The Israeli military says it is calling up about 60,000 reservists ahead of a planned ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City.

A military official said the reservists would report for duty in September and that most of the troops mobilised for the offensive would be active-duty personnel.

They added that troops were already operating in the Zeitoun and Jabalia areas as part of the preparations for the plan, which Defence Minister Israel Katz approved on Tuesday and will be put to the security cabinet later this week.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City are expected to be ordered to evacuate and head to shelters in southern Gaza.

Many of Israel’s allies have condemned the plan, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning on Wednesday that it “can only lead to disaster for both peoples and risks plunging the entire region into a cycle of permanent war”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) meanwhile said further displacement and an intensification of hostilities “risk worsening an already catastrophic situation” for Gaza’s 2.1 million population.

Israel’s government announced its intention to conquer the entire Gaza Strip after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down last month.

Mediators Qatar and Egypt are trying to secure an agreement before the offensive begins and have presented a new proposal for a 60-day truce and the release of around half of the 50 hostages held in Gaza, which Hamas said it had accepted on Monday.

Israel has not yet submitted a formal response, but Israeli officials insisted on Tuesday that they would no longer accept a partial deal and demanded a comprehensive one that would see all the hostages released. Only 20 of them are believed to be still alive.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that orders calling up 60,000 reservists were issued on Wednesday as part of the preparations for “the next phase of Operation Gideon’s Chariots” – the ground offensive that it launched in May and has seen it take control of at least 75% of Gaza.

In addition, 20,000 reservists who had already been called up would receive a notice extending their current orders, it added.

The military official said senior commanders had approved the plan for what they described as a “gradual, precise and targeted operation in and around Gaza City”, with troops entering some areas where they had not gone previously.

Five divisions were expected to take part in the offensive, the official added.

The Haaretz newspaper quoted Defence Minister Katz as saying on Tuesday: “Once the operation is completed, Gaza will change its face and will no longer look as it did in the past.”

He also reportedly approved a plan to “accommodate” Gaza City residents in the south of the territory, including the coastal al-Mawasi area, where the military official said field hospitals would be established.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the military’s objectives are to secure the release of all the hostages held by Hamas and “complete the defeat” of the Palestinian armed group.

The IDF also announced on Wednesday that the Givati Brigade had resumed operations in the northern town of Jabalia and on the outskirts of Gaza City, where it said they were “dismantling military infrastructures above and below ground, eliminating terrorists, and consolidating operational control”.

It said civilians were being told to move south for their safety “to mitigate the risk of harm”.

A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP news agency on Tuesday that the situation was “very dangerous and unbearable” in the city’s Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods, where he said “shelling continues intermittently”.

The agency reported that Israeli strikes and fire had killed 21 people across the territory on Wednesday. They included three children and their parents whose home in the Badr area of Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was bombed, it said.

The IDF meanwhile said 15 Palestinian fighters had attempted to infiltrate one of its positions in the southern city of Khan Younis on Wednesday. The IDF said one Israeli soldier was severely injured and 10 of the attackers were killed during the incident. Hamas’s military wing said it had attacked the position and that at least one fighter carried out a suicide bombing.

The UN and non-governmental organisations operating in Gaza have warned of the humanitarian impact of a new Israeli offensive.

“The Israeli plan to intensify military operations in Gaza City will have a horrific humanitarian impact on people already exhausted, malnourished, bereaved, displaced, and deprived of basics needed for survival,” they said in a joint statement on Monday.

“Forcing hundreds of thousands to move south is a recipe for further disaster and could amount to forcible transfer,” they added. Forcible transfer of a civilian population is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

They also said the areas of the south where displaced residents were expected to move were “overcrowded and ill-equipped to sustain human survival at scale”.

The ICRC said on Wednesday that a further intensification of military operations threatened “an irreversible humanitarian crisis” and that the lives of the hostages might also be put at risk. Some of them are believed to be held in Gaza City.

The UN human rights office said hundreds of families had already been forced to flee eastern and southern Gaza City over the past few days, while others reportedly remained trapped, completely cut off from food, water and medical supplies.

It also noted that Israel was telling displaced Palestinians to move to al-Mawasi even though it continued to carry out deadly strikes there.

The World Food Programme meanwhile warned that malnutrition in Gaza had crossed emergency levels and was “rising fast”, with more children and mothers showing severe symptoms. The UN agency said it was scaling up treatment but that “needs outpace the response”.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry also reported that another three people had died as a result of malnutrition over the previous 24 hours, raising the total number of such deaths since the start of the war to 269, including 112 children.

The UN has said it needs unimpeded humanitarian access across all of Gaza, with aid entering at scale through all possible crossings. It has said incoming supplies remain far from sufficient because of Israeli restrictions.

Israeli military body Cogat, which controls the entry of aid into Gaza, said in response to the WFP’s statement that hundreds of lorry loads of supplies were being delivered daily and that food prices were “plummeting”. It has also previously accused the health ministry of misrepresenting deaths from pre-existing medical conditions as malnutrition.

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

At least 62,122 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry. The ministry’s figures are quoted by the UN and others as the most reliable source of statistics available on casualties.

The Kremlin has played down talk of an imminent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, as Donald Trump renewed his call for the two leaders to meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

The push for a bilateral meeting comes after the US president met Putin in Alaska last week, and welcomed seven European leaders and Zelensky to the White House on Monday.

Trump admitted the conflict was “a tough one” to solve and conceded it was possible the Russian president was not interested in ending hostilities.

“We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal.”

Putin faced a “rough situation” if that were the case, Trump added, without offering any details.

Despite initially pushing for a three-way summit with Putin and Zelensky, Trump is now suggesting “it would be better” if the two leaders initially met without him.

He added that he would attend a meeting with them “if necessary”, but wanted to “see what happens”.

The Russian president told Trump on Monday that he was “open” to the idea of direct talks with Ukraine, but the next day Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov watered down that already vague commitment.

Any meeting would have to be prepared “gradually… starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps”, he said, repeating a frequent noncommittal Kremlin line.

Dmitry Polyanskiy, a Russian deputy representative to the UN, told the BBC “nobody [had] rejected” the opportunity for direct talks, “but it shouldn’t be a meeting for the sake of a meeting”.

Meanwhile, in some of the latest attacks on the ground, Russia hit a gas distribution station in Odesa overnight and launched multiple strikes on a town in Sumy region, injuring 14 people including three children, Ukrainian officials said.

Nato’s military chiefs are expected to hold a virtual meeting on Wednesday, while the UK’s military chief, Admiral Tony Radakin, is travelling to Washington for discussions on the deployment of a reassurance force in Ukraine.

It was reported that Putin had suggested to Trump that Zelensky could travel to Moscow for talks, something Ukraine was never likely to accept.

The proposal may have been Russia’s way of putting forward an option so far-fetched Kyiv could not possibly have agreed to it.

Talks over the last few days appear to have given Trump a renewed understanding of the complexities of the war and the gulf between Moscow’s demands and Kyiv’s position.

The much-vaunted ceasefire he said he could get Putin to agree to has not materialised, and now the US president has said Ukraine and Russia should move directly to a permanent peace deal instead – but some headway was made in terms of security guarantees for Ukraine.

Zelensky and European leaders seem to have convinced Trump that such commitments would be paramount to Kyiv’s sovereignty in the event of a peace deal.

On Tuesday, Trump said the US was willing to help the Europeans “by air” if they provided boots on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or peace deal, although he ruled out deploying US troops.

The US president, however, did not go into the specifics of whether such air support may entail intelligence or the use of fighter jets and war planes.

While Trump’s commitments remain vague, the France and UK-led “coalition of the willing” said it had been working to firm up plans for a reassurance force that could be sent to Ukraine if the hostilities end.

After a virtual meeting of the group on Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesperson said the group would meet US counterparts in the coming days to “further strengthen plans to deliver robust security guarantees”.

Following his summit with Putin and latest talks with Zelensky, Trump now appears to think direct talks between Ukraine and Russia could bring a peace deal closer – although he acknowledged there had been “tremendous bad blood” between the two leaders.

The last time they met was in 2019. Since then, Moscow’s war on Kyiv has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties as well as widespread destruction and ongoing aerial attacks on civilian targets.

Putin considers Zelensky illegitimate and views him as responsible for Ukraine’s growing proximity to the West. For years, he has made baseless claims about Kyiv being ruled by a “neo-Nazi regime” and has said any ceasefire with Ukraine would need to entail a change in Kyiv’s leadership – while Russian state media routinely mocks Zelensky and calls him a “clown”.

Russia also has little interest in agreeing to talks while its troops have the upper hand on the front line.

Still, European leaders and Zelensky have spoken in favour of the idea of a bilateral meeting. The Ukrainian president said on Monday he was open to “any format” of meeting Putin, while the Europeans have been putting forward ideas for potential summit locations.

French President Emmanuel Macron has mentioned the Swiss city of Geneva, while Budapest has reportedly been floated by Hugarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

However, Orban has maintained close ties with Moscow and has recently pushed the argument that Russia has won the war in Ukraine – so Kyiv may be sceptical that Budapest would offer sufficiently neutral ground.

By enthusiastically supporting direct talks, they are likely hoping to convince Trump to revert to a tougher stance against Moscow should Putin remain unwilling to take steps to end the war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European partners appear significantly less optimistic than Trump that a resolution of the conflict could be within reach.

On Tuesday, Macron called Putin “a predator, and an ogre at our doorstep” and expressed “the greatest doubt” that the Russian president was willing to work towards peace.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Putin was “rarely to be trusted”, adding he was sceptical about a meeting with Zelensky materialising.

More high-level talks are planned for the coming days as questions over Trump’s level of support for Europe remain.

Police in Jeju have for the first time released guidelines reminding foreign visitors to behave or face fines, as the South Korean holiday island sees an increasing number of tourists.

Jeju police issued the guide following complaints from locals over foreigners’ misbehaviour, including littering and letting children defecate on the street.

The guide – printed in Chinese, English and Korean – is the first of its kind in the country, local police say, and comes during the peak summer season.

Jeju, a volcanic island south of the Korean peninsula, is popular for its beaches, walking trails and windswept mountain views. Foreign visitors also come to Jeju for shopping and gambling.

The guide aims to “prevent misunderstandings due to language and cultural differences and improve foreigners’ understanding of Korean culture and laws”, said Jeju Police Agency chief Kim Su-young.

An initial eight thousand copies of the guide will be printed and distributed immediately, Kim said.

The guide lists down “minor offences” that are punishable by fines. These include smoking in prohibited areas, littering, jaywalking, drunk and disorderly behaviour, running away from restaurants without paying for meals, urinating or defecating in public, using a fake ID, and trespassing and breaking into empty houses.

First time violators are let off with with a warning, but repeat offenders could be fined by as much as 200,000 won ($143; £106), according to a copy of the guide released by police.

South Korea has seen a strong post-pandemic rebound in tourism. Jeju alone has welcomed seven million visitors so far this year, according to local media.

In 2024, foreign visitors pumped a record 9.26 trillion won into the local economy. Nearly 70% of these visitors visiting Jeju were from China.

The island’s crackdown on misbehaviour also highlights how tourism hotspots across Asia have been responding to over-tourism.

Last year, a Japanese town blocked a famous roadside view of Mount Fuji to ward off tourists seeking to take pictures and selfies.

Israel’s prime minister has accused his Australian counterpart of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Australia’s Jewish community, after days of growing strain between the two countries.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that history would remember Anthony Albanese “for what he is: a weak politician”.

