UN ambassadors have condemned Israel’s plans to “take control” of Gaza City as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted it was the “best way” to end the war.

During a press conference, which Netanyahu said was intended to “puncture the lies”, the Israeli leader said the planned offensive would move “fairly quickly” and would “free Gaza from Hamas”.

He also claimed Israeli hostages held in Gaza were “the only ones being deliberately starved” and denied Israel was starving Gazans.

Meanwhile, Israel came under heavy criticism at an emergency meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, with the UK, France and others warning the plan risked “violating international humanitarian law”.

Along with Denmark, Greece and Slovenia, they called for the plan to be reversed, adding it would “do nothing to secure the return of hostages and risks further endangering their lives”.

Other council members expressed similar alarm. China called the “collective punishment” of people in Gaza unacceptable, while Russia warned against a “reckless intensification of hostilities”.

UN Assistant Secretary General Miroslav Jenca told the meeting: “If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction.”

Ramesh Rajasingham from the UN’s humanitarian office said the hunger crisis in Gaza was no longer looming, adding that “this is starvation, pure and simple”.

But the United States defended Israel, with Ambassador Dorothy Shea telling the meeting the US had been working “tirelessly” to free hostages and end the war, and the meeting undermined those efforts.

She added the war “could end today if Hamas let the hostages go”, and accused other members of taking advantage of the meeting to “accuse Israel of genocide”, an allegation she insisted was “demonstrably false”.

Later on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said he had spoken with US President Donald Trump about Israel’s plans.

Thousands of protesters have also taken to the streets across Israel to oppose the government’s plan, fearing it puts the lives of hostages at risk.

In his press conference, Netanyahu said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had been instructed to dismantle the “two remaining Hamas strongholds” in Gaza City and a central area around al-Mawasi.

He also outlined a three-step plan to increase aid in Gaza, including designating safe corridors for humanitarian aid distribution as well as more air drops by Israeli forces and other partners.

He said the plan would also include increasing the number of safe distribution points managed by the controversial US and Israeli-backed Gazan Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The UN reported earlier this month that 1,373 Palestinians had been killed seeking food since late May, when GHF set up aid distribution sites.

Netanyahu claimed Hamas had “violently looted the aid trucks”, and, when asked about Palestinians killed at GHF sites, said “a lot of firing was done by Hamas”.

When asked about the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza – 20 of whom are still thought to be alive – Netanyahu said “if we don’t do anything, we are not going to get them out”.

The Israeli leader also took aim at the international press, saying it had bought into Hamas propaganda. He labelled some of the photos of malnourished children in Gaza that have run on newspaper front pages across the world as “fake”.

Throughout the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists into Gaza to report freely. But Netanyahu said a directive telling the military to bring in foreign journalists had been in place for two days.

Since Saturday, five people have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, bringing the total number to 217 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

It also said that in total more than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 2023.

Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October that year, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

In the past, figures from the Hamas-run health ministry were widely used in times of conflict and seen as reliable by the UN and other international organisations.

Australia has announced a plan to recognise a Palestinian state in September, following similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the move will happen at the UN General Assembly and after it received commitments from the Palestinian Authority.

“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” he said on Monday.

Israel, which is under increasing pressure to end the war in Gaza, has said recognising a Palestinian state “rewards terrorism”.

Since Saturday, five people have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, bringing the total number to 217 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

It also said that in total more than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 2023.

Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October that year, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, earlier said recognition of statehood shows growing support for self-determination of its people.

Albanese said the decision was made after his government received commitments from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Hamas would play no role in any future state.

He added that his decision comes after conversations with his counterparts in the UK, France, new Zealand, and Japan over the past fortnight.

Chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of their semiconductor sales in China, the BBC has been told by a source close to the matter.

The agreement is part of a deal to secure export licences to the world’s second biggest economy.

“We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” Nvidia told the BBC.

AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement to the BBC, Nvidia also said: “America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s [artificial intelligence] tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.”

Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay 15% of its revenues from H20 chip sales in China to the US government, while AMD will give the same percentage from its MI308 chip revenues, which was first reported by the Financial Times.

Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at global research firm Forrester, said this agreement is “unprecedented”.

“The arrangement underscores the high cost of market access amid escalating tech trade tensions, creating substantial financial pressure and strategic uncertainty for tech vendors”, he added.

Washington has previously banned the sale of Nvidia’s H20 chips to Beijing over security concerns, although the firm recently announced that this would be reversed. These powerful chips are used in artificial intelligence applications (AI).

“You either have a national security problem or you don’t,” said Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation.

“If you have a 15% payment, it doesn’t somehow eliminate the national security issue,” Ms Elms told the BBC.

The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after US export restrictions were imposed by the Biden administration in 2023. Its sale was effectively banned by the Trump administration in April this year.

Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang has spent months lobbying both sides for a resumption of sales of the chips in China. He reportedly met US President Donald Trump last week.

The resumption of chip sales to China comes as trade tensions between Beijing and Washington have been easing.

Beijing has relaxed controls on rare earth exports, while the US has lifted restrictions on chip design software firms operating in China.

In May, the world’s two biggest economies agreed to a 90-day truce in their tariffs war.

Since then, top trade officials from both sides have met on a number of occasions, although an agreement to extend the tariffs pause has not yet been confirmed ahead of a 12 August deadline.

Earlier, the Financial Times reported that China called on the US to relax export controls of semiconductors as part of any potential tariffs deal.

As part of his trade policy, Trump has put pressure on major companies to make more investments in the US.

Last week, Apple said it would invest another $100bn (£74.4bn) in the country, adding to a previous pledge to spend $500bn in the US over the next four years.

In June, memory chip maker Micron Technology said its planned US investments will total $200bn. That includes construction of a new manufacturing facility in Idaho.

Nvidia itself has announced plans to build AI servers in the US worth up to $500bn, pledging to build the first AI supercomputers that are entirely American-made.

No-one would want to work without getting a salary, or even worse – having to pay to be there.

Yet paying companies so you can pretend to work for them has become popular among young, unemployed adults in China. It has led to a growing number of such providers.

The development comes amid China’s sluggish economy and jobs market. Chinese youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, at more than 14%.

With real jobs increasingly hard to come by, some young adults would rather pay to go into an office than be just stuck at home.

Shui Zhou, 30, had a food business venture that failed in 2024. In April of this year, he started to pay 30 yuan ($4.20; £3.10) per day to go into a mock-up office run by a business called Pretend To Work Company, in the city of Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.

There he joins five “colleagues” who are doing the same thing.

“I feel very happy,” says Mr Zhou. “It’s like we’re working together as a group.”

Such operations are now appearing in major cities across China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Kunming. More often they look like fully-functional offices, and are equipped with computers, internet access, meeting rooms, and tea rooms.

And rather than attendees just sitting around, they can use the computers to search for jobs, or to try to launch their own start-up businesses. Sometimes the daily fee, usually between 30 and 50 yuan, includes lunch, snacks and drinks.

Dr Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Management in New Zealand, is an expert on the Chinese economy.

“The phenomenon of pretending to work is now very common,” he says. “Due to economic transformation and the mismatch between education and the job market, young people need these places to think about their next steps, or to do odd jobs as a transition.

“Pretend office companies are one of the transitional solutions.”

Mr Zhou came across the Pretend To Work Company while browsing social media site Xiaohongshu. He says he felt that the office environment would improve his self-discipline. He has now been there for more than three months.

Mr Zhou sent photos of the office to his parents, and he says they feel much more at ease about his lack of employment.

While attendees can arrive and leave whenever they want, Mr Zhou usually gets to the office between 8am and 9am. Sometimes he doesn’t leave until 11pm, only departing after the manager of the business has left.

He adds that the other people there are now like friends. He says that when someone is busy, such as job hunting, they work hard, but when they have free time they chat, joke about, and play games. And they often have dinner together after work.

Mr Zhou says that he likes this team building, and that he is much happier than before he joined.

In Shanghai, Xiaowen Tang rented a workstation at a pretend work company in Shanghai for a month earlier this year. The 23-year-old graduated from university last year and hasn’t found a full-time job yet.

Her university has an unwritten rule that students must sign an employment contract or provide proof of internship within one year of graduation; otherwise, they won’t receive a diploma.

She sent the office scene to the school as proof of her internship. In reality, she paid the daily fee, and sat in the office writing online novels to earn some pocket money.

“If you’re going to fake it, just fake it to the end,” says Ms Tang.

Dr Biao Xiang, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, says that China’s pretending to work trend comes from a “sense of frustration and powerlessness” regarding a lack of job opportunities.

“Pretending to work is a shell that young people find for themselves, creating a slight distance from mainstream society and giving themselves a little space.”

The owner of the Pretend To Work Company in the city of Dongguan is 30-year-old Feiyu (a pseudonym). “What I’m selling isn’t a workstation, but the dignity of not being a useless person,” he says.

He himself has been unemployed in the past, after a previous retail business that he owned had to close during the Covid pandemic. “I was very depressed and a bit self-destructive,” he recalls. “You wanted to turn the tide, but you were powerless.”

In April of this year he started to advertise Pretend To Work, and within a month all the workstations were full. Would-be new joiners have to apply.

Feiyu say that 40% of customers are recent university graduates who come to take photos to prove their internship experience to their former tutors. While a small number of them come to help deal with pressure from their parents.

The other 60% are freelancers, many of whom are digital nomads, including those working for big ecommerce firms, and cyberspace writers. The average age is around 30, with the youngest being 25.

Officially, these workers are referred to as “flexible employment professionals”, a grouping that also includes ride-hailing and trucker drivers.

Over the longer term Feiyu says it is questionable whether the business will remain profitable. Instead he likes to view it more as a social experiment.

“It uses lies to maintain respectability, but it allows some people to find the truth,” he says. “If we only help users prolong their acting skills we are complicit in a gentle deception.

“Only by helping them transform their fake workplace into a real starting point can this social experiment truly live up to its promise.”

Mr Zhou is now spending most of his time improving his AI skills. He says he’s noticed that some companies are specifying proficiency in AI tools when recruiting. So he thinks gaining such AI skills “will make it easier” for him to find a full-time job.

Meir Simcha agreed to talk, but he wanted to do it somewhere special, because for him, this is a special time. In a place where nation, religion and war are linked inextricably with politics and the possession of land, Simcha chose a patch of shade under a fig tree next to a spring of fresh water.

From his dusty car, a small Toyota fitted with off road tyres, he produced a bottle of juice made from fruit and vegetables.

“Don’t worry, there’s no extra sugar,” he said as he poured it into plastic cups.

Simcha is the leader of a group of Jewish settlers steadily transforming a big stretch of the rolling terrain south of Hebron in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since it was captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

He moved two large flat stones into the shade as seats, and we sat down in a patch of lush grass, kept alive in the harsh summer heat by water dripping from a pipe coming out of the spring. It was a small oasis at the foot of a steep, arid, rocky slope and the location, if not our conversation, felt peaceful in a way that the West Bank rarely does these days.

The conflict between Arabs and Jews for control of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea started well over a century ago when Zionists from Europe began to buy land to set up communities in Palestine.

It has been shaped by significant turning points.

The latest has come from the deadly 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s devastating response.

The consequences of the last 22 months of war, and however more months are left before a ceasefire, threaten to spread across years and generations, just like the Middle East war in 1967, when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.

The scale of destruction and killing in the Gaza war obscures what is happening in the West Bank, which smoulders with tension and violence.

Since October 2023, Israel’s pressure on West Bank Palestinians has increased sharply, justified as legitimate security measures.

Evidence based on statements by ministers, influential local leaders like Simcha and accounts by witnesses on the ground reveal that the pressure is part of a wider agenda, to accelerate the spread of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and to extinguish any lingering hopes of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Palestinians and human rights groups also accuse the Israeli security forces of failing in their legal duty as occupiers to protect Palestinians as well as their own citizens – not just turning a blind eye to settler attacks, but even joining in.

Violence by ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers in the West Bank has risen sharply since 7 October 2023.

Ocha, the UN’s humanitarian office, estimates an average of four settler attacks every day.

The International Court of Justice has issued an advisory opinion that the entire occupation of Palestinian territory captured in 1967 is illegal.

Israel’s rejects the ICJ’s view and claims that the Geneva Conventions forbidding settlement in occupied territories do not apply – a view disputed by many of its own allies as well as international lawyers.

In the shade of the fig tree, Simcha denied all suggestions he had attacked Palestinians, as he celebrated the fact that most of the Arab farmers who used to graze their animals on the hills he has seized and tend their olives in the valleys had gone.

He looks back to the Hamas October attacks, and Israel’s response ever since, as a turning point.

“I think that a lot has changed, that the enemy in our land lost hope. He’s beginning to understand that he’s on his way out; that’s what has changed in the last year or year and a half.

“Today you can walk around here in the land in the desert, and nobody will jump on you and try to kill you. There are still attempts to oppose our presence here in this land, but the enemy is starting to understand this slowly. They have no future here.

“The reality has changed. I ask you and the people of the world, why are you so interested in those Palestinians so much? Why do you care about them? It’s just another small nation.

“The Palestinians don’t interest me. I care about my people.”

Simcha says the Palestinians who left villages and farms near the hilltops he has claimed simply realised that God intended the land for Jews, not for them.

On 24 July this year, a panel of UN experts came to a different conclusion. A statement issued by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said: “We are deeply troubled by alleged widespread intimidation, violence, land dispossession, destruction of livelihoods and the resulting forcible displacement of communities, and we fear this is severing Palestinians from their land and undermining their food security.

“The alleged acts of violence, destruction of property, and denial of access to land and resources appear to constitute a systemic pattern of human rights violations.”

Simcha has a plan to dig a swimming pool at the base of the spring where we sat to talk. Like many others who are leading the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, he is full of plans. When I met him first, not long after Hamas burst through Israel’s border defences on 7 October 2023, he lived in a small group of isolated caravans on a hilltop overlooking the Judean desert as it sweeps down to the Dead Sea.

Since then, Simcha says his community has expanded into around 200 people on three hilltops. He was part of the faction of the settler movement known as hilltop youth, a radical fringe that became notorious for the violent harassment of Palestinians. Most Israelis who have settled in the occupied territories are not like Simcha. They went there not for ideological and religious reasons, but because property was cheaper.

But now men like Simcha are at the centre of events, with their leaders in the cabinet, leading the charge, married, older, thinking not just about swimming pools for their children but of victory over the Palestinians, once and for all, and everlasting Jewish possession of the land.

Simcha comes across as a happy man. He believes his mission – to implement the will of God by turning the West Bank into a land for Jews, and not for Palestinians – is progressing nicely.

Israel’s project to settle Jewish citizens in the newly occupied territories started within days of its victory in 1967. Over the last almost 60 years, successive Israeli governments and some wealthy sympathisers have invested vast amounts of money and energy to get to the point where around 700,000 Israeli Jews live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

I have been watching the settlements grow for about half of the lifetime of the project, since I first reported from the occupied Palestinian territories in 1991. In that time, the terrain of much of the West Bank has been transformed. The bigger settlements look like small towns, and the West Bank is carved into sections by a network of roads and tunnels built by Israel that are as much about staking an immovable claim to the land as they are about traffic management.

On remote hilltops at night, you can see the lights coming from the caravans of settlers who see themselves as Jewish pioneers. Olive groves, orchards and vineyards owned by Palestinian farmers along the road network are often overgrown, sometimes dotted with piles of rubble left from buildings Israel has demolished.

Controlling the land around the roads is necessary, Israel says, to stop attacks on Jews in the West Bank.

Farmers in areas under settler pressure often need military permission to visit their land, sometimes just once a year.

Palestinian farmers going about their business in vans or on donkeys used to be a common sight. In many parts of the West Bank, you just do not see them anymore, especially in places like the settlements east of Shiloh on the road to Nablus, where small groups of shacks and caravans on hilltops have connected up into sprawling residential hubs linked by sinuous road networks.

When first I reported on settlements, Israeli leaders would often say that national security depended on them. Enemies lurked across the Jordan valley, and pushing out the frontier, building the land, was a Zionist imperative.

