It’s hot, dusty and feels like a desert at the Agarak border crossing between Armenia and Iran.

There are dry, rocky mountains surrounding the area – no trees, no shade. It’s not the most welcoming terrain, especially for those who have travelled long hours to reach Armenia.

A woman with a fashionable haircut, with the lower half of her head shaven, is holding her baby, while her husband negotiates a price with taxi drivers. There’s another family of three with a little boy travelling back to their country of residence, Austria.

Most of those crossing into Armenia appeared to have residency or citizenship in other countries. Many were leaving because of the conflict between Israel and Iran, now in its eighth day.

“Today I saw one site where the bombing happened,” said a father standing with a small child near the minivan that they just hired. They had travelled from the north-western town of Tabriz.

“All the people are scared, every place is dangerous, it’s not normal,” he added.

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The conflict began on 13 June, when Israel attacked nuclear and military sites as well as some populated areas.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – a Washington-based human rights organisation that has long tracked Iran – says 657 people have so far been killed. Iran has retaliated with missile attacks on Israel, killing at least 24 people.

Israel says it has established air superiority over Tehran and has told people to leave some of its districts. In recent days, heavy traffic jams have formed on roads out of the city as some of its 10 million residents seek safety elsewhere.

Those who drove to Armenia from Tehran said the journey had taken at least 12 hours. Several told us that they did not see the Israeli strikes – but heard the sound of explosions they caused.

“It was troubling there. Every night, attacks from Israel. I just escaped from there by very hard way. There were no flights, not any other ways come from there,” said a young Afghan man with a single suitcase, who did not want to be named.

He described the situation in Tehran as “very bad”.

“People who have somewhere to go, they are leaving. Every night is like attacking, people cannot sleep, because of the sounds of explosions, the situation is not good at all,” he said.

A young woman with white headscarf and thick fake lashes said she was heading back to her country of residence, Australia.

“I saw something that is very hard, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said as she boarded a car with several others for the onward journey to the Armenian capital Yerevan.

“Someone comes and attacks your country, would you feel normal?”

Some Israeli ministers have talked up the possibility that the conflict could lead to regime collapse in Iran.

But Javad – who had been visiting the north-eastern city of Sabzevar for the summer holidays and was heading back to Germany – said he thought this was unlikely.

“Israel has no chance. Israel is not a friend for us, it’s an enemy,” he said. “Israel cannot come to our home to help us. Israel needs to change something for itself not for us.”

Some Iranians at the border however were crossing were travelling in the other direction. The previous evening, Ali Ansaye, who had been holidaying in Armenia with his family, was heading back to Tehran.

“I have no concerns, and I am not scared at all. If I am supposed to die, I will die in my country,” he said.

He said Israel was “harassing the entire world – Gaza, Lebanon and other countries”.

“How can such a small country have nuclear weapons?” he asked. “Based on which law can this country have a bomb, and Iran, which has only focused on peaceful nuclear energy and not a bomb, cannot?”

Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, although it neither confirms nor denies this.

China’s military has called a British warship’s recent passage through the Taiwan Strait a disruptive act of “intentional provocation” that “undermines peace and stability”.

The British Royal Navy says HMS Spey’s patrol on Wednesday was part of a long-planned deployment and was in accordance with international law.

The patrol – the first by a British naval vessel in four years – comes as a UK carrier strike group arrives in the region for a deployment that will last several months.

China considers Taiwan its territory – a claim that self-ruled Taiwan rejects – and has not ruled out the use of force to “reunify” the island.

A spokesman from China’s navy criticised the UK for “publicly hyping up” the journey of HMS Spey, and said the UK’s claims were “a distortion of legal principles and an attempt to mislead the public”.

“Such actions are intentional provocations that disrupt the situation and undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.

It added that it had monitored HMS Spey throughout its journey in the strait, and Chinese troops “will resolutely counter all threats and provocations”.

Later, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that while China respects other countries’ rights to sail through the Taiwan Strait, it also “firmly opposes any country using the name of freedom of navigation to provoke and threaten China’s sovereign security.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry has meanwhile praised the patrol as an act that safeguarded the freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait.

While American warships regularly conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the strait, the last time such a journey was undertaken by a British naval vessel was in 2021 when the warship HMS Richmond was deployed to Vietnam.

That transit was similarly condemned by China, which had sent troops to monitor the ship.

HMS Spey is one of two British warships permanently on patrol in the Indo-Pacific.

Its passage through the Taiwan Strait comes as a UK carrier strike group, led by HMS Prince of Wales’ aircraft carrier, arrives in the Indo-Pacific region for an eight-month stint.

British PM Keir Starmer has described it as one of the carrier’s largest deployments this century that is aimed at “sending a clear message of strength to our adversaries, and a message of unity and purpose to our allies”.

Around 4,000 UK military personnel are taking part in the deployment.

The group will be engaging with 30 countries through military operations and visits, and conduct exercises with the US, India, Singapore and Malaysia.

Cross-strait tensions between China and Taiwan have heightened over the past year since Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who champions a firm anti-Beijing stance, took office.

He has characterised Beijing as a “foreign hostile force” and introduced policies targeting Chinese influence operations in Taiwan.

Meanwhile, China continues to conduct frequent military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, including a live-fire exercise in April that it claimed simulated strikes on key ports and energy facilities.

China’s latest criticism of HMS Spey’s transit comes as two Chinese aircraft carriers conduct an unprecedented simultaneous military drill in the Pacific off the waters of Japan, which has alarmed Tokyo.

Whether you reckon they are cute, ugly or just plain weird, chances are you have heard of the furry dolls that have become a global sensation – Labubu.

Born a monster, the elf-like creature from Chinese toy maker Pop Mart is now a viral purchase. And it has no dearth of celebrity advocates: Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian and Blackpink’s Lisa. Ordinary folk are just as obsessed – from Shanghai to London, the long queues to snap up the doll have made headlines, sometimes descending into fights even.

“You get such a sense of achievement when you are able to get it among such fierce competition,” says avowed fan Fiona Zhang.

The world’s fascination with Labubu has almost tripled Pop Mart’s profits in the past year – and, according to some, even energised Chinese soft power, which has been bruised by the pandemic and a strained relationship with the West.

So, how did we get here?

It’s a question that still bothers many – and even those who know the answer are not entirely sure they can explain the craze.

Labubu is both a fictional character and a brand. The word itself doesn’t mean anything. It’s the name of a character in “The Monsters” toy series created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung.

The vinyl faces are attached to plush bodies, and come with a signature look – pointy ears, big eyes and a mischievous grin showing exactly nine teeth. A curious yet divided internet can’t seem to decide if they are adorable or bizarre.

According to its retailer’s official website, Labubu is “kind-hearted and always wants to help, but often accidentally achieves the opposite”.

The Labubu dolls have appeared in several series of “The Monsters”, such as “Big into Energy”, “Have a Seat”, “Exciting Macaron” and “Fall in Wild”.

The Labubu brand also has other characters from its universe, which have inspired their own popular dolls – such as the tribe’s leader Zimomo, her boyfriend Tycoco and her friend Mokoko.

To the untrained eye, some of these dolls are hard to distinguish from one another. The connoisseurs would know but Labubu’s fame has certainly rubbed off, with other specimens in the family also flying off the shelves.

A major part of Pop Mart’s sales were so-called blind boxes – where customers only found out what they had bought when they opened the package – for some years when they tied up with Kasing Lung for the rights to Labubu.

That was 2019, nearly a decade after entrepreneur Wang Ning opened Pop Mart as a variety store, similar to a pound shop, in Beijing. When the blind boxes became a success, Pop Mart launched the first series in 2016, selling Molly dolls – child-like figurines created by Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong.

But it was the Labubu sales that fuelled Pop Mart’s growth and in December 2020, it began selling shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Those shares have soared by more than 500% in the last year.

Pop Mart itself has now become a major retailer. It operates more than 2,000 vending machines, or “roboshops”, around the world. And you can now buy Labubu dolls in stores, physical or virtual, in more than 30 countries, from the US and UK to Australia and Singapore, although many of them have recently paused sales due to overwhelming demand. Sales from outside mainland China contributed to nearly 40% of its total revenue in 2024.

In a sign of just how popular Labubus have become, Chinese customs officials said this week that they had seized more than 70,000 fake dolls in recent days.

The demand did not rise overnight though. It actually took a few years for the elfin monsters to break into the mainstream.

Before the world discovered Labubu, their fame was limited to China. They started to become a hit just as the country emerged from the pandemic in late 2022, according to Ashley Dudarenok, founder of China-focused research firm ChoZan.

“Post-pandemic, a lot of people in China felt that they wanted to emotionally escape… and Labubu was a very charming but chaotic character,” she says. “It embodied that anti-perfectionism.”

The Chinese internet, which is huge and competitive, produces plenty of viral trends that don’t go global. But this one did and its popularity quickly spread to neighbouring South East Asia.

Fiona, who lives in Canada, says she first heard about Labubu from Filipino friends in 2023. That’s when she started buying them – she says she finds them cute, but their increasing popularity is a major draw: “The more popular it gets the more I want it.

“My husband doesn’t understand why me, someone in their 30s, would be so fixated on something like this, like caring about which colour to get.”

It helps that it’s also affordable, she adds. Although surging demand has pushed up prices on the second-hand market, Fiona says the original price, which ranged from 25 Canadian dollars ($18; £14) to 70 Canadian dollars for most Labubu dolls, was “acceptable” to most people she knows.

“That’s pretty much how much a bag accessory would cost anyway these days, most people would be able to afford it,” she says.

Labubu’s popularity soared in April 2024, when Thai-born K-pop superstar Lisa began posting photos on Instagram with various Labubu dolls. And then, other global celebrities turned the dolls into an international phenomenon this year.

Singer Rihanna was photographed with a Labubu toy clipped to her Louis Vuitton bag in February. Influencer Kim Kardashian shared her collection of 10 Labubu dolls with her Instagram following in April. And in May, former England football captain Sir David Beckham also took to Instagram with a photo of a Labubu, given to him by his daughter.

Now the dolls feel ubiquitous, regularly spotted not just online but also on friends, colleagues or passers-by.

Put simply, we don’t know. Like most viral trends, Labubu’s appeal is hard to explain – the result of timing, taste and the randomness that is the internet.

Beijing is certainly happy with the outcome. State news agency Xinhua says Labubu “shows the appeal of Chinese creativity, quality and culture in a language the world can understand”, while giving everyone the chance to see “cool China”.

Xinhua has other examples that show “Chinese cultural IP is going global”: the video game Black Myth: Wukong and the hit animated film Nezha.

Some analysts seem surprised that Chinese companies – from EV makers and AI developers to retailers – are so successful despite Western unease over Beijing’s ambitions.

“BYD, DeepSeek, all of these companies have one very interesting thing in common, including Labubu,” Chris Pereira, founder and chief executive of consultancy firm iMpact, told BBC News.

“They’re so good that no one cares they’re from China. You can’t ignore them.”

Meanwhile, Labubu continue to rack up social media followers with millions watching new owners unbox their prized purchase. One of the most popular videos, posted in December, shows curious US airport security staff huddling around a traveller’s unopened Labubu box to figure out which doll is inside.

That element of surprise is a big part of the appeal, says Desmond Tan, a longtime collector, as he walks around a Pop Mart store in Singapore vigorously shaking blind boxes before deciding which one to buy. This is a common sight in Pop Mart.

