At least 54 Palestinians have been killed – most of them in a school building sheltering displaced families – during Israeli air strikes on Gaza overnight, hospital directors have told the BBC.

Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City was housing hundreds of people from Beit Lahia, currently under intense Israeli military assault. At least 35 were reported to have been killed when the school was hit.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence said multiple bodies, including those of children, were recovered – many severely burned, after fires engulfed two classrooms serving as living quarters.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted “a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre” there.

The IDF said the area was being used “by the terrorists to plan… attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”, and accused Hamas of using “the Gazan population as human shields”.

Video footage shared online showed large fires consuming parts of the school, with graphic images of severely burned victims, including children, and survivors suffering critical injuries.

Faris Afana, Northern Gaza ambulance service manager, said he arrived at the scene with crews to find three classrooms ablaze.

“There were sleeping children and women in those classrooms,” he said. “Some of them were screaming but we couldn’t rescue them due to the fires.

“I cannot describe what we saw due to how horrific it was.”

Local reports said the head of investigations for the Hamas police in northern Gaza, Mohammad Al-Kasih, was among the dead, along with his wife and children.

Separately, a strike on a house in Jabalia in northern Gaza killed 19 people, according to the director of al-Ahli hospital Dr Fadel el-Naim. The Israeli military has not yet commented on what was being targeted.

The twin attacks are part of a broader Israeli offensive that has escalated in the northern part of the enclave over the past week.

The IDF said it hit 200 targets across Gaza in 48 hours as it continued its operations against what it called “terrorist organisations”.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told the BBC on Monday that the group had agreed to the latest ceasefire proposal from mediators.

A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said the plan includes the release of 10 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in two phases.

In exchange, there would be a 70-day truce, a gradual partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the release of an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners, including several hundred serving long or life sentences.

The BBC has approached the Israeli government for comment on the proposal.

As mediation efforts continued, an Israeli strike on the home of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza killed nine of her 10 children on Friday. Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s 11-year-old son was injured, along with her husband, Hamdi al-Najjar, who is in critical condition.

The nine children – Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra – were aged between just a few months old and 12. The Israeli military has said the incident is under review.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said two of its staff were killed in a strike on their home in Khan Younis the following day.

The killing of Ibrahim Eid, a weapon contamination officer, and Ahmad Abu Hilal, a security guard at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah “points to the intolerable civilian death toll in Gaza”, the ICRC said, repeating its call for a ceasefire.

On Sunday, the head of a controversial US and Israeli-approved organisation planning to use private firms to deliver aid to Gaza resigned.

In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood said it had become apparent that plans to set up distribution hubs would not meet the “humanitarian principles” of independence and neutrality.

The UN and various humanitarian organisations have said they will not co-operate with the GHF, accusing it of being discriminatory over who will receive food.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March that lasted 11 weeks before it allowed limited aid to enter the territory in the face of warnings of famine and mounting international outrage.

The Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, Cogat, said 107 lorries carrying aid were allowed into Gaza on Sunday. The UN says much more aid – between 500 to 600 lorries a day – is needed.

Meanwhile, 20 countries and organisations met in Madrid on Sunday to discuss ending the war in Gaza. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an arms embargo on Israel if it did not stop its attacks.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Fifty-seven are still being held, about 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

At least 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

A Japanese plane headed from Tokyo to Texas had to make an emergency landing after a passenger tried to open one of its doors during the flight.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) Flight 114 was diverted to Seattle hours after taking off on Saturday “due to an unruly passenger”, the airline said.

Port of Seattle police told media they had been notified of a man who “attempted to open exit doors during the flight”.

The man, who was not identified, was “having a medical crisis” and had to be restrained by other passengers and flight crew, police said.

He was later taken to a hospital. It is unclear if he will face any charges.

“The safety of our passengers and crew are our top priority and we applaud the efforts of local law enforcement for their support,” ANA said in a statement.

While the plane was waiting on the tarmac of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a second person was removed from the flight for “unruly behaviour”, authorities said.

Flight data shows that the plane made it to its destination, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, on Saturday around 12:40 local time (17:40 GMT) – four hours after its scheduled arrival time.

This is the latest in a string of similar incidents.

In April, a Jetstar flight from Bali, Indonesia was forced to turn around during its journey to Melbourne, Australia, after a passenger similarly tried to open a plane door in the air.

Last November, a man who tried to open the plane door during an American Airlines flight was restrained and tied up by fellow passengers with duct tape.

And in November 2023, nine passengers of an Asiana Airlines flight were sent to hospital with breathing difficulties after a man successfully opened the aircraft’s emergency exit door prior to it landing at a South Korean airport.

North Korea has arrested a fourth official over the failed launch of a new warship that has enraged the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Ri Hyong-son, deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department, was “largely responsible for the serious accident” last week, state-run news agency KCNA said on Monday.

The 5,000-ton destroyer had tipped over and damaged its hull, in what Kim described as a “criminal act” that “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride”.

The vessel is being repaired under the guidance of an expert group, KCNA said.

Mr Ri, who is part of the party’s Central Military Commission, is the highest level official arrested over the incident so far.

The commission commands the Korean People’s Army and is responsible for developing and implementing North Korea’s military policies.

Over the weekend, Pyongyang also detained three officials at the northern Chongjin shipyard, where the destroyer was built and where its launch failed.

The officials were the chief engineer, its construction head and an administrative manager.

Kim earlier said Wednesday’s incident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism”.

It is not clear what punishment they might face, but the authoritarian state has been known to sentence officials it finds guilty of wrongdoing to forced labour and even death.

It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents, though it has done this a handful of times in the past after failed satellite launches.

Some analysts believe Kim’s swift and severe response was meant as a signal that Pyongyang will continue to advance its military capabilities.

While such criticism is “not surprising” for a dictatorship, it is unusual that state media is openly reporting it, says Chun In-bum, a former commander of South Korea’s special forces.

“I fear this might be a sign of confidence and a show of resilience,” he says.

“With this new line of ships, North Korea seems to intend on challenging the sovereignty of the South in earnest.”

Michael Madden, a North Korea expert from the Stimson Center in Washington, sees Kim’s response as a sign of the “high priority” his regime is putting into developing warships.

The mishap may have resulted from officials “trying to do too much at once”, he notes, saying that “there seems to have been an unusual amount of internal pressure on the personnel and production units to get this all done”.

Last week’s shipyard accident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a similar warship in another part of the country.

Kim had called that warship a “breakthrough” in modernising North Korea’s navy and said it would be deployed early next year.

Authorities in India’s southern Kerala state have issued an alert after a ship carrying oil and hazardous cargo leaked and sank off the state’s coast in the Arabian Sea.

The spill occurred in a Liberian-flagged vessel that capsized near Kochi city on Sunday. The coastal stretch is rich in biodiversity and is also an important tourist destination.

All 24 crew members on board the ship have been rescued but some of the ship’s 640 containers have reportedly been drifting towards the shore, prompting evacuations in the area.

Authorities fear that oil, fuel and other harmful substances that have leaked from the ship and its cargo could endanger the health of residents and marine life.

“As the oil slick can reach anywhere along the Kerala coast, an alert has been sounded across the coastal belt,” a statement from the chief minister’s office said.

Authorities have advised residents living near the sea to not touch any containers or the oil that might wash up to the shore, while fishermen have been asked to avoid venturing too close to the sunken ship.

On Monday, officials said they had intensified pollution control measures to contain the spill.

The Indian Coast Guard has deployed a ship carrying pollution control equipment to the site.

It has also sent one of its aircraft which has an oil spill detection system to survey the area.

The vessel – MSC ELSA 3 – which was travelling from Vizhinjam port to Kochi, began to tilt dangerously when it was about 38 nautical miles from the coast of Kochi.

It capsized into the Arabian Sea in the early hours of Sunday due to flooding in one of its compartments.

The Indian Coast Guard said that the ship was carrying 13 containers of hazardous cargo and 12 with calcium carbide – a chemical that reacts with seawater to release a flammable gas.

“Additionally, [the] ship had 84.44 metric tonnes of diesel and 367.1 metric tonnes of furnace oil in its tanks,” it said.

The crew members were rescued by Indian navy personnel after an hours-long operation.

A college in Beijing has found itself at the centre of public fury after it allegedly asked a student to prove she was on her period to qualify for sick leave.

A viral video, filmed inside what appears to be a clinic and posted to social media this month, shows a young woman asking an older woman: “Does every menstruating girl have to take off their trousers and show you before they can get a sick note?”

“Basically yes,” the older woman replies. “This is a school rule.”

Local media identified the video’s location as a clinic at the Gengdan Institute university college, which later said in a statement that its staff had “followed protocol”. But social media users have decried the encounter as a serious invasion of privacy.

Neither the student nor Gengdan Institute immediately responded to BBC News’ requests for comment.

Both the student’s video and the school’s statement appear to have been taken down, though screenshots and snippets have been recirculated online, including by state media.

On Douyin, China’s TikTok, a user claiming to be the student said her original account was suspended for 30 days for “pornographic content” after she posted the video.

In its statement dated 16 May, Gengdan Institute reportedly said the videos of the incident circulating online had been “distorted” – and that the institution had the right to pursue legal action against those who “maliciously spread untrue videos”.

The statement also said that the staff had followed the proper procedure during the encounter, such as “initiating clinical work after getting the student’s permission”, and did not use tools or conduct a physical examination.

In the video, the staff member did not reply when the student asked for written proof of the school regulation to check students’ menstrual status. She subsequently asked the student to go to a hospital instead.

On social media, the incident has triggered an outpouring of anger and sarcasm towards the school’s rules.

“My head hurts, should I open my skull and call it a day?” wrote one social media user.

“Let’s just take the sanitary pad out and paste it on the sick note,” another Weibo said.

A staff member at Gengdan Institute told local outlet Dute News that the school may have created the rule about proving menstruation in order to deter students from faking periods to get sick notes.

But that argument has rung hollow among social media users.

“If they’re worried about students using their periods as an excuse several times a month, why not simply make a record of it? It’s not that complicated,” one person wrote on Weibo.

State media has also waded into the debate.

“Menstruation is already an intimate topic for women. Rules like this will make students feel very uncomfortable, and even negatively impact students’ psychological wellbeing,” reads an opinion piece from China National Radio.

Gengdan Institute now joins a list of tertiary institutions across the country that have come under fire for what many see as overbearing and ham-fisted attempts at controlling their students.

Last year, some universities were criticised for banning the use of bed curtains in their dormitories. The curtains are often used by students for privacy in shared rooms, but school authorities said they were a fire and safety hazard.

Additionally, during the popular May Day holiday season last year, some universities issued strict guidelines for students who had planned to travel. These included avoiding solo trips, road trips, or cycling trips for safety – which many saw as the institutions overstepping their authority in students’ private lives.

On social media site Xiaohongshu, a user claiming to be a student at Gengdan Institute said “the school’s clinic deserves all the criticism it’s getting”.

“I heard from some older students that this kind of thing has been going on for a while. Some girls spoke up before, but nothing was done,” the user wrote.

“I’m glad it made the trending topics this time. People didn’t stay silent.”

The head of an organisation set up to distribute aid in Gaza as part of a controversial Israel-backed plan has resigned, saying it could not work in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles”.

Jake Wood quit the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) late on Sunday, saying it would not be able to fulfil the principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

The plan, also backed by the US, envisions private contractors delivering aid to Palestinians via Israel-designated distribution sites. It was heavily criticised by the United Nations, which says it will not participate.

Israel insists the plan is needed to stop Hamas stealing aid, which the armed group denies doing.

Under the GHF plan, Palestinians would be expected to collect boxes weighing up to 20kg (44lbs) containing food and basic hygiene items from four distribution points in southern Gaza.

It is unclear how the weak or injured would be able to collect the aid.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said it would force further displacement, restrict aid to only one part of Gaza and make “starvation a bargaining chip.”

In his resignation statement, Wood, a former US marine, said: “Two months ago, I was approached about leading GHF’s efforts because of my experience in humanitarian operations.

“Like many others around the world, I was horrified and heartbroken at the hunger crisis in Gaza and, as a humanitarian leader, I was compelled to do whatever I could to help alleviate the suffering.”

He said he was “proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”

But, he said, it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”

In response, the GHF said it would “not be deterred” by Wood’s resignation and would begin delivering aid on Monday, with an aim to reach one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

The group said that critics “who benefit from the status quo have been more focused on tearing this apart than on getting aid in, afraid that new, creative solutions to intractable problems might actually succeed.”

It added: “Our trucks are loaded and ready to go.”

An Israeli official said “the goal of this new approach is to eliminate the Gazan population’s dependence on Hamas”.

Israeli media reported that the first of four distribution centres would be opened by GHF on Monday morning.

Last week, Israel eased an 11-week blockade on all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies entering Gaza, with the first aid trucks reaching civilians in recent days – but the UN has said it’s a “drop in the ocean of what’s needed”.

It says 57 children died from malnutrition during Israel’s blockade – while the World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that Gaza’s entire population was “on the brink of starvation”.

Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC’s Today Programme that the GHF is “militarised, privatised, politicised” and “not in conformity with neutrality”.

“The people behind it are military – they are ex-CIA and ex-military people… Let’s go back to the system that worked” he said.

The GHF has also come under intense scrutiny around its funding, origins and backing.

Over the weekend, an investigation by The New York Times suggested the group may have been conceived in Israel by a group of Israeli officials and military officers and their partners in the Israeli business sector.