Just like the kibbutz movement of collective farms in the 1920s and 1930s inside present-day Israel, settlements in the occupied territories after 1967 were strategically placed as a first line of defence.

In this conflict, land is a vital commodity.

Trading land taken by Israel in 1967 for peace with Palestinians who wanted it for a state was at the heart of the Oslo peace process that ended in violence but provided a false dawn of hope in the 1990s.

There were headlines around the world when, after months of secret negotiations in Norway in 1993, there was a handshake on the White House lawn between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. They had signed a declaration of principles that was hoped would lead to the end of the conflict. Israel would relinquish occupied land to Palestinians. In return, they would drop their claim to territory they had lost when Israel declared independence in 1948.

The argument at the heart of their conflict across the 20th Century, about who controlled land they both wanted, would be solved by splitting it.

After a final disastrous summit at Camp David in 2000, the hopes of 1993 were replaced by the deadly violence of a Palestinian uprising and a massive military response from Israel.

Part of the reason why the peace process failed was that other forces, outside the talks, were at work.

Hamas never dropped its belief that the entire land of Palestine was an Islamic possession and used suicide attacks to discredit the notion that peace was possible.

Among religious Zionists in Israel, the victory in 1967 had supercharged a wave of messianism – the belief that a divine being was coming who would redeem the Jewish people.

It electrified the settler movement.

Rabin was assassinated in November 1995 by a Jewish extremist brought up in Herzliya on the Mediterranean coast who spent weekends at settlements in the West Bank. During his first interrogation by the Israeli security service, Shin Bet, he asked for a drink so he could toast the fact that he had saved the Jewish people from a disastrous path that denied the will of God.

Today, the messianic idea grips settlers like Simcha more powerfully than ever.

They believe the victory in 1967 was a miracle granted by God, that restored to the Jewish people the ancestral lands that he had given them in the mountain heartland of Judea and Samaria – the area that much of the rest of the world calls the West Bank. Some believe events since 7 October have extended the miracle.

Last summer, the Minister for Settlements and National Missions, Orit Strock, put it like this to a sympathetic audience at an outpost in the Hebron hills, the area where Simcha operates.

“From my point of view, this is like a miracle period,” she said. “I feel like someone standing at a traffic light, and then it turns green.”

Minisyer Strock was speaking a few days before the ICJ issued its opinion.

She made her remarks at a settlement in the Hebron hills that the government had just “legalised”.

Israeli law distinguishes between “legal” settlements and “illegal” outposts – a distinction that is in practice being blurred by the government’s actions.

Outposts rebranded as “young settlements” are being retrospectively legalised as the government directs funds towards them.

At a ceremony in one of them in the south Hebron Hills in April this year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose powers over the running of the occupation also make him something like the governor of the West Bank, donated 19 all-terrain vehicles to the settlers. He praised them for “grabbing massive territories”.

A sharp-eyed reporter at the Times of Israel pointed out that one of the settlers at the ceremony, Yinon Levi, had been filmed harassing Palestinians from an all-terrain vehicle. Levi is sanctioned by the UK and the European Union for using violence to drive Palestinians off their land, though President Trump lifted similar sanctions imposed by Joe Biden.

Levi is radical settler royalty, married to the daughter of Noam Federman – a notorious extremist. Federman is a former leader of the Kach party, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, the European Union and others.

On 28 July this year, Yinon Levi fired a bullet that killed Odeh Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist, during a disturbance in the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair. Levi pleaded self-defence and was released after three days of house arrest.

When we went to Umm al-Khair, Hathaleen’s dried blood was still at the place where he was killed.

His brother, Khalil, told me the dead man was holding his five-year-old son, Watan, and filming the violent scenes on his phone when he was killed.

The settlement movement in the West Bank has powered ahead since 7 October, under the direction of hardline Jewish nationalists in the cabinet, men like Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, who is Strock’s leader in the Religious Zionist Party.

Ben Gvir was not drafted by the IDF when he turned 18, because of his extreme beliefs. He claims he campaigned to serve.

The two ministers are very different people to the secular politicians – retired generals like Yigal Allon from the Israeli left and Ariel Sharon from the right – two men who drove the settlement movement forward in its first two decades after 1967.

Just like Allon and Sharon, they believe that security requires power.

But for Smotrich, Ben Gvir and their followers, that is underpinned by the certainty of religious belief.

The influence they have acquired in return for supporting Netanyahu and keeping him in power continues to frustrate and enrage secular Israel.

Smotrich’s Israeli opponents use the word “messianic” as term of abuse when they talk about him.

Allon and Sharon could be ruthless. After the 1967 war, Allon advocated the annexation of large parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Neither man believed they were doing the will of God.

Hamas uses religion to justify its violent opposition to the existence of Israel. Religious Zionists in the settler movement believe they are doing God’s will.

Belief in a direct connection with God does not guarantee war. But it makes the compromises necessary for peace hard to achieve.

We arranged to meet Yehuda Shaul at the road junction next to Sinjel. He is one of Israel’s most prominent opponents of the occupation.

Shaul founded an organisation called Breaking the Silence after, as a soldier, he saw first-hand the inherently brutal realities of a military occupation that has lasted almost 60 years.

Fellow Israelis have branded supporters of Breaking the Silence, which he no longer leads, as traitors many times.

Israeli military crackdowns since the October attacks have reduced Palestinian violence against settlers, while settler attacks on Palestinians have grown sharply.

Shaul says that the line between settlers and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has become blurred.

The war in Gaza has required the longest mobilisation of military reservists – the backbone of the IDF – in Israel’s history. To get more Israelis into uniform, brigades in the West Bank have formed regional defence units made up of settlers.

“Now the settlers are the military. In the military are the settlers. So that settler on the hilltop nearby a Palestinian herding community that was beating them up and throwing stones for the past two three or four years, trying to get him out, now is the soldier or the officer in uniform with a gun responsible for the area.

“So when he comes to a Palestinian and says, ‘you have 24 hours to pack up and leave or I’m going to shoot you,’ the Palestinian knows there is nothing to protect him.”

Shaul believes Israel has two choices left. One direction, he argues, is “the vector that this government is writing, displacement, abuse, killing, destroying Palestinian life, ultimately, writing a vector to mass population transfer”.

“Or, it is two states where Palestine resides besides Israel and both peoples here have rights and dignity. These are the only two options in our cards. Now you and anyone who watches us, need to choose which one you support.”

He uses language about Netanyahu’s conduct of the Gaza war since 7 October that is rare in Israel but common among Palestinians and increasingly heard among Israel’s critics in Europe.

This is part of our conversation, in the shadow of the steel and razor wire between the village of Sinjel and Road 60 – the West Bank’s main highway.

He says: “I think while we see a war of extermination in Gaza… we see a massive campaign by the state and the settlers… to basically ethnically cleanse as much land of the West Bank from Palestinians.”

I reply: “Of course, if Netanyahu was here, any of his supporters, they’d say, ‘what a load of rubbish. This is about Israeli security against terrorism and attacks on Jews.’ What do you make of that?”

He responds: “I actually believe that if 7 October taught us one thing it is, if you really care about protecting Israelis and Palestinian life, you need to take care of the root causes of the violence: decades of brutal military occupation, displacement of Palestinians and a conflict that is going on for about 100 years.

“Ultimately, the security protection, the sustainability of Jewish self-determination in this land, is interlinked and intertwined with achieving self-determination rights and equality for Palestinians.”

Five Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the broadcaster has said.

Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, alongside cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa were in a tent for journalists at the hospital’s main gate when it was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.

The “targeted assassination” on Sunday was “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, it said in a statement.

Shortly after the strike, the IDF confirmed that it had targeted Anas al-Sharif, writing in a Telegram post that he had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”.

The IDF did not mention any of the other journalists who were killed.

In total, seven people died in the strike, Al Jazeera reports. The broadcaster initially said that four of its staff had been killed, but revised it to five a few hours later.

Its managing editor, Mohamed Moawad, told the BBC that al-Sharif was an accredited journalist who was “the only voice” for the world to know what was happening in the Gaza Strip.

Throughout the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists into Gaza to report freely. Therefore, many outlets rely on local reporters within the territory for coverage.

“They were targeted in their tent, they weren’t covering from the front line,” Moawad said of the Israeli strike.

“The fact is that the Israeli government is wanting to silence the coverage of any channel of reporting from inside Gaza,” he told The Newsroom programme.

“This is something that I haven’t seen before in modern history.”

• BBC and news agencies warn journalists in Gaza at risk of starvation

Al-Sharif, 28, appeared to be posting on X in the moments before his death, warning of intense Israeli bombardment within Gaza City. A post that was published after he was reported to have died appears to have been pre-written and published by a friend.

In two graphic videos of the aftermath of the strike, which have been confirmed by BBC Verify, men can be seen carrying the bodies of those who were killed.

Some shout out Qreiqeh’s name, and a man wearing a media vest says that one of the bodies is that of al-Sharif.

In its statement, the IDF accused al-Sharif of posing as a journalist, and being “responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”

It said it had previously “disclosed intelligence” confirming his military affiliation, which included “lists of terrorist training courses”.

Last month, the Al Jazeera Media Network – along with the United Nations and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) – issued separate statements warning that al-Sharif’s life was in danger, and calling for his protection.

Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the CPJ, told the BBC that Israeli authorities have failed to provide evidence to show that the journalists they killed were terrorists.

“This is a pattern we’ve seen from Israel – not just in the current war, but in the decades preceding – in which typically a journalist will be killed by Israeli forces and then Israel will say after the fact that they are a terrorist, but provides very little evidence to back up those claims,” she said.

This is not the first time the IDF has targeted and killed Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza, who they claimed were Hamas-affiliated.

In August last year, Ismael Al-Ghoul was hit by an air strike as he sat in his car – harrowing video shared on social media showed his decapitated body. Cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, and a boy passing on a bicycle were also killed.

In al-Ghoul’s case, the IDF said he took part in Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks against Israel, a claim Al Jazeera strongly rejected.

According to the CPJ, 186 journalists have been confirmed killed since the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza in October 2023.

A few days ago, India’s Election Commission released updated draft electoral rolls for Bihar state, where key elections are scheduled for November, following a month-long revision of the voters’ list.

But opposition parties and election charities say the exercise was rushed through – and many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.

The Special Intensive Revision – better known by its acronym SIR – was held from 25 June to 26 July and the commission said its officials visited each of the state’s listed 78.9 million voters to verify their details. It said the last such revision was in 2003 and an update was necessary.

The new draft rolls have 72.4 million names – 6.5 million fewer than before. The commission says deletions include 2.2 million dead, 700,000 enrolled more than once and 3.6 million who have migrated from the state.

Corrections are open until 1 September, with over 165,000 applications received. A similar review will be conducted nationwide to verify nearly a billion voters.

But opposition parties have accused the commission of dropping many voters – especially Muslims who make up a sizeable chunk of the population in four border districts – to aid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming state election.

The poll body and BJP have denied the allegations. In response to the BBC’s questions, the Election Commission shared its 24 June order on conducting the SIR and a 27 July press note outlining efforts to ensure no eligible voter was “left behind”.

“Further, [the commission] does not take any responsibility of any other misinformation or unsubstantiated allegations being floated around by some vested interests,” it added in the response.

The commission has not released the list of deleted names or given any break-up according to religion, so it’s not possible to verify the opposition’s concerns.

A review by Hindustan Times newspaper found high voter deletions in Kishanganj, a district with the largest share of Muslims in Bihar, but not in other Muslim-dominated constituencies.

Parliament has faced repeated adjournments as opposition MPs demand a debate on what they call a threat to democracy. Outside, they chanted “Down down Modi”, “Take SIR back” and “Stop stealing votes”. The Supreme Court is also reviewing the move after watchdog ADR questioned its timing.

“It comes just three months before the assembly elections and there has not been enough time given to the exercise,” Jagdeep Chhokar of ADR, told the BBC.

“As reports from the ground showed, there were irregularities when the exercise was being conducted and the process of data collection was massively faulty,” he added.

The ADR has argued in court that the exercise “will disenfranchise millions of genuine voters” in a state that’s one of India’s poorest and is home to “a large number of marginalised communities”.

It says the SIR shifts the burden onto people to prove their citizenship, often requiring their own and their parents’ documents within a short deadline – an impossible task for millions of poor migrant workers.

While the draft roll was being published, we travelled to Patna and nearby villages to hear what voters think of SIR.

In Danara village, home to the poorest of the poor known as Mahadalits, most residents work on farms of upper-castes or are unemployed.

Homes are crumbling, open drains line the narrow lanes and a stagnant puddle near the local temple has turned brackish.

Most residents had little to no idea about SIR or its impact, and many weren’t sure if officials had even visited their homes.

But they deeply value their vote. “Losing it would be devastating,” says Rekha Devi. “It will push us further into poverty.”

In Kharika village, many men said they’d heard of SIR and submitted forms, spending 300 rupees (£3.42; £2.55) on getting new photos taken. But after the draft rolls came out, farmer and retired teacher Tarkeshwar Singh called it “a mess”. He shared pages showing his family’s details – pointing out errors, including the wrong photo next to his name.

“I have no idea whose photo it is,” he says, adding that his wife Suryakala Devi and son Rajeev also have wrong pictures. “But the worst is my other son Ajeev’s case – it has an unknown woman’s photo.”

Mr Singh goes on to list other anomalies – in his daughter-in-law Juhi Kumari’s document, he’s named as husband in place of his son. Another daughter-in-law, Sangeeta Singh, is listed twice from the same address – only one has her correct photo and date of birth.

Many of his relatives and neighbours, he says, have similar complaints. He points out the name of a cousin who died more than five years back but still figures on the list – and at least two names that appear twice.

“There’s obviously been no checking. The list has dead people and duplicates and many who did not even fill the form. This is a misuse of government machinery and billions of rupees that have been spent on this exercise.”

Mr Chhokar of ADR says they will raise these issues in the Supreme Court this week. In July, the court said it would stay the exercise if petitioners produce 15 genuine voters missing from the draft rolls.

“But how do we do that since the commission has not provided a list of the 6.5 million names that have been removed?” he asks.

Mr Chhokar says a justice on the two-judge bench suggested delinking the exercise from upcoming elections to allow more time for a proper review.

“I’ll be happy with that takeaway,” he says.

The SIR and draft rolls have split Bihar’s parties: the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) questions them, while the ruling Janata Dal (United) – BJP alliance backs them.

“The complexity of this revision has left many people confused,” says Shivanand Tiwari, general secretary of the RJD.

Tiwari questions the Election Commission’s “claims that 98.3% electors have filled their forms” and says “in most villages, our voters and workers say the Block Level Officer (BLO) – generally a local schoolteacher appointed by the commission to go door-to-door – did not visit them. Many BLOs are not trained and don’t know how to upload forms”. (The commission has said the BLOs have worked “very responsibly”.)

Tiwari alleges that the “commission is partisan and this is manipulation of elections”.

“We believe the target are border areas where a lot of Muslims live who never vote for the BJP,” he says.

The BJP and the JD(U) have rejected the criticism, saying “it’s entirely political”.

“Only Indian citizens have the right to vote and we believe that a lot of Rohingya and Bangladeshis have settled in the border areas in recent years. And they have to be weeded out from the list,” said Bhim Singh, a BJP MP from Bihar.

“The SIR has nothing to do with anyone’s religion and the opposition is raising it because they know they will lose the upcoming election and need a scapegoat to blame for their loss,” he added.

JD(U)’s chief spokesperson and state legislator Neeraj Kumar Singh said “the Election Commission is only doing its job”.

“There are lots of voters on the list who figure twice or even three times. So shouldn’t that be corrected?” he asks.

The UK’s seas have had their warmest start to the year since records began, helping to drive some dramatic changes in marine life and for its fishing communities.

The average surface temperature of UK waters in the seven months to the end of July was more than 0.2C higher than any year since 1980, BBC analysis of provisional Met Office data suggests.

That might not sound much, but the UK’s seas are now considerably warmer than even a few decades ago, a trend driven by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels.

