Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that Gaza ceasefire efforts are now focused on a comprehensive deal to release all the remaining hostages at once.

The plan previously being pushed was for an initial 60-day truce and partial release of living hostages.

Hamas says a delegation of its leaders is in Cairo for “preliminary talks” with Egyptian officials.

Reports say that mediators see a window of opportunity in the coming weeks to try to push a deal through.

After indirect talks between Israel and Hamas broke down last month, Israel announced a controversial plan to widen its military offensive and conquer all the Gaza Strip – including the areas where most of its two million Palestinian residents have sought refuge.

However, Israeli media do not expect the new operation to begin until October – allowing time for military preparations, including a mass call-up of reservists.

Meanwhile, intense Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza, and the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 123 Palestinians have been killed in the past day.

Witnesses say that Israel has stepped up its attacks on Gaza City in particular with air strikes destroying homes.

Footage shows large explosions caused by the strikes and demolitions in the Zaytoun area, to the east of Gaza City.

Early on Wednesday, al-Shifa Hospital said seven members of one family, five of them children, were killed when tents were targeted in Tel al-Hawa, in the south of the city. Al-Ahli Hospital said 10 people were killed in a strike on a house in the Zaytoun area, to the city’s east.

The Israeli army said it had begun new operations in Zaytoun.

Israeli military chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir also “approved the main framework for the IDF’s operational plan in the Gaza Strip”, a statement released by the army said.

In an interview with the i24News Israeli TV Channel shown on Tuesday, Netanyahu was asked if a partial ceasefire was still possible.

“I think it’s behind us,” he replied. “We tried, we made all kinds of attempts, we went through a lot, but it turned out that they were just misleading us.”

“I want all of them,” he said of the hostages. “The release of all the hostages, both alive and dead – that’s the stage we’re at.”

Palestinian armed groups still hold 50 hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war. Israel believes that around 20 of them are still alive.

Netanyahu is under mounting domestic pressure to secure their release as well as over his plans to expand the war.

Last week, unnamed Arab officials were quoted as saying that regional mediators, Egypt and Qatar, were preparing a new framework for a deal that would involve releasing all remaining hostages at the same time in return for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

However, this will be difficult to do in a short time frame as Israel is demanding that Hamas give up control of Gaza as well as its weapons.

This is likely to be why, at a news conference on Tuesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told journalists that Cairo was still “making great efforts” with Qatar and the US – the other mediators – to revive the earlier phased plan.

“The main goal is to return to the original proposal – a 60-day ceasefire – along with the release of some hostages and some Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of humanitarian and medical aid into Gaza without obstacles or conditions,” Abdelatty said.

The Israeli prime minister says Israel’s goals have not changed. He says that the war will end only when all hostages are returned and Hamas surrenders.

Netanyahu has said that, ultimately, Israel must keep open-ended security control over Gaza.

Hamas has long called for a comprehensive deal to exchange the hostages it is holding for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. It also wants a full pull-out of Israeli forces and an end to the war.

It refuses to disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is created.

Speaking to i24News, Netanyahu also reiterated an idea that Palestinians should simply leave the territory through “voluntary” emigration, saying: “They’re not being pushed out, they’ll be allowed to exit.”

He went on: “All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us.”

Palestinians, human rights groups and many in the international community have warned that any forced displacement of people from Gaza violates international law.

Many Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the “Nakba” (Catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced from their homes in the fighting that came before and after the state of Israel was created in 1948.

Most Gazans are descendants of those original refugees and themselves hold official refugee status.

UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in Gaza, where Israel has greatly limited the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in.

The UN’s World Food Programme has warned that starvation and malnutrition are at the highest levels in Gaza since the conflict began.

Hamas’s 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, with 251 seized and taken into Gaza as hostages.

Israel’s offensive has since killed at least 61,722 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. It says that 235 people including 106 children have also died due to starvation and malnutrition.

The wife of South Korea’s jailed former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been arrested over a raft of charges, including stock manipulation and bribery.

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee denied all charges during a four-hour court hearing in Seoul on Tuesday. But the court issued a detention warrant, citing the risk that she may destroy evidence.

South Korea has a history of former presidents being indicted and imprisoned. However, this is the first time both the former president and former first lady have been jailed.

Yoon was detained in January to face trial over a failed martial law bid last year that plunged the country into chaos and eventually led to his ouster.

Prosecutors say Kim, 52, made over 800 million won ($577,940; £428,000) by participating in a price-rigging scheme involving the stocks of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea.

While this allegedly happened before her husband was elected the country’s leader, it continued to cast a shadow throughout his presidency.

She allegedly also accepted two Chanel bags and a diamond necklace as bribes from the controversial Unification Church in exchange for business favours.

Among other charges, Kim is also accused of meddling in candidate nominations during the parliamentary by-elections in 2022 and the general elections last year.

Kim appeared solemn as she attended Tuesday’s hearing wearing a black suit and a black skirt.

“I sincerely apologise for causing trouble despite being a person of no importance,” she told reporters.

While he was president, Yoon vetoed three opposition-led bills that sought a special counsel investigation into allegations against Kim.

He issued the last veto in November, a week before he declared martial law.

A special counsel was set up in June this year after Yoon’s rival Lee Jae Myung became president.

A standout feature of the India-UK free trade agreement signed last month was the Narendra Modi government’s decision to open India’s vast government procurement market to UK suppliers.

This typically includes a range of things the government buys – from goods and services to contracts for public works such as roads.

Some 40,000 high-value tenders worth £38bn from federal ministries will now be open to bidding for UK businesses in strategic sectors like transport, green energy and infrastructure – areas which have thus far been heavily protected from foreign competition.

The access is unprecedented, trade experts say.

It is “far greater” than what India had offered in its earlier agreement with the United Arab Emirates and “sets a new benchmark”, Ajay Srivastava of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think-tank, told the BBC.

Under the agreement, UK firms bidding for Indian government contracts in specified areas will be treated almost on par with Indian suppliers and also have real-time access to information on forthcoming public tenders and procurement opportunities.

Also, goods from the UK made with just 20% domestic input can now be supplied to the Indian government, allowing UK companies the flexibility to source up to 80% of the parts or raw material from other countries and still qualify for procurement preference in India.

The minimum contract value at which these firms can bid for government projects has also been sharply reduced as a result of which “UK companies can now bid on a wide range of lower-value projects – such as rural roads, solar equipment for schools, or IT systems for government offices – that were previously out of reach”, said Mr Srivastava.

But for British companies, realising this opportunity on the ground will be easier said than done, several experts told the BBC.

While UK suppliers are eligible to participate as Class-II local suppliers, Indian companies will continue to get preferential treatment as Class-I suppliers, says Dr Arpita Mukherjee, a trade expert with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.

Moreover, pricing plays a key role in winning contracts, and “UK companies tend to have higher prices” compared with Indian companies, which will be a major challenge for them, she adds.

A more significant deterrent will be delayed payments and difficult contract enforcement, which are “major legacy issues when it comes to public procurement in India”, says Srijan Shukla of the Observer Research Foundation think-tank.

He says a study on procurement by India’s central public sector enterprises from 2017 to 2020 found that pending payments to suppliers were often more than the total average procurement in a year.

“This will impact UK players trying to enter India’s public procurement markets, especially when it comes to public contracts that have long-time horizons and are subject to regulatory and political uncertainties,” Mr Shukla told the BBC.

Pending dues have been a major irritant for India’s small businesses too, leading to short-term liquidity issues that often “force them out of these procurement markets and reallocate that business to the big players”, according to Mr Shukla.

Much of this is reflected in India’s poor ranking – 163 out of 190 – on contract enforcement in the World Bank’s Doing Business report, the latest round of which was in 2020.

While things have improved since these rankings were published – with one-stop-shop portals like Government e-Marketplace, the Central Public Procurement Portal or the recently launched online dispute resolution portal bringing more transparency to the public tendering process – payment discipline by government entities continues to remain a challenge, says Mr Shukla.

According to Ms Mukherjee, the India-UK trade agreement emphasises transparency in procurement but omits issues like pending dues, contract enforcement and penalties.

She adds the deal excludes the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement’s dispute settlement provisions for four years after the CETA takes effect – these provisions usually define how disputes are resolved.

“Doing business in India is an acquired skill. Over time, companies from the UK will have to learn the way to work around complexities regarding the art of winning public tenders and navigating though complex regulations,” Mr Shukla says.

Despite the niggling issues, allowing foreign players entry into India’s government procurement market marks a far-reaching policy shift.

It shows the Indian government’s intentions to open up a space that has long been reserved for local small and medium enterprises, and could be reflective of the concessions Delhi is willing to give foreign players in future trade agreements like the one being negotiated with the US, according to GTRI.

India is late to including deep government procurement clauses in trade deals, making its current efforts a catch-up game, says Mr Shukla.

It is also a sign, he says, of the Indian government’s “confidence that its own firms can compete with global firms both externally and at home”.

The hope is that more foreign players will force more accountability from the Indian government and “help standardise” its tendering and public procurement process – marked by payment delays and poor contract enforcement – to global standards.

A political row has erupted in India over allegations of “vote theft”, with opposition parties accusing the country’s election body of irregularities, which they say favoured the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general elections.

On Tuesday, parliament was adjourned after opposition MPs demanded a debate on the integrity of India’s electoral process.

A day earlier, dozens of opposition leaders, including Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, were briefly detained by the police in the capital Delhi, as they tried to march to the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) headquarters.

Gandhi first raised the issue at a 7 August press conference in Delhi, and has since managed to galvanise strong support from hundreds of opposition lawmakers.

The Election Commission and the BJP have aggressively rejected the allegations.

Gandhi has alleged widespread voter manipulation during the 2024 parliamentary elections, citing granular data obtained from the electoral body itself – though the ECI and the ruling party dispute his interpretation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a historic third term in the elections, but his BJP-led alliance fell short of the sweeping majority predicted. Voter turnout averaged 66% in the world’s largest election, with nearly a billion registered voters – one in eight people on Earth.

Gandhi cited electoral data for Mahadevapura, a part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, and claimed that the voter list had more than 100,000 manipulated entries, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and bulk registrations of votes at single locations.

He presented examples of voters like Shakun Rani, who he claimed cast her ballots twice – a claim disputed by the election body.

Gandhi also alleged CCTV footage from polling booths was deleted and pointed out an instance of 80 people registered in a single address in Mahadevapura.

The Congress leader says his party lost at least 48 seats in the elections due to such irregularities and has accused India’s election body of failing to enforce the “one man, one vote” principle. The Congress won 99 of the 543 seats in the elections, behind BJP’s 240.

Gandhi has demanded that the ECI release digital voter rolls, so that they can be audited by his party and the public.

The BBC hasn’t independently verified Gandhi’s claims.

Soon after Gandhi’s press conference, ECI responded on social media platform X, calling his allegations “absurd” and denying many of his claims.

The polling body has demanded that he either submit a signed declaration under oath or apologise to the nation.

ECI’s Karnataka state unit further said that the Congress didn’t file formal objections when the electoral roll was being revised ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The poll body earlier said it keeps CCTV footage only for 45 days after results – the window for filing election disputes.

BJP leaders have also strongly rebutted the allegations.

“This anarchy is extremely worrying and dangerous for democracy,” BJP leader and federal education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

Federal agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Gandhi and the opposition alliance were “defaming democracy, tearing it to shreds, and tampering with the dignity of constitutional institutions”.

Gandhi’s allegations have led to an uproar as they come in the backdrop of a controversy over a month-long revision of electoral rolls in Bihar state, where key elections are scheduled for November.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), held between June and July, saw officials visit all 78.9 million voters in the state for verification – the first update since 2003.

The ECI says the drive targets duplicate and deceased voters, but critics say its haste has disenfranchised many, especially migrants and minorities.

Many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.

India’s Supreme Court is currently hearing a batch of petitions challenging the SIR, with petitioners demanding publication of the deleted names – about 6.5 million – with reasons for their removal.

The election body 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.

The court has said that the allegations of disenfranchisement “largely appears to be a case of trust deficit, nothing else” and that it would “step in immediately” if mass exclusion of voters is proven.

