The murder of a 19 year-old female student in an exclusive neighbourhood of Paris is fuelling new calls from the French right for tougher action on immigration.

The body of the young woman, named only as Philippine, was found on Saturday, half-buried in the Bois de Boulogne park on the western edge of the capital.

She had last been seen on Friday lunchtime a few hundred metres away, as she left the Paris-Dauphine university campus where she was studying economics.

The suspected killer was traced to Geneva, where he was arrested on Tuesday and awaits deportation to France.

He is a 22 year-old Moroccan man who was released from detention in France earlier this month after serving five years for raping a student in 2019.

Named by French media as Taha O, he was the subject of an expulsion order from France, which had not been carried out.

For France’s hardline new interior minister Bruno Retailleau, it is a first test after he took office last week promising that his top three priorities would be to “establish order, establish order and establish order.”

“It is up to us as public officials to … change our legal arsenal in order to protect the French,” he said on the X social media platform.

The far-right National Rally (RN) seized on the murder as more evidence of the laxity of the French judicial system.

“This migrant had no right to be here, but he was able to offend again in total impunity. Our justice is too lenient; our state is dysfunctional. It is time for the government to act,” said the RN’s president, Jordan Bardella.

With more than 120 members of parliament, the RN has leverage over the minority government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier because it can decide at any time to support a vote of no confidence and potentially bring it down.

Some left-wing politicians joined calls for greater effectiveness in carrying out expulsion orders.

The suspect “should have gone straight from prison to plane”, said Socialist party leader Olivier Faure.

Currently fewer than 10% of French expulsion orders are carried out, according to government figures.

Sandrine Rousseau of the Ecologists said the murder was a “femicide” which should be “punished severely”. But she warned that the far right would “exploit it to spread its racist and xenophobic hate”.

Philippine’s disappearance led to an alert on a phone app called The Sorority, whose network of members are pledged to come to the help of women in distress.

Philippine did not have the app, but The Sorority said it issued a “missing persons notice” on Saturday to encourage members to join the search.

Philippine was on her way home to her parents’ house west of Paris when she disappeared. She was described as a quiet, model student by her colleagues and was involved in the scouting movement.

Her killing has raised fears about safety in the Bois de Boulogne, which abuts the expensive areas of Paris’s 16th (district).

The park has long been a centre of prostitution but local residents say parts have become increasingly frightening in recent years, because of the presence of drug-addicts and other suspicious characters.

The union representing thousands of striking Boeing workers says a survey of its members shows they are “not interested” in the aviation giant’s latest pay offer.

“Many comments expressed that the offer was inadequate,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said in a post on X.

It comes after Boeing made a new offer earlier this week to striking workers, which proposed a 30% pay rise over four years.

BBC News has requested a statement from Boeing in response to the IAM announcement.

“The survey results from yesterday were overwhelmingly clear, almost as loud as the first offer: members are not interested in the company’s latest offer that was sent through the media,” the IAM post said.

On Monday, Boeing made what it called its “best and final” pay offer, which included the reinstatement of a performance bonus, improved retirement benefits and a one-off $6,000 (£4,470) bonus for signing a new pay deal.

The company said the offer was dependent on it being ratified by union members by midnight pacific time on Friday 27 September (7:00 GMT on Saturday 28 September).

However, IAM said Boeing had sent the new offer directly to union members and the media without telling the union’s representatives.

It also said the company’s deadline did not give it enough time to organise a vote by its members.

Boeing denied that it had not informed IAM representatives about the offer, and said it would give the union more time, as well as logistical support, to ballot its members.

More than 30,000 Boeing workers have been on strike since 13 September after rejecting a 25% pay rise offer.

Union members – who produce planes including the 737 Max and 777 – voted overwhelmingly to reject the offer and back strike action until an agreement could be reached.

IAM had initially aimed for a number of improvements to workers’ packages, including a 40% pay rise.

The strike threatens to cost Boeing billions of dollars, deepening the crisis at a company already facing significant challenges.

The company has already suspended the jobs of tens of thousands of staff.

China has said it successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean.

The ICBM was launched at 08:44 local time (04:44 GMT) on Wednesday and “fell into expected sea areas”, Beijing’s defence ministry said, adding that the test launch was “routine” and part of its “annual training”.

