A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in jail for treason for donating $51 (£39) to a charity supporting Ukraine.

Karelina, who has American and Russian citizenship, pleaded guilty last week after a trial held behind closed doors.

She had been living in Los Angeles and became a US citizen in 2021. She was arrested during a family visit last January in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year jail term. The court in Yekaterinburg found her guilty of high treason and sentenced her to imprisonment in a general regime penal colony.

Karelina had been accused by Russia’s FSB security service of raising money for a Ukrainian organisation providing arms to the Ukrainian military.

Russian human rights activists said while living in the US she had made a single transfer of $51.80 on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022. The FSB is thought to have discovered the transaction on her phone.

Her lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said Karelina had only admitted transferring the money and believed the funds would help victims on both sides. He told Russian media she would appeal against the sentence.

The charity, Razom for Ukraine, said earlier this year it was “appalled” to hear of the amateur ballerina’s arrest and denied raising money for weapons or ammunition. It said it was a US-founded charity focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Karelina went on trial in June in the same court as Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was jailed for espionage but freed earlier this month as part of a major prisoner swap with the US and other Western countries.

The cases in Yekaterinburg were heard by the same judge, Andrei Mineev.

Ksenia Karelina’s boyfriend, boxer Chris van Heerden, said on Thursday that he was very angry with the US State Department.

“I woke up to the news this morning. I’m still sitting here processing what’s happening,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s media partner.

“There was a prisoner swap two weeks ago, and Ksenia was not on that list,” he said, adding that he had been pushing for her to be sent home for the past eight months.

“Ksenia should be home, and I’m angry, and I’m trying to hold my composure.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour, Mr Van Heerden said he felt Karelina should never have gone back to Russia at the start of the year.

“Now my question is, can we get Ksenia declared ‘wrongly detained’ today, so that when the next swap happens, she is part of it?”

If the US declares a person to be “wrongfully detained”, it means it views them as a political hostage and negotiations are vital to securing their freedom.

He added “To my surprise, there were two people [in the prisoner swap] who were not declared ‘wrongly detained’ and they got out – so why is Ksenia not home?”

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s authorities have clamped down on dissent and human rights groups say more than 1,000 criminal cases have been opened against anti-war dissidents.

Last year President Vladimir Putin signed a decree formally increasing the maximum jail term for treason from 20 years to life. A record number of treason cases were opened last year, according to human rights activists.

In July, dual German-Russian teenager Kevin Lik was given four years for treason. He was one of the 16 men and women freed by Russia as part of its prisoner exchange with the West.

When Karelina was first detained, rights group Perviy Otdel said she had been accused of swearing in a public place. But her initial detention for “petty hooliganism” was then extended when the FSB accused her of treason.

She had been working at a hotel spa in Beverly Hills before her arrest and had travelled to Yekaterinburg to see her parents and her elderly grandmother.

Karelina is her maiden name, and she is also known as Ksenia Khavana because she took her ex-husband’s surname.

“I want to break down and cry and yell and lose my head, but I know I have to stay strong – and I need to keep fighting,” Mr Van Heerden told the BBC.

He said he worried about the effect of Karelina’s imprisonment on her health.

“She is a very soft person with a very kind heart and I’m afraid for her. I’m afraid that her kind heart will be stepped on and I know that she is fearful.

I know she wants to break down and cry, but she is pretending to be strong.”

“The fight doesn’t end here,” he added, “the fight is now to get her back on US soil. Our only hope is the US government.”

Japan has lifted its warning about a potential “megaquake”, one week after it was issued.

The warning told people to be alert but not evacuate, saying the probability of a major earthquake was higher than usual but it was not imminent.

The Japanese government said it was no longer asking people to take special precautions and they were free to “go back to normal lifestyles”.

Following the warning, thousands of Japanese people cancelled planned trips and stocked up on essentials, while some high-speed rail travel was also affected.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said, as of Wednesday, it had detected no seismic activity indicating any concerning changes in the presumed area where the megaquake could originate, Kyodo news agency reported.

While last week’s warning has been lifted, the risk of a major earthquake is still present, disaster management minister Yoshifumi Matsumura said.

He said no abnormalities had been detected in “seismic activity and crustal deformation” so the call for increased preparedness was lifted at 17:00 local time (09:00 BST).

“But it doesn’t mean the risk (of a major earthquake) has been eliminated,” he told reporters.

“We have been asking for special precautions, such as sleeping while being prepared to evacuate immediately. But we will no longer ask for these steps, and the people of Japan are free to go back to normal lifestyles,” he added.

Last week’s warning came hours after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit off the southern island of Kyushu.

Experts were put on heightened alert because of where the epicentre sat – at the edge of the Nankai Trough, an area of seismic activity which stretches along Japan’s Pacific coast.

The plate boundary sits between Suruga Bay in central Japan, and the Hyuganada Sea in Kyushu to the south.

After last week’s warning, some shops were reportedly left with empty shelves or forced to put limits on purchases of items like bottled water.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cancelled a trip to Central Asia. Some bullet trains also reduced their speed as a precaution.

Previous Nankai Trough earthquakes have left thousands dead. These megaquakes have been recorded once every 90 to 200 years, with the last one occurring in 1946.

Experts say there is a 70% to 80% chance of a magnitude 8 or 9 quake striking somewhere along the trough in the next 30 years, according to the Kyodo news agency. Worst-case estimates suggest more than 200,000 people could be killed in the earthquake and potential subsequent tsunami.

At least one person has been arrested over the death of Friends star Matthew Perry, according to US media.

Perry, 54, was found unresponsive at his Los Angeles home in October last year. A post-mortem examination found the cause of his death was “the acute effects of ketamine”, a controlled drug which the recovering addict was taking as part of supervised therapy.

LA police opened an investigation in May to determine why Perry had so much of the drug in his system.

ABC News and TMZ reported that multiple people had been arrested and were facing federal charges. Other outlets, including NBC News, said at least one arrest had been made.

Police said they would hold a press conference with more details later on Thursday.

Ketamine – a powerful anaesthetic – is used as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. People close to Perry told a coroner’s investigation after his death that he was was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy.

But his last session had taken place more than a week before his death. The medical examiner said the ketamine in Perry’s system could not have been from the infusion therapy because of the drug’s short half-life.

The levels of ketamine in his body were as high as the amount given during general anaesthesia, according to the medical examiner.

Just how the actor – who had reportedly not had a supervised infusion session for several days – obtained the drug became the subject of the legal investigation.

Drowning was also listed as a contributing factor in his death, which was ruled an accident. Other contributing factors were coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder.

At the height of his fame, Perry was battling with addiction to painkillers and alcohol, and attended rehabilitation clinics on multiple occasions. He detailed his struggle with substance use in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.

In 2016, he told BBC Radio 2 that he could not remember three years of filming during Friends, because of drink and drugs.

After attempts at treatment, he wrote in his memoir that he had been mostly sober since 2001 – “save for about 60 or 70 mishaps”.

Tens of thousands of women in West Bengal state marched through the streets on Wednesday night in protest against the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata last week.

The Reclaim the Night march was the culmination of nearly a week of frenzied protests ignited by the brutal killing of the 31-year-old at the RG Kar Medical College last Friday.

After a gruelling 36-hour shift, she had fallen asleep in a seminar room due to the lack of a designated rest area.

The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. A hospital volunteer worker has been arrested in connection with the crime.

Responding to calls on social media, women from all walks of life marched across Kolkata city and throughout the state on a rainy Wednesday night.

Though protests were largely peaceful, they were marred by clashes between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital, the site of the doctor’s murder, and ransacked the emergency department.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the unruly crowd. Some police vehicles were also damaged.

Smaller protests were also held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

In Kolkata, women marched resolutely, holding placards of protest, their faces illuminated by the glow of mobile phones, candlelight and flaming torches. Some carried India’s flags. They were joined by men, both young and elderly.

During the marches and at many gatherings near a university, theatre hall and bus terminus, they stood united, holding hands as the humid air echoed with loud and powerful chants of “we want justice”. Protesters blew conch shells – the sound is considered auspicious.

At the stroke of midnight, as India completed 77 years of Independence, the soundscape of protest changed.

The air filled with a spontaneous chorus of the national anthem. Then it began raining, but the protesters walked in the rain, or holding umbrellas over their head.

“We have never seen anything like this before in the city, such a huge gathering of women marching at night,” a reporter belonging to a news network said.

It was a night of barely concealed rage and frustration.

A woman, who joined the march well after midnight with her 13-year-old daughter said: “Let her see whether a mass protest can set things right. Let her become aware of her rights”.

“Women have no respect!” said another. “Our worth is less than cows and goats.”

“When do we get our independence? How long do we have to wait to work without fear? Another 50 years?” asked a student.

Sanchari Mukherjee, editor of a digital magazine, said she marched with thousands of others from a bus terminus in Jadavpur, undeterred by the rain.

She met “people of all ages, from all classes, the well-to-do, the middle class and the poor”.

“I saw an elderly couple, the husband helping the woman to walk,” she said.

“One family brought their little girl along, perhaps so the memory of this event would be etched in her mind – how her parents stood up against injustice, and how she, too, can protest one day.”

Ms Mukherjee said the entire city seemed awake as the marchers passed by illuminated homes, with people peering out of windows and crowding verandahs to watch.

“They may not have participated but they were with us in spirit,” she said.

“‘We want justice’ had become the anthem of the march, and it didn’t feel like just a slogan,” Ms Mukherjee said.

“It felt like every young woman was deeply hurt and determined, frustrated that they still face these issues in 2024.”

Ms Mukherjee added that she had to walk a few miles to join the march because the streets were gridlocked late at night.

“I was instantly swept up in a sea of people heading to the protest site. There was no excitement, just a stoic determination to create an event which would become a symbol for the times to come.”

The protests have been fuelled by anger over local authorities’ handling of the young trainee doctor’s rape and murder.

Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they said was a case of rape and murder.

But there have been accusations of cover-up and negligence. The case has since been transferred from local police to the federal Central Bureau of Investigation.

Despite scant resources, Kolkata’s Reclaim the Night march appeared to have been meticulously organised. In an advisory, organisers welcomed women and people from marginalised sexual and gender identities to the march.

“Men are welcome as allies and observers,” the advisory added.

They also emphasised that politicians were not welcome and requested that no party flags be brought to the protest.

It was not the first time that a Reclaim the Night march has been staged in India.

Inspired by similar marches elsewhere in the world by women to assert their rights to walk in public areas without fear, a march was held in 1978 in Bombay (now Mumbai) in protest against the rape of a woman on the street.

Blank Noise, a community-based art project and activist collective, has organised several midnight walks in Delhi to encourage women to assert their right to walk freely at night.

But in terms of scale, the Kolkata march, echoed by smaller ones across other cities, stands as the largest yet.

“We seized the night. We’ve never seen anything like this in the city. This is unprecedented. I hope it wakes up the authorities,” said Chaitali Sen, a protester.