On 12 August, Gandhi escalated his claims of vote theft, saying such manipulation was happening “at a national level and systematically”.

Highlighting the case of a 124-year-old voter’s name found in the draft electoral list of Bihar he said: “There are unlimited cases like that. ‘Abhi picture baki hai’ [the story is not over yet].”

Firefighters are battling several wildfires in Greece as a scorching heatwave wreaks havoc across southern Europe.

In the past 24 hours alone, more than 152 new fires have broken out across Greece – and thousands of people have been evacuated. Around 4,850 firefighters are engaged in a multi-front battle to contain the flames.

At least three people have died in Spain, Albania and Turkey, with dozens more, inlcuding firefighters, taken to hospiitals with smoke inhalation and burns.

Temperatures surpassed 40C in several locations earlier this week, with record temperatures hitting France and Slovenia.

In Greece, thousands of people have been evacuated from the tourist islands of Chios and Zakynthos.

In the western Peloponnese, flames swept into the city of Patras overnight, destroying homes, businesses and vehicles.

On Zante, three separate fire fronts spanning more than 15km (9 miles) remain uncontained. Damage has been reported to homes, tourist facilities and farmland.

At least 13 firefighters have been treated for burns and other injuries, fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said on Wednesday, warning the conditions could become even more challenging in the coming days.

“Today, it will be another very difficult day, as the wildfire risk for most of the country’s regions will be very high,” Vathrakogiannis said.

Rescue boats have been evacuating beachgoers trapped by advancing flames on Chios and authorities have requested firefighting aircraft from other European Union countries.

In Spain, more than 4,000 people were evacuated overnight in the north-western province of León. A volunteer firefigher died in the same area.

An equestrian centre employee also died after suffering severe burns in Tres Cantos, near Madrid, where winds over 70km/h (43mph) drove flames near homes, forcing hundreds to flee.

The Spanish government has raised its national emergency response level.

“We are at extreme risk of forest fires. Please be very cautious,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

Elsewhere in Europe, heat alerts remain in place in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Balkans, with temperatures expected to soar above 40C (104F) in some regions.

Slovenia reported its warmest ever night, with temperatures in one port not dropping below 28C.

One child died of heatstroke in Italy on Monday, where temperatures of 40C are expected to hit later this week. Red heat alerts were in place for at least 10 Italian cities, including Rome, Milan and Florence.

A four-year-old Romanian boy, who was found unconscious in a car in Sardinia was airlifted to a hospital in Rome but died due to irreversible brain damage, reportedly caused by heatstroke, medical authorities told AFP.

France’s Health Minister Catherine Vautrin said hospitals were braced for fallout from the country’s second heatwave in just a few weeks.

In Montenegro, a soldier died and another was seriously injured when their water tanker overturned while battling flames n the hills north of the capital, Podgorica.

In Portugal, firefighters battled three large wildfires, including a large blaze in Trancoso in the centre of the country.

Turkey has brought several major fires under control, including in Canakkale and Izmir, after hundreds were evacuated and the Dardanelles Strait and Canakkale airport were closed.

Parts of the UK are sweltering in its fourth heatwave of the year, with temperatures hitting 33C and amber and yellow heat health alerts in place for all of England.

Two grassfires broke out in the capital on Tuesday, one in Ealing and another in Wanstead Flats, burning more than 17 acres combined.

Scientists warn global warming is making Mediterranean summers hotter and drier, fuelling longer and more intense fire seasons.

US National Guard troops have begun appearing on the streets of Washington DC, a day after President Donald Trump deployed the troops to the city and took control of its police force as he argued violent crime was out of control.

Armoured vehicles were spotted at urban centres and tourist sites around the US capital on Tuesday evening.

Officials have said that 800 National Guard troops are expected to be deployed, as well as 500 federal law enforcement agents.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, who has denied crime is out of control in her city, described the troop deployment as an “authoritarian push”.

Trump, a Republican, has also threatened similar deployments against New York and Chicago, two other cities controlled by Democrats.

He has said crime is on the rise in the cities including in Washington DC, although analysis by BBC Verify suggests a different trend in DC.

Violent offences fell after peaking in 2023, and in 2024, they hit their lowest level in 30 years, according to figures published by Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police (MPDC).

They are continuing to fall, according to preliminary data for 2025.

Violent crime overall is down 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and robbery is down 28%, according to the MPDC.

• Is crime in Washington DC ‘out of control’, as Trump claims?

The camouflaged troops have been trickling into the US capital since Trump’s announcement on Monday.

They have been seen erecting barricades outside several government buildings, and taking photos with tourists.

Twenty-three people were arrested by federal agents on Monday night, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The agents are aiding local law enforcement.

She said the arrests were for homicide, gun offences, drug dealing, lewd acts, stalking, reckless driving, and other crimes.

“This is only the beginning,” said Leavitt.

“Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the District who breaks the law, undermines public safety, and endangers law-abiding Americans.”

FBI Director Kash Patel later said FBI agents were involved in around half of those arrests.

Both the mayor of Washington and the city’s police chief said earlier in the day they shared the same goal as the federal agents.

“What I’m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the federal officers that we have,” Bowser said after a meeting on Tuesday with US Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said: “We know that we have to get illegal guns off of our streets, and if we have this influx of enhanced presence, we know that it’s going to make our city even better.”

But at a town hall on Tuesday night, the mayor sharpened her criticism of Trump.

Bowser called on community members to “protect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push”, according to the New York Times.

It comes as a manhunt was launched for an armed assailant who killed a man on Monday night in Logan Circle, one of Washington DC’s trendiest neighbourhoods, just a mile from the White House.

It was the 100th homicide recorded in Washington DC this year, according to local media.

Police say the suspect was last seen wearing a black shirt and carrying a rifle.

The shooting prompted US Secret Service to bolster security outside the president’s home as a precaution.

Despite crime figures showing a decrease in violent offences, DC Police Union chairman Gregg Pemberton has said the city police department is “deliberately falsifying crime data, creating a false narrative of reduced crime while communities suffer”.

FBI data has also indicated a drop in crime in Washington DC last year – a more modest decrease of 9%.

Studies suggest the capital’s homicide rate is higher than average compared with other major US cities.

A 10-year-old chess prodigy from north-west London has become the youngest person to earn the woman international master title.

Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, also became the youngest female player to beat a chess grandmaster at the 2025 British Chess Championship earlier this month.

In 2024 Bodhana was thought to have become the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport when she was selected for England Women’s Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.

Her father Siva previously told the BBC he had no idea where his daughter got her talent from as neither he or his wife, both engineering graduates, are any good at chess.

The International Chess Federation said on its social media account on X that Bodhana “pulled off the win against 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool”.

The federation added: “Sivanandan’s victory at 10 years, five months and three days beats the 2019 record held by American Carissa Yip (10 years, 11 months and 20 days).”

Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain and the rank is held for life.

Bodhana’s new title – woman international master – is the second highest-ranking title given exclusively to women, second only to woman grandmaster.

Bodhana first took up chess during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She says chess makes her feel “good” and helps her with “lots of other things like maths, how to calculate”.

Bodhana started playing chess during the pandemic lockdown, when she was five.

She told the BBC about how she came to the game when she paid a visit to Chess Fest in Trafalgar Square, central London, in July 2024.

“When it was 2020, it was Covid, so one of my dad’s friends was going back to India, and he had a few toys and books, and he gave them to us.

“And in one of the bags, I saw a chessboard, and I was interested in the pieces.

“I wanted to use the pieces as toys. Instead, my dad said that I could play the game, and then I started from there,” she said.

Bodhana’s dad Siva said “nobody at all” in his family was proficient at chess before his daughter took up the game.

He said: “I try to trace down whether any of my cousins or anyone plays – nobody has any chess energy or chess-playing skills, no one played for any chess events.”

He added: “Overall we are happy with whatever is happening. Hopefully she enjoys, plays well and performs.”

Bodhana said she hopes to achieve her ultimate goal and become a grandmaster.

Malcolm Payne, an international chess master who runs a charity that’s brought the game to a quarter-of-a-million state school children, said Bodhana was blazing a trail for girls and women in what has traditionally been a man’s game.

He said: “She’s so composed, she’s so modest and yet she’s so absolutely brilliant at chess.

“She could easily become the women’s world champion, or maybe the overall world champion. And certainly I believe that she’s on course to become a grandmaster.”

A South Korean former tech executive accused of helping to spark a cryptocurrency crisis that cost investors more than $40bn (£31.8bn) has pleaded guilty to two criminal counts of fraud.

Do Kwon was the boss of Singapore-based Terraform Labs, which operated two cryptocurrencies – TerraUSD and Luna – both of which collapsed in 2022, triggering a wider sell-off in the crypto market.

The US says he was responsible for the failure of the two digital currencies, accusing him of “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud”.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors have agreed to refrain from seeking a sentence longer than 12 years. Kwon is due to be sentenced on 11 December.

Kwon’s guilty plea “underscores the importance of accountability in the digital asset sector,” said Todd Snyder, who was appointed by US authorities and Terraform Labs to oversee the company’s liquidation.

He added that those who contributed to the collapse of Terraform Labs will be held to account by the firm and that assets will be recovered in the best interests of claimants.

Kwon’s guilty plea in a New York court comes after a lengthy legal battle.

He initially fled South Korea after a warrant for his arrest was issued in 2023, eventually ending up in Montenegro where he was arrested and jailed before being extradited to the US.

US prosecutors said Kwon misrepresented features that were supposed to keep the so-called stablecoin at $1 without outside intervention.

They alleged that in 2021, Kwon arranged for a trading firm to surreptitiously purchase millions of dollars worth of the token to restore TerraUSD’s value, even as he told investors that a computer algorithm called Terra Protocol was responsible.

Prosecutors say the alleged misrepresentation prompted a wide array of investors to buy Terraform’s offerings, which helped prop up the value of the company’s Luna token, which was closely linked to TerraUSD.

The following year, Kwon’s TerraUSD and the Luna cryptocurrency crashed.

“In 2021, I made false and misleading statements about why [TerraUSD] regained its peg,” he said in court on Tuesday.

“What I did was wrong and I want to apologise for my conduct,” he added.

Kwon had originally pleaded not guilty to nine counts stemming from the crash, including securities and wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.

He had faced up to 135 years in prison if convicted of the charges in the original indictment.

As part of his plea deal, Kwon agreed to refrain from challenging the allegations in the indictment.

He must also forfeit up to $19.3m plus interest and several properties and pay restitution.

While prosecutors have agreed to limit their requested sentence to 12 years, Judge Paul Engelmayer maintained that he was entitled to prescribe a longer sentence.

That sentence could be up to 25 years in prison.

He still faces charges in South Korea, according to his attorney.

A homeless man in the Australian state of Victoria has been charged with the alleged murder of a pregnant woman and her partner, whose head was decapitated.

Police were called to a unit in Melbourne’s south-east on Monday evening where they found the bodies of Athena Georgopoulos, 39, and Andrew Gunn, 50.

Several hours later, police arrested Ross Judd, 34, at a train station about 7km from the scene. He appeared in court on Wednesday, charged with two counts of murder.

Police say the attack appears to be targeted but the relationship between the couple and the accused is not yet known. Police are also investigating graffiti outside the unit with the words “betrayal” and “enough is enough”.

During Wednesday’s hearing at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, prosecutors requested another 10 weeks to prepare their brief of evidence – which was granted – due to the complexity of the case and delays in the autopsies of the victims.

Judd’s lawyer also asked that her client be assessed by a prison nurse to follow up on his medication.

Victoria police first received a call on Monday evening, requesting a welfare check at the Mount Waverley unit after “some yelling” was heard from the property.

Police received a second call a few minutes later, prompting authorities to rush to the address, arriving just before 22:00 (13:00 BST) where the two bodies were found.

According to local media reports, Georgopoulos was five months pregnant with a baby girl.

Early investigations suggest the alleged suspect arrived at the unit on Monday evening, and “then obviously an altercation has occurred,” police told the media.

“It appears to be a targeted attack, our suspect is known to the address,” homicide squad detective Dean Thomas said.

“It does not appear to be a random attack and we are not looking for anybody else.”