Australia barred a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition from entering the country on Monday, and Israel in turn revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Netanyahu was “lashing out” over Canberra recently announcing it would join the UK, France and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state.

“Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many people you can leave hungry,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday.

Albanese later told reporters he does not “take these things personally”.

“I treat leaders of other countries with respect, I engage with them in a diplomatic way,” he said.

Israel’s opposition leader criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, branding them a “gift” to the Australian leader.

Yair Lapid wrote on X: “The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world.

“It is unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Prime Minister of Australia this gift.”

Diplomatic tensions flared on Monday after far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman’s Australian visa was cancelled ahead of a visit to the country, where he had been due to speak at events organised by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).

Burke told local media at the time that the government took “a hard line” on people seeking to “spread division”.

“If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here,” he said.

Last year, Burke also denied a visa to Israel’s former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, a right-wing politician who left parliament in 2022.

A few hours after the revocation of Rothman’s visa was announced, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said he had instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to “carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel”.

He added in a post on X: “While antisemitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it.”

In recent months, there have been a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia – which is home to one of the world’s largest populations of Holocaust survivors per capita.

On Tuesday, the AJA said Rothman would still appear at their speaking event virtually.

“The Jewish community won’t bow down to Tony Burke or [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong,” it said in a social media post.

Australia announced in early August that it would recognise a Palestinian state, with Albanese saying at the time that Netanyahu was “in denial” about the consequences of the war on innocent people.

“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable,” he said.

Palestine is currently recognised as a state by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states, and Australia’s announcement came about two weeks after similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

In response, Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the three countries, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

More than 62,064 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

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

Heavy rainfall in India’s financial capital Mumbai has disrupted the lives of millions of people, submerging roads and leading to flight and train cancellations.

Many parts of the city remain inundated in waist-deep water, with videos showing residents swimming through waterlogged roads as garbage gushed out from clogged sewers.

Authorities on Tuesday rescued 600 people who got stuck on an overcrowded monorail system that stopped mid-journey. At least 23 had to be treated for suffocation, officials have said.

Monsoon rains are common in Maharashtra state – where Mumbai is located – around this time of the year.

But the region is experiencing particularly heavy rainfall this time. At least 21 people have died in rain-related accidents across the state this week.

In just four days, Mumbai has seen 800mm of rainfall, according to the India Meteorological Department, which is well above the average rain recorded in August.

India’s weather department has issued a red alert for the city and its neighbouring districts, predicting very heavy rains to continue on Wednesday, but has said the situation would improve later in the week.

Most schools and colleges are shut and some 350 people have been shifted from the city’s low-lying areas to temporary shelters.

Mumbai’s local trains – a lifeline for millions of commuters – have seen heavy disruptions with thousands of people waiting on platforms on Tuesday as services were delayed for hours.

“Trains scheduled for last night have left this morning and those supposed to leave this morning have been delayed to later,” a passenger told news agency ANI.

• Why monsoon rains wreak havoc annually in India’s cities
• India’s ‘Silicon Valley’ flooded after heavy rains

Flight operations to and from the city’s international airport have also taken a hit, with 50 flights reportedly cancelled over the past few days.

“While we want your journey to be as hassle-free as possible, Mother nature has her own plans. With heavy rains expected again in Mumbai, there’s a chance this could lead to air traffic congestion and impact flight operations,” budget carrier IndiGo said on X.

Meanwhile, chaos erupted on Tuesday after a monorail system, which was reportedly full far beyond its capacity, halted mid-track.

A passenger who was on the train told BBC Marathi that with the air-conditioning switched off, passengers tried to open the doors to call for help.

Fire department and police teams had to use cranes to bring stranded passengers down from the elevated tracks.

A preliminary investigation suggested the incident took place due to “overcrowding in the train”, according to reports.

Opposition lawmakers have blamed the government for being ill-prepared to handle the situation.

Aaditya Thackeray of the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) party said several areas, including Mumbai, were witnessing an “absolute collapse of governance”.

He alleged that the government had done “zero planning” despite red alerts being issued, pointing out that the city’s airport was flooded on Tuesday and new water-logging spots had emerged – particularly around recently built infrastructure.

Several citizens also took to social media, criticising the city’s collapsing infrastructure and poor planning.

Mumbai is one of India’s richest cities, significantly contributing to the country’s GDP, industrial output and trade.

Home to more than 12 million people, it has long attracted migrants from across the country who come in search of better opportunities.

While the city has seen a bevy of infrastructure upgrades in recent years – including coastal roads, sea bridges and a new metro system – experts say investments to improve ageing drainage systems and climate-resilient infrastructure have not kept pace with the growing population.

A traffic accident in western Afghanistan has killed 79 people, including 17 children, most of whom were on a bus carrying Afghan migrants deported from Iran, a Taliban interior ministry spokesperson confirmed to the BBC.

The bus, en route to Kabul, caught fire on Tuesday night after colliding with a truck and motorcycle in Herat province.

Everyone aboard the bus was killed, as well as two people from the other vehicles, Ahmadullah Mottaqi, the Taliban’s director of information and culture in Herat, told BBC Pashto earlier.

In recent months Iran has stepped up its deportations of undocumented Afghan migrants who have fled conflict in their homeland.

“All the passengers were migrants who had boarded the vehicle in Islam Qala,” provincial governor spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi told AFP, referring to a town near the Afghanistan–Iran border.

Herat police said the accident happened because of the bus driver’s “excessive speed and negligence”, AFP reported.

Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, where roads have been damaged by decades of conflict and driving regulations are not strongly enforced.

Since the 1970s, millions of Afghans have fled to Iran and Pakistan, with major waves during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

This has contributed to growing anti-Afghan sentiment in Iran, with refugees facing systemic discrimination.

Iran had previously given a July deadline for undocumented Afghans to depart voluntarily.

But since a brief war with Israel in June, Iranian authorities have forcibly returned hundreds of thousands of Afghans, alleging national security concerns – though critics say Tehran may simply be looking for scapegoats for its security failures against Israeli attacks.

More than 1.5 million Afghans have left Iran since January, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Some had been in Iran for generations.

Experts warn Afghanistan lacks the capacity to absorb the growing number of nationals forcibly returned to a country under Taliban government. The country is already struggling with a large influx of returnees from Pakistan, which is also forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave.

“The return of so many people is creating an additional strain on already overstretched resources, and this new wave of refugees comes at a time when the Afghanistan is starting to feel the brutal impacts of aid cuts,” said Arshad Malik, country director of Save the Children Afghanistan.

A Chinese national has been sentenced to eight years in prison for smuggling firearms and other military items to North Korea, the US justice department has said.

Shenghua Wen, 42, received around $2m (£1.5m) from North Korean officials to ship the items from California, according to a statement from the agency on Monday.

A resident of Ontario, California, Wen has been detained since December 2024. He pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and being an illegal agent of a foreign government.

Wen’s case shines a light on the various ways in which North Korea circumvents international sanctions on its arms trade.

Describing Wen as an “illegal alien”, the justice department said he entered the US on a student visa in 2012 and remained in the country after his visa expired in December 2013.

“Prior to entering the United States, Wen met with officials from North Korea’s government at a North Korean embassy in China,” the agency said. “These government officials directed Wen to procure goods on behalf of North Korea.”

Two North Korean officials reached Wen via an online messaging platform in 2022 and told him to smuggle firearms and other goods from the US to North Korea, according to the justice department.

In 2023, he shipped at least three containers of firearms from the Port of Long Beach to China, with their final destination being North Korea. He filed false export information about the container’s contents.

One such container, which he had reported as carrying a refrigerator, arrived in Hong Kong in January 2024 before being sent to Nampo, North Korea.

He also purchased a firearms business in Houston with money from a North Korean contact, and drove the weapons from Texas to California, where they were arranged to be shipped.

Last September, Wen bought around 60,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition with plans to ship them to North Korea.

US authorities also said that Wen obtained “sensitive technology” which he had meant to send to North Korea, such as a chemical threat identification device and a handheld broadband receiver.

“Wen admitted in his plea agreement that at all relevant times he knew that it was illegal to ship firearms, ammunition, and sensitive technology to North Korea,” the justice department said.

Under sanctions by the UN Security Council, North Korea is banned from trading arms and military equipment. The US has also imposed its own sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile activities.

But North Korea has developed ways to get around the sanctions.

In 2015, the US blacklisted a Singapore-based shipping firm for allegedly supporting illicit arms shipments to North Korea. In 2016, Egyptian authorities intercepted a North Korean ship containing more than 30,000 grenades bound for Egypt.

And in 2023, British American Tobacco had to pay more than $600m (£445m) for selling cigarettes to North Korea in violation of the sanctions.

M23 rebels killed at least 140 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last month in one of the worst atrocities by the armed group since its resurgence in late 2021, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.

This is despite a peace process, brokered by the US and Qatar, to end the conflict in the region.

Witnesses told the advocacy group that the Rwanda-backed rebels “summarily executed” local residents, including women and children, largely from the Hutu ethnic group in the Rutshuru area, near the Virunga National Park.

The rebels have previously strongly denied any role in these killings, calling the charges a “blatant misrepresentation of the facts”.

It did not respond to a request to comment on the report, the rights group said.

The alleged massacre appears to have taken place during an M23 campaign against an armed Hutu group, the FDLR, formed by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.

HRW said the total killings in July may exceed 300, corroborating similar findings by the UN earlier this month.

Fighting between government troops and the M23 escalated in January, when the rebels captured large parts of the mineral-rich east, including the regional capital Goma.

Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes in the ongoing conflict, the UN says.

• How Trump wants the US to cash in on mineral-rich DR Congo’s peace deal
• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?

In the report, released on Wednesday, HRW said the M23 used machetes and gunfire to attack people in at least 14 villages and farming areas near the Virunga National Park between 10 and 30 July.

The M23 fighters surrounded and blocked off all roads into the area to prevent people from leaving, witnesses said.

“We woke up on 11 July and [the M23] were there in large numbers.… [T]hey were already on our doorstep.… [T]hey killed people with guns and machetes,” a man said, adding that five members of his family were killed in Katanga area.

A woman who saw M23 fighters kill her husband with a machete on 11 July said that M23 fighters that day rounded up about 70 women and children.

“They told us to sit on the edge of the riverbank, and then they started shooting at us,” the woman was quoted as saying, adding that she survived after falling into the river without being shot.

Another man said that he watched as the rebels killed his wife and four children aged nine months to 10 years from afar, according to the report.

Locals said that M23 fighters told them to immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from organising funerals.

“M23 fighters also threw bodies, including of women and children, into the Rutshuru River,” the report added.

Citing 25 witness accounts plus medical workers, military and UN personnel, the report said that members of the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), were backing the M23 operation.

Earlier this month, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also reported that the RDF had supported the M23 killings of “at least 319 between 9 and 21 July in four villages in Rutshuru”.

Kigali has not responded to the HRW claim, but it has angrily denied the UN accusations, calling them “gratuitous” and “sensational allegations”, saying they risked undermining the peace process, and claiming that an armed group opposed to the M23 carried out the killings.

Rwanda denies persistent and widespread allegations that it provides military support to the M23, which is largely made up of the Tutsi ethnic group that was targeted by Hutu militias in the genocide.

But Kigali does see eastern DR Congo as a security threat, primarily because of the continued existence of the armed Hutu group, the FDLR, which fights alongside the army.

