Storm Boris is battering the north-east and central regions of Italy, days after causing widespread flooding in central Europe.

More than 1,000 residents in the north-eastern region of Emilia Romagna have been evacuated, while towns in the central region of Marche of Italy reported serious flooding and disruption. There are no reports of any casualties.

Schools across Emilia Romagna have closed. Some roads were impacted by landslides and railway traffic has been severely disrupted.

Authorities warned residents to stay out of their basements and to relocate to the upper floors of their homes.

Schools, libraries and parks were shut in Ravenna, and the University of Bologna cancelled exams and lessons.

The city of Faenza has been the worst-affected, with the levels of the two rivers crossing it rising rapidly overnight.

Residents quoted by local media said they had had to leave their homes in dinghies in the middle of the night. High river levels have also caused the sewage system to overflow.

But authorities in nearby Bologna said on Thursday morning that river levels in the city were under control, although the weather alert is set to continue until Friday for most of the region. Red warnings for flooding and landslides have been issued for eastern Emilia Romagna.

Falconara on the Adriatic coast has seen 204mm (8 inches) of rain since Wednesday, well over September’s average of around 67mm. Over 300mm of rain were recorded over the Apennine mountain region.

The rain will ease through Friday, and the weekend is looking largely dry but as seen in other parts of central Europe, the flooding risk may continue.

For residents of Emilia-Romagna, Storm Boris echoes the severe – and deadly – flooding the region faced just over a year ago.

In May 2023, 13 people died after six months’ rainfall fell in a day and a half, leading to more than 20 rivers bursting their banks.

Tens of thousands of people had to flee their homes and the flooding caused billions of euros of damage.

Italy is the latest country to suffer the fury of Storm Boris – a low pressure system which swept across Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Austria, killing at least 23 people.

Although the worst appears to be over across much of the region, the levels of the Danube River are still rising in Hungary. Prime Minister Victor Orban said on Wednesday the water level in Budapest was expected to peak on Saturday afternoon or evening, but that it would be lower than record levels seen in 2013.

The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria are due to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Wroclaw later today to discuss aid for the flood-hit region.

The city, in southwestern Poland, has also been threatened by high river levels for days.

The recent events in central Europe fit with expectations of more extreme rainfall in a warming world, although it is not yet possible to quantify exactly how much of a role climate change has played.

However, climate scientists have been warning for years about extreme rainfall events like these occurring as the planet warms.

Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store.

The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted or raped them.

The documentary and podcast – Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods – gathered evidence that, during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene, but helped cover up abuse allegations.

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

“The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark,” says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.

Since this article was first published, more former Harrods employees have contacted the BBC saying Mohammed Al Fayed assaulted them.

The incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi.

“I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over,” says one of the women, who says Fayed raped her at his Park Lane apartment.

Another woman says she was a teenager when he raped her at the Mayfair address.

“Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever,” she says, adding that all the staff at Harrods were his “playthings”.

“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’.”

Fayed faced sexual assault claims while he was alive, but these allegations are of unprecedented scale and seriousness. The BBC believes many more women may have been assaulted.

Fayed’s entrepreneurial career began on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, where he hawked fizzy drinks to passers-by. But it was his marriage to the sister of a millionaire Saudi arms dealer that helped him forge new connections and build a business empire.

He moved to the UK in 1974 and was already a well-known public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s, he would regularly appear as a guest on prime-time TV chat and entertainment shows.

Meanwhile, Fayed – whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 – has become known to a new generation through the two most recent Netflix series of The Crown.

But the women we have spoken to say his portrayal as pleasant and gregarious was far from the truth.

“He was vile,” says one of the women, Sophia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991. She says he tried to rape her more than once.

“That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.”

Some of the women waived, or partially waived, their right to anonymity to be filmed – and the BBC agreed not to use surnames. Others chose to remain anonymous. Put together, their testimonies reveal a pattern of predatory behaviour and sexual abuse by Fayed.

The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store’s vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive, who would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs – former staff, male and female, told us.

The assaults would be carried out in Harrods’ offices, in Fayed’s London apartment, or on foreign trips – often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which he also owned, or his nearby Villa Windsor property.

At Harrods, other former staff members told us it was clear what was happening.

“We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it,” Alice, not her real name, says.

Rachel, not her real name, worked as a personal assistant in Harrods in the 1990s.

One night after work, she says she was called to his luxury apartment, in a large block on Park Lane overlooking London’s Hyde Park. The building was protected by security staff and had an on-site office staffed by Harrods employees.

Rachel says Fayed asked her to sit on his bed and then put his hand on her leg, making it clear what he wanted.

“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And… just going somewhere else in my head.

“He raped me.”

The BBC has spoken to 13 women who say Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane. Four of them, including Rachel, say they were raped.

Sophia, who says she was sexually assaulted, described the whole situation as an inescapable nightmare.

“I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a [family] home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she says. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled.”

Gemma, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007-09, says his behaviour became more frightening during work trips abroad.

She says it culminated in her being raped at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne – a former home, post-abdication, of King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.

Gemma says she woke up startled in her bedroom. Fayed was next to her bed wearing just a silk dressing gown. He then tried to get into bed with her.

“I told him, ‘no, I don’t want you to’. And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me and [I] really couldn’t move anywhere.

“I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”

She says after Fayed raped her she cried, while he got up and told her aggressively to wash herself with Dettol.

“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she explains.

Eight other women have also told us they were sexually assaulted by Fayed at his properties in Paris. Five women described the assaults as an attempted rape.

Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods

A BBC investigation into allegations of rape and attempted rape by Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods. Did the luxury store protect a billionaire predator?

Watch Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods on BBC iPlayer now or on BBC Two at 21:00 on Thursday 19 September.

Listen to World of Secrets, Season 4: Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

“The abuse of women, I was aware of it when I was on the shop floor,” says Tony Leeming, a Harrods department manager from 1994 to 2004. It “wasn’t even a secret”, recalls Mr Leeming, who says he did not know about more serious allegations of assault or rape.

“And I think if I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn’t are lying, I’m sorry”.

Mr Leeming’s testimony is backed up by former members of Fayed’s security team.

“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” says Eamon Coyle, who joined Harrods in 1979 as a store detective, then became deputy director of security from 1989-95.

Meanwhile Steve, who does not want us to use his surname, worked for the billionaire between 1994-95. He told us that security staff “did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane”.

Many of the women told us that when they began working directly for Fayed they underwent medicals – including invasive sexual health tests carried out by doctors.

This was presented as a perk, the women told us, but many did not see their own results – even though they were sent to Fayed.

“There is no benefit to anybody knowing what my sexual health is, unless you’re planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now,” says Katherine, who was an executive assistant in 2005.

All the women we spoke to described having felt intimidated at work – which had made it difficult for them to speak out.

Sarah, not her real name, explained: “There was most definitely a culture of fear across the whole store – from the lowliest of the low, to the most senior person.”

Others told us they believed the phones in Harrods had been tapped – and that women had been scared of talking to each other about Fayed’s abuse, fearing they were being filmed by hidden cameras.

The ex-deputy director of security, Eamon Coyle, confirmed this – explaining how part of his job was to listen to tapes of recorded calls. Cameras that could record had also been installed throughout the store, he said, including in the executive suites.

“He [Fayed] bugged everybody that he wanted to bug.”

Harrods told the BBC in a statement these had been the actions of an individual “intent on abusing his power” which it condemned in the strongest terms.

It said: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010, it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”

There were a number of attempts to expose Fayed before his death – notably by Vanity Fair in 1995 – with an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct. This sparked a libel lawsuit.

Mohamed Al Fayed later agreed to drop the case as long as all the further evidence the magazine had gathered of his sexual misconduct in preparation for a trial was locked away. Fayed’s settlement was negotiated by a senior Harrods executive.

In 1997, ITV’s The Big Story reported further serious allegations including sexual harassment and groping – which is classed as sexual assault.

One of the women in the BBC investigation, Ellie, not her real name, was 15 in 2008 when she reported an assault to the police – an allegation that made headlines – but did not result in any charge.

In 2017, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast allegations of groping, assault and harassment, with one woman waiving her right to anonymity for the first time. It gave some women the courage to come forward – and was followed by a 2018 investigation on Channel 4 News.

But it is only now, with Mohamed Al Fayed having died last year, that many of the women have felt able to speak publicly about rape and attempted rape.

The BBC documentary reveals that, as part of Gemma’s settlement in 2009, she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a legally-binding contract which ensures information remains confidential.

She says after she was raped, she contacted a lawyer who told Harrods she was leaving her job on the grounds of sexual harassment. Gemma says she did not feel able, at that time, to disclose the full extent and seriousness of Fayed’s assaults.

Harrods agreed she could leave and it would pay a sum of money in exchange for her shredding all evidence and signing an NDA. Gemma says a member of Harrods’ HR team was present as the shredding took place.

The BBC has heard that women were threatened and intimidated by Harrods’ then-director of security, John Macnamara, to stop them speaking out.

Fourteen of the women we spoke to recently brought civil claims against Harrods for damages. The shop’s current owners, who are not asking women to sign NDAs, started settling these in July 2023.

It took Sophia and Harrods five years to reach an agreement. In her case, the store expressed regret but did not admit liability. Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

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The barristers representing some of the women we spoke to – Bruce Drummond and Dean Armstrong KC – argue the store was responsible for an unsafe system of work.

“Any place of work has a duty to ensure the safety of its employees. Without question, the company failed these ladies,” says Mr Drummond.

“That’s why we step in. Because they just did nothing to actually prevent this. They did the opposite. They enabled it.”

Mr Armstrong adds: “We say there have been clearly attempts by the senior people at Harrods to sweep this under the carpet.”

Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

Barrister Maria Mulla – who is also on the legal team representing some of the women – says clients are coming forward now, because previously they have been “absolutely petrified” to speak out.

“They want to be part of this movement of holding people accountable for what has happened to them, and trying to make sure these things don’t happen again in the future for their own children and for their children.”

Harrods told the BBC: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

The Ritz hotel in Paris said it “strongly condemns all forms of behaviour that do not align with the values of the establishment”.

When Fayed died, unconfirmed reports estimated his worth in excess of £1bn. But money is not the motivation for the women to speak out, they say.

“I’ve spent so many years being quiet and silent, not speaking up,” says Gemma, “and I hope talking about it now helps. We can all start feeling better and healing from it.”

A Japanese handheld radio manufacturer has distanced itself from walkie-talkies bearing its logo that exploded in Lebanon, saying it discontinued production of the devices a decade ago.

At least 20 people were killed and 450 injured after hundreds of walkie-talkies, some reportedly used by the armed group Hezbollah, exploded across Lebanon on Wednesday.

The devices, according to photos and video of the aftermath of the attack, appear to be IC-V82 transceivers made by Icom, an Osaka-based telecommunications manufacturer.

But Icom says it hasn’t produced or exported IC-V82s, nor the batteries needed to operate them, for 10 years.

It is the second Asian company to be embroiled in bombing incidents in Lebanon this week, after thousands of exploding pagers seemingly linked to Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo killed at least 12 people and injured more than 2,000.

Gold Apollo’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang flatly denied his company had anything to do with the attacks, saying he licensed his trade mark to a company in Hungary called BAC Consulting, whom the BBC has been unable to contact.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What we know about the explosions
• Video captures Beirut skyline as devices explode across city
• From Taiwan to Hungary, a complex picture emerges of the pagers’ origins
• Hezbollah and its conflict with Israel explained

Icom told the BBC it was aware of reports that two-way radio devices bearing its logo had exploded in Lebanon, and said it was investigating the matter.

“The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company,” Icom said in a statement.

“The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company.”

Icom further added that all its radios are manufactured at the same factory in Japan, and that it only sells products for overseas markets via authorised distributors.

Earlier, a sales executive at the US subsidiary of Icom told The Associated Press news agency that the exploded radio devices in Lebanon appeared to be knockoff products that were not made by the company – adding that it was easy to find counterfeit versions online.

The device is favoured by amateur radio operators and for use in social or emergency communications, including by people tracking tornadoes or hurricanes, he said.

It took the BBC a matter of seconds to find Icom IC-V82s listed for sale in online marketplaces.

It is unclear at which point in the supply chain these devices were compromised and how. It is also unclear if some of them were merely old Icom IC-V82s, or counterfeits as Mr Novak claimed.

Lebanon’s Annahar newspaper on Wednesday said the Icom walkie-talkies were old handsets.

Reports suggest the walkie-talkies that exploded were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, according to a security source speaking to Reuters news agency.

Icom produces walkie-talkies and radio devices for marine, aviation and land users, and considers itself a “world leader in the amateur radio market”, according to its website.

Asia is considered a global hub for telecoms and electronics, with countries like Japan, Taiwan and China being home to major tech producers that are often favoured as a benchmark of quality.

BBC Verify investigated BAC Consulting, the company linked to the pagers involved in Tuesday’s explosions, and found that the firm has a single shareholder and is registered to a building in the Hungarian capital Budapest’s 14th district.

As well as BAC, a further 13 companies and one person are registered at the same building. BBC Verify’s search of a financial information database, however, does not reveal that BAC has any connections to other companies or people.

Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono said she knew nothing about the explosions. “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she told NBC.

A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty to sedition for wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan on it.

The jail term is the first handed down by the city’s court under a new local national security law that was passed in March.

The law, also called Article 23, expands on the national security law that was imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Critics feared the law could further erode civil liberties in the city, while Beijing and Hong Kong defended it, saying it was necessary for stability.

Chu Kai-pong, 27, was arrested at a subway station in June wearing a T-shirt sporting the phrase “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”. He was also wearing a mask that read “FDNOL” – initials for another slogan, “Five demands, not one less”.

Both slogans were frequently heard in large-scale protests in Hong Kong during the months-long anti-government demonstrations in 2019. Local media reported he was also carrying a box containing his excrement to use against people opposing his views.

Chu was arrested on 12 June, the anniversary of a key date of the 2019 protests when particularly large crowds took to the city’s streets.

The court heard Chu told police he wore the T-shirt to remind people of the protests, according to Reuters. He was previously jailed for three months in a separate incident for wearing a T-shirt with the same slogan, as well as possession of other offensive items.

Chu has been remanded in custody since 14 June. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to one count of doing an act with a seditious intention”.

In his judgement read out on Thursday, chief magistrate Victor So, who was handpicked by the government to hear national security cases, said Chu intended to “reignite the ideas behind” the 2019 protests.

He said Chu “showed no remorse” after his previous conviction, and that the sentence reflected the “seriousness” of the sedition charge.

The conviction and sentencing have been criticised by human rights groups. Amnesty International’s China director Sarah Brooks described it as “a blatant attack on the right to freedom of expression”, and called for the repealing of Article 23 in a statement.

The sentencing comes after a landmark ruling of another case last month, when two journalists who led the pro-democracy newspaper Stand News were found guilty of sedition. That marked the first sedition case against the city’s journalists since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.

A 10-year-old Japanese student has died one day after he was stabbed near his school in southern China.

The boy, who was enrolled at the Shenzhen Japanese School, succumbed to his injuries early on Thursday, Japanese officials said.

His assailant, a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong, was arrested on the spot, local police said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the attack “extremely despicable” and said Tokyo had “strongly urged” Beijing for an explanation “as soon as possible”.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the case was being investigated and that China and Japan were “in communication”.

“China expresses its regret and sadness that this kind of unfortunate incident occurred,” he told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

Mr Lin also confirmed that the boy was a Japanese national with a Japanese father and a Chinese mother.