Desmond collects “chaser” characters, special editions from Pop Mart’s various toy series, which include Labubu. On average, Desmond says, he finds a chaser in one out of every 10 boxes he buys. It’s a good strike rate, he claims, compared to the typical odds: one in 100.

“Being able to get the chaser from shaking the box, learning how to feel the difference…,” is deeply satisfying for him.

“If I can get it in just one or two tries, I’m very happy!”

A security review has been launched across UK military bases after pro-Palestinian activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed two military planes with red paint.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer condemned the action as “disgraceful”, saying it was an “act of vandalism”.

Footage posted online by Palestine Action on Friday showed two people inside the Oxfordshire airbase in darkness, with one riding on a scooter up to an Airbus Voyager and spraying paint into its jet engine.

Downing Street said the incident had not blocked any planned aircraft movements or stopped any operations. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it is working with Thames Valley Police, which is leading the investigation.

Defence Secretary John Healey said he was “really disturbed” by the incident and had ordered an investigation and the wider security review.

Palestine Action said the activists evaded security and claimed they had put the air-to-air refuelling tankers “out of service”.

However, RAF engineers are assessing the damage and a defence source told the BBC they did not expect the incident to affect operations.

In a statement, a Palestine Action spokesperson said: “Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets.”

Thames Valley Police confirmed it had received a report about people gaining access to the base and causing criminal damage.

“Inquiries are ongoing to locate and arrest those responsible,” the force said.

RAF Brize Norton serves as the hub for UK strategic air transport and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The air force has conducted reconnaissance flights over Gaza out of the Cyprus base.

The base is encircled by a large perimeter fence, with security camera and sensors in the area in addition to manned security checkpoints. Patrols around the base are also carried out from time to time.

But a defence source said these measures would not have been able to provide complete cover around the large airbase.

Palestine Action has engaged in similar activity since the start of the current war in Gaza, predominantly targeting arms companies. In May, it claimed responsibility for the daubing of a US military plane in Ireland.

The group said the activists who entered RAF Brize Norton used repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into the planes’ engines.

It also said they caused “further damage” using crowbars – though this is not visible in the bodycam footage it provided.

Video shows the activists then roaming around the airbase.

The protesters did not spray paint on the Vespina aircraft – used by the prime minister for international travel – which was also on the base.

The MoD told the BBC that RAF Voyager aircraft had not been involved in refuelling or supporting Israeli Air Force jets.

A spokesman said Voyagers have been used in the Middle East to refuel RAF Typhoon jets involved in the ongoing international efforts to tackle the so-called Islamic State group in eastern Iraq and Syria.

They have also been used in the Red Sea in the past in operations against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Lord West, Labour minister for UK security and former head of the Royal Navy, said earlier that while he was not aware of the full details, the break-in was “extremely worrying”.

“We can’t allow thing like this to happen at all,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that breaches like it were “really a problem” for national security.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the security breach was “deeply concerning”.

“This is not lawful protest, it is politically motivated criminality,” she said in a statement.

“We must stop tolerating terrorist or extremist groups that seek to undermine our society.”

Greg Bagwell – a former RAF deputy commander – said that in targeting the Voyager, the activists picked “a strange target”.

Air Marshall Bagwell, now a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told the BBC “those aircraft do not do what these protesters think they do. They’re largely used for moving passengers or fuel”.

He added that Voyagers had “the wrong connectors” that would stop them being used to help refuel Israeli or US jets, as the action group suggested.

But he said if the activists “wanted to create an effect, they’ve clearly done that”.

Shadow armed forces minister Mark Francois told the BBC any attempt to interfere with the engines of large aircraft was “totally reprehensible”.

He added there were “serious questions for the MoD to answer” about how protesters were able to “gain access to what is supposed to be a secure RAF airbase”.

The local Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard described the activists’ actions as “stupid and dangerous”.

He said the investigations should establish “how this happened and what can be done in future to make sure no further breaches occur”.

The BBC says it has decided not to broadcast a documentary about doctors working in Gaza, due to impartiality concerns it has surrounding the production.

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was commissioned by the BBC but produced by an independent production company. It was originally scheduled for broadcast in February, but has not yet aired on any BBC outlet.

In a statement, the BBC said it was “determined to report all aspects of the conflict in the Middle East impartially and fairly”.

Basement Films said it was “relieved that the BBC will finally allow this film to be released”. The BBC confirmed it was “transferring ownership of the film material to Basement Films”.

The production company’s founder, Ben de Pear, said earlier this week the BBC had “utterly failed” and that journalists were “being stymied and silenced”.

BBC News understands the decision to shelve the documentary was taken on Thursday, following public comments by De Pear at the Sheffield Documentary Festival, and another of the film’s directors, journalist Ramita Navai, who appeared on Radio 4’s Today discussing the war in Gaza.

Navai told the programme Israel had “become a rogue state that’s committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians”. Israel has denied accusations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

A different documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was pulled from iPlayer earlier this year after it emerged its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack – also known as Gaza: Medics Under Fire – is said to examine the experiences of Palestinian medics working during the war in Gaza.

The film is directed by Karim Shah, Navai and De Pear, a former editor of Channel 4 News.

In a statement on Friday, the BBC said it had commissioned the documentary over a year ago, but paused the film in April, “having made a decision that we could not broadcast the film while a review into a separate Gaza documentary was ongoing”.

“With both films coming from independent production companies, and both about Gaza, it was right to wait for any relevant findings – and put them into action – before broadcasting the film.

“However, we wanted the doctors’ voices to be heard. Our aim was to find a way to air some of the material in our news programmes, in line with our impartiality standards, before the review was published.

“For some weeks, the BBC has been working with Basement Films to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our platforms.

“Yesterday [Thursday], it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC.”

The corporation added that, contrary to some reports, the documentary had “not undergone the BBC’s final pre-broadcast sign-off processes”, adding: “Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film.”

It continued: “We want to thank the doctors and contributors and we are sorry we could not tell their stories. The BBC will continue to cover events in Gaza impartially.”

In its own statement, Basement Films claimed it had been given “no less than six different release dates” and the film went through a “long and repeated compliance process as well as scrupulous fact checking”.

It continued: “Our argument all along has been to tell the story of the doctors and medics as soon as possible, people whom we convinced to talk to us despite their own reservations that the BBC would ever tell their stories.”

“Although the BBC are now taking their names off this film, it will remain theirs, and we hope it serves to open up the debate on how the nation’s broadcaster covers what is happening in Gaza, and that people feel free to speak up and speak out, rather than stay silent or leave, and at some point get the journalistic leadership they deserve.”

Speaking at the Sheffield Documentary Festival on Thursday, before the decision was announced, De Pear specifically blamed director general Tim Davie for refusing to air the film.

He added: “The BBC’s primary purpose is TV news and current affairs, and if it’s failing on that it doesn’t matter what drama it makes or sports it covers,” he said, as reported by Broadcast. “It is failing as an institution. And if it’s failing on that then it needs new management.

In relation to the war, De Pear claimed staff at the BBC “are being forced to use language they don’t recognise, they are not describing something as it clearly is [for fear of impartiality] and it’s tragic”.

Responding to De Pear’s comments, a BBC spokesperson said the BBC “totally reject[s] this characterisation of our coverage”.

“The BBC has continually produced powerful journalism about this conflict. Alongside breaking news and ongoing analysis, we have produced original investigations such as those into allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s use of bunker buster bombs and in-depth documentaries including the award-winning Life and Death in Gaza, and Gaza 101.”

High-profile figures such as actress Susan Sarandon and presenter Gary Lineker have previously accused the corporation of censorship over the delay.

An open letter, which was also signed by cultural figures such as Dame Harriet Walter, Miriam Margolyes, Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson and Mike Leigh, said: “This is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression.”

“No news organisation should quietly decide behind closed doors whose stories are worth telling,” it continued.

“This important film should be seen by the public, and its contributors’ bravery honoured.”

Israeli forces have killed 23 Palestinians after opening fire on crowds gathered near an aid distribution site, witnesses and medics say.

Tanks and drones fired at thousands of people near a distribution centre in central Gaza run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the witnesses and medics said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops fired warning shots after people gathered nearby. An Israeli aircraft then struck “several suspects” who the IDF said continued walking towards troops.

The GHF has denied a shooting occurred near its sites. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed in similar incidents since late May.

That is when the GHF took over most aid distribution in Gaza in an attempt by Israel to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid.

The move followed a complete three-month Israeli blockade during which no food entered the territory, putting the entire population at critical risk of famine according to a UN-backed assessment.

In almost all incidents, witnesses have said that Israeli troops opened fire, although there have also been reports of local armed gunmen shooting at people.

A spokesperson for al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat confirmed they received 23 bodies and more than 100 wounded. Images from the hospital showed bodies on the floor.

The IDF said the incident was under review.

The UN children’s agency Unicef said the Israel- and US-backed food distribution system run by GHF was “making a desperate humanitarian situation worse”.

Unicef spokesperson James Elder said a lack of public clarity on when the sites, some of which are in combat zones, were open was leading to mass casualty events.

“There have been instances where information (was) shared that a site is open, but then it’s communicated on social media that they’re closed, but that information was shared when Gaza’s internet was down and people had no access to it,” he told reporters in Geneva.

He said many women and children had been wounded while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died.

On Thursday, at least 12 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces while waiting for aid, according to rescuers and medics. The GHF denied there were any incidents near its site. The Israeli military told Reuters that “suspects” had attempted to approach forces in the area of Netzarim, and that soldiers had fired warning shots.

On Tuesday witnesses said more than 50 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire and shelled an area near a junction to the east of Khan Younis, where thousands of Palestinians had been gathering in the hope of getting flour from a World Food Programme (WFP) site, which also includes a community kitchen nearby. The Israeli military said “a gathering” had been identified “in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area” and the incident was under review.

Unicef also warned that Gaza was facing a man-made drought as its water systems were collapsing. Just 40% of rinking water production facilities were still functioning, Mr Elder said.

“Children will begin to die of thirst,” he said, adding: “We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water for people in Gaza.”

In a separate Israeli attack on Friday, a medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent told the BBC that 11 Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home in the al-Ma’sar area west of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Eyewitnesses said Israeli warplanes struck a two-storey house belonging to the Ayash family.

Hamas-run civil defence officials say Israel has carried out a wave of deadly air strikes on Gaza in recent days, following a brief lull in air operations that coincided with the escalation between Israel and Iran.

They reported on Thursday that at least 77 Palestinians had been killed in such strikes, which heavily targeted the Shati area in western Gaza City.

Local sources speculated that the renewed strikes may be linked to the targeting of Hamas security elements who have recently re-emerged across parts of Gaza, attempting to reassert control amid a breakdown in law and order. These movements appear to have been timed with the temporary easing of Israeli aerial surveillance due to the simultaneous military focus on Iran.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 55,706 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including more than 15,000 children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A 12-year-old girl has died and seven other children have been taken to hospital in an outbreak of severe food poisoning centred around a northern French town.

Symptoms began to emerge on 12 June in and around Saint-Quentin, south of Lille, with the children rushed to hospital over the following days.

The cause of the outbreak is yet to be identified, as the children, aged 1-12, are not thought to have mixed in the same groups.

The girl died on Monday from a rare condition called haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) linked to acute kidney failure, according to the local prefect in the Aisne area. The most common cause of the infection is E.coli bacteria.