Thomas said the suspect appears to have known Mr Gunn, but police were still working out the connection.

A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that detectives will also investigate if graffiti found outside the unit is relevant to the murder investigation.

The case was adjourned to January next year, and Judd was remanded in custody.

The Metropolitan Police says 146 people have now come forward to report a crime in their investigation into former Harrods boss Mohammed Al Fayed.

In a video update sent to victims, Scotland Yard said women and men had reported crimes, and a number of new witnesses had also contacted the force to give evidence.

The Met is currently conducting an investigation into how it handled historical allegations, including sexual assault and rape, perpetrated by Al Fayed – who died in 2023 aged 94.

It is also looking into whether there may have been others who could face charges for enabling or assisting his behaviour. The force has previously said it was investigating at least five people.

In the update, Detective Inspector Karen Khan said the Met was working with international agencies, including foreign police forces.

She said it was “difficult” to say when the investigation might be concluded because of the sheer number of survivors who had come forward.

She also asked for victims and witnesses to continue to come forward but acknowledged there was a “reluctance” to trust the police by some.

Last month, the force wrote to alleged victims apologising, saying it was “truly sorry” for the distress they have suffered because Al Fayed will never face justice.

In a further update on Wednesday, the Met said the way the force “works has moved on immeasurably, and our teams have transformed the way we investigate rape and sexual offences”.

“We’re working with partners across the criminal justice system to ensure that victim-survivors are at the heart of our response, with a greater focus on suspects and their offending,” a spokesperson added.

“We continue to support all victims and we urge anyone with information, whether they were directly affected by Mohamed Al Fayed’s actions or aware of others who may have been involved, or committed offences to come forward.”

The latest figure of 146 is more than double the 61 people who the Met said had reported allegations the last time it released a number in October.

Harrods said more than 100 victims of Al Fayed’s abuse had entered its compensation scheme in July. Al Fayed owned the luxury department store between 1985 and 2010.

The store started issuing compensation at the end of April and the scheme remains open for new applications until 31 March 2026.

Eligible applicants could receive up to £385,000 in compensation, plus treatment costs, if they agree to be assessed by a consultant psychiatrist, or up to £150,000 without a medical assessment, Harrods said in March.

They are also offered a meeting with a senior Harrods’ representative to receive an apology in person or by video, as well as a written apology.

The extent of Al Fayed’s predatory behaviour was brought to light by a BBC documentary and podcast, broadcast in September 2024.

Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-Harrods employees who said Al Fayed sexually assaulted or raped them.

Since then, dozens more women have come forward with similar experiences.

Responding to the BBC investigation at the time, Harrods’ current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and that his victims had been failed – for which the store sincerely apologised.

It was only after the broadcast that the Met revealed it had been approached by 21 women before Al Fayed’s death, who accused him of sexual offences including rape, sexual assault and trafficking. Despite this, he was never charged with any offences.

In October, the Met said 40 new allegations including sexual assault and rape had been made against Al Fayed, covering a period between 1979 and 2013. These allegations were in addition to the 21 it had already received.

Two complaints against the Met Police for its handing of allegations against Al Fayed are being investigated by the force under the direction of the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

The UK, France and Germany have told the UN they are ready to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme if it fails to resume talks by the end of August.

The three countries, known as the E3, said they were prepared to trigger a “snapback” mechanism – meaning previous sanctions would be reinstated – unless Iran resumes negotiations.

The E3 said they had offered to extend a deadline for negotiations to the end of August, which they said Iran has not replied to.

Iranian lawmaker Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran’s parliament was ready to withdraw from a nuclear deal which restricted its nuclear programme if new sanctions were put in place, the Iranian Defa Press news agency reported.

The E3’s letter comes after initial talks between their delegations and Iranian diplomats took place in Istanbul, Turkey last month.

In the letter to the UN and its chief António Guterres, three foreign ministers – Jean-Noël Barrot from France, David Lammy from the UK and Johann Wadephul from Germany – said they would enforce severe sanctions on Iran unless it agrees to limit its nuclear programme.

The E3 said their offer of an extension to the negotiations “remained unanswered by Iran”.

“We have made it clear that if Iran is not willing to reach a diplomatic solution before the end of August 2025, or does not seize the opportunity of an extension, the E3 are prepared to trigger the snapback mechanism,” the letter said.

They added they were committed to using “all diplomatic tools” to ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon – something Iran has denied intending to do.

Last month, Iran said it was prepared for further talks but only once sanctions already in place were lifted and its right to a civilian nuclear programme was agreed.

Sanctions on Iran’s nuclear programme were previously lifted in 2015 after Iran signed a nuclear deal with the E3, the US, Russia and China, agreeing limits on its nuclear operations and to allow international inspectors entry to its nuclear sites. The deal is due to expire in October.

The US withdrew from the deal in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term, with the leader saying it did too little to stop Iran from creating a pathway to a nuclear bomb.

With its withdrawal, all US sanctions were re-imposed on Iran.

Iran retaliated by increasingly breaching the restrictions. In May, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said it had more than 400kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity – well above the level used for civilian purposes and close to weapons grade.

In June Iran’s parliament suspended cooperation with the IAEA after tensions with Israel and the US came to a head.

Israel launched attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities the same month, triggering a 12-day war.

The US bombed a number of Iran’s nuclear sites, bringing US-Iran talks to an abrupt end.

Following the strikes, the E3 countries stepped up warnings to Iran about its suspension of cooperation with the IAEA.

The BBC has contacted the UK Foreign Office for comment.

The Iranian mission to the UN did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage on Friday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

The venue for the high-profile meeting is Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson – a US military installation on the northern edge of Alaska’s most-populated city.

White House officials have said the base satisfied security requirements for hosting two world leaders. And, during the height of summer tourism, there were few other options for the hastily arranged meeting.

Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine this summer, held at Trump’s behest, have yet to bring the two sides any closer to peace.

Here is what we know about the base, and what we can expect from the meeting.

With roots tracing back to the Cold War, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is Alaska’s largest military base. The 64,000 acre installation is a key US site for Arctic military readiness.

Snow-capped mountains, icy lakes and picturesque glaciers frame the base, which regularly shivers through temperatures as low as -12C (15F) in winter. However the leaders can expect comparatively pleasant temperatures of around 16C (61F) on Friday.

When Trump visited the base during his first term, in 2019, he said the troops there “serve in our country’s last frontier as America’s first line of defence”.

More than 30,000 people live on the site, accounting for approximately 10% of the population of Anchorage.

Built in 1940, the base was a critical air defence site and central command point to ward off threats from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

At its peak in 1957, it hosted 200 fighter jets, and multiple air traffic control and early warning radar systems, earning it the nickname of “Top Cover for North America”.

The base continues to grow today due to its strategic location and training facilities.

• Follow live coverage of the build-up to the meeting here

The US purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, lending a historical resonance to the meeting. It became a US state in 1959.

Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov pointed out that the two countries are neighbours, with only the Bering Strait separating them.

“It seems quite logical for our delegation simply to fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important and anticipated summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,” Ushakov said.

The last time Alaska took centre-stage in an American diplomatic event was in March 2021, when Joe Biden’s newly minted diplomatic and national security team met their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage.

The sit-down turned acrimonious, with the Chinese accusing the Americans of “condescension and hypocrisy”.

Trump has been pushing hard – without much success – to end the war in Ukraine.

As a presidential candidate, he pledged that he could end the war within 24 hours of taking office. He has also repeatedly argued that the war “never would have happened” if he had been president at the time of Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Last month, Trump told the BBC that he was “disappointed” by Putin.

Frustrations grew and Trump set an 8 August deadline for Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire or face more severe US sanctions.

As the deadline hit, Trump instead announced he and Putin would meet in person on 15 August.

The meeting comes after US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff held “highly productive” talks with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, according to Trump.

Ahead of the meeting, the White House sought to play down speculation that the bilateral could yield a ceasefire.

“This is a listening exercise for the president,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said he viewed the summit as a “feel-out meeting” aimed at urging Putin to end the war.

• Trump says he will try to get back territory for Ukraine in talks with Putin
• Zelensky could still join Trump and Putin, but rest of Europe is shut out

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not expected to attend. Trump said on Monday: “I would say he could go, but he’s been to a lot of meetings.”

Trump did, however, say that Zelensky would be the first person he would call afterwards.

A White House official later said that Trump and Zelensky would meet virtually on Wednesday, ahead of the US president’s summit with Putin. The Zelensky meeting will be joined by several European leaders.

Putin had requested that Zelensky be excluded, although the White House has previously said that Trump was willing to hold a trilateral in which all three leaders were present.

Zelensky has said any agreements without input from Ukraine would amount to “dead decisions”.

While both Russia and Ukraine have long said that they want the war to end, both countries want things that the other harshly opposes.

Trump said on Monday he was “going to try to get some of that [Russian-occupied] territory back for Ukraine”. But he also warned that there might have to be “some swapping, changes in land”.

Ukraine, however, has been adamant that it will not accept Russian control of regions that Moscow has seized, including Crimea.

Zelensky pushed back this week against any idea of “swapping” territories.

“We will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated,” the Ukrainian president said.

Meanwhile, Putin has not budged from his territorial demands, Ukraine’s neutrality and the future size of its army.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in part, over Putin’s belief the Western defensive alliance, Nato, was using the neighbouring country to gain a foothold to bring its troops closer to Russia’s borders.

The Trump administration has been attempting to sway European leaders on a ceasefire deal that would hand over swathes of Ukrainian territory to Russia, the BBC’s US partner CBS News has reported.

The agreement would allow Russia to keep control of the Crimean peninsula, and take the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which is made up of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Russia illegally occupied Crimea in 2014 and its forces control the majority of the Donbas region.

Under the deal, Russia would have to give up the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where it currently has some military control.

• ANALYSIS: Why Trump-Putin relationship has soured
• EXPLAINER: Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?
• VISUALS: Tracking the war in maps
• GLOBAL FALLOUT: How the global economy could be impacted
• VERIFY: Russian attacks on Ukraine double since Trump inauguration
• GROUND REPORT: On Ukraine’s front line, twisted wreckage shows sanctions haven’t yet stopped Russia

A gleaming white Vivaro van drove slowly off the production line at Vauxhall’s factory in Luton, beeping its horn, while workers cheered and crowded around taking photographs.

Behind it, the production line came to a halt – forever.

The Luton plant began building cars in 1905. It kept operating for the next 120 years, taking time out to build tanks and aircraft engines during World War Two. But on 28 March, that came to an end.

The factory shut down, a victim of cutbacks at Vauxhall’s parent company, Stellantis.

Justin Nicholls, a production shift manager, was one of the 1,100 workers there – he had worked at the plant for 38 years. “It was devastating, because it came out of the blue”, he says. “It was a complete surprise.”

It followed the closure of Honda’s car factory in Swindon in 2021, and Ford’s engine plant in Bridgend the year before.

Together, they have come to symbolise an apparent long-term decline in the UK motor industry.

In all, just 417,000 new cars and vans were built in the UK in the first six months of 2025, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) – the lowest for that period since 1953.

Output for the year is expected to be around 755,000 vehicles — lower even than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The SMMT’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the situation as “depressing”.

The sector contributes some £22bn a year to the economy, according to the SMMT, and as recently as 2023 automotive manufacturing employed some 198,000 people in the UK.

Andy Palmer, who was previously chief executive of Aston Martin, believes the ecosystem – and the sum it contributes to the economy – can only survive if the industry maintains its current scale.

“There is a critical mass of employment,” he explains. “Once you go below that, you see it all fall apart.

“You don’t have the university courses, you don’t have people coming across from the aero industry, you don’t have the pipeline of skilled engineers that allow the luxury firms to exist, and so on.”

And the knock-on effect of this could affect regions already facing challenges.

“If we think about parts of the UK that have automotive plants, they’re often disadvantaged regions,” says David Bailey, professor of business economics at Birmingham Business School.

“Losing these good quality jobs would have a big impact in terms of wages for workers and also a knock-on effect in terms of the multiplier on the local economy.”

He is concerned about what has already been lost. “I’d argue that actually we’ve let too much of this go already. I think once it’s gone, it’s really gone.”

