, as has been seen in other animals, such as marine iguanas, although this needs to be confirmed through laboratory studies.

Dr Rueger joked that a little bit of movie rewriting might be necessary, with a new chapter ahead for Nemo.

“The movie told a really good story, but the next chapter of the story surely is, how does Nemo deal with ongoing environmental change?” she told BBC News.

Global warming is a big challenge for warm-blooded animals, which must maintain a constant body temperature to prevent their bodies from overheating.

Animals are responding in various ways: moving to cooler areas or higher ground, changing the timing of key life events such as breeding and migration, or switching their body size.

The research is published in the journal, Science Advances.

At just 37 hectares, the Philippines-controlled island of Pagasa – or “hope” – is barely big enough to live on. There is almost nothing there.

The 300 or so inhabitants live in a cluster of small, wooden houses. They fish in the clear, turquoise waters, and grow what vegetables they can in the sandy ground.

But they are not alone in these disputed waters: just off shore, to the west, lies an armada of ships.

These are all Chinese, from the navy, the coastguard or the so-called maritime militia – large fishing vessels repurposed to maintain Chinese dominance of this sea. As our plane approached the island we counted at least 20.

For the past 10 years, China has been expanding its presence in the South China Sea, taking over submerged coral reefs, building three large air bases on them, and deploying hundreds of ships, to reinforce its claim to almost all of the strategic sea lanes running south from the great exporting cities on the Chinese coast.

Few of the South East Asian countries which also claim islands in the same sea have dared to push back against China; only Vietnam and the Philippines have done so. The militaries of both countries are much smaller than China’s, but they are holding on to a handful of reefs and islands.

Pagasa – also known as Thitu and other names, as it is claimed by several other countries – is the largest of these.

What makes it exceptional, though, is the civilian population, found on few islands in the South China Sea. From the point of view of the Philippines this, and the fact that Pagasa is solid land, not a partially submerged reef or sandy cay, strengthens its legal claims in the area.

“Pagasa is very important to us,” Jonathan Malaya, assistant director-general of the Philippines National Security Council, tells the BBC.

“It has a runway. It can support life – it has a resident Filipino community, and fishermen living there.

“And given the size of the island, one of the few that did not need reclaiming from the sea, under international law it generates its own territorial sea of 12 nautical miles.

“So it is, in a way, a linchpin for the Philippine presence.”

Reaching Pagasa is a two-to-three-day boat ride from the Philippines island of Palawan, or a one-hour plane ride, but both are at the mercy of frequent stormy weather.

Until they surfaced the runway two years ago, and lengthened it to 1,300m (4,600ft), only small planes could land. Now they can bring in big C130 transport aircraft. Travelling in them, as we did, is a bit like riding a bus in rush hour.

Everything has to be brought from the mainland, which is why our plane was packed, floor to ceiling, with mattresses, eggs, bags of rice, a couple of motorbikes and piles of luggage – not to mention lots of military personnel, most of whom had to stand for the entire flight.

A lot has changed in recent years. There is a new hangar, big enough to shelter aircraft during storms. They are building a control tower and dredging a small harbour to allow bigger boats to dock. We were driven around the island by some of the Philippines marines who are stationed there, though given its size it hardly seemed necessary

The Philippines seized Pagasa from Taiwan in 1971, when the Taiwanese garrison left it during a typhoon. It was formally annexed by the Philippines in 1978.

Later, the government started encouraging civilians to settle there. But they need support to survive on this remote sliver of land. Families get official donations of food, water and other groceries every month. They now have electricity and mobile phone connectivity, but that only came four years ago.

Aside from government jobs, fishing is the only viable way to make a living, and since the arrival of the Chinese flotillas even that has become difficult.

Fisherman Larry Hugo has lived on the island for 16 years, and has chronicled the increasing Chinese control of the area. He filmed the initial construction on Subi Reef, around 32km (20 miles) from Pagasa, which eventually became a full-size military air base. One of his videos, showing his little wooden boat being nearly rammed by a Chinese coastguard ship in 2021 made him a minor celebrity.

But Chinese harassment has forced him to fish in a smaller area closer to home.

“Their ships are huge compared to ours. They threaten us, coming close and sounding their horns to chase us away. They really scare us. So I no longer go to my old fishing grounds further away. I now have to fish close to the island, but the fish stocks here are falling, and it is much harder to fill our tubs like we used to.”

Realyn Limbo has been a teacher on the island for 10 years, and seen the school grow from a small hut to full-size school teaching more than 100 pupils, from kindergarten to 18 years old.

“To me this island is like paradise,” she says. “All our basic needs are taken care of. It is clean and peaceful – the children can play basketball or go swimming after school. We don’t need shopping malls or all that materialism.”

Pagasa is really quiet. In the fierce midday heat we found most people snoozing in hammocks, or playing music on their porches. We came across Melania Alojado, a village health worker, rocking a small baby to help it sleep.

“The biggest challenge for us is when people, especially children, fall ill,” she says.

“If it is serious then we need to evacuate them to the mainland. I am not a registered nurse, so I cannot perform complicated medical tasks. But planes are not always available, and sometimes the weather is too rough to travel.

“When that happens we just have to care for them as best we can.”

But she too values the tranquillity of island life. “We are free of many stresses. We get subsidised food, and we can grow some of our own. In the big city everything you do needs money.”

We saw a few new houses being built, but there really isn’t room for Pagasa to accommodate many more people. With very few jobs, young people usually leave the island once they finish school. For all of its sleepy charm, and stunning white-sand beaches, it has the feel of a garrison community, holding the line against the overpowering Chinese presence which is clearly visible just offshore.

“The Chinese at the airbase on Subi Reef always challenge us when we approach Pagasa,” the pilot says. “They always warn us we are entering Chinese territory without permission.”

Do they ever try to stop you? “No, it’s a routine. We tell them this is Philippines territory. We do this every time.”

Jonathan Malaya says his government has made a formal diplomatic protest every week to the Chinese Embassy over the presence of its ships in what the Philippines views as the territorial waters of Pagasa. This is in marked contrast to the previous administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, which avoided confrontations with China in the hope of getting more investment in the Philippines.

“I think we will get more respect from China if we hold our ground, and show them we can play this game as well. But the problem of democracies like the Philippines is policies can change with new administrations. China does not have that problem.”

When Japan’s farm minister declared that he never had to buy rice because his supporters give him “plenty” of it as gifts, he hoped to draw laughs.

Instead Taku Eto drew outrage – and enough of it to force him to resign.

Japan is facing its first cost-of-living crisis in decades, which is hitting a beloved staple: rice. The price has more than doubled in the last year, and imported varieties are few and far between.

Eto apologised, saying he had gone “too far” with his comments on Sunday at a local fundraiser. He resigned after opposition parties threatened a no-confidence motion against him.

His ousting deals a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s minority government, which was already struggling with falling public support.

Rice can be a powerful trigger in Japan, where shortages have caused political upsets before. Riots over the soaring cost of rice even toppled a government in 1918.

So it’s not that surprising that rice prices have a role in Ishiba’s plummeting approval ratings.

“Politicians don’t go to supermarkets to do their grocery shopping so they don’t understand,” 31-year-old Memori Higuchi tells the BBC from her home in Yokohama.

Ms Higuchi is a first-time mother of a seven-month-old. Good food for her postnatal recovery has been crucial, and her daughter will soon start eating solid food.

“I want her to eat well so if prices keep going up, we may have to reduce the amount of rice my husband and I eat.”

It’s a simple issue of supply and demand, agricultural economist Kunio Nishikawa of Ibaraki University says.

But he believes it was caused by a government miscalculation.