That is contributing to major changes in the UK’s marine ecosystems, with some new species entering our seas and others struggling to cope with the heat.

Scientists and amateur naturalists have observed a remarkable range of species not usually widespread in UK waters, including octopus, bluefin tuna and mauve stinger jellyfish.

The abundance of these creatures can be affected by natural cycles and fishing practices, but many researchers point to the warming seas as a crucial part of their rise.

“Things like jellyfish, like octopus… they are the sorts of things that you expect to respond quickly to climate change,” said Dr Bryce Stewart, a senior research fellow at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth.

“It’s a bit like the canary in the coal mine – the sorts of quite extraordinary changes we’ve seen over the last few years really do indicate an ecosystem under flux,” he added.

Harry Polkinghorne, a keen 19-year-old angler, described how he regularly sees bluefin tuna now, including large schools of the fish in frantic feeding frenzies.

“It’s just like watching a washing machine in the water,” he said. “You can just see loads of white water, and then tuna fins and tuna jumping out.”

Bluefin tuna numbers have been building over the past decade in south-west England for a number of reasons, including warmer waters and better management of their populations, Dr Stewart explained.

Heather Hamilton, who snorkels off the coast of Cornwall virtually every week with her father David, has swum through large blooms of salps, a species that looks a bit like a jellyfish.

They are rare in the UK, but the Hamiltons have seen more and more of these creatures in the last couple of years.

“You’re seeing these big chains almost glowing slightly like fairy lights”, she said.

“It just felt very kind of out of this world, something I’ve never seen before.”

But extreme heat, combined with historical overfishing, is pushing some of the UK’s cold-adapted species like cod and wolf-fish to their limits.

“We’re definitely seeing this shift of cooler water species moving north in general,” said Dr Stewart.

Marine heatwave conditions – prolonged periods of unusually high sea surface temperatures – have been present around parts of the UK virtually all year.

Some exceptional sea temperatures have also been detected by measurement buoys off the UK coast, known as WaveNet and run by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas).

And the record 2025 warmth comes after very high sea temperatures in 2023 and 2024 too.

The Met Office says its data from the end of June 2024 to now is provisional and will be finalised in the coming months, but this usually results in only very minor changes.

“All the way through the year, on average it’s been warmer than we’ve really ever seen [for the UK’s seas],” said Prof John Pinnegar, the lead adviser on climate change at Cefas.

“[The seas] have been warming for over a century and we’re also seeing heatwaves coming through now,” he added.

“What used to be quite a rare phenomenon is now becoming very, very common.”

Like heatwaves on land, sea temperatures are affected by natural variability and short-term weather. Clear, sunny skies with low winds – like much of the UK had in early July – can heat up the sea surface more quickly.

But the world’s oceans have taken up about 90% of the Earth’s excess heat from humanity’s emissions of planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide.

That is making marine heatwaves more likely and more intense.

“The main contributor to the marine heatwaves around the UK is the buildup of heat in the ocean,” said Dr Caroline Rowland, head of oceans, cryosphere and climate change at the Met Office.

“We predict that these events are going to become more frequent and more intense in the future” due to climate change, she added.

With less of a cooling sea breeze, these warmer waters can amplify land heatwaves, and they also have the potential to bring heavier rainfall.

Hotter seas are also less able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which could mean that our planet heats up more quickly.

The sea warmth is already posing challenges to fishing communities.

Ben Cooper has been a fisherman in Whitstable on the north Kent coast since 1997, and relies heavily on the common whelk, a type of sea snail.

But the whelk is a cold-water species, and a marine heatwave in 2022 triggered a mass die-off of these snails in the Thames Estuary.

“Pretty much 75% of our earnings is through whelks, so you take that away and all of a sudden you’re struggling,” explained Mr Cooper.

Before the latest heatwave, the whelks had started to recover but he said the losses had forced him to scale back his business.

Mr Cooper recalled fishing trips with his father in the 1980s. Back then, they would rely on cod.

“We lost the cod because basically the sea just got too warm. They headed further north,” he said.

The precise distribution of marine species varies from year to year, but researchers expect the UK’s marine life to keep changing as humans continue to heat up the Earth.

“The fishers might in the long term have to change the species that they target and that they catch,” suggested Dr Pinnegar.

“And we as consumers might have to change the species that we eat.”

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

One person has died in Turkey after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the north-west province of Balikesir on Sunday evening.

An 81-year-old woman passed away shortly after she was pulled out from rubble in the town of Sindirgi, which was the epicentre of the quake, Turkey’s interior minister said.

Sixteen buildings collapsed as a result of the tremors, and 29 people had been injured, Ali Yerlikaya added.

Turkey’s disaster management agency said the quake was recorded at around 19:53 local time (16:53 GMT), and was felt as far away as Istanbul.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement wishing a swift recovery to everyone who was affected, and said that all recovery efforts were being closely monitored.

“May God protect our country from any kind of disaster,” he wrote on X.

Search and rescue operations have now concluded, and the interior minister said that there were no other signs of serious damage or casualties.

Pictures from Sindirgi, however, show large buildings totally flattened and towering piles of twisted metal and debris.

Turkey is located at the intersection of three major tectonic plates, and experiences frequent seismic activity as a result.

In February 2023, more than 50,000 people were killed when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the south-eastern region of the country.

A further 5,000 were killed in neighbouring Syria.

More than two years on from that quake, hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced.

US President Donald Trump has said homeless people must “move out” of Washington DC as he vowed to tackle crime in the city, but the mayor pushed back against the White House likening the capital to Baghdad.

“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” he posted on Sunday. The Republican president also trailed a news conference for Monday about his plan to make the city “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before”.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said: “We are not experiencing a crime spike.”

Trump signed an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people, and he last week ordered federal law enforcement into the streets of Washington DC.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday.

“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”

Alongside photos of tents and rubbish, he added: “There will be no ‘MR. NICE GUY.’ We want our Capital BACK. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The specifics of the president’s plan are not yet clear, but in a 2022 speech he proposed moving homeless people to “high quality” tents on inexpensive land outside cities, while providing access to bathrooms and medical professionals.

On Friday, Trump ordered federal agents – including from US Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the US Marshals Service – into Washington DC to curb what he called “totally out of control” levels of crime.

A White House official told National Public Radio that up to 450 federal officers were deployed on Saturday night.

The move comes after a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was assaulted in an alleged attempted carjacking in Washington DC.

Trump vented about that incident on social media, posting a photo of the bloodied victim.

Mayor Bowser told MSNBC on Sunday: “It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023.

“We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.”

She criticised White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller for dubbing the US capital “more violent than Baghdad”.

“Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false,” Bowser said.

Washington DC’s homicide rate remains relatively high per capita compared to other US cities, with a total of 98 such killings recorded so far this year. Homicides have been trending higher in the US capital from a decade ago.

But federal data from January suggests that Washington DC last year recorded its lowest overall violent crime figures – once carjacking, assault and robberies are incorporated – in 30 years.

Trump has said there will be a news conference at the White House on Monday to outline their plans to stop violent crime in the US capital.

In another post on Sunday he said the event at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) would address ending “crime, murder and death” in the city, as well as its “physical renovation”.

He described Bowser as “a good person who has tried”, adding that despite her efforts crime continues to get “worse” and the city becomes “dirtier and less attractive”.

Community Partnership, an organisation that works to reduce homelessness in Washington DC, told Reuters news agency that the city of 700,000 residents had about 3,782 people homeless on any given night.

Most were in public housing or emergency shelters, but about 800 were considered “on the street”.

As a district, rather than a state, Washington DC is overseen by the federal government, which has the power to override some local laws.

The president controls federal land and buildings in the city, although he would need Congress to assume federal control of the district.

In recent days, he has threatened to take over the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department, which Bowser argued was not possible.

“There are very specific things in our law that would allow the president to have more control over our police department,” Bowser said. “None of those conditions exist in our city right now.”

US fashion designer Willy Chavarria has apologised after a shoe he created in collaboration with Adidas Originals was criticised for “cultural appropriation”.

The Oaxaca Slip-On was inspired by traditional leather sandals known as huaraches made by Indigenous artisans in Mexico.

The Mexican president was among those who spoke out against the footwear, which was reportedly made in China without consultation or credit to the communities who originated the design.

Chavarria said in a statement sent to the BBC: “I am deeply sorry that the shoe was appropriated in this design and not developed in direct and meaningful partnership with the Oaxacan community.”

Cultural appropriation is defined as “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, of one people or society by members of a typically more dominant people or society”.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum told a press conference: “Big companies often take products, ideas and designs from Indigenous communities.”

She added: “We are looking at the legal part to be able to support them.”

Adidas had contacted Oaxacan officials to discuss “restitution to the people who were plagiarised”, Mexico’s deputy culture minister Marina Nunez added.

In an emailed statement, Adidas told the BBC that it “recognizes and values the cultural richness of Mexico’s Indigenous communities and the meaning of their artisanal heritage.”

“The ’Oaxaca Slip-On‘ was inspired by a design from Oaxaca, rooted in the tradition of Villa Hidalgo Yalálag. We offer a public apology and reaffirm our commitment to collaborate with Yalálag in a respectful dialogue that honors their cultural legacy.”

Promotional images of the black moulded open-toe footwear have been taken down from the brand’s social media accounts as well as Chavarria’s.

In his statement, Chavarria said he wanted “to speak from the heart about the Oaxaca slip-on I created with Adidas”.

“The intention was always to honor the powerful cultural and artistic spirit of Oaxaca and its creative communities – a place whose beauty and resistance have inspired me. The name Oaxaca is not just a word – its living culture, its people, and its history.”

He went on to say he was “deeply sorry” he did not work with the Oaxacan community on the design.

“This falls short of the respect and collaborative approach that Oaxaca, the Zapotec community of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, and its people deserve,” he added.

“I know love is not just given – it is earned through action.”

Chavarria was Calvin Klein’s senior vice president of design until 2024 and is the founder and chief creative officer of his eponymous label.

The Associated Press reported that Adidas responded to Mexican authorities in a letter on Friday.

The company reportedly said it “deeply values the cultural wealth of Mexico’s Indigenous people and recognises the relevance” of criticisms, and requested a sit-down to talk about how to “repair the damage” to Indigenous communities.

The findings of a year-long undercover investigation into a violent migrant-smuggling gang were published by BBC News on 5 August – and, as a result, one person has now been arrested in Birmingham.

Here, one of our reporters who assumed a false identity and posed as a migrant, describes how he met one of the gang’s senior members in a secret forest hideout.

I am walking towards the forest near Dunkirk, thinking about the battery in my pocket. I’ve hidden the wires under two T-shirts, but is anything still showing? Is my secret camera working? Is it pointing at the right angle? I have, at most, three hours of battery life left, and I need to get to the smuggler’s secret camp, meet him, and get out safely.

This is perhaps the most dangerous and most important moment for me, the culmination of many months working on this investigation with the team.

There is a small team of high-risk advisers watching my back. With gang members monitoring everyone who enters the forest, I worry my advisers may end up exposing me rather than protecting me. But they play it perfectly and keep a low profile.

I’m using a false name. My clothes are similar to those worn by other people trying to get a ride on a small boat to England. Scuffed, old shoes. A big, warm, dirty, jacket. A backpack that I’ve spent time trying to make look worn, as if I have travelled long, hard miles to get here.

I keep going over my cover story in my head. The excuses I might need to get away quickly. The possible scenarios. We have planned and planned, but I know nothing ever goes exactly as expected in the field.

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I am an Arabic-speaking man and have gone undercover before – but each time is different, and carries different risks.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent a long time in northern France, trying to understand and expose the people smugglers’ complicated and shadowy operations. It was not an easy decision to infiltrate a violent criminal network.

I’m entering a world ruled by money, power and silence. But I’m not just curious – I also believe the gangs are not as untouchable as they seem and that I can play a role in exposing them and perhaps helping to stop them.

Inside the forest, my nervousness fades. I am “Abu Ahmed” now – my false identity. I don’t even feel like I’m acting a part.

I’m new in town, a Syrian refugee whose asylum bid was rejected by Germany. I’m scared, desperate, a little lost and at the beginning of an uncertain journey.

I walk down a path to the smugglers’ camp trying to remember the way I came in.

When the smuggler, Abdullah, meets me, he is friendly but he says he needs to leave immediately. I try to sound weary. I must persuade him to wait, to talk to me quickly, while my battery is still working. Then, I can get out of there.

Abdullah suspects nothing and seems entirely at ease. But I know the smugglers have guns and knives and there is only one path that leads in and out of the camp.

A day later, away from the forest, I see online that there has been another fatal shooting there.

One of the most difficult things during my time undercover, in the weeks before I meet Abdullah, is keeping track of the phone numbers. Gang members change them often, and sometimes you can lose months of work in a second. At times I’ve lost hope, seeing everything fall apart. But I keep learning.

I spend a lot of time meeting people waiting for small boats around Calais or Boulogne, asking them which gang they are using, which phone numbers they have. Early mornings are spent at train stations, food distribution centres, or on the edge of forests and beaches. Sometimes I just watch, trying to melt into a crowd, to overhear conversations, to spot glances and gestures and to see who leads and who follows.

I must be careful. I move from place to place in different cars over the weeks, and generally try to disappear into the background. I don’t want to do or say anything that could bring me to the attention of the smugglers. They have so many eyes and ears here, and if they become suspicious, it could be dangerous for me.

Am I scared? Not too often. I have engaged with even more dangerous groups in the past. But I am worried I could make a mistake, forget a detail, and blow my cover. Or at least one of my covers.

I switch phones too, contacting smugglers using different names and back stories to try to piece together who works where and what they do. I label each phone. I have French, German, Turkish and Syrian numbers. It is slow work. I’m careful to make sure I’m in the right place whenever I make a call, in case the smuggler asks me to turn on my video or send a pin showing my location.

The smugglers always ask me, “Where did you get the number?” And, “Who is with you? Where are you staying? How did you get to France?”

Now Abdullah does the same, asking me to send photos showing my journey to the forest from a bus stop in Dunkirk.

Does he suspect me?

In person in the forest, Abdullah appears friendlier than most of the smugglers I have encountered. I notice he seems keen to make all his passengers feel at ease, always responding to calls. He strikes me as ambitious.

Over time, I learn some of the gang’s vocabulary. Migrants are “nafar”. The junior smugglers are “rebari”. The forest is always “the jungle”.

And now it is time for me to leave the jungle and to head back towards my team who are waiting, anxiously, at a nearby supermarket.

As I leave the forest and get to the road, I’m no longer “Abu Ahmed”. I’m a journalist again, tortured by questions.

Did the camera work? Did I manage to film Abdullah confirming his role as a smuggler? Is anyone following me now?

The walk back seems even longer.

As American as apple pie, Kentucky bourbon was booming after the last Great Recession ended. But as the economy has waned post-Pandemic – and with multiple trade wars on the horizon – the market may be drying up.

Although the whiskey, which is traditionally made with corn and aged in charred oak barrels, has roots going all the way back to the 18th Century, it wasn’t until 1964 that it became an iconic piece of Americana, when Congress passed a law declaring it a “distinctive product of the United States”.

But drinking trends come and go, and by the end of the 20th Century, bourbon was considered a bit old fashioned – pun intended.

“You often see these kind of generational shifts where people don’t want to drink what their parents drink,” said Marten Lodewijks, the US president of IWSR, which collects alcoholic beverage data and provides industry analysis.

Then, as the world recovered from the 2008 recession, drinkers seemed to rediscover this classic spirit, for a few different reasons.

For starters, the price point was good, which made it attractive for bar managers to purchase and incorporate into cocktails and for younger drinkers to sample. Then, in 2013, a law was passed in Kentucky that made it easier for companies to purchase and resell vintage bottles, opening up a high-end collectible market. Add to that the rise in mid-century nostalgia fuelled by shows like Mad Men, and bourbon was due for a full-blown Renaissance.

Sales of bourbon grew by 7% worldwide between 2011-2020, which is more than three times the growth of the decade prior, according to industry data company ISWR.

Soon, some bourbon distillers were becoming quasi-celebrities, and people were starting to buy up bourbon bottles not to drink, but as an investment.