The question is, can the industry recover – or is it too late?

The UK car industry is sprawling. Alongside large factories run by the likes of JLR, Nissan, BMW MINI and Toyota, there is a network of suppliers and high-tech specialist engineering firms, along with a number of smaller, luxury car firms, such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and McLaren, plus bus and truck manufacturers.

In 2016, the UK produced 1.82m new vehicles – more than at any point since 1999. Yet even at that point, storm clouds were already gathering. And the industry has suffered further over the past decade.

Factory closures have had an impact, but other factors have been at play as well, including uncertainty over US trade policy, which has hit exports to a major market.

Then there was the role of Brexit.

“Obviously, Brexit had a big impact”, says Santiago Arieu, senior autos research analyst at Fitch Solutions. “It created uncertainty and complicated future visibility.”

As a result, experts say new investment suffered – just as the industry was gearing up for the massive changes being brought by the transition to electric vehicles.

The agreement with the EU to guarantee continued tariff-free trade soothed the industry’s concerns when it came. But by then, there was another challenge to contend with.

The pandemic caused havoc within the industry globally.

In 2020, output dropped by nearly a third, hitting levels not seen since the mid-1980s. It also threw finely tuned global supply chains out of kilter and created shortages of vital parts.

Although demand for new cars was spiking, manufacturers simply couldn’t build them quickly enough.

All of this caused short-term disruption – but the impact concealed a deeper, structural problem for the UK industry.

Quite simply, it has become an expensive place to build cars.

Part of this is to do with labour costs. Although lower than in some other Western European countries, particularly Germany, they are around twice the level seen in Central European nations such as Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

Then, there are energy costs. British manufacturers currently pay some of the highest electricity prices in the world.

“Car makers operating in the UK also have factories in Europe and elsewhere, so it’s not hard for them to find a replacement for their UK production,” explains Felipe Munoz of JATO Dynamics.

The former chief executive of Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, has previously criticised the cost of manufacturing cars in the UK and northern Europe – while holding up the company’s Kenitra factory in Morocco as a model of efficiency.

When the Luton plant shut last year, it was estimated by Luton Borough Council that the move could cost the regional economy £300m per year.

A small part of the workforce relocated to Stellantis’ other UK plant, at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, where the company is in the process of investing £50m in expanding production.

Of those who have not relocated, some retired. “[Others] are taking quite a reduction in pay”, says Gary Reay, who was a representative of the Unite union at the plant.

The factory site has been bought by a property firm, Goodman – it plans to create more than 1,700 jobs at a new industrial park.

Mr Reay is unimpressed. “The problem for the workforce… is this is years down the road… It’s too far away for most of our workers.”

Yet there is hope in some quarters: it is possible this year’s output may turn out to be a low point, as recent investments start to bear fruit.

In 2024, for example, Nissan stopped building its ageing electric Leaf model at its Sunderland plant — having previously been building about 30,000 a year. But it is due to begin making a new version this year and will start building an electric version of the Juke in 2026.

Nissan is also one of the manufacturers set to benefit from investments in gigafactories. Nissan’s battery partner AESC is building one in Sunderland, which will be able to make power packs for 100,000 electric vehicles a year.

JLR’s parent company, Tata, meanwhile, is investing in its own plant in Somerset, through its subsidiary Agratas.

The government says it wants to increase the number of cars and commercial vehicles built annually to 1.3m by 2035. The SMMT believes 803,000 vehicles will leave the production lines next year but bringing that up to 1.3m looks like a very tall order, according to Mike Hawes.

Greg McDonald, the CEO of Goodfish Group, is also circumspect. “I don’t think many people think there’s going to be a resurgence,” he says.

His business makes injection moulded components for carmakers and has four sites across the UK. It also has a base in Slovakia.

“Suppliers like us are used to being constantly bid at for price and cost reductions, and there’s a limit to how much you can do.”

One way of mitigating this is for businesses to diversify – something more viable for smaller businesses in the sector.

Burnett’s Manufacturing, based in Northampton, is one of many automotive suppliers clustered around the Midlands Corridor. A manufacturer of specialist rubber and plastic parts, it relies on the motor industry for about 40% of its business. But it also provides components for shipbuilders and oil and gas firms.

According to technical sales manager, Rich Dixon, smaller companies are more flexible and able to adapt to changing circumstances.

“I think we’re lucky in some ways, because 60% of our business is diversified across many different industries,” he says. “The last thing you want to be is 100% automotive.

“The difficulty is that higher up the food chain, there are some big companies that are very reliant on automotive.”

Some argue there is another way forward. Chinese giants such as Chery Group and Dongfeng want to expand their international operations – and see the transition to electric vehicles as an opportunity to do this in the European market.

“If you embrace the move to electric vehicles and become a leading light in attracting Chinese investment, then you can do what China did to us in the past, which is essentially use collaboration to rebuild your industry,” argues Andy Palmer, who now owns and invests in clean energy companies.

This would, he adds, require significant government action, including negotiations with Beijing.

The question is, is it already too late?

One senior executive, who has spent decades in the European industry, doesn’t believe the UK will become a major player in the EV market.

“I don’t think governments have spent the necessary time and energy preparing for the shift to EVs.

“I don’t see much opportunity for new players to come in,” says the executive, who asked not to be named. “It’s all about encouraging those who are already here to stay, and if possible to expand.”

Another option, Felipe Munoz believes, is that the UK could double down on its position as a key player in the market for high-end cars.

This could mean becoming a hub for the production of luxury Chinese designs, while allowing cheaper mass-market models to be built elsewhere.

“I think people globally are willing to pay a premium for a British-made luxury car,” adds Prof Bailey.

There is plenty at stake here, and it goes beyond the impact on local communities when factories are lost or suppliers stop trading.

“I also worry about it in terms of impacts on productivity, exports, and research and development,” says Prof Bailey.

“Part of the reason why we’ve got poor productivity performance in the UK is that we have allowed too much manufacturing to go.”

This is where we differ from our European counterparts, argues Steve Fowler, EV editor for The Independent. “We tend not to support our homegrown industries in the same way that other countries do”.

What is harder to assess is the loss of national prestige. When MG Rover collapsed in 2005, there was an outcry, not just because thousands lost their jobs, but also because it was perceived as a symbol of the wider decline of British industry.

This became even more marked when MG – a classic British brand – became a boutique badge for cars made in China.

Many of the upmarket brands that still build cars in this country deliberately trade on their British identity. Think of Rolls Royce, Bentley, McLaren and Lotus. Even BMW-Mini, a mass market manufacturer, is more than willing to wave the Union Jack – or rather, have it painted on door mirrors and roofs.

If those cars were no longer built in Britain, it might well be perceived as a national humiliation. And for some, the decline of the auto industry would almost certainly be perceived as a symptom of a much wider loss.

“I do think people are [becoming] much more aware of where things are made,” argues Mr Fowler. “This isn’t necessarily a nationalistic thing, but more a sustainability thing. Do you want your car to have travelled halfway around the world to reach you?”

Ultimately, he says, there is already “a bit of a brain drain of talent, because the opportunities, bluntly, aren’t here in the UK.

“[But] the UK is a great place to make cars, we have incredible expertise, we have some of the best engineers and people who can build them better than anybody else.”

Drive three hours north of Perth, and you’ll arrive in Eneabba – barren and desolate, just the odd hill in the distance.

This is Western Australia mining territory. Buried in this vast terrain is a massive pit, full of what looks like mounds of worthless dirt.

But appearances can be deceiving: this pit is home to a million-tonne stockpile containing critical minerals, better known as rare earths, which are crucial for making electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence equipment.

And Australia is betting big on this discovery with a billion dollar loan to a mining company to extract these metals – and disrupt a supply chain that China has monopolised.

Will the gamble pay off?

China’s chokehold on rare earths has hit home with US President Donald Trump’s trade wars. When Beijing restricted exports, a powerful bargaining chip in tariff negotiations, it sent manufacturers around the world into their war rooms. China, they realised with alarm, had the power to stop their factories.

Ford even halted production of its popular Explorer SUV for a week at one of its Chicago plants – a bold move while grappling with Trump’s tariffs.

A month later, CEO Jim Farley revealed the pause was triggered by a shortage of rare earths, admitting the company was still struggling to secure reliable supply. “It’s day to day,” Mr Farley told Bloomberg TV.

Beijing has since agreed to let rare earth minerals and magnets flow to the United States, which eased the bottleneck.

But without a US-China trade deal, the fear is that the disruption could return.

“The West dropped the ball – that’s the reality. And China was in for the long run. It saw the benefit and was willing to invest in it,” says Jacques Eksteen, chair for extractive metallurgy at Curtin University.

The phrase “rare earths” – referring to 17 elements on the periodic table which are lightweight, super strong and resistant to heat, making them useful in small electric motors – is something of a misnomer.

“Rare earths are not rare or scarce. Gold is scarce, but it’s not a critical material,” Professor Eksteen explains.

Rare earths are critical, however. Take the average electric vehicle – there might be rare earths-based motors in dozens of components from side mirrors and speakers to windscreen wipers and braking sensors.

The problem is therefore not amount, but the fact “somewhere in the supply chain you’ve got one or maybe a few countries controlling that bottleneck”, Professor Eksteen adds.

In the 90s, Europe and France in particular had a prominent rare earths industry. Today, almost all these minerals come from China, which has spent decades mining and refining at scale.

China now accounts for more than half of global rare earth mining, and almost 90% of processing.

The US sources 80% of its rare earth imports from China, while the European Union relies on China for about 98% of its supply.

“China has since very deliberately and overtly sought to control the market for the purposes of supporting their downstream manufacturing and defence industries,” says Dan McGrath, head of rare earths for Iluka Resources, in between driving us around the company’s vast Eneabba site.

But Mr McGrath, and Iluka, are hoping to make a dent in that control – even if it wasn’t necessarily in the company’s original plan.

For decades, Iluka has been mining zircon in Australia – a key ingredient in ceramics, and titanium dioxide used in the pigmentation of paint, plastics and paper.

It just so happens the byproducts of these mineral sands include dysprosium and terbium – some of the most sought-after rare earths.

Over the years, Iluka has built up the stockpile, and is now worth more than $650m (£440m).

This was the easy part, however. The processing or refining is another matter altogether.

“They’re chemically very similar so to try and separate them requires a huge number of stages,” Professor Eksteen explained.

“Also, you’ve got residues and wastes that you have to deal with out of this industry, and that’s problematic. They often produce radioactive materials. It comes at a cost.”

And that is one of the reasons the Australian government is loaning Iluka A$1.65bn ($1bn; £798m) to build a refinery to meet demand for rare earths which Iluka sees growing by 50-170% by the end of the decade.

“We expect to be able to supply a significant proportion of Western demand for rare earths by 2030. Our customers recognise that having an independent, secure and sustainable supply chain outside of China is fundamental for the continuity of their business,” says Mr McGrath.

“This refinery and Iluka’s commitment to the rare earth business is an alternative to China.”

But the refinery will take another two years to build and come online.

“Without the strategic partnership we have with the Australian government, a rare earths project would not be economically viable,” Mr McGrath says.

China’s recent willingness to turn supply of rare earths on and off has spurred trading partners to diversify their suppliers.

Iluka says because automakers for example plan their production years in advance, it is already fielding requests for when its refinery does come online.

Rare earths are critical to the green transition, electric vehicles, and defence technologies – making their control a pressing national priority.

“The open international market in critical minerals and rare earths is a mirage. It doesn’t exist. And the reason it doesn’t exist is because there is one supplier of these materials and they have the wherewithal to change where the market goes, whether that be in pricing or supply,” Australia’s resources minister Madeleine King says.

Canberra sees government intervention as necessary to provide an alternative supply, and help the world rely less on China.

“We can either sit back and do nothing about that… or we can step up to take on the responsibility to develop a rare earths industry here that competes with that market,” Ms King adds.

But there is something that Australia will have to contend with as it invests and works to expand a rare earths industry – pollution.

In China, environmental damage from years of processing rare earths has led to chemicals and radioactive waste seeping into waterways – cities and people bearing the scars of decades of poor regulation.