The killings occur amid stalled regional and international peace efforts to end the prolonged deadly conflict, including an agreement between Rwanda and the DR Congo government with provisions for Kinshasa to “neutralise” the FDLR.

Separately in Qatar last month, the M23 and the DR Congo government also signed a ceasefire deal, intended as a step towards a permanent peace.

But last week, as negotiations were set to resume, the M23 walked away from the peace talks. It said Kinshasa had failed to meet commitments outlined in the deal, although it has since announced it will send a “technical team” to Doha to discuss the practical arrangements for the truce.

The Congolese army has also accused the M23 of violating the ceasefire.

HRW has urged the UN Security Council, the European Union, and governments to condemn grave abuses witnessed in east DR Congo, impose further sanctions on those responsible and press for the arrest and appropriate prosecution of commanders implicated in the conflict.

• Listen: Why DR Congo is sponsoring FC Barcelona
• The would-be saint murdered ‘mafia-style’ for refusing bribes
• Inside the Congolese mine vital to mobile phones, as rebels give BBC rare access

Actress Aubrey Plaza has said life is “a daily struggle”, seven months after her estranged husband, film-maker Jeff Baena, took his own life.

The writer, director and producer died in January at the age of 47.

Plaza spoke about the aftermath for the first time in an interview on her former Parks and Recreation co-star Amy Poehler’s podcast.

Asked how she was feeling, Plaza said “I think I’m OK” before likening grief to a “giant ocean of awfulness”.

“Sometimes I just want to dive into it and just like be in it,” she said. “Then sometimes I just look at it, and sometimes I try to get away from it. But, it’s always there.”

Plaza and Baena got married in 2021 after working on films including 2014 horror Life After Beth and 2017 historical comedy The Little Hours.

He was found dead at his Los Angeles home in early January.

At the start of their interview on the Good Hang podcast, Poehler asked Plaza how she was.

“Right in this very, very present moment, I feel happy to be with you,” she replied.

“Overall, I’m here and I’m functioning. I feel really grateful to be moving through the world. I think I’m OK, but it’s like a daily struggle, obviously.”

The 41-year-old US actress went on to talk about 2025 movie The Gorge to describe her grief.

That film stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as two snipers guarding opposite sides of a mysterious deep chasm.

“This is a really dumb analogy and it was kind of a joke at a certain point, but I actually mean it. Did you see that movie The Gorge?” Plaza said.

“In the movie, there’s a cliff on one side and there’s a cliff on the other side, then there’s a gorge in between and it’s filled with all these monster people that are trying to get them.

“I swear when I watched it I was like, that feels like what my grief is like, or what grief could be like. At all times, there’s like a giant ocean of just awfulness that’s right there.”

The couple separated in September 2024, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator.

Plaza has also starred in TV’s The White Lotus and Marvel series Agatha All Along, and was speaking to promote her new film Honey Don’t!

Baena was best known for writing films like 2004’s I Heart Huckabees, and for writing and directing 2016’s Joshy, 2017’s The Little Hours and 2020’s Horse Girl.

French police are questioning a man on suspicion of murder after four bodies were found in the Seine near Paris.

The first victim was spotted by a passer-by near a bridge in Choisy-le-Roi, a south-eastern suburb of the capital, on 13 August. Later that day police searching the area discovered three more bodies immersed nearby.

Prosecutors say that one of the victims was strangled and another showed violent injuries.

The suspect is being held in Paris. Police have given no details about him or how many murders he is being questioned over.

The first body had only been in the water for a short time and was identified as a local 40-year-old man, prosecutors said.

The three others were found in “a very advanced state of decomposition”, they added.

The prosecutors stressed there was so far no evidence of a link between the victims. They could have been submerged in separate places upstream and taken by the current to the foot of the Choisy bridge.

High on a hill in the west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, behind a steel gate topped with barbed wire, lies a place few locals speak of, and even fewer visit.

The women’s wing of a mental health centre run by the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) is the largest of only a handful of facilities in the country dedicated to helping women with mental illnesses.

Locals call it Qala, or the fortress.

The BBC gained exclusive access to the crowded centre where staff find it difficult to cope with the 104 women currently within its walls.

Among them are women like Mariam* who says she is a victim of domestic violence.

Thought to be in her mid-20s, she’s been here for nine years, after enduring what she describes as abuse and neglect by her family, followed by a period of homelessness.

“My brothers used to beat me whenever I visited a neighbour’s house,” she alleges. Her family did not want to let her out of the house alone, she says, because of a cultural belief that young girls should not leave the house without supervision.

Eventually, her brothers appeared to have kicked her out, forcing her to live on the streets at a young age. It was here a woman found her and, apparently concerned about her mental health, brought her to the centre.

Despite her story, Mariam’s smile is constantly radiant. She is often seen singing, and is one of the few patients allowed to work around the building, volunteering to help with cleaning.

She is ready – and willing – to be discharged.

But she cannot leave because she has nowhere to go.

“I don’t expect to return to my father and mother. I want to marry someone here in Kabul, because even if I go back home, they’ll just abandon me again,” Mariam says.

As she can’t return to her abusive family, she is effectively trapped in the facility.

In Afghanistan, strict Taliban regulations and deeply-rooted patriarchal traditions make it nearly impossible for women to live independently. Women are legally and socially required to have a male guardian for travel, work, or even accessing many services, and most economic opportunities are closed to them.

Generations of gender inequality, limited education, and restricted employment have left many women financially dependent on male breadwinners, reinforcing a cycle where survival often hinges on male relatives.

Sat on a bed in one of the dormitories is Habiba.

The 28-year-old says she was brought to the centre by her husband, who was forcing her out of the family home after he married again.

Like Mariam, she now has nowhere else to go. She too is ready to be released, but her husband will not take her back, and her widowed mother cannot support her either.

Her three sons now live with an uncle. They visited her initially, but Habiba hasn’t seen them this year; without access to a phone, she cannot even make contact.

“I want to be reunited with my children,” she says.

Their stories are far from unique at the centre, where our visit, including conversations with staff and patients, is overseen by officials from the Taliban government.

Some patients have been here for 35 to 40 years, says Saleema Halib, a psychotherapist at the centre.

“Some have been completely abandoned by their families. No-one comes to visit, and they end up living and dying here.”

Years of conflict has left its mark on the mental health of many Afghans, especially women, and the issue is often poorly understood and subject to stigma.

In response to a recent UN report on the worsening situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, Hamdullah Fitrat, Taliban government’s deputy spokesperson, told the BBC that their government did not allow any violence against women and they have “ensured women’s rights in Afghanistan”.

But UN data released in 2024 points to a worsening mental health crisis linked to the Taliban’s crackdown on women’s rights: 68% of women surveyed reported having “bad” or “very bad” mental health.

Services are struggling to cope, both inside and outside the centre, which has seen a several-fold increase in patients over the last four years, and now has a waiting list.

“Mental illness, especially depression, is very common in our society,” says Dr Abdul Wali Utmanzai, a senior psychiatrist at a nearby hospital in Kabul, also run by ARCS.

He says he sees up to 50 outpatients a day from different provinces, most of them women: “They face severe economic pressure. Many have no male relative to provide for them – 80% of my patients are young women with family issues.”

The Taliban government says it is committed to providing health services. But with restrictions on women’s movement without a male chaperon, many cannot seek help.

All of this makes it more difficult for women like Mariam and Habiba to leave – and the longer they stay, the fewer places there are for those who say they desperately need help.

One family had been trying for a year to admit their 16-year-old daughter, Zainab, to the centre, but they were told there were no beds available. She is now one of the youngest patients there.

Until then she had been confined to her home – her ankles shackled to prevent her running away.

It’s not clear what mental health problems Zainab has been experiencing, but she struggles to verbalise her thoughts.

A visibly distressed Feda Mohammad says the police recently found his daughter miles from home.

Zainab had gone missing for days, which is especially dangerous in Afghanistan, where women are not allowed to travel long distances from home without a male guardian.

“She climbs the walls and runs away if we unchain her,” Feda Mohammad explains.

Zainab breaks down into tears every now and then, especially when she sees her mother crying.

Feda Mohammad says they noticed her condition when she was eight. But it worsened after multiple bombings hit her school in April 2022.

“She was thrown against a wall by the blast,” he says. “We helped carry out the wounded and collect the bodies. It was horrific.”

Exactly what would have happened if space hadn’t been found is unclear. Zainab’s father said her repeated attempts to run away were dishonouring him, and he argued it was better for her and her family that she is confined to the centre.

Whether she – like Mariam and Habiba – will now become one of Qala’s abandoned women remains to be seen.

As a journalist in Afghanistan, Abdul says he helped promote American values like democracy and freedom. That work, he said, resulted in him being tortured by the Taliban after the US withdrew from the country in 2021.

Now he’s in California applying for political asylum, amid the looming threat of deportation.

“We trusted those values,” he said. “We came here for safety, and we don’t have it, unfortunately.”

But when Abdul walked into a San Diego court to plead his case, he wasn’t alone.

Ten veterans showed up for his hearing – unarmed, but dressed in hats and shirts to signify their military credentials as a “show of force”, said Shawn VanDiver, a US Navy vet who founded ‘Battle Buddies’ to support Afghan refugees facing deportation.

“Masked agents of the federal government are snatching up our friends, people who took life in our name and have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Approximately 200,000 Afghans relocated to the US after Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, as the US left the country in chaos after two decades fighting the war on terror.

Many say they quickly felt embraced by Americans, who recognised the sacrifices they had made to help the US military and fight for human rights.

But since the Trump administration has terminated many of the programmes which protected them from deportation, Afghans now fear they will be deported and returned to their home country, which is now controlled by the Taliban.

Mr VanDiver, who also founded #AfghanEvac in 2021 to help allies escape the Taliban when the US withdrew, said US military veterans owe it to their wartime allies to try and protect them from being swept up in President Trump’s immigration raids.

“This is wrong.”

The Battle Buddies say they have a moral and legal obligation to stand and support Afghans. They now have more than 900 veteran volunteers across the country.

Many of the federal agents working for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are veterans themselves, he said, and the Battle Buddies think their presence alone might help deter agents from detaining a wartime ally.

“Remember, don’t fight ICE,” Mr VanDiver told his fellow Battle Buddies outside court before Abdul’s hearing, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

“If somebody does fight ICE, capture it on video. Those are the two rules.”

As Abdul and his lawyer went into court, the veterans stood in the corridor outside in a quiet and tense faceoff with half a dozen masked federal agents. It was the same hallway where an Afghan man, Sayed Naser, a translator who says he worked for the US military, was detained 12 June.

“This individual was an important part of our Company commitment to provide the best possible service for our clients, who were the United States Military in Afghanistan,” says one employment document submitted as part of Naser’s asylum application and reviewed by the BBC’s news partner in the US, CBS News.

“I have all the documents,” Mr Naser told the agents as he was handcuffed and taken away, which a bystander captured on video. “I worked with the US military. Just tell them.”

Mr Naser has been in detention since that day, fighting for political asylum from behind bars.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the BBC that there is nothing in his immigration records “indicating that he assisted the US government in any capacity”.

Whichever way Mr Naser’s case is decided, his detention is what inspired veterans to form the Battle Buddies. They say abandoning their wartime allies will hurt US national security because the US will struggle to recruit allies in the future.