The latest case was reported on Wednesday evening, the regional health authority in Hauts-de France said.

All eight children were admitted to hospital with severe digestive symptoms, such as bloody diarrhea, and five of them had developed HUS, the authority said.

Health authorities are conducting biological analysis in an attempt to identify the bacterial strain involved in each case.

They said there was no indication the children ate meals together and they have ruled out any issues with local tap water, which “can be used for drinking and for all everyday purposes”.

The infectious disease (HUS) is most often caused by E.coli food poisoning, authorities said. However, as the families involved had sourced their food from a variety of places, the origin of contamination is proving hard to find.

Food inspectors were investigating whether contaminated meat was behind the outbreak. Several butchers in Saint-Quentin were closed on Thursday, local news outlet L’Aisne nouvelle reported.

One butcher said all his meat, marinades and spices had been taken away to be checked.

Parents have been told to be vigilant and ensure strict hygiene at home, with authorities advising regular hand-washing, washing of fruit and vegetables, thoroughly cooking meat and separating raw and cooked food.

US singer Chris Brown has pleaded not guilty to an assault charge after an alleged bottle attack at a London nightclub two years ago.

The 36-year-old is accused of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) to music producer Abraham Diaw during an incident that prosecutors have described as “unprovoked”.

Brown also faces charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and having an offensive weapon – namely a tequila bottle. Both relate to the same incident, and were added to his indictment ahead of Friday’s hearing.

The judge adjourned arraignment on those two counts, meaning Brown will not have to enter a plea until 11 July. He will face trial for GBH on 26 October, 2026.

The US singer appeared at Southwark Crown Court to deny the charge of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, hours after playing to thousands of fans at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.

Wearing an ocean blue suit and black-rimmed glasses, the musician was silent as he walked past a large group of photographers when he arrived at the court on Friday morning.

Five or six fans were outside the court to offer their support. More crowded into the courtroom to watch the proceedings.

After taking the dock, Brown smiled and winked to a woman in the courtroom, while waiting for His Honour Judge Baumgartner to arrive.

He confirmed his name and date of birth, 5 May 1989, before the judge asked for his plea on the charge of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm. “Not guilty, ma’am,” Brown replied.

Brown’s co-defendant Omololu Akinlolu, a 39-year-old American who performs under the name HoodyBaby, also entered a not guilty plea to the charge of attempted grievous bodily harm.

Brown was arrested at the five-star Lowry hotel in Salford, Greater Manchester, last month, after arriving in the UK to prepare for a string of European tour dates.

He was held in custody for almost a week, before being released after agreeing to pay a £5m security fee to the court.

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

Under those conditions, Mr Brown must live at an address in the UK while awaiting trial, and was ordered to surrender his passport to police.

However, a plan was put in place allowing him to honour his Breezy Bowl XX world tour dates by surrendering his passport but getting it back when he needs to travel to the gigs.

The first date took place in Amsterdam on 8 June, and the UK leg kicked off last weekend.

On the first night in Manchester on Sunday, he thanked fans “for coming and supporting me”.

“And thank you to the jail,” he joked, referring to his spell in custody. “It was really nice.”

Mr Brown is one of the biggest stars in US R&B, with two Grammy Awards, and 19 top 10 singles in the UK – including hits like Turn Up The Music, Freaky Friday, With You and Don’t Wake Me Up.

Last week, he won the prize for best male R&B/pop artist at the BET Awards in Los Angeles.

A former partner of pop star Rihanna, his latest tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of his self-titled debut album.

Outlining the case against him last month, prosecutors said the alleged victim, Abraham Diaw, was standing at the bar of Soho’s Tape nightclub on 19 February 2023 when Mr Brown launched an “unprovoked attack” in which the complainant was struck several times with a bottle.

She said: “The defendant then pursued him to a separate area of the nightclub where the victim was punched and kicked repeatedly by him and another.”

Brown will follow his court appearance with two dates at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this weekend.

His next hearing will take two place once the European leg of his tour wraps up.

Dissidents who have fled Alexander Lukashenko’s rule in Belarus have spoken of threats being made against them and their relatives at home.

Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are estimated to have left their country since the brutal crackdown on widespread opposition protests in 2020, after Lukashenko, 70, claimed victory in presidential elections that were widely condemned as rigged.

Among the exiles was journalist Tatsiana Ashurkevich, 26, who continued to write about events in Belarus. Then, earlier this year, she discovered that the door of her flat in the capital, Minsk, had been sealed up with construction foam.

She guessed immediately who might be to blame. She decided to confront one of her followers on Instagram who had repeatedly messaged her with unsolicited compliments and views about the Belarusian opposition movement and journalism in exile.

“If there are criminal cases [against me], just say so,” she said. “I have nothing to do with that apartment – other people live there. Why are you doing this?”

The man immediately changed his tone to a more official one, saying criminal cases were not his responsibility, but he could ask the relevant department.

Then he made a request: could she, in exchange for help, share information about Belarusians fighting for Ukraine, especially since she had written about them before?

Ashurkevich blocked him.

In Belarus itself, tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the past five years for political reasons, according to human rights group Viasna.

But hundreds of critics of Lukashenko’s 31-year rule have also faced persecution abroad.

Lukashenko and Belarusian state media often accuse opposition activists of “betraying” the country and plotting a coup with assistance from the West. Authorities have justified targeting activists abroad, arguing they are trying to harm national security and overthrow the government.

Several people the BBC has spoken to have received messages and phone calls, sometimes seemingly innocuous, sometimes with thinly veiled threats – or promises with a catch.

Anna Krasulina, 55, receives them so often she has become used to putting her phone in flight mode before going to bed.

“I can see who’s handling me – it’s a couple of people. Or maybe it’s the same one using different accounts,” she says.

She’s convinced the authorities are behind this. Ms Krasulina works as a press secretary for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an opposition leader believed by many to have won the 2020 election, now living in exile.

Both women have been sentenced in Belarus to 11 and 15 years respectively in trials held in absentia. Charges included preparing a coup and running an extremist organisation.

Since such trials against exiled political opponents were made possible by a decree by Lukashenko in 2022, more than 200 cases have been opened, according to Viasna, with last year seeing a record number.

This allows authorities to raid the homes of the accused and harass their relatives.

Critics are being identified on photographs and videos made in opposition gatherings abroad.

Many have now stopped taking part in them, fearing for their loved ones who remain in Belarus, says Ms Krasulina.

• My opponents choose jail and exile, claims Lukashenko
• Belarus ruler claims landslide in “sham election”

Several people the BBC spoke to report their relatives being visited by the authorities.

“It’s terrifying when you can’t help them. You can’t go back. You can’t support them,” says one.

None would go on record or even reveal any details anonymously out of concern that their families could be hurt.

Their fears are not unfounded. Artem Lebedko, a 39-year old who worked in real estate, is serving a three-and-a-half year jail sentence for “financing extremism”.

He had never spoken out in public, but his father was an opposition politician living in exile.

Breaking the ties between Belarusians who have fled and those who stayed behind is a deliberate strategy by Lukashenko’s government, says journalist and analyst Hanna Liubakova, also sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison.

“Even if someone in Belarus understands everything, they’ll think three times before talking to a ‘terrorist’,” she says, referring to a list of “extremists and terrorists” which the authorities populate with names of their critics.

The BBC sent a request for comment to the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs, but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Some of Liubakova’s own relatives have also received visits from the security services, she says, and property registered in her name has been seized.

Everyone the BBC has spoken to believes the Belarusian authorities are seeking to exert maximum pressure on those who left in order to crush all opposition, wherever it is.

Hanna Liubakova believes the persecution of dissidents stems from Lukashenko’s personal revenge for the 2020 protests: “He wants us to feel unsafe even abroad, to know that we’re being watched.”

One country that has proved particularly unsafe for Belarusian exiles is Russia. According to authorities in Minsk, in 2022 alone Russia extradited 16 people accused of “extremist crimes”, a charge usually associated with Lukashenko critics.

“The methods used by Belarusian security forces are very similar to those of the Soviet KGB, just updated with modern technology, says Andrei Strizhak, head of Bysol, a group that supports Belarusian activists.

Threatening messages or promises of rewards for co-operation may not work on everyone, he adds. But by casting a wide net, the authorities may get a few who agree to share some useful information.

Strizhak calls the regime’s efforts to hunt dissidents abroad a “war of attrition” that leaves many activists exhausted and wishing to get on with their lives.

“We’re doing everything we can to stay resilient,” Strizhak says, “but every year, it takes more and more effort.”

In recent weeks, 28 people in the north-east of England have been left with potentially fatal botulism after having anti-wrinkle injections believed to have been fake. Such reactions are usually so rare hospitals stock very little anti-toxin and they were in danger of running out.

On one night in June, five people were in an accident and emergency department (A&E) in Durham suffering from serious adverse effects of anti-wrinkle injections – Nicola Fairley was one of them.

Within days of having what she was told was a Botox jab, but which turned out to be an illegal copy, her throat began closing up, an eye swelled shut and one side of her face started to droop. She could not smile, struggled to eat and swallow, felt exhausted and was desperate to sleep.

The 37-year-old mother of four from Bishop Auckland in County Durham told staff she had been given injections and was unwell.

“They got the doctor to see me within five minutes and started some tests there and then,” Mrs Fairley recalls.

Of the 28 people, mostly in the Durham and Darlington areas, who have found themselves in a similar position, four others ended up in the same hospital on the same night as Mrs Fairley.

In an average year, the University Hospital of North Durham usually sees no cases at all of botulism that require treatment. Only six were recorded in the whole of England in 2023-24.

Since being approached by the BBC the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has set up an investigation.

Botulinum toxin is widely used to reduce facial wrinkles and treat muscle conditions. While cosmetic practitioners do not need to be licensed, the drug does. Only seven brands are licensed in the UK, with Botox the most well known.

When used correctly the amounts are small and side effects are rare. But unregulated toxin, or larger quantities, can attack the nerves and cause botulism, a potentially life-threatening condition that causes paralysis.

Mrs Fairley had anti-wrinkle injections before, paying £100 for three areas, but then won a round of treatment from the same provider in a competition. She was told it was a stronger type of the toxin and again had three areas injected.

She says she had no idea this treatment was illegal.

Within two hours her forehead was “frozen”, although genuine cosmetic injections should take several days to start working with the full effect visible after two weeks.

Of those in A&E at the same time, some had used the same practitioner as Mrs Fairley. They were all diagnosed with botulism and one doctor told the group they had never seen that many people with the condition at the same time.

It is so rare, hospitals do not typically keep large quantities of the anti-toxin – made from horse blood – that is used to stop the toxin spreading further.

North Durham was already trying to source anti-toxin drugs from other hospitals as there had been a spate of cases in the days before Mrs Fairley and the others arrived in A&E.

In an internal communication seen by the BBC, a hospital leader said: “We’ve just about exhausted all stock of the antitoxin from local holders (Newcastle, Carlisle and Leeds) and have 10 more coming from London.”

They were “bracing” themselves for more patients.

The MHRA told the BBC it was investigating allegations surrounding the illegal sale and supply of fake “Botox-type” products in the North East.

Chief safety officer Dr Alison Cave said the body’s criminal enforcement unit “works hard to identify those involved in the illegal trade in medicines”.

Buying anti-wrinkle injections and other medicines from illegal suppliers significantly increased the risk of getting a product which is either “falsified or not authorised” for use in the UK, she said.