With rare earths, it’s not so much about the mining footprint, rather the processing that is a dirty business – because it involves extraction, leaching, thermal cracking and refining which produce radioactive components.

“I think there is no metal industry that is completely clean… unfortunately, it’s a matter of picking your poison sometimes,” Professor Eksteen says.

“In Australia, we’ve got mechanisms to handle that. We’ve got a legal environment and a framework to work with that to at least deal with it responsibly.”

The EU has in the past accused China of using a “quasi monopoly” on rare earths as a bargaining chip, weaponising it to undermine competitors in key industries.

The bloc – which is home to hundreds of auto manufacturers that so desperately need rare earths – said even if China has loosened restrictions on supplies, the threat of supply chain shocks remains.

Even if building a brand new industry will take time, Australia seems to have a lot going for it in the rare earths race, as it tries to be a more reliable and cleaner source.

And one that – crucially – is independent of China.

A political row has erupted in India over allegations of “vote theft”, with opposition parties accusing the country’s election body of irregularities, which they say favoured the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general elections.

On Tuesday, parliament was adjourned after opposition MPs demanded a debate on the integrity of India’s electoral process.

A day earlier, dozens of opposition leaders, including Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, were briefly detained by the police in the capital Delhi, as they tried to march to the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) headquarters.

Gandhi first raised the issue at a 7 August press conference in Delhi, and has since managed to galvanise strong support from hundreds of opposition lawmakers.

The Election Commission and the BJP have aggressively rejected the allegations.

Gandhi has alleged widespread voter manipulation during the 2024 parliamentary elections, citing granular data obtained from the electoral body itself – though the ECI and the ruling party dispute his interpretation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a historic third term in the elections, but his BJP-led alliance fell short of the sweeping majority predicted. Voter turnout averaged 66% in the world’s largest election, with nearly a billion registered voters – one in eight people on Earth.

Gandhi cited electoral data for Mahadevapura, a part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, and claimed that the voter list had more than 100,000 manipulated entries, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and bulk registrations of votes at single locations.

He presented examples of voters like Shakun Rani, who he claimed cast her ballots twice – a claim disputed by the election body.

Gandhi also alleged CCTV footage from polling booths was deleted and pointed out an instance of 80 people registered in a single address in Mahadevapura.

The Congress leader says his party lost at least 48 seats in the elections due to such irregularities and has accused India’s election body of failing to enforce the “one man, one vote” principle. The Congress won 99 of the 543 seats in the elections, behind BJP’s 240.

Gandhi has demanded that the ECI release digital voter rolls, so that they can be audited by his party and the public.

The BBC hasn’t independently verified Gandhi’s claims.

Soon after Gandhi’s press conference, ECI responded on social media platform X, calling his allegations “absurd” and denying many of his claims.

The polling body has demanded that he either submit a signed declaration under oath or apologise to the nation.

ECI’s Karnataka state unit further said that the Congress didn’t file formal objections when the electoral roll was being revised ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The poll body earlier said it keeps CCTV footage only for 45 days after results – the window for filing election disputes.

BJP leaders have also strongly rebutted the allegations.

“This anarchy is extremely worrying and dangerous for democracy,” BJP leader and federal education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

Federal agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Gandhi and the opposition alliance were “defaming democracy, tearing it to shreds, and tampering with the dignity of constitutional institutions”.

Gandhi’s allegations have led to an uproar as they come in the backdrop of a controversy over a month-long revision of electoral rolls in Bihar state, where key elections are scheduled for November.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), held between June and July, saw officials visit all 78.9 million voters in the state for verification – the first update since 2003.

The ECI says the drive targets duplicate and deceased voters, but critics say its haste has disenfranchised many, especially migrants and minorities.

Many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.

India’s Supreme Court is currently hearing a batch of petitions challenging the SIR, with petitioners demanding publication of the deleted names – about 6.5 million – with reasons for their removal.

The election body 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.

The court has said that the allegations of disenfranchisement “largely appears to be a case of trust deficit, nothing else” and that it would “step in immediately” if mass exclusion of voters is proven.

On 12 August, Gandhi escalated his claims of vote theft, saying such manipulation was happening “at a national level and systematically”.

Highlighting the case of a 124-year-old voter’s name found in the draft electoral list of Bihar he said: “There are unlimited cases like that. ‘Abhi picture baki hai’ [the story is not over yet].”

“This has been the turning point for me – it’s improved my confidence, my own self-belief.”

Single mum Roxanne Freeman says she lived beyond her means and used her credit cards to support her family, even using one to put down a deposit on a caravan.

She had racked up £13,000 worth of debt by summer 2023, but her fortunes changed after she turned her hand to content creation, filming and posting reviews of plus-size clothing on TikTok.

The 36-year-old from Leicester earns commissions on her videos – up to £5,000 a month now, she says – and has cleared her debt.

Roxanne is among a growing number of people turning to social media to boost their income and says: “It’s literally life-changing.”

Roxanne was working as a Slimming World consultant when she bought a dress from TikTok Shop and filmed herself trying it on before posting a review for her 1,000 followers in February 2024.

She says she earned £200 in commission from the dress manufacturer in a week – 10% for each one bought via the link she posted with her video – and was soon approached by other companies offering her samples to review.

“In my second month I earned £600 and it just went up and up gradually,” she adds.

“I’m now earning up to £5,000 per month from just two to three hours’ work a day, it’s insane.”

• Listen: Roxanne Freeman cleared her debts after turning to social media to boost her income

Roxanne, who now has almost 50,000 followers, has since left her slimming consultant job and relies solely on her income from TikTok.

She says her earnings vary each month depending on her followers, but she has earned enough to pay off her debts and to do more with her sons, aged six and 10.

“I took the kids on holiday – my youngest boy had never been abroad before,” she says.

“Sometimes imposter syndrome does sneak in a little bit and I worry, but you could lose any job tomorrow.”

Like Roxanne, married couple Holly and Diego Hernandezalso earn money by posting videos on TikTok.

Holly, from Leicester, and Diego, from Mexico, met on the social media platform when they were 16 and went on to set up an account to document their relationship and daily life.

The couple now have almost 300,000 followers and earn up to £5,000 a month, but they have both kept their day jobs – Holly, 22, is a nurse and Diego, 23, works for a medical supply company.

Some of their income comes via the TikTok Creator Fund, which pays users for their content.

To be eligible, creators must be 18 or older, have 10,000 followers or more and have had at least 100,000 video views in the 30 days before applying to join the fund.

For Holly and Diego, who live in Leicester, they are paid according to their video interactions.

They are also paid by record labels to play particular songs in the background of their videos.

Due to their success, the couple have become a limited company – registered with Companies House – and have signed with a management agency.

Holly says: “We were so young when the money came in, and we were going on amazing holidays and buying things.

“I wish there was somebody back then who guided us, because I think we would have invested or saved it.

“In the beginning, I was trying to manage the monetary side of it myself and I found it really overwhelming.

“Things like taxes came into play, so we ended up getting an accountant and becoming a limited company.”

The couple post videos most days but admit there are negatives to sharing their lives so openly.

“I think the biggest downside is the trolls,” says Holly.

“There’s always someone hounding you because of our relationship or the way that we look, the way we speak or the way we dress.

“It can get to you when it’s constant.”

Estelle Keeber, also from Leicester, started a Facebook group aimed at female business owners in 2017 and, after gaining a large following, started charging for her social media expertise.

The 42-year-old says she turned over £1.2m in the first two years and now runs a social media marketing consultancy firm called Immortal Monkey.

“Whether you want to be an influencer or an affiliate marketer, there has never been a better time for people to be jumping in,” she says.

“But it does takes time, it takes a lot of hard work, especially if you’re building a brand around yourself. It is constant hard work.”

Estelle is now setting up a community interest company to link influencers with schools to educate the next generation on content creation.

“I think influencer marketing is here to stay because it’s an organic way of marketing,” she says.

“Nobody wants to be sold to, whereas when it’s organic, people trust and believe in that person – and the bigger brands are really understanding this now.”

According to Statista, a global data and business intelligence platform, there are 54 million social media users in the UK and 84% of adults follow an influencer.

But anyone who makes a living from or supplements their income by posting content online is subject to the same tax laws as everyone else.

According to Revenue and Customs, income from creating online content includes gifts and services received from promoting products on social media.

If someone’s total income is more than the £1,000 allowance for the tax year, including any gifts and services received, they must tell HMRC about it.

Zubair Ali, managing partner of MyTaxDoc Accountants, based in Birmingham, says three in 10 of the firm’s clients are social media influencers.

“Just because you’ve got a million followers, HMRC won’t let it slide,” Zubair says.

“The last thing anyone wants is a big, fat juicy tax bill which they haven’t got the means to pay for.”

US federal prosecutors have announced criminal charges against Jimmy Cherizier, the Haitian gang leader known as “Barbecue” who leads an alliance of gangs that control much of the capitol of Port-au-Prince.

The indictment alleges that Mr Cherizier, as well as US citizen Bazile Richardson, 48, solicited funds from Haitian diaspora community in the US to help pay gang members and buy firearms in violation of US sanctions.

Mr Cherizier, a former police officer who is at large in Haiti, leads the group Viv Ansanm (Live Together). The US is offering $5m (£3.7m) for information leading to his arrest.

The group has been accused of multiple murders, kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure.

“There’s a good reason that there’s a $5m reward for information leading to Cherizier’s arrest,” US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said at a news conference on Tuesday.

“He’s a gang leader responsible for heinous human rights abuses, including violence against American citizens in Haiti.”

Prosecutors say he is suspected of playing a key role in the 2018 La Saline massacre, in which 71 people were killed, more than 400 houses were destroyed, and at least seven women raped.

Mr Richardson, who was arrested in Texas last month, is a naturalised US citizen who grew up in Haiti, prosecutors say. He was residing in North Carolina before he was taken into custody.

Also known as Fredo, Fred Lion, Leo Danger, and Lepe Blode, he helped raise funds that were then used to pay gang leaders and purchase weapons, according to officials.

Both men helped “bankroll Cherizier’s violent criminal enterprise, which is driving a security crisis in Haiti”, said Assistant US Attorney General John Eisenberg.

He added that the US “will continue to pursue those who enable Haiti’s violence and instability”.

In May, US officials designated Viv Ansanm, which has controlled the capital since around 2020, as a foreign terrorist organisation. Earlier this year, the group announced that it was declaring itself a political party.

In addition to the US, Mr Cherizier is also under sanctions from the United Nations, Canada and Britain, which accuse him of fueling violence in Haiti.

If arrested, he could be extradited to the US. However, he remains in a position of significant power on the streets and is protected by his group’s members.

In 2021, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in Port-au-Prince.

Since then the country – the poorest in the Americas – has been wracked by economic chaos, little functioning political control and increasingly violent gang warfare.

Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security crisis.

In recent months, a UN backed Kenyan led security force has failed to take back control of the Haitian capital.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in the country has sunk to new levels. UN reports estimate that 5.7 million people – more than half of Haiti’s population – are facing acute food insecurity and there are over one million internally displaced people.

The wife of South Korea’s jailed former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been arrested over a raft of charges, including stock manipulation and bribery.

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee denied all charges during a four-hour court hearing in Seoul on Tuesday. But the court issued a detention warrant, citing the risk that she may destroy evidence.

South Korea has a history of former presidents being indicted and imprisoned. However, this is the first time both the former president and former first lady have been jailed.

Yoon was detained in January to face trial over a failed martial law bid last year that plunged the country into chaos and eventually led to his ouster.

Prosecutors say Kim, 52, made over 800 million won ($577,940; £428,000) by participating in a price-rigging scheme involving the stocks of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea.

While this allegedly happened before her husband was elected the country’s leader, it continued to cast a shadow throughout his presidency.

She allegedly also accepted two Chanel bags and a diamond necklace as bribes from the controversial Unification Church in exchange for business favours.

Among other charges, Kim is also accused of meddling in candidate nominations during the parliamentary by-elections in 2022 and the general elections last year.

Kim appeared solemn as she attended Tuesday’s hearing wearing a black suit and a black skirt.

“I sincerely apologise for causing trouble despite being a person of no importance,” she told reporters.