The type of missile and its flight path remained unclear, but Chinese state media said Beijing had “informed the countries concerned in advance”.

Japan later said that it received “no notice” of the test launch.

China’s nuclear weapon tests usually take place domestically, and it previously test-fired ICBMs west into the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region.

This is believed to be the first time since 1980 that it launched an ICBM into international waters.

“Unless I’m missing something, I think this is essentially the first time this has happened – and been announced as such – in a long time,” Ankit Panda, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on X.

He added that Beijing’s description of the test as “routine” and “annual” was odd, “given that they don’t do this sort of thing either routinely or annually”.

The Japanese government said on Wednesday that China had given it no prior notice of the ICBM launch.

“There was no notice from the Chinese side in advance,” government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

Japan’s defence ministry had earlier said there was no damage to its vessels.

“We will continue to collect and analyse information on the movements of the Chinese military and will take all possible precautions in our vigilance and monitoring,” the ministry said early Wednesday afternoon, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

When China last did such a test – in May 1980 – the ICBM flew 9,070km and landed in the Pacific. That test involved 18 Chinese naval ships and is still considered one of China’s biggest naval missions.

“Timing is everything,” Drew Thompson, a visiting research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, wrote on X.

“[China’s] statement claims the launch does not target any country, but there are high-levels of tension between China and Japan, Philippines, and of course perpetual tension with Taiwan.”

“The launch is a powerful signal intended to intimidate everyone,” he added.

John Ridge, a US-based defence analyst, said China could have conducted the test as a form of “posturing or signalling to the United States”.

While the relationship between Beijing and Washington has improved in the past year, China’s increasing assertiveness in the region remains a sticking point.

Tensions have ramped up between China and the Philippines as their ships have repeatedly collided in disputed waters. Last month, Japan scrambled fighter jets after it accused a Chinese spy plane of breaching its air space, a move that it called “utterly unacceptable”.

Beijing’s claims over self-governed Taiwan have been another source of strain.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said earlier on Wednesday that China had been carrying out “intensive” missile firing and other drills recently. In the same statement, the ministry said it had detected 23 Chinese military aircraft operating around Taiwan on “long-range missions”.

Beijing routinely sends ships and aircraft into Taiwanese waters and airspace in what analysts say is a “greyzone warfare” tactic meant to normalise the incursions.

In July this year, China suspended its nuclear arms control talks with Washington, in retaliation for the US’ continued arms sales to Taiwan.

Last year, China replaced two leaders of the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force unit – the elite unit managing its nuclear arsenal – over corruption allegations.

In a report published last year, the Pentagon estimated that China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal, of which approximately 350 are ICBMs.

The report also projected that China will reach over 1,000 warheads by 2030. Still, that is a fraction of the more than 5,000 warheads that the US and Russia each say they possess.

The late leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, once famously called Cuba “the safest country in the world”.

In terms of the island’s low rates of violent crime and the scarcity of guns circulating among the civilian population, he may well have had a case for that title.

His critics, of course, responded that the low crime rate was achieved through intimidation, that Castro’s Cuba was – and still remains – a police state which brokered no criticism of its communist-led government, and which rode roughshod over its opponents’ human rights.

However it was done, few could deny that Cuba’s streets have traditionally been among the safest in the Americas.

Yet it doesn’t feel to Samantha González like she lives in the world’s safest nation. Her younger brother, an aspiring music producer called Jan Franco, was murdered two months ago in an apparent gang-related dispute.

From the low-income Havana neighbourhood of Cayo Hueso and just 19 years old when he was killed, Jan Franco was stabbed twice in the chest outside a recording studio, caught in the middle of an argument when someone pulled a knife.

“I still can’t understand it,” says Samantha, struggling to express her grief as she scrolls through old photos of her brother on her phone.

“He was the light of our family.”

Just 20 herself and mother of a one-year-old boy, Samantha says that Jan Franco was one of many young people to lose their lives in the streets in recent months:

“So many young people have been killed this year,” she explains.

“The violence is getting out of hand. They’re basically gangs, and they fall out with each other as gangs. That’s where it’s all coming from, these killings and deaths of young people.”

They often solve their quarrels with knives and machetes, she says.