“It’s short sighted to think we can do this and not lose our credibility,” said Monique Labarre, a US Army veteran who showed up for Abdul’s hearing. “These people are vetted. They put themselves at substantial risk by supporting the US government.”

President Trump has repeatedly blamed President Biden for a “disgraceful” and “humiliating” retreat from the country.

But the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was initially brokered by President Trump during his first term.

In their wake, American troops left behind a power vacuum that was swiftly and easily filled by the Taliban, who took control of the capital city, Kabul, in August 2021. Afghans, many who worked with the US military and NGOs, frantically swarmed the airport, desperate to get on flights along with thousands of US citizens.

Over the ensuing years, almost 200,000 Afghans would relocate to the US – some under special programmes designed for those most at risk of Taliban retribution.

The Trump administration has since ended one of them called Operation Enduring Welcome. It also ended the temporary protections which shielded some Afghans, as well as asylum seekers from several other countries, from deportation because of security concerns back home.

“Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilising economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement about terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghans.

She added that some Afghans brought in under these programmes “have been under investigation for fraud and threatening our public safety and national security”.

Afghans in the United States scoff at the suggestion that they’d be safe going back, saying their lives would be in danger.

“I couldn’t work,” said Sofia, an Afghan woman living in Virginia. “My daughters couldn’t go to school.”

With the removal of temporary protected status, the Trump administration could deport people back to Afghanistan. Although that is so far rare, some Afghans have already begun to be deported to third countries, including Panama and Costa Rica.

Sofia and other members of her family were among the thousands of Afghans who received emails in April from the Department of Homeland Security saying: “It is time for you to leave the United States.”

The email, which was sent to people with a variety of different kinds of visas, said their parole would expire in 7 days.

Sofia panicked. Where would she go? She did not leave the United States, and her asylum case is still pending. But the letter sent shockwaves of fear throughout the Afghan community.

When asked about protecting Afghan wartime allies on 30 July, President Trump said: “We know the good ones and we know the ones that maybe aren’t so good, you know some came over that aren’t so good. And we’re going to take care of those people – the ones that did a job.”

Advocates have urged the Trump administration to restore temporary protected status for Afghans, saying women and children could face particular harm under the Taliban-led government.

Advocates are hopeful that Naser will soon be released. They say he passed a “credible fear” screening while in detention, which can allow him to pursue political asylum because he fears persecution or torture if returned to Afghanistan.

The Battle Buddies say they plan to keep showing up for wartime allies at court. It’s not clear if their presence made a difference at Abdul’s hearing – but he wasn’t detained and is now a step closer to the political asylum he says he was promised.

“It’s a relief,” he said outside court while thanking the US veterans for standing with him. But he said he still fears being detained by ICE, and he worries that the US values he believed in, and was tortured for, might be eroded.

“In Afghanistan, we were scared of the Taliban,” he said. “We have the same feeling here from ICE detention.”

The US has reached bilateral deportation agreements with Honduras and Uganda as part of its crackdown on illegal immigration, according documents obtained by the BBC’s US partner CBS.

Uganda has agreed to take an unclear number of African and Asian migrants who had claimed asylum on the US-Mexico border, while Honduras will receive several hundred deported people from Spanish-speaking countries, CBS reports.

The move is part of an attempt by Donald Trump’s administration to get more countries to accept deported migrants who are not their own citizens.

Human rights campaigners have condemned the policy, saying migrants face the risk of being sent to countries where they could be harmed.

Under the agreement, Uganda has agreed to accept deported migrants as long as they do not have criminal histories, but it’s unclear how many the country would ultimately take, according to CBS.

Honduras agreed to receive migrants over two years, including families travelling with children, but documents suggest it could decide to accept more.

Both deals are part of the Trump administration’s broader push for deportation arrangements with countries on several continents – including those with controversial human rights records.

So far, at least a dozen nations have agreed to accept deported migrants from other countries.

Last week, the US State Department announced it had signed a “safe third country” agreement with Paraguay to “share the burden of managing illegal immigration”.

The White House has also been actively courting several African nations, with Rwanda saying earlier this month it will take up to 250 migrants from the US.

A condition of the deal specifies that Rwanda would have “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement”, a government spokesperson told the BBC.

Rwanda has previously been criticised for its human rights record, including the risk that those sent to the East African nation could be deported again to countries where they may face danger.

Earlier this year, Panama and Costa Rica agreed to take in several hundred African and Asian migrants from the US.

Government documents show the Trump administration has also approached countries like Ecuador and Spain to receive deported migrants, CBS reported.

Since the start of his second term, Trump has embarked on sweeping efforts to remove undocumented migrants – a key election promise that drew mass support during this campaign.

In June, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to resume deportations of migrants to countries other than their homeland without giving them the chance to raise the risks they might face.

At the time, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the majority ruling, calling the decision “a gross abuse”.

UN rights experts and human rights groups have also argued that these removals to a nation that is not the migrant’s place of origin could violate international law.

Brash, controversial and unafraid to speak his mind, South Africa’s Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie has been swift to call out racism in others but he himself has now been branded a racist – a charge he refutes.

He is often seen as the lightning rod for the frustrations of the country’s coloured community, as people of mixed heritage are referred to in South Africa’s population census.

But old comments McKenzie made on social media, using a profoundly offensive term referring to black people, have created a political storm.

He has until the end of Wednesday to respond to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which wants the minister to delete the offensive posts and issue a public apology, among other demands.

“Coloured” was the classification given to people of mixed heritage under apartheid. This system created a legally enforced racial hierarchy that saw white people at the top and black people at the bottom, with Indians and coloured people in between.

Despite apartheid being abolished three decades ago and the promotion of the “rainbow nation”, its bitter legacy lives on in the country’s economy and politics.

• The ex-gangster who has become South Africa’s sports minister
• Tyla’s racial identity: South African singer sparks culture war

McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance (PA) has attracted support among coloured people, winning parliamentary representation in elections last year.

“For the first time there is coloured people also going to parliament through the Patriotic Alliance,” McKenzie said, after the results were announced.

President Cyril Ramaphosa included the PA in his multi-party coalition government after his African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time.

The ANC sees McKenzie as useful to counter the second-biggest party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), in the campaign for the coloured vote, and to address perceptions of marginalisation within the coloured community.

The group makes up about 8% of South Africa’s population.

The politician has positioned himself as the outspoken defender of their interests.

There is a feeling expressed by some in the community that under apartheid they were not white enough and now in the new era they are not black enough.

This latest row blew up in July after McKenzie took a popular podcast, Open Chats, hosted by a group of young black people, to task for derogatory remarks they made about coloured people.

The clip has since been deleted from the episode, but it did not stop some in the coloured community from going after the show’s hosts over the saga.

A criminal complaint was filed with the police and the matter was referred to the SAHRC for further investigation. The commission’s role is to address human rights violations and seek “effective redress”.

“There should be no place to hide for racists. [Whether] you are a white, black [or] coloured racist, a racist remains a racist,” McKenzie said at the height of his campaign.

But then the social media archaeologists got to work.

In the posts from over a decade ago on what was then known as Twitter, he repeatedly used the highly offensive “K-word” when speaking about black people.

The “K-word” was the most vicious racial slur used to humiliate black people during the apartheid years. It is a symbol of de-humanisation.

McKenzie says he regrets the posts but has also robustly defended himself, most recently in a lengthy live video posted on his Facebook page.

“I always saw myself as black growing up… [so] I’m black and coloured, I’m mixed,” he said looking down the barrel of the camera.

The minister has described himself as a “black-skinned coloured” whose father was a mix of Japanese and Irish and mother is a black woman from the Sotho community.

Because of this, he added, when he speaks of black people he is including himself in the equation.

He also detailed how he had been part of the anti-apartheid struggle.

This reflects the view that as the fight against apartheid gained momentum, coloured people and Indians campaigned with black people against the racist system.

They understood that “if you don’t unite South Africa at a struggle level, your chances of taking over and democratising the country are very limited”, the North West University’s professor of government studies Kedibone Phago said.

But despite the struggle bringing together different groups and then the end of apartheid itself, racial classification has remained embedded in the country.

For the majority of the population, where they live, what kind of job they have, or indeed if they have a job, and their wealth, is still largely related to which apartheid-defined race they belong to.

This is because, among other reasons, the apartheid geography that separated different races “is still very strong”, Prof Phago told the BBC.

“We just don’t know each other at all … [or] each other’s culture and habits [so] when people call us the rainbow nation, it’s just nonsense. Very few people socialise across racial barriers,” Terry Oakley-Smith, who founded the South African diversity consultant firm Diversi-T, said.

The beginning of democracy in 1994 did not wipe out racism, but “what’s unusual about this case is that it’s about a so-called coloured person using that sort of language and remarks”, Ms Oakley-Smith noted.

Both experts also raised concerns how the podcast presenters expressed themselves.

“They were terribly disappointing,” Ms Oakley-Smith said.

• Ghosts of apartheid haunt South Africa as compensation anger brews
• Race in South Africa: ‘We haven’t learnt we are human beings first’

There has been a long-standing feeling in sections of the coloured community that in an effort to tackle the problems from the past, the democratic government has ignored their needs.

McKenzie echoed this in 2023.

“Coloured people woke up in the new South Africa and found legislation that makes it clear that they are not Africans,” he was quoted as saying.

“A clear racist separation by the ANC government. How do you even explain that because coloureds and blacks fought side by side in the struggle for freedom?”

But Prof Phago argued that this is about different communities looking for something to blame for broader problems.

He pointed to the government’s failure to take the lead in the necessary “societal transformation”.

“This is a very strong systemic problem that needs a strong developmental state to deal with because if we don’t find a way… we’ll continue to have these kind of problems.”

Ms Oakley-Smith echoed this, saying that this latest racial storm showed “there’s a lot more that needs to be done to improve race relations”.

“We have so much work to do… [and] unless we take some actions, these things are going to continue,” she noted.

McKenzie’s sports, arts and culture portfolio is supposed to promote things that bring the country together. Ironically, his divisive historical comments and his refusal to apologise has rallied citizens in the call for tougher conversations around race relations.

But he will now have to wait to see what the SAHRC will do next – and whether President Cyril Ramaphosa will keep him in the government.

• Caught in the crossfire – the victims of Cape Town’s gang warfare
• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his South African refugee offer?

As President Donald Trump tries to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, he has been highlighting his track record in peace negotiations since starting his second term in office.

Speaking at the White House on 18 August, where he was pressed by European leaders to push for a ceasefire, he claimed: “I’ve ended six wars… all of these deals I made without even the mention of the word ‘ceasefire’.”

The following day the number he cited had risen to “seven wars”.

The Trump administration says a Nobel Peace Prize is “well past time” for the “peacemaker-in-chief”, and has listed the “wars” he has supposedly ended.

Some lasted just days – although they were the result of long-standing tensions – and it is unclear whether some of the peace deals will last.

Trump also used the word “ceasefire” a number of times when talking about them on his Truth Social platform.

BBC Verify has taken a closer look at these conflicts and how much credit the president can take for ending them.

The 12-day conflict began when Israel hit targets in Iran on 13 June.

Trump confirmed that he had been informed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the strikes.

The US carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites – a move widely seen as bringing the conflict towards a swift close.

On 23 June, Trump posted: “Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World.”

After the hostilities ended, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted his country had secured a “decisive victory” and did not mention a ceasefire.

Israel has since suggested it could strike Iran again to counter new threats.

“There is no agreement on a permanent peace or on how to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme going forward,” argues Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.