An aesthetic doctor based in Newcastle, Steven Land, believes anti-wrinkle injections in three areas for less than £150 is very cheap and this could suggest the supplier was using an illegal toxin.

Dr Land, who has also worked in A&E, said he was contacted weekly by “fake pharmacies” offering to sell him the toxins for such small amounts he “knows they’re illegal”.

Genuine injections were “very safe if done properly” but called for the industry to be regulated, he said. As things stand it is not regulated at all, with anyone able to provide cosmetic injections.

“Your provider should be able to show you the product they are using and be happy to answer any of your questions – and have the answers,” he said.

Dr Land said he had been fearing a botulism outbreak for years, noticing more and more businesses in the region offering injections that were suspiciously cheap.

An investigation into the cause of the recent cases of botulism is being led by the UK Health Security Agency with partners including Durham County Council’s public health team.

Director of public health Amanda Healy said they were urging anyone with symptoms to seek treatment.

An incident management team had been set up to deal with the issue and they were working out if the cause of these incidents of botulism was the “type of toxin used or the way it was used”, she said.

Mrs Fairley says the business owner who gave her the injections has apologised.

“I know she hasn’t done this on purpose,” Mrs Fairley says. “I just don’t know where people get it from – it’s scary.

“There needs to be more rules and stricter guidelines on who can do it – not just anybody who can go and do a course and just do it.

“There’s that many people who do it – it’s part of your beauty regime like getting your nails done or your hair.”

What happened, and the continuing side effects, has put Mrs Fairley off having cosmetic injections again. She urges anyone considering it to ask questions about the product and make sure it has been properly prescribed.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said people’s lives were being put at risk by “inadequately trained operators in the cosmetic sector” and said this was why the government was looking into new regulations.

“We urge anyone considering cosmetic procedures to consider the possible health impacts and find a reputable, insured and qualified practitioner,” a spokesperson said.

Long before India gained independence, one defiant voice inside the British Empire dared to call out a colonial massacre – and paid a price for it.

Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, a lawyer, was one of the few Indians to be appointed to top government posts when the British ruled the country.

In 1919, he resigned from the Viceroy’s Council after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the northern Indian city of Amritsar in Punjab, in which hundreds of civilians attending a public meeting were shot dead by British troops. On the 100th anniversary of the massacre, then UK Prime Minister Theresa May described the tragedy as a “shameful scar” on Britain’s history in India.

Nair’s criticism of Punjab’s then Lieutenant Governor, Michael O’Dwyer, led to a libel case against him, which helped spotlight the massacre and the actions of British officials.

In a biography of Nair, KPS Menon, independent India’s first foreign secretary, described him as “a very controversial figure of his time”.

Nair was known for his independent views and distaste for extremist politics, and spoke critically of colonial rule and even of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian independence hero who is now regarded as the father of the nation.

Menon, who married Nair’s daughter Saraswathy, wrote: “Only [Nair] could have insulted the all powerful British Viceroy on his face and opposed Mahatma Gandhi openly.”

Nair was not a familiar name in India in recent decades, but earlier this year, a Bollywood film based on the court case, Kesari Chapter 2- starring superstar Akshay Kumar – helped bring attention to his life.

Nair was born in 1857 into a wealthy family in what is now Palakkad district in Kerala state. He studied at the Presidency College in Madras, acquiring a bachelor’s degree before studying law and beginning his career as an apprentice with a Madras High Court judge.

In 1887, he joined the social reform movement in the Madras presidency. Throughout his career, he fought to reform Hindu laws of the time on marriage and women’s rights and to abolish the caste system.

For some years, he was a delegate to the Indian National Congress and presided over its 1897 session in Amraoti (Amravati). In his address, he held the British-run government “morally responsible for the extreme poverty of the masses”, saying the annual famines “claimed more victims and created more distress than under any civilised government anywhere else in the world”.

He was appointed public prosecutor in 1899 and writes in his autobiography about advising the government on seditious articles in newspapers, including those by his close friend G Subramania Iyer, the first editor of The Hindu newspaper. “On many occasions… I was able to persuade them not to take any step against him.”

He became a high court judge in 1908 and was knighted four years later.

Nair moved to Delhi in 1915 when he was appointed a member of the Viceroy’s Council, only the third Indian to hold the position.

He was a fierce proponent of India’s right to govern itself and pushed for constitutional reforms during his time on the council. Through 1918 and 1919, his dissent and negotiations with Edwin Montagu, then secretary of state for India, helped expand provisions of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms which laid out how India would gradually achieve self-governance.

Montagu wrote in his diary that he had been warned “that it was absolutely necessary to get him on my side, for Sankaran Nair wielded more influence than any other Indian”.

A pivotal moment in Nair’s career as a statesman was the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh, when hundreds of unarmed Indians were shot dead in a public garden on the day of the Baisakhi festival. Official estimates said nearly 400 people were killed and more than 1,500 wounded by the soldiers, who fired under the orders of Brigadier General REH Dyer. Indian sources put the death toll closer to 1,000.

Nair writes in his 1922 book Gandhi and Anarchy about following the events in Punjab with increasing concern. The shooting at Jallianwala Bagh was part of a larger crackdown in the province, where martial law had been introduced – the region was cut off from the rest of the country and no newspapers were allowed into it.

“If to govern the country, it is necessary that innocent persons should be slaughtered at Jallianwala Bagh and that any Civilian Officer may, at any time, call in the military and the two together may butcher the people as at Jallianwala Bagh, the country is not worth living in,” he wrote.

A month later, he resigned from the council and left for Britain, where he hoped to rouse public opinion on the massacre.

In his memoir, Nair writes of speaking to the editor of The Westminster Gazette which soon published an article called the Amritsar Massacre. Other papers including The Times also followed suit.

“Worse things had happened under British rule, but I am glad I was able to obtain publicity for this one at least,” Nair wrote.

Nair’s book Gandhi and Anarchy drew the ire of several Indian nationalists of the time after he criticised Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement, calling it a “weapon to be used when constitutional methods have failed to achieve our purpose”.

But it was the few passages condemning Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, that became the basis for the libel suit against him in 1924.

Nair accused O’Dwyer of terrorism, holding him responsible for the atrocities committed by the civil government before the imposition of martial law.

A five-week trial in the Court of King’s Bench in London ruled 11:1 in favour of O’Dwyer, awarding damages of £500 and £7,000 in costs to him.

O’Dwyer offered to forgo this for an apology but Nair refused and paid instead.

Reports of the depositions in the hearing were published daily in The Times. Nair’s family says despite losing, the case achieved his purpose of having the atrocities brought to public attention.

Nair’s great-grandson Raghu Palat, who co-wrote the book The Case That Shook the Empire, with his wife Pushpa, says the case helped spark “an uproar for the freedom movement”.

It also showed that “there was no point in having a dominion status under the empire when the British cannot be expected to deal with their subjects fairly”, adds Pushpa.

Even Gandhi referred to the case several times, writing once that Nair had showed pluck in fighting without hope of victory, historian PC Roy Chaudhury later pointed out.

After losing the case, Nair continued with his career in India. He was chairman of the Indian Committee of the Simon Commission, which reviewed the working of constitutional reforms in India in 1928.

He died in 1934 at the age of 77.

Through his career, Menon notes, Nair “bent all his thoughts and energies on the emancipation of his country from the bondage of foreign domination and native custom. In this task, he achieved as much success as any man, wedded to constitutional methods”.

This week saw further conflict in the Middle East, MPs vote to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales, and another SpaceX rocket go up in flames.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

Once hailed as part of a new generation of reformist African leaders, Eritrea’s president, who recently marked 32 years in power, has long defied expectations.

Isaias Afwerki now spends much of his time at his rural residence on a dusty hillside some 20km (12 miles) from the capital, Asmara.

With the cabinet not having met since 2018, all power flows through him, and like a potentate he receives a string of local officials and foreign dignitaries at his retreat.

It is also a magnet for ordinary Eritreans hoping in vain that Isaias might help them with their problems.

The 79-year-old has never faced an election in his three decades in power and there is little sign of that changing any time soon.

But things looked very different in the 1990s.

Isaias was 45 when, as a rebel leader, his Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) defeated Ethiopia in 1991. Those who fought in the war are remembered each year on Martyrs’ Day, 20 June.

Tall and charismatic, he inspired hope both at home and abroad.

In 1993, following formal independence, Isaias appeared on the international stage as head of state for the first time.

It was in Cairo, where he attended a continental leaders’ summit, that he lambasted the older generation of African leaders “who wanted to stay in power for decades”.

He vowed that Eritrea would never repeat the same old failed approach and promised a democratic order that would underpin the social and economic development of his people. His stance won him plaudits from Eritreans and diplomats alike.

Riding the euphoria of the early years of independence and enjoying a glowing international reception, Isaias sought closer relations with the West.

In 1995, after inviting the Eritrean leader to the Oval Office, US President Bill Clinton expressed appreciation for the country’s strong start on the road to democracy.

Eritrea had just begun drafting a new constitution expected to establish the rule of law and a democratic system.

Isaias was supposed to be a “transitional president” until a constitutional government was elected. The new constitution was ratified by a constituent assembly in May 1997.

But just as Eritreans and the world were expecting national elections in 1998, war broke out between Eritrea and neighbouring Ethiopia over a disputed border.

Isaias was accused of using the war as a justification to postpone the elections indefinitely.

He had promised a multiparty democratic system and his resolve was tested after a peace agreement was reached in 2000.

Several of his cabinet ministers, including former close friends and comrades-in-arms, began to call for reform.

In an open letter issued in March 2001, a group of senior government officials, who later became known as the G-15, accused the president of abusing his powers and becoming increasingly autocratic. They called for the implementation of the constitution and national elections.

Starting from the mid 1990s, Eritreans had tasted some freedom, with emerging newspapers carrying critical voices — including from within the ruling party, that had been renamed the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).

The transitional national assembly had decided when elections would take place, an electoral commission was being formed and proposed political party laws were under debate.

The country seemed to be on a slow path towards democratisation.

However, this fragile opening abruptly closed in September 2001, while the world’s attention was focussed on the 9/11 attacks in the US.

In a single morning, the authorities shut down all independent newspapers, effectively silencing critical voices. Many editors and journalists were detained and never seen again.

Simultaneously, the government arrested 11 of the G-15, including three former foreign ministers, a chief of staff of the armed forces and several members of the national assembly. They have not been seen or heard from since.

The hopes of many Eritreans were dashed.

But Isaias had already moved away from introducing democratic changes.

“I had never had any intention of participating in political parties,” he said in April 2001.

“I don’t have any intention of participating in a political party now, and I won’t have any intention of participating in a political party in the future.”

He also described the democratic process as a “mess”, saying that the PFDJ was “not a party. It is a nation”.

For many, it became clear the president would not allow democratic reforms to take hold.

The silencing of critics and the failure to hold elections, earned him and his country pariah status.

However, his supporters say he was unfairly targeted by Western nations and praise him as a symbol of national liberation.

In 2002, he unofficially dissolved the transitional assembly that was meant to hold him accountable and in effect did the same with the cabinet in 2018.

Some aging ministers with no real authority now lead weak government agencies, and several ministries – including defence – remain without ministers.

Many wonder why the independence hero took such a repressive turn.

Abdella Adem, a former regional governor and senior ambassador, says Isaias never believed in democracy and has always been obsessed with power. He led the EPLF with an iron fist even before independence, according to Mr Abdella, who now lives in exile in London.