Until 1995, the government controlled the amount of rice farmers produced by working closely with agricultural cooperatives. The law was abolished that year but the agriculture ministry continues to publish demand estimates so farmers can avoid producing a glut of rice.

But, Prof Nishikawa says, they got it wrong in 2023 and 2024. They estimated the demand to be 6.8m tonnes, while the actual demand, he adds, was 7.05m tonnes.

Demand for rice went up because of more tourists visiting Japan and a rise in people eating out after the pandemic.

But actual production was even lower than the estimate: 6.61m tonnes, Prof Nishikawa says.

“It is true that the demand for rice jumped, due to several factors – including the fact that rice was relatively affordable compared to other food items and a rise in the number of overseas visitors,” a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry told the BBC.

“The quality of rice wasn’t great due to unusually high temperatures which also resulted in lower rice production.”

Rice farmers have been unable to make enough money for many years, says 59-year-old Kosuke Kasahara, whose family have been in farming for generations.

He explains that it costs approximately 18,500 yen ($125.70; £94.60) to produce 60kg of rice but the cooperative in his area of Niigata on the west coast of Japan offered to buy it last year at 19,000 yen.

“Until three or four years ago, the government would even offer financial incentives to municipalities that agreed to reduce rice production,” he adds.

The ministry spokesperson confirms that the government has offered subsidies to those choosing to produce wheat or soybeans instead of rice.

Meanwhile, younger farmers have been choosing to produce different types of rice that are used for sake, rice crackers or fed to livestock because demand for rice in Japan had been falling until last year.

“I got tired of fighting retailers or restaurants that wanted me to sell rice cheaply for many years,” says Shinya Tabuchi.

But that’s been flipped on its head, with the going rate for 60kg of rice today at 40,000 to 50,000 yen.

While higher prices are bad news for shoppers, it means many struggling farmers will finally be able to make money.

But as the public grew angry with the surge, the government auctioned some of its emergency reserves of rice in March to try to bring prices down.

Many countries have strategic reserves – stockpiles of vital goods – of crude oil or natural gas to prepare for exceptional circumstances. In Asia, many governments also have stockpiles of rice.

In recent years, Japan’s rice stockpile had only been tapped in the wake of natural disasters.

“The government has always told us that they would not release its emergency rice stocks to control the price so we felt betrayed,” Mr Tabuchi says.

Despite the government’s rare decision to release rice, prices have continued to rise.

The cost of rice is also soaring in South East Asia, which accounts for almost 30% of global rice production – economic, political and climate pressures have resulted in shortages in recent years.

In Japan though the issue has become so serious that the country has begun importing rice from South Korea for the first time in a quarter of a century, even though consumers prefer homegrown varieties.

PM Ishiba has also hinted at expanding imports of US rice as his government continues to negotiate a trade deal with Washington.

But shoppers like Ms Higuchi say they are unlikely to buy non-Japanese rice.

“We’ve been saying local production for local consumption for a long time,” she says. “There has to be a way for Japanese farmers to be profitable and consumers to feel safe by being able to afford home-grown produce.”

This divides opinion among farmers.

“You may hear that the industry is ageing and shrinking but that is not necessarily true,” says Mr Tabuchi, who believes the sector has been too protected by the government.

“Many elderly farmers can afford to sell rice cheaply because they have pensions and assets but the younger generation has to be able to make money. Instead of guaranteeing the income of all the farmers and distorting the market, the government should let unprofitable farmers fail.”

Mr Kasahara disagrees: “Farming in rural areas like ours is about being part of a community. If we let those farmers fail, our areas will be in ruins.”

He argues the government should set a guaranteed buying price of 32,000 to 36,000 yen per 60kg of rice which is lower than today’s price but still allows farmers to be profitable.

And given what happened to Eto, it is also a sensitive topic for politicians.

The country is due to hold a key national election this summer so pleasing both consumers and farmers – especially the elderly in both camps who tend to vote more – is crucial.

A gunman has shot dead two top aides of the mayor of Mexico City, Clara Brugada.

The mayor’s private secretary, Ximena Guzmán, and Brugada’s adviser, José Muñoz, were killed on their way to work on Tuesday morning local time.

Witnesses said an armed man first opened fire on Guzmán, who had stopped her car by the side of a busy avenue to pick up her colleague, and then on Muñoz, who was about to get into Guzmán’s car for their morning commute.

The gunman is believed to have escaped on a motorbike and have had at least one accomplice. The possible motive for the killing is still unknown but the attack is the latest in a series of murders of local politicians across the country.

Mayor Brugada was visibly upset during a news conference when she recalled how she had “shared dreams and struggles” with her two aides over the years they had worked for her.

She said she would ensure the murders would not go unpunished.

President Claudia Sheinbaum was informed of the shooting during her daily morning news conference by the security minister, Omar García Harfuch, who has himself been a target of an armed ambush in the past.

President Sheinbaum described it as “a deplorable incident” and offered Mayor Brugada, who is from the same party as the president, all the support she may need.

Police seized a motorbike and another vehicle they think was used in the attack, while forensic experts examined Guzmán’s bullet-pierced car.

CCTV footage from a nearby building shows a man carrying a motorcycle helmet in one hand and a gun in another, approach Guzmán’s car from the front.

He fires through the windscreen, then shoots Muñoz, before again firing at Guzmán.

As he runs away, he turns around and fires another shot at Muñoz, who is collapsing on the pavement.

Brugada, 61, was elected mayor of Mexico City in June of last year. The position is considered the second most powerful in the country after that of the president.

While local politicians, especially the mayors of small towns, are often targeted in Mexico, attacks on politicians in the capital are more unusual.

One high-profile exception is the ambush in 2020 of García Harfuch, who was Mexico City’s chief of police at the time.

More than two dozen gunmen opened fire on his car and killed two of his bodyguards and a passer-by in one of the most brazen attacks to have occurred in the city.

García Harfuch was hit three times, but survived and went on to become Mexico’s security minister in October of last year.

He said the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal groups, was behind that incident.

Investigators have not yet said who they think was behind Tuesday’s murder of the two aides, but security experts say the deliberate and precise way the gunman operated indicates that he is a professional hitman.

Indian writer, lawyer and activist Banu Mushtaq has made history by becoming the first author writing in the Kannada language to win the International Booker prize with her short story anthology, Heart Lamp.

It is the first short story collection to win the presigious prize. Judges praised her characters as “astonishing portraits of survival and resilience”.

Featuring 12 short stories written by Mushtaq between 1990 and 2023, Heart Lamp poignantly captures the hardships of Muslim women living in southern India.

The stories were selected and translated into English from Kannada, which is spoken in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, by Deepa Bhasthi who will share the £50,000 prize.

In her acceptance speech, Mushtaq thanked readers for letting her words wander into their hearts.

“This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small; that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole,” she said.

“In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other’s minds, if only for a few pages,” she added.

Bhasthi, who became the first Indian translator to win an International Booker, said that she hoped that the win would encourage more translations from and into Kannada and other South Asian languages.

Manasi Subramaniam, Editor-in-chief of Penguin India, the book’s publisher in India, told the BBC that the award was a significant win for regional literature.

“Following Tomb of Sand’s landmark win in 2022 [Geetanjali Shree’s book was translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell], Heart Lamp’s triumph this year is a powerful reminder that literature in India’s many languages demands our full attention. We owe it our ears,” said Subramaniam

Mushtaq’s body of work is well-known among book lovers, but the Booker International win has shone a bigger spotlight on her life and literary oeuvre, which mirrors many of the challenges the women in her stories face, brought on by religious conservatism and a deeply patriarchal society.