Responding to the plan earlier this month, UN children’s fund spokesperson Jonathan Crick said: “How is a mother of four children, who has lost her husband, going to carry 20kg back to her makeshift tent, sometimes several kilometres away?”

“The most vulnerable people, including the elderly, people with disabilities, the sick and wounded, and orphans, will face huge challenges to access aid.”

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to 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 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Farooq Ahmed still bristles with anger when he talks about his brother’s death.

Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Poonch city in Indian-administered Kashmir, died in cross-border shelling on 7 May, the morning after India launched a series of air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation to a militant attack in the town of Pahalgam that killed 26 people. Pakistan has denied having any role in the attack.

Mr Ahmed says that Iqbal died where he had worked for more than two decades – Zia-ul-Uloom, a madrassa, or a religious centre focused on Islamic teachings, in Poonch.

But his death, it turned out, was just the beginning of the family’s troubles.

As the news spread, several media channels falsely accused Iqbal of being a terrorist, following which the police put out a statement refuting the claim.

“My brother was a teacher but they saw his beard and skullcap and branded him a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

“It was like having salt rubbed into our wounds. We had lost Iqbal and then the media defamed him. The dead can’t defend themselves.”

Indian officials say that a total of 16 people, including Iqbal, were killed in the cross-border shelling during the four-day military conflict that broke out between India and Pakistan following the airstrikes.

Pakistan has claimed 40 civilian deaths, though, it remains unclear how many of these were directly caused by the shelling.

The two nuclear-armed countries have shared a tense relationship for decades, as both administer the Himalayan region of Kashmir in part, but claim it in full.

They have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947 and came back from the brink of another one earlier this month.

But as the military conflict escalated, another battle played out on social media – a disinformation war of claims and counterclaims that circulated online and on TV.

Just like rumours about Iqbal’s identity, other misleading and inaccurate information also found its way into some mainstream news channels and websites.

This included claims such as India having destroyed Pakistan’s Karachi port, which was later debunked by the Indian government.

Some of the other fabrications were harder to spot, like an AI-generated video of a Pakistan army general claiming that his country had lost two aircraft in combat.

“The scale of misinformation and fact-free assertions being broadcast by the media was shocking,” says Manisha Pande, managing editor at Newslaundry, an independent news platform.

She notes that while a degree of sensationalism is expected as channels compete for viewership, “the jingoistic and irresponsible coverage” of the conflict was unprecedented in its intensity — and unlike anything she had witnessed before.

No one knows this better than Mr Ahmed.

“I don’t know where news channels got the information about my brother from,” Mr Ahmed says.

“Who did they speak to? What kind of evidence did they have that my brother was a terrorist?” he asks.

Weeks later, the family is still reeling from the tragedy.

Mr Ahmed says that on 7 May, his brother left home for the madrassa in the morning as usual, but it was his body that returned home. By noon, they had buried him in a nearby cemetery.

For some time, the family had no idea about the misinformation that was being shared by some news outlets. They were busy performing Iqbal’s last rites.

It was only hours later that a relative received a WhatsApp forward – a video clip of a prominent news channel claiming that the Indian army had killed a terrorist, with Iqbal’s photo flashing on the screen.

“We were shocked. Soon, we began getting more calls from people asking us what was going on and why was the media calling Iqbal a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

The claim was shared by some prominent channels, including Zee News, ABP and News18. The BBC has reached out to the channels for comment.

One channel claimed that Iqbal was killed in an “Indian strike on a terrorist camp” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and that he was a terrorist with Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“Our family members have been staying in Poonch for generations. How can they say my brother was living in Pakistan? They [the media] should be ashamed,” Mr Ahmed says.

The accusation against Iqbal was circulated so widely and swiftly that on 8 May, the Poonch police put out a statement, clarifying that Iqbal had died in cross-border shelling in the madrasa.

“Poonch Police strongly refutes such false narratives. The deceased, Maulana Mohd Iqbal, was a respected religious figure in the local community and had no affiliation with any terror outfit,” the statement said, adding that legal action would be taken against any media outlet or individual who circulated the fake news.

But for Mr Ahmed, the statement was too little too late.

“By then, the false claim would’ve already reached millions of people in India,” he says.

He adds that except for one channel, News18, no one else had publicly apologised to him or their viewers for the mistake.

Mr Ahmed says he wants to take legal action against the channels, but the process would have to wait as the family is struggling to make ends meet.

Iqbal is survived by his two wives and eight children. He was the only earning member in his family.

Mr Ahmed says that the compensation given by the government, which amounts to a few million rupees, will last only for a year or two and they must start planning for the future now.

“The whole family depended on my brother. He was a quiet and gentle man who loved teaching children,” Mr Ahmed says.

“But who’s going to tell this to the world? For many people, my brother is still a terrorist whose killing is justified. How will they understand our pain?”

A fight involvingmachetes at a Melbourne shopping centre has prompted an Australian state to fast-track the country’s first-ever ban on the weapon’s sale.

The ban – to start in Victoria this Wednesday, instead of September – comes after two gangs attacked each other at Northland shopping centre in Preston on Sunday afternoon. A man, 20, remains in hospital in a serious condition.

Victoria’s premier said the ban will “choke the supply”, adding “the community shouldn’t have to deal with these weapons in their shopping centres – neither should our police”.

Two boys, aged 16 and 15, were on Sunday charged with affray, intentionally causing injury, and possession and use of a controlled weapon.

On Monday, police said two men, aged 20 and 18, had also been arrested and were being interviewed. All four people were known to police previously.

“This was a planned fight between two rival youth gangs with no innocent bystanders hurt,” said deputy commissioner David Clayton.

“Fortunately, these events are not very commonplace in Victoria,” he said, adding that youth knife crime is “rare” but “frightening”.

Clayton said one in 10 knife crimes in the state are committed by young people, and often happen in public places.

Emergency services were called to the shopping centre in Preston – about 11km (seven miles) north of Melbourne – just after 14:30 local time (05:30 BST) on Sunday after reports of up to 10 people fighting.

Police said the investigation “remains ongoing” and more arrests are expected. Three of the four machetes used during the attack have been seized, police said.

Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan described the attack as “appalling”.

“We must never let the places where we gather – where families come together, to meet, to shop, to enjoy the peace of their weekend – become the places we fear,” Allan said at a press conference.

“It took the United Kingdom 18 months to bring about a ban on machetes and we are moving to do it within six months,” she added.

In March, Victoria announced legislative changes to its Control of Weapons Act, making it illegal to sell or possess machetes, with the new law to start in September.

The ban covers machetes, which are broadly defined as “knives with a cutting blade longer than 20cm”. It does not include knives primarily used in kitchens.

A three-month amnesty from September means anyone with a machete can place them in specially designated boxes at police stations.

Police also thanked a man who held down one of the alleged offenders until police arrived, saying he “performed an outstanding job”, but added they don’t encourage the public to become involved in such incidents.

In England and Wales, a ban on “zombie-style” knives and machetes was introduced last September, making it illegal to own, make, transport or sell a wide range of “statement” knives favoured by criminal gangs.

Author Sir Salman Rushdie has said he is “pleased” the man who tried to kill him in a knife attack in 2022 has received the maximum possible prison sentence.

Hadi Matar, 27, was jailed for 25 years earlier this month for attempted murder after repeatedly stabbing Sir Salman on a New York lecture stage.

“I was pleased that he got the maximum available, and I hope he uses it to reflect upon his deeds,” Sir Salman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The attack left the award-winning writer blind in one eye, with damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

Last year, Sir Salman published a book titled Knife reflcting on the attack, which he has described as “my way of fighting back”.

It includes an imagined conversation with Matar. “I thought if I was to really meet him, to ask him questions, I wouldn’t get very much out of him,” Sir Salman told Radio 4.

“I doubt that he would open his heart to me. And so I thought, well, I could open it by myself. I’d probably do it better than a real conversation would.”

The fictional conversation was brought to life by BBC film-maker Alan Yentob in an artificial intelligence animation created for a documentary last year.

The results were “very startling”, Sir Salman said on Monday. “I have to say it certainly made a point.”

The author was speaking on Radio 4 to pay tribute to Yentob, the BBC’s former creative director, who died on Saturday.

“Apart from everything that everybody’s been saying about him – that he was an unbelievable champion of the arts and so on – he also had a real gift for friendship,” he said. “He was a very strong ally in bad times.”

Sir Salman added: “He was a great programme maker, and I hope that’s how he will be primarily remembered.”

Yentob leaves a “colossal” legacy, he said. “He’s one of the giants of British media in the last generation, and I think he will be remembered as a maker of great programmes, as an enabler of great programmes.”

The pair’s personal and professional relationship extended to Yentob famously enlisting Sir Salman to take part in a spoof arm wrestle for a scene in BBC mockumentary W1A.

“People keep asking me who won,” Sir Salman said. “And of course nobody won because it was complete fraud.”

In November, the author will publish a short story collection, The Eleventh Hour, his first work of fiction to be written since the stabbing.

The attack came 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which had long made him the target of death threats for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will arrive in Canada later, for a two-day visit seen as bringing a message of support for the country in the face of threats and taunts from US President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who recently won a general election on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment, invited the royal couple and will hold a meeting with them during their stay in Ottawa.

The King will read the “Speech from the Throne” to Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday, the first time a monarch has delivered this for almost 50 years.

It is expected to include a defence of Canada’s sovereignty and to reject claims it should be taken over by the US.

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There will be a ceremonial welcome at the airport in Ottawa on Monday and meetings with community groups, which are expected to include representatives of Canada’s First Nation communities.

The King will meet Canada’s first indigenous Governor General Mary Simon.

This is the King and Queen’s first visit to Canada since the start of their reign, after a planned trip last year was cancelled because of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis.

By reading the Speech from the Throne the King is following in the footsteps of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who carried out the duty twice during her long reign in 1957 and 1977.

But the timing of this week’s visit has been seen as a sign of solidarity with Canada, after calls from Trump for the country to become the 51st US state.

The US threat has inflamed public opinion with some businesses in Ottawa, as elsewhere in Canada, putting on displays of national identity such as “Proudly Canadian” posters.

Carney, when he visited Trump at the White House earlier this month, stressed that Canada was “not for sale” and that message is likely to be conveyed in the King’s speech which is written on the advice of Canada’s government.

Former Canadian high commissioner to the UK Jeremy Kinsman said this was a message the King will be pleased to deliver.

“It’s going to be very affirmative of Canadian sovereignty. And I can say personally that it’s something that King Charles will celebrate saying. I have no doubt,” said Mr Kinsman, who worked as a diplomat with the King when he was Prince of Wales.

The speech, to be delivered in French and English, will set out the Canadian government’s policy agenda in a way that is similar to the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament in Westminster.

But it is also expected to have lines asserting the independence of Canada – a Commonwealth country and Nato member.

Speaking ahead of the King’s visit and State Opening, Carney said: “This is an historic honour which matches the weight of our times.”

In terms of the ceremony, the King is expected to wear a suit, in an event that will be more low key than the crown and elaborate robes on display in the UK’s opening of Parliament.

As well as the speech in Parliament, this brief trip will include community events in Ottawa and a chance to meet local leaders.

This royal visit will be something of a diplomatic balancing act. The King is head of state of both Canada and the UK – and in his UK role, the King has been helping to maintain good relations with the US, sending a warm personal letter to President Trump inviting him for a second state visit.

In Canada, he will be expected to reflect a very different message, with Canada’s government rejecting Trump’s ambition to take over the country.

Ahead of the visit, a royal source said: “The King has long experience and great skill in walking that diplomatic tightrope.

“He’s held in high regard around the globe and across the political spectrum, with good relations with world leaders who understand his unique position.”

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There is no excitement as the camera passes. The children barely glance. What can surprise a child who lives among the dead, the dying, the waiting to die? Hunger has worn them down.

They wait in queues for scant rations or for none at all. They have grown used to my colleague and his camera, filming for the BBC. He witnesses their hunger, their dying, and to the gentle wrapping of their bodies – or fragments of their bodies – in white shrouds upon which their names, if known, are written.

For 19 months of war, and now under a renewed Israeli offensive, this local cameraman – who I do not name, for his safety - has listened to the anguished cries of the survivors in hospital courtyards.

His physical distance is respectful, but they are on his mind, day and night. He is one of them, trapped in the same claustrophobic hell.

This morning he is setting out to find Siwar Ashour, a five-month-old girl whose emaciated frame and exhausted cry at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis affected him so much, when he was filming there earlier this month, that he wrote to tell me something had broken inside him.

She weighed just over 2kg (4lb 6oz). A baby girl of five months should be about 6kg or over.

Siwar has since been discharged and is now at home,  my colleague has heard. That is what brings him to the street of pulverised houses and makeshift shelters of canvas and corrugated iron.

He conducts his search in difficult circumstances. A few days ago I messaged to ask how he was doing. “I am not okay,” he replied. “Just a short while ago, the Israeli army announced the evacuation of most areas of Khan Younis… We don’t know what to do – there is no safe place to go.

“Al-Mawasi is extremely overcrowded with displaced people. We are lost and have no idea what the right decision is at this moment.”

He finds a one-bedroom shack, the entrance formed of a floral patterned, grey and black curtain. Inside there are three mattresses, part of a chest of drawers, and a mirror which reflects sunlight across the floor in front of Siwar, her mother Najwa and her grandmother, Reem.

Siwar is quiet, held secure by the protective presence of the two women. The baby cannot absorb regular milk formula because of a severe allergic reaction. Under the conditions of war and an Israeli blockade on aid arrivals, there is a severe shortage of the formula she needs.