“He systematically weakened and removed leaders with public legitimacy and struggle credentials who could challenge his authority.”

To some surprise, in May 2014, Isaias announced plans for a new constitution, later saying that the constitution ratified in 1997 was “dead”. But no progress has been made since then.

The proposal to write a new constitution may have been triggered by an attempted coup by senior military officers in 2013.

They drove tanks into the capital and seized control of national TV and radio stations for several hours.

Realising the attempt was failing, they tried to broadcast a call to implement the 1997 constitution and release political prisoners. But security forces pulled the plug mid-broadcast.

Many officials – including the mines minister, a governor, diplomats and a general – were detained. The leader of the coup killed himself to avoid arrest.

Zeraslasie Shiker, a former diplomat, left his post in Nigeria and sought asylum in the UK. His boss, Ambassador Ali Omeru, a veteran of the independence war, was later detained and remains unaccounted for.

Governments that lock people up “like Isaias Afwerki’s do not allow genuine political and social institutions or the rule of law”, says Mr Zeraslasie, now a PhD candidate at the UK’s Leeds University.

“The indefinite suspension of Eritrea’s constitution and the collapsing of government institutions into the office of the president must be understood in this context.”

Isolated internationally, Isaias withdrew from the global stage. He stopped attending summits such as the UN General Assembly and African Union meetings.

The country’s economy has “struggled”, according to the World Bank’s assessment last year.

“Economic activity is constrained by underdeveloped infrastructure, limited competition due to state dominance, and strict import controls,” the authors said, adding that the financial sector remained “weak”.

Isaias himself acknowledged problems in an interview with state TV in December last year.

“A subsistence economy will lead us nowhere. Currently, we are not in a better position than many other African countries in this regard,” he said.

Isaias also refuses humanitarian aid, citing fears of dependency that would undermine his principle of “self-reliance”.

For many Eritreans, especially young people trapped in indefinite national service, which the authorities justify because of a series of conflicts and tense relations with its neighbours, daily life is a nightmare. Under a repressive regime, they face a future with little hope or freedom.

Disillusioned by the lack of political progress and exhausted by forced conscription and state violence, many risk their lives to escape in search of freedom.

Over the past two decades, hundreds of thousands have fled, crossing deserts and seas to find safe haven. Eritreans are currently the third most common nationality to be granted refugee status in the UK.

In his independence day speech last month, Isaias gave no hint of any of the changes many Eritreans hope to see. There was no mention of a constitution, national elections or the release of political prisoners.

At the same time there was no concrete plan to turn round the country’s moribund economy.

Despite criticism at home, President Isaias retains support among parts of the population, particularly within the military, ruling party networks and those who view him as a symbol of national independence and resistance against foreign interference.

The president also has strong backing among some in the diaspora, who believe Western powers are conspiring to undermine Eritrea’s hard-won independence.

As frustration grew in Eritrea, Isaias retreated from Asmara in 2014 to his home that overlooks the Adi Hallo dam whose construction he closely supervised.

As Isaias nears 80, many fear what could happen next.

An apparent attempt to groom his eldest son to succeed him was reportedly blocked at a 2018 cabinet meeting, since when no further meetings have been held.

But there is no obvious succession plan or a credible opposition in the country who could replace the current regime, leaving many to find it hard to imagine a future without Isaias.

“The president’s office is what’s holding the country from collapse,” warns Mr Zeraslasie.

During this year’s Easter holiday, Isaias was seen kissing a cross during a church mass in Asmara. Some believe he is seeking spiritual redemption, others hope he may release political prisoners.

For now, however, Isaias remains firmly in control, while Eritreans continue their long and anxious wait for change.

• Why Eritreans are at war with each other around the world
• Eritrea viewpoint: I fought for independence but I’m still waiting for freedom
• Reporting on Africa’s most secretive state
• Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki ‘both charismatic and brutal’
• ‘I haven’t seen my parents for 17 years’

One person is dead after a rockfall struck several hikers in the Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.

Another three people were injured, as rescuers continue the search for potential survivors. Authorities are yet to say if anyone is missing.

The Bow Glacier Falls hiking trail is six miles (9 km) long and runs along Bow Lake. It is classified as a moderate hiking challenge.

The conditions of the three people who were taken to hospital were not included in the joint statement released by Parks Canada and Lake Louise Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The rockfall happened on Thursday afternoon north of Lake Louise, a tourist town 124 miles (200 km) northwest of Calgary, Alberta.

“We are all heartbroken by the recent tragedy at Bow Glacier Falls in Banff National Park. On behalf of Parks Canada, my thoughts are with the families and friends of those who are affected,” Ron Hallman, president and CEO of Parks Canada, said.

Videos of the incident shared online show a large rock falling down a mountainside and large clouds of dust rising up.

Bow Lake is now closed and no-fly order was put in place over the area as the search continues.

“We are thinking of all those involved and wishing for their safety as we await further details,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a social media post.

Niclas Brundell witnesses the rockfall as he was hiking in the area with his wife.

“We heard this like ‘chunk’ noise and the whole roof of the wall came loose,” he told CBC News. “And we just started sprinting down. I was yelling at my wife, ‘Go, go, go! We need to run as fast as we can.

“We just kept sprinting and I couldn’t see the people behind us anymore because they were all in that cloud of rock. And I saw rocks coming tumbling out of that. So it was big. It was, like, the full mountainside.”

Mr Brundell estimated there were15 to 20 people in the area at the time of the rockfall.

The BBC is threatening to take legal action against an artificial intelligence (AI) firm whose chatbot the corporation says is reproducing BBC content “verbatim” without its permission.

The BBC has written to Perplexity, which is based in the US, demanding it immediately stops using BBC content, deletes any it holds, and proposes financial compensation for the material it has already used.

It is the first time that the BBC – one of the world’s largest news organisations – has taken such action against an AI company.

In a statement, Perplexity said: “The BBC’s claims are just one more part of the overwhelming evidence that the BBC will do anything to preserve Google’s illegal monopoly.”

It did not explain what it believed the relevance of Google was to the BBC’s position, or offer any further comment.

The BBC’s legal threat has been made in a letter to Perplexity’s boss Aravind Srinivas.

“This constitutes copyright infringement in the UK and breach of the BBC’s terms of use,” the letter says.

The BBC also cited its research published earlier this year that found four popular AI chatbots – including Perplexity AI – were inaccurately summarising news stories, including some BBC content.

Pointing to findings of significant issues with representation of BBC content in some Perplexity AI responses analysed, it said such output fell short of BBC Editorial Guidelines around the provision of impartial and accurate news.

“It is therefore highly damaging to the BBC, injuring the BBC’s reputation with audiences – including UK licence fee payers who fund the BBC – and undermining their trust in the BBC,” it added.

Chatbots and image generators that can generate content response to simple text or voice prompts in seconds have swelled in popularity since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022.

But their rapid growth and improving capabilities has prompted questions about their use of existing material without permission.

Much of the material used to develop generative AI models has been pulled from a massive range of web sources using bots and crawlers, which automatically extract site data.

The rise in this activity, known as web scraping, recently prompted British media publishers to join calls by creatives for the UK government to uphold protections around copyrighted content.

• What is AI, and how do chatbots like ChatGPT and DeepSeek work?

In response to the BBC’s letter, the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) – which represents over 300 media brands – said it was “deeply concerned that AI platforms are currently failing to uphold UK copyright law.”

It said bots were being used to “illegally scrape publishers’ content to train their models without permission or payment.”

It added: “This practice directly threatens the UK’s £4.4 billion publishing industry and the 55,000 people it employs.”

Many organisations, including the BBC, use a file called “robots.txt” in their website code to try to block bots and automated tools from extracting data en masse for AI.

It instructs bots and web crawlers to not access certain pages and material, where present.

But compliance with the directive remains voluntary and, according to some reports, bots do not always respect it.

The BBC said in its letter that while it disallowed two of Perplexity’s crawlers, the company “is clearly not respecting robots.txt”.

Mr Srinivas denied accusations that its crawlers ignored robots.txt instructions in an interview with Fast Company last June.

Perplexity also says that because it does not build foundation models, it does not use website content for AI model pre-training.

The company’s AI chatbot has become a popular destination for people looking for answers to common or complex questions, describing itself as an “answer engine”.

It says on its website that it does this by “searching the web, identifying trusted sources and synthesising information into clear, up-to-date responses”.

It also advises users to double check responses for accuracy – a common caveat accompanying AI chatbots, which can be known to state false information in a matter of fact, convincing way.

In January Apple suspended an AI feature that generated false headlines for BBC News app notifications when summarising groups of them for iPhones users, following BBC complaints.

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The family of Zambia’s former President Edgar Lungu says he will be buried in South Africa in a private ceremony following a row with the government over the funeral arrangements.

Late on Thursday, President Hakainde Hichilema cut short a period of national mourning after Lungu’s family refused to allow his body to be repatriated from South Africa as planned. His funeral had been set for Sunday in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.

The family now says it will announce later when Lungu will be buried in Johannesburg in “dignity and peace”.

It will be the first time a former head of state of another country is buried in South Africa.

In his will, Lungu said that Hichilema, his long-time rival, should not attend his funeral.

The government and his family later agreed he would have a state funeral before relations broke down over the precise arrangements.

• Funeral row causes chaos for mourners of Zambia’s ex-president

“We wish to announce that the funeral and burial of our beloved Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu will take place here in South Africa, in accordance with the family’s wishes for a private ceremony,” family spokesperson Makebi Zulu said in a statement.

Mr Zulu thanked the South African government for “non-interference” and honouring the family’s decision and desire during “this deeply emotional period”.

In his address on Thursday, President Hichilema said that Lungu, as a former president, “belongs to the nation of Zambia” and his body should therefore “be buried in Zambia with full honours, and not in any other nation”.

However, because of the row, he announced an immediate end to the mourning period, saying the country needed to “resume normal life”.

“The government has done everything possible to engage with the family of our departed sixth president,” he said.

The national mourning period initially ran from 8 to 14 June but was later extended until 23 June, with flags flying at half-mast and radio stations playing solemn music.

President Hichilema and senior officials had been prepared to receive Lungu’s coffin with full military honours on Wednesday.

However, Lungu’s family blocked the repatriation of his remains at the last minute, saying the government had reneged on its agreement over the funeral plans.

The opposition Patriotic Front (PF), the party Lungu led until his death, has stood with the family over the funeral plans.

“The government has turned a solemn occasion into a political game,” said PF acting president Given Lubinda. “This is not how we treat a former head of state.”

Civil society groups have called for an urgent resolution of the matter, with a section of religious leaders saying the stand-off was “hurting the dignity of our country”.

“We appeal for humility, dialogue, and a resolution that honours the memory of the former president while keeping the nation united,” said Emmanuel Chikoya, head of the Council of Churches in Zambia.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died earlier this month in South Africa where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness.

After six years as head of state, Lungu lost the 2021 election to Hichilema by a large margin. He stepped back from politics but later returned to the fray.

He had ambitions to vie for the presidency again but at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.

Despite his disqualification from the presidential election, he remained hugely influential in Zambian politics and did not hold back in his criticism of his successor.

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A training camp for the Senegalese women’s basketball team in the US has been scrapped, with the West African nation’s prime minister saying he cancelled it because some of the squad were denied US visas.

Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said the team would now train in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, “in a sovereign and conducive setting”.

It comes amid reports that the US plans to impose fresh travel restrictions on 25 more African countries, including Senegal.

Earlier this month the US announced a ban on citizens from 12 countries, including seven from Africa. There were also partial travel restrictions on nationals from a further seven countries, with three from Africa.

The Senegalese basketball team had planned to train in the US for 10 days to warm up for the 2025 Women’s AfroBasket tournament in Ivory Coast next month.

But the visa applications for five players and seven officials were not approved, according to a statement from the federation.

This prompted an angry response from the prime minister.

“Informed of the refusal of issuing visas to several members of the Senegal women’s national basketball team, I have instructed the Ministry of Sports to simply cancel the ten-day preparatory training initially planned in the United States of America,” Sonko said on Thursday in a statement shared to social media.

It is not clear why the visas were denied.

A US State Department spokesperson told the BBC it could not comment on individual cases because visa records are confidential under American law.

• Chad halts US visas in revenge for Trump travel ban
• Trump’s tariffs could be death knell for US-Africa trade pact

Senegal has one of the best women’s basketball teams in Africa – consistently reaching the final four in AfroBasket tournaments and boasting players from top leagues in the US, Europe and Egypt.

The visa refusals are raising eyebrows because, according to the recently leaked diplomatic cable containing details of the extended travel restrictions, targeted countries were given up to 60 days to address the concerns raised by the US.

These reportedly include people overstaying their visas, lack of co-operation with deportations, links to terror attacks in the US, antisemitism or what it termed “anti-American” activity.

Following the reported new travel restrictions, Senegal’s foreign ministry urged nationals to comply with their permitted periods of stay in the US.

Although it did not directly comment on Senegal’s possible inclusion in the latest list of restricted countries, the government statement underscored that diplomatic and consular services were working in close collaboration with the US administration.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yussuf Tuggar said the expanded travel bans could impede possible energy and rare earth mineral deals which West African countries can offer the US.

The Trump administration insists national security concerns and the high rate of visa overstays from some countries must be addressed.

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India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is yet to decide whether flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Air India flight that crashed last Thursday will be sent overseas for decoding and analysis.

At least 270 people, most of them passengers, were killed when the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in western India.

Some media outlets reported that the black boxes are being sent abroad, but the ministry of civil aviation clarified that no final decision has been made.

The ministry said the AAIB will determine the location for analysis after a “due assessment of technical, safety, and security factors”.

Investigators have recovered both sets of Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFRs) – the “black boxes” – from the Boeing 787 crash site.

These combined units, which record flight data and cockpit audio, were found on 13 and 16 June. The aircraft model carries two such sets to aid in thorough analysis.

Data recorders track with high precision the position of gear and flap levers, thrust settings, engine performance, fuel flow and even fire handle activation.

The data in the plane’s “black boxes” can be used to reconstruct the flight’s final moments and determine the cause of the incident.

However, some media outlets reported that the recorders had been badly damaged in the fire that engulfed the plane after the crash, making it difficult to extract the data in India and that the government was planning to send the recorders to the US.

Captain Kishore Chinta, a former accident investigator with the AAIB, told the BBC one set of recorders could be also sent to the US “to compare the data downloaded in India with that provided to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)”.

He said although the new AAIB lab in Delhi was inaugurated in April, “it’s unclear whether it is fully operational for EAFR data downloads”.

Meanwhile, Air India’s chairman has said that one of the engines of the Air India plane that crashed last week was new, while the other was not due for servicing until December.

In an interview with Times Now news channel, N Chandrasekaran said that both engines of the aircraft had “clean” histories.

Separately, the airline said that inspections have been completed on 26 of its 33 Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft, all of which have been “cleared for service”.

India’s aviation regulator had ordered additional safety checks on Air India’s Boeing 787 fleet after the deadly crash as a “preventive measure”.

On Thursday, the airline announced that its flights will be reduced on 16 international routes and suspended on three overseas destinations between 21 June and 15 July.

“The reductions arise from the decision to voluntarily undertake enhanced pre-flight safety checks, as well as accommodate additional flight durations arising from airspace closures in the Middle East,” the airline said in a statement.

The announcement came a day after the carrier said it would temporarily reduce flights operated with wide-body planes by 15%.

A US appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump can keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles, despite objections from city leaders and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Trump deployed the troops in response to widespread protests against his immigration crackdown. Local officials called it an unnecessary provocation.

A three-judge panel on Thursday said he was within his rights to order the troops into service to “protect federal personnel… [and] property”. Trump called it a “big win”.

The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when mobilising the troops.

In that earlier ruling, Judge Charles Breyer said Trump “did not” follow the law set by Congress on the deployment of a state’s National Guard.

“His actions were illegal… He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith,” he wrote in his decision.

The judge however stayed the order until 13 June to give the Trump administration time to appeal against it, which it did almost immediately after.

Thursday’s unanimous ruling said Trump’s “failure to issue the federalisation order directly ‘through’ the Governor of California does not limit his otherwise lawful authority to call up the National Guard”.

“This is much bigger than Gavin [Newsom], because all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done,” Trump wrote on social media after the decision.

He also congratulated the court, adding: “America is proud of you tonight!”

The 38-page ruling, however, said the judges disagreed with the president on the merits of the legal challenge against his use of the National Guard. It said his decision to use the troops was not “completely insulated from judicial review”.

Newsom responded to the decision, saying the court “rightly rejected Trump’s claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court.

“We will not let this authoritarian use of military soldiers against citizens go unchecked”, he wrote on X, adding: “Donald Trump is not a king and not above the law.”

The court’s decision allows for the continued deployment of around 4,000 troops to Los Angeles. The Trump administration says they have been protecting federal immigration agents and federal property during raids.

It said it took over California’s National Guard to restore order and to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they conducted raids across Los Angeles to detain people they believed were in the country illegally.

Trump also ordered 700 Marines to the city, despite Newsom’s objections.

The National Guard was last deployed by a president without a governor’s consent during the civil rights era more than 50 years ago.

Niger’s military junta says it will nationalise the majority French-owned local uranium company in the latest escalation in a row between the two countries.

Somaïr is operated by French nuclear fuels company Orano, which Niger accuses of several “irresponsible acts”.

Since seizing power in 2023, Niger’s military leaders have said they want to keep more local control of the country’s mineral wealth, and have distanced themselves from France, the former colonial power, moving closer to Russia.

Niger is the world’s seventh largest producer of uranium and has the highest-grade ores in Africa.

“This nationalisation will allow for healthier and more sustainable management of the company and, consequently, optimal enjoyment of the wealth from mining resources by Nigeriens,” the junta said in a statement.

It also accused Orano, which is owned by the French state, of removing more than its fair share of uranium from the country.

An Orano spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by BBC Afrique.

The company, which has operated in Niger for decades, owns a 63% stake in Somaïr but last year the military authorities seized operational control of the firm.

Since then, Orano has launched several legal cases against Niger.

• How a uranium mine became a pawn in the row between Niger and France

Niger achieved independence from France in 1960 and the former colonial power managed to secure exclusive access to Niger’s uranium supply through various agreements.

Analysts say this was seen by many in Niger as a symbol of the country’s continued domination by France.

However, they also note that any uncertainty over the mining sector’s future could threaten hundreds of jobs, as well as export earnings.

Earlier this week, neighbouring Mali announced it was building a gold refinery in partnership with a Russian conglomerate.

Like Niger, Mali is under military control and says it wants to assert more economic control of its mineral wealth, while cutting ties with France and the West.

Additional reporting by Isidore Kouwonou

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A security review has been launched across UK military bases after pro-Palestinian activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed two military planes with red paint.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer condemned the action as “disgraceful”, saying it was an “act of vandalism”.

Footage posted online by Palestine Action on Friday showed two people inside the Oxfordshire airbase in darkness, with one riding on a scooter up to an Airbus Voyager and spraying paint into its jet engine.

Downing Street said the incident had not blocked any planned aircraft movements or stopped any operations. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it is working with Thames Valley Police, which is leading the investigation.

Defence Secretary John Healey said he was “really disturbed” by the incident and had ordered an investigation and the wider security review.

Palestine Action said the activists evaded security and claimed they had put the air-to-air refuelling tankers “out of service”.

However, RAF engineers are assessing the damage and a defence source told the BBC they did not expect the incident to affect operations.

In a statement, a Palestine Action spokesperson said: “Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets.”

Thames Valley Police confirmed it had received a report about people gaining access to the base and causing criminal damage.

“Inquiries are ongoing to locate and arrest those responsible,” the force said.

RAF Brize Norton serves as the hub for UK strategic air transport and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The air force has conducted reconnaissance flights over Gaza out of the Cyprus base.

The base is encircled by a large perimeter fence, with security camera and sensors in the area in addition to manned security checkpoints. Patrols around the base are also carried out from time to time.

But a defence source said these measures would not have been able to provide complete cover around the large airbase.

Palestine Action has engaged in similar activity since the start of the current war in Gaza, predominantly targeting arms companies. In May, it claimed responsibility for the daubing of a US military plane in Ireland.

The group said the activists who entered RAF Brize Norton used repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into the planes’ engines.

It also said they caused “further damage” using crowbars – though this is not visible in the bodycam footage it provided.

Video shows the activists then roaming around the airbase.

The protesters did not spray paint on the Vespina aircraft – used by the prime minister for international travel – which was also on the base.

The MoD told the BBC that RAF Voyager aircraft had not been involved in refuelling or supporting Israeli Air Force jets.

A spokesman said Voyagers have been used in the Middle East to refuel RAF Typhoon jets involved in the ongoing international efforts to tackle the so-called Islamic State group in eastern Iraq and Syria.

They have also been used in the Red Sea in the past in operations against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Lord West, Labour minister for UK security and former head of the Royal Navy, said earlier that while he was not aware of the full details, the break-in was “extremely worrying”.

“We can’t allow thing like this to happen at all,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that breaches like it were “really a problem” for national security.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the security breach was “deeply concerning”.

“This is not lawful protest, it is politically motivated criminality,” she said in a statement.

“We must stop tolerating terrorist or extremist groups that seek to undermine our society.”

Greg Bagwell – a former RAF deputy commander – said that in targeting the Voyager, the activists picked “a strange target”.

Air Marshall Bagwell, now a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told the BBC “those aircraft do not do what these protesters think they do. They’re largely used for moving passengers or fuel”.

He added that Voyagers had “the wrong connectors” that would stop them being used to help refuel Israeli or US jets, as the action group suggested.

But he said if the activists “wanted to create an effect, they’ve clearly done that”.

Shadow armed forces minister Mark Francois told the BBC any attempt to interfere with the engines of large aircraft was “totally reprehensible”.

He added there were “serious questions for the MoD to answer” about how protesters were able to “gain access to what is supposed to be a secure RAF airbase”.

The local Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard described the activists’ actions as “stupid and dangerous”.

He said the investigations should establish “how this happened and what can be done in future to make sure no further breaches occur”.

A 12-year-old girl has died and seven other children have been taken to hospital in an outbreak of severe food poisoning centred around a northern French town.

Symptoms began to emerge on 12 June in and around Saint-Quentin, south of Lille, with the children rushed to hospital over the following days.

The cause of the outbreak is yet to be identified, as the children, aged 1-12, are not thought to have mixed in the same groups.