It is this self-awareness that has, perhaps, helped Mushtaq craft some of the most nuanced characters and plotlines.

“In a literary culture that rewards spectacle, Heart Lamp insists on the value of attention – to lives lived at the edges, to unnoticed choices, to the strength it takes simply to persist. That is Banu Mushtaq’s quiet power,” a review in the Indian Express newspaper says about the book.

Mushtaq grew up in a small town in the southern state of Karnataka in a Muslim neighbourhood and like most girls around her, studied the Quran in the Urdu language at school.

But her father, a government employee, wanted more for her and at the age of eight, enrolled her in a convent school where the medium of instruction was the state’s official language – Kannada.

Mushtaq worked hard to become fluent in Kannada, but this alien tongue would become the language she chose for her literary expression.

She began writing while still in school and chose to go to college even as her peers were getting married and raising children.

It would take several years before Mushtaq was published and it happened during a particularly challenging phase in her life.

Her short story appeared in a local magazine a year after she had married a man of her choosing at the age of 26, but her early marital years were also marked by conflict and strife – something she openly spoke of, in several interviews.

In an interview with Vogue magazine, she said, “I had always wanted to write but had nothing to write (about) because suddenly, after a love marriage, I was told to wear a burqa and dedicate myself to domestic work. I became a mother suffering from postpartum depression at 29”.

In the another interview to The Week magazine, she spoke of how she was forced to live a life confined within the four walls of her house.

Then, a shocking act of defiance set her free.

“Once, in a fit of despair, I poured white petrol on myself, intending to set myself on fire. Thankfully, he [the husband] sensed it in time, hugged me, and took away the matchbox. He pleaded with me, placing our baby at my feet saying, ‘Don’t abandon us’,” she told the magazine.

In Heart Lamp, her female characters mirror this spirit of resistance and resilience.

“In mainstream Indian literature, Muslim women are often flattened into metaphors — silent sufferers or tropes in someone else’s moral argument. Mushtaq refuses both. Her characters endure, negotiate, and occasionally push back — not in ways that claim headlines, but in ways that matter to their lives,” according to a review of the book in The Indian Express newspaper.

Mushtaq went on to work as a reporter in a prominent local tabloid and also associated with the Bandaya movement – which focussed on addressing social and economic injustices through literature and activism.

After leaving journalism a decade later, she took up work as a lawyer to support her family.

In a storied career spanning several decades, she has published a copious amount of work; including six short story collections, an essay collection and a novel.

But her incisive writing has also made her a target of hate.

In an interview to The Hindu newspaper, she spoke about how in the year 2000, she received threatening phone calls after she expressed her opinion supporting women’s right to offer prayer in mosques.

A fatwa – a legal ruling as per Islamic law – was issued against her and a man tried to attack her with a knife before he was overpowered by her husband.

But these incidents did not faze Mushtaq, who continued to write with fierce honesty.

“I have consistently challenged chauvinistic religious interpretations. These issues are central to my writing even now. Society has changed a lot, but the core issues remain the same. Even though the context evolves, the basic struggles of women and marginalised communities continue,” she told The Week magazine.

Over the years Mushtaq’s writings have won numerous prestigious local and national awards including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award.

In 2024, the translated English compilation of Mushtaq’s five short story collections published between 1990 and 2012 – Haseena and Other Stories – won the PEN Translation Prize.

A number of countries have condemned the Israeli military’s actions after troops fired warning shots in the vicinity of a diplomatic delegation visiting the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military accused them of leaving an approved route and said shots were fired into the air “to distance them”. It said it “regrets the inconvenience caused”.

No injuries were reported in the incident, which happened in the northern city of Jenin, where Israeli security forces have been conducting a major operation against Palestinian armed groups since January.

Spain, Egypt, France, Turkey, Ireland and Italy – some of which had diplomats present – were among the nations to condemn the Israeli troops’ actions.

Several countries involved have said they will summon Israeli ambassadors to account for the incident on Wednesday, calling for investigations and explanations.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately targeting the delegation in a “heinous crime”.

It said the group were there on an official visit with Palestinian authorities to “observe and assess the humanitarian situation and document the ongoing violations perpetrated by the [Israeli] occupying forces against the Palestinian people”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that its troops had fired “warning shots” to ensure the delegation did not enter “an area where they were not authorised to be” in Jenin.

It said the diplomats had “deviated from the approved route” and that it “regrets the inconvenience caused” by the incident.

The IDF added it would speak to representatives of the nations involved to update them on the result of an internal investigation into the incident.

A European diplomat said the group had gone to the area “to see the destruction” caused by months of Israeli operations.

The PA said dozens of countries were involved, including Egypt, Jordan, Spain, Turkey, France, Ireland and the UK.

Condemnation has come in from nations in Europe and the wider Middle East, with particular criticism saved for the risk it posed to the lives of diplomats.

Spain, Italy and France were among those that said they would summon their Israeli ambassadors to clarify what happened, while the EU’s foreign policy chief said any threats to the lives of diplomats are “unacceptable” and called for those responsible to be held accountable.

Ireland confirmed two of its diplomats, based in Ramallah, were among those in the group, and Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin said it would be “demanding answers from Israel on exactly how this came to happen”.

Egypt said the shots being fired on the group “violates all diplomatic norms”, while Turkey said it was “yet another demonstration of Israel’s systematic disregard for international law and human rights”.

Both nations called for an immediate investigation and explanation from Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the start of a large-scale operation to “defeat terrorism” in Jenin in January. The operation was later expanded into Tulkarm and Tubas.

The UN says 40,000 residents of Palestinian refugee camps in the areas have been forcibly displaced after being ordered to leave by Israeli authorities and told that they would not be allowed to return for a year.

In February, the Israeli military announced it had killed 60 fighters in its operations and arrested 280 others. The UN said last week that 124 people have been killed by Israeli forces across the West Bank since the start of the year

Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

The vast majority of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law – a position supported by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year – although Israel disputes this.

The US justice department has launched an investigation into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his testimony to Congress during the Covid-19 pandemic, US media reports.

Congressional Republicans have accused Cuomo – who is running for New York City mayor – of lying in an investigation surrounding his response to the crisis.

It marks the latest in a string of investigations launched by the Trump administration into Democrats or opponents since the president returned to the White House.

Cuomo’s spokesperson has said the former governor is not aware of a Justice Department investigation into his actions.

House Republicans reportedly requested Cuomo be federally investigated and argued he lie to a congressional committee when he said he was not involved in reviewing a report from the New York Health Department about how the state handled the Covid pandemic while he was governor.

In a statement, Rich Azzopardi, a Cuomo spokesperson, told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the former governor has not had any contact from law enforcement about the case or received any subpoenas.

He said news of the investigation was leaked, describing it as “lawfare” and “election interference”.

The BBC has reached out to the Cuomo and the justice department for comment.

Cuomo was frequently criticised for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and often clashed with Trump over his handling of the crisis.

The one-time New York governor is attempting a political comeback and is leading polls in the New York City mayoral race.

He is running against Eric Adams, who in April had a criminal case against him permanently dismissed by a federal judge after the Trump administration directed prosecutors to drop the corruption charges.

The move led to the resignation of Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor who accused Adams of striking a deal with the Trump administration to dismiss his case in exchange for immigration enforcement.

Cuomo is one of a handful of Democrats being targeted by Trump.

Earlier this week, a Trump-allied prosecutor charged a New Jersey Democratic lawmaker with assault following an alleged incident outside an immigration facility.

US singer Chris Brown has been freed on bail by a court in London after being charged with inflicting an “unprovoked attack” in a nightclub in 2023.