“So what we have is more of a de facto ceasefire than an end to war, but I’d give him some credit, as the weakening of Iran by Israel – with US help – has been strategically significant.”

Tensions between these two nuclear-armed countries have existed for years, but in May hostilities broke out following an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

After four days of strikes, Trump posted that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE”.

He said this was the result of “a long night of talks mediated by the United States”.

• Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it

Pakistan thanked Trump and later recommended him for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “decisive diplomatic intervention”.

India, however, played down talk of US involvement: “The talks regarding cessation of military action were held directly between India and Pakistan under the existing channels established between both militaries,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said.

Long-standing hostilities between these two countries flared up after the M23 rebel group seized mineral-rich territory in eastern DR Congo earlier in the year.

In June, the two countries signed a peace agreement in Washington aimed at ending decades of conflict. Trump said it would help increase trade between them and the US.

The text called for “respect for the ceasefire” agreed between Rwanda and DRC in August 2024.

Since the latest deal, both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire and the M23 rebels – which the UK and US have linked to Rwanda – have threatened to walk away from peace talks.

In July, the rebel group killed at least 140 people, including women and children, in eastern DR Congo, according to Human Rights Watch.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• DR Congo rebels killed 140 civilians despite peace process, rights group says

“There’s still fighting between Congo and Rwanda – so that ceasefire has never really held,” says Margaret MacMillan, a professor of history who taught at the University of Oxford.

On 26 July, Trump posted on Truth Social saying: “I am calling the Acting Prime Minister of Thailand, right now, to likewise request a Ceasefire, and END to the War, which is currently raging.”

A couple of days later, the two countries agreed to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” after less than a week of fighting at the border.

Malaysia held the peace talks, but President Trump threatened to stop separate negotiations on reducing US tariffs (taxes on imports) unless Thailand and Cambodia stopped fighting.

Both are heavily dependent on exports to the US.

On 7 August, Thailand and Cambodia reached an agreement aimed at reducing tensions along their shared border.

The leaders of both countries said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in securing a peace deal, which was announced at the White House on 8 August.

“I think he gets good credit here – the Oval Office signing ceremony may have pushed the parties to peace,” says Mr O’Hanlon.

In March, the two governments had said they were ready to end their nearly 40-year conflict centred on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

• Nagorno-Karabakh: Conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenians explained

The most recent, serious outbreak of fighting was in September 2023 when Azerbaijan seized the enclave (where many ethnic Armenians lived).

There was no “war” here for the president to end, but there have long been tensions over a dam on the River Nile.

Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was completed this summer with Egypt arguing that the water it gets from the Nile could be affected.

After 12 years of disagreement, Egypt’s foreign minister said on 29 June that talks with Ethiopia had ground to a halt.

Trump said: “If I were Egypt, I’d want the water in the Nile.” He promised that the US was going to resolve the issue very quickly.

Egypt welcomed Trump’s words, but Ethiopian officials said they risked inflaming tensions.

No formal deal has been reached between Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve their differences.

On 27 June, Trump claimed to have prevented an outbreak of hostilities between them, saying: “Serbia, Kosovo was going to go at it, going to be a big war. I said you go at it, there’s no trade with the United States. They said, well, maybe we won’t go at it.”

The two countries have long been in dispute – a legacy of the Balkan wars of the 1990s – with tensions rising in recent years.

“Serbia and Kosovo haven’t been fighting or firing at each other, so it’s not a war to end,” Prof MacMillan told us.

The White House pointed us towards Trump’s diplomatic efforts in his first term.

The two countries signed economic normalisation agreements in the Oval Office with the president in 2020, but they were not at war at the time.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The family of a father who vanished with his three children into New Zealand’s wilderness almost four years ago have pleaded for him to come home.

A national search has been ongoing for Tom Phillips since he took Ember, nine, Maverick, 10, and Jayda, 12, from their family home in December 2021 over what police say was a custody battle.

They were seen in public for the first time since vanishing last October, when a group of teenagers spotted them trekking through the bush and filmed the encounter.

For the first time since their disappearance, Mr Phillips’ family have directly appealed to him, with his mother writing: “Everyday I wake up and hope that today will be the day that you all come home.”

“There’s a lot of love and there’s a lot of support, and we’re ready to help you walk through what you need to walk through,” his sister, Rozzi Phillips, told New Zealand news site Stuff in an exclusive interview.

“I miss you, and I miss being part of your life, and I really want to see you and the kids and be part of your lives again.”

Ms Phillips said her brother was a capable builder who she believed would have built a hut or “nest” in the bush as shelter.

She also provided Stuff with a handwritten note from their mother, Julia, which reads: “Tom – I feel really sad that you thought you had to do this. Not considering how much we love you and can support you. It hurts every time I see photos of the children and of you and see some of your stuff that is still here.”

“Jayda, Maverick, Ember – I love you so much and really miss being part of your lives.”

Police have said they believe Mr Phillips took his children after losing legal custody of them to their mother.

They believe Mr Phillips and his children have been hiding and camping in the North Island’s western Waikato region and last year posted an NZ$80,000 (£37,200) reward for information on their whereabouts.

There have been occasional sightings of the family, including in October when a group of teenage pig hunters who had been trekking through an untamed area of Marokopa – a tiny coastal community where Mr Phillips hails from – spotted them and filmed the encounter on their phones.

In the video, Tom Phillips can be seen leading his children through the rugged terrain. They are all wearing camouflaged clothing.

New Zealand media reported the teenagers had briefly spoken to one of their children – asking if anyone knew they were there. The child had replied “only you” and kept walking, the father of one of the teenagers told New Zealand’s 1News.

The teenagers reported that Mr Phillips had been carrying a gun and had a long beard while the children were masked and carrying their own packs.

New Zealand Police described the sighting as “credible”. That prompted an unsuccessful three-day search involving police and army helicopters.

Last year, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mr Phillips over his suspected involvement in a bank robbery in Te Kuiti, a small town on the North Island.

Police said he had an accomplice during the alleged incident, and cautioned the public against approaching him as he was probably armed.

Police have said they believe Mr Phillips is being helped in his evasion of the law by other parties.

A man has died after being run over by a bulldozer he was operating while fighting wildfires in Portugal, bringing the death toll in the country to three, officials have said.

The 65-year-old worked for a firm hired to fight fires in the northern municipality of Mirandela and was reportedly run over after falling from his vehicle while trying to avoid the flames.

Portugal has been battling wildfires since late July, with the north and centre of the country hit the hardest.

In neighbouring Spain, wildfires have killed four people and burned an area larger than Long Island in New York State – though temperatures are beginning to cool after 16 days of extreme heat.

Fires have also broken out in Greece, France, Turkey and the Balkans as a heatwave swept through Europe.

Meteorologists say such extremes are becoming more frequent and intense because of human-induced climate change, which is causing weather events to become more frequent and severe.

In Portugal, around 15 people were also injured – one critically – while fighting fires on Tuesday near the central city of Sabugal, news agency AFP reported.

Local media in Spain reports that 40 fires are still active despite temperatures dropping.

The most intense heat, when temperatures surpassed 40C in many regions of Spain, has now passed but Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez urged people to “exercise extreme caution”.

“Critical moments remain, difficult hours remain,” he added.

At least 373,000 hectares have been scorched in Spain this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

Dozens of villages have been evacuated due to the fires.

“We had to run away because the fire was coming in from everywhere – everywhere – above us, below us, all around,” Isidoro, 83, a resident in the Ourense province of Galicia, told AFP.

Spanish officials said many fires had been sparked by lightning during dry storms, but arson is suspected in some cases.

The interior ministry says 32 people have been arrested and 188 investigations had been launched.

While weather conditions are currently favourable for wildfires, they can be sparked by barbecues, cigarette stubs or discarded bottles. Causing a wildfire is a criminal offence in Spain, even if accidental.

Portugal’s wildfires have burned about 216,000 hectares of land so far in 2025, according to EU data.

Spain and Portugal have activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism, under which countries can request emergency assistance.

Wildfires are a common occurrence across southern Europe in the summer, but their severity can often be exacerbated by heatwave conditions.

Walmart has recalled some of its shrimp products in the US after radioactive material was detected in a shipment of seafood.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned the public not to eat frozen shrimp sold under Walmart’s Great Value label could have been exposed to a dangerous isotope in shipping containers.

One sample of breaded shrimp tested positive for the substance, the FDA said, but this positive sample “did not enter US commerce”.

Consumers in 13 US states the shrimp products are sold have been advised to throw any recently bought products among three batches.

“The health and safety of our customers is always a top priority,” a Walmart spokesperson told the BBC. “We have issued a sales restriction and removed this product from our impacted stores. We are working with the supplier to investigate.”

The spokesperson added that consumers who bought the recalled products could visit any Walmart location for a full refund.

The recalled shrimp was sold at Walmart locations in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia, and shoppers in those states were advised to be cautious.

It came from an Indonesian supplier that has since had a number of shipping containers denied entry to the US, the FDA said.

One shipment tested positive for Caesium-137, the radioactive form of the periodic element Caesium.

The amount contained in the tested shipment held by the FDA was not enough to pose acute harm to consumers, exposure over time could pose an elevated risk of cancer by damaging living cells in the body, said officials from the agency.

Caesium-137 is made through nuclear reactions and is present in trace amounts in soil, food and air worldwide. It is one of the principal sources of radiation around Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan.

The FDA said no Caesium-137 had been detected in the other products it tested, but cautioned this did not rule out contamination.

Two pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have been granted asylum separately in the UK and Australia, prompting anger from the Chinese special administrative region’s government.

Hong Kong summoned the Australian and British envoys, who were warned by Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki against “harbouring offenders”.

Former lawmaker Ted Hui and student leader Tony Chung announced over the weekend that have been granted asylum in Australia and the UK, respectively.

They were sentenced to jail under a national security law that Beijing says is necessary to maintain stability in the city. However, critics say the law is being used to crush dissent and instill a climate of fear.

Hui fled Hong Kong in December 2020 while facing charges for his involvement in anti-government protests the year before. Chung left in 2023 citing an “enormous amount of stress” from constant police scrutiny.

Arrests in Hong Kong are “based on facts and evidence” and “has nothing to do with the political stance”, the city’s government said in a statement on Tuesday.

Hundreds of activists in Hong Kong have been arrested and charged since the sweeping national security legislation came into force in 2020, one year after widespread pro-democracy protests.

Hui said on Saturday that he and his family secured protection visas. The 43-year-old, who lives with his wife, children and parents in Adelaide, said they were forced “to leave a homeland we love and where our most precious memories remain”.

Hui, an outspoken former lawmaker, is remembered for throwing rotten plants on the floor of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council chamber in 2020 to protest the national security law – he said it symbolised the decay of Hong Kong’s political system.

Chung announced on Sunday that he had received refugee status in the UK with a five-year residence permit.

His announcement on social media was accompanied by a letter from the UK Home Office which read: “We accept you have a well-founded fear of persecution and therefore cannot return to your country.”

“After waiting for over a year and a half, I can finally begin to try to start a new life,” the 24-year-old wrote.

In 2023, Chung was convicted under the national security law of calling for Hong Kong’s secession.

The UK had in July condemned Hong Kong authorities for dangling cash offers for people who help in the arrest of pro-democracy activists living in Britain, calling the move as “another example of transnational repression“.

A TV advert for Sanex shower gel which showed black skin as cracked and white skin as smooth has been banned for reinforcing a racial stereotype.