The girl died on Monday from a rare condition called haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) linked to acute kidney failure, according to the local prefect in the Aisne area. The most common cause of the infection is E.coli bacteria.

The latest case was reported on Wednesday evening, the regional health authority in Hauts-de France said.

All eight children were admitted to hospital with severe digestive symptoms, such as bloody diarrhea, and five of them had developed HUS, the authority said.

Health authorities are conducting biological analysis in an attempt to identify the bacterial strain involved in each case.

They said there was no indication the children ate meals together and they have ruled out any issues with local tap water, which “can be used for drinking and for all everyday purposes”.

The infectious disease (HUS) is most often caused by E.coli food poisoning, authorities said. However, as the families involved had sourced their food from a variety of places, the origin of contamination is proving hard to find.

Food inspectors were investigating whether contaminated meat was behind the outbreak. Several butchers in Saint-Quentin were closed on Thursday, local news outlet L’Aisne nouvelle reported.

One butcher said all his meat, marinades and spices had been taken away to be checked.

Parents have been told to be vigilant and ensure strict hygiene at home, with authorities advising regular hand-washing, washing of fruit and vegetables, thoroughly cooking meat and separating raw and cooked food.

The founder of instant messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, says the more than 100 children he has fathered will share his estimated $13.9bn (£10.3bn) fortune.

“They are all my children and will all have the same rights! I don’t want them to tear each other apart after my death,” Mr Durov told French political magazine Le Point.

Mr Durov claimed he is the “official father” of six children with three different partners, but the clinic “where I started donating sperm fifteen years ago to help a friend, told me that more than 100 babies had been conceived this way in 12 countries.”

He also reiterated that he denies any wrongdoing in connection with serious criminal charges he faces in France.

The self-exiled Russian technology tycoon also told the magazine that his children would not have access to their inheritance for 30 years.

“I want them to live like normal people, to build themselves up alone, to learn to trust themselves, to be able to create, not to be dependent on a bank account,” he said.

The BBC has approached Mr Durov for comment.

The 40-year-old said he had written a will now because his job “involves risks – defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states”.

His app, Telegram, known for its focus on privacy and encrypted messaging, has more than a billion monthly active users.

Mr Durov also addressed criminal charges he faces in France, where he was arrested last year after being accused of failing to properly moderate the app to reduce criminality.

He has denied failing to cooperate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual abuse content and fraud. Telegram has previously denied having insufficient moderation.

In the Le Point interview he described the charges as “totally absurd”.

“Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn’t make those who run it criminals,” he added.

Russian-born Mr Durov now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based. He holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates.

The founder of VKontakte said in 2014 that he had been fired from the Russian social network after refusing requests from the Kremlin to censor posts.

He founded Telegram in 2013, and the app remains popular in Russia.

Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members, which critics have argued makes it easier for misinformation to spread, and for users to share conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content.

In the UK, the app was scrutinised for hosting far-right channels that were instrumental in organising the violent disorder in English cities last summer.

Telegram did remove some groups, but overall its system of moderating extremist and illegal content is significantly weaker than that of other social media companies and messenger apps, according to cybersecurity experts.

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Whether you reckon they are cute, ugly or just plain weird, chances are you have heard of the furry dolls that have become a global sensation – Labubu.

Born a monster, the elf-like creature from Chinese toy maker Pop Mart is now a viral purchase. And it has no dearth of celebrity advocates: Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian and Blackpink’s Lisa. Ordinary folk are just as obsessed – from Shanghai to London, the long queues to snap up the doll have made headlines, sometimes descending into fights even.

“You get such a sense of achievement when you are able to get it among such fierce competition,” says avowed fan Fiona Zhang.

The world’s fascination with Labubu has almost tripled Pop Mart’s profits in the past year – and, according to some, even energised Chinese soft power, which has been bruised by the pandemic and a strained relationship with the West.

So, how did we get here?

It’s a question that still bothers many – and even those who know the answer are not entirely sure they can explain the craze.

Labubu is both a fictional character and a brand. The word itself doesn’t mean anything. It’s the name of a character in “The Monsters” toy series created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung.

The vinyl faces are attached to plush bodies, and come with a signature look – pointy ears, big eyes and a mischievous grin showing exactly nine teeth. A curious yet divided internet can’t seem to decide if they are adorable or bizarre.

According to its retailer’s official website, Labubu is “kind-hearted and always wants to help, but often accidentally achieves the opposite”.

The Labubu dolls have appeared in several series of “The Monsters”, such as “Big into Energy”, “Have a Seat”, “Exciting Macaron” and “Fall in Wild”.

The Labubu brand also has other characters from its universe, which have inspired their own popular dolls – such as the tribe’s leader Zimomo, her boyfriend Tycoco and her friend Mokoko.

To the untrained eye, some of these dolls are hard to distinguish from one another. The connoisseurs would know but Labubu’s fame has certainly rubbed off, with other specimens in the family also flying off the shelves.

A major part of Pop Mart’s sales were so-called blind boxes – where customers only found out what they had bought when they opened the package – for some years when they tied up with Kasing Lung for the rights to Labubu.

That was 2019, nearly a decade after entrepreneur Wang Ning opened Pop Mart as a variety store, similar to a pound shop, in Beijing. When the blind boxes became a success, Pop Mart launched the first series in 2016, selling Molly dolls – child-like figurines created by Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong.

But it was the Labubu sales that fuelled Pop Mart’s growth and in December 2020, it began selling shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Those shares have soared by more than 500% in the last year.

Pop Mart itself has now become a major retailer. It operates more than 2,000 vending machines, or “roboshops”, around the world. And you can now buy Labubu dolls in stores, physical or virtual, in more than 30 countries, from the US and UK to Australia and Singapore, although many of them have recently paused sales due to overwhelming demand. Sales from outside mainland China contributed to nearly 40% of its total revenue in 2024.

In a sign of just how popular Labubus have become, Chinese customs officials said this week that they had seized more than 70,000 fake dolls in recent days.

The demand did not rise overnight though. It actually took a few years for the elfin monsters to break into the mainstream.

Before the world discovered Labubu, their fame was limited to China. They started to become a hit just as the country emerged from the pandemic in late 2022, according to Ashley Dudarenok, founder of China-focused research firm ChoZan.

“Post-pandemic, a lot of people in China felt that they wanted to emotionally escape… and Labubu was a very charming but chaotic character,” she says. “It embodied that anti-perfectionism.”

The Chinese internet, which is huge and competitive, produces plenty of viral trends that don’t go global. But this one did and its popularity quickly spread to neighbouring South East Asia.

Fiona, who lives in Canada, says she first heard about Labubu from Filipino friends in 2023. That’s when she started buying them – she says she finds them cute, but their increasing popularity is a major draw: “The more popular it gets the more I want it.

“My husband doesn’t understand why me, someone in their 30s, would be so fixated on something like this, like caring about which colour to get.”

It helps that it’s also affordable, she adds. Although surging demand has pushed up prices on the second-hand market, Fiona says the original price, which ranged from 25 Canadian dollars ($18; £14) to 70 Canadian dollars for most Labubu dolls, was “acceptable” to most people she knows.

“That’s pretty much how much a bag accessory would cost anyway these days, most people would be able to afford it,” she says.

Labubu’s popularity soared in April 2024, when Thai-born K-pop superstar Lisa began posting photos on Instagram with various Labubu dolls. And then, other global celebrities turned the dolls into an international phenomenon this year.

Singer Rihanna was photographed with a Labubu toy clipped to her Louis Vuitton bag in February. Influencer Kim Kardashian shared her collection of 10 Labubu dolls with her Instagram following in April. And in May, former England football captain Sir David Beckham also took to Instagram with a photo of a Labubu, given to him by his daughter.

Now the dolls feel ubiquitous, regularly spotted not just online but also on friends, colleagues or passers-by.

Put simply, we don’t know. Like most viral trends, Labubu’s appeal is hard to explain – the result of timing, taste and the randomness that is the internet.

Beijing is certainly happy with the outcome. State news agency Xinhua says Labubu “shows the appeal of Chinese creativity, quality and culture in a language the world can understand”, while giving everyone the chance to see “cool China”.

Xinhua has other examples that show “Chinese cultural IP is going global”: the video game Black Myth: Wukong and the hit animated film Nezha.

Some analysts seem surprised that Chinese companies – from EV makers and AI developers to retailers – are so successful despite Western unease over Beijing’s ambitions.

“BYD, DeepSeek, all of these companies have one very interesting thing in common, including Labubu,” Chris Pereira, founder and chief executive of consultancy firm iMpact, told BBC News.

“They’re so good that no one cares they’re from China. You can’t ignore them.”

Meanwhile, Labubu continue to rack up social media followers with millions watching new owners unbox their prized purchase. One of the most popular videos, posted in December, shows curious US airport security staff huddling around a traveller’s unopened Labubu box to figure out which doll is inside.

That element of surprise is a big part of the appeal, says Desmond Tan, a longtime collector, as he walks around a Pop Mart store in Singapore vigorously shaking blind boxes before deciding which one to buy. This is a common sight in Pop Mart.

Desmond collects “chaser” characters, special editions from Pop Mart’s various toy series, which include Labubu. On average, Desmond says, he finds a chaser in one out of every 10 boxes he buys. It’s a good strike rate, he claims, compared to the typical odds: one in 100.

“Being able to get the chaser from shaking the box, learning how to feel the difference…,” is deeply satisfying for him.

“If I can get it in just one or two tries, I’m very happy!”

Dozens of people required medical assistance because of heat-related illness on the second day of Royal Ascot, racecourse officials have confirmed.

The event attracted over 41,000 spectators on Wednesday, during which temperatures reached 29.7C (85F).

A Royal Ascot spokesperson said one person was taken to hospital while a further 42 received treatment on site.

Free water is being provided to all those attending, the spokesperson added.

They also said additional gazebos and parasols had been installed.

Horses are kept cool using misting fans and a mobile water bowser with a 1,000-litre (220-gallon) capacity.

In total, more than 250,000 people are expected to attend the five-day event, which ends on Saturday.

The event was founded by Queen Anne in 1711 and is now well known as a key social occasion, as well as a sporting event.

King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Prince of Wales appeared in a carriage procession at the event on Wednesday – but the Princess of Wales was not in attendance.

Amber heat health alerts were issued across the whole of England from 09:00 BST on Thursday, with temperatures likely to exceed 30C for the first time this year.

The UK Health Security Agency said “significant impacts are likely” for health and social care services, including increased demand.

It follows a period of high temperatures across the UK with yellow heat health-alerts having previously been in place.

A heatwave across the UK is to intensify on Saturday, bringing temperatures of up to 34C and a yellow warning for thunderstorms.

The Met Office has issued the storm warning for parts of northern England, the Midlands and Wales from Saturday afternoon into Sunday, as the heat and humidity is expected to fuel torrential downpours.

Ahead of the storms, some parts of the UK will see temperatures soar as high as 32C on Friday.

An amber heat-health alert in England issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) will remain in force until Monday.

The yellow weather warning for storms will remain in place from 15:00 BST on Saturday until 04:00 on Sunday, with the potential for localised flash flooding, large hail and lightning.

With the amber heat-health alert in place, the UKHSA warns of likely significant pressures across health and social care services.

This could include a rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over or people with health conditions.

By Friday afternoon, many regions were expected to meet the criteria for a heatwave – which means a temperature threshold is sustained for three consecutive days – according to the Met Office.