The Grammy-winning star, who has not yet been asked to enter a plea in the case, is able to begin his world tour next month as planned as part of his bail conditions.

“From the cage to the stage!” he wrote on Instagram after Wednesday’s bail hearing.

The 36-year-old was not present at Southwark Crown Court, where the judge said he must pay a £5m security fee to the court.

A security fee is a financial guarantee to ensure a defendant returns to court. Mr Brown could be asked to forfeit the money if he breaches bail conditions.

The musician was arrested last week and later charged with grievous bodily harm over an incident in which he allegedly attacked a music producer with a tequila bottle at the Tape nightclub in London’s Mayfair.

He had been held in custody since being arrested in Salford last Thursday, and was initially refused bail on Friday.

But bail was granted on Wednesday, on the condition that he pay £4m immediately, with a further £1m due in seven days.

His tour is scheduled to start in Amsterdam on 8 June, with stadium and arena dates in Manchester, London, Cardiff, Birmingham and Glasgow later that month and in July.

The two-time Grammy-winner is known for hits like Loyal, Run It and Under the Influence.

His next court date is 20 June, between shows at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

He must surrender his passport if he is not travelling on tour, Judge Tony Baumgartner said.

Other bail conditions include living at a specific address known to the court, not contacting the alleged victim, not visiting the Tape nightclub, and not applying for international travel documents.

He will appear at court next month with his co-defendant, Omololu Akinlolu, a 38-year-old who performs under the name HoodyBaby, also from the US.

Italy has approved a law that tightens the rules for people with Italian heritage to get passports.

Previously, anyone with an Italian ancestor who lived after 17 March, 1861 – when the Kingdom of Italy was created – qualified to be a citizen under the ‘jus sanguinis’, or descendent blood line law.

Under the amended law, which parliament ratified on Tuesday, applicants for an Italian passport must now have one parent or grandparent who was a citizen by birth.

The government said it changed the rules to “enhance” the link between Italy and the citizen abroad, avoid ‘abuse’ and ‘commercialisation’ of passports, and free up resources to clear backlogged applications.

From the end of 2014 to the end of 2024, the number of citizens residing abroad increased by 40%, from around 4.6 million to 6.4 million, the government said.

As of the end of March, when Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government introduced the law, there were more than 60,000 pending legal proceedings for citizenship verification.

Italy’s foreign ministry said in a statement then that the change “will free up resources to make consular services more efficient, to the extent that they can be dedicated exclusively to those who have a real need, by virtue of their concrete connection with Italy”.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the principle “will not be lost” and descendants of Italians will still be able to become citizens, but “precise limits will be set, especially to avoid abuse or phenomena of ‘commercialization’ of Italian passports”.

“Citizenship must be a serious thing,” he said.

A meeting meant to soothe tensions between the US and South Africa instead spiralled as President Donald Trump put his counterpart on the defensive with claims that white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.

On Wednesday, a week after the US granted asylum to nearly 60 Afrikaners – a move that rankled South Africa – President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House to reset the countries’ relations.

Instead, Trump surprised Ramaphosa during a live news conference with widely discredited claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa.

He played a video showing a protest exhibit of thousands of crosses lining a road – claiming they were burial sites for murdered white farmers.

Trump said he did not know where in South Africa it was filmed and the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Before Wednesday’s White House meeting, South Africa’s leader stressed that improving trade relations with the US was his priority. South African exports into the US face a 30% tariff once a pause on Trump’s new import taxes ends in July.

Ramaphosa hoped to charm Trump during the meeting, bringing along two famous South African golfers and gifting him a huge book featuring his country’s golf courses.

The meeting came days after the arrival of 59 white South Africans in the US, where they were granted refugee status. Ramaphosa said at the time they were “cowards”.

Still, the Oval Office meeting began cordially, until Trump asked for the lighting to be lowered for a video presentation. The mood shifted.

• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his refugee offer?
• ‘I didn’t come here for fun’ – Afrikaner defends refugee status in US

The film featured the voice of leading South African opposition figure Julius Malema singing: “Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer”. It then showed a field of crosses, which the US president, talking over the images, said was a burial site of white farmers. The crosses actually were part of a protest, not graves, over farmers who have been killed.

He handed Ramaphosa what appeared to be print-outs of stories of white people being attacked in South Africa. Trump said that he would seek an “explanation” from his guest on claims of white “genocide” in South Africa, which have been widely discredited.

Ramaphosa responded to the opposition chants in the video, saying, “What you saw – the speeches that were made… that is not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”

“Our government policy is completely against what he [Malema] was saying even in the parliament and they are a small minority party, which is allowed to exist according to our constitution.”

Ramaphosa said Wednesday that he hoped Trump would listen to the voices of South Africans on this issue. He pointed out the white members of his delegation, including golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert.

“If there was a genocide, these three gentlemen would not be here,” Ramaphosa said.

Trump interrupted: “But you do allow them to take land, and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer nothing happens to them.”

“No,” Ramaphosa responded.

The US leader seemed to be referencing that Malema and his party, who is not part of the government, have the power to confiscate land from white farmers, which they do not.

A controversial law signed by Ramaphosa earlier this year allows the government to seize privately-owned land without compensation in some circumstances. The South African government says no land has been seized yet under the act.

Ramaphosa did acknowledge that there was “criminality in our country… people who do get killed through criminal activity are not only white people, the majority of them are black people”.

Referring to the crosses in the video, Trump said, “The farmers are not black. I don’t say that’s good or bad, but the farmers are not black…”

South Africa does not release race-based crime figures, but the latest figures show that nearly 10,000 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024. Of these, a dozen were killed in farm attacks and of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.

Claims of genocide in South Africa have circulated among right-wing groups for years. In February, a South African judge dismissed the claims as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, when ruling in an inheritance case involving a donation to white supremacist group.

As Trump pressed the issue, Ramaphosa stayed calm – and tried to work his charm by making a joke about offering a plane to the US.

He invoked the name of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, saying South Africa remained committed to racial reconciliation.

When a journalist asked what would happen if white farmers left South Africa, Ramaphosa deflected the question to his white agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, who said that most farmers wanted to stay.

But Trump kept firing salvoes at Ramaphosa, who avoided entering into a shouting match with him – something that happened to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he met Trump in the same room in February.

After the confrontation, Malema mocked the meeting, describing it as “a group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me.”

“No significant amount of intelligence evidence has been produced about white genocide. We will not agree to compromise our political principles on land expropriation without compensation for political expediency,” he posted on X.

Helena Humphrey, former US ambassador to South Africa under then-President Barack Obama, called the meeting “truly embarrassing”.

“It is clear that a trap was set for the South African president. There was every intention to humiliate him, to embarrass South Africa, by extension,” she said.

The head of South Africa’s most prominent Afrikaners interest group told the BBC Wednesday night that “there are real issues that need to be addressed” when asked about the Trump/Ramaphosa meeting.

Asked whether Afriforum, a South African NGO representing Akrifaners in the country, helped make the video shown in the White House Oval Office, CEO Kallie Kriel said the group has “used some of that video footage in some of our videos, but in terms of that specific compilation, we did not make that.”

“That video material is quite easily accessible to many people, but I think that video was very important to just get the shift to a situation that there can’t be denialism, and if there is (sic) going to be solutions, then there are real issues that need to be addressed. And I think that video made the point quite strongly,” she said.

Tensions between South Africa and the US are not new.

Days after Trump took office for his second term in January, Ramaphosa signed into law the controversial bill that allows South Africa’s government to expropriate privately-owned land in cases when it is deemed “equitable and in the public interest”.