“Almost no-one settles an argument with their fists anymore. It’s all knives, machetes, even guns. Things I just don’t understand,” her voice trails off.

The situation has been worsened by a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap chemical high with a cannabis base. Samantha says that it’s increasingly popular among Cuban youth in the parks and on the streets.

Previously, even suggesting that Cuba had a problem with opioids and street gangs – especially to a foreign journalist – could land you in difficulties.

The Cuban authorities have always been fiercely protective of their island’s reputation as crime-free and quick to point out that the streets are demonstrably safer than those of most cities in the US. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is generally painted as biased criticism of their socialist system or as anti-revolutionary fabrications originating from Miami or Washington.

However, such has been the public perception of a worsening crime rate, a perception shared by many Cubans on social media, that the authorities have openly addressed it on state television.

In August, an edition of nightly talk programme Mesa Redonda – in which Communist Party officials are invited on air to deliver the party line – was titled Cuba Against Drugs.

During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, the head of the interior ministry’s anti-drug unit, acknowledged the existence, production and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuba’s youth. He insisted the authorities were tackling the issue.

In another edition, on crime, the government denied the situation was worsening, claiming only 9% of crimes in Cuba were violent and just 3% were murders.

However, critics question the transparency of the government’s statistics and say there’s no independent oversight of the bodies which produce them or the methodologies they use.

For its part, the government largely blames the old enemy, the United States, for both the existence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and for the decades-long US economic embargo on the island which they say is the reason some Cubans have resorted to crime.

In a rare interview, the vice-president of Cuba’s Supreme Court, Maricela Sosa Ravelo, told the BBC the problem was being blown out of proportion on social media. She refuted the suggestion that many crimes go unreported through a lack of public confidence in the police.

“In my 30 years as a judge and magistrate, I don’t think that the Cuban people lack confidence in their authorities,” she claimed, speaking inside the ornate Supreme Court building.

“In Cuba, the police have a high success rate in solving crimes. We don’t see people taking the law into their own hands – which happens in other parts of Latin America and elsewhere – which suggests the population trusts in the Cuban justice system,” she argued.

Again, though, that wasn’t the experience of another recent victim of opportunistic theft on Havana’s dimly lit streets.

Shyra is a transgender activist who is used to speaking out about rights in Cuba. She says that her story, of being robbed by a man brandishing a knife one evening, is common.

But it was the police response which disillusioned her the most.

“Just after I was attacked, I came across two motorcycle police in a side street,” Shyra recalls. Despite her obvious distress, the police ignored her pleas for help, she says.

“They openly told me: ‘We’re not here for stuff like that.’ It was such a shocking thing to hear because I told them where they could find the attacker, showed them which direction he was headed in, what he was wearing. But they just didn’t pay me any attention.”

In the small apartment she shares with her mother, Samantha González watches videos of her younger brother’s wake. A crowd of Jan Franco’s friends appeared outside his home and began singing the songs which he’d produced before his fledgling music career was cut short.

As his coffin was loaded onto the hearse, the mourners fell silent, except for the soft murmur of weeping and prayer.

Buried with him, and every young victim of violence on the island, is another piece of Cuba’s claim to be the world’s safest nation.

A zoo in Finland will return two giant pandas to China eight years early, saying it can no longer afford to look after them.

Lumi and Pyry were brought to Finland in 2018, after the two countries signed an agreement to protect the animals.

They were meant to stay in the Nordic country for 15 years, but will be sent home in November – with Ähtäri Zoo blaming inflation and debt linked to the Covid pandemic for the pandas’ eviction.

It also said the zoo spent €1.5m (£1.2m) a year on the pandas’ upkeep, as well as more than €8m on their enclosure.

Mahrko Haekosky, curator at Ähtäri Zoo, said the €1.5m upkeep was “much more than all the other species combined”.

It included a keeper required to stay with them at all times, a preservation fee to China and imported bamboo.

“It’s a good thing for the zoo because they were so expensive,” but the pandas had been “doing really well, so it’s a pity”, said Mr Haekosky.

“They’re really nice to work with.”

Another factor in the decision to return the pandas was the Finnish government rejecting pleas for state funding last year.

“They thought the pandas would bring more visitors, and that it was a good investment – turns out it wasn’t so”, said Mr Haekosky.