Tens of thousands of people participated in a “Reclaim the Night” march in the Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday night to protest against last week’s rape and murder of a trainee doctor.

The march, largely led by women, demanded justice for the 31-year-old victim who worked at the RG Kar Medical College. She was brutally attacked on Friday, sparking protests and anger across the country.

Devalina Bose, 27, an intern at the same hospital, told the BBC that she joined the protest as she was hurt and angry because of what happened to her colleague.

Here is Devalina in her own words.

I’m still traumatised by what happened to the victim. I struggle to sleep at night.

I keep thinking about how just three weeks back, I had taken a short nap in a room just a few meters away from where the rape and murder happened.

I was tired that night after being on my feet for hours and I just wanted to take a nap. But the room didn’t have a lock and so I couldn’t bolt the door shut.

I was alone in the room and, for a second, I worried about my safety.

But then I pushed the thought out of my head because I told myself that my colleagues were close-by and nothing untoward could possibly happen to me in a hospital.

But now, I don’t feel this way anymore.

Every time I’m on shift, I catch myself looking over my shoulder, scanning the room for unsafe faces, voices… I don’t know what I’m looking for but I’m always on the edge.

What happened to her is just unimaginable. How could a doctor on duty be subjected to something so horrific? So inhuman?

Doctors save people’s lives. They give people a second – sometimes a third – lease on life.

So last night, I joined all my colleagues on the street. My parents didn’t want me to participate in the march because they were worried about my safety.

But I told them that they should encourage me instead, because women have the right to be out in the streets at night and to feel safe.

Women have the right to be anywhere they choose to, doing whatever they choose to, without having to worry about their safety. We have a right to the night like anybody else.

That’s why I joined the protest. To mark this idea and to force people to see it, understand it and believe it.

I saw so many people, of all ages, participate in the march.

There were several generations of women out in the streets – grandmothers, mothers, daughters – holding placards, candles, shouting slogans for justice and change. Some were just walking along silently, perhaps soaking it all in.

My female professors and staff from the hospital were also out to protest.

People from the building I stay in were also participating in a march organised by our society.

It was the first time I saw people I never thought would participate in a march in the night.

I thought it was so special and so powerful.

I walked along with my female friends and even though I attended just one protest march, I felt connected to the hundreds of marches being held simultaneously across the state.

My friends from other places shared videos of their marches with me. I shared photos and videos of mine.

In those few moments, we all felt connected – united in our anger and desire for change.

I think this incident has ignited so much rage and touched so many people.

Often in our society, many people tend to blame the victim. They say ‘why was she out with a guy?’ or ‘why was she wearing that dress?’ or ‘why was she out at that hour in the night?’

It is reprehensible to hold a woman accountable for the man’s actions in any case. Now many of us are wondering who will people blame?

It’s time we as a society took a step back and asked ourselves this question: whose fault is rape, really?

Judges in Arizona have allowed officials to call a foetus an “unborn human being” in public information leaflets ahead of a statewide vote on abortion in November.

Pro-choice activists criticised the ruling, saying the phrase is “biased”, but the state’s top court said the wording did not break impartiality rules.

America has been locked in a bitter debate over reproductive freedoms after the US Supreme Court rescinded the nationwide right to abortion two years ago.

On 5 November, the issue will again be in the spotlight, when Arizona and other states vote on whether to add a woman’s right to an abortion to their own constitutions.

The group Arizona for Abortion Access said voters would be “subjected to biased, politically-charged words developed not by experts but by anti-abortion special interests”.

It added it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision of the state supreme court, which sided with state Republican lawmakers.

One of those Republicans, House Speaker Ben Toma, hailed the ruling as “correct”, the Associated Press reported, and said the move was designed to aid voters’ understanding.

The court – whose judges were appointed by Republicans – has promised to release a full opinion later, AP added.

Women in Arizona are currently prevented from terminating a pregnancy after 15 weeks, with some exceptions, as a result of legislation brought by the Republicans in 2022.

That law was passed after the US Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v Wade: a landmark ruling which rescinded the nationwide right to abortion and set in train a nationwide debate over reproductive rights.

In Arizona specifically, this reached a head earlier this year when state lawmakers battled over a 160-year law that would have almost totally banned abortions, without exceptions in instances of rape and incest.

The state supreme court ruled in April the legislation dating from 1864 could be enforced. The move was briefly hailed as an “enormous victory” by one anti-abortion group, before state Democrats forced through a repeal bill with the help of two Republicans in the senate.

At both state and national levels, Democrats have made the abortion issue key to their campaign ahead of 5 November.

That is the date of the presidential election as well as the Democratic-supported abortion initiative of the kind seen in Arizona, which was confirmed to be going ahead earlier this week.

Many of the states in which these ballots are taking place are key battlegrounds that could have a bearing on the presidential result.

Many Republican politicians, meanwhile, have sided with religious conservatives who want abortion banned or limited in the US.

In Arizona, the abortion ballot will determine whether or not to amend the state constitution to allow a woman to end a pregnancy up to the time at which a foetus could survive outside the womb. That tends to be about 23 or 24 weeks.

The move would prevent future laws being introduced to restrict abortion access – something that opponents say would go too far.

The decision of Arizona’s top court to allow a foetus to be described an “unborn human being” is reminiscent of a decision by Alabama’s own supreme court earlier this year. This ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children.

Most Americans believe abortion should be legal in at least some situations, recent polling presented by the firm Gallup has indicated.

Authorities in the Kenyan city of Eldoret have removed the statues of three athletes after they were widely ridiculed and described as “embarrassing” and a poorly done “joke”.

The statues were unveiled ahead of Thursday’s ceremony giving Eldoret city status.

However, local residents and Kenyans online said they bore little resemblance to the athletes they allegedly represent.

Eldoret is known as the “home of champions”, as it is at the centre of the Rift Valley, where most of Kenya’s world-beating athletes come from.

The statues were removed overnight before President William Ruto officially designated Eldoret a city.

The town this week unveiled several artistic works, including three statues of athletes and other monuments such as a maize cob and a milk fountain.

They were supposed to represent the area’s sports and agricultural heritage and were erected at various strategic roundabouts in the town.

But the artworks immediately drew widespread criticism, becoming objects of ridicule rather than the pride they were supposed to elicit.

A Kenyan who shared a photo of a statue of a female athlete suspected to represent 1,500m world-record holder Faith Kipyegon, said the works represented “our collective mediocrity as a country”.

“It’s a disgrace calling it a Faith Kipyegon statue,” another Kenyan on X said.

Yet another X user shared a purported statue of marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge terming it a “joke”, saying “whoever did this will not see heaven”.

On Thursday morning, local media shared images of an empty pedestal where one of the statues had stood.

A local reporter told the BBC that county officials removed the three statues on Wednesday night, two representing female athletes and one of a male, taking them to an unknown location.

The authorities have not indicated who they represent but social media users have described one as a statue of Kipyegon and another of Kipchoge.

But their depiction of the athletes has been described as “shameless”, “embarrassing” and “substandard”.

Kenyans online have been welcoming the removal of the statues. It was not clear whether they would be replaced, or when.

Ahead of the ceremony to declare Eldoret Kenya’s fifth city, President Ruto hosted athletes who won medals at the 2024 Olympics.

They were each rewarded with money in accordance with a government scheme meant to motivate athletes for good performance.

Kenya was the highest-ranked African country at the Paris Olympics, coming 17th on the medal table with four golds and a total of 11 medals.

Kipyegon won the 1,500m title in a new Olympic record of 3min 51.29sec, the first woman to win three consecutive golds in the event.

She also took silver in the 5,000m.

However, Kipchoge did not finish the marathon after a back injury forced him to drop out.

• Third Olympic title an ‘amazing honour’ for Kipyegon
• Backlash as Botswana requests money for Olympic heroes
• Kenyan football must stop ‘shooting itself in foot’ amid FKF dispute
• Heat and hills in way of Kipchoge and Olympic history

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) has admitted it made an “error” in cancelling an acclaimed pianist’s performance due to comments he made on the Israel-Gaza war.

On Sunday, Jayson Gillham premiered a five-minute piece called Witness, written by composer Connor D’Netto, which was dedicated to the journalists of Gaza.

Before starting the recital, Mr Gillham said Israel had killed more than 100 Palestinian journalists.

The MSO subsequently removed the British-Australian pianist from an upcoming concert on Thursday, saying he put them in a “difficult situation”.

Now the entire concert, due to be held at Melbourne Town Hall, has been cancelled due to safety concerns.

The MSO says they are trying to reschedule the performance.

At Sunday’s concert, which was held at the Iwaki Auditorium in Melbourne, Jayson Gillham performed a range of other works, from Beethoven to Chopin.

Witness was a last-minute addition, according to the MSO.

“The killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world,” Mr Gillham claimed before starting to play Witness.

In an apologetic statement on Thursday, the MSO said “While the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra maintains that a concert platform is not an appropriate stage for political comment, we acknowledge Jayson’s concerns for those in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

“We recognise the strength of feelings of all parties on this matter and particularly acknowledge the dedication and commitment demonstrated by all our musicians and staff this week.”

Mr Gillham has accepted the MSO’s apology.

“I hold my relationship with the MSO, its players and audience with the highest regard and look forward to our continued working relationship in years to come,” he said in a statement.

Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in an attack on Israel on 7 October, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

That attack triggered a massive Israeli military offensive on Gaza and the current war.

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli campaign, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

At least 113 of those were journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent organisation that promotes press freedom.

The decision by the MSO and their subsequent apology have caused a stir on social media. High profile barrister Greg Barns said the cancellation was “truly appalling,” later adding that “art is often powerful because it’s political”.

Arts critic and former Sydney Symphony Orchestra chairman Leo Schofield said of the MSO’s apology, “Not before time. How I wish Gillham was giving a concert in Sydney. He would get a standing ovation here from supporters who admire his courage almost as much as they admire his talent.”

The Israel-Gaza war has become a volatile political issue in Australia that all sides have sought to carefully manage.

As has been the case in countless other countries, there have been protests from both Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as sharp upticks in Islamophobia and anti-semitism.

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli military action in Gaza since the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

That number – 40,005 on Thursday – equates to about 1.7% of the 2.3 million population of the territory – another sobering indication of the human cost of the war.

Alongside the fatalities, satellite image analysis suggests nearly 60% of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the war.

In the past few months, the southern city of Rafah has suffered the most damage, imagery shows.

The ministry’s figures for the number of people killed do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

However, its breakdown of identified reported fatalities says a majority are children, women or elderly people.

This month, Israel’s military told the BBC that more than 15,000 terrorists had been killed during the war.

International journalists, including the BBC, are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently, so are unable to verify figures from either side.

In the past, figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) were widely used in times of conflict and seen as reliable by the UN and international institutions.

It only counted deaths registered in hospitals with these entered in a centralised system along with names, identity numbers and other details.

However, by late last year the MoH was unable to function effectively with overflowing mortuaries, fighting in and around hospitals and poor internet and phone connectivity.