The move only served to tarnish the image of Africa’s biggest economy in the eyes of the Trump administration – already angered by its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

In February, the US president announced the suspension of critical aid to South Africa and offered to allow members of the Afrikaner community – who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers – to settle in the US as refugees.

South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was also expelled in March after accusing Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle”.

• Can Mandela’s former negotiator fix fractious relations with Trump?
• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?
• What’s really driving Trump’s fury with South Africa?

Hundreds of tiles have fallen from the roof of a centuries old tower in China’s Anhui province, smashing to the ground near visitors to the site.

Eyewitness footage showed sections of the roof collapsing, narrowly missing a number of people.

Local media cited a Fengyang County Culture and Tourism Bureau statement that said no one was injured in the incident, which happened at around 18:30 local time (11:30 BST) on Monday.

The Drum Tower – reportedly the largest in China – was built in 1375 during the Ming Dynasty but had undergone an extensive rebuild in 1995.

Officials for the county, around 200 miles away from the capital Beijing, said an investigation was under way, in a post shared on China’s instant messaging app, WeChat.

Fengyang county is famous for being the hometown of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor – Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang.

Local authorities reportedly moved bystanders from the scene following the collapse and secured the area. The investigation will be looking at the repair project’s design and construction, a statement seen by local media added.

Reports say supervision units were also sent to the site with experts invited to assist in the investigation and verification process.

The tower is closed while repairs are carried out, with a reopening date due to be announced at a later date.

Three months into Donald Trump’s second term, foreign leaders should be aware that a coveted trip to the Oval Office comes with the risk of a very public dressing down, often straying into attempts at provocation and humiliation.

Wednesday’s episode with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was a classic of its kind, with the added twist of an ambush involving dimmed lights, a lengthy video screening and stacks of news story clippings.

As television cameras rolled, and after some well-tempered discussion, Trump was asked by a journalist about what it would take for him to be convinced that discredited claims of “white genocide” in South Africa are untrue.

Ramaphosa responded first, by saying the president would have to “listen to the voices of South Africans” on the issue. Trump then came in, asking an assistant to “turn the lights down” and put the television on, so he could show the South African leader “a couple of things”.

Elon Musk, his adviser and a South Africa-born billionaire, watched quietly from behind a couch.

• WATCH: ‘Turn the lights down’ – Trump confronts Ramaphosa with video
• ANALYSIS: Ramaphosa survives mauling by Trump over ‘white genocide’
• WHAT HAPPENED: Trump ambushes S African leader with claim of Afrikaners being ‘persecuted’

What followed was an extraordinary and highly choreographed onslaught of accusations from the US president about the alleged persecution of white South Africans, echoing the aggressive treatment of Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky during his February visit to the White House.

The footage on the large screen showcased South African political firebrands chanting “Shoot the Boer”, an anti-apartheid song. And Trump, so often critical of the news media, seemed happy to parade pictures of uncertain provenance. Asked where alleged grave sites of white farmers were, he simply answered, “South Africa”.

The US leader also seemed to believe the political leaders in the footage – who are not part of the government – had the power to confiscate land from white farmers. They do not.

While Ramaphosa did sign a controversial bill allowing land seizures without compensation earlier this year, the law has not been implemented. And the South African distanced himself publicly from the language in the political speeches shown.

But the top ally of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and negotiator who helped bring an end to the apartheid regime of white-minority rule came to this meeting prepared.

Trump sometimes appears unaware of transparent efforts made by foreign leaders to flatter and that was clearly part of the South African strategy.

True, Donald Trump is a golf fanatic, but Ramaphosa’s gambit of bringing two top golfers – Ernie Els and Retief Goosen – to a meeting about diplomatic problems and trade policy is not taken from any textbook on international relations I’ve ever read.

However, the US president’s pleasure at having the two white South African golfers there was on show for all to see.

Their prognostications on the fate of white farmers got nearly as much screen time as South Africa’s democratically-elected president, who largely restricted himself to quiet, short interventions.

But Ramaphosa will likely be happy with that. The golfers, along with his white agriculture minister, himself from an opposition party which is part of the national unity government, were there, at least in part, as a shield – a kind of diplomatic golden dome if you will, and it worked.

• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his South African refugee offer?
• White South Africans going to US are cowards, Ramaphosa says

Trump returned repeatedly to the issue of the plight of the farmers – dozens of whom he has welcomed into the US as refugees. But President Ramaphosa wasn’t biting and the provocations were largely left to blow in the breeze.

At one point, he referred to the golfers and an Afrikaner billionaire who had joined his delegation, telling Trump: “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentleman would not be here.”

But even though President Trump didn’t manage to get a rise out of the South African president, that does not mean his efforts over more than an hour were in vain; they certainly were not.

This performative style of diplomacy is aimed as much at the domestic American audience as it is at the latest visitor to the Oval Office.

Central to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) project is keeping up the energy around perceived grievances and resentment and President Trump knows what his supporters want.

If some foreign leaders are learning to navigate these moments with skill, Donald Trump may have to change the playbook a bit to continue to have the impact he wants.

As Israel’s war in Gaza enters a new, violent phase, a growing number of voices within the country are speaking out against it – and how it’s being fought.

Yair Golan, a left-wing politician and former deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), sparked outrage on Monday when he said: “Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country.

“A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set itself the goal of depopulating the population,” he told Israeli public radio’s popular morning news programme.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back, describing the comments as “blood libel”.

But on Wednesday, a former Israeli minister of defence and IDF chief of staff – Moshe “Bogi” Ya’alon – went further.

“This is not a ‘hobby’,” he wrote in a post on X, “but a government policy, whose ultimate goal is to hold on to power. And it is leading us to destruction.”

Just 19 months ago, when Hamas gunmen crossed the fence into Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages – statements like these seemed almost unthinkable.

But now Gaza is in ruins, Israel has launched a new military offensive, and, though it has also agreed to lift its 11-week blockade on the territory, just a trickle of aid has so far entered.

Recent polling by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 61% of Israelis want to end the war and see the hostages returned. Just 25% support expanding the fighting and occupying Gaza.

The Israeli government insists it will destroy Hamas and rescue the remaining hostages. Netanyahu says he can achieve “total victory” – and he maintains a strong core of supporters.

But the mood among others in Israeli society “is one of despair, trauma, and a lack of a sense of ability to change anything”, says former Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin.

“The overwhelming majority of all the hostage families think that the war has to end, and there has to be an agreement,” he adds.

“A small minority think that the primary goal of finishing off Hamas is what has to be done, and then the hostages will be freed”.

On Sunday, around 500 protesters, many wearing T-shirts with the inscription “Stop the horrors in Gaza” and carrying pictures of babies killed by Israeli air strikes, attempted to march from the town of Sderot to the Gaza border, in protest at Israel’s new offensive.

They were led by Standing Together – a small but growing anti-war group of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. After attempting to block a road, the leader of the group Alon-Lee Green was arrested, along with eight others.

From house arrest, Mr Green told the BBC: “I think it’s obvious that you can see an awakening within the Israeli public. You can see that more and more people are taking a position.”

Another Standing Together activist, Uri Weltmann, said he thinks there’s a growing belief that continuing the war is “not only harmful to the Palestinian civilian population, but also risks the lives of hostages, risks the lives of soldiers, risks the lives of all of us”.

In April, thousands of Israeli reservists – from all branches of the military – signed letters demanding that Netanyahu’s government stop the fighting and concentrate instead on reaching a deal to bring back the remaining hostages.

Yet, many in Israel hold differing views.

At the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza on Wednesday, the BBC spoke to Gideon Hashavit, who was part of a group protesting against aid being allowed in.

“They’re not innocent people,” he said of those in Gaza, “they make their choice, they chose a terrorist organisation.”