The zoo revealed last year that it was discussing their return.

Lumi and Pyry will soon go into a month-long quarantine before they are shipped back to China.

A spokesperson for Finland’s foreign ministry said the pandas’ return was a business decision that did not involve the government, and that it should not impact relations between Finland and China.

Finland’s Chinese embassy, meanwhile, told the Reuters news agency that while efforts had been made to try and help the zoo, a joint decision was eventually made to send the animals back.

China sends pandas to foreign zoos to strengthen its trading ties, relationships and image abroad – termed ‘panda diplomacy’.

Australian Olympic swimming coach Dick Caine has died, weeks after he was found guilty of raping and sexually abusing six female students.

Caine, who had been in palliative care for terminal cancer, died on Wednesday morning, the BBC understands. He was 78.

Caine was charged with 39 offences committed against the teenage girls in the 1970s and 1980s. The assaults took place at a swimming pool in Sydney, in his home and in his car.

The six victims were due to deliver their victim impact statements at a special hearing in December, but this is unlikely to go ahead due to Caine’s death.

Caine took an interest in pre-pubescent and pubescent girls, District Judge Paul McGuire said during his conviction hearing in August. One of his victims was only 10 years old at the time.

The judge noted the power imbalance between Caine and the young girls due to his authority and their age differences, adding that the girls relied on Caine to help them achieve their swimming aspirations.

Caine, who was arrested in 2022, did not appear for a single day of his hearing because he was deemed unfit to do so. A court previously heard he had terminal lung and throat cancer.

According to reports, Caine was the head coach at Carss Park swimming pool in Sydney for more than 40 years until he retired in 2018. He trained several Olympic and world champion swimmers, including Michelle Ford, Janelle Elford and Stacey Gartrell.

Child protection activist Hetty Johnston said it was disappointing that the special hearing in December will no longer proceed, as the victims had waited decades for their day in court, according to an ABC report.

“The whole thing is just a tragedy that it took so long to get to this point of the legal process, that he’s now passed,” she said.

China has announced it is investigating the company that owns US fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein for suspected “discriminatory measures” against Xinjiang cotton companies.

The move marks a new effort by Beijing to fight back against allegations from western officials and human rights activists that cotton and other goods in the region have been produced using forced labour from the Uyghur ethnic group.

The US banned imports from the area in 2021, citing those concerns.

China’s Ministry of Commerce accused the firm of “boycotting Xinjiang cotton and other products without any factual basis”.

PVH, which owns the two brands and has a significant presence in China as well as the US, said it was in contact with Chinese authorities.

It has 30 days to respond to officials, at which point it could be added to the country’s “unreliable entities” list, raising the prospect of further punishment.

“As a matter of company policy, PVH maintains strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations in all countries and regions in which we operate,” the company said. “We are in communication with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and will respond in accordance with the relevant regulations.”

On Wednesday, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce official denied that the probe was linked to US plans to ban certain Chinese electric vehicle technology.

“China has always handled the issue of the unreliable entity list prudently, targeting only a very small number of foreign entities that undermine market rules and violate Chinese laws,” they said.

“Honest and law-abiding foreign entities have nothing to worry about.”

Cullen Hendrix, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, said it was not clear exactly what prompted the investigation into PVH now.

But he said the announcement was likely to hurt the firm’s reputation among Chinese shoppers – and send a wider warning to global firms of the risks of simply bowing to western concerns.

“China is, to a certain extent, flexing its muscle and reminding, not necessarily western governments, but western firms… that actions have consequences,” he said.

“This same kind of naming-and-shaming tactic, that human rights organisations in the west have used, can be weaponised here.”

The investigation of PVH comes as tensions between China and the west have been growing on a range of issues, including electric cars and manufacturing.

On Monday, the US proposed rules to ban the use of certain technology in Chinese and Russian cars, citing security threats.

China has previously put US firms on its unreliable entities list, which it created as trade tensions heated up between Beijing and Washington.

Those firms were major defence contractors, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, over their business in Taiwan.

Mr Hendrix said the decision to target PVH – a consumer-facing firm with a clearly recognisable US brand – showed the two countries’ disputes were widening beyond areas such as defence and advanced technologies.