The ad shows two models with dark skin – one has itchy skin and the other has dry skin – followed by a white woman with no skin problems.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld two complaints which said the depiction of dark skin as dry, cracked and itchy “could be interpreted as suggesting that white skin was superior to black skin”.

Colgate-Palmolive, which owns Sanex, said it used models with different skin colours as part of its commitment to diversity.

The brand said it made products for all skin types and the use of different models was to show a “before and after” scenario, not to compare different skin colours or ethnicities.

The ad, which was broadcast on TV in June, shows a model with dark skin scratching their body, making bright orange, paint-like stripes with their fingertips.

A voiceover says: “To those who might scratch day and night”.

Another dark-skinned model is then seen covered in cracked, clay-like material, and the voiceover continues “to those whose skin will feel dried out even by water”.

A white model is seen showering with water and foam moving over her skin which has no visible problems or graphics to suggest any.

The voiceover says: “Try to take a shower with the new Sanex skin therapy and its patented amino acid complex. For 24-hour hydration feel.”

The tagline for the ad was: “Relief could be as simple as a shower.”

The ASA ruled the ad breached its broadcast code and banned it from being shown again in the same format.

“The white skin, depicted as smoother and clean after using the product, was shown successfully changed and resolved,” the ruling said.

“We considered that could be interpreted as suggesting that white skin was superior to black skin.”

The ASA said it accepted that this message was not intentional but warned Colgate-Palmolive to “ensure they avoided causing serious offence on the grounds of race” in future.

Clearcast, which approves or rejects ads for broadcast on television, said the advert did not perpetuate negative racial stereotypes.

One model with darker skin was depicted in a “stylised and unrealistic way” to demonstrate dryness, but their skin tone was otherwise not a focal point, the agency said.

A second model, also with darker skin, was shown with itchy skin, but this was portrayed through scratching visibly healthy skin and the resulting marks, and was therefore more about sensation than any visible skin condition, it added.

Sanex told BBC News: “We take note of the ASA Council’s ruling. Our advert was intended to highlight how our Skin Therapy range supports healthy skin across a variety of skin types.

“At Sanex, our mission is to champion skin health for all, which is portrayed across our brand communications.”

A decision over whether a member of rap group Kneecap will stand trial for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah, at a London gig last year, has been postponed.

Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday and was met by a large crowd of supporters – many with Palestinian flags.

The 27-year-old, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, denies the charge and claims the case is “political” and intended to silence Kneecap.

He told the gathered crowd after the appearance, that the case was a “distraction” from what was happening in Gaza.

“We know this story is more about me and more than Kneecap – this is a story about Palestine and us as a distraction from the real story,” he added.

The chief magistrate said he would make a decision on whether Mr Ó hAnnaidh would stand trial on 26 September.

Mr Ó hAnnaidh confirmed his name, date of birth and address to the court at the start of proceedings and sat beside an Irish language interpreter.

The court heard three hours of legal arguments around whether the charge was brought within the six month time limit.

His defence team are seeking to throw the case out, citing a technical error in the way the charge against him was brought.

Brenda Campbell KC told the court the Attorney General had not given permission for the case to be brought against the defendant when police informed him he was to face a terror charge on 21 May.

Prosecutor Michael Bisgrove said permission was not required until the defendant’s first court appearance.

Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said he would make a ruling on the matter in a number of weeks’ time.

The case was adjourned and the defendant was released on continuing unconditional bail.

He has been on unconditional bail since his first court appearance in June.

As the rapper arrived at court large crowd gathered outside, with supporters holding signs which read “Free Mo Chara” while others waved Palestine and Irish flags before the rapper’s arrival.

Band members Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin) and DJ Próvaí (JJ Ó Dochartaigh) and the band’s manager accompanied him.

On Tuesday evening, the Metropolitan Police said they “imposed Public Order Act conditions to prevent serious disruption being caused by a protest” outside the court.

Any protest in support of Mr Ó hAnnaidh and “aligned causes must remain in the red area. Any stage must be erected in the green area” they said in a post on social media, referring to a map showing a designated area outside the court.

In a social media post, the band said the “police action is designed to try to portray support for Kneecap as somehow troublesome”.

It thanked supporters and urged them to comply “with all instructions issued, irrespective of how pitiful”.

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

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

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

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

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

In November 2024, the group won its case against the UK government over a decision Kemi Badenoch took when she was a minister to withdraw an arts grant.

The Israeli military says it is calling up about 60,000 reservists ahead of a planned ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City.

A military official said the reservists would report for duty in September and that most of the troops mobilised for the offensive would be active-duty personnel.

They added that troops were already operating in the Zeitoun and Jabalia areas as part of the preparations for the plan, which Defence Minister Israel Katz approved on Tuesday and will be put to the security cabinet later this week.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City are expected to be ordered to evacuate and head to shelters in southern Gaza.

Many of Israel’s allies have condemned the plan, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning on Wednesday that it “can only lead to disaster for both peoples and risks plunging the entire region into a cycle of permanent war”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) meanwhile said further displacement and an intensification of hostilities “risk worsening an already catastrophic situation” for Gaza’s 2.1 million population.

Israel’s government announced its intention to conquer the entire Gaza Strip after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down last month.

Mediators Qatar and Egypt are trying to secure an agreement before the offensive begins and have presented a new proposal for a 60-day truce and the release of around half of the 50 hostages held in Gaza, which Hamas said it had accepted on Monday.

Israel has not yet submitted a formal response, but Israeli officials insisted on Tuesday that they would no longer accept a partial deal and demanded a comprehensive one that would see all the hostages released. Only 20 of them are believed to be still alive.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that orders calling up 60,000 reservists were issued on Wednesday as part of the preparations for “the next phase of Operation Gideon’s Chariots” – the ground offensive that it launched in May and has seen it take control of at least 75% of Gaza.

In addition, 20,000 reservists who had already been called up would receive a notice extending their current orders, it added.

The military official said senior commanders had approved the plan for what they described as a “gradual, precise and targeted operation in and around Gaza City”, with troops entering some areas where they had not gone previously.

Five divisions were expected to take part in the offensive, the official added.

The Haaretz newspaper quoted Defence Minister Katz as saying on Tuesday: “Once the operation is completed, Gaza will change its face and will no longer look as it did in the past.”

He also reportedly approved a plan to “accommodate” Gaza City residents in the south of the territory, including the coastal al-Mawasi area, where the military official said field hospitals would be established.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the military’s objectives are to secure the release of all the hostages held by Hamas and “complete the defeat” of the Palestinian armed group.

The IDF also announced on Wednesday that the Givati Brigade had resumed operations in the northern town of Jabalia and on the outskirts of Gaza City, where it said they were “dismantling military infrastructures above and below ground, eliminating terrorists, and consolidating operational control”.

It said civilians were being told to move south for their safety “to mitigate the risk of harm”.

A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP news agency on Tuesday that the situation was “very dangerous and unbearable” in the city’s Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods, where he said “shelling continues intermittently”.

The agency reported that Israeli strikes and fire had killed 21 people across the territory on Wednesday. They included three children and their parents whose home in the Badr area of Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was bombed, it said.

The IDF meanwhile said 15 Palestinian fighters had attempted to infiltrate one of its positions in the southern city of Khan Younis on Wednesday. The IDF said one Israeli soldier was severely injured and 10 of the attackers were killed during the incident. Hamas’s military wing said it had attacked the position and that at least one fighter carried out a suicide bombing.

The UN and non-governmental organisations operating in Gaza have warned of the humanitarian impact of a new Israeli offensive.

“The Israeli plan to intensify military operations in Gaza City will have a horrific humanitarian impact on people already exhausted, malnourished, bereaved, displaced, and deprived of basics needed for survival,” they said in a joint statement on Monday.

“Forcing hundreds of thousands to move south is a recipe for further disaster and could amount to forcible transfer,” they added. Forcible transfer of a civilian population is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

They also said the areas of the south where displaced residents were expected to move were “overcrowded and ill-equipped to sustain human survival at scale”.

The ICRC said on Wednesday that a further intensification of military operations threatened “an irreversible humanitarian crisis” and that the lives of the hostages might also be put at risk. Some of them are believed to be held in Gaza City.

The UN human rights office said hundreds of families had already been forced to flee eastern and southern Gaza City over the past few days, while others reportedly remained trapped, completely cut off from food, water and medical supplies.

It also noted that Israel was telling displaced Palestinians to move to al-Mawasi even though it continued to carry out deadly strikes there.

The World Food Programme meanwhile warned that malnutrition in Gaza had crossed emergency levels and was “rising fast”, with more children and mothers showing severe symptoms. The UN agency said it was scaling up treatment but that “needs outpace the response”.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry also reported that another three people had died as a result of malnutrition over the previous 24 hours, raising the total number of such deaths since the start of the war to 269, including 112 children.

The UN has said it needs unimpeded humanitarian access across all of Gaza, with aid entering at scale through all possible crossings. It has said incoming supplies remain far from sufficient because of Israeli restrictions.

Israeli military body Cogat, which controls the entry of aid into Gaza, said in response to the WFP’s statement that hundreds of lorry loads of supplies were being delivered daily and that food prices were “plummeting”. It has also previously accused the health ministry of misrepresenting deaths from pre-existing medical conditions as malnutrition.

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

At least 62,122 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry. The ministry’s figures are quoted by the UN and others as the most reliable source of statistics available on casualties.

The Kremlin has played down talk of an imminent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, as Donald Trump renewed his call for the two leaders to meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

The push for a bilateral meeting comes after the US president met Putin in Alaska last week, and welcomed seven European leaders and Zelensky to the White House on Monday.

Trump admitted the conflict was “a tough one” to solve and conceded it was possible the Russian president was not interested in ending hostilities.

“We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal.”

Putin faced a “rough situation” if that were the case, Trump added, without offering any details.

Despite initially pushing for a three-way summit with Putin and Zelensky, Trump is now suggesting “it would be better” if the two leaders initially met without him.

He added that he would attend a meeting with them “if necessary”, but wanted to “see what happens”.

The Russian president told Trump on Monday that he was “open” to the idea of direct talks with Ukraine, but the next day Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov watered down that already vague commitment.

Any meeting would have to be prepared “gradually… starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps”, he said, repeating a frequent noncommittal Kremlin line.

Dmitry Polyanskiy, a Russian deputy representative to the UN, told the BBC “nobody [had] rejected” the opportunity for direct talks, “but it shouldn’t be a meeting for the sake of a meeting”.

Meanwhile, in some of the latest attacks on the ground, Russia hit a gas distribution station in Odesa overnight and launched multiple strikes on a town in Sumy region, injuring 14 people including three children, Ukrainian officials said.

Nato’s military chiefs are expected to hold a virtual meeting on Wednesday, while the UK’s military chief, Admiral Tony Radakin, is travelling to Washington for discussions on the deployment of a reassurance force in Ukraine.

It was reported that Putin had suggested to Trump that Zelensky could travel to Moscow for talks, something Ukraine was never likely to accept.

The proposal may have been Russia’s way of putting forward an option so far-fetched Kyiv could not possibly have agreed to it.

Talks over the last few days appear to have given Trump a renewed understanding of the complexities of the war and the gulf between Moscow’s demands and Kyiv’s position.

The much-vaunted ceasefire he said he could get Putin to agree to has not materialised, and now the US president has said Ukraine and Russia should move directly to a permanent peace deal instead – but some headway was made in terms of security guarantees for Ukraine.