Najwa, 23, explains that her condition stabilised when she was in Nasser hospital, so doctors discharged her with a can of baby formula several days ago.

Now at home, she says the baby’s weight has started to slip again. “The doctors told me that Siwar improved and is better than before, but I think that she is still skinny and hasn’t improved much. They found her only one can of milk, and it [has] started running out.”

Flies dance in front of Siwar’s face. “The situation is very dire,” says Najwa, “the insects come at her, I have to cover her with a scarf so nothing touches her”.

Siwar has lived with the sound of war since last November when she was born. The artillery, the rockets, falling bombs – distant and near. The gunfire, the blades of Israeli drones whirring overhead. Najwa explains: “She understands these things. The sound of the tanks, warplanes, and rockets are so loud and they are close to us. When Siwar hears these sounds, she gets startled and cries. If she is sleeping, she wakes up startled and crying.”

Doctors in Gaza say many young mothers report being unable to breastfeed their babies due to lack of nutrition. The pressing problem is food and clean water.

Najwa was malnourished herself when Siwar was born. She and her mother Reem still find it difficult to get anything to eat themselves. It is the struggle of every waking hour. “In our case, we can’t provide milk or diapers because of the prices and the border closure.”

On 22 May, Israeli military body Cogat said there was no food shortage in Gaza. It said “significant quantities of baby food and flour for bakeries” had been brought into the enclave in recent days.

The agency has repeatedly insisted that Hamas steals aid, while the Israeli government says the war will continue until Hamas is destroyed and the Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 20 hostages seized by Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attacks are believed to be alive and up to 30 others dead.

Aid agencies, the United Nations and many foreign governments, including Britain, reject Cogat’s comment that there is no food shortage. US President Donald Trump has also spoken of people “starving” in Gaza.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza as “a teaspoon”. He said Palestinians were “enduring what may be the cruellest phase of this cruel conflict” with restricted supplies of fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies.

According to the UN, 80% of Gaza is now either designated as an Israeli militarised zone or a place where people have been ordered to leave.

The denials, the expressions of concern, the condemnations and the moments which seemed like turning points have come and gone throughout this war. The sole constant is the suffering of Gaza’s 2.1 million people, like Najwa and her daughter Siwar.

“One does not think about the future or the past,” Najwa says.

There is only the present moment and how to survive it.

Founded in 1600 as a trading enterprise, the English East India Company gradually transformed into a colonial power.

By the late 18th Century, as it tightened its grip on India, Company officials began commissioning Indian artists – many formerly employed by the Mughals – to create striking visual records of the land they were now ruling.

A Treasury of Life: Indian Company Paintings, c. 1790 to 1835, an ongoing show in the Indian capital put together by DAG, an art gallery in Delhi, features over 200 works that once lay on the margins of mainstream art history. It is India’s largest exhibition of Company paintings, highlighting their rich diversity and the skill of Indian artists.

Painted by largely unnamed artists, these paintings covered a wide range of subjects, but mainly fall into three categories: natural history, like botanical studies; architecture, including monuments and scenic views of towns and landscapes; and Indian manners and customs.

“The focus on these three subject areas reflects European engagements with their Indian environment in an attempt to come to terms with all that was unfamiliar to Western eyes,” says Giles Tillotson of DAG, who curated the show.

“Europeans living in India were delighted to encounter flora and fauna that were new to them, and ancient buildings in exotic styles. They met – or at least observed – multitudes of people whose dress and habits were strange but – as they began to discern – were linked to stream of religious belief and social practice.”

Beyond natural history, India’s architectural heritage captivated European visitors.

Before photography, paintings were the best way to document travels, and iconic Mughal monuments became prime subjects. Patrons soon turned to skilled local artists.

Beyond the Taj Mahal, popular subjects included Agra Fort, Jama Masjid, Buland Darwaza, Sheikh Salim Chishti’s tomb at Fatehpur Sikri (above), and Delhi’s Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb.

The once-obscure and long-anonymous Indian artist Sita Ram, who painted the tomb, was one of them.

From June 1814 to early October 1815, Sita Ram travelled extensively with Francis Rawdon, also known as the Marquess of Hastings, who had been appointed as the governor general in India in 1813 and held the position for a decade. (He is not to be confused with Warren Hastings, who served as India’s first governor general much earlier.)

The largest group in this collection is a set of botanical watercolours, likely from Murshidabad or Maidapur (in present-day West Bengal).

While Murshidabad was the Nawab of Bengal’s capital, the East India Company operated there. In the late 18th century, nearby Maidapur briefly served as a British base before Calcutta’s (now Kolkata) rise eclipsed it.

Originally part of the Louisa Parlby Album – named after the British woman who compiled it while her husband, Colonel James Parlby, served in Bengal – the works likely date to the late 18th Century, before Louisa’s return to Britain in 1801.

“The plants represented in the paintings are likely quite illustrative of what could be found growing in both the well-appointed gardens as well as the more marginal spaces of common greens, waysides and fields in the Murshidabad area during the late eighteenth century,” writes Nicolas Roth of Harvard University.

“These are familiar plants, domestic and domesticated, which helped constitute local life worlds and systems of meaning, even as European patrons may have seen them mainly as exotica to be collected.”

Another painting from the collection is of a temple procession showing a Shiva statue on an ornate platform carried by men, flanked by Brahmins and trumpeters.

At the front, dancers with sticks perform under a temporary gateway, while holy water is poured on them from above.

Labeled Ouricaty Tirounal, it depicts a ritual from Thirunallar temple in Karaikal in southern India, capturing a rare moment from a 200-year-old tradition.

By the late 18th Century, Company paintings had become true collaborations between European patrons and Indian artists.

Art historian Mildred Archer called them a “fascinating record of Indian social life,” blending the fine detail of Mughal miniatures with European realism and perspective.

Regional styles added richness – Tanjore artists, for example, depicted people of various castes, shown with tools of their trade. These albums captured a range of professions – nautch girls, judges, sepoys, toddy tappers, and snake charmers.

“They catered to British curiosity while satisfying European audience’s fascination with the ‘exoticism’ of Indian life,” says Kanupriya Sharma of DAG.

Most studies of Company painting focus on British patronage, but in south India, the French were commissioning Indian artists as early as 1727.

A striking example is a set of 48 paintings from Pondicherry – uniform in size and style – showing the kind of work French collectors sought by 1800.

One painting (above) shows 10 men in hats and loincloths rowing through surf. A French caption calls them nageurs (swimmers) and the boat a chilingue.

Among the standout images are two vivid scenes by an artist known as B, depicting boatmen navigating the rough Coromandel coast in stitched-plank rowboats.

With no safe harbours near Madras or Pondicherry, these skilled oarsmen were vital to European trade, ferrying goods and people through dangerous surf between anchored ships and the shore.

Company paintings often featured natural history studies, portraying birds, animals, and plants – especially from private menageries.

As seen in the DAG show, these subjects are typically shown life-size against plain white backgrounds, with minimal surroundings – just the occasional patch of grass. The focus remains firmly on the species itself.

Ashish Anand, CEO of DAG, says the the latest show proposes Company paintings as the “starting point of Indian modernism”.

Anand says this “was the moment when Indian artists who had trained in courtly ateliers first moved outside the court (and the temple) to work for new patrons”.

“The agendas of those patrons were not tied up with courtly or religious concerns; they were founded on scientific enquiry and observation,” he says.

“Never mind that the patrons were foreigners. What should strike us now is how Indian artists responded to their demands, creating entirely new templates of Indian art.”

The pomp and pageantry will be on full display when King Charles arrives in Canada for the first time since his coronation.

He is due to deliver the Speech from the Throne to open the 45th session of Canada’s parliament in Ottawa on Tuesday.

The King is the head of state of Canada – and of 13 other Commonwealth realms such as Australia, New Zealand and several Caribbean states – as well as the UK.

The King, who will be travelling with Queen Camilla, previously journeyed to Canada several times as the Prince of Wales. This is his 20th visit.

This address is traditionally given by the governor general, who is the monarch’s top representative in Canada. They read it on behalf of the prime minister, to set out the government’s agenda when a new parliamentary session is about to begin.

Canada’s House of Commons and Senate cannot conduct any public business before the Speech from the Throne is made.

It is so-called because it is typically read from the seat in the Senate chamber that is reserved for the monarch or their representative in Canada.

The current governor general is Mary Simon. But this time, newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney has invited the King himself to inaugurate the new parliament. He is scheduled to do so on Tuesday.

While it is not unprecedented for the throne speech to be read by the monarch, the last time this happened was in October 1977, when Elizabeth II read the speech for the second time. The first was in 1957.

This will be the first time a king opens a new session of parliament. King Charles’s grandfather George VI granted royal assent to several bills when he visited Canada in 1939, but he never delivered a throne speech.

Earlier in May, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he had invited the King to formally open Canada’s 45th session of parliament.

His request was viewed as a strategic one, as it came amid strained ties between Canada and its powerful neighbour the United States.

US President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on Canada, and has repeatedly referred to it as the “51st state”. He also disparagingly referred to Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau”.

Speaking in Ottawa, Carney said the King’s visit “clearly underscores the sovereignty of our country”. He told reporters: “This is a historic honour that matches the weight of our times.”

Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon said the visit “highlights the enduring relationship between Canada and the Crown”.

“Now more than ever, we need to come together to ensure a future that builds on our shared global values of democracy, equality and peace,” she said.

• King travels to support Canada as it fends off Trump
• What’s changed in how Canada views the monarchy?

King Charles and Queen Camilla will arrive at Ottawa’s Macdonald-Cartier International Airport at 13:15 EST (17:15 GMT) on Monday, where they will be greeted by Governor General Mary Simon, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife, Diana Fox Carney.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed, and Métis National Council President Victoria Pruden are also expected to be at the airport.

The trip will begin at Lansdowne Park, where the royal couple will meet individuals and organisations showcasing Canadian identity and diversity.

They will then make their way to Rideau Hall – the residence of Canada’s governor general and the official residence of the monarch when in Canada. There, the King will take part in a tree-planting ceremony.

He will them have separate meetings with Simon and Carney.

On Tuesday morning, the King and Queen will head to Canada’s Senate accompanied by a royal escort, where they will receive full military honours – including a 100-person guard of honour from the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, an inspection of the guard and the band, and a 21-gun salute.

At 11:00, the King will deliver his Speech from the Throne to open the 45th session of parliament.

The royal couple will then pay their respects to Canada’s fallen soldiers at the National War Memorial, before leaving the country later that day.

In his role as head of state, the monarch is expected to avoid straying into politics. He instead appears to have sent coded signals and made symbolic gestures of support for Canada amid Trump’s threats.

The King praised Canada as a “proud, resilient and compassionate country” in February, on the 60th anniversary of the first raising of the country’s maple leaf flag – an event that might have otherwise passed without royal intervention.

When he visited aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales on 4 March, he appeared wearing a set of Canadian medals.

The same month, when he sat for the Commonwealth Service – an annual celebration of Commonwealth countries in London – he did so on a Canadian chair.

And at a tree-planting ceremony at Buckingham Palace earlier this year, the tree he chose was a maple.

• King uses symbols to show support for Canada

Farooq Ahmed still bristles with anger when he talks about his brother’s death.

Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Poonch city in Indian-administered Kashmir, died in cross-border shelling on 7 May, the morning after India launched a series of air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation to a militant attack in the town of Pahalgam that killed 26 people. Pakistan has denied having any role in the attack.

Mr Ahmed says that Iqbal died where he had worked for more than two decades – Zia-ul-Uloom, a madrassa, or a religious centre focused on Islamic teachings, in Poonch.

But his death, it turned out, was just the beginning of the family’s troubles.

As the news spread, several media channels falsely accused Iqbal of being a terrorist, following which the police put out a statement refuting the claim.

“My brother was a teacher but they saw his beard and skullcap and branded him a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

“It was like having salt rubbed into our wounds. We had lost Iqbal and then the media defamed him. The dead can’t defend themselves.”

Indian officials say that a total of 16 people, including Iqbal, were killed in the cross-border shelling during the four-day military conflict that broke out between India and Pakistan following the airstrikes.

Pakistan has claimed 40 civilian deaths, though, it remains unclear how many of these were directly caused by the shelling.

The two nuclear-armed countries have shared a tense relationship for decades, as both administer the Himalayan region of Kashmir in part, but claim it in full.

They have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947 and came back from the brink of another one earlier this month.

But as the military conflict escalated, another battle played out on social media – a disinformation war of claims and counterclaims that circulated online and on TV.

Just like rumours about Iqbal’s identity, other misleading and inaccurate information also found its way into some mainstream news channels and websites.

This included claims such as India having destroyed Pakistan’s Karachi port, which was later debunked by the Indian government.

Some of the other fabrications were harder to spot, like an AI-generated video of a Pakistan army general claiming that his country had lost two aircraft in combat.

“The scale of misinformation and fact-free assertions being broadcast by the media was shocking,” says Manisha Pande, managing editor at Newslaundry, an independent news platform.

She notes that while a degree of sensationalism is expected as channels compete for viewership, “the jingoistic and irresponsible coverage” of the conflict was unprecedented in its intensity — and unlike anything she had witnessed before.

No one knows this better than Mr Ahmed.

“I don’t know where news channels got the information about my brother from,” Mr Ahmed says.

“Who did they speak to? What kind of evidence did they have that my brother was a terrorist?” he asks.

Weeks later, the family is still reeling from the tragedy.