“These things have a way of spilling over,” he said. “It’s affecting a growing number of supply chains across different sectors of the economy.”

In its annual report, PVH warned investors of revenue and reputational risks stemming from the fight over Xinjiang.

It noted that the issue had been “subject to significant scrutiny and contention in China, the United States and elsewhere, resulting in criticism against multinational companies, including us”.

The company was named in a 2020 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that identified dozens of firms that were allegedly benefiting from labour abuses in Xinjiang.

At the time PVH said it took the reports seriously and would continue to work to address the matter.

PVH employs more than 29,000 people globally and does more than 65% of its sales outside of the US.

Thailand’s king has signed a marriage equality bill into law, making the country the first in South East Asia to recognise same-sex unions.

The bill cleared the Senate in June but required royal endorsement to become law. It was published in the Royal Gazette on Tuesday and will come into effect on 22 January next year.

Activists hailed the move as historic – it marks the culmination of years of campaigning for marriage equality.

Thailand has long been seen as a relative haven for the LGBTQ+ community in a region where such attitudes are rare.

The new law uses gender-neutral terms in place of “husbands”, “wives”, “men” and “women”. And it grants same-sex couples adoption and inheritance rights.

“Today we’re not only getting to write our names in marriage certificates, but we are also writing a page in history… that tells us that love never set a condition of who we were born to be,” Ann Chumaporn, a longtime LGBTQ+ activist and co-founder of the Bangkok Pride movement, told the BBC.

“It’s a triumph of equality and human dignity.”

She said she plans to organise a mass wedding for more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ couples on 22 January.

“[The legal recognition] means we are fully accepted and can live our lives without conditions or compromises,” said advertising strategist Kwankaow Koosakulnirund.

“Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community can now look toward a future beyond relationships, embracing the sense of pride that this law brings,” he said.

“We are all delighted and excited. We’ve been fighting for our rights for over 10 years, and now it’s finally happening,” another activist, Siritata Ninlapruek, told AFP news agency.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on X: “Congratulations on everyone’s love. #LoveWins.”

Former PM Srettha Thavisin, who has been vocal in his support for the bill, also applauded the development as a “significant step” for Thailand.

“Equity and equality have become concrete in the Thai society. Gender diversity will eventually be fully accepted. Congratulations,” he wrote on X.

When the law comes into effect, Thailand will become only the third place in Asia, after Taiwan and Nepal, where same-sex couples can get married.

In 2019, Taiwan’s parliament became the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. Nepal registered its first same-sex union in November last year, five months after its Supreme Court ruled in favour of it.

This was just one month after India’s top court had ruled against it, leaving the decision to the government, which said it would set up a panel to decide on more legal rights for same-sex couples.

Singapore scrapped a colonial-era law that banned gay sex in 2022, but also amended its constitution to prevent the courts from challenging the definition of marriage as one between a man and a woman.

A soldier sacked by the Nigerian military after she accused some senior officers of rape and sexual harassment has released a video condemning her treatment.

Ex-private Ruth Ogunleye made the allegations via her TikTok account in January, saying she had suffered immensely as a result of her ordeal at the hands of a general and two colonels.

Her allegations caused widespread outrage in Nigeria and prompted the women’s minister to discuss the case with the army chief.

After an investigation, the army dismissed her allegations and said the soldier had been discharged on medical grounds as she suffers from a condition that makes her vulnerable, without giving further details.

Ms Ogunleye has now released a second video on Tiktok, in which she calls for the investigation to be made public and describes how she was raped and given an injection by those she accused.

“Firstly I want to thank [army spokesman] General Onyema Nwachukwu for posting me on all social media platforms, newspapers, it shows how powerful I am,” she said.

“January 9th 2024, I came on social media to complain of how I was harassed, of how I was raped and how I was injected and put inside a casket.

“How I had a gun pointed at me, was handcuffed and kept inside an office for some days.

“I want to beg the Nigerian army to post the outcome of the investigation on all social media platforms, so that the world would know what transpired,” she noted.

The outcome of the investigation was revealed by Gen Nwachukwu on Tuesday evening.

“Upon receipt of her complaint, the Nigerian Army referred the matter to the Military Police for a thorough investigation. The investigation concluded that Colonel I.B Abdulkareem did not commit the alleged offences,” he said.