While he was president, Yoon vetoed three opposition-led bills that sought a special counsel investigation into allegations against Kim.

He issued the last veto in November, a week before he declared martial law.

A special counsel was set up in June this year after Yoon’s rival Lee Jae Myung became president.

Six men and three women have died in a blast at an explosives factory near the Brazilian city of Curitiba, in southern Paraná state, emergency officials say.

The explosion happened on Tuesday morning local time when a number of people were on shift in the factory.

Seven people were also injured and emergency personnel with sniffer dogs searched for the nine missing workers, but given the devastating damage at the site, Paraná’s security minister later announced that there was “no longer any hope of finding survivors”.

The company that owns the factory, Enaex, said it was investigating what could have caused the explosion.

The blast in Quatro Barras, near the state capital, Curitiba, happened just before 06:00 local time (09:00 GMT).

Residents from nearby towns reported being woken up by the sound.

“Within a radius of approximately 1.5km (0.9 miles), we have houses that were hit, with broken windows, damaged structures, and a huge shock wave,” a spokeswoman for the fire department said.

She added that the blast had opened up a crater at the site.

Enaex makes explosives for civilian purposes used in construction and mining.

The firm expressed its condolences to the families of the victims and said it would work with the relevant authorities to clarify what had caused the explosion.

The local authorities said that the firm had all the necessary licences to operate at the site, where it had been operating for five decades.

A migrant who shared videos on TikTok of how to cross the English Channel on a small boat, and encouraged others to make the crossing, has had his account removed.

Using the handle @alexandrah4200, the man gained hundreds of thousands of views on his videos, which included a live-stream from what he said was a UK asylum hotel, answering questions about his voyage.

TikTok removed his account his account after being asked about it by the Sun newspaper, which originally reported the story.

The social media giant said in a statement it took a “zero-tolerance approach to content promoting human smuggling”.

It said that it removed the “vast majority” of such content before it was reported and that it was working with the National Crime Agency (NCA) “to identify and disrupt organised immigration crime online”.

In the first of several videos, the man – who is thought to have arrived in the UK over the weekend – can be seen in an orange life jacket sitting in a dinghy in the middle of a body of water.

Later, he is seen giving viewers a look at his room in an asylum hotel in London.

In his streams the man reportedly advised others to make the dangerous crossing to the UK.

• Crackdown on Channel crossing social media adverts
• How many people cross the Channel in small boats?
• Violent Channel smuggling gang’s French and UK network exposed by undercover BBC investigation

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have made clear that it is unacceptable for any individual, whether they are a member of a smuggling gang or otherwise, to promote the criminal services of people-traffickers or for social media companies to allow it.”

They added that specific laws are being introduced through the government’s border security bill, currently making its way through the House of Lords, that will “make it easier to prosecute individuals who publish material online which promotes or offers services facilitating small boat crossings”.

People advertising illegal Channel crossings online could face up to five years in prison under a new offence the government plans to introduce.

Meanwhile, the latest figures show that the number of migrants to cross the Channel in small boats since Labour came to power last summer has surpassed 50,000.

Labour has pledged to “smash” people-smuggling gangs and reduce Channel crossing numbers, recently introducing a “one in, one out” deportation scheme with France.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Tuesday’s small boat migration figures showed that the government’s plan “was just a slogan”.

Cape Verde has declared a state of emergency on the islands of São Vicente and Santo Antão, after deadly floods which killed at least nine people and forced 1,500 from their homes.

The state of emergency activates crisis funds and urgent infrastructure repairs in the Atlantic Ocean islands off the west coast of Africa.

Monday’s flash floods were triggered by Tropical Storm Erin, leading to 193mm (7.6in) of rain in just five hours, far above São Vicente’s annual average.

Deputy Prime Minister Olavo Correia told the BBC the floods were “catastrophic”.

Rescue teams are desperately searching for missing people, while roads, homes and vehicles have been severely damaged.

Commenting on the heavy rains, Ester Brito from the country’s meteorology institute told Reuters news agency that the weather conditions were uncommon.

“It is a rare situation because what was recorded is above our 30-year climatologist average.”

Speaking to local media outlet Expresso das Ilhas, Ms Brito added that the country did not have the radar equipment required to forecast the extent of the rains.

Describing the moment the floods hit, Interior Minister Paulo Rocha said the night was “marked by panic and despair”, Reuters reports.

Alveno Yali, a community organiser in São Vicente, the worst affected Island, described the situation as “an incredible moment of heavy rains, strong winds, and flash floods, resulting in significant material losses”.

The Cape Verdean diaspora especially in France, Luxembourg, Portugal, and the US have launched urgent crowdfunding campaigns.

Tens of thousands of euros have already been raised to buy food, water, hygiene products, and emergency supplies.

Andreia Levy, president of Hello Cabo Verde in France, told the BBC that the entire diaspora was mobilised and they planned to deliver aid directly.

• ‘I watched helplessly as water washed my family away’ in Nigeria floods
• How old English sea shanties inspired Cape Verdean singer
• Cape Verde: Renewable energy via solar panels helps connect communities

Three soldiers have been killed in a drone attack in south-west Colombia, which authorities have blamed on a dissident rebel group.

The devices dropped explosives on members of Colombia’s navy and army, who were manning a checkpoint on the Naya River.

Four other members of the security forces were injured in the attack.

Drone attacks have become increasingly common in recent years in Colombia: in 2024, 115 such attacks were recorded in the country, most of them carried out by illegal armed groups.

In January, the government said it was putting a plan into place to prevent such attacks by beefing up its anti-drone technology, in order to better detect and “neutralise” drones.

The latest deadly attack happened near Buenaventura, a city on the Pacific coast which is a hotbed for drug trafficking.

Army officials gave the names of the three victims as Wilmar Rivas, Andrés Estrada and Dario Estrada.

Off-shoots of the Farc rebel group, which refused to sign a peace deal negotiated by the guerrilla group’s leaders in 2016, have a strong presence in the area.

The rivers in the region are often used to transport cocaine – the main source of income for illegal armed groups – and weapons.

Military officials said one of the groups under the command of a man known as Iván Mordisco was behind Tuesday’s drone attack.

Mordisco walked out of peace talks with the government in April 2024, and the dissident rebel factions he leads engage in criminal activities such as the extortion of farmers and landowners, illegal mining and cocaine trafficking.

A 10-year-old chess prodigy from north-west London has become the youngest person to earn the woman international master title.

Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, also became the youngest female player to beat a chess grandmaster at the 2025 British Chess Championship earlier this month.

In 2024 Bodhana was thought to have become the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport when she was selected for England Women’s Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.

Her father Siva previously told the BBC he had no idea where his daughter got her talent from as neither he or his wife, both engineering graduates, are any good at chess.

The International Chess Federation said on its social media account on X that Bodhana “pulled off the win against 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool”.

The federation added: “Sivanandan’s victory at 10 years, five months and three days beats the 2019 record held by American Carissa Yip (10 years, 11 months and 20 days).”

Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain and the rank is held for life.

Bodhana’s new title – woman international master – is the second highest-ranking title given exclusively to women, second only to woman grandmaster.

Bodhana first took up chess during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She says chess makes her feel “good” and helps her with “lots of other things like maths, how to calculate”.

Bodhana started playing chess during the pandemic lockdown, when she was five.

She told the BBC about how she came to the game when she paid a visit to Chess Fest in Trafalgar Square, central London, in July 2024.

“When it was 2020, it was Covid, so one of my dad’s friends was going back to India, and he had a few toys and books, and he gave them to us.

“And in one of the bags, I saw a chessboard, and I was interested in the pieces.

“I wanted to use the pieces as toys. Instead, my dad said that I could play the game, and then I started from there,” she said.

Bodhana’s dad Siva said “nobody at all” in his family was proficient at chess before his daughter took up the game.

He said: “I try to trace down whether any of my cousins or anyone plays – nobody has any chess energy or chess-playing skills, no one played for any chess events.”

He added: “Overall we are happy with whatever is happening. Hopefully she enjoys, plays well and performs.”

Bodhana said she hopes to achieve her ultimate goal and become a grandmaster.

Malcolm Payne, an international chess master who runs a charity that’s brought the game to a quarter-of-a-million state school children, said Bodhana was blazing a trail for girls and women in what has traditionally been a man’s game.

He said: “She’s so composed, she’s so modest and yet she’s so absolutely brilliant at chess.

“She could easily become the women’s world champion, or maybe the overall world champion. And certainly I believe that she’s on course to become a grandmaster.”

A political row has erupted in India over allegations of “vote theft”, with opposition parties accusing the country’s election body of irregularities, which they say favoured the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general elections.

On Tuesday, parliament was adjourned after opposition MPs demanded a debate on the integrity of India’s electoral process.

A day earlier, dozens of opposition leaders, including Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, were briefly detained by the police in the capital Delhi, as they tried to march to the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) headquarters.

Gandhi first raised the issue at a 7 August press conference in Delhi, and has since managed to galvanise strong support from hundreds of opposition lawmakers.

The Election Commission and the BJP have aggressively rejected the allegations.

Gandhi has alleged widespread voter manipulation during the 2024 parliamentary elections, citing granular data obtained from the electoral body itself – though the ECI and the ruling party dispute his interpretation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a historic third term in the elections, but his BJP-led alliance fell short of the sweeping majority predicted. Voter turnout averaged 66% in the world’s largest election, with nearly a billion registered voters – one in eight people on Earth.

Gandhi cited electoral data for Mahadevapura, a part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, and claimed that the voter list had more than 100,000 manipulated entries, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and bulk registrations of votes at single locations.

He presented examples of voters like Shakun Rani, who he claimed cast her ballots twice – a claim disputed by the election body.

Gandhi also alleged CCTV footage from polling booths was deleted and pointed out an instance of 80 people registered in a single address in Mahadevapura.

The Congress leader says his party lost at least 48 seats in the elections due to such irregularities and has accused India’s election body of failing to enforce the “one man, one vote” principle. The Congress won 99 of the 543 seats in the elections, behind BJP’s 240.

Gandhi has demanded that the ECI release digital voter rolls, so that they can be audited by his party and the public.

The BBC hasn’t independently verified Gandhi’s claims.

Soon after Gandhi’s press conference, ECI responded on social media platform X, calling his allegations “absurd” and denying many of his claims.

The polling body has demanded that he either submit a signed declaration under oath or apologise to the nation.

ECI’s Karnataka state unit further said that the Congress didn’t file formal objections when the electoral roll was being revised ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The poll body earlier said it keeps CCTV footage only for 45 days after results – the window for filing election disputes.

BJP leaders have also strongly rebutted the allegations.

“This anarchy is extremely worrying and dangerous for democracy,” BJP leader and federal education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

Federal agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Gandhi and the opposition alliance were “defaming democracy, tearing it to shreds, and tampering with the dignity of constitutional institutions”.

Gandhi’s allegations have led to an uproar as they come in the backdrop of a controversy over a month-long revision of electoral rolls in Bihar state, where key elections are scheduled for November.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), held between June and July, saw officials visit all 78.9 million voters in the state for verification – the first update since 2003.

The ECI says the drive targets duplicate and deceased voters, but critics say its haste has disenfranchised many, especially migrants and minorities.

Many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.

India’s Supreme Court is currently hearing a batch of petitions challenging the SIR, with petitioners demanding publication of the deleted names – about 6.5 million – with reasons for their removal.

The election body 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.

The court has said that the allegations of disenfranchisement “largely appears to be a case of trust deficit, nothing else” and that it would “step in immediately” if mass exclusion of voters is proven.

On 12 August, Gandhi escalated his claims of vote theft, saying such manipulation was happening “at a national level and systematically”.

Highlighting the case of a 124-year-old voter’s name found in the draft electoral list of Bihar he said: “There are unlimited cases like that. ‘Abhi picture baki hai’ [the story is not over yet].”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that Gaza ceasefire efforts are now focused on a comprehensive deal to release all the remaining hostages at once.

The plan previously being pushed was for an initial 60-day truce and partial release of living hostages.

Hamas says a delegation of its leaders is in Cairo for “preliminary talks” with Egyptian officials.

Reports say that mediators see a window of opportunity in the coming weeks to try to push a deal through.