Mr Ahmed says that on 7 May, his brother left home for the madrassa in the morning as usual, but it was his body that returned home. By noon, they had buried him in a nearby cemetery.

For some time, the family had no idea about the misinformation that was being shared by some news outlets. They were busy performing Iqbal’s last rites.

It was only hours later that a relative received a WhatsApp forward – a video clip of a prominent news channel claiming that the Indian army had killed a terrorist, with Iqbal’s photo flashing on the screen.

“We were shocked. Soon, we began getting more calls from people asking us what was going on and why was the media calling Iqbal a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

The claim was shared by some prominent channels, including Zee News, ABP and News18. The BBC has reached out to the channels for comment.

One channel claimed that Iqbal was killed in an “Indian strike on a terrorist camp” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and that he was a terrorist with Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“Our family members have been staying in Poonch for generations. How can they say my brother was living in Pakistan? They [the media] should be ashamed,” Mr Ahmed says.

The accusation against Iqbal was circulated so widely and swiftly that on 8 May, the Poonch police put out a statement, clarifying that Iqbal had died in cross-border shelling in the madrasa.

“Poonch Police strongly refutes such false narratives. The deceased, Maulana Mohd Iqbal, was a respected religious figure in the local community and had no affiliation with any terror outfit,” the statement said, adding that legal action would be taken against any media outlet or individual who circulated the fake news.

But for Mr Ahmed, the statement was too little too late.

“By then, the false claim would’ve already reached millions of people in India,” he says.

He adds that except for one channel, News18, no one else had publicly apologised to him or their viewers for the mistake.

Mr Ahmed says he wants to take legal action against the channels, but the process would have to wait as the family is struggling to make ends meet.

Iqbal is survived by his two wives and eight children. He was the only earning member in his family.

Mr Ahmed says that the compensation given by the government, which amounts to a few million rupees, will last only for a year or two and they must start planning for the future now.

“The whole family depended on my brother. He was a quiet and gentle man who loved teaching children,” Mr Ahmed says.

“But who’s going to tell this to the world? For many people, my brother is still a terrorist whose killing is justified. How will they understand our pain?”

It was shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 that Sergei and Tatyana Voronkov decided they would leave Russia.

The couple, who had long been critical of Vladimir Putin, had condemned the actions of Russia to friends and acquaintances. In response, they were told that if they didn’t like it they could leave.

So the couple, both Russian citizens, decided to relocate to Ukraine, where Tatyana was born.

In 2019 they eventually settled in Novolyubymivka, a village of about 300 people in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region.

The couple got four dogs and started raising livestock, while Sergei, 55, also found work as a land surveyor – his specialism during his time in the Soviet army.

They hoped for a quiet life. But when Moscow launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the peace of their new lives was shattered by the first Russian rockets flying over their home.

“I heard something whistling, something flying, and I went outside,” Tatyana, 52, recalls.

“A rocket was flying right over the house.

“I went on the internet to see what had happened and they wrote that Kyiv had already been bombed.”

The couple quickly found themselves in occupied territory, and decided to become informants for Ukraine.

What followed was detention, interrogation, an escape into Europe – and a letter of thanks from the Ukrainian army.

It was when a Russian convoy passed their home for the first time that Tatyana decided to act.

She ran inside and messaged an acquaintance in Kyiv, whom she believed had contacts in Ukraine’s security services.

The contact sent her a link to a chatbot on messaging app Telegram which told her they would be contacted by a person with a unique identifier.

The couple were then asked to provide the location and details of Russian electronic warfare systems and military hardware they had seen, particularly missile systems and tanks.

The locations would help the Ukrainian army target and destroy Russian troops in the area with drones and artillery.

“We didn’t think of it as treason,” says Tatyana, who along with Sergei insists the information they gave did not result in any strikes on civilians or civilian infrastructure.

“Nobody attacked Russia. This was a fight against evil.”

For two years, Sergei would collect coordinates and Tatyana would transmit them from her phone – removing all traces of the messages afterwards – as and when their village’s internet access allowed them to do so.

But all of this came to an end when Sergei was detained in April 2024 by armed men while he was shopping for gardening seeds in the regional centre of Tokmak.

Sergei says he was taken to an abandoned house and put in a cold basement pit – around two metres wide and three metres deep – where he slept in a squatting position.

The next day he was questioned about whether he had passed details of Russian positions to the Ukrainians. Sergei says a bag was kept over his head during the interrogation and he was threatened with violence.

After initially denying his involvement, Sergei confessed on the fourth day of his captivity, fearing that if he were subjected to violence he might accidently implicate others.

While all of this was happening, Tatyana was desperately searching for information on his whereabouts.

She travelled the area and phoned hospitals and morgues, while the couple’s son, who was still living near Moscow, contacted various authorities there.

Ten days after Sergei’s arrest, security forces searched the Voronkovs’ home and dug up $4,400 that had been hidden by the couple in their garden.

Shortly after, Tatyana was told that her husband was “sitting in a basement” and was with Russia’s security services, the FSB.

Weeks later, after 37 days in captivity, Sergei was made to confess to assisting Ukraine on camera by people who introduced themselves to him as FSB.

But to his surprise, he was released two days later, though almost all of his documents, including his passport, were confiscated.

To this day, Sergei and Tatyana do not understand why he was released.

However, the BBC understands this is not uncommon in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia, where investigative and judicial processes lack transparency and often no explanations are given as to why a person is detained or released.

In the weeks after Sergei’s release, the couple believe they were kept under surveillance, with cars constantly driving up to their home and strangers asking them if they were selling anything.

Believing they’d never be left alone, the couple began plotting a way to leave.

After consulting human rights activists, Sergei and Tatyana decided to try to travel to Lithuania. But to do that, they needed to return to Russia first to get Sergei a new passport.

Their neighbours in Novolyubymivka helped by buying livestock and household appliances from them. The couple even managed to find a new home for their dogs, which Sergei says was his biggest worry.

The couple set off in their car.

Fearing they could be pulled over and quizzed by Russian forces, they made up a cover story about going to the beach to get fresh air for Tatyana, who has asthma. They even brought a straw hat and a rubber ring to make the story more convincing.

But in the end they weren’t stopped.

The couple were initially denied entry into Russia, but were eventually able to enter after Sergei got a certificate proving he had applied for a new passport.

After delays in getting his passport and a thwarted attempt to leave Russia via Belarus, Sergei bought a fake passport through Telegram.

The couple were then able to travel by bus to Belarus and cross the border using Sergei’s forged document. From there, they crossed into Lithuania, a member of the European Union and a close ally of Ukraine, though Sergei was detained for holding forged documents.

He was later found guilty of using a fake passport by a Lithuanian court.

The couple are now living in a shelter for asylum seekers and hope to settle in Lithuania.

The Ukrainian army sent them a letter of thanks – at the request of their former handler in Kyiv – to support their application for asylum. The BBC has seen a copy of the letter.

The BBC has also seen documents from official bodies in both Russia and Ukraine that confirm what happened to the Voronkovs. We are not reproducing them to protect the identities of those involved.

The Voronkovs’ actions have caused deep rifts in the family.

Their son, who remains in Russia, stopped talking to his parents after learning what they had done.  Sergei’s mother, who is 87, still lives in Russia and is supportive of the war and President Putin.

But despite this, the couple are adamant they will never return to Russia.

“Only if it starts showing some humanity,” Sergei says.

“For now, I see nothing human there.”

Burgundy is one of the most prestigious wine regions in France, and the US is its biggest export market. But now Donald Trump’s tariffs are threatening to price European wine out of the American marketplace.

Crouched in cold mud under a thin Spring rain, vineyard employee Élodie Bonet snaps off unwanted vine shoots with her fingers and pruning clippers.

“We want the vine to put all its energy into the shoots that have the flowers where the grapes are going to grow,” she explains.

I leave Élodie working her way down the rows of vines, and walk up to the house and winery in the Burgundy village of Morey-Saint-Denis, where I meet owner and winemaker Cécile Tremblay.

She takes me down to her cellar to taste some of her prized red wines, standing among the oak barrels and old bottles with labels weathered by mould and age.

They have names on them that make wine lovers go weak at the knees – Nuits-Saint-Georges, Echezeaux, Vosne-Romanée, Clos-Vougeot, and Chapelle-Chambertin.

Ms Tremblay sells over half of her wine abroad, under the name Domaine Cecile Tremblay.

“For the United States, it’s around 10% of the production; it’s a big production for me!” she says.

After threatening a 200% mark-up on alcohol from Europe, Donald Trump imposed a 20% tariff on practically all European Union products on 5 April.

Four days later, he lowered this to 10%, with the threat that he’d hike it back up again to 20% in July, depending on how trade negotiations pan out. And now Trump is threatening a future tariff of 50% on all goods from the EU.

I ask Ms Tremblay if she’s worried. “Yes, sure,” she says, “As everybody is.”

But that is all she will say on the matter. French winemakers are walking on eggshells at the moment, fearful of saying anything that might aggravate the situation.

Perhaps their representatives will be more forthcoming? I get in my car and drive over to one of her neighbours – François Labet. He is the president of the Burgundy Wine Board, which represents this region’s 3,500 winemakers.

“The US is the largest export market for the whole region. Definitely,” he tells me. “They are the biggest in volume and the biggest in value.”

And, until Donald Trump’s re-election, the US market was booming. While French wines and spirits global exports fell 4% last year overall, sales of Burgundy wines to the US rose sharply.

In volume terms, there were up 16% from 2024, to 20.9 million bottles. This was worth €370m ($415m; £312m) in revenues, 26.2% higher than in 2023.

Mr Labet says the US accounted for about a quarter of Burgundy’s wine exports last year.

Burgundy’s reputation abroad is mainly for its red wines, which are made from the celebrated pinot noir grape. Indeed, in the English-speaking world, burgundy is not so much a wine as a colour.

The French word for the same colour is bordeaux; showing they know more about their wine, because while Bordeaux wines are mostly red, two-thirds of Burgundy is actually white.

These are predominantly made from the chardonnay grape. Chablis, one of the best-known examples, is extremely popular in the US.

Burgundy also produces an increasingly successful sparkling wine, called Crémant de Bourgogne, and a small amount of rosé.

All of which is good for Burgundy because while general red wine consumption just keeps going down, white is holding firm, and sparkling is going up.

Also, the reds that come out of Burgundy are, according to Mr Labet, the kind consumers increasingly want, as they are typically lighter than New World reds.

“What is interesting to see is that there is a strong de-consumption of what we call the big reds, made in the US. Wines with a lot of alcohol, aged in new wood.”

Less sun and lower temperatures in Burgundy, even with climate change, means less sugar in the grapes and lower alcohol content.

Mr Labet remembers when, for 18 months of his first presidency, Donald Trump hit European wine with a 25% import tariff during a dispute over airlines.

“We were hostages of that situation, and it really did affect our sales to the US. We had a drop of about 50% of our exports to the US.”

Regarding the current 10% Trump tariff, he predicts that French wine producers and US merchants will split the cost of the new import duty between them in order to maintain sales.

But what will be the impact if in July Trump does decide to increase the tariff on all European Union exports to 20%, as he has threatened to do? “We will go back to the 2019 situation where the market was almost stopped,” says Mr Labet.

For French wines in general, things could be even worse.

“When President Trump raised import duties by 25% for one-and-a-half years of his first mandate, we lost about $600m [£450m] very quickly,” says Jerome Bauer, president of the French National Wines and Spirits Confederation.

“But back then Champagne wasn’t included, and neither were wines stronger than 14 degrees of alcohol. So you can see the scale of the threat today.”

The solution Mr Bauer is backing is free trade. No tariffs. But you’d expect him to say that, given that France and Europe run a big trade surplus with the US when it comes to wines and spirits.

More surprising, perhaps, is the opinion of his American competitors in California and Oregon who, you might think, would be cracking open something a bit special to celebrate.

“This looks horrible from our perspective. We don’t like it one bit,” says Rex Stoltz, vice-president of industry relations at Napa Valley Vintners, which represents 540 wineries in the sunny slopes of California’s most famous wine region.

“Wine is an international product. Even here in the Napa Valley, our wineries primarily get their corks from Portugal, and their oak barrels, a key component in winemaking, from France.

Mr Stoltz adds: “They’re already expensive and the potential is that they will get more expensive.”

Also, trade wars cut both ways. He says the tariffs announced against Canada are having a devastating impact on US wine exports.

“Canada is the most important export market for California wines, and one of the top export markets for Napa Valley wines. Right now, there are zero Napa Valley wines on the shelves of stores in Canada.

“They’ve removed all American alcohol beverage products from their store shelves!”

Mr Stoltz adds: “We just want to compete on an even playing field with our friends and neighbours all over the world. That’s our ask and that’s our hope.”

Listen to this article.

I step into the booth with some trepidation. I am about to be subjected to strobe lighting while music plays – as part of a research project trying to understand what makes us truly human.

It’s an experience that brings to mind the test in the science fiction film Bladerunner, designed to distinguish humans from artificially created beings posing as humans.

Could I be a robot from the future and not know it? Would I pass the test?

The researchers assure me that this is not actually what this experiment is about. The device that they call the “Dreamachine” is designed to study how the human brain generates our conscious experiences of the world.

As the strobing begins, and even though my eyes are closed, I see swirling two-dimensional geometric patterns. It’s like jumping into a kaleidoscope, with constantly shifting triangles, pentagons and octagons. The colours are vivid, intense and ever-changing: pinks, magentas and turquoise hues, glowing like neon lights.