The Hamas Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza began publishing numbers of deaths including reports given in “reliable media”.

UN agencies started to incorporate this into their data breakdowns as well as MoH figures when updates were available.

More recently, Gaza’s MoH has begun to incorporate those reported as killed in the war including by family members online in its overall tally.

However, it also counts separately the number of unidentified bodies among the total number killed.

The UN now quotes these figures, with officials attributing them and stressing that their Gaza teams cannot independently verify them due to the conditions on the ground and the high volume of fatalities.

Israel has consistently questioned the credibility of the information. In May, the Foreign Minister Israel Katz described it as “fake data from a terrorist organisation”.

• BBC Verify: How Gaza death recording has changed

Several experts have said the actual number of people killed as a direct result of the war in Gaza is likely to be far higher, with local officials estimating that about 10,000 bodies remain under the rubble of buildings hit by Israeli air strikes.

Ali Ashraf Ata Gheith, 15, told the BBC he spent two months digging his dead family from the wreckage of their bombed-out home.

His mother, father, brother and two sisters were killed when it was hit by a strike. Ali was in the building too, but survived after being trapped under the rubble for seven hours.

After he got out, he began trying to retrieve the bodies of his family.

“I could see my father under the rubble but I couldn’t extract him at first because he was under two columns of cement, and the ceiling would have collapsed. He decomposed in front of my eyes,” he said.

Even with a halt in fighting, researchers point out that in addition to the number of people killed as a direct result of the war, many more could die from indirect causes, such as disease and hunger.

Ultimately when the war ends, efforts to recover bodies and trace the missing should allow a clearer idea to emerge of the number killed, including a figure for combatants. The UN and rights groups, as well as the Israeli military, can be expected to carry out their own investigations.

Satellite image analysis suggests that around 59.3% of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the war.

The damage analysis, carried out by Corey Scher of City University of New York and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, compares images to reveal sudden changes in the height or structure of buildings.

The southern city of Rafah has sustained the highest rise in damaged buildings since March, according to the expert analysis.

The majority of the destruction came after Israel launched an offensive on the city on 6 May. The military says that taking control of the area and eliminating the remaining Hamas battalions is crucial to achieving its war aims.

In satellite imagery analysed by BBC Verify, large swathes of the city can be seen to be left in ruins – particularly around the border with Egypt and neighbourhoods to the north and south.

Social media videos verified by the BBC and footage shared by Israel’s military shows that areas across Rafah have been damaged or destroyed by aerial bombardment as well as demolition by Israeli forces on the ground.

In the image below we see a large section of cleared buildings immediately adjacent to the border.

Satellite imagery shows land has been cleared along the so-called Philadelphi corridor – a buffer zone along the 14km (9-mile) border with Egypt.

BBC Verify’s analysis of the imagery showed Israeli military vehicles in several areas where building clearance had taken place along the corridor. This includes a small neighbourhood located where the border meets the coast which was flattened within a month of the Rafah operation starting.

On the ground footage filmed by an Israeli soldier also showed that an observation tower was later built in the area.

The operation has also destroyed key Rafah landmarks which includes the border crossing, several major mosques and the city’s main market.

On 7 May, videos verified by the BBC showed Israeli tanks crushing a “Welcome to Gaza” sign at the Rafah border crossing.

Video posted on the same date also showed damage to the blue dome of the Abrar mosque. Satellite imagery captured subsequently showed the building was later destroyed.

In another social media video shared on 27 June, roads and green lawns that once centred around Rafah’s famous Al-Najma roundabout were now churned up, with nearby buildings heavily damaged.

The war began when thousands of Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in the south of France have been partly cancelled due to the threat of thunderstorms.

French President Emmanuel Macron was due to hold a reception aboard the amphibious helicopter carrier Dixmude, but that had to be called off.

A scheduled re-enactment of the landings in Toulon was also axed, but six African leaders joined President Macron for a ceremony at the national cemetery at Boulouris-sur-Mer to remember the operation.

The landings in Provence played a key role in the liberation of France during World War Two, allowing Allied forces to reclaim most of southern France.

Sometimes referred to as the forgotten D-Day, they occurred shortly after the much better-known landings in Normandy.

The Elysée Palace said shortly before the commemorations were due to start that the reception on the Dixmude would no longer take place.

Meanwhile, the local authority for the Var region said in a statement that the re-enactments on the Lido beach at Mourillon had been cancelled due to “the unfavourable weather conditions and the significant risk of storms”.

Violent storms and heavy rains had been forecast for the region, with winds of up to 140km/h (87mph).

The Provence landings began when some 100,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of the French Riviera on 15 August 1944.

They were followed by 250,000 soldiers recruited largely from the French colonies in north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

However, it has taken decades to highlight the role they played during commemorations of the military operation.

“France had forgotten us, but they’re making up for lost time,” said Oumar Dieme, a former Senegalese infantryman who attended the ceremony, according to news agency AFP.

Mr Macron told the ceremony at Boulouris-sur-Mer, where hundreds of soldiers were buried, that the men who took part in the landings fought for “the right to self-determination, their sovereignty, their territorial integrity”.

He paid tribute to the crucial role played by African soldiers, who were often recruited by force and came from what are now Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Togo, Morocco and Niger.

“They all accomplished, that day and those that followed, a work of which they knew the immense perils. And yet they did it with brave audacity and irrefutable strength.”

The French president was joined by Paul Biya of Cameroon and Faustin-Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic and several other leaders.

In an address, Mr Biya said: “There would have been no Allied victory without the contribution of other peoples, without foreigners.”

He added: “These valiant soldiers from West Africa, Equatorial Africa, Madagascar or the Indian Ocean distinguished themselves magnificently.

“They paid a very heavy price for victory. They were exemplary fighters, often heirs to immemorial war traditions, admirable for their courage, daring and loyalty.”

The soldiers of the Provence landings – dubbed Operation Dragoon – played a key role in capturing the key Mediterranean ports of Marseille and Toulon and increased pressure on Nazi forces by opening up a new front.

The father of 17-year-old Spanish football star Lamine Yamal has reportedly been stabbed multiple times in a car park.

According to reports in Spanish media, Mounir Nasraoui was attacked in the coastal town of Mataró, north of Barcelona, on Wednesday night by a group of people he had spoken to earlier in the day.

Catalan police have confirmed three people were arrested on Wednesday and a fourth suspect was detained on Thursday morning.

Mr Nasraoui was taken to hospital in Barcelona in a serious condition but is now said to be stable.

The reported attack took place near the Rocafonda neighbourhood where Yamal grew up.

Earlier in the day, Mr Nasraoui is said to have had an argument with a group of people he had encountered while walking his dog, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

Hours later, he was approached by the same group in a car park and stabbed “multiple times”.

The motivation for the stabbing is currently unknown.

A report on sports website Relevo said Mr Nasraoui was set to remain in hospital for two or three days under observation.

Lamine Yamal, Spain’s youngest ever player, lit up Euro 2024 where he was named Young Player of the Tournament.

The winger set up Nico Williams’s opening goal as Spain beat England 2-1 in the final in Berlin.

Shortly after Spain lifted the trophy, fans lined the streets of Mataró celebrating their young star.

After spending his childhood in the town, Yamal spent some of his teenage years at Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy.

The world’s highest single-arch rail bridge is set to connect the valley region in Indian-administered Kashmir with the rest of the country by train for the first time.

It took more than 20 years for the Indian railways to finish the bridge over the River Chenab in the Reasi district of Jammu.

The showpiece infrastructure project is 35m taller than the Eiffel Tower and the first train on the bridge is set to run soon between Bakkal and Kauri areas.

The bridge is part of a 272km (169 miles) all-weather railway line that will pass through Jammu, ultimately going all the way to the Kashmir valley (there is no definite timeline yet for the completion). Currently, the road link to Kashmir valley is often cut off during winter months when heavy snowfall leads to blockages on the highway from Jammu.

Experts say the new railway line will give India a strategic advantage along the troubled border region.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for decades. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over it since independence in 1947. Both claim Kashmir in full but control only parts of it.

An armed insurgency against Delhi’s rule in the Indian-administered region since 1989 has claimed thousands of lives and there is heavy military presence in the area.

“The rail bridge will permit the transport of military personnel and equipment around the year to the border areas,” said Giridhar Rajagopalan, deputy managing director of Afcons Infrastructure, the contractor for the Indian railways that constructed the bridge.

This will help India exploit a “strategic goal of managing any adventurism by Pakistan and China [with whom it shares tense relations] on the western and northern borders”, said Shruti Pandalai, a strategic affairs expert.

On the ground, sentiment about the project is more nuanced. Some locals, who did not want to be named, said the move would definitely help improve transport links, which would benefit them. But they also worry it would be a way for the Indian government to exert more control over the valley.

The railway line is part of a larger infrastructural expansion – along with more than 50 other highway, railway and power projects – by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and divided the state into two federally administered territories in 2019.

The controversial move was accompanied by a months-long security clampdown which sparked massive anger in the region. Since then, the government has brought in several administrative changes that are seen as attempts to integrate Kashmir more closely with the rest of India.

Ms Pandalai adds that while India’s plans for the region would naturally be guided by its “strategic aims”, it also needs to take “local needs and context” into account.

The construction of the Chenab bridge was approved in 2003, but faced delays and missed deadlines because of the region’s treacherous topography, safety concerns and court cases.

Engineers working on the project had to reach the remote location on foot or by mule during the early stages of construction.

The Himalayas are a young mountain range and their geo-technical features have still not been fully understood. The bridge is located in a highly seismic zone and the Indian railways had to carry out extensive exploration studies, modifying its shape and arches to ensure the bridge could withstand simulated wind speeds of up to 266km/h.

“Logistics was another major challenge given the inaccessibility of the location and the narrow roads. Many of the components of the bridge were built and fabricated on site,” said Mr Rajagopalan.

Besides the engineering complications, the railways had to design a blast-proof structure. Afcons claims the bridge can withstand a strong “explosion of up to 40kg of TNT” and trains would continue to ply, albeit at slower speeds, even if there was damage or a pillar was knocked out.

Experts say that enabling all-weather connectivity to the Kashmir valley could give the region’s economy a much-needed boost.

Poor connectivity during winter months has been a major bugbear for the valley’s largely farm-dependent businesses.

Seven in 10 Kashmiris live off perishable fruit cultivation, according to think-tank Observer Research Foundation.

Ubair Shah, who owns one of Kashmir’s largest cold storage facilities in Pulwama district in south Kashmir, said the impact of the rail link could be “huge”.

Right now, most of the plums and apples stored in his facility make their way to markets in northern states like Haryana, Punjab and Delhi. The new railway line would give farmers access to southern India which could eventually help increase their incomes, he said.

Yet without better last-mile connectivity, he doesn’t expect a quick shift to railway cargo.

“The nearest station is 50km away. We’ll have to first send the produce to the station, then unload it and load it onto the train again. It’s too much handling. With perishables you have to try and minimise that,” Mr Shah said.