The motive for the attack was not immediately known. But some observers have expressed concern that nationalist sentiment in China might be spilling into increasing violence against foreigners.

In June, a man targeted a Japanese mother and her child in the eastern city of Suzhou. That attack was also near a Japanese school and led to the death of a Chinese national who had tried to protect the mother and son.

Earlier in June, four American teachers were stabbed in the northern city of Jilin.

Beijing has described all of these attacks – including the one on Wednesday – as “isolated incidents”. And on Wednesday, Mr Lin said China would continue “to protect the safety of all foreigners in the country”.

The Japanese embassy in Beijing called on the Chinese government to “prevent such incidents from happening again”.

Some have pointed out that the stabbing happened on the anniversary of the notorious Mukden Incident, when Japan faked an explosion to justify its invasion of Manchuria in 1931, triggering a 14-year war with China.

Ties between the two countries have long been acrimonious. For decades the two sides have clashed on a number of issues, ranging from historical grievances to territorial disputes.

A former Japanese diplomat said Wednesday’s attack in Shenzhen was the “result of long years of anti-Japan education” in Chinese schools.

“This has cost the precious life of a Japanese child,” Shingo Yamagami, Japan’s former ambassador to Australia, wrote on X.

Some Japanese schools in China have contacted parents, putting them on high alert in the wake of the stabbing.

The Guangzhou Japanese School cancelled some activities and warned against speaking Japanese loudly in public.

Earlier this year, the Japanese government requested about $2.5m (£1.9m) to hire security guards for school buses in China.

American astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore have been stuck in space for 107 days and the earliest they can return to Earth is in February. People in Williams’ ancestral village in India have been praying for her safe return. BBC Gujarati’s Roxy Gagdekar Chhara reports.

Residents of Jhulasan in the western Indian state of Gujarat take pride in the fact that Williams has a connection with their village.

The village was once home to Williams’ father and grandparents. The astronaut visited the village three times – 1972, 2007 and 2013 – after successful space missions.

Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, took off for an eight-day mission on 5 June but got stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft experienced problems. They will now return to Earth in February 2025 with SpaceX.

In Jhulasan, locals hold daily prayers for Williams’ safe return, keeping an oil lamp burning as a symbol of their hopes. For her 59th birthday on Thursday, they’ve organised a space-themed exhibition, hoping she’ll visit again after another successful mission.

Jhulasan, a village of 7,000, is filled with memories of Williams’ ties. A library named after her grandparents still stands, though in poor condition, as is her father Deepak Pandya’s ancestral home. Pandya, a neuroscientist, died in 2020.

A school, which Williams’ had donated funds to during one of her visits, has a picture of her grandparents in the prayer hall. When Williams was felicitated at the school in 2007, her relative Kishore Pandya got a chance to meet her.

“I went to her and said with my limited knowledge of English, ‘I am your brother’. She shook hands with me and said, ‘Oh! My brother!’ I still cherish that moment,” he said.

Williams’ father moved to the US to pursue higher studies in 1957. There, he met and married Ursuline Bonnie, and they had Williams in 1965.

Seven years later, the family visited Jhulasan for the first time since Deepak Pandya had left. It was a moment of celebration for the village and they gave a warm welcome to the family by taking them around in a procession.

Bharat Gajjar, 68, who used to work as a carpenter back then, recalled the event fondly. “I still remember a young Sunita and others riding on camels as they toured the village,” he said.

Madhu Patel is among a group of women who offer daily prayers at a local temple for Williams.

“We are proud of her achievements. Nasa and the government should do whatever they can to bring our daughter back safely,” Ms Patel said.

While they wait for her return, her work and words continue to be a source of inspiration to many. Manthan Leuva, who is studying for a banking exam, recalls one of Williams’ speeches.

“She said ‘love what you do and you will get success’. I find that thought deeply inspiring,” he said.

Nintendo and its partner The Pokémon Company have filed a legal case against the maker of the hit survival adventure game Palworld over alleged patent infringement.

Palworld quickly earned the nickname “Pokémon with guns” when its first trailer was unveiled in 2021.

Just days after the game’s release in January this year, The Pokémon Company said it would investigate the copycat claims.

Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair Inc, acknowledged the lawsuit in a statement on Thursday and apologised to fans for “any worry or discomfort” caused.

Pocketpair’s boss previously said the game had passed legal checks.

But Nintendo is known for fiercely protecting its intellectual property and brand.

Pokémon said in statements posted on their websites that Palworld “infringes multiple patent rights”.

“This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages”.

Palworld has become a major hit, with more than 25 million players within a month of its release.

Like the popular franchise of Pokémon video games, it also centres around collecting strange creatures with different powers.

Pocketpair’s website describes the game as seamlessly integrating “elements of battle, monster-capturing, training, and base building.”

Players, known as “pal-tamers”, travel around a large map battling human foes and creatures known as “pals” which can be captured and recruited.

The monsters can either fight alongside the player in battles, or be put to work at a base, crafting supplies and items for use in the field.

In January, The Pokémon Company said it planned to investigate claims that Palworld had copied its games, after fans pointed out similarities.

The Pokémon Company said at the time it would take “appropriate action” if it found its copyright had been breached.

Pocketpair said in response to the lawsuit on Thursday it would begin taking action on and investigating The Pokémon Company’s claims.

But it added that it was “unaware” of the specific patents that it had been accused of infringing.

“We have not been notified of such details,” it said.

A Nintendo spokesperson told the BBC it would “refrain from commenting on topics that relate to the content of the lawsuit”.

The company “has a track record of suing organisations and individuals which it feels has infringed upon its IP,” said gaming industry analyst Piers Harding Rolls.

He told the BBC its latest lawsuit “continues this trend” – and reflects the importance of the Pokémon franchise to the gaming giant.

“Nintendo is part owner of The Pokémon Company and the Pokémon franchise, and the series of games are inextricably linked to Nintendo’s console business,” he said.

Earlier this week, Pokémon reportedly won a $15m legal fight against several Chinese game developers it accused of infringing its copyright.

Pocketpair, meanwhile, said it was “truly unfortunate” that, as a smaller, independent game developer, it would now have to allocate time and resources to the lawsuit, rather than to Palworld.

“However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas,” it added.

For the past 11 days, about 1,500 workers of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics have been striking work in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, leading to major disruptions in production.

The plant in Chennai city, one of Samsung’s two factories in India, employs nearly 2,000 workers and produces home appliances, contributing about a third to the company’s annual $12bn (£9bn) revenue in India.

The striking workers gather at a plot of land near the 17-year-old factory daily, demanding that Samsung recognise their newly-formed labour union – the Samsung India Labour Welfare Union (SILWU). They say that only a union can help them negotiate better wages and working hours with the management.

The protest, one of the largest Samsung has seen in recent years, comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been courting foreign investment by positioning India as a viable alternative to China for manufacturing activities.

Samsung India has released a statement saying that the welfare of its workers was its top priority. “We have initiated discussions with our workers at the Chennai plant to resolve all issues at the earliest,” it said.

Hours earlier, the police had detained around 104 workers for undertaking a protest march without permission. The protesters were released in the evening.

“The workers have decided to strike work indefinitely till their demands are met,” said A Soundararajan, member of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu), backed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Citu has backed the new union in the factory.

The workers have three key demands: Samsung must recognise the new union, allow collective bargaining, and reject competing unions as about 90% of the workforce belongs to SILWU, said Mr Soundararajan.

Workers, earning an average of 25,000 rupees ($298; £226) a month, are demanding staggered raises totalling a 50% increase over the next three years, according to Citu.

Citu also alleged that workers at the plant were being “pressurised to finish each product – like a refrigerator, washing machine, or TV – within 10-15 seconds”, work non-stop for four to five hours at a stretch, and do their jobs in unsafe conditions.

“We categorically deny that workers are made to work for four hours at a stretch. All workers get suitable breaks in between,” Samsung India said in an official statement.

“Also, employees work on their given task of the manufacturing process as products are passed through the conveyor line. They are not required to ‘finish’ a product in such a time frame, which is not realistic. We reiterate that we are in compliance with all laws and regulations,” the statement added.

Mr Soundararajan also alleged that workers were pressurised by the management to leave the new union and that their families were threatened as well.

Samsung India said the firm “categorically denies all the allegations and that it maintains absolute compliance with all the existing labour laws”.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu’s Labour Welfare Minister CV Ganesan said he had assured union officials that talks were under way to resolve their issues. “We will fulfil the demands of the workers,” he said.

Sijo*, a protester, said that he arrives at the protest site daily at 08:00 IST (02:30 GMT) and stays until 17:00, joining hundreds of workers in their blue Samsung India uniforms.

The union arranges for lunch and water for the protesters, while a makeshift cloth tent protects them from the elements. There are no washroom facilities, so the workers use the outdoors.

“Since the factory was set up, employees have been working without complaints or a union. But things have been getting bad over the past couple of years, and now, we need the support of a union,” Sijo said.

He added that his pay doesn’t keep pace with the cost of living and that this has put a strain of his family’s finances.

Up until 2020, the Samsung Group was known for not allowing unions to represent its workers. But things changed after the company came under intense public scrutiny after its chairman was prosecuted for market manipulation and bribery.

Millions of Indian workers join trade unions – often backed by leftist parties – who use their political clout to enforce labour laws and negotiate better conditions. “Foreign companies set up in India but resist following local laws on workers’ rights to association and collective bargaining,” alleged Mr Soundararajan.

Many prominent multinational companies, including Apple and Amazon, have set up factories in India. But labour rights activists allege that many of them underpay and overwork their Indian employees and collude with state governments to clamp down on workers’ rights.

Shyam Sundar, a labour economist, said multinational corporations use various “human resource strategies” to prevent workers from forming unions in developing countries like India.

For one, they fiercely oppose workers joining external, politically-backed unions and encourage them to form “worker-led” internal ones. “This ensures that the management has some control over the union’s activities,” Mr Sundar said.

Mr Soundararajan alleged that management at the Chennai plant had also approached workers with this solution, which they refused. A source in Samsung India told the BBC that the organisation “fully supports unions but not ones backed by a third-party”.

Later the company said in an official statement that it “is ready to communicate with the work council comprised of a majority of employees on matters including wages, benefits and working conditions”.

Mr Sundar said firms also hire young, unskilled workers, especially from rural areas, by attracting them with a good starting salary. “These ‘trainees’ are promised to be made permanent employees after a couple of months, but this doesn’t happen. The salaries too stay stagnant or have very low increments.”

The rapid growth of “flexible workers” – employees hired on contract – has become a key strategy of multinational corporations to stop unionising by ensuring a pliant workforce, he added.

According to the latest government statistics, every two in five workers employed in factories in India in 2022 were contractual labourers, making up about 40% of the workforce in industrial establishments.

“Companies use the threat of re-location or non-expansion to discourage state governments from enforcing labour laws,” Mr Sundar said. “But workers can leverage global labour unions to pressure companies to abide by international labour laws,” he added.

An engine fire on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350 earlier this month was the result of a fuel leak and could have caused extensive damage to the plane, according to investigators.

Hong Kong’s flagship airline grounded planes after being forced to turn a flight around a couple of weeks ago because of an “engine component failure”.

The Trent XWB-97 engine was made by British engineering giant Rolls-Royce.

A preliminary report by Hong Kong’s Air Accident Investigation Authority (AAIA) said the incident was caused by a broken fuel hose – one of a number that had been damaged.

Rolls-Royce and Cathay Pacific both said they were continuing to support the investigation.

The incident occurred shortly after the plane had taken off from Hong Kong en route to Zurich in early September. The pilots received a fire warning in the cockpit, shut down the engine and deployed fire extinguishers.

The aircraft, which was carrying 348 passengers and crew, landed safely back in Hong Kong.

But the incident raised concerns over the safety of the engines used across Cathay Pacific’s A350 fleet, particularly after checks revealed issues on another 15 aircraft.

The preliminary report found that the protective surround of a fuel hose had ruptured, leaving “a discernible hole in the hose”. There were signs of a fire in parts of the engine, including soot and burn marks.

Further checks revealed another five fuel hoses in the same engine were also defective.

If not promptly detected and addressed, the report said, this situation could have escalated “into a more serious engine fire, potentially causing extensive damage to the aircraft.”

To address the problem, the AAIA recommended that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) require Rolls-Royce to develop new inspection requirements for the relevant engines.

EASA responded in the days after the incident by requiring operators using the same type of engine to carry out inspections of fuel pipes, and remove any that were ‘potentially compromised’.

It has since replaced those emergency measures with a wider regime of inspections covering several variants of the Trent XWB engine. The agency said inspections had shown that “a specific cleaning process available during engine refurbishment” could lead to degradation of the fuel hoses.

In a statement, Cathay Pacific said that following the incident it had “proactively initiated a fleet-wide inspection of its Airbus A350 aircraft that cleared the aircraft for operation.” It added it was in full compliance with EASA’s directive, and continued to “work closely with the airframe and engine manufacturers and regulator”.

Cathay Pacific took delivery of its first Airbus A350 in 2016. The aircraft is rapidly becoming a mainstay of airlines’ long-haul fleets around the world. Its main selling point is its high efficiency and low running costs.

A key part of that efficiency is the engine. The Trent XWB was developed by Rolls-Royce specifically for the A350. The incident initially raised concerns that there could be a serious problem affecting the global A350 fleet. That would have been a major setback for the British manufacturer.

However, it rapidly became apparent that the issue did not affect the running parts within the engine itself, but rather fuel lines on the outside. That meant the problem could be rectified relatively quickly, without an expensive redesign.

It was initially thought the problem was confined to the XWB-97, a high power variant of the engine that was fitted to a relatively limited number of long-range aircraft. However, EASA has now demanded checks on other versions as well.

Responding to the investigators’ report, Rolls-Royce said “We are continuing to work closely with the regulators to support the ongoing investigation by the authorities into Cathay Pacific flight CX383”

It went on to emphasise that “the engine and aircraft system promptly detected and addressed the issue, as expected with such an incident”, with the crew being alerted and able to deploy the fire extinguisher.

This year, Rolls-Royce announced plans to invest heavily to improve its range of engines, including the Trent XWB-97.

In 2023, Tim Clark, the boss of gulf carrier Emirates, voiced concerns about the durability of the engine and the prices Rolls-Royce charged for maintenance.

Just as crowds had gathered to mourn some of those killed in Tuesday’s wave of pager-bomb attacks, an explosion sparked chaos in Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut.

In the surrounding area there was bedlam as the sound of the explosion echoed through the streets. The chants stopped. Those gathered looked at each other, some incredulous.

As reports spread that this was part of a second wave of explosions now targeting walkie-talkies, no electronic equipment was considered safe.

In Dahiyeh, Hezbollah supporters stopped our team several times, demanding we did not use our phones or our camera.

One of our producers received a message from a friend, who said she had changed her Lebanese SIM card to an international number, concerned that her phone could explode, too.

Many people here, and across the country, are inevitably wondering what will come next. Some even say they do not know if it is safe to walk next to other people, and are changing their plans.

“Everyone is just panicking… We don’t know if we can stay next to our laptops, our phones. Everything seems like a danger at this point, and no one knows what to do,” one woman, Ghida, said.

The confusion was made worse by rumours that spread on social media. One of them suggested that even solar panels were blowing up. “A state of panic overwhelmed people,” another woman said. “And frankly, this situation is very frightening”.

Wednesday’s attack, which killed 25 people, came as the country was still shocked and angered by what happened the day before, when thousands of pagers exploded in a synchronised attack, after users received a message they believed had come from Hezbollah.