The “Dreamachine” brings the brain’s inner activity to the surface with flashing lights, aiming to explore how our thought processes work.

The images I’m seeing are unique to my own inner world and unique to myself, according to the researchers. They believe these patterns can shed light on consciousness itself.

They hear me whisper: “It’s lovely, absolutely lovely. It’s like flying through my own mind!”

The “Dreamachine”, at Sussex University’s Centre for Consciousness Science, is just one of many new research projects across the world investigating human consciousness: the part of our minds that enables us to be self-aware, to think and feel and make independent decisions about the world.

By learning the nature of consciousness, researchers hope to better understand what’s happening within the silicon brains of artificial intelligence. Some believe that AI systems will soon become independently conscious, if they haven’t already.

But what really is consciousness, and how close is AI to gaining it? And could the belief that AI might be conscious itself fundamentally change humans in the next few decades?

The idea of machines with their own minds has long been explored in science fiction. Worries about AI stretch back nearly a hundred years to the film Metropolis, in which a robot impersonates a real woman.

A fear of machines becoming conscious and posing a threat to humans is explored in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the HAL 9000 computer attacks astronauts onboard its spaceship. And in the final Mission Impossible film, which has just been released, the world is threatened by a powerful rogue AI, described by one character as a “self-aware, self-learning, truth-eating digital parasite”.

But quite recently, in the real world there has been a rapid tipping point in thinking on machine consciousness, where credible voices have become concerned that this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

The sudden shift has been prompted by the success of so-called large language models (LLMs), which can be accessed through apps on our phones such as Gemini and Chat GPT. The ability of the latest generation of LLMs to have plausible, free-flowing conversations has surprised even their designers and some of the leading experts in the field.

There is a growing view among some thinkers that as AI becomes even more intelligent, the lights will suddenly turn on inside the machines and they will become conscious.

Others, such as Prof Anil Seth who leads the Sussex University team, disagree, describing the view as “blindly optimistic and driven by human exceptionalism”.

“We associate consciousness with intelligence and language because they go together in humans. But just because they go together in us, it doesn’t mean they go together in general, for example in animals.”

So what actually is consciousness?

The short answer is that no-one knows. That’s clear from the good-natured but robust arguments among Prof Seth’s own team of young AI specialists, computing experts, neuroscientists and philosophers, who are trying to answer one of the biggest questions in science and philosophy.

While there are many differing views at the consciousness research centre, the scientists are unified in their method: to break this big problem down into lots of smaller ones in a series of research projects, which includes the Dreamachine.

Just as the search to find the “spark of life” that made inanimate objects come alive was abandoned in the 19th Century in favour of identifying how individual parts of living systems worked, the Sussex team is now adopting the same approach to consciousness.

They hope to identify patterns of brain activity that explain various properties of conscious experiences, such as changes in electrical signals or blood flow to different regions. The goal is to go beyond looking for mere correlations between brain activity and consciousness, and try to come up with explanations for its individual components.

Prof Seth, the author of a book on consciousness, Being You, worries that we may be rushing headlong into a society that is being rapidly reshaped by the sheer pace of technological change without sufficient knowledge about the science, or thought about the consequences.

“We take it as if the future has already been written; that there is an inevitable march to a superhuman replacement,” he says.

“We did not have these conversations enough with the rise of social media, much to our collective detriment. But with AI, it is not too late. We can decide what we want.”

But there are some in the tech sector who believe that the AI in our computers and phones may already be conscious, and we should treat them as such.

Google suspended software engineer Blake Lemoine in 2022, after he argued that AI chatbots could feel things and potentially suffer.

In November 2024, an AI welfare officer for Anthropic, Kyle Fish, co-authored a report suggesting that AI consciousness was a realistic possibility in the near future. He recently told The New York Times that he also believed that there was a small (15%) chance that chatbots are already conscious.

One reason he thinks it possible is that no-one, not even the people who developed these systems, knows exactly how they work. That’s worrying, says Prof Murray Shanahan, principal scientist at Google DeepMind and emeritus professor in AI at Imperial College, London.

“We don’t actually understand very well the way in which LLMs work internally, and that is some cause for concern,” he tells the BBC.

According to Prof Shanahan, it’s important for tech firms to get a proper understanding of the systems they’re building – and researchers are looking at that as a matter of urgency.

“We are in a strange position of building these extremely complex things, where we don’t have a good theory of exactly how they achieve the remarkable things they are achieving,” he says. “So having a better understanding of how they work will enable us to steer them in the direction we want and to ensure that they are safe.”

The prevailing view in the tech sector is that LLMs are not currently conscious in the way we experience the world, and probably not in any way at all. But that is something that the married couple Profs Lenore and Manuel Blum, both emeritus professors at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, believe will change, possibly quite soon.

According to the Blums, that could happen as AI and LLMs have more live sensory inputs from the real world, such as vision and touch, by connecting cameras and haptic sensors (related to touch) to AI systems. They are developing a computer model that constructs its own internal language called Brainish to enable this additional sensory data to be processed, attempting to replicate the processes that go on in the brain.

“We think Brainish can solve the problem of consciousness as we know it,” Lenore tells the BBC. “AI consciousness is inevitable.”

Manuel chips in enthusiastically with an impish grin, saying that the new systems that he too firmly believes will emerge will be the “next stage in humanity’s evolution”.

Conscious robots, he believes, “are our progeny. Down the road, machines like these will be entities that will be on Earth and maybe on other planets when we are no longer around”.

David Chalmers – Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University – defined the distinction between real and apparent consciousness at a conference in Tucson, Arizona in 1994. He laid out the “hard problem” of working out how and why any of the complex operations of brains give rise to conscious experience, such as our emotional response when we hear a nightingale sing.

Prof Chalmers says that he is open to the possibility of the hard problem being solved.

“The ideal outcome would be one where humanity shares in this new intelligence bonanza,” he tells the BBC. “Maybe our brains are augmented by AI systems.”

On the sci-fi implications of that, he wryly observes: “In my profession, there is a fine line between science fiction and philosophy”.

Prof Seth, however, is exploring the idea that true consciousness can only be realised by living systems.

“A strong case can be made that it isn’t computation that is sufficient for consciousness but being alive,” he says.

“In brains, unlike computers, it’s hard to separate what they do from what they are.” Without this separation, he argues, it’s difficult to believe that brains “are simply meat-based computers”.

And if Prof Seth’s intuition about life being important is on the right track, the most likely technology will not be made of silicon run on computer code, but will rather consist of tiny collections of nerve cells the size of lentil grains that are currently being grown in labs.

Called “mini-brains” in media reports, they are referred to as “cerebral organoids” by the scientific community, which uses them to research how the brain works, and for drug testing.

One Australian firm, Cortical Labs, in Melbourne, has even developed a system of nerve cells in a dish that can play the 1972 sports video game Pong. Although it is a far cry from a conscious system, the so-called “brain in a dish” is spooky as it moves a paddle up and down a screen to bat back a pixelated ball.

Some experts feel that if consciousness is to emerge, it is most likely to be from larger, more advanced versions of these living tissue systems.

Cortical Labs monitors their electrical activity for any signals that could conceivably be anything like the emergence of consciousness.

The firm’s chief scientific and operating officer, Dr Brett Kagan is mindful that any emerging uncontrollable intelligence might have priorities that “are not aligned with ours”. In which case, he says, half-jokingly, that possible organoid overlords would be easier to defeat because “there is always bleach” to pour over the fragile neurons.

Returning to a more solemn tone, he says the small but significant threat of artificial consciousness is something he’d like the big players in the field to focus on more as part of serious attempts to advance our scientific understanding – but says that “unfortunately, we don’t see any earnest efforts in this space”.

The more immediate problem, though, could be how the illusion of machines being conscious affects us.

In just a few years, we may well be living in a world populated by humanoid robots and deepfakes that seem conscious, according to Prof Seth. He worries that we won’t be able to resist believing that the AI has feelings and empathy, which could lead to new dangers.

“It will mean that we trust these things more, share more data with them and be more open to persuasion.”

But the greater risk from the illusion of consciousness is a “moral corrosion”, he says.

“It will distort our moral priorities by making us devote more of our resources to caring for these systems at the expense of the real things in our lives” – meaning that we might have compassion for robots, but care less for other humans.

And that could fundamentally alter us, according to Prof Shanahan.

“Increasingly human relationships are going to be replicated in AI relationships, they will be used as teachers, friends, adversaries in computer games and even romantic partners. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I don’t know, but it is going to happen, and we are not going to be able to prevent it”.

Ministers are facing calls to start processing Syrian asylum applications again, as new figures showed more than 7,000 people are still in limbo.

The UK paused decisions on Syrian claims for asylum and permanent settlement in December, after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

But more than five months on, Syrians in the UK still do not know when their claims will be assessed.

Charities including the Refugee Council say the current situation has left people in an “indefinite limbo” and are calling for claims to be processed again on a case-by-case basis.

The government said decisions were paused “while we assess the current situation”.

A Home Office source said this was “a necessary step while there is no stable, objective information available to make robust assessments of risk” on people returning to Syria and the policy “will remain under constant review”.

A total of 7,386 Syrians were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum claim by the end of March, according to the latest figures published on Thursday.

Assad’s regime was overthrown by a rebel offensive led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December, after years of civil war.

HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa was named as Syria’s interim president earlier this year, but the situation remains uncertain and HTS is still designated a terrorist group by the UK.

In December, the Conservatives suggested most Syrian asylum claims were related to the threat posed by Assad’s government and those people could return when it was safe to do so.

However, Haytham Alhamwi, chairman of the Syrian British Consortium, said while many Syrians left because of Assad’s rule others may still feel unsafe to return.

“Many of them are still calling for democratic change in Syria, which is not guaranteed at the moment. Some of them were afraid of those military groups, they didn’t come running from Assad himself,” he told the BBC.

The number of Syrian asylum claims fell by 81% following the UK’s decision to pause decisions.

However, despite a sharp drop, 299 Syrians came to the UK on small boats in the first three months of this year – 5% of the total number of arrivals.

People claiming asylum do not normally have the right to work while their case is being considered and are provided with government-funded accommodation and financial support to pay for essentials if they would otherwise be destitute.

Jon Featonby, chief policy analyst at the Refugee Council, said that as well as leaving Syrians “stuck in limbo” this also had an impact on the taxpayer as the government is paying to house many of them.

More than 5,500 Syrians were living in government-funded accommodation at the end of March.

Of these, 2,130 were in hotels, which the government has pledged to stop using for asylum seekers.

With Labour promising to clear the overall backlog of asylum claims, Mr Featonby said the situation was causing a “blockage” in the system.

Azadi – not his real name – arrived in the UK by small boat in June 2023 and is waiting for a decision on his asylum application.

The 25-year-old, who is Kurdish, said he was grateful to the UK government for providing him with food and accommodation but he wanted to be able to work and pay tax.

“I stay at home a lot of the time,” he told the BBC. “Every day is the same. I am not progressing so it is stressful.”

Earlier this year, the new Syrian government signed a deal with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which integrated its military and civilian institutions into the state and recognised the Kurdish minority.

But Azadi said he did not trust the new government and felt Syria was not safe for Kurds, who were denied basic rights during Assad’s rule.

He said his hometown had been destroyed by the civil war and there was no way for him to get an education there.

“It’s not a life there at all,” he added.

The pause also applies to Syrians who have already been granted refugee status and were initially given the right to stay in the UK for five years before they can apply for permanent settlement – also known as indefinite leave to remain.

The Refugee Council says that whilst this group still have the right to live and work in the UK, their temporary status can often make it harder to secure a job or housing.

Mr Featonby said Syrians in the UK were also nervous about whether they will be allowed to stay if the government’s position on Syria changes and it is deemed a safe country.

Leen Albrmawi arrived in the UK in October 2019 and applied for indefinite leave to remain last year.

However, she said her “whole life collapsed” when the government paused decisions for Syrians in December.

The 28-year-old had been accepted to study business at university but was told she was not eligible for a student loan because she did not have the right to live in the UK permanently.

After spending the last five years obtaining the necessary qualifications to apply, Leen was devastated she could not afford to take up the offer.

Meanwhile, her employer, a telecoms company, has been chasing her for an update on her leave to remain application.

Leen still has the right to work while her application is pending but is concerned she could lose her job.

She also fears that if the Home Office changes its position on Syria she could be forced to leave the UK.

“I literally have no one in Syria, no family, nothing,” she told the BBC, adding that her hometown had been destroyed in the civil war.

Leen lives in Salford with her mother and sister, who already have British citizenship as they came to the UK earlier than her.

“I’ve been in the UK now nearly six years, so I’ve built my whole life here,” she said.

Mr Featonby said the Refugee Council recognised the situation in Syria had changed but there was unlikely to be clarity on how safe the country would be in the future anytime soon.

He suggested people who were seeking protection for reasons unrelated to the previous regime could have their claims prioritised.

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Gary Lineker held back tears as he signed off from his final edition of Match of the Day after 26 years in the hot seat and officially left the BBC.

The host announced in November that he would leave the football show at the end of the Premier League season, which concluded on Sunday.

He had been due to remain with the BBC to front coverage of the men’s FA Cup and the World Cup, but has now left the corporation completely after apologising for sharing an antisemitic social media post.

On his swansong, Lineker apparently made a nod to the controversy, opening the show by saying “it wasn’t meant to end this way” – before going on to turn the line into a reference to the final day of the season.

At the end of the programme, Lineker was presented with a commemorative cap and golden boot by pundits Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.