He said Ms Ogunleye had been discharged after refusing to get medical treatment from either the National Hospital in the capital, Abuja, or the Nigerian Army.

He went on to accuse her of propagating “false narratives against Colonel Abdulkareem and other senior officers [and] using online platforms to engage in cyberbullying and defamation”.

However, women’s rights activists have called for an independent investigation.

“The army is known for not wanting to wash its dirty linen in public,” Hadiza Ado, founder of Women and Children Initiative, told the BBC.

“If the army investigation are saying she had a medical condition which affects her, then for how long was she in the service with that condition, why coming out to say it now that she was dismissed?” she asked.

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Canadian lawmakers are set to vote on a motion that could bring down Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and trigger an election, though it is unlikely to pass.

Wednesday’s no-confidence vote is the first in a series of similar votes expected to be put forward by the opposition Conservative Party amid Trudeau’s plummeting approval ratings.

The motion is expected to fail, as the leaders of two other political parties – the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Québécois – have indicated that they will not support it.

Trudeau, who has been Canada’s prime minister for nine years, has been leading under a minority government.

Voting is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, on the same day as Trudeau is set to host French president Emmanuel Macron.

Trudeau has been facing growing pressure to step down in recent months.

His approval rating has plummeted from 63% when he was first elected to 28% in June of this year, according to one poll tracker, amid concerns about housing unaffordability and the rising costs of living. His Liberal party lost two consequential by-elections this summer in Toronto and Montreal.

A deal between his party and the NDP has helped him stay in power since Canada’s last federal election in 2021.

But the deal collapsed early in September after NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pulled out from the coalition, saying that the Liberals are “too weak” and “too selfish” to govern.

Trudeau’s leadership has been under threat since, with Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre stating that he would put forward a no-confidence vote.

The vote would need the approval of the majority of the 338 members of parliament (MPs) in order for it to pass.

The Liberal Party, which holds 153 seats, is expected to vote against it, while the Conservative Party, which holds 119 seats, will likely vote in favour.

The bulk of the other seats are held by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois – both have signalled they will vote against it.

Pierre Polievere, who has been leading in various national polls, has urged fellow MPs to vote in favour of the motion by outlining his vision for Canada under a Conservative government.

His plan, he said on Tuesday in parliament, is “to bring home the promise of Canada, of a powerful paycheque that earns affordable food, gas and homes and safe neighbourhoods”.

But Singh, the NDP leader, said he will vote against Poilievre’s motion because he believes the Conservative Party will cut social programmes like dental care and pharmacare if it comes to power.

The Bloc Québécois – a party whose aim is to represent the interests of Quebec, Canada’s French-speaking province – has said it believes it could work with the Liberal government to secure assurances for Quebec-focused social programmes.

Trudeau was at the UN General Assembly earlier this week in New York City, where on Monday he appeared as a guest on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

In his interview with Colbert, Trudeau acknowledged that Canadians were going through “a really tough time” and struggling to afford gas, groceries and rent.

But he defended his leadership, saying that his government had invested in Canadians and would continue to do so.

“I’m going to keep fighting,” he said.

Israel’s leaders are jubilant about the progress of the offensive against Hezbollah that started with the detonation of weaponised pagers and radios and moved on to intense and deadly airstrikes.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant did not hold back his praise after Monday’s air strikes.

“Today was a masterpiece… This was the worst week Hezbollah has had since its establishment, and the results speak for themselves.”

Gallant said airstrikes destroyed thousands of rockets that could have killed Israeli citizens. In the process Lebanon says Israel killed more than 550 of its citizens, including 50 children. That is almost half Lebanon’s dead in a month of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

Israel believes that a ferocious offensive will coerce Hezbollah into doing what it wants, inflicting so much pain that its leader Hassan Nasrallah and his allies and backers in Iran decide that the price of resistance is too high.

Israel’s politicians and generals need a victory. After almost a year of war Gaza has become a quagmire. Hamas fighters still emerge out of tunnels and ruins to kill and wound Israeli soldiers and are still holding Israeli hostages.

Hamas caught Israel by surprise last October. The Israelis did not see Hamas as a significant threat, with devastating consequences. Lebanon is different. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Mossad spy agency have been planning the next war against Hezbollah since the last war ended in a stalemate in 2006.