It is against some of Israel’s most extreme parts of society – settler groups – that the UK on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions.

In its strongest move yet, the UK also suspended talks on a trade deal with Israel and summoned the country’s ambassador – with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling the military escalation in Gaza “morally unjustifiable”.

The EU said it is reviewing its association agreement with Israel, which governs its political and economic relationship – with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying a “strong majority” of members favoured looking again at the 25-year-old agreement.

On Monday night, the UK joined France and Canada in signing a strongly worded joint statement, condemning Israel’s military action and warning of “further concrete actions” if the humanitarian situation in Gaza did not improve.

“The mood is changing,” says Weltmann, “the wind is starting to blow in the other direction.”

A former leading Ukrainian official has been shot dead outside an American school in the Spanish capital Madrid, authorities have confirmed.

Andriy Portnov, 51, had just dropped his children off at the school in the Pozuelo de Alarcón area of the city and was walking to his car in the school parking area.

At least one unidentified attacker fired several shots at the victim before fleeing into a wooded area in a nearby public park, witnesses said.

Portnov had been an MP and deputy head in the administration of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president ousted in 2014 after months of protests.

He had previously been an MP in Yulia Tymoshenko’s governing party, but switched to Yanukovych’s team when he won the presidential election in 2010.

He left Ukraine after the revolution only to return in 2019 after Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president.

He then left Ukraine again, and in 2021 was sanctioned by the US Treasury, which said he had been “widely known as a court fixer” who had taken steps to control the judiciary and undermine reform efforts.

It was not clear who was behind the shooting that took place at about 09:15 local time (07:15 GMT) on Wednesday, reportedly as children were still entering the school.

Witnesses said there had been five or six shots. One student told Spanish TV he thought they were “firecrackers or fireworks”. A woman who had rushed to Portnov’s aid began to scream, according to El Mundo newspaper.

Police drones and a helicopter searched the area for a gunman who, according to witnesses, was a thin man in a blue tracksuit.

Spanish reports suggested the gunman may have had at least one accomplice riding on a motorbike. Hours after the shooting no arrests had been made.

A similar gun attack took place in 2018, when a Colombian drug trafficker was fatally shot outside a British Council school a few kilometres away.

But the motive behind Wednesday’s attack is not yet known. Emergency services at the scene could only confirm that that Portnov had suffered several bullet wounds in the back and the head.

Portnov’s black Mercedes car was cordoned off and the school wrote to parents to confirm that all the students inside were safe.

His body was later taken away for a post mortem examination.

Portnov had successfully challenged a series of lawsuits against him in recent years, both in Ukraine and abroad.

The European Union imposed sanctions on Portnov, but he challenged the move in court and won the case.

Ukraine’s SBU security service had also opened a case for suspected treason over Russia’s annexation of Crimea but that was dropped when it concluded no offence had been committed.

Although Ukraine’s intelligence services have been linked to several killings in Russia and occupied areas of Ukraine, a fatal attack in Spain in February last year was linked to Russian hitmen.

The victim, a Russian helicopter pilot, was shot dead near Alicante, months after defecting to Ukraine.

Authorities in Kyiv said they had offered to protect Maxim Kuzminov in Ukraine, but he is believed to have moved to Spain’s south-east coast under a false identity.

When Japan’s farm minister declared that he never had to buy rice because his supporters give him “plenty” of it as gifts, he hoped to draw laughs.

Instead Taku Eto drew outrage – and enough of it to force him to resign.

Japan is facing its first cost-of-living crisis in decades, which is hitting a beloved staple: rice. The price has more than doubled in the last year, and imported varieties are few and far between.

Eto apologised, saying he had gone “too far” with his comments on Sunday at a local fundraiser. He resigned after opposition parties threatened a no-confidence motion against him.

His ousting deals a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s minority government, which was already struggling with falling public support.

Rice can be a powerful trigger in Japan, where shortages have caused political upsets before. Riots over the soaring cost of rice even toppled a government in 1918.

So it’s not that surprising that rice prices have a role in Ishiba’s plummeting approval ratings.

“Politicians don’t go to supermarkets to do their grocery shopping so they don’t understand,” 31-year-old Memori Higuchi tells the BBC from her home in Yokohama.

Ms Higuchi is a first-time mother of a seven-month-old. Good food for her postnatal recovery has been crucial, and her daughter will soon start eating solid food.

“I want her to eat well so if prices keep going up, we may have to reduce the amount of rice my husband and I eat.”

It’s a simple issue of supply and demand, agricultural economist Kunio Nishikawa of Ibaraki University says.

But he believes it was caused by a government miscalculation.

Until 1995, the government controlled the amount of rice farmers produced by working closely with agricultural cooperatives. The law was abolished that year but the agriculture ministry continues to publish demand estimates so farmers can avoid producing a glut of rice.

But, Prof Nishikawa says, they got it wrong in 2023 and 2024. They estimated the demand to be 6.8m tonnes, while the actual demand, he adds, was 7.05m tonnes.

Demand for rice went up because of more tourists visiting Japan and a rise in people eating out after the pandemic.

But actual production was even lower than the estimate: 6.61m tonnes, Prof Nishikawa says.

“It is true that the demand for rice jumped, due to several factors – including the fact that rice was relatively affordable compared to other food items and a rise in the number of overseas visitors,” a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry told the BBC.

“The quality of rice wasn’t great due to unusually high temperatures which also resulted in lower rice production.”

Rice farmers have been unable to make enough money for many years, says 59-year-old Kosuke Kasahara, whose family have been in farming for generations.

He explains that it costs approximately 18,500 yen ($125.70; £94.60) to produce 60kg of rice but the cooperative in his area of Niigata on the west coast of Japan offered to buy it last year at 19,000 yen.

“Until three or four years ago, the government would even offer financial incentives to municipalities that agreed to reduce rice production,” he adds.

The ministry spokesperson confirms that the government has offered subsidies to those choosing to produce wheat or soybeans instead of rice.

Meanwhile, younger farmers have been choosing to produce different types of rice that are used for sake, rice crackers or fed to livestock because demand for rice in Japan had been falling until last year.

“I got tired of fighting retailers or restaurants that wanted me to sell rice cheaply for many years,” says Shinya Tabuchi.

But that’s been flipped on its head, with the going rate for 60kg of rice today at 40,000 to 50,000 yen.

While higher prices are bad news for shoppers, it means many struggling farmers will finally be able to make money.

But as the public grew angry with the surge, the government auctioned some of its emergency reserves of rice in March to try to bring prices down.

Many countries have strategic reserves – stockpiles of vital goods – of crude oil or natural gas to prepare for exceptional circumstances. In Asia, many governments also have stockpiles of rice.

In recent years, Japan’s rice stockpile had only been tapped in the wake of natural disasters.

“The government has always told us that they would not release its emergency rice stocks to control the price so we felt betrayed,” Mr Tabuchi says.

Despite the government’s rare decision to release rice, prices have continued to rise.

The cost of rice is also soaring in South East Asia, which accounts for almost 30% of global rice production – economic, political and climate pressures have resulted in shortages in recent years.

In Japan though the issue has become so serious that the country has begun importing rice from South Korea for the first time in a quarter of a century, even though consumers prefer homegrown varieties.

PM Ishiba has also hinted at expanding imports of US rice as his government continues to negotiate a trade deal with Washington.

But shoppers like Ms Higuchi say they are unlikely to buy non-Japanese rice.

“We’ve been saying local production for local consumption for a long time,” she says. “There has to be a way for Japanese farmers to be profitable and consumers to feel safe by being able to afford home-grown produce.”

This divides opinion among farmers.