The devices detonated as people were in shops, or with their families at home, killing 12, including an eight-year-old girl who went to pick up the pager for her father, and an 11-year-old boy. Around 2,800 others were wounded, with hundreds needing surgery.

Treating some of the injured, Dr Elias Warrak said at least 60% of the people he had seen after Tuesday’s blasts had lost at least one eye, with many also losing a finger or a whole hand. He described it as “the worst day of [his] life as a physician”.

“I believe the number of casualties and the type of damage that has been done is humongous,” he said. “Unfortunately, we were not able to save a lot of eyes, and unfortunately the damage is not limited to the eyes – some of them have damage in the brain in addition to any facial damage.”

The attacks are a humiliation for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and a possible indication that its entire communication network may have been infiltrated by Israel, the worst security breach in the group’s history.

Reports suggest a shipment of pagers may have been rigged with explosives, before being detonated remotely. Hezbollah had distributed the devices amid concerns that smartphones were being used by the Israeli military and intelligence agencies to track down and kill its members. It was still not clear how Wednesday’s attacks might have been carried out.

“The pain is huge, physical and in the heart. But this is something we are used to, and we will continue with our resistance,” said a young man in Dahiyeh. A woman said: “This will make us stronger, whoever has lost an eye will fight with the other eye and we are all standing together.”

Hezbollah has vowed to respond, blaming Israel for the attacks. As usual, Israel has not commented. Fears are, again, rising that the current violence between the two rivals, which has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border, could escalate into an all-out war.

Hezbollah says its attacks on Israel, which started almost a year ago, are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, and that they will only stop with a ceasefire, an elusive possibility for now.

Hours after the latest explosions, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said his country was “at the start of a new phase in the war”, as the 98th division of the Israeli army relocated from Gaza to the north of Israel.

Up until now, Hezbollah has indicated that it is not interested in another major war with Israel, as Lebanon struggles to recover from a years-long economic crisis. Many here say a conflict is not in the country’s interests. A damaged Hezbollah is not in Iran’s interests either, as the group acts as part of the country’s deterrence against Israel.

But some will certainly demand a strong response. An indication of what Hezbollah might be planning to do could come on Thursday, in the first public reaction by its powerful leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

It has been the deadliest year in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians since 1948, when Israel fought and won its war for independence – and this is one of the most dangerous moments since Hamas attacked Israel on 7th October last year.

Attacking Hezbollah’s communications network has delivered a tactical victory to Israel – the sort of spectacular coup you would read about in a thriller.

However there is a potentially serious strategic downside for Israel, because while this humiliates the powerful Lebanese militia and political movement, it doesn’t deter them.

And it doesn’t get closer to Israel’s strategic aim of stopping Hezbollah’s attacks and allowing the more than 60,000 Israelis on the northern border who haven’t been in their houses for nearly a year to return home.

• LIVE: Latest updates on the Hezbollah pager explosions
• What we know about the attack in Lebanon
• Watch: Video appears to show explosion at supermarket
• What is Hezbollah in Lebanon and why is it fighting with Israel?

The Israelis have used important, audacious weapons, which are clearly very effective in their terms.

But reports in Al Monitor, a respected Middle East newsletter, say that they were not able to use them in the way they hoped.

The original plan, it says, was for Israel to follow up with devastating attacks while Hezbollah was still reeling. The pager attack, the reports say, was to be the opening salvo in a big escalation – as part of an offensive or perhaps an invasion of southern Lebanon.

But these same reports say that Hezbollah was getting suspicious – forcing Israel to trigger these attacks early. So the Israelis have shown they can get into Hezbollah’s communications and shown they can humiliate them, but these attacks do not take the region one inch further back from all out war. Instead they push it closer.

Everything at the moment in terms of de-escalation in the Middle East depends on Gaza.

While that war continues, whether it’s conflict with Lebanon, whether it’s attacks in the Red Sea from the Houthis, whether it’s tensions with Iraq; nothing is going to de-escalate.

The US envoy to Lebanon Amos Hochstein has been working assiduously for months now – talking to the Lebanese, and indirectly to Hezbollah and to the Israelis, about trying to find a way to deescalate this diplomatically. And reportedly, the Israelis didn’t tell the US about what they were doing with this plan until last moments – so this won’t help his efforts either.

American predictions that a ceasefire in Gaza is close have come up again against two seemingly immovable objects.

One is the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, who wants Israel out of the Gaza Strip permanently, as well as a big release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.

The other is Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has stuck to his insistence that Israel can and will win a total victory over Hamas.

The consensus in Israel is that he benefits from prolonging the war, despite pressure from hostage families and their supporters for a deal to get their people home.

The prime minister’s ultranationalist allies in his coalition have also threatened to bring down the government if he makes a deal.

Israel and its allies insist that taking the war to its old enemies in Lebanese Hezbollah is an entirely legitimate act of self-defence.

But there is fury and alarm in Lebanon and the wider region that Israel’s attacks appear to have been launched with little concern for bystanders and family members who have been wounded and killed alongside Hezbollah fighters.

CCTV footage showed a pager exploding in a crowded market as its owner shopped for food. Reports in Lebanon say a young girl was killed when her father’s pager exploded.

Hezbollah will be reeling from the attacks, but it will rapidly compose itself as an organisation and will find other ways to communicate. Lebanon is a small country and messages can easily be carried by hand.

Undoubtedly Hezbollah and its allies in Iran, whose ambassador to Beirut was wounded in the attack, will be licking their wounds at the moment.

But once again the region has been pushed right to the brink of an all-out war.

Sooner or later, if this continues, they will fall over the cliff.

The Lebanese government says 12 people, including two children, were killed after thousands of pagers used by the armed group Hezbollah exploded.

BBC Verify has been looking into a firm called BAC Consulting, which has been linked to the production of the pagers – despite the devices bearing a different manufacturer’s name.

A short while after the explosions took place on Tuesday, unverified images of two damaged pagers surfaced on social media. In the photos, the word “Gold” and a serial number starting either “AP” or “AR” was visible. This indicated that a Taiwanese company – Gold Apollo – could have been involved in the pagers’ manufacture.

However, the firm put out a strongly worded statement denying any involvement, saying: “This model is produced and sold by BAC.”

BAC Consulting is a Hungarian-based company which Gold Apollo says had permission to use its brand through a licensing agreement.

BBC Verify has accessed BAC’s company records, which reveal it was first incorporated in 2022 and has a single shareholder. It is registered to a building in Budapest’s 14th district.

As well as BAC, a further 13 companies and one person are registered at the same building.

However, our search of a financial information database does not reveal that BAC has any connections to other companies or people.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What we know about the explosions
• Video captures Beirut skyline as devices explode across city
• No electronic equipment considered safe after Lebanon device attacks
• Hezbollah and its conflict with Israel explained

The same database shows no trading information about BAC. For example, there are no records of any shipments between it and any other firms.

However, BAC’s website, which is now inaccessible, previously said it was scaling up its business in Asia, and had a goal to “develop international technology co-operation among countries for the sale of telecommunication products”.

According to records, BAC had a net turnover of 256,996,000 Hungarian Forint ($725,000; £549,000) in 2022, and 210,307,000 Hungarian Forint ($593,000; £449,000) in 2023.

A company brochure, published on LinkedIn, lists eight organisations BAC claims to have worked with – including the European Commission and the UK Department for International Development (DfID).

BBC Verify has approached all the listed organisations for comment. The UK Foreign Office – which has taken on DfID’s responsibilities – told us it was in the process of investigating. But based on initial conversations, it said it did not have any involvement with BAC, despite the firm’s claim.

BAC’s website listed one person as its chief executive and founder – Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono – and does not appear to mention other employees.

BBC Verify has learned she graduated from the University of Catania with a physics degree in 2001. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also holds PhDs from two London universities.

Her professional profile also states she was a board member of the Earth Child Institute (ECI) – an international non-profit organisation. However, it told us that Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono “is not and never has been an official member of the Earth Child Institute board of directors”.

The ECI said that she was introduced to them in 2017-18 and there was an exchange of emails “to explore if and how she could support ECI”. However, “no one at ECI has not been in contact with this person in the years since 2018 and there is no current connection with her”.

Elsewhere, Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono was listed as chief sustainability officer on the website of an organisation called Eden Global Climate Impact Group. However, this section of the website has now been removed.

We have made several attempts to contact Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono, but have been unable to reach her.

NBC has reported it had spoken to Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono, who confirmed her company worked with Gold Apollo. However, when asked about the pagers and the explosions, she said: “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.”

The BBC has called BAC a number of times, but there is no answer.

A spokesperson for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said the exploding pagers were “never” in Hungary.

“Authorities have confirmed that the company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary,” government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

If we assume, as virtually all observers do, that Israel was behind Tuesday’s astonishing mass pager attack on the ranks of Hezbollah, what does it tell us about what Israel is thinking?

In the absence of any official Israeli comment, a certain amount of reading between the lines is needed.

One former Israeli intelligence official I contacted explained his reluctance to comment with a saying from the Talmud: “And at this very time the smart ones keep silent.”

Given the astonishingly audacious scope of yesterday’s attack, it seems it was designed to cause massive physical, psychological and technical damage to one of Israel’s most formidable opponents.

But reports from Lebanon suggest that Israel may not have intended to use this doomsday weapon just now.

The “shock and awe” engendered by such an attack was probably being held in reserve for a moment of maximum need: either when Israel was about to launch a major assault on Lebanon or when it felt Hezbollah might be about to act first.

Neither of these appear to be the case, lending credence to reports that Israel triggered the explosive pagers because it believed its plot had been, or was in the process of being uncovered.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the episode comes at a time when Israel is taking action, overt and covert, to address the threat posed by Hezbollah and its reputed arsenal of 150,000 precision-guided missiles and rockets.

Away from the daily air-strikes on Hezbollah targets, each documented for the media by the Israeli military, a murky shadow war is raging.

Ten days ago, Israeli special forces mounted an audacious raid against an Iranian-built military facility in Syria, where it’s believed ballistic missiles were being developed.

Commandos rappelled from helicopters, planted explosives inside the underground facility and removed sensitive information.

Some reports suggested they even captured individuals, possibly Iranian, working there.

Six weeks earlier, Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, one of Hezbollah’s top military commanders.

A report in the Wall Street Journal said that just before the attack, Shukr received a message asking him to go to his seventh floor apartment, where he was easier to hit.

Hezbollah furiously denied the report, but as yesterday’s dramatic events proved, Hezbollah’s networks – their supply chains and communications – appear to be badly compromised.

The Iranian-backed group is, of course, doing its utmost to fight back, firing rockets across Israel’s northern border and, occasionally, trying its own covert operations.

On Tuesday morning, Israel said it had foiled an attempt to assassinate a former Israeli security official using a remotely-activated explosive device.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate for Tuesday’s mass attack. Given the physical mutilation wrought on huge numbers of its members and the militia’s urgent need to identify and deal with this catastrophic security breach, revenge may have to wait – but it is surely bound to come.

Which brings us to a fundamental question: what, if anything, has really changed? Israel’s war with Hezbollah, overt and covert, goes on.

Israel’s newly declared war aim – bringing displaced citizens back to evacuated communities along the northern border – has not been advanced.

Despite a lot of heated speculation here in Israel, the military does not appear to be poised to invade southern Lebanon.

That may eventually happen. Israelis are thoroughly fed up with almost a year of insecurity in the north.

But Israel is still fighting in Gaza – the death of four more soldiers was announced on Tuesday – and the prospect of another major ground operation is not universally welcome.

An opinion poll by Channel 13 News found that 52% of Israelis favoured a “broad scale war in Lebanon,” with 30% against and 18% undecided.

For all Israel’s displays of tactical ingenuity, when it comes to dealing with Hezbollah, it’s hard to see exactly where this simmering conflict is heading next.

The race to find the maker of the pagers that exploded in Lebanon has taken an unexpected turn – towards a Taiwanese company few had heard of until this morning.

At least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 injured in Tuesday’s explosions targeting members of the armed group Hezbollah, which set off a geopolitical storm in the Middle East.

Caught in the crisis, Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang flatly denied his company had anything to do with the attacks.

Instead, Mr Hsu has said he licensed his trade mark to a company in Hungary called BAC Consulting to use the Gold Apollo name on their own pagers. BBC attempts to contact BAC have so far been unsuccessful.

• LIVE: Latest updates on the Hezbollah pager explosions
• What we know about the attack in Lebanon
• Watch: Video appears to show explosion at supermarket
• Bowen: Tactical triumph for Israel, but Hezbollah won’t be deterred
• What is Hezbollah in Lebanon and why is it fighting with Israel?

“You look at the pictures from Lebanon,” Mr Hsu told reporters outside his firm’s offices on Wednesday. “They don’t have any mark saying Made in Taiwan on them, we did not make those pagers!”

The offices of Gold Apollo are in a large new business park in a non-descript suburb of Taiwan’s capital, Taipei.

They look the same as any of the thousands of small trading companies and manufacturers that make up a huge chunk of the island’s economy – except for the two police officers posted at the entrance, ready to fend off the large gaggle of reporters and TV crews squatting outside.

On the walls of Gold Apollo’s office are posters of the company’s products – a montage of small boxy plastic devices with little grey LCD screens. They are all pagers.

Until this morning the company’s website had a page devoted to each, extolling its virtues and practicalities. But as soon as news broke that Gold Apollo was the alleged source of the devices used in the attacks in Lebanon, the website went offline.

Mr Hsu said it was pagers made by BAC Consulting that were used in the Lebanon attacks. He told reporters that his company had signed an agreement with BAC Consulting three years ago.

The money transfers from BAC had been “very strange”, he added. There had been problems with the payments, which had come through the Middle East, he told reporters, but he did not go into detail.

Initially, he said, BAC wanted to buy pagers from Gold Apollo to sell in Europe. But after about a year they came up with a new plan to make their own pagers and licensed Gold Apollo’s name.

“We only provide brand trademark authorisation and have no involvement in the design or manufacturing of this product,” a statement from Gold Apollo said.

But the fact there is now a team from the Taipei investigation bureau inside his office – with large numbers of cardboard boxes – suggests the Taiwanese authorities are not entirely reassured.

Nevertheless, Mr Hsu’s statement that his company didn’t make the devices is plausible.

Taiwan’s manufacturing system is a complex maze of small companies, many of which do not actually make the products they sell. They may own the brand name, the intellectual property and have research and design departments. But most of the actual manufacturing is farmed out to factories in China or Southeast Asia.

Pagers are also hardly cutting-edge technology – there are many companies across the world capable of making them.

They are small radio receivers with LED screens that can receive and display messages. In the 1980s and 1990s electronic pagers were considered to be the latest tech, used by tens of millions of people. Before mobile phones, companies used pagers to send short text messages to employees in the field.

But in the last two decades the rise of the smart phone has pushed pagers to the brink of extinction. They are now a niche device holding on in places like hospitals – where they remain a cheap and reliable method for messaging doctors and nurses, even when other communication lines are disrupted.

Starting in the late 2000s, Gold Apollo too started moving away from making electronic pagers and started manufacturing other short-range radio devices – particularly for restaurants. The company’s most successful product now is a round disc that is handed to customers in food courts and restaurants once they place an order – it lights up and vibrates when their order is ready.

It’s likely that Gold Apollo’s brand name – as a reliable pager manufacturer – was useful in selling the pagers that ended up with Hezbollah.

But there are still more questions than answers in this extraordinary story.