The project is also expected to boost the region’s tourism revenue.

Kashmir’s spectacular tourist spots have seen a recent surge in arrivals despite the remoteness of the region. A direct train between Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar would not only be cheaper, but also halve travel time, which could give tourism a further shot in the arm.

There will be several challenges too.

Kashmir continues to be dogged by incidents of violence. A recent spurt in militant activity – which seems to have shifted from the Kashmir valley to the relatively calmer Jammu region – is a particular cause for concern.

In June, nine Hindu pilgrims were killed and dozens injured after militants opened fire on a bus in Reasi – where the bridge is located – in one of the deadliest militant attacks in recent years. There have been several other attacks on the army and civilians.

Experts say such incidents are a reminder of the fragility of peace here – and without stability, connectivity projects would go only so far in reviving the region’s economy.

Kursk.

It is one of the first words I wrote and spoke as a BBC correspondent.

In 2000, I reported on the sinking of the Kursk submarine in the icy waters of the Barents Sea. One hundred and eighteen submariners were killed.

Vladimir Putin had been president for less than half a year. I can still remember Russian TV channels slamming him over his handling of the disaster.

This week marked 24 years since K-141 Kursk sank. And, once again, the word Kursk is filling my despatches from Russia. This time Kursk Region, where Ukrainian troops launched their surprise incursion and where they have been seizing territory for nine days now.

Same word.

But Russia 2024 is very different from Russia 2000.

This time on Russian TV there is no hint of criticism of President Putin; no casting doubt on his decision-making; no suggestion that it is his invasion of Ukraine that has led to this dramatic moment. Then again, the Kremlin has had a quarter of a century to establish tight control over the Russian media and the messaging.

Even so, will these events damage Vladimir Putin?

It’s a question I’ve been asked many times over the last two-and-a-half years:

• In 2022 when Ukraine sank the warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet
• again a few months later after Russian troops’ lightning retreat from north-eastern Ukraine
• and again in 2023 during the Wagner mutiny, when armed mercenaries were marching on Moscow – a direct challenge to Vladimir Putin’s authority.

President Putin got through all of that, apparently unscathed. He will be confident he can overcome this latest challenge.

But here’s the thing. The Wagner mutiny was over in a day.

Ukraine’s offensive inside Russia has been going on for more than a week. The longer it continues, the greater the pressure will be on the Russian leadership and, potentially, the greater the damage to President Putin’s authority.

Through his two and a half decades in power, Mr Putin has cultivated the image of “Mr Security, the only man in this vast country capable of keeping Russians safe and secure.

His so-called “special military operation” (the full-scale invasion of Ukraine) was presented to the Russian people as a way of boosting Russia’s national security.

Two and a half years into this war there isn’t much sign here of “safe and secure”.

There is more Nato on Russia’s borders, with Sweden and Finland having joined the Nato Alliance; Russian towns are coming under regular Ukrainian drone attack; now Ukrainian soldiers are seizing Russian territory.

Through his choice of language, Vladimir Putin is trying to show the Russian public that there is no need to panic.

When referring to the Ukrainian incursion he has avoided using the word “invasion”. Instead, he has spoken of “the situation in the border area” or “the events that are taking place”. The Kremlin leader has also called the Ukrainian offensive “a provocation”.

What will the Russian president do next?

Don’t expect him to pick up the phone and call Kyiv. Russian officials have made it clear that, following the Ukrainian attack, they’re putting the very idea of peace talks on hold.

Not that any large-scale negotiation had been scheduled to take place.

In fact, this week Vladimir Putin announced exactly what his intention is: “…to force the enemy from Russian territory.”

It’s one thing saying it. It’s another thing doing it. Despite deploying reinforcements to the Kursk region, the Russian military has yet to regain control in this part of Russia.

As I was walking past the Kremlin on Thursday morning, I stopped in my tracks.

As workers were setting up seating and screens for an event, Edith Piaf’s classic (No, I regret nothing) was playing on a large video screen and echoing across Red Square.

It was a very surreal moment.

Vladimir Putin has shown no sign of regret for having launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

No regret for the decisions he has taken since.

If his public statements reflect his current state of mind, he still believes there is only one possible outcome of this war: Russia’s victory.

The remote Pacific Island nation of Kiribati headed to the polls on Wednesday in a general election that could hold profound implications for the South Pacific region.

The archipelago, which has a population of about 116,000, is viewed as strategically valuable to both China and the United States due to its relatively close proximity to Hawaii and its relatively vast claim of oceanic territory, according to experts.

In recent years its government has also forged strong relations with Beijing, after current long-time President Taneti Maamau shifted the country’s ties from Taiwan to China in 2019.

Now, as President Maamau seeks to extend his near decade in power, outside observers are watching and waiting to see where Kiribati’s geopolitical allegiances will fall.

“In the space of five years we’ve seen a very rapid escalation of China’s political access, economic influence, and increasingly security access into Kiribati and the territory that it controls – a hugely significant change brought on by the incumbent president,” Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, told BBC News.

“That’s the issue that’s at stake: this rapid escalation in ties between Kiribati and China.”

On the ground, Mr Sora said, the I-Kirabiti people will likely have voted based on issues affecting them day-to-day, such as the cost of living, the economy, and the “poor state of government services”.

“But internationally, of course, people will be interested in what foreign policy posture would a new government take,” he added.

While US efforts to establish an embassy in Kiribati stall, China’s presence in the country has become increasingly tangible. In February, Reuters reported that Chinese police had begun working alongside local authorities on the ground in Kiribati.

Last month, China donated riot control gear to the Kiribati police force, saying it was willing to “elevate China-Kiribati relations to a new level”, according to a post on Kiribati Police Service’s Facebook.

From China’s perspective, Kiribati has become increasingly strategically valuable as geopolitical rivalries in the South Pacific grow, according to Mr Sora.

It is for this same reason that warming ties between the two nations have stoked anxieties in the West.

“Ultimately the scenario that the US and allies will be looking to avoid is the establishment of infrastructure that has you seeing Chinese vessels on rotation in Kiribati, for example, or the placement of personnel,” Mr Sora said.

“The implication of the incumbent retaining power is that this trajectory continues and China increases and consolidates its strategic access to Kiribati.

“And that changes regional security dynamics. It adds a security overhead to the Pacific Islands region that we haven’t seen for a long time.”

Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said from Kiribati’s perspective, China is likely seen as a valuable development partner that can provide support against economic and climatic concerns.

“Obviously a lot of these [South Pacific] countries are quite small, they’re facing large climate and environmental threats, and so they need access to a range of partners to really keep building on their development. And that includes China,” Mr Johnson told BBC Newsday.

As people on the ground in Kiribati cast their votes, he added, they might have been questioning whether their government’s relationship with China is truly improving their quality of life, or negatively impacting it.

“Geopolitics always come second to the everyday needs of the people,” Mr Johnson said.

Mr Sora added that in many ways global geopolitical concerns have distracted from these more pressing, everyday issues.

“You have this competition for access and influence playing out in various ways… but one of the criticisms is that it’s distracted from development partner support to traditional sectors like health and education,” he said.

“It’s quite easy to demonstrate how geopolitics has distracted from key development issues.”

Voting is not compulsory in Kiribati, and Wednesday’s ballot is the first of two rounds in which citizens will select the country’s members of parliament. These will be followed by the vote for president.

The country’s last election was in 2020.

It’s been a cruel summer for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

A series of scandals that implicated the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Mr Kishida’s closest allies within it and even his family had put his job on the line.

That this happened as living costs shot up and discontent simmered within the LDP did not help the embattled leader.

His approval ratings plummeted to record lows. Through it all a test loomed – the party leadership race that was slated for September.

Some observers said that he would fight for another term, but it was not particularly shocking when he announced that he was bowing out of the race for party president – it means he also won’t be prime minister come September when the LDP picks a new leader.

His diplomatic wins – an ambitious budget to expand the military, deeper ties with the US and a historic détente with South Korea – could not save him.

“The obvious first step to show that the LDP will change is for me to step aside,” the 67-year-old told a roomful of reporters on Wednesday in his usual unflappable manner.

Except for his words, everything else about him suggested it was business as usual.

A political veteran, Fumio Kishida stepped into the top job in 2021. His predecessor Yoshihide Suga had resigned after just a year in office, following dismal approval ratings as Japan weathered one of its worst Covid waves.

A month into his term as PM, Mr Kishida led the LDP into a general election and emerged at the head of a winning coalition.

Those who know him well – and have worked with him – tell the BBC that he is a decent and intelligent man, and a fairly conservative politician. Others say he is a savvy strategist, who shouldn’t be written off easily.

Mr Kishida’s mild-mannered style belied the fact that he could also be unpredictable and stubborn. Take, for instance, his risky yet sudden decision to dissolve his own faction in the party, which led to others disbanding – these cliques, as old as the party itself, are a crucial source of patronage and money.

For months, observers had called his position untenable, partly because of the indecision with which he handled the controversies surrounding him. He held on, even as rebellion grew within LDP ranks. But the writing was on the wall.

“People are so tired now,” Hiromi Murakami, a political science professor at Japan’s Temple University, said weeks before Mr Kishida decided to step down. “It’s accumulating. It’s not just the fundraising scandal.”

The LDP began the year mired in controversy. In December, four cabinet ministers, including key allies of the PM, and several junior ministers had quit amid allegations that LDP leaders were pocketing millions of dollars in party funds.

An investigation by public prosecutors revealed more details, and the LDP eventually said 85 of its members had failed to properly report their income.

This just became the latest in a series of controversies that had marred his term: the year before, he had fired his son who was employed as his executive secretary after it emerged that he had misused his position to throw a party at a prime ministerial residence.

And the LDP was already reeling from headlines about its connections to the controversial Unification Church which was linked to the assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe.

As 2024 dragged on, so did the fallout of all these scandals. And there were new ones.

In April, the LDP lost two seats in a by-election when lawmakers from the party resigned – one was accused of buying votes, and the other was implicated in the fundraising probe.

Then in July, the defence ministry was rocked by allegations of mishandling confidential and sensitive information, harassment of subordinates and fraud. A slew of disciplinary measures, suspensions and even dismissals followed.

By this time, the LDP’s approval ratings had hit rock bottom – 19%, its lowest since 2000, according to a survey by the daily Asahi Shimbun.

Mr Kishida vowed to tackle the crisis “head on”, but the way he handled it became part of the criticism too.

There was the rare appearance in front of the political ethics committee, but he seemed unsure and was reluctant to say much.

In June, his coalition ushered through reforms in election funding, but it was met with public scepticism. “Nothing came out of it although they spent so much time on it. It was too late, he should have done something earlier,” Prof Murakami said.

Also in June, he tried to appease disgruntled voters and ease the impact of inflation with a temporary tax relief scheme. But people didn’t seem to think that went far enough.

“It has been constantly tense… I’ve found myself grappling with many issues both at home and abroad,” is how Mr Kishida assessed his tenure at the end of June, when he reached the 1,000-day mark.