Zelensky and European leaders seem to have convinced Trump that such commitments would be paramount to Kyiv’s sovereignty in the event of a peace deal.

On Tuesday, Trump said the US was willing to help the Europeans “by air” if they provided boots on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or peace deal, although he ruled out deploying US troops.

The US president, however, did not go into the specifics of whether such air support may entail intelligence or the use of fighter jets and war planes.

While Trump’s commitments remain vague, the France and UK-led “coalition of the willing” said it had been working to firm up plans for a reassurance force that could be sent to Ukraine if the hostilities end.

After a virtual meeting of the group on Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesperson said the group would meet US counterparts in the coming days to “further strengthen plans to deliver robust security guarantees”.

Following his summit with Putin and latest talks with Zelensky, Trump now appears to think direct talks between Ukraine and Russia could bring a peace deal closer – although he acknowledged there had been “tremendous bad blood” between the two leaders.

The last time they met was in 2019. Since then, Moscow’s war on Kyiv has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties as well as widespread destruction and ongoing aerial attacks on civilian targets.

Putin considers Zelensky illegitimate and views him as responsible for Ukraine’s growing proximity to the West. For years, he has made baseless claims about Kyiv being ruled by a “neo-Nazi regime” and has said any ceasefire with Ukraine would need to entail a change in Kyiv’s leadership – while Russian state media routinely mocks Zelensky and calls him a “clown”.

Russia also has little interest in agreeing to talks while its troops have the upper hand on the front line.

Still, European leaders and Zelensky have spoken in favour of the idea of a bilateral meeting. The Ukrainian president said on Monday he was open to “any format” of meeting Putin, while the Europeans have been putting forward ideas for potential summit locations.

French President Emmanuel Macron has mentioned the Swiss city of Geneva, while Budapest has reportedly been floated by Hugarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

However, Orban has maintained close ties with Moscow and has recently pushed the argument that Russia has won the war in Ukraine – so Kyiv may be sceptical that Budapest would offer sufficiently neutral ground.

By enthusiastically supporting direct talks, they are likely hoping to convince Trump to revert to a tougher stance against Moscow should Putin remain unwilling to take steps to end the war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European partners appear significantly less optimistic than Trump that a resolution of the conflict could be within reach.

On Tuesday, Macron called Putin “a predator, and an ogre at our doorstep” and expressed “the greatest doubt” that the Russian president was willing to work towards peace.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Putin was “rarely to be trusted”, adding he was sceptical about a meeting with Zelensky materialising.

More high-level talks are planned for the coming days as questions over Trump’s level of support for Europe remain.

As President Donald Trump tries to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, he has been highlighting his track record in peace negotiations since starting his second term in office.

Speaking at the White House on 18 August, where he was pressed by European leaders to push for a ceasefire, he claimed: “I’ve ended six wars… all of these deals I made without even the mention of the word ‘ceasefire’.”

The following day the number he cited had risen to “seven wars”.

The Trump administration says a Nobel Peace Prize is “well past time” for the “peacemaker-in-chief”, and has listed the “wars” he has supposedly ended.

Some lasted just days – although they were the result of long-standing tensions – and it is unclear whether some of the peace deals will last.

Trump also used the word “ceasefire” a number of times when talking about them on his Truth Social platform.

BBC Verify has taken a closer look at these conflicts and how much credit the president can take for ending them.

The 12-day conflict began when Israel hit targets in Iran on 13 June.

Trump confirmed that he had been informed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the strikes.

The US carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites – a move widely seen as bringing the conflict towards a swift close.

On 23 June, Trump posted: “Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World.”

After the hostilities ended, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted his country had secured a “decisive victory” and did not mention a ceasefire.

Israel has since suggested it could strike Iran again to counter new threats.

“There is no agreement on a permanent peace or on how to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme going forward,” argues Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.

“So what we have is more of a de facto ceasefire than an end to war, but I’d give him some credit, as the weakening of Iran by Israel – with US help – has been strategically significant.”

Tensions between these two nuclear-armed countries have existed for years, but in May hostilities broke out following an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

After four days of strikes, Trump posted that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE”.

He said this was the result of “a long night of talks mediated by the United States”.

• Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it

Pakistan thanked Trump and later recommended him for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “decisive diplomatic intervention”.

India, however, played down talk of US involvement: “The talks regarding cessation of military action were held directly between India and Pakistan under the existing channels established between both militaries,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said.

Long-standing hostilities between these two countries flared up after the M23 rebel group seized mineral-rich territory in eastern DR Congo earlier in the year.

In June, the two countries signed a peace agreement in Washington aimed at ending decades of conflict. Trump said it would help increase trade between them and the US.

The text called for “respect for the ceasefire” agreed between Rwanda and DRC in August 2024.

Since the latest deal, both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire and the M23 rebels – which the UK and US have linked to Rwanda – have threatened to walk away from peace talks.

In July, the rebel group killed at least 140 people, including women and children, in eastern DR Congo, according to Human Rights Watch.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• DR Congo rebels killed 140 civilians despite peace process, rights group says

“There’s still fighting between Congo and Rwanda – so that ceasefire has never really held,” says Margaret MacMillan, a professor of history who taught at the University of Oxford.

On 26 July, Trump posted on Truth Social saying: “I am calling the Acting Prime Minister of Thailand, right now, to likewise request a Ceasefire, and END to the War, which is currently raging.”

A couple of days later, the two countries agreed to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” after less than a week of fighting at the border.

Malaysia held the peace talks, but President Trump threatened to stop separate negotiations on reducing US tariffs (taxes on imports) unless Thailand and Cambodia stopped fighting.

Both are heavily dependent on exports to the US.

On 7 August, Thailand and Cambodia reached an agreement aimed at reducing tensions along their shared border.

The leaders of both countries said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in securing a peace deal, which was announced at the White House on 8 August.

“I think he gets good credit here – the Oval Office signing ceremony may have pushed the parties to peace,” says Mr O’Hanlon.

In March, the two governments had said they were ready to end their nearly 40-year conflict centred on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

• Nagorno-Karabakh: Conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenians explained

The most recent, serious outbreak of fighting was in September 2023 when Azerbaijan seized the enclave (where many ethnic Armenians lived).

There was no “war” here for the president to end, but there have long been tensions over a dam on the River Nile.

Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was completed this summer with Egypt arguing that the water it gets from the Nile could be affected.

After 12 years of disagreement, Egypt’s foreign minister said on 29 June that talks with Ethiopia had ground to a halt.

Trump said: “If I were Egypt, I’d want the water in the Nile.” He promised that the US was going to resolve the issue very quickly.

Egypt welcomed Trump’s words, but Ethiopian officials said they risked inflaming tensions.

No formal deal has been reached between Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve their differences.

On 27 June, Trump claimed to have prevented an outbreak of hostilities between them, saying: “Serbia, Kosovo was going to go at it, going to be a big war. I said you go at it, there’s no trade with the United States. They said, well, maybe we won’t go at it.”

The two countries have long been in dispute – a legacy of the Balkan wars of the 1990s – with tensions rising in recent years.

“Serbia and Kosovo haven’t been fighting or firing at each other, so it’s not a war to end,” Prof MacMillan told us.

The White House pointed us towards Trump’s diplomatic efforts in his first term.

The two countries signed economic normalisation agreements in the Oval Office with the president in 2020, but they were not at war at the time.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Actress Aubrey Plaza has said life is “a daily struggle”, seven months after her estranged husband, film-maker Jeff Baena, took his own life.

The writer, director and producer died in January at the age of 47.

Plaza spoke about the aftermath for the first time in an interview on her former Parks and Recreation co-star Amy Poehler’s podcast.

Asked how she was feeling, Plaza said “I think I’m OK” before likening grief to a “giant ocean of awfulness”.

“Sometimes I just want to dive into it and just like be in it,” she said. “Then sometimes I just look at it, and sometimes I try to get away from it. But, it’s always there.”

Plaza and Baena got married in 2021 after working on films including 2014 horror Life After Beth and 2017 historical comedy The Little Hours.

He was found dead at his Los Angeles home in early January.

At the start of their interview on the Good Hang podcast, Poehler asked Plaza how she was.

“Right in this very, very present moment, I feel happy to be with you,” she replied.

“Overall, I’m here and I’m functioning. I feel really grateful to be moving through the world. I think I’m OK, but it’s like a daily struggle, obviously.”

The 41-year-old US actress went on to talk about 2025 movie The Gorge to describe her grief.

That film stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as two snipers guarding opposite sides of a mysterious deep chasm.

“This is a really dumb analogy and it was kind of a joke at a certain point, but I actually mean it. Did you see that movie The Gorge?” Plaza said.

“In the movie, there’s a cliff on one side and there’s a cliff on the other side, then there’s a gorge in between and it’s filled with all these monster people that are trying to get them.

“I swear when I watched it I was like, that feels like what my grief is like, or what grief could be like. At all times, there’s like a giant ocean of just awfulness that’s right there.”

The couple separated in September 2024, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator.

Plaza has also starred in TV’s The White Lotus and Marvel series Agatha All Along, and was speaking to promote her new film Honey Don’t!

Baena was best known for writing films like 2004’s I Heart Huckabees, and for writing and directing 2016’s Joshy, 2017’s The Little Hours and 2020’s Horse Girl.

Heavy rainfall in India’s financial capital Mumbai has disrupted the lives of millions of people, submerging roads and leading to flight and train cancellations.

Many parts of the city remain inundated in waist-deep water, with videos showing residents swimming through waterlogged roads as garbage gushed out from clogged sewers.

Authorities on Tuesday rescued 600 people who got stuck on an overcrowded monorail system that stopped mid-journey. At least 23 had to be treated for suffocation, officials have said.

Monsoon rains are common in Maharashtra state – where Mumbai is located – around this time of the year.

But the region is experiencing particularly heavy rainfall this time. At least 21 people have died in rain-related accidents across the state this week.

In just four days, Mumbai has seen 800mm of rainfall, according to the India Meteorological Department, which is well above the average rain recorded in August.

India’s weather department has issued a red alert for the city and its neighbouring districts, predicting very heavy rains to continue on Wednesday, but has said the situation would improve later in the week.

Most schools and colleges are shut and some 350 people have been shifted from the city’s low-lying areas to temporary shelters.

Mumbai’s local trains – a lifeline for millions of commuters – have seen heavy disruptions with thousands of people waiting on platforms on Tuesday as services were delayed for hours.

“Trains scheduled for last night have left this morning and those supposed to leave this morning have been delayed to later,” a passenger told news agency ANI.

• Why monsoon rains wreak havoc annually in India’s cities
• India’s ‘Silicon Valley’ flooded after heavy rains

Flight operations to and from the city’s international airport have also taken a hit, with 50 flights reportedly cancelled over the past few days.

“While we want your journey to be as hassle-free as possible, Mother nature has her own plans. With heavy rains expected again in Mumbai, there’s a chance this could lead to air traffic congestion and impact flight operations,” budget carrier IndiGo said on X.

Meanwhile, chaos erupted on Tuesday after a monorail system, which was reportedly full far beyond its capacity, halted mid-track.

A passenger who was on the train told BBC Marathi that with the air-conditioning switched off, passengers tried to open the doors to call for help.

Fire department and police teams had to use cranes to bring stranded passengers down from the elevated tracks.

A preliminary investigation suggested the incident took place due to “overcrowding in the train”, according to reports.