“Everyone was going crazy over the bourbon market, and treating like a commodity, like a stock,” recalls Robin Wynne, a general manager and beverage director for Little Sister in Toronto, Canada, who has been a bar manager for about 25 years.

“People would go in as a prospector, to flip bottles for two to three times the value.”

But like most market bubbles, this one was bound to burst. The pandemic’s lockdowns tanked bar sales, and inflation has made many would-be bourbon drinkers choose less expensive options – or forgo drinking all together. Amongst Gen-Z, many 20-somethings are drinking less than their older siblings and parents did at their age.

Those factors have contributed to declining alcohol sales, with bourbon sales specifically slowing down to just 2% between 2021-2024, according to ISWR data.

President Donald Trump’s global tariffs have been the final straw. The EU has announced retaliatory tariffs against US goods, including Kentucky bourbon and Californian wine, although implementation has been delayed for six months.

Meanwhile, most provinces in Canada have stopped importing American alcoholic beverages in retaliation. The country accounts for about 10% of Kentucky’s $9bn (£6.7bn) whiskey and bourbon business.

“That’s worse than a tariff, because it’s literally taking your sales away, completely removing our products from the shelves … that’s a very disproportionate response,” Lawson Whiting, the CEO of Brown-Forman, which produces Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, said back in March when Canadian provinces announced their plan to stop buying US booze.

Trump has said that tariffs will boost made-in-American businesses.

But Republican Senator Rand Paul, who represents Kentucky, said the tariffs will hurt local businesses and consumers in his home state.

“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in May.

These economic pressures have created a growing list of casualties.

Liquor giant Diageo, reported that sales of Bulleit, a Kentucky distillery that makes bourbon, rye and whiskey, where down 7.3% this fiscal year.

Wild Turkey – a Kentucky bourbon owned by Campari – sales were down 8.1% over the past six months.

While big, international brands will likely be able to weather the storm, the sales hit has led to a growing list of casualties.

In July, LMD Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – just one month after opening the Luca Mariano Distillery in Danville, Kentucky.

This spring, Garrard County Distilling went into receivership.

And in January, Jack Daniel’s parent company closed a barrel-making plant in Kentucky.

The bottom of the barrel has not yet been reached, warned Mr Lodewijks.

“I’d be extraordinarily surprised if there weren’t more bankruptcies and more consolidation,” he said.

In part, bourbon has become a victim of its own success – the rise in bourbon sales, and the growth of the premium market, helped fuel many small distilleries. Because bourbon must age in barrels for years, what’s on the market today was predicted a few years ago, which means that there is currently an oversupply, which is driving down prices.

But while these economic conditions are harsh, Mr Lodewijks said that history has shown how tough times can create innovation. Scotch whisky used to be fairly simple, a blend of middle-of-the road tipples. But when sales declined in the second part of the 20th century, distillers started aging their excess bottles, which helped create the market we have now for premium, aged Scotch whisky.

In Canada, where bourbon imports have slowed to a trickle, local distilleries have started experimenting with bourbon-making methods to give Canadian whiskey a similar taste.

“The tariff war has really done a positive for the Canadian spirits business,” noted Mr Wynne.

“We’ve got lots of grains to make these whiskeys without having to rely on the States.”

US President Donald Trump had been in office scarcely a week when a new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app called DeepSeek jolted Silicon Valley.

Overnight, DeepSeek-R1 shot to the top of the Apple charts as the most downloaded free app in the US.

The firm said at the time its new chatbot rivalled ChatGPT. Not only that. They asserted it had cost a mere fraction to develop.

Those claims – and the app’s sudden surge in popularity – wiped $600bn (£446bn) or 17% off the market value of chip giant Nvidia, marking the largest one-day loss for a single stock in the history of the US stock market.

Several other tech stocks with exposure to AI were caught in the downdraft, too.

DeepSeek also cast doubt on American AI dominance. Up until then, China had been seen as having fallen behind the US. Now, it seemed as though China had catapulted to the forefront.

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen referred to the arrival of DeepSeek-R1 as “AI’s Sputnik moment,” a reference to the Soviet satellite that had kicked off the space race between the US and the USSR more than a half century earlier.

It has now been six months since DeepSeek stunned the world.

Today, China’s breakthrough app has largely dropped out of the headlines. It’s no longer the hot topic at happy hour here in San Francisco. But DeepSeek hasn’t disappeared.

DeepSeek challenged certain key assumptions about AI that had been championed by American executives like Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

“We were on a path where bigger was considered better,” according to Sid Sheth, CEO of AI chip startup d-Matrix.

Perhaps maxing out on data centres, servers, chips, and the electricity to run it all wasn’t the way forward after all.

Despite DeepSeek ostensibly not having access to the most powerful tech available at the time, Sheth told the BBC that it showed that “with smarter engineering, you actually can build a capable model”.

The surge of interest in DeepSeek took hold over a weekend in late January, before corporate IT personnel could move to stop employees from flocking to it.

When organisations caught on the following Monday, many scrambled to ban workers from using the app as worries set in about whether user data was potentially being shared with the People’s Republic of China, where DeepSeek is based.

But while exact numbers aren’t available, plenty of Americans still use DeepSeek today.

Certain Silicon Valley start-ups have opted to stick with DeepSeek in lieu of more expensive AI models from US firms in a bid to cut down on costs.

One investor told me for cash-strapped firms, funds saved by continuing to use DeepSeek are helping to pay for critical needs such as additional headcount.

They are, however, being careful.

In online forums, users explain how to run DeepSeek-R1 on their own devices rather than online using DeepSeek’s servers in China – a workaround they believe can protect their data from being shared surreptitiously.

“It’s a good way to use the model without being concerned about what it’s exfiltrating” to China, said Christopher Caen, CEO of Mill Pond Research.

DeepSeek’s arrival also marked a turning point in the US-China AI rivalry, some experts say.

“China was seen as playing catch-up in large language models until this point, with competitive models but always trailing the best western ones,” policy analyst Wendy Chang of the Mercator Institute for China Studies told the BBC.

A large language model (LLM) is a reasoning system trained to predict the next word in a given sentence or phrase.

DeepSeek changed perceptions when it claimed to have achieved a leading model for a fraction of the computational resources and costs common among its American counterparts.

OpenAI had spent $5bn (£3.7bn) in 2024 alone. By contrast, DeepSeek researchers said they had developed DeepSeek-R1 – which came out on top of OpenAI’s o1 model across multiple benchmarks – for just $5.6m (£4.2m).

“DeepSeek revealed the competitiveness of China’s AI landscape to the world,” Chang said.

American AI developers have managed to capitalize on this shift.

AI-related deals and other announcements trumpeted by the Trump administration and major American tech companies are often framed as critical to staying ahead of China.

Trump’s AI czar David Sacks noted the technology would have “profound ramifications for both the economy and national security” when the administration unveiled its AI Action Plan last month.

“It’s just very important that America continues to be the dominant power in AI,” Sacks said.

DeepSeek has never managed to quell concerns over the security implications of its Chinese origins.

The US government has been assessing the company’s links to Beijing, as first reported by Reuters in June.

A senior US State Department official told the BBC they understood “DeepSeek has willingly provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations”.

DeepSeek did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment but the company’s privacy policy states that its servers are located in the People’s Republic of China.

“When you access our services, your Personal Data may be processed and stored in our servers in the People’s Republic of China,” the policy says. “This may be a direct provision of your Personal Data to us or a transfer that we or a third-party make.”

Earlier this week, OpenAI reignited talk about DeepSeek after releasing a pair of AI models.

These were the first free and open versions – meaning they can be downloaded and modified – released by the American AI giant in five years, well before ChatGPT ushered in the consumer AI era.

“You can draw a straight line from DeepSeek to what OpenAI announced this week,” said d-Matrix’s Sheth.

“DeepSeek proved that smaller, more efficient models could still deliver impressive performance—and that changed the industry’s mindset,” Sheth told the BBC. “What we’re seeing now is the next wave of that thinking: a shift toward right-sized models that are faster, cheaper, and ready to deploy at scale.”

But to others, for the major American players in AI, the old approach appears to be alive and well.

Just days after releasing the free models, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5. In the run-up, the company said it significantly ramped up its computing capacity and AI infrastructure.

A slew of announcements about new data centre clusters needed for AI has come as American tech companies have been competing for top-tier AI talent.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ploughed billions of dollars to fulfil his AI ambitions, and tried to lure staff from rivals with $100m pay packages.

The fortunes of the tech giants seemed more tethered than ever to their commitment to AI spending, as evidenced by the series of blowout results revealed this past tech earnings season.

Meanwhile, shares of Nvidia, which plunged just after DeepSeek’s arrival, have rebounded – touching new highs that have made it the world’s most valuable company in history.

“The initial narrative has proven a bit of a red herring,” said Mill Pond Research’s Caen.

We are back to a future in which AI will ostensibly depend on more data centres, more chips, and more power.

In other words, DeepSeek’s shake-up of the status quo hasn’t lasted.

And what about DeepSeek itself?

“DeepSeek now faces challenges sustaining its momentum,” said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney.

That’s due in part to operational setbacks but also to intense competition from companies in the US and China, she said.

Zhang notes that the company’s next product, DeepSeek-R2, has reportedly been delayed. One reason? A shortage of high-end chips.

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He sang wistfully of the English town that shaped his life.

Ed Sheeran grew up in Framlingham in Suffolk and its rolling hills and magnificent castle inspired his hit single, Castle on the Hill. It was the homeplace he pined for.

So when he recently described himself as “culturally Irish,” the singer faced social media criticism on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Sheeran replied that he had two paternal Irish grandparents, an Irish parent, an Irish passport, and a childhood filled with Irish summer holidays. Ireland was the place where his musical taste was formed, he said. “I can be allowed to feel a connection to a place half my family is from.”

Yet he was accused of being Irish “when it suits him” by one poster.

Another wrote on X: “I’ve seen B*Witched live and have watched a couple of Gaelic football games, which I think gives me an even more legitimate claim to be culturally Irish than Ed Sheeran.”

The mainstream press expressed perplexity at his embrace of an Irish cultural identity “despite being born and raised in England”.

Not everyone agrees.

To Ros Scanlon, programmer for the Irish Cultural Centre in London, it shouldn’t surprise or offend anyone. It reflects her own experience as a second-generation Irish person in the UK.

“He’s owning his Irish heritage, saying he is proud of his cultural background,” says Ros. “That doesn’t mean to say he doesn’t like or love being British, that is part of him too.”

Certainly it is much easier to speak of an Irish identity in Britain now that there is peace in Northern Ireland.

As the Belfast South MP, Claire Hanna, who is now leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, told parliament during a St Patrick’s Day debate in 2022: “Many are moving on from the traditional binaries of the past and embracing the ‘or both’ part of the Good Friday agreement, not feeling that they have to decide between being British and Irish if they do not wish to do so.”

Sheeran’s declaration raises this point once again, and prompts the deeper question of what cultural “Irishness” really is today.

Professor Linda Connolly, director of sociology at Maynooth University in County Kildare, argues that Ed Sheeran’s statement is about an idea of identity that is bigger than where you were born or what you write on a census form.

“Ed Sheeran is stating quite clearly that culturally he is Irish in Britain, and not just British and Irish in terms of citizenship alone,” she argues. “This applies to many second-generation Irish living in Britain.”

In Northern Ireland, Irishness can mean many things, not least because it is fraught with so much painful history.

For many unionists, staunch political loyalty to Britain and the Monarchy, sits alongside a deep attachment to the land they have lived on for hundreds of years. Symbols like the Celtic harp and the Shamrock are seen by many as belonging to both traditions.

There are unionists who cheer for an Irish rugby team but would never dream of singing the anthem of the Republic – a new song, Ireland’s Call, was written for the 1995 World Cup.

It is a complex and evolving set of choices, with frequent arguments. Promotion of the Irish language is bitterly opposed by a vocal section of Unionism. For most Catholics their Irish identity was historically something to be defended in a Unionist dominated state.

It was an identity that helped bind them to their co-religionists on the rest of the island, particularly in the fields of Gaelic sport and culture.

But as politics has changed there is less preoccupation with religious background, a greater sense of belonging to an international culture.

And this is without even beginning to speak of an identity that is demonstrably northern Irish with its shared dry humour.

Everyone has their own menu of what being “culturally Irish” means – for me, it’s about humour, about a love of words and music, and a refusal to take ourselves, or anybody else, too seriously.

It can also mean a sense of a particular landscape, either one you loved, or were glad to escape – or for second or third – generation Irish, a landscape of brief immersion on summer holidays from England. That was the world of “the streams, the rolling hills/Where his brown eyes were waiting” evoked by Shane MacGowan of the Pogues.

But there are as many definitions of “culturally Irish” as there are Irish people, or people who want to be Irish. It runs a wide spectrum of styles, influences, opinions and genres – from Oasis (born in Manchester to Irish parents), the rappers Kneecap, novelist Sally Rooney, the Irish actress of Nigerian descent Demi Isaac Oviawe, the London-born playwright Martin McDonagh of The Banshees of Inisherin fame.

The core members of The Beatles all had Irish grandparents or great grandparents, prompting John Lennon to tell a concert in Dublin: “We’re all Irish.”

That was in 1963 – some 62 years before Ed Sheeran’s declaration.

There are many voices too from the Irish Protestant tradition in Ulster – the singer Van Morrison and the novelist Jan Carson, who has written about growing up in an evangelical Christian home, and says she now feels “much more ease and comfort with an Irish identity than a British one”.

Ed Sheeran is himself a product of blended traditions. His grandfather was a Belfast Protestant who married a Catholic from the Republic of Ireland at a time of sectarian intolerance.

Today, it is undoubtedly easier these days for a big mainstream star like Sheeran to embrace an Irish cultural identity in Britain than it would have been several decades ago.

I think of the powerful song Nothing But the Same Old Story by Paul Brady, about an Irishman in Britain during the 1970s, amid the ongoing IRA campaign: “In their eyes, we’re nothing but a bunch of murderers.”

Ros Scanlon credits Irish cultural figures for much of the changed atmosphere, including legendary BBC presenter Terry Wogan and musicians such as U2, Thin Lizzy, Sinead O’Connor, the Pogues “and now Ed Sheeran!”

Yet all of these icons are building on the foundations laid by the unacknowledged millions who came to Britain over many centuries.

The generation of Ed Sheeran’s parents and grandparents were the Irish people who built Britain’s roads and housing estates, the railways above and below ground.

The famous ballad ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’ remembers how they “sweated blood and they washed down mud with pints and quarts of beer”. Irish nurses were fundamental to the staffing of the NHS.

In those days, most Irish immigrants found expression of their culture in the ballrooms of places like Kilburn in northwest London, or the Astoria in Manchester, or the Irish pubs which often catered to clientele from a specific county. Bouts of hostility encouraged newcomers to stick together.

But the extraordinary cross-fertilisation of the two cultures goes much further back – how could it not, given the colonial history and the proximity of both islands?

For two millennia there are records of the Irish trading, settling, and inter-marrying in Britain; they shared a common language with western Scotland and the Isle of Man, and a Druidic culture with the rest of Britain.

Monks from Ireland helped spread and then restore Christianity during the so-called Dark Ages. Sometimes it worked the other way: Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick, was a Brit.

One of the bestselling songwriters of early 19th century Britain was Irishman Thomas Moore. His story typifies the often complex nature of cultural relationships: he was a champion of Irish liberty, but his great song “The Minstrel Boy” – written for rebels fighting Britain – is played by the band of the Irish Guards at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day.

Nowadays, for second or third generation people, the country of their ancestors has never been more reachable. Cheap airfares have changed the nature of how Irish culture in Britain has evolved, says Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, Professor of Irish history at the University of Sheffield.

“The physical distance between Ireland and Britain has diminished in the Ryanair era… It seems to me also that Irish migration to Britain is now more likely to be temporary – people may come for a few years, then go home – whereas previously it was a more permanent departure.”