Israel’s leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believes the current offensive is making big progress towards his declared objective of tipping the balance of power away from Hezbollah.

He wants to stop Hezbollah firing rockets over the border into Israel. At the same time, the Israeli military says the plan is to force Hezbollah back from the border and to destroy military facilities that threaten Israel.

The last week in Lebanon brings back echoes of the last year of war in Gaza. Israel issued warnings to civilians, as it did in Gaza, to move out of areas about to be attacked. It blames Hezbollah, as it blames Hamas, for using civilians as human shields.

Some critics as well as enemies of Israel said the warnings were too vague and did not give enough time for families to evacuate. The laws of war demand that civilians be protected, and forbid indiscriminate, disproportionate use of force.

Some of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel have hit civilian areas, breaking laws designed to protect civilians. They have also targeted the Israeli military. Israel and key Western allies, including the US and UK, classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.

Israel insists it has a moral army that respects the rules. But much of the world has condemned its conduct in Gaza. The ignition of a wider border war will deepen the gap at the centre of a highly polarised argument.

Take the pager attack. Israel says it was aimed at Hezbollah operatives who had been issued with the pagers. But Israel could not know where they would be when the bombs inside the pagers were triggered, which was why civilians and children in homes, shops and other public places were wounded and killed. That, some leading lawyers say, proves that Israel was using deadly force without distinguishing between combatants and civilians; a violation of the rules of war.

The fight between Israel and Hezbollah started in the 1980s. But this border war began the day after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, when Hassan Nasrallah ordered his men to begin a limited, but almost daily barrage over the border to support Hamas. It tied up Israeli troops and forced around 60,000 people in border towns to leave their homes.

A few voices in the Israeli media have compared the impact of the air strikes on Hezbollah’s capacity to wage war to Operation Focus, Israel’s surprise attack on Egypt in June 1967. It was a famous raid that destroyed the Egyptian air force when its aircraft were lined up on the ground. Over the next six days Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The victory created the shape of the current conflict as Israel captured the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

It is not a good comparison. Lebanon, and war with Hezbollah, is different. Israel has inflicted heavy blows. But so far it has not stopped Hezbollah’s capacity or will to fire into Israel.

Israel’s earlier wars with Hezbollah were grinding, attritional and never produced a decisive victory for either side. This one might go the same way, however satisfying the last week of offensive action has been for Israel, its intelligence services and its military.

Israel’s offensive rests on an assumption – a gamble – that a point will come when Hezbollah will crumple, retreat from the border and stop firing into Israel. Most observers of Hezbollah believe it will not stop. Fighting Israel is the main reason why Hezbollah exists.

That means Israel, just as reluctant to admit defeat, would have to escalate the war further. If Hezbollah continued to make northern Israel too dangerous for Israeli civilians to return home, Israel would have to decide whether to launch a ground offensive, probably to capture a strip of land to act as a buffer zone.

Israel has invaded Lebanon before. In 1982 its forces swept up to Beirut to try to stop Palestinian raids into Israel. They were forced into an ignominious retreat in the face of fury at home and abroad, after Israeli troops held the perimeter as their Lebanese Christian allies massacred Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.

By the 1990s Israel still occupied a broad band of Lebanese land along the border. Today’s Israeli generals were then young officers, who fought in endless skirmishes and firefights against Hezbollah, which was growing stronger as it fought to drive Israel out. Ehud Barak, then Israel’s prime minister and a former chief of staff of the IDF, withdrew from the so-called “security zone” in 2000. He decided that it did not make Israel any safer and was costing Israel the lives of too many soldiers.

In 2006 an ill-judged raid by Hezbollah across the tense and highly militarised border killed and captured Israeli soldiers. After the war ended Hassan Nasrallah said he would not have allowed the raid had he realised what Israel would do in return. Ehud Olmert, by then Israel’s prime minister, went to war.

At first Israel hoped air power would stop rocket attacks into Israel. When it did not, ground troops and tanks once again rolled back over the border. The war was a disaster for Lebanese civilians. But on the last day of the war, Hezbollah was still launching salvoes of rockets into Israel.