After indirect talks between Israel and Hamas broke down last month, Israel announced a controversial plan to widen its military offensive and conquer all the Gaza Strip – including the areas where most of its two million Palestinian residents have sought refuge.

However, Israeli media do not expect the new operation to begin until October – allowing time for military preparations, including a mass call-up of reservists.

Meanwhile, intense Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza, and the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 123 Palestinians have been killed in the past day.

Witnesses say that Israel has stepped up its attacks on Gaza City in particular with air strikes destroying homes.

Footage shows large explosions caused by the strikes and demolitions in the Zaytoun area, to the east of Gaza City.

Early on Wednesday, al-Shifa Hospital said seven members of one family, five of them children, were killed when tents were targeted in Tel al-Hawa, in the south of the city. Al-Ahli Hospital said 10 people were killed in a strike on a house in the Zaytoun area, to the city’s east.

The Israeli army said it had begun new operations in Zaytoun.

Israeli military chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir also “approved the main framework for the IDF’s operational plan in the Gaza Strip”, a statement released by the army said.

In an interview with the i24News Israeli TV Channel shown on Tuesday, Netanyahu was asked if a partial ceasefire was still possible.

“I think it’s behind us,” he replied. “We tried, we made all kinds of attempts, we went through a lot, but it turned out that they were just misleading us.”

“I want all of them,” he said of the hostages. “The release of all the hostages, both alive and dead – that’s the stage we’re at.”

Palestinian armed groups still hold 50 hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war. Israel believes that around 20 of them are still alive.

Netanyahu is under mounting domestic pressure to secure their release as well as over his plans to expand the war.

Last week, unnamed Arab officials were quoted as saying that regional mediators, Egypt and Qatar, were preparing a new framework for a deal that would involve releasing all remaining hostages at the same time in return for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

However, this will be difficult to do in a short time frame as Israel is demanding that Hamas give up control of Gaza as well as its weapons.

This is likely to be why, at a news conference on Tuesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told journalists that Cairo was still “making great efforts” with Qatar and the US – the other mediators – to revive the earlier phased plan.

“The main goal is to return to the original proposal – a 60-day ceasefire – along with the release of some hostages and some Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of humanitarian and medical aid into Gaza without obstacles or conditions,” Abdelatty said.

The Israeli prime minister says Israel’s goals have not changed. He says that the war will end only when all hostages are returned and Hamas surrenders.

Netanyahu has said that, ultimately, Israel must keep open-ended security control over Gaza.

Hamas has long called for a comprehensive deal to exchange the hostages it is holding for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. It also wants a full pull-out of Israeli forces and an end to the war.

It refuses to disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is created.

Speaking to i24News, Netanyahu also reiterated an idea that Palestinians should simply leave the territory through “voluntary” emigration, saying: “They’re not being pushed out, they’ll be allowed to exit.”

He went on: “All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us.”

Palestinians, human rights groups and many in the international community have warned that any forced displacement of people from Gaza violates international law.

Many Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the “Nakba” (Catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced from their homes in the fighting that came before and after the state of Israel was created in 1948.

Most Gazans are descendants of those original refugees and themselves hold official refugee status.

UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in Gaza, where Israel has greatly limited the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in.

The UN’s World Food Programme has warned that starvation and malnutrition are at the highest levels in Gaza since the conflict began.

Hamas’s 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, with 251 seized and taken into Gaza as hostages.

Israel’s offensive has since killed at least 61,722 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. It says that 235 people including 106 children have also died due to starvation and malnutrition.

The wife of South Korea’s jailed former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been arrested over a raft of charges, including stock manipulation and bribery.

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee denied all charges during a four-hour court hearing in Seoul on Tuesday. But the court issued a detention warrant, citing the risk that she may destroy evidence.

South Korea has a history of former presidents being indicted and imprisoned. However, this is the first time both the former president and former first lady have been jailed.

Yoon was detained in January to face trial over a failed martial law bid last year that plunged the country into chaos and eventually led to his ouster.

Prosecutors say Kim, 52, made over 800 million won ($577,940; £428,000) by participating in a price-rigging scheme involving the stocks of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea.

While this allegedly happened before her husband was elected the country’s leader, it continued to cast a shadow throughout his presidency.

She allegedly also accepted two Chanel bags and a diamond necklace as bribes from the controversial Unification Church in exchange for business favours.

Among other charges, Kim is also accused of meddling in candidate nominations during the parliamentary by-elections in 2022 and the general elections last year.

Kim appeared solemn as she attended Tuesday’s hearing wearing a black suit and a black skirt.

“I sincerely apologise for causing trouble despite being a person of no importance,” she told reporters.

While he was president, Yoon vetoed three opposition-led bills that sought a special counsel investigation into allegations against Kim.

He issued the last veto in November, a week before he declared martial law.

A special counsel was set up in June this year after Yoon’s rival Lee Jae Myung became president.

Firefighters are battling several wildfires in Greece as a scorching heatwave wreaks havoc across southern Europe.

In the past 24 hours alone, more than 152 new fires have broken out across Greece – and thousands of people have been evacuated. Around 4,850 firefighters are engaged in a multi-front battle to contain the flames.

At least three people have died in Spain, Albania and Turkey, with dozens more, inlcuding firefighters, taken to hospiitals with smoke inhalation and burns.

Temperatures surpassed 40C in several locations earlier this week, with record temperatures hitting France and Slovenia.

In Greece, thousands of people have been evacuated from the tourist islands of Chios and Zakynthos.

In the western Peloponnese, flames swept into the city of Patras overnight, destroying homes, businesses and vehicles.

On Zante, three separate fire fronts spanning more than 15km (9 miles) remain uncontained. Damage has been reported to homes, tourist facilities and farmland.

At least 13 firefighters have been treated for burns and other injuries, fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said on Wednesday, warning the conditions could become even more challenging in the coming days.

“Today, it will be another very difficult day, as the wildfire risk for most of the country’s regions will be very high,” Vathrakogiannis said.

Rescue boats have been evacuating beachgoers trapped by advancing flames on Chios and authorities have requested firefighting aircraft from other European Union countries.

In Spain, more than 4,000 people were evacuated overnight in the north-western province of León. A volunteer firefigher died in the same area.

An equestrian centre employee also died after suffering severe burns in Tres Cantos, near Madrid, where winds over 70km/h (43mph) drove flames near homes, forcing hundreds to flee.

The Spanish government has raised its national emergency response level.

“We are at extreme risk of forest fires. Please be very cautious,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

Elsewhere in Europe, heat alerts remain in place in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Balkans, with temperatures expected to soar above 40C (104F) in some regions.

Slovenia reported its warmest ever night, with temperatures in one port not dropping below 28C.

One child died of heatstroke in Italy on Monday, where temperatures of 40C are expected to hit later this week. Red heat alerts were in place for at least 10 Italian cities, including Rome, Milan and Florence.

A four-year-old Romanian boy, who was found unconscious in a car in Sardinia was airlifted to a hospital in Rome but died due to irreversible brain damage, reportedly caused by heatstroke, medical authorities told AFP.

France’s Health Minister Catherine Vautrin said hospitals were braced for fallout from the country’s second heatwave in just a few weeks.

In Montenegro, a soldier died and another was seriously injured when their water tanker overturned while battling flames n the hills north of the capital, Podgorica.

In Portugal, firefighters battled three large wildfires, including a large blaze in Trancoso in the centre of the country.

Turkey has brought several major fires under control, including in Canakkale and Izmir, after hundreds were evacuated and the Dardanelles Strait and Canakkale airport were closed.

Parts of the UK are sweltering in its fourth heatwave of the year, with temperatures hitting 33C and amber and yellow heat health alerts in place for all of England.

Two grassfires broke out in the capital on Tuesday, one in Ealing and another in Wanstead Flats, burning more than 17 acres combined.

Scientists warn global warming is making Mediterranean summers hotter and drier, fuelling longer and more intense fire seasons.

US National Guard troops have begun appearing on the streets of Washington DC, a day after President Donald Trump deployed the troops to the city and took control of its police force as he argued violent crime was out of control.

Armoured vehicles were spotted at urban centres and tourist sites around the US capital on Tuesday evening.

Officials have said that 800 National Guard troops are expected to be deployed, as well as 500 federal law enforcement agents.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, who has denied crime is out of control in her city, described the troop deployment as an “authoritarian push”.

Trump, a Republican, has also threatened similar deployments against New York and Chicago, two other cities controlled by Democrats.

He has said crime is on the rise in the cities including in Washington DC, although analysis by BBC Verify suggests a different trend in DC.

Violent offences fell after peaking in 2023, and in 2024, they hit their lowest level in 30 years, according to figures published by Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police (MPDC).

They are continuing to fall, according to preliminary data for 2025.

Violent crime overall is down 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and robbery is down 28%, according to the MPDC.

• Is crime in Washington DC ‘out of control’, as Trump claims?

The camouflaged troops have been trickling into the US capital since Trump’s announcement on Monday.

They have been seen erecting barricades outside several government buildings, and taking photos with tourists.

Twenty-three people were arrested by federal agents on Monday night, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The agents are aiding local law enforcement.

She said the arrests were for homicide, gun offences, drug dealing, lewd acts, stalking, reckless driving, and other crimes.

“This is only the beginning,” said Leavitt.

“Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the District who breaks the law, undermines public safety, and endangers law-abiding Americans.”

FBI Director Kash Patel later said FBI agents were involved in around half of those arrests.

Both the mayor of Washington and the city’s police chief said earlier in the day they shared the same goal as the federal agents.

“What I’m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the federal officers that we have,” Bowser said after a meeting on Tuesday with US Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said: “We know that we have to get illegal guns off of our streets, and if we have this influx of enhanced presence, we know that it’s going to make our city even better.”

But at a town hall on Tuesday night, the mayor sharpened her criticism of Trump.

Bowser called on community members to “protect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push”, according to the New York Times.

It comes as a manhunt was launched for an armed assailant who killed a man on Monday night in Logan Circle, one of Washington DC’s trendiest neighbourhoods, just a mile from the White House.

It was the 100th homicide recorded in Washington DC this year, according to local media.

Police say the suspect was last seen wearing a black shirt and carrying a rifle.

The shooting prompted US Secret Service to bolster security outside the president’s home as a precaution.

Despite crime figures showing a decrease in violent offences, DC Police Union chairman Gregg Pemberton has said the city police department is “deliberately falsifying crime data, creating a false narrative of reduced crime while communities suffer”.

FBI data has also indicated a drop in crime in Washington DC last year – a more modest decrease of 9%.

Studies suggest the capital’s homicide rate is higher than average compared with other major US cities.

A homeless man in the Australian state of Victoria has been charged with the alleged murder of a pregnant woman and her partner, whose head was decapitated.

Police were called to a unit in Melbourne’s south-east on Monday evening where they found the bodies of Athena Georgopoulos, 39, and Andrew Gunn, 50.

Several hours later, police arrested Ross Judd, 34, at a train station about 7km from the scene. He appeared in court on Wednesday, charged with two counts of murder.

Police say the attack appears to be targeted but the relationship between the couple and the accused is not yet known. Police are also investigating graffiti outside the unit with the words “betrayal” and “enough is enough”.

During Wednesday’s hearing at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, prosecutors requested another 10 weeks to prepare their brief of evidence – which was granted – due to the complexity of the case and delays in the autopsies of the victims.

Judd’s lawyer also asked that her client be assessed by a prison nurse to follow up on his medication.

Victoria police first received a call on Monday evening, requesting a welfare check at the Mount Waverley unit after “some yelling” was heard from the property.

Police received a second call a few minutes later, prompting authorities to rush to the address, arriving just before 22:00 (13:00 BST) where the two bodies were found.

According to local media reports, Georgopoulos was five months pregnant with a baby girl.

Early investigations suggest the alleged suspect arrived at the unit on Monday evening, and “then obviously an altercation has occurred,” police told the media.

“It appears to be a targeted attack, our suspect is known to the address,” homicide squad detective Dean Thomas said.

“It does not appear to be a random attack and we are not looking for anybody else.”

Thomas said the suspect appears to have known Mr Gunn, but police were still working out the connection.