We know almost nothing about BAC Consulting – who is or was behind it?

If Gold Apollo did not make the pagers used in the attack in Lebanon, then who did and where?

Last week, the Indian government announced that Russia had discharged dozens of the 91 Indians who were duped into fighting for Russian forces in the country’s war with Ukraine. Several of them have since returned home, while the process to bring others back is under way. The BBC’s Neyaz Farooquee spoke to some of the men about their struggles.

“I am in panic. I am not sure if I will return safely or in a box. Please save me.”

This is the message Urgen Tamang, a former Indian soldier, sent to the BBC from outside a southern Ukrainian city, a few days before he was discharged from the frontlines in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which entered its third year this February.

Mr Tamang is among the 91 Indians who were forced into fighting in the war. Most of them are from poor families and were lured by agents with the promise of money and jobs, sometimes as “helpers” in the Russian army.

Instead, they were sent to the war zone. Many of them said they were stationed in parts of Ukraine under Russian control, where they had to navigate landmines, drones, missiles and sniper attacks with little to no military training.

Nine Indians have died in the conflict so far and Indian authorities say they have arrested 19 people for human trafficking.

In July, Russia promised an early release of all Indians fighting in its army, following a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow, during which he raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin. The two countries have traditionally shared a warm relationship.

Forty-five of them have been discharged since then. Some have safely returned home, while others like Mr Tamang are on their way.

“I can’t believe I am out of there,” said Sunil Karwa, an electrician from Rajasthan who joined the Russian army in February. Posted near Bakhmut, an eastern Ukraine city that has seen intense fighting, he was at the Moscow airport waiting to board his flight when he spoke to the BBC.

Mr Karwa described scenes of deaths and destruction, a reality which hit him the hardest when a man from his neighbouring village was shot on the battlefield.

“They sent him back on the frontline 15 days after the injury and he fainted in the field. He is paralysed now,” he said.

Like him, most of the other recruits were also blue-collar workers aged between 19 and 35, who were hired by agents based in India, Dubai and Russia.

• Ukraine war: The Indian men traumatised by fighting for Russia
• Ukraine war: Indians ‘duped’ by agents into fighting for Russia

They say their contracts were in Russian, a language they didn’t understand. Yet they signed it in the hope of getting better opportunities.

“The process was so quick – just a few signatures and photos and we were in [the army],” Mr Karwa said.

Raja Pathan joined the army as a last resort in February, after an education consultant deceived him into enrolling in a non-existent college.

“When I got there, I saw banners advertising recruitments for the army. By then, I had spent so much time and money that I decided to join anyway,” he said.

It was the death of two friends, which eventually pushed Mr Pathan to leave. He was released in August with the help of a sympathetic Russian commander who facilitated his exit.

Now based in Moscow, he helps other Indians escape from there.

Mohammad Sufyan from the southern state of Telangana returned to India on 12 September with five other men.

Safe in his home, he carries the trauma of surviving on the frontline. “There was little rest there and in the beginning, I couldn’t speak to my family for 25 days,” he said.

The most scarring moment came in February when his friend Hemil Mangukiya – an Indian man from Gujarat state – was killed right before his eyes.

“He was merely 15 metres from me, digging a trench near Krynky [in Kherson], when a missile landed,” recalled Mr Sufyan. “I put his dead body in the truck with my own hands.”

“After seeing the dead body of my friend, I didn’t have the strength for anything,” he added.

After the death, Mr Sufyan and other Indians stuck there released a video pleading for help, which reached Indian MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who raised the matter with the foreign ministry. Families of the men had also appealed to the Indian government for help in bringing them back.

“It is a miracle I got back home,” said Azad Yusuf Kumar, a resident of Indian-administered Kashmir, who was part of Mr Sufyan’s group in the army.

“One minute you are digging a trench, and the next, an artillery falls and burns everything down. It was all a matter of luck if it fell on you or someone else.”

In February, Mr Kumar had told the BBC how he had shot his foot by mistake during training. “My commander kept saying, use your right hand to shoot, use your left hand to shoot, shoot above, shoot down,” he had said. “I had never touched a gun. It was extremely cold, and with the gun in my left hand, I ended up shooting my foot.”

Now back in Kashmir, he talks about how his commander had accused him of deliberately shooting himself to avoid going to the frontline.

“But I am lucky I did not go to fight. Four men from my camp died in an attack at that time. I could’ve been one of them,” he said.

Though recent discharges brought relief to many, those still in Russia face growing desperation as their release is delayed.

Mr Tamang, who joined the Russian army in January, had earlier told The Indian Express newspaper through his local councillor, Rabi Pradhan, that 13 out of 15 non-Russian members of his unit had died.

The fact that he was sent to the frontline at least twice after signing his discharge letter in August heightened his fears – and mistrust in the process.

On 15 September, he was on his way to Moscow but still doubtful if he was truly heading home. “I am out, but I will keep sending you my location,” he said.

When he last texted, he had left Ukraine, hoping to continue his journey home.

Demi Moore’s new film, The Substance, begins normally enough.

Set in Los Angeles, it opens with an aerial view of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where a new star is being installed. Builders are seen taking great care as they lay it, and there is great fanfare when it opens to the public.

But over time, the star honouring Moore’s character Elisabeth Sparkle becomes cracked and damaged. It gets trampled on and ignored. One passing man drops his burger, leaving it smeared with ketchup.

The whole sequence lasts only a minute or two, and although the metaphor is unsubtle, it perfectly sets the tone for the film that follows; its themes of youth, beauty and relevance, and how far people will go to achieve them.

Then the movie takes a very dark turn.

Now in her 50s and fired from a TV show due to falling ratings, Sparkle goes to extreme lengths to create a perfect version of herself. The Substance ultimately becomes a straight-up body horror, packed full of blood and gore, which has prompted both controversy and acclaim.

“It was a completely unique, out-of-the-box script, you could tell it was visually stimulating,” Moore tells BBC News, “and at the same time, we had no idea how it would end up, which made it even more risky and juicy.”

The role required the 61-year-old to embrace being unglamorous, to put it mildly, highlighting her ageing character’s own fading beauty.

“I felt like that was why I wanted to do it, in a way,” Moore reflects. “Part of what made it interesting was going to such a raw, vulnerable place, to really kind of peel away. And it was quite liberating in many respects.”

A feminist film about ageism and unrealistic beauty standards is not unusual, but what makes the film so notable and gruesome is the titular substance used by the main character.

The movie sees Sparkle use the black-market drug to – quite literally – split herself in two, creating a younger, more beautiful version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley).

Initially, living as her alter-ego brings her everything she ever wanted. But it doesn’t take long for the wheels to come off as Sparkle moves back and forth from body to body.

Director Coralie Fargeat says the casting process was a “big challenge”, but adds Moore “really understood the part”.

“I knew from the start that with that kind of story, casting an actress to confront those very intense themes, which are resonating very closely, was going to be really difficult,” she tells BBC News.

The director, who made her feature debut in 2017 with Revenge, says she was looking for an actress who would “represent the scale of the role I wanted, together with someone who would take the risk to jump in this”.

“And when the idea of Demi came on the table I was really sure she wouldn’t want to do it, I thought it would be too scary. And when I heard she reacted positively to the script, it was like, ‘Oh my god! I was very surprised.”

The Substance will likely leave you conflicted. The first hour or so is exactly what cinema should be – daring, original, engaging.

The second half of the film isn’t necessarily worse, but your opinion of it will depend on your tolerance for gore.

Qualley herself highlights that, in an age where many acclaimed directors are making “quiet, intimate films”, she likes how this one “smashes you over the head”.

Some reviews have awarded the film five stars, including the Telegraph’s Tim Robey, who wrote: “The Substance is a humdinger of a satirical horror-thriller, by turns hilarious, affecting and jaw-droppingly grotesque.”

“The Substance will get you thinking, talking and squirming,” added Rolling Stone’s Anna Smith. “Body horror [is pushed] to the limit, daring the viewer to keep looking rather than hide, wretch or even vomit – all reactions are entirely feasible.”

Not everybody was a fan. Kevin Maher of the Times called the film “puerile, pointless and intellectually specious”, noting that some audience members walked out of the Cannes Film Festival screening.

Issues of taste aside, Moore and Qualley turn in arguably the best performances of their respective careers, with Moore especially impressive as Sparkle descends into madness.

Fargeat says that, when she met Moore: “I got to know a lot more of who she was as a person, what she had overcome in her own life to get to a place where she felt strong enough and good enough with herself to confront all this vulnerability.

“I felt she really understood what I was going to request from her. The filmmaking, the level of risk-taking, nudity, and she was ready to take those risks.”

Moore’s is the more wide-ranging role, but Qualley had a different kind of challenge, having to portray someone who is supposed to be the embodiment of perfection.

“I’ve never felt so defensive of my own body,” she says, “so I think it taught me to appreciate what I have, and gave me a closeness to myself that I really value.”

Defensive in what way? “When you’re meant to be playing perfect, and you’ve got close-up shots of your butt, and you’ve got fake boobs on, and you’re wrapping yourself up like a piece of candy, the whole goal is to create this character that looks perfect,” she explains.

“And in doing so we’re changing all the little pieces of me that are not perfect, hiding what’s not perfect about Margaret in order to make me Sue, and so I was really excited to go back to being me.”

Moore picks up: “I feel in a lot of ways like Margaret had a more pressured situation [than me] with it having to be more perfect. I felt great that I could show up and look like [rubbish]!”

Awards pundits have been debating whether the film could have an impact on the Oscars race. The quality is certainly there in the screenplay, directing, make-up, special effects, soundtrack and acting.

Many feel Moore in particular is overdue some Academy recognition, following a long career with film credits including Ghost and A Few Good Men.

But The Substance may be a bit too much to stomach for some voters. It will be fascinating to see whether or not the Oscars go for it.

Moore chooses her words carefully when asked about the possible awards the film might bring, as is often the case for actors who don’t wish to jinx any potential Oscars.

“Always when you do something, you hope that it resonates, and hope that it has an impact, and I certainly appreciate things that are thought-provoking,” she says.

“More than anything, I hope there is a real cultural shift, that this can open the pathway for. So where that goes, I don’t know.”

The film has been seen by many as a comment on Hollywood’s absurd beauty standards.

Fargeat reflects: “It’s about what women look like, and how everything that is projected on them, from a young age, shapes their state of mind.

“From the self-hatred and feeling that they’re never good enough, beautiful enough, thin enough, young enough. At each age, there is something that can make you feel like you’re not right.”

Conversations about beauty standards within Hollywood specifically have become more enlightened in recent years, with Moore acknowledging “we’ve definitely made progress”.

“Do we have steps to take to go further? Most definitely,” she reflects. “But I think there is already so much more diversity and representation of women in various forms of beauty, whether it’s ageing, race, size. And from where I started, that’s come a long way.”

When Michael Sheen was trying to find a way into portraying the Duke of York, he came across a photo of Prince Andrew as a returning hero from the Falklands War – with a rose clamped between his teeth.

Grinning, self-satisfied, the apple of his mother’s eye, a slightly ridiculous royal Romeo, this was the actor’s starting point for depicting the prince in his interview with BBC Two’s Newsnight programme – and imagining the huge scale of his fall from grace.

Sheen’s remarkable performance dominates this compelling three-part Amazon film, A Very Royal Scandal, as he captures a prince angry and disbelieving at his collapsing status.

“I’m the son of the sovereign – if I want to go on telly and defend myself, I will,” he bellows, but with the addition of multiple strong swear words, in a way few royals have been portrayed before.

It is a no-holds-barred account that makes Netflix’s The Crown look like a rather timid costume drama.

Has a royal ever been depicted swearing so much – or palace life as so poisonous?

Sheen is famous for how he inhabits his characters – and his version of Prince Andrew is a volatile mix of vanity, vulnerability and a self-destructive lack of self-awareness, as his gilded royal life crumbles after the disastrous interview.

He is a sweary, pompous and then needy figure, unaware of how much he is being exposed by his TV interrogator, Emily Maitlis, played by Ruth Wilson.

The interview itself is often described as a “car crash” – but in this version, the prince’s reputation is more like roadkill.

Inevitably, there will be comparisons with the recent Netflix film Scoop, about the same 2019 interview.

Rufus Sewell said his interpretation of the prince owed something to David Brent, the deluded manager from BBC Two’s The Office sitcom.

In this Amazon Prime Video version, Sheen’s Prince Andrew is a more complex figure, self-seeking, emotionally deaf, ambitious, loyal to his own immediate family, distrustful of palace officials and with a desperate need for approval.

It is a performance where Richard III meets Alan Partridge.

When he hears sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has died in prison, the prince’s reaction is to ask: “Is this good for me or bad?”

And there’s a relentless tension between him and his brother, the then Prince of Wales.

“Calls me a mummy’s boy, he’s the mummy’s boy,” Prince Andrew screams, with plenty of very strong swearing added, after an angry phone call.

It is not at all flattering to the monarchy.

Prince Andrew is portrayed as casually rude to servants – and palace officials mull over the royals’ lack of empathy: “They’ve never been late for a train – because the train waits for them.”

Although the recreated Newsnight interview is the centrepiece of the film, perhaps the most pivotal moment is a scene in the first episode, where the prince meets Epstein in New York.

It is another excruciating interview, with an embarrassed Prince Andrew needing money and a tough, exploitative Epstein, played by John Hopkins, making him wriggle on his financial hook.

Sheen shows the prince as out of his depth in front of such malevolence.

And this terrible association with Epstein plays out through the film, with Prince Andrew protesting his innocence as the questions and accusations encircle him, until he is hiding from lawyers trying to serve court papers.

This is a much more textured and ultimately more engaging account of events than the Netflix film.

It shows the impact on those around Prince Andrew, including his ex-wife, the Duchess of York, and their daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

Their loyalty to him is depicted as being from a real family rather than the Royal Family.

Prince Andrew’s private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, beautifully played by Joanna Scanlan, is still defending him even after she has lost her job in the wake of the Newsnight interview.

And their relationship, a mix of co-dependency and scapegoating, has echoes of Alan Partridge and his assistant, Lynn.

The prince’s downfall comes with his calamitous TV interview.

And this film suggests some of the most famous moments – such as his lines on not being able to sweat and going to a Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, nearly ended up being cut in the editing.

But despite the awards and plaudits that follow, Maitlis is seen as having her own self-doubts.

She raises the question of what has happened to Epstein’s victims and points to the lack of resolution in any legal proceedings.

At the heart of this drama is an ambiguity.

The civil case in the US between Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre ended in an out-of-court settlement, with the prince strongly rejecting any accusations of wrongdoing.

But neither side had their day in court.

And the film shows Prince Andrew wanting to do the Newsnight interview because he thinks it might mean checking his claim the photograph of him and Ms Giuffre might have been faked.

The other big unknown for the viewer is how much is fact and how much fiction.

Did Prince Andrew really call his private secretary “Fatty” and race her across the garden?

Did Elizabeth II’s private secretary, the urbane Sir Edward Young, really say things such as: “We’ll be shovelling more shit than Dyno-Rod.”

The film comes with the disclaimer: “This drama is based on real events and individuals. Some scenes have been fictionalised and adapted for dramatic purposes.”

It is not a documentary and the storytelling and pace of a drama means changes to the sequence of events.

For instance, in the film, Prince Andrew is told Covid is to be used as a face-saving excuse for him not to be at the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

In reality, Covid was indeed given as an explanation for why he missed a Jubilee service.

But a month before, the Palace had been quite open in a press briefing that the prince would not be on the Buckingham Palace balcony as he was no longer a working royal.