I should declare an interest. I am Irish. Living in Britain. I was born here while my father was a real-life cultural import, acting in the West End in J.M. Synge’s landmark drama, The Playboy of the Western World, a story from the west of Ireland, which won rave reviews from London audiences.

We went home after the play ended and I was brought up in Ireland. But I returned to work for the BBC. I have spent more than three decades as a correspondent for the BBC, and I have lived outside Ireland for longer than I did in the country.

What does that make me? My identity is made of many parts. I am Irish. I am a Londoner. I am also a Cork, Kerry and Waterford person.

The Irish language and music is an essential part of my cultural makeup. But I also cherish how that music is connected to the music of Scotland and North America, and I reckon one of the greatest songs of Irish exile was written by Englishman, Ralph McTell: “And the only time I feel alright is when I’m into drinking/ It sort of eases the pain of it and levels out my thinking… It’s a long way from Clare to here.”

My attachment to South Africa has shaped me in enduring and indelible ways too. Identity is also a story of deep and loving relationships, whether in Ireland, London, the African continent or France, to name but three important ones.

My feelings about identity are also inextricably linked to my experiences as a war reporter. I spent too many years witnessing ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity often carried out because of hatred of a different identity.

The great writer, James Joyce, rejected any identity built around “nationality, language, religion” and defiantly vowed to “fly by those nets”.

He was writing about a different, much narrower Ireland of the early 20th century. But the policing of identity – who you are allowed to be – is disturbingly present in many societies, and many guises.

So, if somebody asks me to narrow my identity to a single label, I refuse, because it is mine, not to be explained or justified. And if it shifts tomorrow, that is my business.

The nature of identity is evolving – in Ireland it is absorbing the influences of other cultures, but also influencing those cultures.

Professor Nic Dháibhéid hopes the prominence of Irish cultural identities in Britain will prompt a greater interest in the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, particularly among the under-25s who, as she sees it, “will have no memory of the Troubles, and so there is an even greater need to ensure that there is good mutual understanding between the people on our two islands.”

The big British audiences for Kneecap, to take an example, didn’t happen because young people had a sudden awakening about the problems of life in nationalist west Belfast. Kneecap connected with a much wider youth disillusionment: they are rapping in the Irish language but it’s the challenge to the establishment that resonates with some among the young.

It is important to recognise that the cultural influence can be polarising. Kneecap’s public statements and political stances have divided people.

One member of the band, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig.

“The Kneecap phenomenon is real, as is the Derry Girls one,” says Professor Nic Dhábhéid, also referencing the show inspired by the screenwriter Lisa McGee’s upbringing in the city in the 1990s.

Professor Nic Dhábhéid is one of the historians chosen by the UK government to oversee the writing of a “public” history of the Troubles. She cautions that despite the progress made, the old battle of identities is far from finished, citing the tensions caused by Brexit.

“A decade ago, the narrative was one of reconciliation… I’m not convinced that we’re in the reconciliation space right now,” she argues.

Which makes Ed Sheeran’s honest expression of identity all the more moving.

It was not one of aggressive cultural nationalism: he wasn’t talking about what my identity should be, or yours. It was a statement of what he feels.

I am the father of two children who grew up in Britain. I watch them navigate the challenges and opportunities of different and overlapping identities, encouraging them to follow James Joyce’s advice and fly past any barriers others put in their way.

That, for me, is the way to a future without bitterness.

“Brazen! It is brazen!” Prof Paul Sereno says down the phone line from Chicago.

He makes no effort to disguise his anger that a rare meteorite from Mars discovered two years ago in the West African nation of Niger ended up being auctioned off in New York last month to an unnamed buyer.

The palaeontologist, who has close connections with the country, believes it should be back in Niger.

This millions-of-years-old piece of the Red Planet, the largest ever found on Earth, fetched $4.3m (£3.2m) at Sotheby’s. Like the buyer, the seller was kept anonymous.

But it is unclear if any of this money went to Niger.

Fragments of extraterrestrial material that have made their way to Earth have long inspired reverence among humans – some ending up as religious objects, others as curiosities for display. More recently, many have become the subject of scientific study.

The trade in meteorites has been compared to the art market, with aesthetics and rarity affecting the price.

At first, there was a sense of awe surrounding the public display of this extraordinary Martian find – less than 400 of the 50,000 meteorites discovered have been shown to come from our planetary neighbour.

The photographs taken at Sotheby’s of the 24.7kg (54lb) rock – appearing in the lights to glow silver and red – compounded this feeling.

But then some people started asking questions about how it ended up under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Not least the government of Niger itself, which, in a statement, “expressed doubts about the legality of its export, raising concerns about possible illicit international trafficking”.

Sotheby’s strongly disputes this, saying the correct procedures were followed, but Niger has now launched an investigation into the circumstances of the discovery and sale of the meteorite, which has been given the scientific and unromantic name NWA 16788 (NWA standing for north-west Africa).

Little has been made public about how it ended up at a world-renowned auction house in the US.

An Italian academic article published last year said that it was found on 16 November 2023 in the Sahara Desert in Niger’s Agadez region, 90km (56 miles) to the west of the Chirfa Oasis, by “a meteorite hunter, whose identity remained undisclosed”.

Meteorites can fall anywhere on Earth, but because of the favourable climate for preservation and the lack of human disturbance, the Sahara has become a prime spot for their discovery. People scour the inhospitable landscape stretching across several countries in the hope of finding one to sell on.

According to the Italian article, NWA 16788, was “sold by the local community to an international dealer” and was then transferred to a private gallery in the Italian city of Arezzo.

The University of Florence’s magazine described the person as “an important Italian gallery owner”.

A team of scientists led by Giovanni Pratesi, mineralogy professor at the university, was able to examine it to learn more about its structure and where it came from. The meteorite was then briefly on display last year in Italy, including at the Italian Space Agency in Rome.

It was next seen in public in New York last month, minus two slices that stayed in Italy for more research.

Sotheby’s said that NWA 16788 was “exported from Niger and transported in line with all relevant international procedures.

“As with everything we sell, all relevant documentation was in order at each stage of its journey, in accordance with best practice and the requirements of the countries involved.”

A spokesperson added that Sotheby’s was aware of reports that Niger is investigating the export of the meteorite and “we are reviewing the information available to us in light of the question raised”.

Prof Sereno, who founded the organisation NigerHeritage a decade ago, is convinced Nigerien law was broken.

The academic with the University of Chicago, who has spent years uncovering the country’s vast deposits of dinosaur bones in the Sahara, campaigns to get Niger’s cultural and natural heritage – including anything that has fallen from outer space – returned.

A stunning museum on an island on the River Niger that runs through the capital, Niamey, is being planned to house these artefacts.

“International law says you cannot simply take something that is important to the heritage of a country – be it a cultural item, a physical item, a natural item, an extraterrestrial item – out of the country. You know we’ve moved on from colonial times when all this was okay,” Prof Sereno says.

A series of global agreements, including under the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco, have tried to regulate the trade in these objects. But, according to a 2019 study by international law expert Max Gounelle, when it comes to meteorites, while they could be included, there remains some ambiguity about whether they are covered by these agreements. It is left to individual states to clarify the position.

Niger passed its own law in 1997 aimed at protecting its heritage.

Prof Sereno points to one section with a detailed list of all the categories included. “Mineralogical specimens” are mentioned among the art works, architecture and archaeological finds but meteorites are not specifically named.

In its statement on the Sotheby’s sale, Niger admitted that it “does not yet have specific legislation on meteorites” – a line that the auction house also pointed out. But it remains unclear how someone was able to get such a heavy, conspicuous artefact out of the country without the authorities apparently noticing.

Morocco has faced a similar issue with the huge number of meteorites – more than 1,000 – found within its borders, which include a part of the Sahara.

More than two decades ago the country experienced what author Helen Gordon described as a “Saharan gold rush”, fuelled in part by laxer regulations and a more stable political environment than some of its neighbours.

In her recent book The Meteorites, she wrote that Morocco was “one of the world’s greatest exporters of space rocks”.

Prof Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane has spent much of the past 25 years trying to hold on to some of that extraterrestrial material for her country.

“It’s a part of us, it’s a part of our heritage… it’s part of our identity and it’s important to be proud of the richness of the country,” the geologist tells the BBC.

The professor is not against the trade in meteorites but has been instrumental in the introduction of measures aimed at regulating the business. She admits though that the new rules have not been entirely successful in stemming the flow of the meteorites.

In 2011, Prof Chennaoui was responsible for gathering material in the desert from an observed meteorite fall that turned out to be from Mars.

Later named the Tissint meteorite, it weighed 7kg in all, but now she says only 30g remain in Morocco. Some of the rest is in museums around the world, with the biggest piece on display in London’s Natural History Museum.

Reflecting on the fate of Niger’s Martian meteorite, she says she was not surprised as it is “something that I’m living with for 25 years. It’s a pity, we cannot be happy with this, but it’s the same state in all our countries.”

Prof Sereno hopes that the Sotheby’s sale will prove a turning-point – firstly by motivating the Nigerien authorities to act and secondly “if it ever sees the light of day in a public museum, [the museum] is going to have to deal with the fact that Niger is openly contesting it”.

• Sotheby’s returns Buddha jewels to India after uproar
• Meteorite smugglers anger scientists
• Nasa Mars rover: Meteorite to head home to Red Planet
• Antarctic meteorites yield global bombardment rate
• A fireball, a driveway and a priceless meteorite

Film critics have delivered a verdict: the new version of War of the Worlds – which stars Ice Cube as a man who must save humanity from an alien invasion without leaving his desk – is bad.

But how bad? Is it just “the worst possible adaptation of HG Wells’s work”? Is it “one of the worst movies of the decade so far”? Or might it actually be “one of the worst movies ever made”?

When the reviews started coming in this week, the internet soon took delight in the film’s 0% critic score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

While some gleefully joined in the mauling, others were attracted to the Prime Video film like moths to a flame.

“I feel like I have to watch this now,” wrote The White Lotus actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, who, as the son of Arnold, has perhaps encountered the odd low-ranking movie.

He’s not the only person to feel the lure of a film with savage reviews – some terrible movies have built cult followings for being so bad they’re good.

Lon Harris, executive producer of the This Week in Startups podcast, stoked the conversation this week when he posted: “Dipping below like 5% on Rotten Tomatoes has basically the same appeal to me as breaking 90%.

“That’s some[thing] I need to experience right there.”

A film with a rock bottom rating is bound to be interesting, Harris tells BBC News.

“A very low score indicates universal agreement. This movie is bad. Now I want to know more… Why does everyone agree? Suddenly, I’m intrigued.

“I watch a lot of movies, there’s so much content coming out, and most of it is bland and forgettable.”

Harris was intrigued enough to watch War of the Worlds, and it duly lived down to his expectations.

“It’s very silly, Ice Cube’s solo performance just reacting to things on his laptop screen verges at times on parody and frequently made me laugh, and there’s a whole subplot involving Amazon drone deliveries that’s so on-the-nose it’s almost unbelievable that they included it,” he says.

It’s not a subtle film. Ice Cube’s government surveillance agent must save both the world and his family from afar, as he watches the alien invasion unfold on his computer screen, a set-up explained by the fact it was made during the pandemic.

It had been sitting on the shelf ever since – until now.

Harris adds: “There’s a charm to watching a movie that’s not slick and polished like most other films you see, where you can sort of see the artists’ hands at work trying their best to cover for their budget issues and production setbacks.

“That’s more interesting than just ‘another alien invasion movie’ to me.”

After its initial battering, one critic has now taken pity on War of the Worlds, having enjoyed watching it.

“Is this movie really that bad?” wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Jordan Hoffman on Thursday.

“The answer is… absolutely not. It’s certainly stupid, but it’s also a great deal of fun.”

That write-up, which concluded that the “movie is a mess, but an uproarious one”, was deemed positive by Rotten Tomatoes so has nudged the film’s Tomatometer score up from 0% to the giddy heights of 4% at the time of writing.

Truly atrocious movies are preferable to those that are simply forgettable, according to Timon Singh, who set up the Bristol Bad Film Club a decade ago.

“I’ve seen films where the shot is not even in focus, the crew are walking into frame, the actor’s wig has fallen off – and it’s still an incredibly entertaining film,” he says.

Blockbusters can be “bloated” and “boring”, he adds, plucking out 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight as an example.

“In comparison, Samurai Cop is technically a terrible film, but it’s 90 minutes of pure enjoyable terrible acting, awful fight scenes, and once you’ve seen it, you’re never going to forget it.

“Whereas you’ll probably forget Transformers: The Last Knight while you’re watching it.”

Other films to have gained cult followings include 2003’s The Room, once described as “a trash masterpiece” by the Daily Beast.

However, The Room, made by “bad film auteur” Tommy Wiseau, is perversely enjoyable enough to have a relatively respectable 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Katharine Coldiron, author of Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter, says it’s better to watch a film-maker like Wiseau try hard and fall short, rather than someone going through the motions.

“When a film is earnestly made, and it fails, that’s terrific to watch,” she says.

Her favourite terrible film is 1983’s Staying Alive, the sequel to disco classic Saturday Night Fever, directed by Sylvester Stallone, which was critically panned despite commercial success.

“All but one of the characters is a sociopath, so the movie works on almost no levels. I love to put it on and yell at it.”

Rotten Tomatoes has its own list of the worst films of all time.

It’s skewed to movies from the past 25 years, because those have the most online reviews, and is of course subject to the flaws of the RT scores.

But here are its top five, all of which have 0% critic ratings.

1. Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)

A cliché-crammed moody action thriller, slated for it script, acting and fight sequences.

Starring: Lucy Liu is unconvincing as a sort-of-superhero and Antonio Banderas is a grizzled ex-FBI agent.

Sample review: “An ungainly mess, submerged in mayhem, occasionally surfacing for cliches.” Roger Ebert

2. One Missed Call (2008)

A insipid and ridiculous (but competent) remake of a Japanese horror film about teenage friends who get voicemail messages sent by their future selves at their moments of death.

Starring: A random assortment including Shannyn Sossamon, who went on to join US band Warpaint; Meagan Good, now actor Jonathan Majors’ wife; comedian Margaret Cho; future Modern Family star Ariel Winter; and Ray Wise from Twin Peaks.

Sample review: “A brow-furrowing blend of child abuse and adult trauma.” New York Times

3. Left Behind (2014)

A mixture of Hallmark-style schmaltz, Biblical-themed supernatural mystery and aeroplane disaster drama. And not in a good way.

Starring: Nicolas Cage stuck in his post-Oscar-winning rut.

Sample review: “Left Behind takes the end of the world and turns it not into a nightmare, but a nice long nap.” Washington Post

4. A Thousand Words (2012)

A motormouth book agent mustn’t speak, otherwise a magical tree will die, and so will he. For some reason.

Starring: Eddie Murphy being over-the-top and underwhelming at the same time.

Sample review: “Remember Eddie Murphy? He used to be hilarious.” Movieline

5. Gotti (2018)

This mob misfire was criticised for, among many other things, its sympathetic portrayal of real-life crime boss John Gotti.

Starring: John Travolta showed he’s no Marlon Brando. His wife Kelly Preston played Gotti’s wife.

Sample review: “I’d rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch Gotti again.” New York Post

He is France’s last newspaper hawker; maybe the last in Europe.

Ali Akbar has been pounding the pavement of Paris’s Left Bank for more than 50 years, papers under the arm and on his lips the latest headline.

And now he is to be officially recognised for his contribution to French culture. President Emmanuel Macron – who once as a student himself bought newspapers from Mr Akbar – is to decorate him next month with the Order of Merit, one of France’s highest honours.

“When I began here in 1973 there were 35 or 40 of us hawkers in Paris,” he says. “Now I am alone.

“It became too discouraging. Everything is digital now. People just want to consult their telephones.”

These days, on his rounds via the cafés of fashionable Saint-Germain, Mr Akbar can hope to sell around 30 copies of Le Monde. He keeps half the sale price, but gets no refund for returns.

Back before the Internet, he would sell 80 copies within the first hour of the newspaper’s afternoon publication.

“In the old days people would crowd around me looking for the paper. Now I have to chase down clients to try to sell one,” he says.