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The threshold varies across different regions, from 25C in northern and western parts of the UK to 28C in south-eastern England.

A heatwave was declared in London on Friday, where it passed the 28C threshold for three days in a row.

On Thursday, Suffolk became the first area in the UK to officially enter a heatwave, after temperatures surpassed 27C for a third consecutive day.

The hot weather pushed north on Friday with temperatures close to 30C in Albemarle, Northumberland and Newcastle. It’s the hottest weather recorded in these areas since July 2022.

Scotland saw its hottest day of the year, with 27.7C recorded at Aviemore in the Highlands.

Northern Ireland saw a temperature high of 27.1C in Derrylin, County Fermanagh.

For England and Wales, maximum temperatures will range from 28C to 31C.

Humidity is increasing through Friday into Saturday, which makes the heat feel more uncomfortable, particularly at night.

On Friday night, the temperatures may fall no lower than 17C or 18C in many parts of the country.

Some areas are also at risk of a “tropical night” – where overnight temperatures do not drop below 20C – over the next two days.

Minimum temperatures tend to be at the end of the night – not when people are going to bed to try to sleep.

At 23:00 on Friday temperatures will still be around 24C for large parts of England and Wales.

On Saturday night, as cooler and fresher air pushes in from the west, the highest temperatures overnight will be restricted to eastern England, where again they may fall no lower than 18C.

While heatwave conditions are likely to continue, some relief is anticipated on Sunday, when the south and east of England will dip to the high 20s. Elsewhere, cooler air will gradually sweep in from the west.

Temperatures will drop further into Monday – but could rise towards the heatwave threshold again in the latter half of next week.

Despite the current heat being record-breaking for 2025, temperatures are still below the June peak of 35.6C in 1976.

A developing area of high pressure is helping draw hot weather in from other parts of Western Europe. France and Spain could see temperatures close to 40C over the coming days.

Firefighters have also responded to more than 500 wildfires across England and Wales this year – a 717% surge on the same period in 2024, the National Fire Chiefs Council said.

NFCC Chairman Phil Garrigan said the organisation was “deeply concerned about the escalating threat of wildfires this summer”, which he warned have “the potential to become more frequent, intense and dangerous”.

The organisation is urging the public to be careful when lighting barbecues and handling objects, such as glass bottles, that can cause a fire outside.

While linking climate change with specific individual extreme weather events can be difficult, scientists say that climate change is generally making heatwaves hotter and longer.

The World Weather Attribution group says that the chance of reaching 32C in June has increased by 100 times since the pre-industrial era.

Meanwhile, the chance of a three-day June heatwave had increased tenfold due to human-induced climate change, going from a one-in-50-year event to a one-in-five-year event.

Ben Clarke, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, said that with “every fraction of a degree of warming, the UK will experience hotter, more dangerous heatwaves”.

He added: “This means more heat deaths, more pressure on the NHS, more transport disruptions, tougher work conditions and poorer air quality.”

Dr Agostinho Sousa, head of extreme events and health protection at UKHSA described heat as the “silent killer”.

“It will impact all of us, even people who consider themselves healthy,” he told BBC Breakfast.

He advised people to look out for vulnerable individuals on public transport and to keep an eye on elderly people.

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China’s military has called a British warship’s recent passage through the Taiwan Strait a disruptive act of “intentional provocation” that “undermines peace and stability”.

The British Royal Navy says HMS Spey’s patrol on Wednesday was part of a long-planned deployment and was in accordance with international law.

The patrol – the first by a British naval vessel in four years – comes as a UK carrier strike group arrives in the region for a deployment that will last several months.

China considers Taiwan its territory – a claim that self-ruled Taiwan rejects – and has not ruled out the use of force to “reunify” the island.

A spokesman from China’s navy criticised the UK for “publicly hyping up” the journey of HMS Spey, and said the UK’s claims were “a distortion of legal principles and an attempt to mislead the public”.

“Such actions are intentional provocations that disrupt the situation and undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.

It added that it had monitored HMS Spey throughout its journey in the strait, and Chinese troops “will resolutely counter all threats and provocations”.

Later, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that while China respects other countries’ rights to sail through the Taiwan Strait, it also “firmly opposes any country using the name of freedom of navigation to provoke and threaten China’s sovereign security.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry has meanwhile praised the patrol as an act that safeguarded the freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait.

While American warships regularly conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the strait, the last time such a journey was undertaken by a British naval vessel was in 2021 when the warship HMS Richmond was deployed to Vietnam.

That transit was similarly condemned by China, which had sent troops to monitor the ship.

HMS Spey is one of two British warships permanently on patrol in the Indo-Pacific.

Its passage through the Taiwan Strait comes as a UK carrier strike group, led by HMS Prince of Wales’ aircraft carrier, arrives in the Indo-Pacific region for an eight-month stint.

British PM Keir Starmer has described it as one of the carrier’s largest deployments this century that is aimed at “sending a clear message of strength to our adversaries, and a message of unity and purpose to our allies”.

Around 4,000 UK military personnel are taking part in the deployment.

The group will be engaging with 30 countries through military operations and visits, and conduct exercises with the US, India, Singapore and Malaysia.

Cross-strait tensions between China and Taiwan have heightened over the past year since Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who champions a firm anti-Beijing stance, took office.

He has characterised Beijing as a “foreign hostile force” and introduced policies targeting Chinese influence operations in Taiwan.

Meanwhile, China continues to conduct frequent military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, including a live-fire exercise in April that it claimed simulated strikes on key ports and energy facilities.

China’s latest criticism of HMS Spey’s transit comes as two Chinese aircraft carriers conduct an unprecedented simultaneous military drill in the Pacific off the waters of Japan, which has alarmed Tokyo.

The BBC says it has decided not to broadcast a documentary about doctors working in Gaza, due to impartiality concerns it has surrounding the production.

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was commissioned by the BBC but produced by an independent production company. It was originally scheduled for broadcast in February, but has not yet aired on any BBC outlet.

In a statement, the BBC said it was “determined to report all aspects of the conflict in the Middle East impartially and fairly”.

Basement Films said it was “relieved that the BBC will finally allow this film to be released”. The BBC confirmed it was “transferring ownership of the film material to Basement Films”.

The production company’s founder, Ben de Pear, said earlier this week the BBC had “utterly failed” and that journalists were “being stymied and silenced”.

BBC News understands the decision to shelve the documentary was taken on Thursday, following public comments by De Pear at the Sheffield Documentary Festival, and another of the film’s directors, journalist Ramita Navai, who appeared on Radio 4’s Today discussing the war in Gaza.

Navai told the programme Israel had “become a rogue state that’s committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians”. Israel has denied accusations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

A different documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was pulled from iPlayer earlier this year after it emerged its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack – also known as Gaza: Medics Under Fire – is said to examine the experiences of Palestinian medics working during the war in Gaza.

The film is directed by Karim Shah, Navai and De Pear, a former editor of Channel 4 News.

In a statement on Friday, the BBC said it had commissioned the documentary over a year ago, but paused the film in April, “having made a decision that we could not broadcast the film while a review into a separate Gaza documentary was ongoing”.

“With both films coming from independent production companies, and both about Gaza, it was right to wait for any relevant findings – and put them into action – before broadcasting the film.

“However, we wanted the doctors’ voices to be heard. Our aim was to find a way to air some of the material in our news programmes, in line with our impartiality standards, before the review was published.

“For some weeks, the BBC has been working with Basement Films to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our platforms.

“Yesterday [Thursday], it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC.”

The corporation added that, contrary to some reports, the documentary had “not undergone the BBC’s final pre-broadcast sign-off processes”, adding: “Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film.”

It continued: “We want to thank the doctors and contributors and we are sorry we could not tell their stories. The BBC will continue to cover events in Gaza impartially.”

In its own statement, Basement Films claimed it had been given “no less than six different release dates” and the film went through a “long and repeated compliance process as well as scrupulous fact checking”.

It continued: “Our argument all along has been to tell the story of the doctors and medics as soon as possible, people whom we convinced to talk to us despite their own reservations that the BBC would ever tell their stories.”

“Although the BBC are now taking their names off this film, it will remain theirs, and we hope it serves to open up the debate on how the nation’s broadcaster covers what is happening in Gaza, and that people feel free to speak up and speak out, rather than stay silent or leave, and at some point get the journalistic leadership they deserve.”

Speaking at the Sheffield Documentary Festival on Thursday, before the decision was announced, De Pear specifically blamed director general Tim Davie for refusing to air the film.

He added: “The BBC’s primary purpose is TV news and current affairs, and if it’s failing on that it doesn’t matter what drama it makes or sports it covers,” he said, as reported by Broadcast. “It is failing as an institution. And if it’s failing on that then it needs new management.

In relation to the war, De Pear claimed staff at the BBC “are being forced to use language they don’t recognise, they are not describing something as it clearly is [for fear of impartiality] and it’s tragic”.

Responding to De Pear’s comments, a BBC spokesperson said the BBC “totally reject[s] this characterisation of our coverage”.

“The BBC has continually produced powerful journalism about this conflict. Alongside breaking news and ongoing analysis, we have produced original investigations such as those into allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s use of bunker buster bombs and in-depth documentaries including the award-winning Life and Death in Gaza, and Gaza 101.”

High-profile figures such as actress Susan Sarandon and presenter Gary Lineker have previously accused the corporation of censorship over the delay.

An open letter, which was also signed by cultural figures such as Dame Harriet Walter, Miriam Margolyes, Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson and Mike Leigh, said: “This is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression.”

“No news organisation should quietly decide behind closed doors whose stories are worth telling,” it continued.

“This important film should be seen by the public, and its contributors’ bravery honoured.”

A US appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump can keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles, despite objections from city leaders and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Trump deployed the troops in response to widespread protests against his immigration crackdown. Local officials called it an unnecessary provocation.

A three-judge panel on Thursday said he was within his rights to order the troops into service to “protect federal personnel… [and] property”. Trump called it a “big win”.

The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when mobilising the troops.

In that earlier ruling, Judge Charles Breyer said Trump “did not” follow the law set by Congress on the deployment of a state’s National Guard.

“His actions were illegal… He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith,” he wrote in his decision.

The judge however stayed the order until 13 June to give the Trump administration time to appeal against it, which it did almost immediately after.

Thursday’s unanimous ruling said Trump’s “failure to issue the federalisation order directly ‘through’ the Governor of California does not limit his otherwise lawful authority to call up the National Guard”.

“This is much bigger than Gavin [Newsom], because all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done,” Trump wrote on social media after the decision.

He also congratulated the court, adding: “America is proud of you tonight!”

The 38-page ruling, however, said the judges disagreed with the president on the merits of the legal challenge against his use of the National Guard. It said his decision to use the troops was not “completely insulated from judicial review”.

Newsom responded to the decision, saying the court “rightly rejected Trump’s claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court.

“We will not let this authoritarian use of military soldiers against citizens go unchecked”, he wrote on X, adding: “Donald Trump is not a king and not above the law.”

The court’s decision allows for the continued deployment of around 4,000 troops to Los Angeles. The Trump administration says they have been protecting federal immigration agents and federal property during raids.

It said it took over California’s National Guard to restore order and to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they conducted raids across Los Angeles to detain people they believed were in the country illegally.

Trump also ordered 700 Marines to the city, despite Newsom’s objections.

The National Guard was last deployed by a president without a governor’s consent during the civil rights era more than 50 years ago.