The suggestion of surreptitiousness works as drama – but in reality, his exclusion was even more publicly brutal.

But such powerful dramas can have a habit of overwriting history – and Sheen’s performance could change forever how Prince Andrew will be remembered.

“I thought I’d spend my whole life here, fighting a corrupt government – but the younger generation did something.”

Samadhi Paramitha Brahmananayake is looking at the field where she spent months camped out with thousands of other demonstrators in Sri Lanka’s capital in 2022.

She can’t quite believe that luscious green grass has replaced the hundreds of protester tents that filled the field opposite the presidential secretariat.

“I feel we’re now more energetic, more powerful,” says Ms Brahmananayake, a 33-year-old banker based in Colombo.

Two years ago, huge crowds forced the country’s deeply unpopular leader from office – now voters are just days away from choosing who they want for president.

It’s the first election since the mass protests – called the “aragalaya”, Sinhalese for struggle – which were sparked by Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis. Inflation was at 70%. Basics like food, cooking gas and medicine were scarce.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president at the time, and his government were blamed for the mess. He fled the country just before crowds stormed his residence. Euphoric protesters leapt into the presidential pool, taking victory laps.

Mithun Jayawardana, 28, was one of those swimmers. “It was awesome,” he said thinking back. Jobless, with no gas or electricity at home, he says he joined the aragalaya for a lark.

Today, he recognises how crucial the elections on Saturday are: “We need a president who is elected by the people. The people didn’t elect the current president.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the man who currently holds the job, was appointed to the position after Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned. Mr Wickremesinghe, who’s been tasked with steering Sri Lanka through a period of painful economic reform, is running for re-election as an independent.

He’s stood for president twice before but never succeeded, and his political future appears uncertain.

Many associate Wickremesinghe with the Rajapaksas, a political dynasty who have dominated Sri Lankan politics for decades. Many blame them for the years of financial mismanagement that led to Sri Lanka’s economic woes.

Even the country’s top court ruled that Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda, another former president, were among 13 former leaders responsible for the financial crisis.

Despite the political baggage that comes with the name, a Rajapaksa has entered the political fray in these elections – there are still places the family enjoys a lot of support.

One such district is just over an hour outside Colombo. Music, fireworks and the cheers of supporters greeted Namal Rajapaksa as he approached the podium to address the hundreds that had come to hear him speak on Monday in the town of Minuwangoda. Even his father, Mahinda joined him on stage.

Namal Rajapaksa denied his family’s role in Sri Lanka’s economic collapse.

“We know our hands are clean, we know we have not done anything wrong to the people or this country,” he told the BBC.

“We are willing to face the people, let the public decide what they want and who to vote for.”

In all, a record 38 candidates are contesting the 21 September election, none of them women. In 2019, Sajith Premadasa, leader of the country’s main opposition party, won 42% of the popular vote, losing to Gotabaya Rajapaksa. This time around he is thought to be in with a chance too.

For people looking for change, many are looking to Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The candidate of the leftist National People’s Party alliance has emerged as an unlikely frontrunner.

Thousands of people flocked to a field in the small town of Mirigama, two hours north-west from Colombo, to hear Mr Dissanayake speak last Saturday, many wearing bright pink hats or T-shirts with his face.

“Yes 100% sure, okay,” he tells the BBC, when asked if he can win. Campaigning as the voice of the working class, he is hoping to disrupt Sri Lanka’s political establishment.

Unlike past elections in Sri Lanka, the economy is front and centre in this one.

Holding her four-year-old son Nehan, Rangika Munasinghe laments the higher taxes she now pays.

“It’s very difficult. Salaries are being reduced, taxes on products and food are high. Kids meals, milk powder, all more expensive. Taxes are so high, we can’t manage it,” the 35-year-old told the BBC at a busy market in Colombo.

Sri Lanka was able to stave off bankruptcy in 2022 thanks to loans from the International Monetary Fund, and countries like China and India. But now everyone is feeling the pressure from the country’s enormous $92bn (£69bn) debt burden, which includes both foreign and national debt.

“I’m doing two jobs,” says Mohamed Rajabdeen, who’s in his 70s. He is selling spoons from a stall off a busy street. Once this is done, he will travel to his second job, working in security.

“We should get good salaries, university students should get jobs, and people should be able to live in peace and harmony. We expect our government to fulfil all of that.”

Being that vocal about their expectations from elected officials is something new for many people in Sri Lanka. That change has been brought about by the protest movement, says Buwanaka Perera, a youth political activist.

“People are more gutsy in confronting the state or in confronting what’s wrong,” the 28-year-old said. “It’s not just the state, it’s trickled down to everyday things – it can be in your household, it can be in your streets. To make a stand to voice out and to look out for one another.”

Ms Brahmananayake agrees, calling it a lasting impact of her efforts and the thousands of others who participated in the uprising two years ago.

“People are talking about politics now. They are asking questions. I think people have the power in their hands. They can vote.”

Like her, climate and political activist Melani Gunathilaka, 37, knows the path forward will not be easy for Sri Lanka, but they have hope.

“There hasn’t been a change in the political and economic culture – but there has been a massive change in terms of society,” she says.

“For the first time people took charge, people exercised their democratic rights to do what’s right for the country.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister, was appointed president after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted in 2022.

The 75-year-old, who faced the monumental task of trying to lead Sri Lanka out of economic collapse, has been accused of protecting the Rajapaksa family, allowing them to regroup, while shielding them from prosecution – allegations he has denied.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake is the candidate of the leftist National People’s Party alliance.

His promises of tough anti-corruption measures and good governance have boosted his candidacy, positioning the 55-year-old as a serious contender.

Sajith Premadasa, the runner-up last time, is the leader of the country’s main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).

Earlier this week, he told news agency AP that he would ensure that the rich would pay more taxes and the poor would see their conditions improve if he won.

Namal Rajapaksa comes from a powerful political clan that produced two presidents.

The 38-year-old’s campaign has centred around the legacy of his father, who is still seen as a hero by some Sri Lankans for presiding over the bloody end to the civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels. But he needs to win over voters who blame the Rajapaksas for the economic crisis.

The murder of Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei by her former partner has reignited calls for stronger action against femicide in Kenya.

The 33-year-old Ugandan died days after being doused in petrol and set alight by her ex-boyfriend at her home in Trans Nzoia county in western Kenya.

This is not an isolated incident. Kenya has one of the highest rates of violence against women in Africa.

Media reports say that in January alone more than 10 women in the country were victims of femicide, defined by the UN as the killing of women because of their gender.

Jane, not her real name, tells the BBC she has been in hiding for the better part of the year.

She says she is unable to go back to work due to life-changing injuries inflicted by her ex-partner during a brutal stabbing.

“His intention was to kill me. He stabbed me and left me for dead. Were it not for the neighbours, I would be dead,” Jane recalls.

She says she endured decades of worsening abuse before she left. Her breaking-point was when he started his aggression towards the children, she says.

“It was hell living with him. I don’t know how I persevered for those many years,” Jane adds.

Her estranged husband continues to harass her.

“I live in fear. He says he wants to finish me off. I can’t sleep at night. I’m now on medication to help with my mental health. I’m not the perpetrator but I’m living like I’m in jail.”

A 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) report suggested that 38% of women in Kenya aged between 15 and 49 had experienced violence from an intimate partner.

Groups that offer support to survivors of gender-based violence say there has been a year-on-year increase in the number of cases.

“On average, we receive up to 50 calls and sometimes 20 walk-ins in a day,” Njeri Migwi tells the BBC.

She is the head of Usikimye – Swahili for “don’t be silent”.

In 2021, then President Uhuru Kenyatta declared gender-based violence “a national crisis”.

A year later, a government report found 41% of married women had experienced physical violence.

A survey by Africa Data Hub found that between 2016 and 2023, there were more than 500 reported cases of women being killed in Kenya.

“In 75% of cases, killings were committed by a person who knew the murdered woman – an intimate partner, relative or friend,” the report says.

Sunita Caminha, UN Women specialist on ending violence against women and girls in East and southern Africa, says that women and girls of diverse backgrounds have been victims of femicide in a world marred by widespread gender discrimination and inequality.

In the latest UN report on violence against women and girls, Africa accounts for the largest share, with 20,000 women murdered.

Long-distance runner Joan Chelimo says the killing of Cheptegei has left her traumatised.

“I can’t sleep, imagining that someone was just burnt alive,” she adds.

Cheptegei’s ex-partner subsequently also died of burn wounds that he sustained in the attack on her.

Ms Chelimo is a co-founder of Tirop’s Angels, an organisation formed after the killing of another athlete, Agnes Tirop.

She says that Cheptegei reported the abuse she faced to police, but “nothing happened”.

“So the perpetrators are not held accountable,” Ms Chelimo adds.

Police have denied claims that Cheptegei reported her life was in danger.

Kenya has passed laws to address gender-based violence, but critics say few concrete measures are in place to tackle the scourge.

Judy Gitau, the Africa regional director for campaign group Equality Now, says that “unfortunately, governments often feel that once they have a law, that’s it – not understanding that laws don’t execute themselves and they don’t enforce themselves”.

Jane says that over the years her reports of abuse were dismissed.

“Many times, the police say these are domestic quarrels. In fact, one policewoman I spoke to said: ‘We cannot arrest him until he does something.’ I asked her: ‘Do you want him to kill me?’

“The next day is when he stabbed me,” Jane recalls.

In 2004, police gender desks were introduced in Kenya to make it easier for women to report cases of gender-based violence, and for investigations to be sped up.

However, only half of police stations have them. Police say this is because of a lack of resources.

In Trans Nzoia, where Cheptegei lived, there are five police stations, but none has gender desks – the only one is at the county headquarters, says Kennedy Apindi, the head of criminal investigations in the county.

“So reporting of these cases is a problem. They are reported late, or they are unreported until you hear about them in the media and that’s when the police come into action,” he adds.

Cheptegei was the third female athlete to die in Kenya allegedly at the hands of an intimate partner in the last three years.

In 2021, merely five weeks after Agnes Tirop broke a 10km road-running world record in Germany, she was found killed in her home.

The 25-year-old had multiple stab wounds on her neck and abdomen.

Her partner Ibrahim Rotich was arrested by police 640km (400 miles) away in Changamwe, on Kenya’s coast.

Three years after she was killed, the case is still in court, with Mr Rotich out on bond. He has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder.

Other cases also run for years.

Ms Gitau, who sits on a judiciary committee set up to review the timelines for cases involving gender-based violence, says the delays are unacceptable.

“There must be prioritisation of GBV [gender-based violence],” she says.

Just six months after Tirop’s killing, Kenyan-born Bahrain runner Damaris Muthee Mutua was found dead in her home in Iten, a running hub in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

A police autopsy revealed that the 28-year-old had been strangled.

Nobody has been convicted of her killing.

Police said they were looking for her boyfriend in connection with the death.

Just like Cheptegei, both athletes allegedly reported quarrels over money and property with their partners before meeting their deaths.

In many East African communities, gender-based violence is driven by patriarchal beliefs, placing women in subordinate roles. Their independence is limited, and violence is normalised as a form of control.

Ms Gitau is calling for more safe houses for survivors.

“Deep down, our attitudes, the norms that we hold as a country, still view women in a certain light,” she says.

Expressing a similar view, Ms Chelimo says the substantial amount of money that female athletes make, or stand to earn, leaves them vulnerable.

“They go against traditional gender norms… Female athletes are now becoming more independent, financially independent, and the other gender is really upset about it,” Ms Chelimo adds.

The government says it is running sensitisation programmes, while reviewing legislation to tackle gender-based violence.

“We don’t want this to happen to any other woman, whether an athlete, or from the village, or a young girl. We need to make sure that the gender police officers are doing their work,” Rachel Kamweru from Kenya’s State Gender Department tells the BBC.

Jane says her life rests in the government’s hands, and she hopes that it will do more to protect women like her from their ex-partners.

“As long as he is free, I’ll never have peace,” she says.

• ‘Running for her family’ – Olympian mourned after vicious attack
• Kenya femicide: Why men fail to condemn deadly misogyny
• A woman’s murder exposes Kenya’s toxic online misogyny

New York police have arrested one of two people they suspect of taking and crashing an empty subway train.

The person arrested, a 17-year-old girl, is charged with criminal mischief over the incident in Briarwood subway station in Queens, shortly after midnight on 12 September.

She and her companion are accused of entering and operating the train, then causing a “collision”.

A search continues for the companion. No injuries were reported in the crash.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has offered few other details and it remains unclear how the pair gained access to the train.

The BBC has contacted the NYPD and New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for further comment on this aspect.

Nor have officers said how far they were able to travel in the train before they fled.

Surveillance images released by police showed one suspect dressed fully in pink – including a shower cap – and a second person wearing blue.

As well as the criminal mischief charge, the arrested teenager has also been charged with reckless endangerment.

The second person was described by the NYPD as a male with a slim build and light complexion, who was last seen wearing a blue tank top and red shorts, and carrying a black backpack.

A similar incident was reported in January at Forest Hills-71st Avenue station, also in Queens. Again, nobody was hurt and no damage was reported.

At the time, officials speculated that a stolen key was used.

They moved to reassure the public that the train would not have been able to leave its yard and reach active tracks.

For the past 11 days, about 1,500 workers of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics have been striking work in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, leading to major disruptions in production.

The plant in Chennai city, one of Samsung’s two factories in India, employs nearly 2,000 workers and produces home appliances, contributing about a third to the company’s annual $12bn (£9bn) revenue in India.

The striking workers gather at a plot of land near the 17-year-old factory daily, demanding that Samsung recognise their newly-formed labour union – the Samsung India Labour Welfare Union (SILWU). They say that only a union can help them negotiate better wages and working hours with the management.

The protest, one of the largest Samsung has seen in recent years, comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been courting foreign investment by positioning India as a viable alternative to China for manufacturing activities.

Samsung India has released a statement saying that the welfare of its workers was its top priority. “We have initiated discussions with our workers at the Chennai plant to resolve all issues at the earliest,” it said.

Hours earlier, the police had detained around 104 workers for undertaking a protest march without permission. The protesters were released in the evening.

“The workers have decided to strike work indefinitely till their demands are met,” said A Soundararajan, member of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu), backed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Citu has backed the new union in the factory.

The workers have three key demands: Samsung must recognise the new union, allow collective bargaining, and reject competing unions as about 90% of the workforce belongs to SILWU, said Mr Soundararajan.

Workers, earning an average of 25,000 rupees ($298; £226) a month, are demanding staggered raises totalling a 50% increase over the next three years, according to Citu.

Citu also alleged that workers at the plant were being “pressurised to finish each product – like a refrigerator, washing machine, or TV – within 10-15 seconds”, work non-stop for four to five hours at a stretch, and do their jobs in unsafe conditions.

“We categorically deny that workers are made to work for four hours at a stretch. All workers get suitable breaks in between,” Samsung India said in an official statement.

“Also, employees work on their given task of the manufacturing process as products are passed through the conveyor line. They are not required to ‘finish’ a product in such a time frame, which is not realistic. We reiterate that we are in compliance with all laws and regulations,” the statement added.

Mr Soundararajan also alleged that workers were pressurised by the management to leave the new union and that their families were threatened as well.

Samsung India said the firm “categorically denies all the allegations and that it maintains absolute compliance with all the existing labour laws”.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu’s Labour Welfare Minister CV Ganesan said he had assured union officials that talks were under way to resolve their issues. “We will fulfil the demands of the workers,” he said.