Not that the decline in trade remotely bothers Mr Akbar, who says he keeps going for the sheer joy of the job.

“I am a joyous person. And I am free. With this job, I am completely independent. There is no-one giving me orders. That’s why I do it.”

The sprightly 72-year-old is a familiar and much-loved figure in the neighbourhood. “I first came here in the 1960s and I’ve grown up with Ali. He is like a brother,” says one woman.

“He knows everyone. And he is such fun,” says another.

Ali Akbar was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and made his way to Europe in the late 1960s, arriving first in Amsterdam where he got work on board a cruise liner.

In 1972 the ship docked in the French city of Rouen, and a year later he was in Paris. He got his residency papers in the 1980s.

“Me, I wasn’t a hippy back then, but I knew a lot of hippies,” he says with his characteristic laugh.

“When I was in Afghanistan on my way to Europe I landed up with a group who tried to make me smoke hashish.

“I told them sorry, but I had a mission in life, and it wasn’t to spend the next month sleeping in Kabul!”

In the once intellectual hub of Saint-Germain he got to meet celebrities and writers. Elton John once bought him milky tea at Brasserie Lipp. And selling papers in front of the prestigious Sciences-Po university, he was acquainted with generations of future politicians – like President Macron.

So how has the legendary Left Bank neighbourhood changed since he first held aloft a copy of Le Monde and flogged it (with a shout)?

“The atmosphere isn’t the same,” he laments. “Back then there were publishers and writers everywhere – and actors and musicians. The place had soul. But now it is just tourist-town.

“The soul has gone,” he says – but he laughs as he does.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Israel to oppose the government’s plan to expand its military operation in Gaza.

On Friday, Israel’s security cabinet approved five principles to end the war that included ‘taking security control’ over the Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military saying it would “prepare for taking control” of Gaza City.

Protesters, including family members of 50 hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are still thought to be alive, fear the plan puts the lives of hostages at risk, and urged the government to secure their release.

Israeli leaders have rejected criticism of their plan, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying “this will help free our hostages”.

A group representing families of the hostages said on X: “Expanding the fighting endangers the hostages and the soldiers – the people of Israel are not willing to risk them!”

One protester Shakha, rallying in Jerusalem on Saturday, told the BBC: “We want the war to end because our hostages are dying there, and we need them all to be home now.”

“Whatever it takes to do, we need to do it. And if it needs to stop the war, we’ll stop the war.”

Among the protesters in Jerusalem was a former soldier who told the BBC he is now refusing to serve. Max Kresch said he was a combat soldier at the beginning of the war and “has since refused.”

“We’re over 350 soldiers who served during the war and we’re refusing to continue to serve in Netanyahu’s political war that endangers the hostages (and) starving innocent Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.

The Times of Israel reported that family members of hostages and soldiers at a protest in Tel Aviv near the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters called on other soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded military operation to protect hostages.

The mother of one of the hostages has called for a general strike in Israel, and the main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said it would be a “justified and worthy” response.

However, the country’s main labour union will not back a strike, according to the Times of Israel.

During Saturday night’s demonstrations, Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway was blocked by protesters who lit bonfires.

Three suspects were arrested and “materials intended for setting fires on main roads” were seized, Israeli police said.

Netanyahu has also faced strong opposition from the army’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to Israeli media, had warned the prime minister that a full occupation of Gaza was “tantamount to walking into a trap” and would endanger the living hostages.

Polls suggest most of the Israeli public favour a deal with Hamas for the release of the hostages and the end of the war.

Netanyahu had told Fox News earlier this week that Israel planned to occupy of the entire Gaza Strip and eventually “hand it over to Arab forces”.

“We are not going to occupy Gaza – we are going to free Gaza from Hamas,” Netanyahu said on X on Friday. “This will help free our hostages and ensure Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future.”

The Israeli security cabinet’s plan lists five “principles” for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.

A top UN official earlier this week warned that a complete military takeover of Gaza City would risk “catastrophic consequences” for Palestinians civilians and hostages.

Up to one million Palestinians live in Gaza City in the north of the Gaza Strip, which was the enclave’s most populous city before the war.

The UK, France, Canada and several other countries have condemned Israel’s decision and Germany announced that it would halt its military exports to Israel in response.

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Sunday to discuss Israel’s plan.

International leaders and UN agencies have also called on Israel, which controls the entry of all goods into Gaza, to allow more humanitarian aid and food into the territory amid a growing number of reported deaths due to hunger.

Five people, including two children, died in Gaza during the past 24 hours due to malnutrition, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Sunday.

The total number of malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza is now 217, including 100 children, the health ministry added.

Israel has blamed Hamas and denied starvation in Gaza. However, UN-backed food security experts assessed in July that “the worst case scenario of famine is already playing out”.

The BBC and other news organisations are not allowed by Israel to report independently from Gaza.

At least 59 people were killed and 363 injured in the past 24 hours as a result of Israel’s military operation, the health ministry said, with 35 people killed while trying to get aid.

Israel began its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, 61,430 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli military operations, the health ministry says.

Jen Pawol has made US sporting history by becoming the first female umpire to referee a Major League Baseball (MLB) game during the regular season.

Pawol, 48, oversaw first base during Saturday’s game between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves.

“I’m aware of the gravity. I’m aware of the magnitude,” she said, as quoted by MLB.com.

Pawol looked overjoyed as she was welcomed to the pitch in Atlanta, Georgia, by cheers and a standing ovation.

“It was pretty amazing when we took the field, and it seemed like quite a few people started clapping and saying my name, so that was pretty intense and very emotional,” she said after the game.

During the match, supporters in the stands held signs, including “Pawol making HERstory,” and “the time has come for one & all to play ball”.

To mark the occasion, after the game Pawol donated the hat she wore to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Pawol is set to return to the field on Saturday night, when she will be responsible for third base.

All eyes will be on her on Sunday, when she stands behind home plate, calling balls and strikes, in the final match of the three-game series.

Pawol, a native of New Jersey, has worked for years as an umpire in the minor leagues and has overseen more than 1,200 games in her more than 30-year career, MLB reported.

In the stands to support her were a bevy of some 30 family and friends, including current players, managers and umpires.

Her entry into MLB comes 28 years after the NBA allowed its first female basketball referee. The National Football League (NFL) hired its first female official 10 years ago, while men’s soccer World Cup hired a female referee three years ago.

The National Hockey League has yet to see a female referee.

President Vladimir Putin has presented US President Donald Trump’s special envoy with an award to pass on to a senior CIA official whose son was killed fighting with Russia in Ukraine.

Putin gave the Order of Lenin to Steve Witkoff during his trip to Moscow this week to discuss a plan to end the Ukraine war, sources familiar with the matter told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

Michael Gloss, 21, who was killed in Ukraine last year, was the son of Juliane Gallina, who is the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation.

Reports of the award emerged as it was confirmed that Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska next Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine.

Neither the Kremlin nor Russian foreign ministry has publicly acknowledged posthumously bestowing the Order of Lenin, a Soviet-era award recognising outstanding civilian service, on Gloss.

It is unclear what was done with the award. The White House, the CIA and Witkoff did not respond to requests for comment.

Gloss’ death first emerged in Russian media reports in April.

A CIA statement later that month said Gloss had been suffering from mental health problems, adding that his death was not a national security issue.

Gloss was never an employee of the CIA, a person familiar with the matter told CBS.

Sources also told CBS that the Kremlin did not initially appear to be aware of the family background of Gloss, who enlisted with Russian forces in autumn 2023.

Gloss had shared selfies in Moscow’s Red Square on social media last year. His posts had expressed support for Russia in what he called “the Ukraine Proxy war” and dismissed media coverage of the conflict as “western propaganda”.

An obituary for Gloss published in November 2024 said he was “killed in Eastern Europe” on 4 April that year.

The CIA’s statement about his death four months ago said that Ms Gallina and her family had suffered “an unimaginable personal tragedy”.

Gloss’s father, Iraq war veteran Larry Gloss, told the Washington Post in an interview this April that their son had struggled for most of his life with mental illness.

“Our biggest fear while we were waiting for him to be repatriated was that someone over there [in Moscow] would put two and two together and figure out who his mother was, and use him as a prop,” Larry Gloss said.

European allies have rallied behind Ukraine in a renewed surge of support, insisting that any peace talks with Russia must include Kyiv.

A joint statement issued by the leaders of the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission came ahead of US President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

A White House official has said that Trump is willing to hold a trilateral meeting which would also include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but, for now, it remains a Trump-Putin summit, as initially requested by the Russian leader.

Zelensky has said any agreements without Kyiv will amount to “dead decisions”.

Trump has previously suggested that he could start by meeting only with Putin, telling reporters he planned to “start off with Russia.” But the US president also said that he believed “we have a shot at” organising a trilateral meeting with both Putin and Zelensky.

Whether Putin would agree to this is unclear – he has refused several opportunities to hold direct talks, and the two leaders have not met face-to-face since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

Speaking on Friday, Trump also suggested that there “will be some swapping of territories” in order for Moscow and Kyiv to reach an agreement – to which Zelensky reacted strongly.

“We will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated,” he said on Telegram. “Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace.”

“The Russians… still impose the idea of ‘exchanging’ Ukrainian territory for Ukrainian territory, with consequences that guarantee nothing but more convenient positions for the Russians to resume the war,” he added defiantly.

CBS, the BBC’s US media partner, has reported that the White House is trying to sway European allies to accept an agreement that would include Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and keeping the Crimean Peninsula.

The European leaders, in their statement released late on Saturday night, stressed that “international borders must not be changed by force”.

“Ukraine has the freedom of choice over its own destiny,” they said, stressing that their nations would continue to support Ukraine diplomatically, militarily and financially.

The leaders also said that a “diplomatic solution” is critical, not just to protect Ukraine – but also Europe’s security.

It’s not just Ukraine that is struggling to be part of the Alaska meeting.

European allies are also worried about their lack of influence over the outcome of any agreement that Trump could reach with Putin.

In a post on X on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron raised concerns about Russia and the US excluding European involvement.

“Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake,” he wrote.

On Sunday, Zelensky thanked the allies for their support.

“The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations,” he said.

Europe has taken a tough approach to Moscow – including imposing sanctions against Russian entities and providing military aid for Ukraine.

Zelensky said he told Macron in a phone call on Saturday that the key was to make sure “the Russians do not get to deceive anyone again”.

“We all need a genuine end to the war and reliable security foundations for Ukraine and other European nations,” the Ukrainian leader said.

US diplomacy with Europe and Ukraine fell to Vice-President JD Vance on Saturday, when he visited the UK and held talks with Foreign Secretary David Lammy as well as two of Zelensky’s top aides.

Thanking Vance for the discussions, Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, stressed the need for Ukraine to be included.

“A reliable, lasting peace is only possible with Ukraine at the negotiating table,” he said. “A ceasefire is necessary – but the frontline is not a border.”

The summit in Alaska, the territory which Russia sold to the US in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents, since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.

Nine months later, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

In 2022, the Kremlin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – despite not having full control over them.

Moscow has failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough in its full-scale invasion, but occupies large swathes of Ukraine’s eastern territory. Ukrainian offensives, meanwhile, have not been able to push the Russian forces back.

Chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of their semiconductor sales in China, the BBC has been told by a source close to the matter.

The agreement is part of a deal to secure export licences to the world’s second biggest economy.

“We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” Nvidia told the BBC.

AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement to the BBC, Nvidia also said: “America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s [artificial intelligence] tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.”

Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay 15% of its revenues from H20 chip sales in China to the US government, while AMD will give the same percentage from its MI308 chip revenues, which was first reported by the Financial Times.

Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at global research firm Forrester, said this agreement is “unprecedented”.

“The arrangement underscores the high cost of market access amid escalating tech trade tensions, creating substantial financial pressure and strategic uncertainty for tech vendors”, he added.

Washington has previously banned the sale of Nvidia’s H20 chips to Beijing over security concerns, although the firm recently announced that this would be reversed. These powerful chips are used in artificial intelligence applications (AI).

“You either have a national security problem or you don’t,” said Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation.

“If you have a 15% payment, it doesn’t somehow eliminate the national security issue,” Ms Elms told the BBC.

The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after US export restrictions were imposed by the Biden administration in 2023. Its sale was effectively banned by the Trump administration in April this year.

Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang has spent months lobbying both sides for a resumption of sales of the chips in China. He reportedly met US President Donald Trump last week.

The resumption of chip sales to China comes as trade tensions between Beijing and Washington have been easing.

Beijing has relaxed controls on rare earth exports, while the US has lifted restrictions on chip design software firms operating in China.

In May, the world’s two biggest economies agreed to a 90-day truce in their tariffs war.

Since then, top trade officials from both sides have met on a number of occasions, although an agreement to extend the tariffs pause has not yet been confirmed ahead of a 12 August deadline.

Earlier, the Financial Times reported that China called on the US to relax export controls of semiconductors as part of any potential tariffs deal.

As part of his trade policy, Trump has put pressure on major companies to make more investments in the US.

Last week, Apple said it would invest another $100bn (£74.4bn) in the country, adding to a previous pledge to spend $500bn in the US over the next four years.

In June, memory chip maker Micron Technology said its planned US investments will total $200bn. That includes construction of a new manufacturing facility in Idaho.

Nvidia itself has announced plans to build AI servers in the US worth up to $500bn, pledging to build the first AI supercomputers that are entirely American-made.

Australia has announced a plan to recognise a Palestinian state in September, following similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the move will happen at the UN General Assembly and after it received commitments from the Palestinian Authority.

“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” he said on Monday.

Israel, which is under increasing pressure to end the war in Gaza, has said recognising a Palestinian state “rewards terrorism”.

Since Saturday, five people have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, bringing the total number to 217 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

It also said that in total more than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 2023.

Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October that year, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, earlier said recognition of statehood shows growing support for self-determination of its people.

Albanese said the decision was made after his government received commitments from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Hamas would play no role in any future state.

He added that his decision comes after conversations with his counterparts in the UK, France, new Zealand, and Japan over the past fortnight.

US President Donald Trump has said homeless people must “move out” of Washington DC as he vowed to tackle crime in the city, but the mayor pushed back against the White House likening the capital to Baghdad.

“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” he posted on Sunday. The Republican president also trailed a news conference for Monday about his plan to make the city “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before”.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said: “We are not experiencing a crime spike.”

Trump signed an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people, and he last week ordered federal law enforcement into the streets of Washington DC.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday.

“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”

Alongside photos of tents and rubbish, he added: “There will be no ‘MR. NICE GUY.’ We want our Capital BACK. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The specifics of the president’s plan are not yet clear, but in a 2022 speech he proposed moving homeless people to “high quality” tents on inexpensive land outside cities, while providing access to bathrooms and medical professionals.

On Friday, Trump ordered federal agents – including from US Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the US Marshals Service – into Washington DC to curb what he called “totally out of control” levels of crime.

A White House official told National Public Radio that up to 450 federal officers were deployed on Saturday night.

The move comes after a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was assaulted in an alleged attempted carjacking in Washington DC.

Trump vented about that incident on social media, posting a photo of the bloodied victim.

Mayor Bowser told MSNBC on Sunday: “It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023.

“We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.”

She criticised White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller for dubbing the US capital “more violent than Baghdad”.

“Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false,” Bowser said.

Washington DC’s homicide rate remains relatively high per capita compared to other US cities, with a total of 98 such killings recorded so far this year. Homicides have been trending higher in the US capital from a decade ago.

But federal data from January suggests that Washington DC last year recorded its lowest overall violent crime figures – once carjacking, assault and robberies are incorporated – in 30 years.

Trump has said there will be a news conference at the White House on Monday to outline their plans to stop violent crime in the US capital.

In another post on Sunday he said the event at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) would address ending “crime, murder and death” in the city, as well as its “physical renovation”.

He described Bowser as “a good person who has tried”, adding that despite her efforts crime continues to get “worse” and the city becomes “dirtier and less attractive”.

Community Partnership, an organisation that works to reduce homelessness in Washington DC, told Reuters news agency that the city of 700,000 residents had about 3,782 people homeless on any given night.