June was also when there were rumblings about “post-Kishida” candidates – loud enough to make it into the national media – as dissatisfied party colleagues feared having an unpopular leader on the PM ticket ahead of next year’s general election.

“[They] think if he’s at the helm, they’re going down. They’re in panic mode,” Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies and history at Temple University, told the BBC at the time.

While there have been several corruption scandals before, this latest one came at a painful time.

“The economic situation affected people’s mindset,” Prof Murakami said. “People had suffered so much from the [Covid] crisis. They’re barely paying their bills. But now [they see] politicians that have chunks of money that they’re not going to pay tax for” – a reference to the LDP’s admission that some MPs had not reported their income properly.

While his popularity at home was nose-diving, Mr Kishida had done well on the international stage. He was Japan’s longest-serving foreign minister before becoming prime minister. As PM, he hosted the G7 summit last year, visited Ukraine and thawed relations with South Korea, a crucial ally against both China and North Korea.

Relations with Washington are as strong as ever. He addressed Congress earlier this year on President Biden’s invitation – and received a standing ovation.

“Thank you,” he told his audience. “I never get such nice applause from the Japanese Diet [parliament].

Back home, Japanese media slammed the visit, with one headline declaring “Kishida shouldn’t use the summit as a tool for domestic politics”.

If that was the aim, he didn’t succeed. Mr Kishida was swamped with fighting on so many fronts – and his party and voters ran out of patience.

“People vote on pocketbook issues,” Prof Kingston said. “Great that he is parading around Nato, the EU… and the United States. At the end of the day, I want to see more pay in my wallet.”

Mr Kishida said that the LDP needs a new start – and it needs to convince the Japanese people it can change.

The opposition is still too weak and divided to be a viable option, but there is a great deal of mistrust within the ruling party.

Can a different face at the top unite the Liberal Democratic Party and fix its tarnished image? September will tell.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the mpox outbreaks in parts of Africa a public health emergency of international concern.

The highly contagious disease – formerly known as monkeypox – has killed at least 450 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mpox is caused by a virus in the same family as smallpox but is usually much less harmful.

It was originally transmitted from animals to humans but now also passes between humans.

Initial symptoms include fever, headaches, swellings, back pain and aching muscles.

Once the fever breaks, a rash can develop. It often begins on the face before spreading to other parts of the body, most commonly the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

The rash, which can be extremely itchy or painful, changes and goes through different stages before finally forming a scab, which later falls off. It can cause scarring.

The infection can clear up on its own and lasts between 14 and 21 days.

But in some cases it is fatal, particularly for vulnerable groups including small children.

Serious cases can see lesions attack the whole of the body, especially the mouth, eyes and genitals.

Mpox is most common in remote villages in the tropical rainforests of West and Central Africa, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), where it has been seen for many years.

In these regions, there are thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths from the disease annually, with children under 15 worst affected.

There are currently a number of different outbreaks happening simultaneously – mainly in the DRC and neighbouring countries.

The disease has recently been seen in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, where it is not normally endemic.

There are broadly two main types of mpox – clade 1, which is often more serious, and clade 2.

The Clade 1 virus – that has for decades caused sporadic outbreaks in DRC – is spreading.

Some forms of Clade 1 seem to be affecting children more than adults.

There is also real concern because many people infected in the last year have had a relatively new and more severe type of mpox known as Clade 1b.

Experts say there is a lot to learn about the Clade 1b but it may be spreading more easily, causing more serious disease.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there were more than 14,500 mpox infections and over 450 deaths from mpox between the start of 2024 and the end of July. That is a 160% increase in infections and a 19% increase in deaths compared with the same period in 2023.

A previous mpox public health emergency, declared in 2022, was caused by the relatively mild Clade 2.

It spread to nearly 100 countries which do not normally see the virus, including some in Europe and Asia, but was brought under control by vaccinating vulnerable groups.

Mpox spreads from person to person through close contact with someone who is infected – including through sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to the ill person.

The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or through the eyes, nose or mouth.

It can also be spread through touching objects which have been contaminated by the virus, such as bedding, clothing and towels.

Close contact with infected animals, such as monkeys, rats and squirrels, is another route.

During the global outbreak in 2022, the virus spread mostly through sexual contact.

The current outbreaks in DR Congo are being driven by sexual contact and by other forms of close contact.

It has been found in other vulnerable communities, including young children.

Anyone who has close contact with someone with symptoms can catch the virus, including health workers and family members.

Sexual contact between infected adults is thought to be one of the reasons cases are rising.

Experts are studying the situation to understand more about who is most at risk.

Young children may be among groups who are particularly vulnerable because their immune systems are still developing and many in the region have poor nutrition, making it harder to fight off disease.

Some experts suggest younger children may be at risk because of the way they play and interact with each other closely.

They will also not have had access to the smallpox vaccine, discontinued more than four decades ago, that may offer older people some protection.

Anyone with a weakened immune system may also be more prone to the disease and there is concern pregnant women may be at greater risk.

Advice is to avoid close contact with anyone with mpox and clean your hands with soap and water if the virus is in your community.

Those who have mpox should isolate from others until all their lesions have disappeared.

Condoms should be used as a precaution when having sex for 12 weeks after recovery, the WHO says.

Vaccines exist but only people at risk or who have been in close contact with an infected person are usually able to have it.

There is real worry that there is not enough funding for vaccines to reach all those in need.

The WHO has recently asked drug manufacturers to put forward their mpox vaccines for emergency use, even if those vaccines have not been formally approved.

Now that the Africa CDC has declared a continent-wide public health emergency, it is hoped that governments will be better able to co-ordinate their response and potentially increase the flow of medical supplies and aid into affected areas.

Without global action there is real concern the current outbreak could spread beyond the continent.

Budget airline Wizz Air has launched an ‘all you can fly’ subscription, which offers customers unlimited flights for an annual fee of 499 euro (£428; $549).

While airlines have offered a variety of multi-flight packages for some time, unlimited deals are a relatively new concept.

The scheme is similar to those being offered by Frontier Airlines in the US and Malaysia-based AirAsia.

Wizz Air has faced criticism in the UK for its customer service and flight delays.

The discounted price for the yearly pass will be available until 16 August and then rise to 599 euro.

From September, subscribers will be able to travel to destinations in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia by booking an available flight up to three days before departure and paying a flat fee of 9.99 euro.

Wizz Air said it is selling 10,000 of the subscriptions, distributed across the airports it operates from.

However, when BBC News checked the company’s website several of the ‘airport of preference’ options were shown as being sold out.

A message on the page said: “In the case that you are unable to select your preferred airport, please note that the limit has been reached and Wizz Air is unfortunately unable to offer you a Wizz All You Can Fly membership at this time.”

The terms and conditions document on Wizz Air’s website also warns that seat availability was not guaranteed to membership holders and would depend on “several external and internal factors.”

In June, Wizz Air was named the worst airline for UK flight delays for the third year in a row.

According to analysis of official data by the PA news agency, departures of Wizz Air’s planes last year from UK airports were delayed by an average 31 minutes.

Leading UK consumer group Which? has also named the airline as the worst performing for its customer service.

This month, Hungary’s competition authority imposed a 770,000 euro fine on Wizz Air for misleading communications, including for how it encouraged customers to purchase more expensive travel packages.

Wizz Air told BBC News it “questions the legality of the fine, disagrees with its reasoning and is taking legal action.”

Also in August, Wizz Air reported a 44% drop in first-quarter operating profit and cut its profit forecast for the year as a whole.

Chinese authorities have called for gig workers to be treated with kindness after videos of a delivery rider kneeling before a security guard led to protests by dozens of riders.

Guards stopped the rider from leaving a building in Hangzhou on Monday – saying he damaged railings while scaling them during a rushed delivery.

Worried that his subsequent deliveries would be delayed, the rider got on his knees and pleaded to be let go, the city’s police said in a statement.

The incident sparked outrage online, with many urging better protections for workers in the industry.

Some 12 million people work as delivery riders in China, and the pandemic has fuelled explosive growth in the sector.

But the industry – much like in the rest of the world – is notorious for its tight deadlines, where low-wage riders are subject to tough penalties over delays and poor customer feedback.

Many also work long days, earning less than a dollar for each delivery.

The incident on Monday drew huge crowds of angry delivery riders to the building in downtown Hangzhou, leading the police to dispatch dozen of officers to manage the situation – including from the special weapons and tactics team.

Videos shared on social media show the riders chanting, “Apologise! Apologise!”

At one point, they start belting out China’s national anthem.

Hangzhou police issued a statement on Tuesday urging the public to “stay calm and seek to understand one another”.

Meituan, the delivery platform that the rider in question was working for, said it will “take thorough responsibility” to look into whether he was treated unfairly, and ensure its delivery riders are properly protected.

The platform added that it has paid to repair the broken railings.

Hashtags related to the incident have clocked up hundreds of millions of views on microblogging platform Weibo in the last few days.

Some users condemned the security guards’ “bullying tactics”, while others acknowledged that the rider had made a mistake.

“They are both low-wage workers. Why did it have to come to this?” one user wrote. “It’s a hot day, it’s not easy for all of us. Let’s try to empathise with one another.”

Others cited poor working conditions as a factor.

“Why do delivery riders break traffic rules so often? It’s simple. They will be fined if their deliveries are delayed,” another user wrote.

“This is the power of the platforms they work for. And so the riders work as hard as they can and risk their lives in order to complete what they have to do.

“It’s exactly how sweatshops function.”

China has over the years introduced guidelines to protect the rights and interests of gig workers, but problems remain.

Incidents of riders clashing with security guards in China have made headlines in the past.

In January this year, a delivery rider in the eastern city of Qingdao was stabbed to death by a security guard for entering a building without authorisation.

Research by the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based NGO, shows gig workers have held at least 400 protests in the last five years to demand improvements.

North Korea will reopen one city to foreign tourists in December after nearly five years of border closures due to the Covid pandemic, according to tour operators.

At least two China-based operators announced that tourists will soon be allowed to visit the mountainous northern city of Samjiyon.

Reclusive North Korea sealed itself off at the start of the pandemic in early 2020, and started to scale back restrictions only in the middle of last year.

The border closures also cut off imports of essential goods, leading to food shortages that were made worse by international sanctions because of the country’s nuclear programme.

“So far just Samjiyon has been officially confirmed but we think that Pyongyang and other places will open too!!!” Shenyang’s KTG Tours wrote on its Facebook page on Wednesday.

Beijing’s Koryo Tour said tourists could “potentially” visit other parts of North Korea in December.

“Having waited for over four years to make this announcement, Koryo Tours is very excited for the opening of North Korean tourism once again,” it said Wednesday on its website.

Koryo Tours told the BBC that the North Korean authorities were allowing tourists from any country to join the trips, apart from South Korea. However, the US bans its citizens from travelling to North Korea.

Chad O’Carroll, CEO of US-based analysis firm Korea Risk Group, flagged doubts around the reopening announcement.