Sijo*, a protester, said that he arrives at the protest site daily at 08:00 IST (02:30 GMT) and stays until 17:00, joining hundreds of workers in their blue Samsung India uniforms.

The union arranges for lunch and water for the protesters, while a makeshift cloth tent protects them from the elements. There are no washroom facilities, so the workers use the outdoors.

“Since the factory was set up, employees have been working without complaints or a union. But things have been getting bad over the past couple of years, and now, we need the support of a union,” Sijo said.

He added that his pay doesn’t keep pace with the cost of living and that this has put a strain of his family’s finances.

Up until 2020, the Samsung Group was known for not allowing unions to represent its workers. But things changed after the company came under intense public scrutiny after its chairman was prosecuted for market manipulation and bribery.

Millions of Indian workers join trade unions – often backed by leftist parties – who use their political clout to enforce labour laws and negotiate better conditions. “Foreign companies set up in India but resist following local laws on workers’ rights to association and collective bargaining,” alleged Mr Soundararajan.

Many prominent multinational companies, including Apple and Amazon, have set up factories in India. But labour rights activists allege that many of them underpay and overwork their Indian employees and collude with state governments to clamp down on workers’ rights.

Shyam Sundar, a labour economist, said multinational corporations use various “human resource strategies” to prevent workers from forming unions in developing countries like India.

For one, they fiercely oppose workers joining external, politically-backed unions and encourage them to form “worker-led” internal ones. “This ensures that the management has some control over the union’s activities,” Mr Sundar said.

Mr Soundararajan alleged that management at the Chennai plant had also approached workers with this solution, which they refused. A source in Samsung India told the BBC that the organisation “fully supports unions but not ones backed by a third-party”.

Later the company said in an official statement that it “is ready to communicate with the work council comprised of a majority of employees on matters including wages, benefits and working conditions”.

Mr Sundar said firms also hire young, unskilled workers, especially from rural areas, by attracting them with a good starting salary. “These ‘trainees’ are promised to be made permanent employees after a couple of months, but this doesn’t happen. The salaries too stay stagnant or have very low increments.”

The rapid growth of “flexible workers” – employees hired on contract – has become a key strategy of multinational corporations to stop unionising by ensuring a pliant workforce, he added.

According to the latest government statistics, every two in five workers employed in factories in India in 2022 were contractual labourers, making up about 40% of the workforce in industrial establishments.

“Companies use the threat of re-location or non-expansion to discourage state governments from enforcing labour laws,” Mr Sundar said. “But workers can leverage global labour unions to pressure companies to abide by international labour laws,” he added.

A shy yellow-eyed penguin has come out on top of one of New Zealand’s most contested competitions to win Bird of the Year.

More than 50,000 people voted in the competition – which has in the past seen its fair share of scandal – including claims of foreign interference and allegations of cheating.

Last year, the pūteketeke won the competition after comedian John Oliver threw his weight behind it, launching a campaign that involved him dressing up as the bird, complete with a striking burnt-orange mullet.

Thought to be one of the world’s rarest penguin species, the hoiho can be found only in New Zealand.

According to Forest & Bird, the organisation that runs the competition, the hoiho secured a victory with 6,328 votes – ahead of the Karure Chatham Island black robin with more than 5,000 votes.

This is the second time the hoiho has swooped in to win the competition, having also come in first in 2019 – the same year where allegations arose that the hoiho had only won after Russian interference.

Hundreds of votes for the bird were found to have come from Russia, though Forest & Bird said these were likely not fradulent votes, but those from Russian ornithologists.

In 2018, there were also claims that Australians tried to rig the contest in favour of the shag – a species of cormorant.

The hoiho, whose Maori name means “noise shouter”, is notoriously shy despite its loud, shrill call, says the organisation, who said the win would raise conservation efforts for the species.

It is an endangered species or three steps away from extinction and its numbers are decreasing, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

“This spotlight couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Forest & Bird’s chief executive Nicola Toki. “This iconic penguin is disappearing from mainland Aotearoa (New Zealand) before our eyes.”

Conservation efforts are taking place on land but Ms Toki says they are also needed at sea.

“They’re drowning in set nets and can’t find enough food,” she said. “Our hoiho urgently need marine protected areas to give them a shot at survival.”

YouTuber MrBeast has been named in court documents which allege contestants were “shamelessly exploited” in his upcoming series Beast Games.

People who took part have sued the production companies involved in the show, which include MrB2024 and Amazon.

The series, first announced in March, offered 1,000 participants the chance to win a cash prize of $5m (£3.5m) and promised to be the biggest live game show in the world.

But in a case filed at a Los Angeles court on Monday, participants allege they weren’t paid, were subjected to unsafe conditions and experienced sexual harassment.

Documents say MrB2024 is “believed to be owned in whole or part, directly or indirectly”, by MrBeast – real name Jimmy Donaldson – who is the biggest YouTuber in the world with more than 300m subscribers.

BBC Newsbeat has contacted MrBeast and Amazon for comment.

In the legal papers, parts of which have been redacted, five anonymous contestants have brought claims on behalf of everyone who took part.

They claim the production team kept them under surveillance, controlled when they slept, what they wore and denied them privacy and access to the outside world.

They were “underfed and overtired”, it claims, with meals provided “sporadically and sparsely” which “endangered the health and welfare” of the contestants.

The 54-page document also details allegations of an unsafe environment with contestants being penned into small areas, dangerous sets and insufficient background checks allowing convicted criminals to participate.

Some, it claims, were physically injured and were not given adequate access to medical care.

The set was also said to have “fostered a culture of misogyny and sexism”, creating a “hostile environment” for women which included sexual harassment.

“This was not only noticed but allowed,” the document says. “And apparently this was allowed because of marching orders from the top.”

The contestants’ lawyers say they should be compensated for their time which they say was “essential labour” for the production, arguing they were “not working for free” and should have been classed as employees.

All the claimants are seeking thousands of dollars for everyone who took part to cover “unpaid wages”.

Two of the listed claimants who are women are also seeking further compensation for the allegations of a hostile workplace.

Earlier this year, MrBeast announced he had hired private investigators to look into allegations that a co-host on his channel had groomed a minor.

Ava Kris Tyson was accused by other YouTubers of sending inappropriate messages to the minor when she was 20. She denied accusations of grooming.

MrBeast removed her from the channel and said he did not “condone or support any of the inappropriate actions”.

Amazon have declined to comment, while representatives for MrBeast have not yet responded to Newsbeat’s request. Also named in the papers is a production company, Off One’s Base LLP, which BBC Newsbeat has been unable to contact.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Google has won its challenge against a €1.49bn (£1.26bn) fine from the EU for blocking rival online search advertisers.

The bloc accused Google of abusing its market dominance by restricting third-party rivals from displaying search ads between 2006 and 2016.

Europe’s second-top court ruled the European Commission – which levied the fine – “committed errors in its assessment”.

The Commission said it would “reflect on possible next steps”, which could include an appeal to the EU’s top court.

Google welcomed the ruling: “We are pleased that the court has recognised errors in the original decision and annulled the fine,” it said in a statement.

“We will review the full decision closely,” it added.

It is a rare win for the tech giant, which was hit with fines worth a total of 8.2 billion euros between 2017 and 2019 over antitrust violations.

It failed in its attempt to have one of those fines overturned last week.

It is not just in Europe where it is under pressure over its highly lucrative ad tech business.

Earlier this month, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally found it used anti-competitive practices to dominate the market.

The US government is also taking the tech giant to court over the same issue, with prosecutors alleging its parent company, Alphabet, illegally operates a monopoly in the market.

Alphabet has argued its market dominance is due to the effectiveness of its products.

This case revolved around Google’s AdSense product, which delivers adverts to websites – making Google almost like a broker for ads.

The Commission concluded Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than AdSense when they were seeking adverts for their web pages.

It said the firm then added other “restrictive” clauses to its contracts to reinforce its market dominance – and levied a €1.49bn fine as a penalty.

In its ruling, the EU’s General Court upheld the majority of the Commission’s findings – but annulled the decision by which the Commission imposed the fine

It said the Commission had not considered “all the relevant circumstances” concerning the contract clauses and how it defined the market.

Because of this, it ruled the Commission did not establish “an abuse of dominant position.”

Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store.

The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted or raped them.

The documentary and podcast – Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods – gathered evidence that, during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene, but helped cover up abuse allegations.

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

“The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark,” says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.

Since this article was first published, more former Harrods employees have contacted the BBC saying Mohammed Al Fayed assaulted them.

The incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi.

“I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over,” says one of the women, who says Fayed raped her at his Park Lane apartment.

Another woman says she was a teenager when he raped her at the Mayfair address.

“Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever,” she says, adding that all the staff at Harrods were his “playthings”.

“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’.”

Fayed faced sexual assault claims while he was alive, but these allegations are of unprecedented scale and seriousness. The BBC believes many more women may have been assaulted.

Fayed’s entrepreneurial career began on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, where he hawked fizzy drinks to passers-by. But it was his marriage to the sister of a millionaire Saudi arms dealer that helped him forge new connections and build a business empire.

He moved to the UK in 1974 and was already a well-known public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s, he would regularly appear as a guest on prime-time TV chat and entertainment shows.

Meanwhile, Fayed – whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 – has become known to a new generation through the two most recent Netflix series of The Crown.

But the women we have spoken to say his portrayal as pleasant and gregarious was far from the truth.

“He was vile,” says one of the women, Sophia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991. She says he tried to rape her more than once.

“That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.”

Some of the women waived, or partially waived, their right to anonymity to be filmed – and the BBC agreed not to use surnames. Others chose to remain anonymous. Put together, their testimonies reveal a pattern of predatory behaviour and sexual abuse by Fayed.

The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store’s vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive, who would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs – former staff, male and female, told us.

The assaults would be carried out in Harrods’ offices, in Fayed’s London apartment, or on foreign trips – often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which he also owned, or his nearby Villa Windsor property.

At Harrods, other former staff members told us it was clear what was happening.

“We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it,” Alice, not her real name, says.

Rachel, not her real name, worked as a personal assistant in Harrods in the 1990s.

One night after work, she says she was called to his luxury apartment, in a large block on Park Lane overlooking London’s Hyde Park. The building was protected by security staff and had an on-site office staffed by Harrods employees.

Rachel says Fayed asked her to sit on his bed and then put his hand on her leg, making it clear what he wanted.

“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And… just going somewhere else in my head.

“He raped me.”

The BBC has spoken to 13 women who say Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane. Four of them, including Rachel, say they were raped.

Sophia, who says she was sexually assaulted, described the whole situation as an inescapable nightmare.

“I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a [family] home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she says. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled.”

Gemma, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007-09, says his behaviour became more frightening during work trips abroad.

She says it culminated in her being raped at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne – a former home, post-abdication, of King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.

Gemma says she woke up startled in her bedroom. Fayed was next to her bed wearing just a silk dressing gown. He then tried to get into bed with her.

“I told him, ‘no, I don’t want you to’. And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me and [I] really couldn’t move anywhere.

“I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”

She says after Fayed raped her she cried, while he got up and told her aggressively to wash herself with Dettol.

“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she explains.

Eight other women have also told us they were sexually assaulted by Fayed at his properties in Paris. Five women described the assaults as an attempted rape.

Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods

A BBC investigation into allegations of rape and attempted rape by Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods. Did the luxury store protect a billionaire predator?

Watch Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods on BBC iPlayer now or on BBC Two at 21:00 on Thursday 19 September.

Listen to World of Secrets, Season 4: Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

“The abuse of women, I was aware of it when I was on the shop floor,” says Tony Leeming, a Harrods department manager from 1994 to 2004. It “wasn’t even a secret”, recalls Mr Leeming, who says he did not know about more serious allegations of assault or rape.

“And I think if I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn’t are lying, I’m sorry”.

Mr Leeming’s testimony is backed up by former members of Fayed’s security team.

“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” says Eamon Coyle, who joined Harrods in 1979 as a store detective, then became deputy director of security from 1989-95.

Meanwhile Steve, who does not want us to use his surname, worked for the billionaire between 1994-95. He told us that security staff “did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane”.

Many of the women told us that when they began working directly for Fayed they underwent medicals – including invasive sexual health tests carried out by doctors.

This was presented as a perk, the women told us, but many did not see their own results – even though they were sent to Fayed.

“There is no benefit to anybody knowing what my sexual health is, unless you’re planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now,” says Katherine, who was an executive assistant in 2005.

All the women we spoke to described having felt intimidated at work – which had made it difficult for them to speak out.

Sarah, not her real name, explained: “There was most definitely a culture of fear across the whole store – from the lowliest of the low, to the most senior person.”

Others told us they believed the phones in Harrods had been tapped – and that women had been scared of talking to each other about Fayed’s abuse, fearing they were being filmed by hidden cameras.

The ex-deputy director of security, Eamon Coyle, confirmed this – explaining how part of his job was to listen to tapes of recorded calls. Cameras that could record had also been installed throughout the store, he said, including in the executive suites.

“He [Fayed] bugged everybody that he wanted to bug.”

Harrods told the BBC in a statement these had been the actions of an individual “intent on abusing his power” which it condemned in the strongest terms.

It said: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010, it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”

There were a number of attempts to expose Fayed before his death – notably by Vanity Fair in 1995 – with an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct. This sparked a libel lawsuit.

Mohamed Al Fayed later agreed to drop the case as long as all the further evidence the magazine had gathered of his sexual misconduct in preparation for a trial was locked away. Fayed’s settlement was negotiated by a senior Harrods executive.

In 1997, ITV’s The Big Story reported further serious allegations including sexual harassment and groping – which is classed as sexual assault.

One of the women in the BBC investigation, Ellie, not her real name, was 15 in 2008 when she reported an assault to the police – an allegation that made headlines – but did not result in any charge.

In 2017, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast allegations of groping, assault and harassment, with one woman waiving her right to anonymity for the first time. It gave some women the courage to come forward – and was followed by a 2018 investigation on Channel 4 News.

But it is only now, with Mohamed Al Fayed having died last year, that many of the women have felt able to speak publicly about rape and attempted rape.

The BBC documentary reveals that, as part of Gemma’s settlement in 2009, she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a legally-binding contract which ensures information remains confidential.

She says after she was raped, she contacted a lawyer who told Harrods she was leaving her job on the grounds of sexual harassment. Gemma says she did not feel able, at that time, to disclose the full extent and seriousness of Fayed’s assaults.

Harrods agreed she could leave and it would pay a sum of money in exchange for her shredding all evidence and signing an NDA. Gemma says a member of Harrods’ HR team was present as the shredding took place.

The BBC has heard that women were threatened and intimidated by Harrods’ then-director of security, John Macnamara, to stop them speaking out.

Fourteen of the women we spoke to recently brought civil claims against Harrods for damages. The shop’s current owners, who are not asking women to sign NDAs, started settling these in July 2023.

It took Sophia and Harrods five years to reach an agreement. In her case, the store expressed regret but did not admit liability. Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

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The barristers representing some of the women we spoke to – Bruce Drummond and Dean Armstrong KC – argue the store was responsible for an unsafe system of work.

“Any place of work has a duty to ensure the safety of its employees. Without question, the company failed these ladies,” says Mr Drummond.

“That’s why we step in. Because they just did nothing to actually prevent this. They did the opposite. They enabled it.”

Mr Armstrong adds: “We say there have been clearly attempts by the senior people at Harrods to sweep this under the carpet.”

Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

Barrister Maria Mulla – who is also on the legal team representing some of the women – says clients are coming forward now, because previously they have been “absolutely petrified” to speak out.

“They want to be part of this movement of holding people accountable for what has happened to them, and trying to make sure these things don’t happen again in the future for their own children and for their children.”

Harrods told the BBC: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

The Ritz hotel in Paris said it “strongly condemns all forms of behaviour that do not align with the values of the establishment”.

When Fayed died, unconfirmed reports estimated his worth in excess of £1bn. But money is not the motivation for the women to speak out, they say.

“I’ve spent so many years being quiet and silent, not speaking up,” says Gemma, “and I hope talking about it now helps. We can all start feeling better and healing from it.”

Happy new smartphone season to all who celebrate. It’s that time of year again, when the tech giants pull out all the stops to persuade you to upgrade your gadgets.

Recently we’ve seen Google launch the latest Pixel 9 handsets, followed by Apple unveiling the iPhone 16.

In July, Samsung released the latest versions of its foldable phones, the Z Flip6 and Z Fold6, and Huawei has just upped the ante in that department by unveiling a handset called the Mate XT, in China, which contains two folds, folding the screen into thirds.

With smartphone sales slowing worldwide, the marketing messages getting pushed out are increasingly dazzling.

Apple boss Tim Cook promised that the iPhone16 would “redefine what a smartphone would do”, whatever that means. Google product management vice president Brian Rakowski waxed lyrical about the “stunning” design of the “gorgeous” Pixel 9 (whisper it: it still looks a lot like a black rectangle to me).

Huawei now has its own consumer brand song, it says in its press material, which “powerfully expresses the pursuit of dreams, highlighting that every breakthrough and success the company has achieved stems from a belief in dreams”.

Yes, we are still talking about phones.

Both Apple and Google have gone big on baked-in AI features. Google’s new Magic Editor can add AI generated content into existing photos, as well as remove the bits you don’t want (with varying degrees of success, in my experience).

Apple Intelligence on the iPhone16 includes ChatGPT-maker OpenAI’s tech being embedded into the digital assistant Siri – which many argue has long been in need of an update.

But has anyone actually said that they want all of this stuff?

Mobile phone expert Ben Wood, from research firm CCS Insight, said that while AI features aim to make digital life easier, they’re not necessarily on top of everybody’s wish list.

“I think that most people now know what they want from a phone, with one of the most important things being the camera,” he says.

The phone designers also know this. The tech spec of every new handset camera is usually an improvement on the previous generation. But even this isn’t a guaranteed sales generator any more.

“What is definitely happening is that people are holding on to their phones for longer. Back in 2013 there were 30 million phones sold annually,” adds Mr Wood. “This year it will be around 13.5 million.”

There is of course an ongoing cost of living crisis affecting people’s spending decisions. And there’s also an environmental price tag attached to every handset, all of which contain rare elements and precious metals.

In addition, there is a growing trend, especially among parents and young people, to try to step away from smartphones entirely.

A number of UK schools are reviewing their smartphone policies, and a few have already opted for an outright ban. Pupils starting at the public school Eton this term were issued feature phones (sometimes, rather unpopularly known as dumb phones), and I have heard of several other institutions, both in the private and state sectors, which are considering following suit.

The mobile phone network EE recommends that children below the age of 11 shouldn’t have smartphones at all.

Nova East leads the north and west London branch of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, which urges parents and schools to collaborate to delay the age at which children are given the devices.

“We are not anti-tech, we are just pro-childhood,” she says. “We would like to see tech companies develop a child friendly phone, offering only essential features such as calls, messaging, music, and maps, without any additional functionalities.”

Dr Sasha Luccioni, a research scientist at the AI firm Hugging Face, says that so far, this message does not seem to be getting through.

“There’s increased talk of ‘digital sobriety’ in the way we build and use technology – but it sounds like smartphone designers are going in the exact opposite direction,” she says.

I put this to Apple, Google and Samsung. The latter said: “Samsung users can choose how they use their Galaxy phones that best fits their needs. For example, digital wellbeing features allow users to select what features they use, when they use them and for how long, such as setting a screen time limit on specific apps they want to restrict.”

One company that is listening to the growing calls for reduced phone functionality is the Finnish firm HMD – which still makes basic Nokia handsets. Last month it launched a Barbie-themed phone in collaboration with toymaker Mattel, and I tried it out. The two words I would use to describe it are: functional. And pink.

Like most feature phones, it has no apps, no app store, no selfie camera, and only one game. If you want to listen to music there’s an FM radio.

CCS Insight forecasts that around 400,000 feature phones are likely to be sold in the UK this year – nowhere near enough to knock the iPhone off the top of the list of the world’s most-sold handsets any time soon, but not a bad market space.

I just checked my own screentime over the past seven days, and I averaged around five hours per day, This is admittedly a sobering statistic – but it wasn’t all doomscrolling (honest). My phone is a work tool, it’s also what I use for banking, shopping, directions, health tracking and keeping track of family plans, as well as, yes, gaming and social media.

“I think the thing we always forget is that there’s a tremendous amount of benefits from using smartphones,” says Pete Etchells, professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa university, who has written extensively about the issue of screen time.

“We tend to focus a lot more on the negatives. It’s always worth bearing in mind that these are technologies of convenience. They help us. There are some good aspects to them as well.”

A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty to sedition for wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan on it.

The jail term is the first handed down by the city’s court under a new local national security law that was passed in March.

The law, also called Article 23, expands on the national security law that was imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Critics feared the law could further erode civil liberties in the city, while Beijing and Hong Kong defended it, saying it was necessary for stability.

Chu Kai-pong, 27, was arrested at a subway station in June wearing a T-shirt sporting the phrase “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”. He was also wearing a mask that read “FDNOL” – initials for another slogan, “Five demands, not one less”.

Both slogans were frequently heard in large-scale protests in Hong Kong during the months-long anti-government demonstrations in 2019. Local media reported he was also carrying a box containing his excrement to use against people opposing his views.

Chu was arrested on 12 June, the anniversary of a key date of the 2019 protests when particularly large crowds took to the city’s streets.

The court heard Chu told police he wore the T-shirt to remind people of the protests, according to Reuters. He was previously jailed for three months in a separate incident for wearing a T-shirt with the same slogan, as well as possession of other offensive items.

Chu has been remanded in custody since 14 June. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to one count of doing an act with a seditious intention”.

In his judgement read out on Thursday, chief magistrate Victor So, who was handpicked by the government to hear national security cases, said Chu intended to “reignite the ideas behind” the 2019 protests.

He said Chu “showed no remorse” after his previous conviction, and that the sentence reflected the “seriousness” of the sedition charge.

The conviction and sentencing have been criticised by human rights groups. Amnesty International’s China director Sarah Brooks described it as “a blatant attack on the right to freedom of expression”, and called for the repealing of Article 23 in a statement.

The sentencing comes after a landmark ruling of another case last month, when two journalists who led the pro-democracy newspaper Stand News were found guilty of sedition. That marked the first sedition case against the city’s journalists since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.

An Israeli citizen has been arrested on suspicion of being involved in a plot by Iran to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials, Israel’s security services say.

Israeli police and domestic intelligence said the man was twice smuggled into Iran and received payment to carry out missions.

In a joint statement, they said the suspect was a businessman who had lived in Turkey and had Turkish contacts who had helped get him into Iran.

The announcement comes at a time of soaring tension between Iran and Israel, regional arch-enemies.

The statement said the suspect, who was not identified, was arrested last month. It said his targets were the prime minister, the defence minister and the head of Israel internal security agency Shin Bet.

It said that in April and May, the suspect twice travelled to Samandag in Turkey to meet a wealthy Iranian businessman called Eddie, and was helped by two Turkish citizens.

The statement said Eddie had problems leaving Iran on both occasions, so the Israeli citizen was smuggled from Turkey into Iran instead. It said that the man met both Eddie and “an Iranian security operative” there.

It said Eddie asked the Israeli to “carry out various security missions within Israel for the Iranian regime”. According to the statement, these included transferring money or a gun, photographing crowded places in Israel and sending them to “Iranian elements”, and threatening other Israeli citizens who had been recruited by Iran but had not completed their tasks.

At the second rendezvous in Iran, Iranian intelligence agents are said to have asked the Israeli to carry out terrorist activities in Israel, including the assassination of Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant, or Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

According to the investigation, it was also suggested assassinating former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other public figures, in revenge for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July 2024. Iran blamed Israel for that attack, which Israel neither confirmed nor denied involvement in.

Investigators say the Israeli demanded an advance payment of $1m.

The group are also alleged to have discussed killing opponents of the Iranian regime in Europe and the US, and recruiting a Mossad operative to become a “double agent”.

The Israeli is alleged to have been paid 5,000 euros ($5,600; £4,200) for the meetings.

A senior Shin Bet official said the case “exemplifies the enormous efforts of Iranian intelligence agents to recruit Israeli citizens to promote terrorist activities in Israel”.

Iran and Israel have been major foes since the Islamic revolution brought the current regime to power in Iran in 1979.

Iran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and is a major backer of Israeli adversaries including Hamas and Hezbollah. Hostilities between Iran and Israel have intensified with the war in Gaza, and both sides have carried out direct or indirect attacks on each other in recent months.

A 10-year-old Japanese student has died one day after he was stabbed near his school in southern China.

The boy, who was enrolled at the Shenzhen Japanese School, succumbed to his injuries early on Thursday, Japanese officials said.

His assailant, a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong, was arrested on the spot, local police said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the attack “extremely despicable” and said Tokyo had “strongly urged” Beijing for an explanation “as soon as possible”.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the case was being investigated and that China and Japan were “in communication”.

“China expresses its regret and sadness that this kind of unfortunate incident occurred,” he told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

Mr Lin also confirmed that the boy was a Japanese national with a Japanese father and a Chinese mother.

The motive for the attack was not immediately known. But some observers have expressed concern that nationalist sentiment in China might be spilling into increasing violence against foreigners.

In June, a man targeted a Japanese mother and her child in the eastern city of Suzhou. That attack was also near a Japanese school and led to the death of a Chinese national who had tried to protect the mother and son.

Earlier in June, four American teachers were stabbed in the northern city of Jilin.

Beijing has described all of these attacks – including the one on Wednesday – as “isolated incidents”. And on Wednesday, Mr Lin said China would continue “to protect the safety of all foreigners in the country”.

The Japanese embassy in Beijing called on the Chinese government to “prevent such incidents from happening again”.

Some have pointed out that the stabbing happened on the anniversary of the notorious Mukden Incident, when Japan faked an explosion to justify its invasion of Manchuria in 1931, triggering a 14-year war with China.

Ties between the two countries have long been acrimonious. For decades the two sides have clashed on a number of issues, ranging from historical grievances to territorial disputes.

A former Japanese diplomat said Wednesday’s attack in Shenzhen was the “result of long years of anti-Japan education” in Chinese schools.

“This has cost the precious life of a Japanese child,” Shingo Yamagami, Japan’s former ambassador to Australia, wrote on X.

Some Japanese schools in China have contacted parents, putting them on high alert in the wake of the stabbing.

The Guangzhou Japanese School cancelled some activities and warned against speaking Japanese loudly in public.

Earlier this year, the Japanese government requested about $2.5m (£1.9m) to hire security guards for school buses in China.

American astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore have been stuck in space for 107 days and the earliest they can return to Earth is in February. People in Williams’ ancestral village in India have been praying for her safe return. BBC Gujarati’s Roxy Gagdekar Chhara reports.

Residents of Jhulasan in the western Indian state of Gujarat take pride in the fact that Williams has a connection with their village.

The village was once home to Williams’ father and grandparents. The astronaut visited the village three times – 1972, 2007 and 2013 – after successful space missions.

Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, took off for an eight-day mission on 5 June but got stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft experienced problems. They will now return to Earth in February 2025 with SpaceX.

In Jhulasan, locals hold daily prayers for Williams’ safe return, keeping an oil lamp burning as a symbol of their hopes. For her 59th birthday on Thursday, they’ve organised a space-themed exhibition, hoping she’ll visit again after another successful mission.

Jhulasan, a village of 7,000, is filled with memories of Williams’ ties. A library named after her grandparents still stands, though in poor condition, as is her father Deepak Pandya’s ancestral home. Pandya, a neuroscientist, died in 2020.

A school, which Williams’ had donated funds to during one of her visits, has a picture of her grandparents in the prayer hall. When Williams was felicitated at the school in 2007, her relative Kishore Pandya got a chance to meet her.

“I went to her and said with my limited knowledge of English, ‘I am your brother’. She shook hands with me and said, ‘Oh! My brother!’ I still cherish that moment,” he said.

Williams’ father moved to the US to pursue higher studies in 1957. There, he met and married Ursuline Bonnie, and they had Williams in 1965.

Seven years later, the family visited Jhulasan for the first time since Deepak Pandya had left. It was a moment of celebration for the village and they gave a warm welcome to the family by taking them around in a procession.

Bharat Gajjar, 68, who used to work as a carpenter back then, recalled the event fondly. “I still remember a young Sunita and others riding on camels as they toured the village,” he said.

Madhu Patel is among a group of women who offer daily prayers at a local temple for Williams.

“We are proud of her achievements. Nasa and the government should do whatever they can to bring our daughter back safely,” Ms Patel said.

While they wait for her return, her work and words continue to be a source of inspiration to many. Manthan Leuva, who is studying for a banking exam, recalls one of Williams’ speeches.

“She said ‘love what you do and you will get success’. I find that thought deeply inspiring,” he said.

At least 32 people, including two children, were killed and thousands more injured, many seriously, after communication devices, some used by the armed group Hezbollah, dramatically exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In the latest round of blasts on Wednesday, exploding walkie-talkies killed 20 and injured at least 450 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The explosions occurred in the vicinity of a large crowd that had gathered for the funerals of four victims of Tuesday’s simultaneous pager blasts, which killed at least 12 people and injured nearly 3,000.

BBC teams in the city reported chaotic scenes in which ambulances struggled to reach the injured, and locals became suspicious of anyone using a phone.

The explosions deepened unease in Lebanese society, coming a day after the apparently similar, and highly sophisticated attack targeting thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah members.

The militant group blamed its adversary Israel. Israeli officials have so far declined to comment.

Two firms based in Taiwan and Hungary accused in media reports of manufacturing the pagers have both denied responsibility. A Japanese company which apparently makes the walkie-talkies said it stopped producing that model 10 years ago.

Here is what we know so far.

The first round of blasts began in Lebanon’s capital Beirut and several other areas of the country at about 15:30 local time (13:30 BST) on Tuesday.

Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from people’s pockets, before seeing small explosions that sounded like fireworks and gunshots.

Citing US officials, the New York Times said that the pagers received messages that appeared to be coming from Hezbollah’s leadership before detonating. The messages instead appeared to trigger the devices, the outlet reported.

Explosions continued for around an hour after the initial blasts, the Reuters news agency reported.

Soon after, scores of people began arriving at hospitals across Lebanon, with witnesses reporting mass confusion in emergency departments.

Similar scenes played out across the country in another round of blasts on Wednesday, at around 17:00 local time (15:00 BST).

Reports suggest it was walkie-talkies that were blown up, devices that were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, according to a security source speaking to Reuters news agency.

At least one explosion was close to a funeral being held in Beirut for some of the victims of Tuesday’s attack, creating panic among those near the procession.

Twenty people have been killed and at least 450 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Video captures Beirut skyline as devices explode across city
• From Taiwan to Hungary, a complex picture emerges of the pagers’ origins
• No electronic equipment considered safe after Lebanon device attacks
• Hezbollah and its conflict with Israel explained

Details about the walkie-talkies detonated in Wednesday’s explosions are still coming to light.