“It’s been an absolute privilege to have hosted Match of the Day for a quarter of a century. It’s been utterly joyous,” he said, thanking the whole production team.

Speaking directly into the camera to viewers at home, he added: “And my final thank you goes to all of you.

“Thank you for watching, thank you for all your love and support over the years.

“It’s been so special, and I’m sorry that your team was always on last. Time to say goodbye.”

The former England forward replaced Des Lynam as the main presenter of the BBC’s flagship football programme in 1999, and went on to become its highest-paid presenter.

He hit the headlines for airing his opinions beyond football on social media, however.

He was suspended in 2023 for a post about the then-government’s asylum policy, with numerous fellow BBC Sport presenters and pundits walking out in support.

After Lineker was reinstated, the BBC issued new rules for presenters posting on social media.

Earlier this month, Lineker was criticised for sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat, historically used as an antisemitic insult.

Lineker apologised, saying he had not seen the image and “would never consciously repost anything antisemitic”.

However, it was then announced he would leave the BBC earlier than expected, and that Sunday’s show would be his last.

In a statement at the time, Lineker said football had been “at the heart of my life” and that he cared deeply about the game and his BBC work, but he recognised “the error and upset that I caused”.

“Stepping back now feels like the responsible course of action,” he said.

BBC director general Tim Davie thanked Lineker for being “a defining voice in football coverage for the BBC for over two decades”, and said they had “agreed he will step back from further presenting after this season”.

Lineker’s final episode in the presenter’s chair on Sunday saw him interview Liverpool manager Arne Slot as they collected the Premier League trophy.

Slot paid tribute, saying: “Thank you for being such a great presenter of a BBC show that I watched many times when I lived in Holland, and now still.”

The show began with a montage of former Everton and Spurs striker Lineker’s goals and later looked back on highlights of his time at the helm of Match of the Day.

This included him famously presenting a segment while wearing only his Leicester City boxer shorts, as he had promised, after his boyhood team won the Premier League in 2016.

His longstanding sidekicks Shearer and Richards also paid tribute at the end, introducing a montage that included testimonies from the likes of Alan Hansen, Ian Wright and Paul Gascgoine as well as the late Johan Cruyff, singer Andrea Bocelli and Lineker’s sons.

“You don’t believe it but you will be missed,” offered Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola in the same VT, while Liverpool captain Virgil Van Dijk described the outgoing host as “a legend.”

“You’ve been great to me and you’ve been unbelievable to Match of the Day,” added Shearer. “So whatever you choose to do on Saturdays, good luck, and we’ll miss you.”

In January, it was revealed that Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan would jointly take over Match of the Day presenting responsibilities from the start of the 2025-26 season.

“I’d like to wish Gabby, Mark and Kelly all the very best when they sit in this chair,” Lineker said.

“The programme is in the best of hands.”

North Korea has arrested a fourth official over the failed launch of a new warship that has enraged the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Ri Hyong-son, deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department, was “largely responsible for the serious accident” last week, state-run news agency KCNA said on Monday.

The 5,000-ton destroyer had tipped over and damaged its hull, in what Kim described as a “criminal act” that “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride”.

The vessel is being repaired under the guidance of an expert group, KCNA said.

Mr Ri, who is part of the party’s Central Military Commission, is the highest level official arrested over the incident so far.

The commission commands the Korean People’s Army and is responsible for developing and implementing North Korea’s military policies.

Over the weekend, Pyongyang also detained three officials at the northern Chongjin shipyard, where the destroyer was built and where its launch failed.

The officials were the chief engineer, its construction head and an administrative manager.

Kim earlier said Wednesday’s incident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism”.

It is not clear what punishment they might face, but the authoritarian state has been known to sentence officials it finds guilty of wrongdoing to forced labour and even death.

It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents, though it has done this a handful of times in the past after failed satellite launches.

Some analysts believe Kim’s swift and severe response was meant as a signal that Pyongyang will continue to advance its military capabilities.

While such criticism is “not surprising” for a dictatorship, it is unusual that state media is openly reporting it, says Chun In-bum, a former commander of South Korea’s special forces.

“I fear this might be a sign of confidence and a show of resilience,” he says.

“With this new line of ships, North Korea seems to intend on challenging the sovereignty of the South in earnest.”

Michael Madden, a North Korea expert from the Stimson Center in Washington, sees Kim’s response as a sign of the “high priority” his regime is putting into developing warships.

The mishap may have resulted from officials “trying to do too much at once”, he notes, saying that “there seems to have been an unusual amount of internal pressure on the personnel and production units to get this all done”.

Last week’s shipyard accident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a similar warship in another part of the country.

Kim had called that warship a “breakthrough” in modernising North Korea’s navy and said it would be deployed early next year.

Uganda’s army has announced the suspension of all military cooperation with Germany after accusing its ambassador, Mathias Schauer, of being involved in “subversive activities” and of being “wholly unqualified” to be in the East African state.

The army did not back-up its claim but its decision signals a sharp deterioration in relations between the two nations.

Rejecting the accusations, a German foreign ministry spokesperson called them “absurd and without any merit”, the Reuters news agency reports.

The highly unusual attack on Schauer came after he reportedly raised concerns about army chief Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is the president’s son, at a meeting last week.

On X recently, the general threatened to behead opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine.

Gen Kainerugaba also boasted about torturing Wine’s bodyguard after detaining him.

Rights groups have long accused the Ugandan government of targeting the opposition, especially in the run-up to elections.

Wine is expected to run against President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for nearly four decades, in an election due next year.

Museveni’s critics allege that the government is run by a family dynasty – his wife, Janet Museveni is the minister of education, and his brother, Gen Salim Saleh, is the chief coordinator of a government programme known as Operation Wealth Creation.

Gen Saleh held a private meeting with European Union (EU) diplomats last week, where Schauer – Germany’s ambassador to Uganda since 2020 – raised concerns about the army chief’s controversial tweets, and the “reputational damage” it was causing to Uganda, local media reported.

Gen Kainerugaba hit back with a post on Sunday, saying he was “having issues” with the German ambassador “that has to do with him as a person”.

“He is wholly unqualified to be in Uganda. It has nothing to do with the great German people. Whom I admire a lot,” he posted.

In a separate statement, army spokesman Col Chris Magezi said Uganda was suspending with immediate effect all defence and military cooperation with Germany because of “credible intelligence reports” that Schauer was involved in “subversive activities”.

“The suspension will remain in force until the full resolution of the matter of the Ambassador’s involvement with pseudo political-military forces operating in the country against the Ugandan government,” the statement added, without giving evidence to substantiate its claims.

On its website, Germany’s embassy in Uganda said that bilateral trade between the two nations was worth around $335m (£247m) in 2024, and their relationship was based on “stability and trust”.

It did not give details of military cooperation between the two nations.

Uganda is heavily involved in peacekeeping operations, including in Somalia where it is helping to fight armed Islamist groups trying to overthrow the government.

• Anger as Uganda president’s son says he’s holding opposition bodyguard
• How a Ugandan opposition leader disappeared in Kenya and ended up in military court
• Social media ban in Uganda raises questions over regulation in Africa
• TikToker jailed for 32 months for insulting Uganda’s president
• How an ex-rebel has stayed in power for 35 years
• Ugandan internet propaganda network exposed by the BBC

Authorities in India’s southern Kerala state have issued an alert after a ship carrying oil and hazardous cargo leaked and sank off the state’s coast in the Arabian Sea.

The spill occurred in a Liberian-flagged vessel that capsized near Kochi city on Sunday. The coastal stretch is rich in biodiversity and is also an important tourist destination.

All 24 crew members on board the ship have been rescued but some of the ship’s 640 containers have reportedly been drifting towards the shore, prompting evacuations in the area.

Authorities fear that oil, fuel and other harmful substances that have leaked from the ship and its cargo could endanger the health of residents and marine life.

“As the oil slick can reach anywhere along the Kerala coast, an alert has been sounded across the coastal belt,” a statement from the chief minister’s office said.

Authorities have advised residents living near the sea to not touch any containers or the oil that might wash up to the shore, while fishermen have been asked to avoid venturing too close to the sunken ship.

On Monday, officials said they had intensified pollution control measures to contain the spill.

The Indian Coast Guard has deployed a ship carrying pollution control equipment to the site.

It has also sent one of its aircraft which has an oil spill detection system to survey the area.

The vessel – MSC ELSA 3 – which was travelling from Vizhinjam port to Kochi, began to tilt dangerously when it was about 38 nautical miles from the coast of Kochi.

It capsized into the Arabian Sea in the early hours of Sunday due to flooding in one of its compartments.

The Indian Coast Guard said that the ship was carrying 13 containers of hazardous cargo and 12 with calcium carbide – a chemical that reacts with seawater to release a flammable gas.

“Additionally, [the] ship had 84.44 metric tonnes of diesel and 367.1 metric tonnes of furnace oil in its tanks,” it said.

The crew members were rescued by Indian navy personnel after an hours-long operation.

A college in Beijing has found itself at the centre of public fury after it allegedly asked a student to prove she was on her period to qualify for sick leave.

A viral video, filmed inside what appears to be a clinic and posted to social media this month, shows a young woman asking an older woman: “Does every menstruating girl have to take off their trousers and show you before they can get a sick note?”

“Basically yes,” the older woman replies. “This is a school rule.”

Local media identified the video’s location as a clinic at the Gengdan Institute university college, which later said in a statement that its staff had “followed protocol”. But social media users have decried the encounter as a serious invasion of privacy.

Neither the student nor Gengdan Institute immediately responded to BBC News’ requests for comment.

Both the student’s video and the school’s statement appear to have been taken down, though screenshots and snippets have been recirculated online, including by state media.

On Douyin, China’s TikTok, a user claiming to be the student said her original account was suspended for 30 days for “pornographic content” after she posted the video.

In its statement dated 16 May, Gengdan Institute reportedly said the videos of the incident circulating online had been “distorted” – and that the institution had the right to pursue legal action against those who “maliciously spread untrue videos”.

The statement also said that the staff had followed the proper procedure during the encounter, such as “initiating clinical work after getting the student’s permission”, and did not use tools or conduct a physical examination.

In the video, the staff member did not reply when the student asked for written proof of the school regulation to check students’ menstrual status. She subsequently asked the student to go to a hospital instead.

On social media, the incident has triggered an outpouring of anger and sarcasm towards the school’s rules.

“My head hurts, should I open my skull and call it a day?” wrote one social media user.

“Let’s just take the sanitary pad out and paste it on the sick note,” another Weibo said.

A staff member at Gengdan Institute told local outlet Dute News that the school may have created the rule about proving menstruation in order to deter students from faking periods to get sick notes.

But that argument has rung hollow among social media users.

“If they’re worried about students using their periods as an excuse several times a month, why not simply make a record of it? It’s not that complicated,” one person wrote on Weibo.

State media has also waded into the debate.

“Menstruation is already an intimate topic for women. Rules like this will make students feel very uncomfortable, and even negatively impact students’ psychological wellbeing,” reads an opinion piece from China National Radio.

Gengdan Institute now joins a list of tertiary institutions across the country that have come under fire for what many see as overbearing and ham-fisted attempts at controlling their students.

Last year, some universities were criticised for banning the use of bed curtains in their dormitories. The curtains are often used by students for privacy in shared rooms, but school authorities said they were a fire and safety hazard.

Additionally, during the popular May Day holiday season last year, some universities issued strict guidelines for students who had planned to travel. These included avoiding solo trips, road trips, or cycling trips for safety – which many saw as the institutions overstepping their authority in students’ private lives.

On social media site Xiaohongshu, a user claiming to be a student at Gengdan Institute said “the school’s clinic deserves all the criticism it’s getting”.

“I heard from some older students that this kind of thing has been going on for a while. Some girls spoke up before, but nothing was done,” the user wrote.

“I’m glad it made the trending topics this time. People didn’t stay silent.”

A Japanese plane headed from Tokyo to Texas had to make an emergency landing after a passenger tried to open one of its doors during the flight.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) Flight 114 was diverted to Seattle hours after taking off on Saturday “due to an unruly passenger”, the airline said.

Port of Seattle police told media they had been notified of a man who “attempted to open exit doors during the flight”.

The man, who was not identified, was “having a medical crisis” and had to be restrained by other passengers and flight crew, police said.

He was later taken to a hospital. It is unclear if he will face any charges.

“The safety of our passengers and crew are our top priority and we applaud the efforts of local law enforcement for their support,” ANA said in a statement.

While the plane was waiting on the tarmac of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a second person was removed from the flight for “unruly behaviour”, authorities said.

Flight data shows that the plane made it to its destination, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, on Saturday around 12:40 local time (17:40 GMT) – four hours after its scheduled arrival time.

This is the latest in a string of similar incidents.

In April, a Jetstar flight from Bali, Indonesia was forced to turn around during its journey to Melbourne, Australia, after a passenger similarly tried to open a plane door in the air.

Last November, a man who tried to open the plane door during an American Airlines flight was restrained and tied up by fellow passengers with duct tape.

And in November 2023, nine passengers of an Asiana Airlines flight were sent to hospital with breathing difficulties after a man successfully opened the aircraft’s emergency exit door prior to it landing at a South Korean airport.

The head of an organisation set up to distribute aid in Gaza as part of a controversial Israel-backed plan has resigned, saying it could not work in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles”.

Jake Wood quit the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) late on Sunday, saying it would not be able to fulfil the principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

The plan, also backed by the US, envisions private contractors delivering aid to Palestinians via Israel-designated distribution sites. It was heavily criticised by the United Nations, which says it will not participate.