Most were in public housing or emergency shelters, but about 800 were considered “on the street”.

As a district, rather than a state, Washington DC is overseen by the federal government, which has the power to override some local laws.

The president controls federal land and buildings in the city, although he would need Congress to assume federal control of the district.

In recent days, he has threatened to take over the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department, which Bowser argued was not possible.

“There are very specific things in our law that would allow the president to have more control over our police department,” Bowser said. “None of those conditions exist in our city right now.”

Five Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the broadcaster has said.

Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, alongside cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa were in a tent for journalists at the hospital’s main gate when it was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.

The “targeted assassination” on Sunday was “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, it said in a statement.

Shortly after the strike, the IDF confirmed that it had targeted Anas al-Sharif, writing in a Telegram post that he had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”.

The IDF did not mention any of the other journalists who were killed.

In total, seven people died in the strike, Al Jazeera reports. The broadcaster initially said that four of its staff had been killed, but revised it to five a few hours later.

Its managing editor, Mohamed Moawad, told the BBC that al-Sharif was an accredited journalist who was “the only voice” for the world to know what was happening in the Gaza Strip.

Throughout the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists into Gaza to report freely. Therefore, many outlets rely on local reporters within the territory for coverage.

“They were targeted in their tent, they weren’t covering from the front line,” Moawad said of the Israeli strike.

“The fact is that the Israeli government is wanting to silence the coverage of any channel of reporting from inside Gaza,” he told The Newsroom programme.

“This is something that I haven’t seen before in modern history.”

• BBC and news agencies warn journalists in Gaza at risk of starvation

Al-Sharif, 28, appeared to be posting on X in the moments before his death, warning of intense Israeli bombardment within Gaza City. A post that was published after he was reported to have died appears to have been pre-written and published by a friend.

In two graphic videos of the aftermath of the strike, which have been confirmed by BBC Verify, men can be seen carrying the bodies of those who were killed.

Some shout out Qreiqeh’s name, and a man wearing a media vest says that one of the bodies is that of al-Sharif.

In its statement, the IDF accused al-Sharif of posing as a journalist, and being “responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”

It said it had previously “disclosed intelligence” confirming his military affiliation, which included “lists of terrorist training courses”.

Last month, the Al Jazeera Media Network – along with the United Nations and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) – issued separate statements warning that al-Sharif’s life was in danger, and calling for his protection.

Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the CPJ, told the BBC that Israeli authorities have failed to provide evidence to show that the journalists they killed were terrorists.

“This is a pattern we’ve seen from Israel – not just in the current war, but in the decades preceding – in which typically a journalist will be killed by Israeli forces and then Israel will say after the fact that they are a terrorist, but provides very little evidence to back up those claims,” she said.

This is not the first time the IDF has targeted and killed Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza, who they claimed were Hamas-affiliated.

In August last year, Ismael Al-Ghoul was hit by an air strike as he sat in his car – harrowing video shared on social media showed his decapitated body. Cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, and a boy passing on a bicycle were also killed.

In al-Ghoul’s case, the IDF said he took part in Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks against Israel, a claim Al Jazeera strongly rejected.

According to the CPJ, 186 journalists have been confirmed killed since the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza in October 2023.

UN ambassadors have condemned Israel’s plans to “take control” of Gaza City as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted it was the “best way” to end the war.

During a press conference, which Netanyahu said was intended to “puncture the lies”, the Israeli leader said the planned offensive would move “fairly quickly” and would “free Gaza from Hamas”.

He also claimed Israeli hostages held in Gaza were “the only ones being deliberately starved” and denied Israel was starving Gazans.

Meanwhile, Israel came under heavy criticism at an emergency meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, with the UK, France and others warning the plan risked “violating international humanitarian law”.

Along with Denmark, Greece and Slovenia, they called for the plan to be reversed, adding it would “do nothing to secure the return of hostages and risks further endangering their lives”.

Other council members expressed similar alarm. China called the “collective punishment” of people in Gaza unacceptable, while Russia warned against a “reckless intensification of hostilities”.

UN Assistant Secretary General Miroslav Jenca told the meeting: “If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction.”

Ramesh Rajasingham from the UN’s humanitarian office said the hunger crisis in Gaza was no longer looming, adding that “this is starvation, pure and simple”.

But the United States defended Israel, with Ambassador Dorothy Shea telling the meeting the US had been working “tirelessly” to free hostages and end the war, and the meeting undermined those efforts.

She added the war “could end today if Hamas let the hostages go”, and accused other members of taking advantage of the meeting to “accuse Israel of genocide”, an allegation she insisted was “demonstrably false”.

Later on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said he had spoken with US President Donald Trump about Israel’s plans.

Thousands of protesters have also taken to the streets across Israel to oppose the government’s plan, fearing it puts the lives of hostages at risk.

In his press conference, Netanyahu said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had been instructed to dismantle the “two remaining Hamas strongholds” in Gaza City and a central area around al-Mawasi.

He also outlined a three-step plan to increase aid in Gaza, including designating safe corridors for humanitarian aid distribution as well as more air drops by Israeli forces and other partners.

He said the plan would also include increasing the number of safe distribution points managed by the controversial US and Israeli-backed Gazan Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The UN reported earlier this month that 1,373 Palestinians had been killed seeking food since late May, when GHF set up aid distribution sites.

Netanyahu claimed Hamas had “violently looted the aid trucks”, and, when asked about Palestinians killed at GHF sites, said “a lot of firing was done by Hamas”.

When asked about the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza – 20 of whom are still thought to be alive – Netanyahu said “if we don’t do anything, we are not going to get them out”.

The Israeli leader also took aim at the international press, saying it had bought into Hamas propaganda. He labelled some of the photos of malnourished children in Gaza that have run on newspaper front pages across the world as “fake”.

Throughout the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists into Gaza to report freely. But Netanyahu said a directive telling the military to bring in foreign journalists had been in place for two days.

Since Saturday, five people have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, bringing the total number to 217 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

It also said that in total more than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 2023.

Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October that year, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

In the past, figures from the Hamas-run health ministry were widely used in times of conflict and seen as reliable by the UN and other international organisations.

No-one would want to work without getting a salary, or even worse – having to pay to be there.

Yet paying companies so you can pretend to work for them has become popular among young, unemployed adults in China. It has led to a growing number of such providers.

The development comes amid China’s sluggish economy and jobs market. Chinese youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, at more than 14%.

With real jobs increasingly hard to come by, some young adults would rather pay to go into an office than be just stuck at home.

Shui Zhou, 30, had a food business venture that failed in 2024. In April of this year, he started to pay 30 yuan ($4.20; £3.10) per day to go into a mock-up office run by a business called Pretend To Work Company, in the city of Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.

There he joins five “colleagues” who are doing the same thing.

“I feel very happy,” says Mr Zhou. “It’s like we’re working together as a group.”

Such operations are now appearing in major cities across China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Kunming. More often they look like fully-functional offices, and are equipped with computers, internet access, meeting rooms, and tea rooms.

And rather than attendees just sitting around, they can use the computers to search for jobs, or to try to launch their own start-up businesses. Sometimes the daily fee, usually between 30 and 50 yuan, includes lunch, snacks and drinks.

Dr Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Management in New Zealand, is an expert on the Chinese economy.

“The phenomenon of pretending to work is now very common,” he says. “Due to economic transformation and the mismatch between education and the job market, young people need these places to think about their next steps, or to do odd jobs as a transition.

“Pretend office companies are one of the transitional solutions.”

Mr Zhou came across the Pretend To Work Company while browsing social media site Xiaohongshu. He says he felt that the office environment would improve his self-discipline. He has now been there for more than three months.

Mr Zhou sent photos of the office to his parents, and he says they feel much more at ease about his lack of employment.

While attendees can arrive and leave whenever they want, Mr Zhou usually gets to the office between 8am and 9am. Sometimes he doesn’t leave until 11pm, only departing after the manager of the business has left.

He adds that the other people there are now like friends. He says that when someone is busy, such as job hunting, they work hard, but when they have free time they chat, joke about, and play games. And they often have dinner together after work.

Mr Zhou says that he likes this team building, and that he is much happier than before he joined.

In Shanghai, Xiaowen Tang rented a workstation at a pretend work company in Shanghai for a month earlier this year. The 23-year-old graduated from university last year and hasn’t found a full-time job yet.

Her university has an unwritten rule that students must sign an employment contract or provide proof of internship within one year of graduation; otherwise, they won’t receive a diploma.

She sent the office scene to the school as proof of her internship. In reality, she paid the daily fee, and sat in the office writing online novels to earn some pocket money.

“If you’re going to fake it, just fake it to the end,” says Ms Tang.

Dr Biao Xiang, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, says that China’s pretending to work trend comes from a “sense of frustration and powerlessness” regarding a lack of job opportunities.

“Pretending to work is a shell that young people find for themselves, creating a slight distance from mainstream society and giving themselves a little space.”

The owner of the Pretend To Work Company in the city of Dongguan is 30-year-old Feiyu (a pseudonym). “What I’m selling isn’t a workstation, but the dignity of not being a useless person,” he says.

He himself has been unemployed in the past, after a previous retail business that he owned had to close during the Covid pandemic. “I was very depressed and a bit self-destructive,” he recalls. “You wanted to turn the tide, but you were powerless.”

In April of this year he started to advertise Pretend To Work, and within a month all the workstations were full. Would-be new joiners have to apply.

Feiyu say that 40% of customers are recent university graduates who come to take photos to prove their internship experience to their former tutors. While a small number of them come to help deal with pressure from their parents.

The other 60% are freelancers, many of whom are digital nomads, including those working for big ecommerce firms, and cyberspace writers. The average age is around 30, with the youngest being 25.

Officially, these workers are referred to as “flexible employment professionals”, a grouping that also includes ride-hailing and trucker drivers.

Over the longer term Feiyu says it is questionable whether the business will remain profitable. Instead he likes to view it more as a social experiment.

“It uses lies to maintain respectability, but it allows some people to find the truth,” he says. “If we only help users prolong their acting skills we are complicit in a gentle deception.

“Only by helping them transform their fake workplace into a real starting point can this social experiment truly live up to its promise.”

Mr Zhou is now spending most of his time improving his AI skills. He says he’s noticed that some companies are specifying proficiency in AI tools when recruiting. So he thinks gaining such AI skills “will make it easier” for him to find a full-time job.

Meir Simcha agreed to talk, but he wanted to do it somewhere special, because for him, this is a special time. In a place where nation, religion and war are linked inextricably with politics and the possession of land, Simcha chose a patch of shade under a fig tree next to a spring of fresh water.

From his dusty car, a small Toyota fitted with off road tyres, he produced a bottle of juice made from fruit and vegetables.

“Don’t worry, there’s no extra sugar,” he said as he poured it into plastic cups.

Simcha is the leader of a group of Jewish settlers steadily transforming a big stretch of the rolling terrain south of Hebron in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since it was captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

He moved two large flat stones into the shade as seats, and we sat down in a patch of lush grass, kept alive in the harsh summer heat by water dripping from a pipe coming out of the spring. It was a small oasis at the foot of a steep, arid, rocky slope and the location, if not our conversation, felt peaceful in a way that the West Bank rarely does these days.

The conflict between Arabs and Jews for control of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea started well over a century ago when Zionists from Europe began to buy land to set up communities in Palestine.

It has been shaped by significant turning points.

The latest has come from the deadly 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s devastating response.

The consequences of the last 22 months of war, and however more months are left before a ceasefire, threaten to spread across years and generations, just like the Middle East war in 1967, when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.

The scale of destruction and killing in the Gaza war obscures what is happening in the West Bank, which smoulders with tension and violence.

Since October 2023, Israel’s pressure on West Bank Palestinians has increased sharply, justified as legitimate security measures.

Evidence based on statements by ministers, influential local leaders like Simcha and accounts by witnesses on the ground reveal that the pressure is part of a wider agenda, to accelerate the spread of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and to extinguish any lingering hopes of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Palestinians and human rights groups also accuse the Israeli security forces of failing in their legal duty as occupiers to protect Palestinians as well as their own citizens – not just turning a blind eye to settler attacks, but even joining in.

Violence by ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers in the West Bank has risen sharply since 7 October 2023.

Ocha, the UN’s humanitarian office, estimates an average of four settler attacks every day.

The International Court of Justice has issued an advisory opinion that the entire occupation of Palestinian territory captured in 1967 is illegal.

Israel’s rejects the ICJ’s view and claims that the Geneva Conventions forbidding settlement in occupied territories do not apply – a view disputed by many of its own allies as well as international lawyers.

In the shade of the fig tree, Simcha denied all suggestions he had attacked Palestinians, as he celebrated the fact that most of the Arab farmers who used to graze their animals on the hills he has seized and tend their olives in the valleys had gone.

He looks back to the Hamas October attacks, and Israel’s response ever since, as a turning point.

“I think that a lot has changed, that the enemy in our land lost hope. He’s beginning to understand that he’s on his way out; that’s what has changed in the last year or year and a half.

“Today you can walk around here in the land in the desert, and nobody will jump on you and try to kill you. There are still attempts to oppose our presence here in this land, but the enemy is starting to understand this slowly. They have no future here.

“The reality has changed. I ask you and the people of the world, why are you so interested in those Palestinians so much? Why do you care about them? It’s just another small nation.

“The Palestinians don’t interest me. I care about my people.”

Simcha says the Palestinians who left villages and farms near the hilltops he has claimed simply realised that God intended the land for Jews, not for them.

On 24 July this year, a panel of UN experts came to a different conclusion. A statement issued by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said: “We are deeply troubled by alleged widespread intimidation, violence, land dispossession, destruction of livelihoods and the resulting forcible displacement of communities, and we fear this is severing Palestinians from their land and undermining their food security.

“The alleged acts of violence, destruction of property, and denial of access to land and resources appear to constitute a systemic pattern of human rights violations.”

Simcha has a plan to dig a swimming pool at the base of the spring where we sat to talk. Like many others who are leading the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, he is full of plans. When I met him first, not long after Hamas burst through Israel’s border defences on 7 October 2023, he lived in a small group of isolated caravans on a hilltop overlooking the Judean desert as it sweeps down to the Dead Sea.

Since then, Simcha says his community has expanded into around 200 people on three hilltops. He was part of the faction of the settler movement known as hilltop youth, a radical fringe that became notorious for the violent harassment of Palestinians. Most Israelis who have settled in the occupied territories are not like Simcha. They went there not for ideological and religious reasons, but because property was cheaper.

But now men like Simcha are at the centre of events, with their leaders in the cabinet, leading the charge, married, older, thinking not just about swimming pools for their children but of victory over the Palestinians, once and for all, and everlasting Jewish possession of the land.

Simcha comes across as a happy man. He believes his mission – to implement the will of God by turning the West Bank into a land for Jews, and not for Palestinians – is progressing nicely.

Israel’s project to settle Jewish citizens in the newly occupied territories started within days of its victory in 1967. Over the last almost 60 years, successive Israeli governments and some wealthy sympathisers have invested vast amounts of money and energy to get to the point where around 700,000 Israeli Jews live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

I have been watching the settlements grow for about half of the lifetime of the project, since I first reported from the occupied Palestinian territories in 1991. In that time, the terrain of much of the West Bank has been transformed. The bigger settlements look like small towns, and the West Bank is carved into sections by a network of roads and tunnels built by Israel that are as much about staking an immovable claim to the land as they are about traffic management.

On remote hilltops at night, you can see the lights coming from the caravans of settlers who see themselves as Jewish pioneers. Olive groves, orchards and vineyards owned by Palestinian farmers along the road network are often overgrown, sometimes dotted with piles of rubble left from buildings Israel has demolished.

Controlling the land around the roads is necessary, Israel says, to stop attacks on Jews in the West Bank.

Farmers in areas under settler pressure often need military permission to visit their land, sometimes just once a year.

Palestinian farmers going about their business in vans or on donkeys used to be a common sight. In many parts of the West Bank, you just do not see them anymore, especially in places like the settlements east of Shiloh on the road to Nablus, where small groups of shacks and caravans on hilltops have connected up into sprawling residential hubs linked by sinuous road networks.