A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that detectives will also investigate if graffiti found outside the unit is relevant to the murder investigation.

The case was adjourned to January next year, and Judd was remanded in custody.

A standout feature of the India-UK free trade agreement signed last month was the Narendra Modi government’s decision to open India’s vast government procurement market to UK suppliers.

This typically includes a range of things the government buys – from goods and services to contracts for public works such as roads.

Some 40,000 high-value tenders worth £38bn from federal ministries will now be open to bidding for UK businesses in strategic sectors like transport, green energy and infrastructure – areas which have thus far been heavily protected from foreign competition.

The access is unprecedented, trade experts say.

It is “far greater” than what India had offered in its earlier agreement with the United Arab Emirates and “sets a new benchmark”, Ajay Srivastava of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think-tank, told the BBC.

Under the agreement, UK firms bidding for Indian government contracts in specified areas will be treated almost on par with Indian suppliers and also have real-time access to information on forthcoming public tenders and procurement opportunities.

Also, goods from the UK made with just 20% domestic input can now be supplied to the Indian government, allowing UK companies the flexibility to source up to 80% of the parts or raw material from other countries and still qualify for procurement preference in India.

The minimum contract value at which these firms can bid for government projects has also been sharply reduced as a result of which “UK companies can now bid on a wide range of lower-value projects – such as rural roads, solar equipment for schools, or IT systems for government offices – that were previously out of reach”, said Mr Srivastava.

But for British companies, realising this opportunity on the ground will be easier said than done, several experts told the BBC.

While UK suppliers are eligible to participate as Class-II local suppliers, Indian companies will continue to get preferential treatment as Class-I suppliers, says Dr Arpita Mukherjee, a trade expert with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.

Moreover, pricing plays a key role in winning contracts, and “UK companies tend to have higher prices” compared with Indian companies, which will be a major challenge for them, she adds.

A more significant deterrent will be delayed payments and difficult contract enforcement, which are “major legacy issues when it comes to public procurement in India”, says Srijan Shukla of the Observer Research Foundation think-tank.

He says a study on procurement by India’s central public sector enterprises from 2017 to 2020 found that pending payments to suppliers were often more than the total average procurement in a year.

“This will impact UK players trying to enter India’s public procurement markets, especially when it comes to public contracts that have long-time horizons and are subject to regulatory and political uncertainties,” Mr Shukla told the BBC.

Pending dues have been a major irritant for India’s small businesses too, leading to short-term liquidity issues that often “force them out of these procurement markets and reallocate that business to the big players”, according to Mr Shukla.

Much of this is reflected in India’s poor ranking – 163 out of 190 – on contract enforcement in the World Bank’s Doing Business report, the latest round of which was in 2020.

While things have improved since these rankings were published – with one-stop-shop portals like Government e-Marketplace, the Central Public Procurement Portal or the recently launched online dispute resolution portal bringing more transparency to the public tendering process – payment discipline by government entities continues to remain a challenge, says Mr Shukla.

According to Ms Mukherjee, the India-UK trade agreement emphasises transparency in procurement but omits issues like pending dues, contract enforcement and penalties.

She adds the deal excludes the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement’s dispute settlement provisions for four years after the CETA takes effect – these provisions usually define how disputes are resolved.

“Doing business in India is an acquired skill. Over time, companies from the UK will have to learn the way to work around complexities regarding the art of winning public tenders and navigating though complex regulations,” Mr Shukla says.

Despite the niggling issues, allowing foreign players entry into India’s government procurement market marks a far-reaching policy shift.

It shows the Indian government’s intentions to open up a space that has long been reserved for local small and medium enterprises, and could be reflective of the concessions Delhi is willing to give foreign players in future trade agreements like the one being negotiated with the US, according to GTRI.

India is late to including deep government procurement clauses in trade deals, making its current efforts a catch-up game, says Mr Shukla.

It is also a sign, he says, of the Indian government’s “confidence that its own firms can compete with global firms both externally and at home”.

The hope is that more foreign players will force more accountability from the Indian government and “help standardise” its tendering and public procurement process – marked by payment delays and poor contract enforcement – to global standards.

Drive three hours north of Perth, and you’ll arrive in Eneabba – barren and desolate, just the odd hill in the distance.

This is Western Australia mining territory. Buried in this vast terrain is a massive pit, full of what looks like mounds of worthless dirt.

But appearances can be deceiving: this pit is home to a million-tonne stockpile containing critical minerals, better known as rare earths, which are crucial for making electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence equipment.

And Australia is betting big on this discovery with a billion dollar loan to a mining company to extract these metals – and disrupt a supply chain that China has monopolised.

Will the gamble pay off?

China’s chokehold on rare earths has hit home with US President Donald Trump’s trade wars. When Beijing restricted exports, a powerful bargaining chip in tariff negotiations, it sent manufacturers around the world into their war rooms. China, they realised with alarm, had the power to stop their factories.

Ford even halted production of its popular Explorer SUV for a week at one of its Chicago plants – a bold move while grappling with Trump’s tariffs.

A month later, CEO Jim Farley revealed the pause was triggered by a shortage of rare earths, admitting the company was still struggling to secure reliable supply. “It’s day to day,” Mr Farley told Bloomberg TV.

Beijing has since agreed to let rare earth minerals and magnets flow to the United States, which eased the bottleneck.

But without a US-China trade deal, the fear is that the disruption could return.

“The West dropped the ball – that’s the reality. And China was in for the long run. It saw the benefit and was willing to invest in it,” says Jacques Eksteen, chair for extractive metallurgy at Curtin University.

The phrase “rare earths” – referring to 17 elements on the periodic table which are lightweight, super strong and resistant to heat, making them useful in small electric motors – is something of a misnomer.

“Rare earths are not rare or scarce. Gold is scarce, but it’s not a critical material,” Professor Eksteen explains.

Rare earths are critical, however. Take the average electric vehicle – there might be rare earths-based motors in dozens of components from side mirrors and speakers to windscreen wipers and braking sensors.

The problem is therefore not amount, but the fact “somewhere in the supply chain you’ve got one or maybe a few countries controlling that bottleneck”, Professor Eksteen adds.

In the 90s, Europe and France in particular had a prominent rare earths industry. Today, almost all these minerals come from China, which has spent decades mining and refining at scale.

China now accounts for more than half of global rare earth mining, and almost 90% of processing.

The US sources 80% of its rare earth imports from China, while the European Union relies on China for about 98% of its supply.

“China has since very deliberately and overtly sought to control the market for the purposes of supporting their downstream manufacturing and defence industries,” says Dan McGrath, head of rare earths for Iluka Resources, in between driving us around the company’s vast Eneabba site.

But Mr McGrath, and Iluka, are hoping to make a dent in that control – even if it wasn’t necessarily in the company’s original plan.

For decades, Iluka has been mining zircon in Australia – a key ingredient in ceramics, and titanium dioxide used in the pigmentation of paint, plastics and paper.

It just so happens the byproducts of these mineral sands include dysprosium and terbium – some of the most sought-after rare earths.

Over the years, Iluka has built up the stockpile, and is now worth more than $650m (£440m).

This was the easy part, however. The processing or refining is another matter altogether.

“They’re chemically very similar so to try and separate them requires a huge number of stages,” Professor Eksteen explained.

“Also, you’ve got residues and wastes that you have to deal with out of this industry, and that’s problematic. They often produce radioactive materials. It comes at a cost.”

And that is one of the reasons the Australian government is loaning Iluka A$1.65bn ($1bn; £798m) to build a refinery to meet demand for rare earths which Iluka sees growing by 50-170% by the end of the decade.

“We expect to be able to supply a significant proportion of Western demand for rare earths by 2030. Our customers recognise that having an independent, secure and sustainable supply chain outside of China is fundamental for the continuity of their business,” says Mr McGrath.

“This refinery and Iluka’s commitment to the rare earth business is an alternative to China.”

But the refinery will take another two years to build and come online.

“Without the strategic partnership we have with the Australian government, a rare earths project would not be economically viable,” Mr McGrath says.

China’s recent willingness to turn supply of rare earths on and off has spurred trading partners to diversify their suppliers.

Iluka says because automakers for example plan their production years in advance, it is already fielding requests for when its refinery does come online.

Rare earths are critical to the green transition, electric vehicles, and defence technologies – making their control a pressing national priority.

“The open international market in critical minerals and rare earths is a mirage. It doesn’t exist. And the reason it doesn’t exist is because there is one supplier of these materials and they have the wherewithal to change where the market goes, whether that be in pricing or supply,” Australia’s resources minister Madeleine King says.

Canberra sees government intervention as necessary to provide an alternative supply, and help the world rely less on China.

“We can either sit back and do nothing about that… or we can step up to take on the responsibility to develop a rare earths industry here that competes with that market,” Ms King adds.

But there is something that Australia will have to contend with as it invests and works to expand a rare earths industry – pollution.

In China, environmental damage from years of processing rare earths has led to chemicals and radioactive waste seeping into waterways – cities and people bearing the scars of decades of poor regulation.

With rare earths, it’s not so much about the mining footprint, rather the processing that is a dirty business – because it involves extraction, leaching, thermal cracking and refining which produce radioactive components.

“I think there is no metal industry that is completely clean… unfortunately, it’s a matter of picking your poison sometimes,” Professor Eksteen says.

“In Australia, we’ve got mechanisms to handle that. We’ve got a legal environment and a framework to work with that to at least deal with it responsibly.”

The EU has in the past accused China of using a “quasi monopoly” on rare earths as a bargaining chip, weaponising it to undermine competitors in key industries.

The bloc – which is home to hundreds of auto manufacturers that so desperately need rare earths – said even if China has loosened restrictions on supplies, the threat of supply chain shocks remains.

Even if building a brand new industry will take time, Australia seems to have a lot going for it in the rare earths race, as it tries to be a more reliable and cleaner source.

And one that – crucially – is independent of China.

Fashion accessories chain Claire’s is on the brink of collapse after the retailer said it will appoint administrators in the UK and Ireland, putting 2,150 jobs at risk.

The company has 278 shops in the UK and 28 in Ireland but has been struggling with falling sales and fierce competition.

Claire’s said all outlets will continue trading while administrators at Interpath said they will “assess options for the company” once appointed.

Interpath chief executive Will Wright, said this could include “exploring the possibility of a sale which would secure a future for this well-loved brand”.

Claire’s chief executive Chris Cramer said the company had taken the “difficult” decision to appoint administrators to allow stores to remain open “while we explore the best possible path forward”.

Claire’s had been particularly popular for its ear piercing services and was a common stop in the early 2000s for tweens and teens during weekend shopping trips in malls across the world.

Its stores were known for their colourful selection of hair bands, earrings, jewellery, and occasionally for toys like slime and fluffy toys.

The move in the UK comes after it filed for bankruptcy in the US earlier this month, where the firm said it was suffering from people moving away from bricks-and-mortar shops. It also had $690m (£508m) in debt.

The company operates under two brand names, Claire’s and Icing, and is owned by a group of firms, including investment giant Elliott Management.

Similar to its UK administration process, the firm said all of its US shops will remain open until an alternative future is found.

Claure’s is the latest casualty in several shop-heavy firms who have suffered from the decline of the High Street as people move more towards shopping online.

In its US filing, Mr Cramer blamed “increased competition, consumer spending trends and the ongoing shift away from brick-and-mortar retail” for the declaration of bankruptcy, as well as “debt obligations” and wider economic turmoil.

He said on Wednesday that it was a “challenging period” and that “in the UK, taking this step will allow us to continue to trade the business while we explore the best possible path forward”.

Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the popularity of the Claire’s brand had “waned”.

While stores were once great for brand recognition, she said younger people now pay more attention to brands making their mark online.

“The chain is now faced with stiff competition from Tiktok and Insta shops, and by cheap accessories sold by fast fashion giants like Shein and Temu,” she said.

Other analysts said many accessory shop chain like Claire’s have been hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs imposed on China and its neighbours.

“A lot of that category is sourced from Asia, and any increase in import costs hits hard when your price points are low and margins are tight,” retail analyst Catherine Shuttleworth said at the time of Claire’s US bankruptcy filing.