Israel insists the plan is needed to stop Hamas stealing aid, which the armed group denies doing.

Under the GHF plan, Palestinians would be expected to collect boxes weighing up to 20kg (44lbs) containing food and basic hygiene items from four distribution points in southern Gaza.

It is unclear how the weak or injured would be able to collect the aid.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said it would force further displacement, restrict aid to only one part of Gaza and make “starvation a bargaining chip.”

In his resignation statement, Wood, a former US marine, said: “Two months ago, I was approached about leading GHF’s efforts because of my experience in humanitarian operations.

“Like many others around the world, I was horrified and heartbroken at the hunger crisis in Gaza and, as a humanitarian leader, I was compelled to do whatever I could to help alleviate the suffering.”

He said he was “proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”

But, he said, it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”

In response, the GHF said it would “not be deterred” by Wood’s resignation and would begin delivering aid on Monday, with an aim to reach one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

The group said that critics “who benefit from the status quo have been more focused on tearing this apart than on getting aid in, afraid that new, creative solutions to intractable problems might actually succeed.”

It added: “Our trucks are loaded and ready to go.”

An Israeli official said “the goal of this new approach is to eliminate the Gazan population’s dependence on Hamas”.

Israeli media reported that the first of four distribution centres would be opened by GHF on Monday morning.

Last week, Israel eased an 11-week blockade on all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies entering Gaza, with the first aid trucks reaching civilians in recent days – but the UN has said it’s a “drop in the ocean of what’s needed”.

It says 57 children died from malnutrition during Israel’s blockade – while the World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that Gaza’s entire population was “on the brink of starvation”.

Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC’s Today Programme that the GHF is “militarised, privatised, politicised” and “not in conformity with neutrality”.

“The people behind it are military – they are ex-CIA and ex-military people… Let’s go back to the system that worked” he said.

The GHF has also come under intense scrutiny around its funding, origins and backing.

Over the weekend, an investigation by The New York Times suggested the group may have been conceived in Israel by a group of Israeli officials and military officers and their partners in the Israeli business sector.

Responding to the plan earlier this month, UN children’s fund spokesperson Jonathan Crick said: “How is a mother of four children, who has lost her husband, going to carry 20kg back to her makeshift tent, sometimes several kilometres away?”

“The most vulnerable people, including the elderly, people with disabilities, the sick and wounded, and orphans, will face huge challenges to access aid.”

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to 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 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

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I step into the booth with some trepidation. I am about to be subjected to strobe lighting while music plays – as part of a research project trying to understand what makes us truly human.

It’s an experience that brings to mind the test in the science fiction film Bladerunner, designed to distinguish humans from artificially created beings posing as humans.

Could I be a robot from the future and not know it? Would I pass the test?

The researchers assure me that this is not actually what this experiment is about. The device that they call the “Dreamachine” is designed to study how the human brain generates our conscious experiences of the world.

As the strobing begins, and even though my eyes are closed, I see swirling two-dimensional geometric patterns. It’s like jumping into a kaleidoscope, with constantly shifting triangles, pentagons and octagons. The colours are vivid, intense and ever-changing: pinks, magentas and turquoise hues, glowing like neon lights.

The “Dreamachine” brings the brain’s inner activity to the surface with flashing lights, aiming to explore how our thought processes work.

The images I’m seeing are unique to my own inner world and unique to myself, according to the researchers. They believe these patterns can shed light on consciousness itself.

They hear me whisper: “It’s lovely, absolutely lovely. It’s like flying through my own mind!”

The “Dreamachine”, at Sussex University’s Centre for Consciousness Science, is just one of many new research projects across the world investigating human consciousness: the part of our minds that enables us to be self-aware, to think and feel and make independent decisions about the world.

By learning the nature of consciousness, researchers hope to better understand what’s happening within the silicon brains of artificial intelligence. Some believe that AI systems will soon become independently conscious, if they haven’t already.

But what really is consciousness, and how close is AI to gaining it? And could the belief that AI might be conscious itself fundamentally change humans in the next few decades?

The idea of machines with their own minds has long been explored in science fiction. Worries about AI stretch back nearly a hundred years to the film Metropolis, in which a robot impersonates a real woman.

A fear of machines becoming conscious and posing a threat to humans is explored in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the HAL 9000 computer attacks astronauts onboard its spaceship. And in the final Mission Impossible film, which has just been released, the world is threatened by a powerful rogue AI, described by one character as a “self-aware, self-learning, truth-eating digital parasite”.

But quite recently, in the real world there has been a rapid tipping point in thinking on machine consciousness, where credible voices have become concerned that this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

The sudden shift has been prompted by the success of so-called large language models (LLMs), which can be accessed through apps on our phones such as Gemini and Chat GPT. The ability of the latest generation of LLMs to have plausible, free-flowing conversations has surprised even their designers and some of the leading experts in the field.

There is a growing view among some thinkers that as AI becomes even more intelligent, the lights will suddenly turn on inside the machines and they will become conscious.

Others, such as Prof Anil Seth who leads the Sussex University team, disagree, describing the view as “blindly optimistic and driven by human exceptionalism”.

“We associate consciousness with intelligence and language because they go together in humans. But just because they go together in us, it doesn’t mean they go together in general, for example in animals.”

So what actually is consciousness?

The short answer is that no-one knows. That’s clear from the good-natured but robust arguments among Prof Seth’s own team of young AI specialists, computing experts, neuroscientists and philosophers, who are trying to answer one of the biggest questions in science and philosophy.

While there are many differing views at the consciousness research centre, the scientists are unified in their method: to break this big problem down into lots of smaller ones in a series of research projects, which includes the Dreamachine.

Just as the search to find the “spark of life” that made inanimate objects come alive was abandoned in the 19th Century in favour of identifying how individual parts of living systems worked, the Sussex team is now adopting the same approach to consciousness.

They hope to identify patterns of brain activity that explain various properties of conscious experiences, such as changes in electrical signals or blood flow to different regions. The goal is to go beyond looking for mere correlations between brain activity and consciousness, and try to come up with explanations for its individual components.

Prof Seth, the author of a book on consciousness, Being You, worries that we may be rushing headlong into a society that is being rapidly reshaped by the sheer pace of technological change without sufficient knowledge about the science, or thought about the consequences.

“We take it as if the future has already been written; that there is an inevitable march to a superhuman replacement,” he says.

“We did not have these conversations enough with the rise of social media, much to our collective detriment. But with AI, it is not too late. We can decide what we want.”

But there are some in the tech sector who believe that the AI in our computers and phones may already be conscious, and we should treat them as such.

Google suspended software engineer Blake Lemoine in 2022, after he argued that AI chatbots could feel things and potentially suffer.

In November 2024, an AI welfare officer for Anthropic, Kyle Fish, co-authored a report suggesting that AI consciousness was a realistic possibility in the near future. He recently told The New York Times that he also believed that there was a small (15%) chance that chatbots are already conscious.

One reason he thinks it possible is that no-one, not even the people who developed these systems, knows exactly how they work. That’s worrying, says Prof Murray Shanahan, principal scientist at Google DeepMind and emeritus professor in AI at Imperial College, London.

“We don’t actually understand very well the way in which LLMs work internally, and that is some cause for concern,” he tells the BBC.

According to Prof Shanahan, it’s important for tech firms to get a proper understanding of the systems they’re building – and researchers are looking at that as a matter of urgency.

“We are in a strange position of building these extremely complex things, where we don’t have a good theory of exactly how they achieve the remarkable things they are achieving,” he says. “So having a better understanding of how they work will enable us to steer them in the direction we want and to ensure that they are safe.”

The prevailing view in the tech sector is that LLMs are not currently conscious in the way we experience the world, and probably not in any way at all. But that is something that the married couple Profs Lenore and Manuel Blum, both emeritus professors at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, believe will change, possibly quite soon.

According to the Blums, that could happen as AI and LLMs have more live sensory inputs from the real world, such as vision and touch, by connecting cameras and haptic sensors (related to touch) to AI systems. They are developing a computer model that constructs its own internal language called Brainish to enable this additional sensory data to be processed, attempting to replicate the processes that go on in the brain.

“We think Brainish can solve the problem of consciousness as we know it,” Lenore tells the BBC. “AI consciousness is inevitable.”

Manuel chips in enthusiastically with an impish grin, saying that the new systems that he too firmly believes will emerge will be the “next stage in humanity’s evolution”.

Conscious robots, he believes, “are our progeny. Down the road, machines like these will be entities that will be on Earth and maybe on other planets when we are no longer around”.

David Chalmers – Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University – defined the distinction between real and apparent consciousness at a conference in Tucson, Arizona in 1994. He laid out the “hard problem” of working out how and why any of the complex operations of brains give rise to conscious experience, such as our emotional response when we hear a nightingale sing.

Prof Chalmers says that he is open to the possibility of the hard problem being solved.

“The ideal outcome would be one where humanity shares in this new intelligence bonanza,” he tells the BBC. “Maybe our brains are augmented by AI systems.”

On the sci-fi implications of that, he wryly observes: “In my profession, there is a fine line between science fiction and philosophy”.

Prof Seth, however, is exploring the idea that true consciousness can only be realised by living systems.

“A strong case can be made that it isn’t computation that is sufficient for consciousness but being alive,” he says.

“In brains, unlike computers, it’s hard to separate what they do from what they are.” Without this separation, he argues, it’s difficult to believe that brains “are simply meat-based computers”.

And if Prof Seth’s intuition about life being important is on the right track, the most likely technology will not be made of silicon run on computer code, but will rather consist of tiny collections of nerve cells the size of lentil grains that are currently being grown in labs.

Called “mini-brains” in media reports, they are referred to as “cerebral organoids” by the scientific community, which uses them to research how the brain works, and for drug testing.

One Australian firm, Cortical Labs, in Melbourne, has even developed a system of nerve cells in a dish that can play the 1972 sports video game Pong. Although it is a far cry from a conscious system, the so-called “brain in a dish” is spooky as it moves a paddle up and down a screen to bat back a pixelated ball.

Some experts feel that if consciousness is to emerge, it is most likely to be from larger, more advanced versions of these living tissue systems.

Cortical Labs monitors their electrical activity for any signals that could conceivably be anything like the emergence of consciousness.

The firm’s chief scientific and operating officer, Dr Brett Kagan is mindful that any emerging uncontrollable intelligence might have priorities that “are not aligned with ours”. In which case, he says, half-jokingly, that possible organoid overlords would be easier to defeat because “there is always bleach” to pour over the fragile neurons.

Returning to a more solemn tone, he says the small but significant threat of artificial consciousness is something he’d like the big players in the field to focus on more as part of serious attempts to advance our scientific understanding – but says that “unfortunately, we don’t see any earnest efforts in this space”.

The more immediate problem, though, could be how the illusion of machines being conscious affects us.

In just a few years, we may well be living in a world populated by humanoid robots and deepfakes that seem conscious, according to Prof Seth. He worries that we won’t be able to resist believing that the AI has feelings and empathy, which could lead to new dangers.

“It will mean that we trust these things more, share more data with them and be more open to persuasion.”

But the greater risk from the illusion of consciousness is a “moral corrosion”, he says.

“It will distort our moral priorities by making us devote more of our resources to caring for these systems at the expense of the real things in our lives” – meaning that we might have compassion for robots, but care less for other humans.

And that could fundamentally alter us, according to Prof Shanahan.

“Increasingly human relationships are going to be replicated in AI relationships, they will be used as teachers, friends, adversaries in computer games and even romantic partners. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I don’t know, but it is going to happen, and we are not going to be able to prevent it”.

At least 54 Palestinians have been killed – most of them in a school building sheltering displaced families – during Israeli air strikes on Gaza overnight, hospital directors have told the BBC.

Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City was housing hundreds of people from Beit Lahia, currently under intense Israeli military assault. At least 35 were reported to have been killed when the school was hit.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence said multiple bodies, including those of children, were recovered – many severely burned, after fires engulfed two classrooms serving as living quarters.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted “a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre” there.

The IDF said the area was being used “by the terrorists to plan… attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”, and accused Hamas of using “the Gazan population as human shields”.

Video footage shared online showed large fires consuming parts of the school, with graphic images of severely burned victims, including children, and survivors suffering critical injuries.

Faris Afana, Northern Gaza ambulance service manager, said he arrived at the scene with crews to find three classrooms ablaze.

“There were sleeping children and women in those classrooms,” he said. “Some of them were screaming but we couldn’t rescue them due to the fires.

“I cannot describe what we saw due to how horrific it was.”

Local reports said the head of investigations for the Hamas police in northern Gaza, Mohammad Al-Kasih, was among the dead, along with his wife and children.

Separately, a strike on a house in Jabalia in northern Gaza killed 19 people, according to the director of al-Ahli hospital Dr Fadel el-Naim. The Israeli military has not yet commented on what was being targeted.

The twin attacks are part of a broader Israeli offensive that has escalated in the northern part of the enclave over the past week.

The IDF said it hit 200 targets across Gaza in 48 hours as it continued its operations against what it called “terrorist organisations”.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told the BBC on Monday that the group had agreed to the latest ceasefire proposal from mediators.

A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said the plan includes the release of 10 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in two phases.

In exchange, there would be a 70-day truce, a gradual partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the release of an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners, including several hundred serving long or life sentences.

The BBC has approached the Israeli government for comment on the proposal.