When first I reported on settlements, Israeli leaders would often say that national security depended on them. Enemies lurked across the Jordan valley, and pushing out the frontier, building the land, was a Zionist imperative.

Just like the kibbutz movement of collective farms in the 1920s and 1930s inside present-day Israel, settlements in the occupied territories after 1967 were strategically placed as a first line of defence.

In this conflict, land is a vital commodity.

Trading land taken by Israel in 1967 for peace with Palestinians who wanted it for a state was at the heart of the Oslo peace process that ended in violence but provided a false dawn of hope in the 1990s.

There were headlines around the world when, after months of secret negotiations in Norway in 1993, there was a handshake on the White House lawn between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. They had signed a declaration of principles that was hoped would lead to the end of the conflict. Israel would relinquish occupied land to Palestinians. In return, they would drop their claim to territory they had lost when Israel declared independence in 1948.

The argument at the heart of their conflict across the 20th Century, about who controlled land they both wanted, would be solved by splitting it.

After a final disastrous summit at Camp David in 2000, the hopes of 1993 were replaced by the deadly violence of a Palestinian uprising and a massive military response from Israel.

Part of the reason why the peace process failed was that other forces, outside the talks, were at work.

Hamas never dropped its belief that the entire land of Palestine was an Islamic possession and used suicide attacks to discredit the notion that peace was possible.

Among religious Zionists in Israel, the victory in 1967 had supercharged a wave of messianism – the belief that a divine being was coming who would redeem the Jewish people.

It electrified the settler movement.

Rabin was assassinated in November 1995 by a Jewish extremist brought up in Herzliya on the Mediterranean coast who spent weekends at settlements in the West Bank. During his first interrogation by the Israeli security service, Shin Bet, he asked for a drink so he could toast the fact that he had saved the Jewish people from a disastrous path that denied the will of God.

Today, the messianic idea grips settlers like Simcha more powerfully than ever.

They believe the victory in 1967 was a miracle granted by God, that restored to the Jewish people the ancestral lands that he had given them in the mountain heartland of Judea and Samaria – the area that much of the rest of the world calls the West Bank. Some believe events since 7 October have extended the miracle.

Last summer, the Minister for Settlements and National Missions, Orit Strock, put it like this to a sympathetic audience at an outpost in the Hebron hills, the area where Simcha operates.

“From my point of view, this is like a miracle period,” she said. “I feel like someone standing at a traffic light, and then it turns green.”

Minisyer Strock was speaking a few days before the ICJ issued its opinion.

She made her remarks at a settlement in the Hebron hills that the government had just “legalised”.

Israeli law distinguishes between “legal” settlements and “illegal” outposts – a distinction that is in practice being blurred by the government’s actions.

Outposts rebranded as “young settlements” are being retrospectively legalised as the government directs funds towards them.

At a ceremony in one of them in the south Hebron Hills in April this year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose powers over the running of the occupation also make him something like the governor of the West Bank, donated 19 all-terrain vehicles to the settlers. He praised them for “grabbing massive territories”.

A sharp-eyed reporter at the Times of Israel pointed out that one of the settlers at the ceremony, Yinon Levi, had been filmed harassing Palestinians from an all-terrain vehicle. Levi is sanctioned by the UK and the European Union for using violence to drive Palestinians off their land, though President Trump lifted similar sanctions imposed by Joe Biden.

Levi is radical settler royalty, married to the daughter of Noam Federman – a notorious extremist. Federman is a former leader of the Kach party, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, the European Union and others.

On 28 July this year, Yinon Levi fired a bullet that killed Odeh Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist, during a disturbance in the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair. Levi pleaded self-defence and was released after three days of house arrest.

When we went to Umm al-Khair, Hathaleen’s dried blood was still at the place where he was killed.

His brother, Khalil, told me the dead man was holding his five-year-old son, Watan, and filming the violent scenes on his phone when he was killed.

The settlement movement in the West Bank has powered ahead since 7 October, under the direction of hardline Jewish nationalists in the cabinet, men like Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, who is Strock’s leader in the Religious Zionist Party.

Ben Gvir was not drafted by the IDF when he turned 18, because of his extreme beliefs. He claims he campaigned to serve.

The two ministers are very different people to the secular politicians – retired generals like Yigal Allon from the Israeli left and Ariel Sharon from the right – two men who drove the settlement movement forward in its first two decades after 1967.

Just like Allon and Sharon, they believe that security requires power.

But for Smotrich, Ben Gvir and their followers, that is underpinned by the certainty of religious belief.

The influence they have acquired in return for supporting Netanyahu and keeping him in power continues to frustrate and enrage secular Israel.

Smotrich’s Israeli opponents use the word “messianic” as term of abuse when they talk about him.

Allon and Sharon could be ruthless. After the 1967 war, Allon advocated the annexation of large parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Neither man believed they were doing the will of God.

Hamas uses religion to justify its violent opposition to the existence of Israel. Religious Zionists in the settler movement believe they are doing God’s will.

Belief in a direct connection with God does not guarantee war. But it makes the compromises necessary for peace hard to achieve.

We arranged to meet Yehuda Shaul at the road junction next to Sinjel. He is one of Israel’s most prominent opponents of the occupation.

Shaul founded an organisation called Breaking the Silence after, as a soldier, he saw first-hand the inherently brutal realities of a military occupation that has lasted almost 60 years.

Fellow Israelis have branded supporters of Breaking the Silence, which he no longer leads, as traitors many times.

Israeli military crackdowns since the October attacks have reduced Palestinian violence against settlers, while settler attacks on Palestinians have grown sharply.

Shaul says that the line between settlers and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has become blurred.

The war in Gaza has required the longest mobilisation of military reservists – the backbone of the IDF – in Israel’s history. To get more Israelis into uniform, brigades in the West Bank have formed regional defence units made up of settlers.

“Now the settlers are the military. In the military are the settlers. So that settler on the hilltop nearby a Palestinian herding community that was beating them up and throwing stones for the past two three or four years, trying to get him out, now is the soldier or the officer in uniform with a gun responsible for the area.

“So when he comes to a Palestinian and says, ‘you have 24 hours to pack up and leave or I’m going to shoot you,’ the Palestinian knows there is nothing to protect him.”

Shaul believes Israel has two choices left. One direction, he argues, is “the vector that this government is writing, displacement, abuse, killing, destroying Palestinian life, ultimately, writing a vector to mass population transfer”.

“Or, it is two states where Palestine resides besides Israel and both peoples here have rights and dignity. These are the only two options in our cards. Now you and anyone who watches us, need to choose which one you support.”

He uses language about Netanyahu’s conduct of the Gaza war since 7 October that is rare in Israel but common among Palestinians and increasingly heard among Israel’s critics in Europe.

This is part of our conversation, in the shadow of the steel and razor wire between the village of Sinjel and Road 60 – the West Bank’s main highway.

He says: “I think while we see a war of extermination in Gaza… we see a massive campaign by the state and the settlers… to basically ethnically cleanse as much land of the West Bank from Palestinians.”

I reply: “Of course, if Netanyahu was here, any of his supporters, they’d say, ‘what a load of rubbish. This is about Israeli security against terrorism and attacks on Jews.’ What do you make of that?”

He responds: “I actually believe that if 7 October taught us one thing it is, if you really care about protecting Israelis and Palestinian life, you need to take care of the root causes of the violence: decades of brutal military occupation, displacement of Palestinians and a conflict that is going on for about 100 years.

“Ultimately, the security protection, the sustainability of Jewish self-determination in this land, is interlinked and intertwined with achieving self-determination rights and equality for Palestinians.”

The UK’s seas have had their warmest start to the year since records began, helping to drive some dramatic changes in marine life and for its fishing communities.

The average surface temperature of UK waters in the seven months to the end of July was more than 0.2C higher than any year since 1980, BBC analysis of provisional Met Office data suggests.

That might not sound much, but the UK’s seas are now considerably warmer than even a few decades ago, a trend driven by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels.

That is contributing to major changes in the UK’s marine ecosystems, with some new species entering our seas and others struggling to cope with the heat.

Scientists and amateur naturalists have observed a remarkable range of species not usually widespread in UK waters, including octopus, bluefin tuna and mauve stinger jellyfish.

The abundance of these creatures can be affected by natural cycles and fishing practices, but many researchers point to the warming seas as a crucial part of their rise.

“Things like jellyfish, like octopus… they are the sorts of things that you expect to respond quickly to climate change,” said Dr Bryce Stewart, a senior research fellow at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth.

“It’s a bit like the canary in the coal mine – the sorts of quite extraordinary changes we’ve seen over the last few years really do indicate an ecosystem under flux,” he added.

Harry Polkinghorne, a keen 19-year-old angler, described how he regularly sees bluefin tuna now, including large schools of the fish in frantic feeding frenzies.

“It’s just like watching a washing machine in the water,” he said. “You can just see loads of white water, and then tuna fins and tuna jumping out.”

Bluefin tuna numbers have been building over the past decade in south-west England for a number of reasons, including warmer waters and better management of their populations, Dr Stewart explained.

Heather Hamilton, who snorkels off the coast of Cornwall virtually every week with her father David, has swum through large blooms of salps, a species that looks a bit like a jellyfish.

They are rare in the UK, but the Hamiltons have seen more and more of these creatures in the last couple of years.

“You’re seeing these big chains almost glowing slightly like fairy lights”, she said.

“It just felt very kind of out of this world, something I’ve never seen before.”

But extreme heat, combined with historical overfishing, is pushing some of the UK’s cold-adapted species like cod and wolf-fish to their limits.

“We’re definitely seeing this shift of cooler water species moving north in general,” said Dr Stewart.

Marine heatwave conditions – prolonged periods of unusually high sea surface temperatures – have been present around parts of the UK virtually all year.

Some exceptional sea temperatures have also been detected by measurement buoys off the UK coast, known as WaveNet and run by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas).

And the record 2025 warmth comes after very high sea temperatures in 2023 and 2024 too.

The Met Office says its data from the end of June 2024 to now is provisional and will be finalised in the coming months, but this usually results in only very minor changes.

“All the way through the year, on average it’s been warmer than we’ve really ever seen [for the UK’s seas],” said Prof John Pinnegar, the lead adviser on climate change at Cefas.

“[The seas] have been warming for over a century and we’re also seeing heatwaves coming through now,” he added.

“What used to be quite a rare phenomenon is now becoming very, very common.”

Like heatwaves on land, sea temperatures are affected by natural variability and short-term weather. Clear, sunny skies with low winds – like much of the UK had in early July – can heat up the sea surface more quickly.

But the world’s oceans have taken up about 90% of the Earth’s excess heat from humanity’s emissions of planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide.

That is making marine heatwaves more likely and more intense.

“The main contributor to the marine heatwaves around the UK is the buildup of heat in the ocean,” said Dr Caroline Rowland, head of oceans, cryosphere and climate change at the Met Office.

“We predict that these events are going to become more frequent and more intense in the future” due to climate change, she added.

With less of a cooling sea breeze, these warmer waters can amplify land heatwaves, and they also have the potential to bring heavier rainfall.

Hotter seas are also less able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which could mean that our planet heats up more quickly.

The sea warmth is already posing challenges to fishing communities.

Ben Cooper has been a fisherman in Whitstable on the north Kent coast since 1997, and relies heavily on the common whelk, a type of sea snail.

But the whelk is a cold-water species, and a marine heatwave in 2022 triggered a mass die-off of these snails in the Thames Estuary.

“Pretty much 75% of our earnings is through whelks, so you take that away and all of a sudden you’re struggling,” explained Mr Cooper.

Before the latest heatwave, the whelks had started to recover but he said the losses had forced him to scale back his business.

Mr Cooper recalled fishing trips with his father in the 1980s. Back then, they would rely on cod.

“We lost the cod because basically the sea just got too warm. They headed further north,” he said.

The precise distribution of marine species varies from year to year, but researchers expect the UK’s marine life to keep changing as humans continue to heat up the Earth.

“The fishers might in the long term have to change the species that they target and that they catch,” suggested Dr Pinnegar.

“And we as consumers might have to change the species that we eat.”

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A meteorite that crashed into a home in the US is older than planet Earth, scientists have said.

The object flew through the skies in broad daylight before exploding across the state of Georgia on 26 June, Nasa confirmed.

Researchers at the University of Georgia examined a fragment of the rock that pierced the roof of a home in the city of McDonough.

They found that, based on the type of meteorite, it is expected to have formed 4.56 billion years ago, making it roughly 20 million years older than Earth.

Residents in Georgia and nearby states reported hundreds of sightings and a loud booming noise when the fireball tore through the skies.

The rock quickly diminished in size and speed, but still travelled at least 1 km per second, going through a man’s roof in Henry County.

Multiple fragments that struck the building were handed over to scientists, who analysed their origins.

“This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough,” Scott Harris, a geologist at the University of Georgia, said.

Using optical and electron microscopy, Harris and his team determined the rock was a chondrite – the most abundant type of stony meteorite, according to Nasa – which meant that it was approximately 4.56 billion years old.

The home’s resident said he is still finding pieces of space dust around his home from the hit.

The object, which has been named the McDonough meteorite, is the 27th to have been recovered from Georgia.

“This is something that used to be expected once every few decades and not multiple times within 20 years,” Harris said.

“Modern technology, in addition to an attentive public, is going to help us recover more and more meteorites.”

Harris is hoping to publish his findings on the composition and speed of the asteroid, which will help to understand the threat of further asteroids.

“One day there will be an opportunity, and we never know when it’s going to be, for something large to hit and create a catastrophic situation. If we can guard against that, we want to,” he said.

US fashion designer Willy Chavarria has apologised after a shoe he created in collaboration with Adidas Originals was criticised for “cultural appropriation”.

The Oaxaca Slip-On was inspired by traditional leather sandals known as huaraches made by Indigenous artisans in Mexico.

The Mexican president was among those who spoke out against the footwear, which was reportedly made in China without consultation or credit to the communities who originated the design.

Chavarria said in a statement sent to the BBC: “I am deeply sorry that the shoe was appropriated in this design and not developed in direct and meaningful partnership with the Oaxacan community.”

Cultural appropriation is defined as “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, of one people or society by members of a typically more dominant people or society”.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum told a press conference: “Big companies often take products, ideas and designs from Indigenous communities.”

She added: “We are looking at the legal part to be able to support them.”

Adidas had contacted Oaxacan officials to discuss “restitution to the people who were plagiarised”, Mexico’s deputy culture minister Marina Nunez added.

In an emailed statement, Adidas told the BBC that it “recognizes and values the cultural richness of Mexico’s Indigenous communities and the meaning of their artisanal heritage.”

“The ’Oaxaca Slip-On‘ was inspired by a design from Oaxaca, rooted in the tradition of Villa Hidalgo Yalálag. We offer a public apology and reaffirm our commitment to collaborate with Yalálag in a respectful dialogue that honors their cultural legacy.”

Promotional images of the black moulded open-toe footwear have been taken down from the brand’s social media accounts as well as Chavarria’s.

In his statement, Chavarria said he wanted “to speak from the heart about the Oaxaca slip-on I created with Adidas”.

“The intention was always to honor the powerful cultural and artistic spirit of Oaxaca and its creative communities – a place whose beauty and resistance have inspired me. The name Oaxaca is not just a word – its living culture, its people, and its history.”

He went on to say he was “deeply sorry” he did not work with the Oaxacan community on the design.

“This falls short of the respect and collaborative approach that Oaxaca, the Zapotec community of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, and its people deserve,” he added.

“I know love is not just given – it is earned through action.”

Chavarria was Calvin Klein’s senior vice president of design until 2024 and is the founder and chief creative officer of his eponymous label.

The Associated Press reported that Adidas responded to Mexican authorities in a letter on Friday.

The company reportedly said it “deeply values the cultural wealth of Mexico’s Indigenous people and recognises the relevance” of criticisms, and requested a sit-down to talk about how to “repair the damage” to Indigenous communities.