Footage shot in the aftermath showed destroyed devices bearing the brand Icom, a Japanese company. A statement from the firm describes the IC-V82 model as a handheld radio which was exported to the Middle East from 2004 to 2014 and has not been shipped since then.

Icom said production on that model stopped 10 years ago. The manufacturing of the batteries has also stopped, it says.

The company says it is not possible to confirm whether the IC-V82s that exploded in yesterday’s attacks were shipped directly from Icom, or via a distributor. It said any products for overseas markets were sold only to the firm’s authorised distributors.

But the models may not even be from Icom.

Earlier, a sales executive at the US subsidiary of Icom told AP news agency that the devices which exploded in Lebanon appeared to be a knock-off product – adding it was easy to find counterfeit versions of the product online.

The pagers that exploded on Tuesday were a new brand that the group had not used before, one Hezbollah operative told AP. A Lebanese security official told Reuters that around 5,000 pagers were brought into the country about five months ago.

Labels seen on fragments of exploded pagers point to a pager model called the Rugged Pager AR-924. But its Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo has denied any involvement with the explosions. When the BBC visited Gold Apollo on Wednesday local police were searching the company’s offices, inspecting documents and questioning staff.

• Taiwan pager maker stunned by link to Lebanon attacks

The founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said his company had signed an agreement with a Hungarian-based company – BAC – to manufacture the devices and use his company’s name. He added that money transfers from them had been “very strange”, without elaborating.

BBC Verify has accessed BAC’s company records, which reveal it was first incorporated in 2022.

Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono told NBC that she knew nothing about the explosions. “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she said.

The Hungarian government said the company had “no manufacturing or operational site” in the country.

Unnamed US and Israeli officials told Axios that detonating the pagers all at once was initially planned as the opening move in an “all-out” offensive against Hezbollah. But in recent days Israel became concerned Hezbollah had become aware of the plan – so they were set off early.

Israeli officials have not commented on the allegations, but most analysts agree that it seems likely it is behind the attack.

Prof Simon Mabon, chair in International Relations at Lancaster University, told the BBC: “We know that Israel has a precedent of using technology to track its target” – but he called the scale of this attack “unprecedented”.

Lina Khatib, from the UK-based Chatham House, said the attack suggested that Israel has “deeply” infiltrated Hezbollah’s “communications network”.

In its statement accusing Israel of being behind the attacks, Hezbollah said it held the country “fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians”.

Hezbollah has relied heavily on pagers as a low-tech means of communications to try to evade location-tracking by Israel. Pagers are wireless telecommunications devices that receive and display alphanumeric or voice messages.

They are much harder to track than mobile phones, which have long since been abandoned as simply too vulnerable, as Israel’s assassination of the Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash demonstrated as long ago as 1996, when his phone exploded in his hand.

In February, Hassan Nasrallah directed Hezbollah fighters to get rid of their phones, saying they had been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence. He told his forces to break, bury or lock their phones in an iron box.

Experts now say the directive, issued during a live televised address, may have forewarned Israeli intelligence operatives that the group would be seeking a new – likely lower tech – method of communications.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP news agency that two of those killed in Tuesday’s attack were the sons of two Hezbollah MPs. They also said the daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed.

Among the injured was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani. Reports in Iranian media said his injuries were minor.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was not hurt in the explosions, Reuters reported quoting a source.

Lebanese Public Health Minister Firass Abiad said damage to the hands and face made up the majority of injuries.

The victims presenting to emergency rooms were a variety of ages, from the old to the very young, some wearing civilian clothes, he told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

Outside of Lebanon, 14 people were injured in similar blasts in neighbouring Syria, according to UK-based campaign group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hezbollah is allied with Israel’s arch-nemesis in the region, Iran. The group is part of Tehran’s Axis of Resistance and has been engaged in a low-level war with Israel for months, frequently exchanging rocket and missile fire across Israel’s northern border. Entire communities have been displaced from both sides.

The blasts came just hours after Israel’s security cabinet made the safe return of residents to the north of the country an official war goal.

While visiting an Israeli airbase on Wednesday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the country was “opening a new phase in the war” and and the “centre of gravity is shifting to the north through the diversion of resources and forces”.

Despite the ongoing tensions, observers say that until now both sides have aimed to contain hostilities without crossing the line into full-scale war. But there are fears that the situation could spiral out of control.

For the past 11 days, about 1,500 workers of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics have been striking work in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, leading to major disruptions in production.

The plant in Chennai city, one of Samsung’s two factories in India, employs nearly 2,000 workers and produces home appliances, contributing about a third to the company’s annual $12bn (£9bn) revenue in India.

The striking workers gather at a plot of land near the 17-year-old factory daily, demanding that Samsung recognise their newly-formed labour union – the Samsung India Labour Welfare Union (SILWU). They say that only a union can help them negotiate better wages and working hours with the management.

The protest, one of the largest Samsung has seen in recent years, comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been courting foreign investment by positioning India as a viable alternative to China for manufacturing activities.

Samsung India has released a statement saying that the welfare of its workers was its top priority. “We have initiated discussions with our workers at the Chennai plant to resolve all issues at the earliest,” it said.

Hours earlier, the police had detained around 104 workers for undertaking a protest march without permission. The protesters were released in the evening.

“The workers have decided to strike work indefinitely till their demands are met,” said A Soundararajan, member of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu), backed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Citu has backed the new union in the factory.

The workers have three key demands: Samsung must recognise the new union, allow collective bargaining, and reject competing unions as about 90% of the workforce belongs to SILWU, said Mr Soundararajan.

Workers, earning an average of 25,000 rupees ($298; £226) a month, are demanding staggered raises totalling a 50% increase over the next three years, according to Citu.

Citu also alleged that workers at the plant were being “pressurised to finish each product – like a refrigerator, washing machine, or TV – within 10-15 seconds”, work non-stop for four to five hours at a stretch, and do their jobs in unsafe conditions.

“We categorically deny that workers are made to work for four hours at a stretch. All workers get suitable breaks in between,” Samsung India said in an official statement.

“Also, employees work on their given task of the manufacturing process as products are passed through the conveyor line. They are not required to ‘finish’ a product in such a time frame, which is not realistic. We reiterate that we are in compliance with all laws and regulations,” the statement added.

Mr Soundararajan also alleged that workers were pressurised by the management to leave the new union and that their families were threatened as well.

Samsung India said the firm “categorically denies all the allegations and that it maintains absolute compliance with all the existing labour laws”.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu’s Labour Welfare Minister CV Ganesan said he had assured union officials that talks were under way to resolve their issues. “We will fulfil the demands of the workers,” he said.

Sijo*, a protester, said that he arrives at the protest site daily at 08:00 IST (02:30 GMT) and stays until 17:00, joining hundreds of workers in their blue Samsung India uniforms.

The union arranges for lunch and water for the protesters, while a makeshift cloth tent protects them from the elements. There are no washroom facilities, so the workers use the outdoors.

“Since the factory was set up, employees have been working without complaints or a union. But things have been getting bad over the past couple of years, and now, we need the support of a union,” Sijo said.

He added that his pay doesn’t keep pace with the cost of living and that this has put a strain of his family’s finances.

Up until 2020, the Samsung Group was known for not allowing unions to represent its workers. But things changed after the company came under intense public scrutiny after its chairman was prosecuted for market manipulation and bribery.

Millions of Indian workers join trade unions – often backed by leftist parties – who use their political clout to enforce labour laws and negotiate better conditions. “Foreign companies set up in India but resist following local laws on workers’ rights to association and collective bargaining,” alleged Mr Soundararajan.

Many prominent multinational companies, including Apple and Amazon, have set up factories in India. But labour rights activists allege that many of them underpay and overwork their Indian employees and collude with state governments to clamp down on workers’ rights.

Shyam Sundar, a labour economist, said multinational corporations use various “human resource strategies” to prevent workers from forming unions in developing countries like India.

For one, they fiercely oppose workers joining external, politically-backed unions and encourage them to form “worker-led” internal ones. “This ensures that the management has some control over the union’s activities,” Mr Sundar said.

Mr Soundararajan alleged that management at the Chennai plant had also approached workers with this solution, which they refused. A source in Samsung India told the BBC that the organisation “fully supports unions but not ones backed by a third-party”.

Later the company said in an official statement that it “is ready to communicate with the work council comprised of a majority of employees on matters including wages, benefits and working conditions”.

Mr Sundar said firms also hire young, unskilled workers, especially from rural areas, by attracting them with a good starting salary. “These ‘trainees’ are promised to be made permanent employees after a couple of months, but this doesn’t happen. The salaries too stay stagnant or have very low increments.”

The rapid growth of “flexible workers” – employees hired on contract – has become a key strategy of multinational corporations to stop unionising by ensuring a pliant workforce, he added.

According to the latest government statistics, every two in five workers employed in factories in India in 2022 were contractual labourers, making up about 40% of the workforce in industrial establishments.

“Companies use the threat of re-location or non-expansion to discourage state governments from enforcing labour laws,” Mr Sundar said. “But workers can leverage global labour unions to pressure companies to abide by international labour laws,” he added.

A Japanese handheld radio manufacturer has distanced itself from walkie-talkies bearing its logo that exploded in Lebanon, saying it discontinued production of the devices a decade ago.

At least 20 people were killed and 450 injured after hundreds of walkie-talkies, some reportedly used by the armed group Hezbollah, exploded across Lebanon on Wednesday.

The devices, according to photos and video of the aftermath of the attack, appear to be IC-V82 transceivers made by Icom, an Osaka-based telecommunications manufacturer.

But Icom says it hasn’t produced or exported IC-V82s, nor the batteries needed to operate them, for 10 years.

It is the second Asian company to be embroiled in bombing incidents in Lebanon this week, after thousands of exploding pagers seemingly linked to Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo killed at least 12 people and injured more than 2,000.

Gold Apollo’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang flatly denied his company had anything to do with the attacks, saying he licensed his trade mark to a company in Hungary called BAC Consulting, whom the BBC has been unable to contact.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What we know about the explosions
• Video captures Beirut skyline as devices explode across city
• From Taiwan to Hungary, a complex picture emerges of the pagers’ origins
• Hezbollah and its conflict with Israel explained

Icom told the BBC it was aware of reports that two-way radio devices bearing its logo had exploded in Lebanon, and said it was investigating the matter.

“The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company,” Icom said in a statement.

“The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company.”

Icom further added that all its radios are manufactured at the same factory in Japan, and that it only sells products for overseas markets via authorised distributors.

Earlier, a sales executive at the US subsidiary of Icom told The Associated Press news agency that the exploded radio devices in Lebanon appeared to be knockoff products that were not made by the company – adding that it was easy to find counterfeit versions online.

The device is favoured by amateur radio operators and for use in social or emergency communications, including by people tracking tornadoes or hurricanes, he said.

It took the BBC a matter of seconds to find Icom IC-V82s listed for sale in online marketplaces.

It is unclear at which point in the supply chain these devices were compromised and how. It is also unclear if some of them were merely old Icom IC-V82s, or counterfeits as Mr Novak claimed.

Lebanon’s Annahar newspaper on Wednesday said the Icom walkie-talkies were old handsets.

Reports suggest the walkie-talkies that exploded were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, according to a security source speaking to Reuters news agency.

Icom produces walkie-talkies and radio devices for marine, aviation and land users, and considers itself a “world leader in the amateur radio market”, according to its website.

Asia is considered a global hub for telecoms and electronics, with countries like Japan, Taiwan and China being home to major tech producers that are often favoured as a benchmark of quality.

BBC Verify investigated BAC Consulting, the company linked to the pagers involved in Tuesday’s explosions, and found that the firm has a single shareholder and is registered to a building in the Hungarian capital Budapest’s 14th district.

As well as BAC, a further 13 companies and one person are registered at the same building. BBC Verify’s search of a financial information database, however, does not reveal that BAC has any connections to other companies or people.

Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono said she knew nothing about the explosions. “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she told NBC.

Just as crowds had gathered to mourn some of those killed in Tuesday’s wave of pager-bomb attacks, an explosion sparked chaos in Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut.

In the surrounding area there was bedlam as the sound of the explosion echoed through the streets. The chants stopped. Those gathered looked at each other, some incredulous.

As reports spread that this was part of a second wave of explosions now targeting walkie-talkies, no electronic equipment was considered safe.

In Dahiyeh, Hezbollah supporters stopped our team several times, demanding we did not use our phones or our camera.

One of our producers received a message from a friend, who said she had changed her Lebanese SIM card to an international number, concerned that her phone could explode, too.

Many people here, and across the country, are inevitably wondering what will come next. Some even say they do not know if it is safe to walk next to other people, and are changing their plans.

“Everyone is just panicking… We don’t know if we can stay next to our laptops, our phones. Everything seems like a danger at this point, and no one knows what to do,” one woman, Ghida, said.

The confusion was made worse by rumours that spread on social media. One of them suggested that even solar panels were blowing up. “A state of panic overwhelmed people,” another woman said. “And frankly, this situation is very frightening”.

Wednesday’s attack, which killed 25 people, came as the country was still shocked and angered by what happened the day before, when thousands of pagers exploded in a synchronised attack, after users received a message they believed had come from Hezbollah.

The devices detonated as people were in shops, or with their families at home, killing 12, including an eight-year-old girl who went to pick up the pager for her father, and an 11-year-old boy. Around 2,800 others were wounded, with hundreds needing surgery.

Treating some of the injured, Dr Elias Warrak said at least 60% of the people he had seen after Tuesday’s blasts had lost at least one eye, with many also losing a finger or a whole hand. He described it as “the worst day of [his] life as a physician”.

“I believe the number of casualties and the type of damage that has been done is humongous,” he said. “Unfortunately, we were not able to save a lot of eyes, and unfortunately the damage is not limited to the eyes – some of them have damage in the brain in addition to any facial damage.”

The attacks are a humiliation for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and a possible indication that its entire communication network may have been infiltrated by Israel, the worst security breach in the group’s history.

Reports suggest a shipment of pagers may have been rigged with explosives, before being detonated remotely. Hezbollah had distributed the devices amid concerns that smartphones were being used by the Israeli military and intelligence agencies to track down and kill its members. It was still not clear how Wednesday’s attacks might have been carried out.

“The pain is huge, physical and in the heart. But this is something we are used to, and we will continue with our resistance,” said a young man in Dahiyeh. A woman said: “This will make us stronger, whoever has lost an eye will fight with the other eye and we are all standing together.”

Hezbollah has vowed to respond, blaming Israel for the attacks. As usual, Israel has not commented. Fears are, again, rising that the current violence between the two rivals, which has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border, could escalate into an all-out war.

Hezbollah says its attacks on Israel, which started almost a year ago, are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, and that they will only stop with a ceasefire, an elusive possibility for now.

Hours after the latest explosions, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said his country was “at the start of a new phase in the war”, as the 98th division of the Israeli army relocated from Gaza to the north of Israel.

Up until now, Hezbollah has indicated that it is not interested in another major war with Israel, as Lebanon struggles to recover from a years-long economic crisis. Many here say a conflict is not in the country’s interests. A damaged Hezbollah is not in Iran’s interests either, as the group acts as part of the country’s deterrence against Israel.

But some will certainly demand a strong response. An indication of what Hezbollah might be planning to do could come on Thursday, in the first public reaction by its powerful leader, Hassan Nasrallah.