As mediation efforts continued, an Israeli strike on the home of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza killed nine of her 10 children on Friday. Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s 11-year-old son was injured, along with her husband, Hamdi al-Najjar, who is in critical condition.

The nine children – Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra – were aged between just a few months old and 12. The Israeli military has said the incident is under review.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said two of its staff were killed in a strike on their home in Khan Younis the following day.

The killing of Ibrahim Eid, a weapon contamination officer, and Ahmad Abu Hilal, a security guard at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah “points to the intolerable civilian death toll in Gaza”, the ICRC said, repeating its call for a ceasefire.

On Sunday, the head of a controversial US and Israeli-approved organisation planning to use private firms to deliver aid to Gaza resigned.

In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood said it had become apparent that plans to set up distribution hubs would not meet the “humanitarian principles” of independence and neutrality.

The UN and various humanitarian organisations have said they will not co-operate with the GHF, accusing it of being discriminatory over who will receive food.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March that lasted 11 weeks before it allowed limited aid to enter the territory in the face of warnings of famine and mounting international outrage.

The Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, Cogat, said 107 lorries carrying aid were allowed into Gaza on Sunday. The UN says much more aid – between 500 to 600 lorries a day – is needed.

Meanwhile, 20 countries and organisations met in Madrid on Sunday to discuss ending the war in Gaza. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an arms embargo on Israel if it did not stop its attacks.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Fifty-seven are still being held, about 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

At least 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will arrive in Canada later, for a two-day visit seen as bringing a message of support for the country in the face of threats and taunts from US President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who recently won a general election on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment, invited the royal couple and will hold a meeting with them during their stay in Ottawa.

The King will read the “Speech from the Throne” to Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday, the first time a monarch has delivered this for almost 50 years.

It is expected to include a defence of Canada’s sovereignty and to reject claims it should be taken over by the US.

• King’s big moment in Canada after Trump row
• Why is King Charles in Canada, and what is the throne speech?
• King’s invitation to Canada sends a message to Trump – and the world

There will be a ceremonial welcome at the airport in Ottawa on Monday and meetings with community groups, which are expected to include representatives of Canada’s First Nation communities.

The King will meet Canada’s first indigenous Governor General Mary Simon.

This is the King and Queen’s first visit to Canada since the start of their reign, after a planned trip last year was cancelled because of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis.

By reading the Speech from the Throne the King is following in the footsteps of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who carried out the duty twice during her long reign in 1957 and 1977.

But the timing of this week’s visit has been seen as a sign of solidarity with Canada, after calls from Trump for the country to become the 51st US state.

The US threat has inflamed public opinion with some businesses in Ottawa, as elsewhere in Canada, putting on displays of national identity such as “Proudly Canadian” posters.

Carney, when he visited Trump at the White House earlier this month, stressed that Canada was “not for sale” and that message is likely to be conveyed in the King’s speech which is written on the advice of Canada’s government.

Former Canadian high commissioner to the UK Jeremy Kinsman said this was a message the King will be pleased to deliver.

“It’s going to be very affirmative of Canadian sovereignty. And I can say personally that it’s something that King Charles will celebrate saying. I have no doubt,” said Mr Kinsman, who worked as a diplomat with the King when he was Prince of Wales.

The speech, to be delivered in French and English, will set out the Canadian government’s policy agenda in a way that is similar to the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament in Westminster.

But it is also expected to have lines asserting the independence of Canada – a Commonwealth country and Nato member.

Speaking ahead of the King’s visit and State Opening, Carney said: “This is an historic honour which matches the weight of our times.”

In terms of the ceremony, the King is expected to wear a suit, in an event that will be more low key than the crown and elaborate robes on display in the UK’s opening of Parliament.

As well as the speech in Parliament, this brief trip will include community events in Ottawa and a chance to meet local leaders.

This royal visit will be something of a diplomatic balancing act. The King is head of state of both Canada and the UK – and in his UK role, the King has been helping to maintain good relations with the US, sending a warm personal letter to President Trump inviting him for a second state visit.

In Canada, he will be expected to reflect a very different message, with Canada’s government rejecting Trump’s ambition to take over the country.

Ahead of the visit, a royal source said: “The King has long experience and great skill in walking that diplomatic tightrope.

“He’s held in high regard around the globe and across the political spectrum, with good relations with world leaders who understand his unique position.”

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A fight involvingmachetes at a Melbourne shopping centre has prompted an Australian state to fast-track the country’s first-ever ban on the weapon’s sale.

The ban – to start in Victoria this Wednesday, instead of September – comes after two gangs attacked each other at Northland shopping centre in Preston on Sunday afternoon. A man, 20, remains in hospital in a serious condition.

Victoria’s premier said the ban will “choke the supply”, adding “the community shouldn’t have to deal with these weapons in their shopping centres – neither should our police”.

Two boys, aged 16 and 15, were on Sunday charged with affray, intentionally causing injury, and possession and use of a controlled weapon.

On Monday, police said two men, aged 20 and 18, had also been arrested and were being interviewed. All four people were known to police previously.

“This was a planned fight between two rival youth gangs with no innocent bystanders hurt,” said deputy commissioner David Clayton.

“Fortunately, these events are not very commonplace in Victoria,” he said, adding that youth knife crime is “rare” but “frightening”.

Clayton said one in 10 knife crimes in the state are committed by young people, and often happen in public places.

Emergency services were called to the shopping centre in Preston – about 11km (seven miles) north of Melbourne – just after 14:30 local time (05:30 BST) on Sunday after reports of up to 10 people fighting.

Police said the investigation “remains ongoing” and more arrests are expected. Three of the four machetes used during the attack have been seized, police said.

Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan described the attack as “appalling”.

“We must never let the places where we gather – where families come together, to meet, to shop, to enjoy the peace of their weekend – become the places we fear,” Allan said at a press conference.

“It took the United Kingdom 18 months to bring about a ban on machetes and we are moving to do it within six months,” she added.

In March, Victoria announced legislative changes to its Control of Weapons Act, making it illegal to sell or possess machetes, with the new law to start in September.

The ban covers machetes, which are broadly defined as “knives with a cutting blade longer than 20cm”. It does not include knives primarily used in kitchens.

A three-month amnesty from September means anyone with a machete can place them in specially designated boxes at police stations.

Police also thanked a man who held down one of the alleged offenders until police arrived, saying he “performed an outstanding job”, but added they don’t encourage the public to become involved in such incidents.

In England and Wales, a ban on “zombie-style” knives and machetes was introduced last September, making it illegal to own, make, transport or sell a wide range of “statement” knives favoured by criminal gangs.

Farooq Ahmed still bristles with anger when he talks about his brother’s death.

Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Poonch city in Indian-administered Kashmir, died in cross-border shelling on 7 May, the morning after India launched a series of air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation to a militant attack in the town of Pahalgam that killed 26 people. Pakistan has denied having any role in the attack.

Mr Ahmed says that Iqbal died where he had worked for more than two decades – Zia-ul-Uloom, a madrassa, or a religious centre focused on Islamic teachings, in Poonch.

But his death, it turned out, was just the beginning of the family’s troubles.

As the news spread, several media channels falsely accused Iqbal of being a terrorist, following which the police put out a statement refuting the claim.

“My brother was a teacher but they saw his beard and skullcap and branded him a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

“It was like having salt rubbed into our wounds. We had lost Iqbal and then the media defamed him. The dead can’t defend themselves.”

Indian officials say that a total of 16 people, including Iqbal, were killed in the cross-border shelling during the four-day military conflict that broke out between India and Pakistan following the airstrikes.

Pakistan has claimed 40 civilian deaths, though, it remains unclear how many of these were directly caused by the shelling.

The two nuclear-armed countries have shared a tense relationship for decades, as both administer the Himalayan region of Kashmir in part, but claim it in full.

They have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947 and came back from the brink of another one earlier this month.

But as the military conflict escalated, another battle played out on social media – a disinformation war of claims and counterclaims that circulated online and on TV.

Just like rumours about Iqbal’s identity, other misleading and inaccurate information also found its way into some mainstream news channels and websites.

This included claims such as India having destroyed Pakistan’s Karachi port, which was later debunked by the Indian government.

Some of the other fabrications were harder to spot, like an AI-generated video of a Pakistan army general claiming that his country had lost two aircraft in combat.

“The scale of misinformation and fact-free assertions being broadcast by the media was shocking,” says Manisha Pande, managing editor at Newslaundry, an independent news platform.

She notes that while a degree of sensationalism is expected as channels compete for viewership, “the jingoistic and irresponsible coverage” of the conflict was unprecedented in its intensity — and unlike anything she had witnessed before.

No one knows this better than Mr Ahmed.

“I don’t know where news channels got the information about my brother from,” Mr Ahmed says.

“Who did they speak to? What kind of evidence did they have that my brother was a terrorist?” he asks.

Weeks later, the family is still reeling from the tragedy.

Mr Ahmed says that on 7 May, his brother left home for the madrassa in the morning as usual, but it was his body that returned home. By noon, they had buried him in a nearby cemetery.

For some time, the family had no idea about the misinformation that was being shared by some news outlets. They were busy performing Iqbal’s last rites.

It was only hours later that a relative received a WhatsApp forward – a video clip of a prominent news channel claiming that the Indian army had killed a terrorist, with Iqbal’s photo flashing on the screen.

“We were shocked. Soon, we began getting more calls from people asking us what was going on and why was the media calling Iqbal a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

The claim was shared by some prominent channels, including Zee News, ABP and News18. The BBC has reached out to the channels for comment.

One channel claimed that Iqbal was killed in an “Indian strike on a terrorist camp” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and that he was a terrorist with Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“Our family members have been staying in Poonch for generations. How can they say my brother was living in Pakistan? They [the media] should be ashamed,” Mr Ahmed says.

The accusation against Iqbal was circulated so widely and swiftly that on 8 May, the Poonch police put out a statement, clarifying that Iqbal had died in cross-border shelling in the madrasa.

“Poonch Police strongly refutes such false narratives. The deceased, Maulana Mohd Iqbal, was a respected religious figure in the local community and had no affiliation with any terror outfit,” the statement said, adding that legal action would be taken against any media outlet or individual who circulated the fake news.

But for Mr Ahmed, the statement was too little too late.

“By then, the false claim would’ve already reached millions of people in India,” he says.

He adds that except for one channel, News18, no one else had publicly apologised to him or their viewers for the mistake.

Mr Ahmed says he wants to take legal action against the channels, but the process would have to wait as the family is struggling to make ends meet.

Iqbal is survived by his two wives and eight children. He was the only earning member in his family.

Mr Ahmed says that the compensation given by the government, which amounts to a few million rupees, will last only for a year or two and they must start planning for the future now.

“The whole family depended on my brother. He was a quiet and gentle man who loved teaching children,” Mr Ahmed says.

“But who’s going to tell this to the world? For many people, my brother is still a terrorist whose killing is justified. How will they understand our pain?”

US President Donald Trump has said he is “not happy” with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, following Moscow’s largest aerial attack yet on Ukraine.

In a rare rebuke, Trump said: “What the hell happened to him? He’s killing a lot of people.” He later called Putin “absolutely crazy”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this was a “very important moment which is connected to an emotional overload of everyone involved” but added Putin was taking decisions “necessary for the security” of Russia.

Between Sunday evening and Monday morning, Russia launched 355 drones and nine cruise missiles against Ukraine, according to Kyiv’s air force.

It was the largest drone attack on Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022, the Ukrainian air force said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “only a sense of total impunity” could allow Russia to “carry out such strikes and continue increasing their scale”.

Earlier, Kyiv said Washington’s “silence” over recent Russian attacks is encouraging Putin and urged “strong pressure”, including tougher sanctions, on Moscow.

Sirens warning of incoming drones and missiles sounded again in many regions of Ukraine early on Monday. Several people across the country are known to have been injured, according to regional authorities.

Peskov said the latest massive aerial assaults were a response to Ukrainian attacks on what he called Russia’s “social infrastructure”.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday morning that air defence systems destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions.

At least 12 people were killed and dozens injured in Ukraine overnight Sunday after Russia fired 367 drones and missiles in what was the largest aerial attack since the start of the war.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey late on Sunday, Trump said of Putin: “I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”

Asked about whether he was considering increasing US sanctions on Russia, Trump replied: “Absolutely.” The US president has repeatedly threatened to do this before – but is yet to implement any restrictions against Moscow.

Shortly afterwards, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that Putin “has gone absolutely crazy”.

“I’ve always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”

But the US president also had strong words for Zelensky, saying that he “is doing his country no favours by talking the way he does”.

“Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop,” Trump wrote of Zelensky.

Despite Kyiv’s European allies preparing further sanctions for Russia, the US has said it will either continue trying to broker these peace talks, or “walk away” if progress does not follow.

Peskov said on Monday that Russia was “truly grateful” to the Americans and “personally to President Trump” for their help in organising and launching this negotiation process.

Last week, Trump and Putin had a two-hour phone call to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire deal to halt the fighting.

The US president said he believed the call had gone “very well”, adding that Russia and Ukraine would “immediately start” negotiations toward a ceasefire and “an end to the war”.

Ukraine has publicly agreed to a 30-day ceasefire.

Putin has only said Russia will work with Ukraine to craft a “memorandum” on a “possible future peace” – a move described by Kyiv and its European allies as delaying tactics.

The first direct Ukrainian-Russian talks since 2022 were held on 16 May in Istanbul, Turkey.

Aside from a major prisoner of war swap last week, there was little or no progress on bringing a pause in fighting closer.

Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory. This includes Crimea – Ukraine’s southern peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.