“I will believe it when I see it,” he told the BBC. “For now, I am quite sceptical we will see any real movement in December.”

Samjiyon has been undergoing major redevelopment in recent years, with Mr Kim revealing plans in July to rebuild its airport, convert a military ski base into a resort, and build new railways and hotels for foreign tourists, according to state media.

Mr Kim said at the time that plans to “revitalise international tourism” would be aimed at visitors from “friendly” nations.

Mr O’Carroll pointed out, however, that Samjiyong’s redevelopment is incomplete.

“If it does get completed in time, I can imagine only Russian tourists and possibly Chinese visiting in any real numbers at first,” he said. “Unless [the Democratic Republic of Korea] offers direct Samjiyon flights to a neutral connection country like Mongolia.”

Samjiyon lies on the foot of North Korea’s tallest mountain Paektu, which straddles the China-North Korea border, and is known for its winter attractions.

Pyongyang’s propaganda says the mountain is where North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung battled Japanese occupation forces and launched the revolution. He is the grandfather of current president Kim Jong Un.

It also claims Paektu is where the incumbent’s father, Kim Jong Il, was born.

KCNA reported in July that the Mount Paektu-Samjiyon zone was envisioned to be a “four-season mountainous tourist area to meet the cultural and emotional needs of the people on the highest level and revitalise international tourism.”

North Korea has only allowed Russian tourists to enter the country since early 2024, amid warming ties between the two nations.

It was only in August last year that North Korea allowed the return of citizens who were locked out because of border controls, one of the last few countries to do so.

The six-tonne Altar Stone at the heart of Stonehenge came from the far north of Scotland rather than south-west Wales as previously thought, new analysis has found.

The discovery shows the construction of Stonehenge was a far greater collaborative effort than scientists realised.

It also means that the ancient monument, near Salisbury in south-west England, was built with stones from all parts of Great Britain.

The findings suggest Neolithic Britain was a far more connected and advanced society than earlier evidence indicated.

The distance between Stonehenge and the far north of Scotland is about 700km (434 miles).

The research was led by a Welsh PhD student, Anthony Clarke, now working at Curtin University in Western Australia.

Such is the importance of the discovery that it has been published in one of the world’s leading scientific journals, Nature, which is an enormous achievement for an apprentice researcher.

But it is a bittersweet moment for the young Welshman, who was born in Pembrokeshire, where the Altar Stone was until now thought to have come from.

“I don’t think I’ll be forgiven by people back home,” he joked to BBC News. “It will be a great loss for Wales!”

But Mr Clarke points out that the remaining stones in the central horseshoe, which are known as bluestones, are from Wales and the larger stones in the outer circle are from England.

“We’ve got to give the Scots something!” he said.

“But on a serious note, Stonehenge seems to be this great British endeavour involving all the different people from all over the island,” he said.

The bluestones at Stonehenge were identified as coming from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire in 1923, by Welsh geologist Henry Herbert Thomas. The central Altar Stone was made of a different rock but always assumed to have come from the same area, until 20 years ago when scientists first began to question its origins.

Last year, researchers including Prof Nick Pearce from Aberystwyth in Wales, of all places, concluded that the Altar Stone could not have come from Wales. But its origin had remained a mystery, until now.

“It blew our socks off when we discovered it was from north-east Scotland,” Prof Pearce, who was also involved in the current discovery, told BBC News.

“It was a shock to say the least. Coming from that distance, more than 700km, was remarkable.

“The Neolithic people must have been pretty well connected, far more connected than people give them credit for. They must have been very well organised”.

The breakthrough was made by the team at Curtin university who analysed the chemical composition of fragments of rock that had fallen off the Altar Stone and dated them. The composition and date are unique to rocks from different parts of the world, rather like a fingerprint.

The Australian team had access to one of the most comprehensive global rock fingerprint databases and found the best match was from the Orcadian Basin, which includes the Caithness, Orkney, and Moray Firth regions of north-eastern Scotland.

Construction at Stonehenge began 5,000 years ago, with changes and additions over the next two millennia. Most of the bluestones are believed to have been the first stones erected at the site.

Dr Robert Ixer, from University College London, who was also involved in the study, described the result as “shocking”.

“The work prompts two important questions: how was the Altar Stone transported from the very north of Scotland, a distance of more than 700 kilometres, to Stonehenge, and, more intriguing, why?”

The distance is the longest recorded journey for any stone used in a monument at that period and Prof Peace says that the next mystery to solve is how it got there.

“There are obvious physical barriers to transporting by land, and an equally daunting journey if going by sea.

“These findings will have huge ramifications for understanding communities in Neolithic times, their levels of connectivity and their transport systems”.

The new research will be pored over by archaeologists working for English Heritage, which looks after Stonehenge, according to one of the monument’s senior curators, Heather Sebire.

”This discovery certainly implies that there were great social connections in Britain at the time,” she told BBC News.

“It is phenomenal that the people of the time brought such a large stone all this way. They must have had a compelling reason to do it.

“They had a sophisticated and developed society and so they probably had a spiritual side, just like we do“.

At least one person has been arrested over the death of Friends star Matthew Perry, according to US media.

Perry, 54, was found unresponsive at his Los Angeles home in October last year. A post-mortem examination found the cause of his death was “the acute effects of ketamine”, a controlled drug which the recovering addict was taking as part of supervised therapy.

LA police opened an investigation in May to determine why Perry had so much of the drug in his system.

ABC News and TMZ reported that multiple people had been arrested and were facing federal charges. Other outlets, including NBC News, said at least one arrest had been made.

Police said they would hold a press conference with more details later on Thursday.

Ketamine – a powerful anaesthetic – is used as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. People close to Perry told a coroner’s investigation after his death that he was was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy.

But his last session had taken place more than a week before his death. The medical examiner said the ketamine in Perry’s system could not have been from the infusion therapy because of the drug’s short half-life.

The levels of ketamine in his body were as high as the amount given during general anaesthesia, according to the medical examiner.

Just how the actor – who had reportedly not had a supervised infusion session for several days – obtained the drug became the subject of the legal investigation.

Drowning was also listed as a contributing factor in his death, which was ruled an accident. Other contributing factors were coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder.

At the height of his fame, Perry was battling with addiction to painkillers and alcohol, and attended rehabilitation clinics on multiple occasions. He detailed his struggle with substance use in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.

In 2016, he told BBC Radio 2 that he could not remember three years of filming during Friends, because of drink and drugs.

After attempts at treatment, he wrote in his memoir that he had been mostly sober since 2001 – “save for about 60 or 70 mishaps”.

Early on Friday morning, a 31-year-old female trainee doctor retired to sleep in a seminar hall after a gruelling day at one of India’s oldest hospitals.

It was the last time she was seen alive.

The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they say is a case of rape and murder at Kolkata’s 138-year-old RG Kar Medical College.

Tens of thousands of women in Kolkata and across West Bengal state are expected to participate in a ‘Reclaim the Night’ march at midnight on Wednesday, demanding the “independence to live in freedom and without fear”. The march takes place just before India’s Independence Day on Thursday. Outraged doctors have struck work both in the city and across India, demanding a strict federal law to protect them.

The tragic incident has again cast a spotlight on the violence against doctors and nurses in the country. Reports of doctors, regardless of gender, being assaulted by patients and their relatives have gained widespread attention. Women – who make up nearly 30% of India’s doctors and 80% of the nursing staff – are more vulnerable than their male colleagues.

The crime in the Kolkata hospital last week exposed the alarming security risks faced by the medical staff in many of India’s state-run health facilities.

At RG Kar Hospital, which sees over 3,500 patients daily, the overworked trainee doctors – some working up to 36 hours straight – had no designated rest rooms, forcing them to seek rest in a third-floor seminar room.

Reports indicate that the arrested suspect, a volunteer worker with a troubled past, had unrestricted access to the ward and was captured on CCTV. Police allege that no background checks were conducted on the volunteer.

“The hospital has always been our first home; we only go home to rest. We never imagined it could be this unsafe. Now, after this incident, we’re terrified,” says Madhuparna Nandi, a junior doctor at Kolkata’s 76-year-old National Medical College.

Dr Nandi’s own journey highlights how female doctors in India’s government hospitals have become resigned to working in conditions that compromise their security.

At her hospital, where she is a resident in gynaecology and obstetrics, there are no designated rest rooms and separate toilets for female doctors.

“I use the patients’ or the nurses’ toilets if they allow me. When I work late, I sometimes sleep in an empty patient bed in the ward or in a cramped waiting room with a bed and basin,” Dr Nandi told me.

She says she feels insecure even in the room where she rests after 24-hour shifts that start with outpatient duty and continue through ward rounds and maternity rooms.

One night in 2021, during the peak of the Covid pandemic, some men barged into her room and woke her by touching her, demanding, “Get up, get up. See our patient.”

“I was completely shaken by the incident. But we never imagined it would come to a point where a doctor could be raped and murdered in the hospital,” Dr Nandi says.

What happened on Friday was not an isolated incident. The most shocking case remains that of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse at a prominent Mumbai hospital, who was left in a persistent vegetative state after being raped and strangled by a ward attendant in 1973. She died in 2015, after 42 years of severe brain damage and paralysis. More recently, in Kerala, Vandana Das, a 23-year-old medical intern, was fatally stabbed with surgical scissors by a drunken patient last year.

In overcrowded government hospitals with unrestricted access, doctors often face mob fury from patients’ relatives after a death or over demands for immediate treatment. Kamna Kakkar, an anaesthetist, remembers a harrowing incident during a night shift in an intensive care unit (ICU) during the pandemic in 2021 at her hospital in Haryana in northern India.

“I was the lone doctor in the ICU when three men, flaunting a politician’s name, forced their way in, demanding a much in-demand controlled drug. I gave in to protect myself, knowing the safety of my patients was at stake,” Dr Kakkar told me.

Namrata Mitra, a Kolkata-based pathologist who studied at the RG Kar Medical College, says her doctor father would often accompany her to work because she felt unsafe.

“During my on-call duty, I took my father with me. Everyone laughed, but I had to sleep in a room tucked away in a long, dark corridor with a locked iron gate that only the nurse could open if a patient arrived,” Dr Mitra wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend.

“I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. What if someone from the ward – an attendant, or even a patient – tried something? I took advantage of the fact that my father was a doctor, but not everyone has that privilege.”

When she was working in a public health centre in a district in West Bengal, Dr Mitra spent nights in a dilapidated one-storey building that served as the doctor’s hostel.

“From dusk, a group of boys would gather around the house, making lewd comments as we went in and out for emergencies. They would ask us to check their blood pressure as an excuse to touch us and they would peek through the broken bathroom windows,” she wrote.

Years later, during an emergency shift at a government hospital, “a group of drunk men passed by me, creating a ruckus, and one of them even groped me”, Dr Mitra said. “When I tried to complain, I found the police officers dozing off with their guns in hand.”