“You may hear that the industry is ageing and shrinking but that is not necessarily true,” says Mr Tabuchi, who believes the sector has been too protected by the government.

“Many elderly farmers can afford to sell rice cheaply because they have pensions and assets but the younger generation has to be able to make money. Instead of guaranteeing the income of all the farmers and distorting the market, the government should let unprofitable farmers fail.”

Mr Kasahara disagrees: “Farming in rural areas like ours is about being part of a community. If we let those farmers fail, our areas will be in ruins.”

He argues the government should set a guaranteed buying price of 32,000 to 36,000 yen per 60kg of rice which is lower than today’s price but still allows farmers to be profitable.

And given what happened to Eto, it is also a sensitive topic for politicians.

The country is due to hold a key national election this summer so pleasing both consumers and farmers – especially the elderly in both camps who tend to vote more – is crucial.

Four British former special forces soldiers have set a record by climbing Mount Everest in under five days without acclimatising on the mountain, as part of a high-speed expedition controversially aided by xenon gas.

The team, which included a UK government minister, summited the world’s highest peak early on Wednesday.

Xenon was used to help them pre-acclimatise to low oxygen at high altitudes. Climbers usually spend between six to eight weeks on Everest before summiting.

Organisers said the use of xenon had made such a fast ascent possible. But the science around using the gas remains disputed and many in the mountaineering industry have criticised it.

Although this expedition is a record Everest ascent without acclimatising in the Himalayas, it’s not the fastest Everest time.

That record still belongs to Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa, who climbed from base camp to the summit in 10 hours and 56 minutes in 2003 – but he did this after acclimatising on the mountain.

The xenon-aided team, accompanied by five Sherpa guides and a cameraman, reached the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) summit early on Wednesday, and began their descent soon afterwards.

“They started on the afternoon of 16th May and summited on the morning of the 21st, taking four days and approximately 18 hours,” expedition organiser Lukas Furtenbach told the BBC.

The four former soldiers, who include veterans minister Alastair Carns, slept for six weeks in special tents before travelling to Nepal to help them acclimatise to decreased levels of oxygen at high altitude.

They then flew to Everest base camp from Kathmandu and started climbing straight away, Mr Furtenbach said. They used supplemental oxygen, like other climbers, during the expedition.

Climbers usually spend weeks going up and down between base camp and higher camps before making the final push for the summit.

They need to do that to get used to thinner oxygen levels at high mountain altitudes. Above 8,000m, known as the death zone, available oxygen is only a third of that present at sea level.

But the four British men in the team did none of that.

“The team made a three-month acclimatisation programme in simulated altitude before coming to Nepal,” Mr Furtenbach said.

The simulated altitude was created in what is known as hypoxic tents from which oxygen is sucked out using a generator, bringing it to levels present at high mountain altitudes.

Then the climbers inhaled xenon gas at a clinic in Germany two weeks before the expedition, said Mr Furtenbach.

“It helps to protect the body from altitude sickness,” he said.

Some researchers say xenon increases production of a protein called erythropoietin that fights hypoxia, a condition that occurs when the body can’t get enough oxygen.

They say it does that by increasing the number of red blood cells that contain haemoglobin, which transports oxygen around the body, but this remains a disputed subject and many say further studies are required.

Some in the mountaineering industry have cautioned against the use of xenon gas.

“According to current literature, there is no evidence that breathing in xenon improves performance in the mountains, and inappropriate use can be dangerous,” the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation said in a statement in January.

“Acclimatisation to altitude is a complex process that affects the various organs/systems such as the brain, lungs, heart, kidneys and blood to different degrees, and is not fully understood.

“From a physiological point of view, a single, one-off drug cannot be the key to improved acclimatisation or increased performance.”

Adrian Ballinger, who heads another expedition team climbing Everest from the Chinese side to the north, also makes his clients undergo pre-acclimatisation training like using hypoxic tents to shorten time on the mountains. But he opposes using xenon gas.

“If you’re promoting xenon as a performance enhancer, but you’re not also willing to examine what that means for fairness and integrity in the mountains, it’s a problem,” he told the BBC.

“People are grasping at shortcuts instead of doing the real work of acclimatisation and training.”

But now that the British team have made their groundbreaking Everest ascent, expedition operators think, and some worry, that this method may be used by other climbers too.

“If that happens then it will certainly have a direct, negative impact on the tourism industry as the length of time mountaineers stay will come down significantly,” said Damber Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal.

“Also, acclimatising on the mountains is the basic rule of mountaineering. If that is not done then authorities should not be giving them certificates certifying that they climbed the mountain.”

Nepal’s tourism department officials said they were not aware the British team were climbing Everest without acclimatisation.

“Now that we know about it, we will be discussing the issue and decide on our future course of action,” Narayan Regmi, director general at Nepal’s department of tourism told the BBC.

But why climb the highest peak at such speed?

“A shorter expedition has a lower carbon footprint and less ecological impact,” said Mr Furtenbach.

“And it is safer for climbers because they can climb the mountain in good health and they are exposed to high altitude risks and mountain hazards for shorter time compared to when they are acclimatising on the mountain.”

A member of Irish language hip-hop group Kneecap has been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig.

Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27, has been charged by the Metropolitan Police after an incident on 21 November 2024 at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, London.

Mr Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the name Mo Chara, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 18 June.

Officers from the Met’s counter terrorism command were made aware on 22 April of an online video from the event.

Belfast man Mr Ó hAnnaidh has been charged under the name Liam O’Hanna.

An investigation was carried out, which led to the Crown Prosecution Service authorising charge.

Earlier this month, the Met said it would investigate online videos allegedly showing the group calling for the death of British MPs and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them.

Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim political and military group in Lebanon which has been involved in a series of violent conflicts.

Kneecap say they have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah and would not incite violence against any individual. They say the video in question has been taken out of context.

A number of gigs featuring the band have been called off since the videos emerged.

They are currently scheduled to headline Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park, south London, on Friday.

Kneecap are an Irish-speaking rap trio who have courted controversy with their provocative lyrics and merchandise.

The group was formed in 2017 by three friends who go by the stage names of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí.

Their rise to fame inspired a semi-fictionalised film starring Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender.

The film won a British Academy of Film Award (Bafta) in February 2025.

In April, the group faced criticism and commercial consequences after displaying messages about the war in Gaza during their set at US music festival Coachella last month.

They were dropped by their sponsor and booking agent Independent Artist Group (IAG) and former X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne called for Kneecap’s US work visas to be revoked.

Following this, footage emerged from previous gigs, which were investigation by counter-terrorism officers.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch shared one of the videos and renewed her criticism of the Labour government for last year settling a legal case brought by the group.

It related to a decision Badenoch made when she was a minister to withdraw an arts grant.

At just 37 hectares, the Philippines-controlled island of Pagasa – or “hope” – is barely big enough to live on. There is almost nothing there.

The 300 or so inhabitants live in a cluster of small, wooden houses. They fish in the clear, turquoise waters, and grow what vegetables they can in the sandy ground.

But they are not alone in these disputed waters: just off shore, to the west, lies an armada of ships.

These are all Chinese, from the navy, the coastguard or the so-called maritime militia – large fishing vessels repurposed to maintain Chinese dominance of this sea. As our plane approached the island we counted at least 20.

For the past 10 years, China has been expanding its presence in the South China Sea, taking over submerged coral reefs, building three large air bases on them, and deploying hundreds of ships, to reinforce its claim to almost all of the strategic sea lanes running south from the great exporting cities on the Chinese coast.

Few of the South East Asian countries which also claim islands in the same sea have dared to push back against China; only Vietnam and the Philippines have done so. The militaries of both countries are much smaller than China’s, but they are holding on to a handful of reefs and islands.