Opposition lawmakers have blamed the government for being ill-prepared to handle the situation.

Aaditya Thackeray of the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) party said several areas, including Mumbai, were witnessing an “absolute collapse of governance”.

He alleged that the government had done “zero planning” despite red alerts being issued, pointing out that the city’s airport was flooded on Tuesday and new water-logging spots had emerged – particularly around recently built infrastructure.

Several citizens also took to social media, criticising the city’s collapsing infrastructure and poor planning.

Mumbai is one of India’s richest cities, significantly contributing to the country’s GDP, industrial output and trade.

Home to more than 12 million people, it has long attracted migrants from across the country who come in search of better opportunities.

While the city has seen a bevy of infrastructure upgrades in recent years – including coastal roads, sea bridges and a new metro system – experts say investments to improve ageing drainage systems and climate-resilient infrastructure have not kept pace with the growing population.

Police in Jeju have for the first time released guidelines reminding foreign visitors to behave or face fines, as the South Korean holiday island sees an increasing number of tourists.

Jeju police issued the guide following complaints from locals over foreigners’ misbehaviour, including littering and letting children defecate on the street.

The guide – printed in Chinese, English and Korean – is the first of its kind in the country, local police say, and comes during the peak summer season.

Jeju, a volcanic island south of the Korean peninsula, is popular for its beaches, walking trails and windswept mountain views. Foreign visitors also come to Jeju for shopping and gambling.

The guide aims to “prevent misunderstandings due to language and cultural differences and improve foreigners’ understanding of Korean culture and laws”, said Jeju Police Agency chief Kim Su-young.

An initial eight thousand copies of the guide will be printed and distributed immediately, Kim said.

The guide lists down “minor offences” that are punishable by fines. These include smoking in prohibited areas, littering, jaywalking, drunk and disorderly behaviour, running away from restaurants without paying for meals, urinating or defecating in public, using a fake ID, and trespassing and breaking into empty houses.

First time violators are let off with with a warning, but repeat offenders could be fined by as much as 200,000 won ($143; £106), according to a copy of the guide released by police.

South Korea has seen a strong post-pandemic rebound in tourism. Jeju alone has welcomed seven million visitors so far this year, according to local media.

In 2024, foreign visitors pumped a record 9.26 trillion won into the local economy. Nearly 70% of these visitors visiting Jeju were from China.

The island’s crackdown on misbehaviour also highlights how tourism hotspots across Asia have been responding to over-tourism.

Last year, a Japanese town blocked a famous roadside view of Mount Fuji to ward off tourists seeking to take pictures and selfies.

The number of people in the UK visiting the most popular pornography sites has decreased sharply since enhanced age verification rules came into place, new figures indicate.

Data analytics firm Similarweb said leading adult site Pornhub lost more than one million visitors in just two weeks.

Pornhub and other major adult websites introduced advanced age checks on 25 July after the Online Safety Act said sites must make it harder for under-18s to see explicit material.

Data experts at Similarweb compared the daily average user figures of popular pornography sites from 1 to 9 August with the daily average figures for July.

Pornhub is the UK’s most visited website for adult content and it experienced a 47% decrease in traffic between 24 July, one day before the new rules came into place, and 8 August, according to Similarweb’s data.

Over the same time period, traffic to XVideos, another leading adult site, was also down 47% and OnlyFans saw traffic drop by over 10%.

The number of average daily visits to Pornhub fell from 3.2 million in July to 2 million in the first nine days of August.

However, the data also showed that some smaller and less well regulated pornography sites saw visits increase.

A spokesperson for Pornhub told the BBC: “As we’ve seen in many jurisdictions around the world, there is often a drop in traffic for compliant sites and an increase in traffic for non-compliant sites.”

The UK’s new online safety rules, explained:

• What is the Online Safety Act?
• How could age checks for porn work in the UK?
• From Reddit to Pornhub: Which sites will require UK age verification?
• The debate: Will new rules for porn sites do more harm than good?

This comes after Virtual private network (VPN) apps became the most downloaded on Apple’s App Store in the UK in the days after the age verification rules were enforced.

VPNs can disguise your location online – allowing you to use the internet as though you are in another country.

The apps would also make it harder to collect data on how many people are visiting sites from specific locations.

Media regulator Ofcom estimates 14 million people watch online pornography.

It has set out a number of ways websites can verify the age of users including through credit card checks, photo ID matching and estimating age using a selfie.

Critics have suggested an unintended consequence of the changes could be to drive people to more extreme content in darker corners of the internet, such as the dark web.

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

Israel’s prime minister has accused his Australian counterpart of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Australia’s Jewish community, after days of growing strain between the two countries.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that history would remember Anthony Albanese “for what he is: a weak politician”.

Australia barred a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition from entering the country on Monday, and Israel in turn revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Netanyahu was “lashing out” over Canberra recently announcing it would join the UK, France and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state.

“Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many people you can leave hungry,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday.

Albanese later told reporters he does not “take these things personally”.

“I treat leaders of other countries with respect, I engage with them in a diplomatic way,” he said.

Israel’s opposition leader criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, branding them a “gift” to the Australian leader.

Yair Lapid wrote on X: “The thing that most strengthens a leader in the democratic world today is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world.

“It is unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Prime Minister of Australia this gift.”

Diplomatic tensions flared on Monday after far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman’s Australian visa was cancelled ahead of a visit to the country, where he had been due to speak at events organised by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).

Burke told local media at the time that the government took “a hard line” on people seeking to “spread division”.

“If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here,” he said.

Last year, Burke also denied a visa to Israel’s former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, a right-wing politician who left parliament in 2022.

A few hours after the revocation of Rothman’s visa was announced, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said he had instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to “carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel”.

He added in a post on X: “While antisemitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it.”

In recent months, there have been a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia – which is home to one of the world’s largest populations of Holocaust survivors per capita.

On Tuesday, the AJA said Rothman would still appear at their speaking event virtually.

“The Jewish community won’t bow down to Tony Burke or [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong,” it said in a social media post.

Australia announced in early August that it would recognise a Palestinian state, with Albanese saying at the time that Netanyahu was “in denial” about the consequences of the war on innocent people.

“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable,” he said.

Palestine is currently recognised as a state by 147 of the UN’s 193 member states, and Australia’s announcement came about two weeks after similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

In response, Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the three countries, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

More than 62,064 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

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

A TV advert for Sanex shower gel which showed black skin as cracked and white skin as smooth has been banned for reinforcing a racial stereotype.

The ad shows two models with dark skin – one has itchy skin and the other has dry skin – followed by a white woman with no skin problems.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld two complaints which said the depiction of dark skin as dry, cracked and itchy “could be interpreted as suggesting that white skin was superior to black skin”.

Colgate-Palmolive, which owns Sanex, said it used models with different skin colours as part of its commitment to diversity.

The brand said it made products for all skin types and the use of different models was to show a “before and after” scenario, not to compare different skin colours or ethnicities.

The ad, which was broadcast on TV in June, shows a model with dark skin scratching their body, making bright orange, paint-like stripes with their fingertips.

A voiceover says: “To those who might scratch day and night”.

Another dark-skinned model is then seen covered in cracked, clay-like material, and the voiceover continues “to those whose skin will feel dried out even by water”.

A white model is seen showering with water and foam moving over her skin which has no visible problems or graphics to suggest any.

The voiceover says: “Try to take a shower with the new Sanex skin therapy and its patented amino acid complex. For 24-hour hydration feel.”

The tagline for the ad was: “Relief could be as simple as a shower.”

The ASA ruled the ad breached its broadcast code and banned it from being shown again in the same format.

“The white skin, depicted as smoother and clean after using the product, was shown successfully changed and resolved,” the ruling said.

“We considered that could be interpreted as suggesting that white skin was superior to black skin.”

The ASA said it accepted that this message was not intentional but warned Colgate-Palmolive to “ensure they avoided causing serious offence on the grounds of race” in future.

Clearcast, which approves or rejects ads for broadcast on television, said the advert did not perpetuate negative racial stereotypes.

One model with darker skin was depicted in a “stylised and unrealistic way” to demonstrate dryness, but their skin tone was otherwise not a focal point, the agency said.

A second model, also with darker skin, was shown with itchy skin, but this was portrayed through scratching visibly healthy skin and the resulting marks, and was therefore more about sensation than any visible skin condition, it added.

Sanex told BBC News: “We take note of the ASA Council’s ruling. Our advert was intended to highlight how our Skin Therapy range supports healthy skin across a variety of skin types.

“At Sanex, our mission is to champion skin health for all, which is portrayed across our brand communications.”

The government needs to stop children using virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass age checks on porn sites, the children’s commissioner for England has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza told BBC Newsnight it was “absolutely a loophole that needs closing” and called for age verification on VPNs.

VPNs can disguise your location online – allowing you to use the internet as though you are in another country. It means that they can be used to bypass requirements of the Online Safety Act, which mandated platforms with certain adult content to start checking the age of users.

A government spokesperson said VPNs are legal tools for adults and there are no plans to ban them.

The children’s commissioner’s recommendation is included in a new report, which found the proportion of children saying they have seen pornography online has risen in the past two years.

Last month VPNs were the most downloaded apps on Apple’s App Store in the UK after sites such as PornHub, Reddit and X began requiring age verification.

Virtual private networks connect users to websites using a remote server and conceal their actual IP address and location, meaning they can circumvent blocks on particular sites or content.

Dame Rachel told BBC Newsnight: “Of course, we need age verification on VPNs – it’s absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that’s one of my major recommendations.”

She wants ministers to explore requiring VPNs “to implement highly effective age assurances to stop underage users from accessing pornography.”

The report also found more children are stumbling across pornography accidentally, with some of the 16 to 21-year-olds surveyed saying they had viewed it “aged six or younger”.

More than half of respondents to the survey had viewed strangulation as children, prompting Dame Rachel to also ask the government to ban depictions of it.

Pornography depicting rape of a sleeping person was also seen by 44% of respondents as children.

The data was gathered prior to the amendments to the Online Safety Act in July, which brought in age verification tools for pornography.

Dame Rachel described the findings as “rock bottom”.

“This tells us how much of the problem is about the design of platforms, algorithms and recommendation systems that put harmful content in front of children who never sought it out,” the commissioner said, calling for the report to act as a “line in the sand”.

The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology told the BBC “children have been left to grow up in a lawless online world for too long” and “the Online Safety Act is changing that’.

On Dame Rachel’s VPN comments, the spokesperson said there are no plans to ban them “but if platforms deliberately push workarounds like VPNs to children, they face tough enforcement and heavy fines.”

Josh Lane was addicted to porn by 14-years-old after first finding it via a Google search when he was aged 12.

He told Newsnight the addiction caused him to isolate himself from friends and family because he was “afraid of anyone discovering that I was hooked.”

Mr Lane described finding “the only place I could get, I guess, love and intimacy was from pornography” at the same time as feeling “heaps of guilt and shame”

Now 25 and happily married, he has not looked at porn in almost a year but said the addiction is “a problem that affects you forever”.

Kerry Smith, CEO of the Internet Watch Foundation, said “children’s exposure to extreme or violent sexual imagery can normalise harmful sexual behaviours, and is increasingly linked to sexual violence against girls and women”.

She added: “It is clear this is something we all need to be taking seriously, and the safeguards adult sites have put in place to make sure children can’t access sexual content must be robust and meaningful.”