Things have worsened over the years, says Saraswati Datta Bodhak, a pharmacologist at a government hospital in West Bengal’s Bankura district. “Both my daughters are young doctors and they tell me that hospital campuses in the state are overrun by anti-social elements, drunks and touts,” she says. Dr Bodhak recalls seeing a man with a gun roaming around a top government hospital in Kolkata during a visit.

India lacks a stringent federal law to protect healthcare workers. Although 25 states have some laws to prevent violence against them, convictions are “almost non-existent”, RV Asokan, president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), an organisation of doctors, told me. A 2015 survey by IMA found that 75% of doctors in India have faced some form of violence at work. “Security in hospitals is almost absent,” he says. “One reason is that nobody thinks of hospitals as conflict zones.”

Some states like Haryana have deployed private bouncers to strengthen security at government hospitals. In 2022, the federal government asked the states to deploy trained security forces for sensitive hospitals, install CCTV cameras, set up quick reaction teams, restrict entry to “undesirable individuals” and file complaints against offenders. Nothing much has happened, clearly.

Even the protesting doctors don’t seem to be very hopeful. “Nothing will change… The expectation will be that doctors should work round the clock and endure abuse as a norm,” says Dr Mitra. It is a disheartening thought.

Tens of thousands of women in West Bengal state marched through the streets on Wednesday night in protest against the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata last week.

The Reclaim the Night march was the culmination of nearly a week of frenzied protests ignited by the brutal killing of the 31-year-old at the RG Kar Medical College last Friday.

After a gruelling 36-hour shift, she had fallen asleep in a seminar room due to the lack of a designated rest area.

The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. A hospital volunteer worker has been arrested in connection with the crime.

Responding to calls on social media, women from all walks of life marched across Kolkata city and throughout the state on a rainy Wednesday night.

Though protests were largely peaceful, they were marred by clashes between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital, the site of the doctor’s murder, and ransacked the emergency department.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the unruly crowd. Some police vehicles were also damaged.

Smaller protests were also held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

In Kolkata, women marched resolutely, holding placards of protest, their faces illuminated by the glow of mobile phones, candlelight and flaming torches. Some carried India’s flags. They were joined by men, both young and elderly.

During the marches and at many gatherings near a university, theatre hall and bus terminus, they stood united, holding hands as the humid air echoed with loud and powerful chants of “we want justice”. Protesters blew conch shells – the sound is considered auspicious.

At the stroke of midnight, as India completed 77 years of Independence, the soundscape of protest changed.

The air filled with a spontaneous chorus of the national anthem. Then it began raining, but the protesters walked in the rain, or holding umbrellas over their head.

“We have never seen anything like this before in the city, such a huge gathering of women marching at night,” a reporter belonging to a news network said.

It was a night of barely concealed rage and frustration.

A woman, who joined the march well after midnight with her 13-year-old daughter said: “Let her see whether a mass protest can set things right. Let her become aware of her rights”.

“Women have no respect!” said another. “Our worth is less than cows and goats.”

“When do we get our independence? How long do we have to wait to work without fear? Another 50 years?” asked a student.

Sanchari Mukherjee, editor of a digital magazine, said she marched with thousands of others from a bus terminus in Jadavpur, undeterred by the rain.

She met “people of all ages, from all classes, the well-to-do, the middle class and the poor”.

“I saw an elderly couple, the husband helping the woman to walk,” she said.

“One family brought their little girl along, perhaps so the memory of this event would be etched in her mind – how her parents stood up against injustice, and how she, too, can protest one day.”

Ms Mukherjee said the entire city seemed awake as the marchers passed by illuminated homes, with people peering out of windows and crowding verandahs to watch.

“They may not have participated but they were with us in spirit,” she said.

“‘We want justice’ had become the anthem of the march, and it didn’t feel like just a slogan,” Ms Mukherjee said.

“It felt like every young woman was deeply hurt and determined, frustrated that they still face these issues in 2024.”

Ms Mukherjee added that she had to walk a few miles to join the march because the streets were gridlocked late at night.

“I was instantly swept up in a sea of people heading to the protest site. There was no excitement, just a stoic determination to create an event which would become a symbol for the times to come.”

The protests have been fuelled by anger over local authorities’ handling of the young trainee doctor’s rape and murder.

Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they said was a case of rape and murder.

But there have been accusations of cover-up and negligence. The case has since been transferred from local police to the federal Central Bureau of Investigation.

Despite scant resources, Kolkata’s Reclaim the Night march appeared to have been meticulously organised. In an advisory, organisers welcomed women and people from marginalised sexual and gender identities to the march.

“Men are welcome as allies and observers,” the advisory added.

They also emphasised that politicians were not welcome and requested that no party flags be brought to the protest.

It was not the first time that a Reclaim the Night march has been staged in India.

Inspired by similar marches elsewhere in the world by women to assert their rights to walk in public areas without fear, a march was held in 1978 in Bombay (now Mumbai) in protest against the rape of a woman on the street.

Blank Noise, a community-based art project and activist collective, has organised several midnight walks in Delhi to encourage women to assert their right to walk freely at night.

But in terms of scale, the Kolkata march, echoed by smaller ones across other cities, stands as the largest yet.

“We seized the night. We’ve never seen anything like this in the city. This is unprecedented. I hope it wakes up the authorities,” said Chaitali Sen, a protester.

The father of 17-year-old Spanish football star Lamine Yamal has reportedly been stabbed multiple times in a car park.

According to reports in Spanish media, Mounir Nasraoui was attacked in the coastal town of Mataró, north of Barcelona, on Wednesday night by a group of people he had spoken to earlier in the day.

Catalan police have confirmed three people were arrested on Wednesday and a fourth suspect was detained on Thursday morning.

Mr Nasraoui was taken to hospital in Barcelona in a serious condition but is now said to be stable.

The reported attack took place near the Rocafonda neighbourhood where Yamal grew up.

Earlier in the day, Mr Nasraoui is said to have had an argument with a group of people he had encountered while walking his dog, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

Hours later, he was approached by the same group in a car park and stabbed “multiple times”.

The motivation for the stabbing is currently unknown.

A report on sports website Relevo said Mr Nasraoui was set to remain in hospital for two or three days under observation.

Lamine Yamal, Spain’s youngest ever player, lit up Euro 2024 where he was named Young Player of the Tournament.

The winger set up Nico Williams’s opening goal as Spain beat England 2-1 in the final in Berlin.

Shortly after Spain lifted the trophy, fans lined the streets of Mataró celebrating their young star.

After spending his childhood in the town, Yamal spent some of his teenage years at Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy.

A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in jail for treason for donating $51 (£39) to a charity supporting Ukraine.

Karelina, who has American and Russian citizenship, pleaded guilty last week after a trial held behind closed doors.

She had been living in Los Angeles and became a US citizen in 2021. She was arrested during a family visit last January in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year jail term. The court in Yekaterinburg found her guilty of high treason and sentenced her to imprisonment in a general regime penal colony.

Karelina had been accused by Russia’s FSB security service of raising money for a Ukrainian organisation providing arms to the Ukrainian military.

Russian human rights activists said while living in the US she had made a single transfer of $51.80 on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022. The FSB is thought to have discovered the transaction on her phone.

Her lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said Karelina had only admitted transferring the money and believed the funds would help victims on both sides. He told Russian media she would appeal against the sentence.

The charity, Razom for Ukraine, said earlier this year it was “appalled” to hear of the amateur ballerina’s arrest and denied raising money for weapons or ammunition. It said it was a US-founded charity focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Karelina went on trial in June in the same court as Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was jailed for espionage but freed earlier this month as part of a major prisoner swap with the US and other Western countries.

The cases in Yekaterinburg were heard by the same judge, Andrei Mineev.

Ksenia Karelina’s boyfriend, boxer Chris van Heerden, said on Thursday that he was very angry with the US State Department.

“I woke up to the news this morning. I’m still sitting here processing what’s happening,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s media partner.

“There was a prisoner swap two weeks ago, and Ksenia was not on that list,” he said, adding that he had been pushing for her to be sent home for the past eight months.

“Ksenia should be home, and I’m angry, and I’m trying to hold my composure.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour, Mr Van Heerden said he felt Karelina should never have gone back to Russia at the start of the year.

“Now my question is, can we get Ksenia declared ‘wrongly detained’ today, so that when the next swap happens, she is part of it?”

If the US declares a person to be “wrongfully detained”, it means it views them as a political hostage and negotiations are vital to securing their freedom.

He added “To my surprise, there were two people [in the prisoner swap] who were not declared ‘wrongly detained’ and they got out – so why is Ksenia not home?”

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s authorities have clamped down on dissent and human rights groups say more than 1,000 criminal cases have been opened against anti-war dissidents.

Last year President Vladimir Putin signed a decree formally increasing the maximum jail term for treason from 20 years to life. A record number of treason cases were opened last year, according to human rights activists.

In July, dual German-Russian teenager Kevin Lik was given four years for treason. He was one of the 16 men and women freed by Russia as part of its prisoner exchange with the West.

When Karelina was first detained, rights group Perviy Otdel said she had been accused of swearing in a public place. But her initial detention for “petty hooliganism” was then extended when the FSB accused her of treason.

She had been working at a hotel spa in Beverly Hills before her arrest and had travelled to Yekaterinburg to see her parents and her elderly grandmother.

Karelina is her maiden name, and she is also known as Ksenia Khavana because she took her ex-husband’s surname.

“I want to break down and cry and yell and lose my head, but I know I have to stay strong – and I need to keep fighting,” Mr Van Heerden told the BBC.

He said he worried about the effect of Karelina’s imprisonment on her health.

“She is a very soft person with a very kind heart and I’m afraid for her. I’m afraid that her kind heart will be stepped on and I know that she is fearful.

I know she wants to break down and cry, but she is pretending to be strong.”

“The fight doesn’t end here,” he added, “the fight is now to get her back on US soil. Our only hope is the US government.”

Tens of thousands of people participated in a “Reclaim the Night” march in the Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday night to protest against last week’s rape and murder of a trainee doctor.

The march, largely led by women, demanded justice for the 31-year-old victim who worked at the RG Kar Medical College. She was brutally attacked on Friday, sparking protests and anger across the country.

Devalina Bose, 27, an intern at the same hospital, told the BBC that she joined the protest as she was hurt and angry because of what happened to her colleague.

Here is Devalina in her own words.

I’m still traumatised by what happened to the victim. I struggle to sleep at night.

I keep thinking about how just three weeks back, I had taken a short nap in a room just a few meters away from where the rape and murder happened.

I was tired that night after being on my feet for hours and I just wanted to take a nap. But the room didn’t have a lock and so I couldn’t bolt the door shut.

I was alone in the room and, for a second, I worried about my safety.

But then I pushed the thought out of my head because I told myself that my colleagues were close-by and nothing untoward could possibly happen to me in a hospital.

But now, I don’t feel this way anymore.

Every time I’m on shift, I catch myself looking over my shoulder, scanning the room for unsafe faces, voices… I don’t know what I’m looking for but I’m always on the edge.