Pagasa – also known as Thitu and other names, as it is claimed by several other countries – is the largest of these.

What makes it exceptional, though, is the civilian population, found on few islands in the South China Sea. From the point of view of the Philippines this, and the fact that Pagasa is solid land, not a partially submerged reef or sandy cay, strengthens its legal claims in the area.

“Pagasa is very important to us,” Jonathan Malaya, assistant director-general of the Philippines National Security Council, tells the BBC.

“It has a runway. It can support life – it has a resident Filipino community, and fishermen living there.

“And given the size of the island, one of the few that did not need reclaiming from the sea, under international law it generates its own territorial sea of 12 nautical miles.

“So it is, in a way, a linchpin for the Philippine presence.”

Reaching Pagasa is a two-to-three-day boat ride from the Philippines island of Palawan, or a one-hour plane ride, but both are at the mercy of frequent stormy weather.

Until they surfaced the runway two years ago, and lengthened it to 1,300m (4,600ft), only small planes could land. Now they can bring in big C130 transport aircraft. Travelling in them, as we did, is a bit like riding a bus in rush hour.

Everything has to be brought from the mainland, which is why our plane was packed, floor to ceiling, with mattresses, eggs, bags of rice, a couple of motorbikes and piles of luggage – not to mention lots of military personnel, most of whom had to stand for the entire flight.

A lot has changed in recent years. There is a new hangar, big enough to shelter aircraft during storms. They are building a control tower and dredging a small harbour to allow bigger boats to dock. We were driven around the island by some of the Philippines marines who are stationed there, though given its size it hardly seemed necessary

The Philippines seized Pagasa from Taiwan in 1971, when the Taiwanese garrison left it during a typhoon. It was formally annexed by the Philippines in 1978.

Later, the government started encouraging civilians to settle there. But they need support to survive on this remote sliver of land. Families get official donations of food, water and other groceries every month. They now have electricity and mobile phone connectivity, but that only came four years ago.

Aside from government jobs, fishing is the only viable way to make a living, and since the arrival of the Chinese flotillas even that has become difficult.

Fisherman Larry Hugo has lived on the island for 16 years, and has chronicled the increasing Chinese control of the area. He filmed the initial construction on Subi Reef, around 32km (20 miles) from Pagasa, which eventually became a full-size military air base. One of his videos, showing his little wooden boat being nearly rammed by a Chinese coastguard ship in 2021 made him a minor celebrity.

But Chinese harassment has forced him to fish in a smaller area closer to home.

“Their ships are huge compared to ours. They threaten us, coming close and sounding their horns to chase us away. They really scare us. So I no longer go to my old fishing grounds further away. I now have to fish close to the island, but the fish stocks here are falling, and it is much harder to fill our tubs like we used to.”

Realyn Limbo has been a teacher on the island for 10 years, and seen the school grow from a small hut to full-size school teaching more than 100 pupils, from kindergarten to 18 years old.

“To me this island is like paradise,” she says. “All our basic needs are taken care of. It is clean and peaceful – the children can play basketball or go swimming after school. We don’t need shopping malls or all that materialism.”

Pagasa is really quiet. In the fierce midday heat we found most people snoozing in hammocks, or playing music on their porches. We came across Melania Alojado, a village health worker, rocking a small baby to help it sleep.

“The biggest challenge for us is when people, especially children, fall ill,” she says.

“If it is serious then we need to evacuate them to the mainland. I am not a registered nurse, so I cannot perform complicated medical tasks. But planes are not always available, and sometimes the weather is too rough to travel.

“When that happens we just have to care for them as best we can.”

But she too values the tranquillity of island life. “We are free of many stresses. We get subsidised food, and we can grow some of our own. In the big city everything you do needs money.”

We saw a few new houses being built, but there really isn’t room for Pagasa to accommodate many more people. With very few jobs, young people usually leave the island once they finish school. For all of its sleepy charm, and stunning white-sand beaches, it has the feel of a garrison community, holding the line against the overpowering Chinese presence which is clearly visible just offshore.

“The Chinese at the airbase on Subi Reef always challenge us when we approach Pagasa,” the pilot says. “They always warn us we are entering Chinese territory without permission.”

Do they ever try to stop you? “No, it’s a routine. We tell them this is Philippines territory. We do this every time.”

Jonathan Malaya says his government has made a formal diplomatic protest every week to the Chinese Embassy over the presence of its ships in what the Philippines views as the territorial waters of Pagasa. This is in marked contrast to the previous administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, which avoided confrontations with China in the hope of getting more investment in the Philippines.

“I think we will get more respect from China if we hold our ground, and show them we can play this game as well. But the problem of democracies like the Philippines is policies can change with new administrations. China does not have that problem.”

Sir Keir Starmer is due to sign a deal handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on Thursday.

Under the terms of the deal Mauritius would gain sovereignty of the islands from the UK, but allow the US and UK to continue operating a strategically important military base on one of the islands for an initial period of 99 years in exchange for a multi-billion pound payment.

As first reported in The Telegraph, the prime minister will attend a virtual signing ceremony with representatives from the Mauritian government on Thursday.

The deal previously appeared to have stalled after a change in government in both Mauritius and the US – where aides to Donald Trump were given time to examine the plan.

The plan to hand over control of the Chagos Islands, officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), was announced last October following negotiations with then-Mauritian leader Pravind Jugnauth.

However, following elections, he was replaced by current PM Navin Ramgoolam, who expressed concerns about the deal.

Progress on the deal was also delayed after the election of Trump because negotiators wanted to give the new US administration time to examine the details of the plan.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was one of a chorus of high-profile Republicans who said the deal posed a “serious threat” to US national security, due to Mauritius’ relationship with China.

However, last month Trump indicated he would back the deal.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are working to sign a deal which will safeguard the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia, which is vital to our national security.”

The BBC understands that representatives of the Chagossian community have been invited to meet with Stephen Doughty, the minister for Europe, North America and overseas territories, on Thursday morning for discussions on the sovereignty of the territory.

The meeting is set to include six representatives from three different Chagossian community groups.

“The meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the FCDO’s Chagossian projects and the new Chagossian contact group,” an email sent to the representatives said, without giving further details.

Under the terms of the deal, Britain is expected to give up sovereignty of the island territory to Mauritius, and lease back a crucial military base on the archipelago for 99 years.

The government is yet to spell out the estimated cost of payments the British taxpayer will make under the deal, but it is expected to run into the billions.

The Chagos Archipelago was separated from Mauritius in 1965, when Mauritius was still a British colony.

Britain purchased the islands for £3m, but Mauritius has argued that it was illegally forced to give away the Chagos Islands as part of a deal to get independence from Britain in 1968.

The UK has come under increasing international pressure to hand over control of the archipelago after various United Nations bodies sided with Mauritian sovereignty claims in recent years.

The last Conservative government opened negotiations over the legal status in late 2022, but has since criticised the Labour government for being willing to hand over the islands.

Reform UK has been strongly critical too.

Labour has argued that the best way to guarantee the future of the military base was to do a deal with Mauritius – and that that was in the interests of UK national security too, given the importance of the base.

Following the signing ceremony, MPs will be updated on the terms of the deal in the House of Commons, which could include scope for a 40-year extension to the lease of the military base, the Telegraph said.

Speaking in the House of Commons just this week, Defence Secretary John Healey insisted the base on Diego Garcia was “essential to our security”, and the UK’s security relationship with the US.

“We’ve had to act, as the previous government started to do, to deal with that jeopardy, we’re completing those arrangements and we’ll report to the House when we can,” he added.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.