What happened to her is just unimaginable. How could a doctor on duty be subjected to something so horrific? So inhuman?

Doctors save people’s lives. They give people a second – sometimes a third – lease on life.

So last night, I joined all my colleagues on the street. My parents didn’t want me to participate in the march because they were worried about my safety.

But I told them that they should encourage me instead, because women have the right to be out in the streets at night and to feel safe.

Women have the right to be anywhere they choose to, doing whatever they choose to, without having to worry about their safety. We have a right to the night like anybody else.

That’s why I joined the protest. To mark this idea and to force people to see it, understand it and believe it.

I saw so many people, of all ages, participate in the march.

There were several generations of women out in the streets – grandmothers, mothers, daughters – holding placards, candles, shouting slogans for justice and change. Some were just walking along silently, perhaps soaking it all in.

My female professors and staff from the hospital were also out to protest.

People from the building I stay in were also participating in a march organised by our society.

It was the first time I saw people I never thought would participate in a march in the night.

I thought it was so special and so powerful.

I walked along with my female friends and even though I attended just one protest march, I felt connected to the hundreds of marches being held simultaneously across the state.

My friends from other places shared videos of their marches with me. I shared photos and videos of mine.

In those few moments, we all felt connected – united in our anger and desire for change.

I think this incident has ignited so much rage and touched so many people.

Often in our society, many people tend to blame the victim. They say ‘why was she out with a guy?’ or ‘why was she wearing that dress?’ or ‘why was she out at that hour in the night?’

It is reprehensible to hold a woman accountable for the man’s actions in any case. Now many of us are wondering who will people blame?

It’s time we as a society took a step back and asked ourselves this question: whose fault is rape, really?

Authorities in the Kenyan city of Eldoret have removed the statues of three athletes after they were widely ridiculed and described as “embarrassing” and a poorly done “joke”.

The statues were unveiled ahead of Thursday’s ceremony giving Eldoret city status.

However, local residents and Kenyans online said they bore little resemblance to the athletes they allegedly represent.

Eldoret is known as the “home of champions”, as it is at the centre of the Rift Valley, where most of Kenya’s world-beating athletes come from.

The statues were removed overnight before President William Ruto officially designated Eldoret a city.

The town this week unveiled several artistic works, including three statues of athletes and other monuments such as a maize cob and a milk fountain.

They were supposed to represent the area’s sports and agricultural heritage and were erected at various strategic roundabouts in the town.

But the artworks immediately drew widespread criticism, becoming objects of ridicule rather than the pride they were supposed to elicit.

A Kenyan who shared a photo of a statue of a female athlete suspected to represent 1,500m world-record holder Faith Kipyegon, said the works represented “our collective mediocrity as a country”.

“It’s a disgrace calling it a Faith Kipyegon statue,” another Kenyan on X said.

Yet another X user shared a purported statue of marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge terming it a “joke”, saying “whoever did this will not see heaven”.

On Thursday morning, local media shared images of an empty pedestal where one of the statues had stood.

A local reporter told the BBC that county officials removed the three statues on Wednesday night, two representing female athletes and one of a male, taking them to an unknown location.

The authorities have not indicated who they represent but social media users have described one as a statue of Kipyegon and another of Kipchoge.

But their depiction of the athletes has been described as “shameless”, “embarrassing” and “substandard”.

Kenyans online have been welcoming the removal of the statues. It was not clear whether they would be replaced, or when.

Ahead of the ceremony to declare Eldoret Kenya’s fifth city, President Ruto hosted athletes who won medals at the 2024 Olympics.

They were each rewarded with money in accordance with a government scheme meant to motivate athletes for good performance.

Kenya was the highest-ranked African country at the Paris Olympics, coming 17th on the medal table with four golds and a total of 11 medals.

Kipyegon won the 1,500m title in a new Olympic record of 3min 51.29sec, the first woman to win three consecutive golds in the event.

She also took silver in the 5,000m.

However, Kipchoge did not finish the marathon after a back injury forced him to drop out.

• Third Olympic title an ‘amazing honour’ for Kipyegon
• Backlash as Botswana requests money for Olympic heroes
• Kenyan football must stop ‘shooting itself in foot’ amid FKF dispute
• Heat and hills in way of Kipchoge and Olympic history

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the mpox outbreak in parts of Africa a public health emergency of international concern.

The highly contagious disease – formerly known as monkeypox – has killed at least 450 people during an initial outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It has now spread across parts of central and east Africa, and scientists are concerned about how fast a new variant of the disease is spreading and its high fatality rate.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond “is very worrying”.

“A co-ordinated international response is essential to stop this outbreak and save lives,” he said.

Mpox is transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

It causes flu-like symptoms, skin lesions and can be fatal, with four in 100 cases leading to death.

Outbreaks can be controlled by preventing infections with vaccines, though these are usually only available for people at risk or those who have been in close contact with an infected person.

• Explained: What is mpox and how is it spread?
• Podcast: What does the new mpox strain mean for you?

There are two main types of mpox – Clade 1 and Clade 2.

A previous mpox public health emergency, declared in 2022, was caused by the relatively mild Clade 2. However, this time it is the far more deadly Clade 1 – which has killed up to 10% of those getting sick in previous outbreaks – that is surging.

There was a change in the virus around September last year. Mutations led to an offshoot – called Clade 1b – that has since spread rapidly. This new variant has been labelled “the most dangerous yet” by one scientist.

Since the start of the year, there have been more than 13,700 cases of mpox in the DR Congo, with at least 450 deaths.

It has since been detected in other African countries – including Burundi, the Central African Republic, Kenya and Rwanda.

It is hoped the declaration of mpox as a public health emergency will lead to research, funding, and the introduction of other international public health measures being accelerated.

Dr Josie Golding, from the Wellcome Trust, said it was a “strong signal”, while Emory University’s Dr Boghuma Titanji said the move “underscores the gravity of the crisis”.

Prof Trudie Lang, the director of the Global Health Network at the University of Oxford, said it was “important and timely”, but added that the emergence of a new strain meant there were “many unknowns that need to be addressed”.

In July 2022 the milder Clade 2 strain of mpox spread to nearly 100 countries, including some in Europe and Asia.

It spread rapidly, and there were more than 87,000 cases and 140 deaths reported during that outbreak, according to a WHO count.

Although anyone can catch monkeypox, the outbreak was largely concentrated among men who had sex with men.

That outbreak was brought under control by vaccinating vulnerable groups.

On Tuesday, scientists from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared a public health emergency.

The head of the organisation, Jean Kaseya, warned that this current outbreak could spiral out of control if immediate steps were not taken to contain it.

“We must be proactive and aggressive in our efforts to contain and eliminate this threat,” he said.

Chinese authorities have called for gig workers to be treated with kindness after videos of a delivery rider kneeling before a security guard led to protests by dozens of riders.

Guards stopped the rider from leaving a building in Hangzhou on Monday – saying he damaged railings while scaling them during a rushed delivery.

Worried that his subsequent deliveries would be delayed, the rider got on his knees and pleaded to be let go, the city’s police said in a statement.

The incident sparked outrage online, with many urging better protections for workers in the industry.

Some 12 million people work as delivery riders in China, and the pandemic has fuelled explosive growth in the sector.

But the industry – much like in the rest of the world – is notorious for its tight deadlines, where low-wage riders are subject to tough penalties over delays and poor customer feedback.

Many also work long days, earning less than a dollar for each delivery.

The incident on Monday drew huge crowds of angry delivery riders to the building in downtown Hangzhou, leading the police to dispatch dozen of officers to manage the situation – including from the special weapons and tactics team.

Videos shared on social media show the riders chanting, “Apologise! Apologise!”

At one point, they start belting out China’s national anthem.

Hangzhou police issued a statement on Tuesday urging the public to “stay calm and seek to understand one another”.

Meituan, the delivery platform that the rider in question was working for, said it will “take thorough responsibility” to look into whether he was treated unfairly, and ensure its delivery riders are properly protected.

The platform added that it has paid to repair the broken railings.

Hashtags related to the incident have clocked up hundreds of millions of views on microblogging platform Weibo in the last few days.

Some users condemned the security guards’ “bullying tactics”, while others acknowledged that the rider had made a mistake.

“They are both low-wage workers. Why did it have to come to this?” one user wrote. “It’s a hot day, it’s not easy for all of us. Let’s try to empathise with one another.”

Others cited poor working conditions as a factor.

“Why do delivery riders break traffic rules so often? It’s simple. They will be fined if their deliveries are delayed,” another user wrote.

“This is the power of the platforms they work for. And so the riders work as hard as they can and risk their lives in order to complete what they have to do.

“It’s exactly how sweatshops function.”

China has over the years introduced guidelines to protect the rights and interests of gig workers, but problems remain.

Incidents of riders clashing with security guards in China have made headlines in the past.

In January this year, a delivery rider in the eastern city of Qingdao was stabbed to death by a security guard for entering a building without authorisation.

Research by the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based NGO, shows gig workers have held at least 400 protests in the last five years to demand improvements.

Japan has lifted its warning about a potential “megaquake”, one week after it was issued.

The warning told people to be alert but not evacuate, saying the probability of a major earthquake was higher than usual but it was not imminent.

The Japanese government said it was no longer asking people to take special precautions and they were free to “go back to normal lifestyles”.

Following the warning, thousands of Japanese people cancelled planned trips and stocked up on essentials, while some high-speed rail travel was also affected.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said, as of Wednesday, it had detected no seismic activity indicating any concerning changes in the presumed area where the megaquake could originate, Kyodo news agency reported.

While last week’s warning has been lifted, the risk of a major earthquake is still present, disaster management minister Yoshifumi Matsumura said.

He said no abnormalities had been detected in “seismic activity and crustal deformation” so the call for increased preparedness was lifted at 17:00 local time (09:00 BST).

“But it doesn’t mean the risk (of a major earthquake) has been eliminated,” he told reporters.

“We have been asking for special precautions, such as sleeping while being prepared to evacuate immediately. But we will no longer ask for these steps, and the people of Japan are free to go back to normal lifestyles,” he added.

Last week’s warning came hours after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit off the southern island of Kyushu.

Experts were put on heightened alert because of where the epicentre sat – at the edge of the Nankai Trough, an area of seismic activity which stretches along Japan’s Pacific coast.

The plate boundary sits between Suruga Bay in central Japan, and the Hyuganada Sea in Kyushu to the south.

After last week’s warning, some shops were reportedly left with empty shelves or forced to put limits on purchases of items like bottled water.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cancelled a trip to Central Asia. Some bullet trains also reduced their speed as a precaution.

Previous Nankai Trough earthquakes have left thousands dead. These megaquakes have been recorded once every 90 to 200 years, with the last one occurring in 1946.

Experts say there is a 70% to 80% chance of a magnitude 8 or 9 quake striking somewhere along the trough in the next 30 years, according to the Kyodo news agency. Worst-case estimates suggest more than 200,000 people could be killed in the earthquake and potential subsequent tsunami.