Israel’s commanders know that entering Lebanon under fire would be much more formidable military challenge than fighting Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah has also been making plans since the end of the 2006 war, and would be fighting on home ground, in south Lebanon which has plenty of rugged, hilly terrain that suits guerrilla tactics.

Israel has not been able to destroy all the tunnels Hamas dug through sand in Gaza. In the borderlands of south Lebanon, Hezbollah has spent the last 18 years preparing tunnels and positions in solid rock. It has a formidable arsenal, supplied by Iran. Unlike Hamas in Gaza, it can be resupplied by land through Syria.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington DC, estimates that Hezbollah has around 30,000 active fighters and up to 20,000 reserves, mostly trained as mobile small units of light infantry. Many of its men have combat experience fighting in support of the Assad regime in Syria.

Most estimates say that Hezbollah has something between 120,000 and 200,000 missiles and rockets, ranging from unguided weapons to longer-range weapons that could hit Israel’s cities.

Israel may be gambling that Hezbollah will not use all of them, fearful that the Israeli air force will do to Lebanon what it did to Gaza, turning entire towns to rubble and killing thousands of civilians. Iran might not want Hezbollah to use weapons it would like to reserve as insurance against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That’s another gamble. Hezbollah might decide to use more of its arsenal before Israel destroys it.

With the war continuing in Gaza, and rising levels of violence on the occupied West Bank, Israel would also have to contemplate a third front if it invaded Lebanon. Its soldiers are motivated, well trained and equipped, but the reserve units that provide much of Israel’s fighting power are already feeling the strain after a year of war.

Israel’s allies, led by the United States, did not want Israel to escalate the war with Hezbollah and do not want it to invade Lebanon. They insist that only diplomacy can make the border safe enough for civilians to return to their homes on either side of it. An American envoy has worked out an agreement, partly based on UN Security resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war.

But diplomats have their hands tied without a ceasefire in Gaza. Hasan Nasrallah has said Hezbollah will stop attacking Israel only when the Gaza war stops. At the moment neither Hamas nor the Israelis are prepared to make the necessary concessions that would produce a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and a swap of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

As Israeli air strikes continue to pound Lebanon, civilians who were already struggling to provide for their families in a broken economy face terrible pain and uncertainty. Fear crosses front lines. Israelis know that Hezbollah could do them much worse damage than they have in the last year.

Israel believes the time has come to be aggressive and audacious, to blast Hezbollah away from its borders. But it faces an obdurate, well-armed and angry enemy. This is the most dangerous crisis in the long year of war since Hamas attacked Israel and at the moment nothing is stopping it spiralling towards something much worse.

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The prime minister has told British nationals in Lebanon to “leave immediately” after fighting intensified between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group which dominates the country.

Sir Keir Starmer said “we are ramping up the contingency plans” and warned that “we are potentially at a brink” of all-out war.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is sending 700 troops to nearby Cyprus to prepare for the possible evacuation of British nationals from Lebanon and the government “continues to advise against all travel to Lebanon”.

Britons have been advised to book flights out of the country – but there are limited options available, with most airlines except the national carrier having cancelled flights and ceased operating and reports that those remaining are full.

The situation in the country, where Israeli strikes reportedly killed more than 560 people this week, is described as deteriorating “rapidly, with devastating consequences”.

Lebanon’s health minister has told the BBC what is happening in his country is “carnage”, as hospitals struggle to cope with the number of casualties from two days of widespread Israeli air strikes targeting Hezbollah.

Asked by reporters how the British prime minister would ensure the situation wasn’t a repeat of the chaos in the Afghan capital Kabul when the Taliban seized control in August 2021, Sir Keir said: “The most important message from me to British nationals in Lebanon is to leave immediately.

“It is important that we’ve been really, really clear: now is the time to leave.”

The handling of the Afghan evacuation, where 15,000 people were airlifted out of the country, was widely criticised as mismanaged and chaotic.

An estimated 10,000 UK citizens are currently in Lebanon. A senior government source said that the difference, for now at least, was that there were still commercial flights leaving Lebanon and British nationals should book a seat.

US citizens have also been told to leave the country. The US Embassy in Lebanon said that most airlines had suspended or cancelled flights with many flights sold out, and urged people to book any ticket available.

Almost every airline operating in Lebanon has stopped flying in and out of the country except for the national airline, Middle East Airlines (MEA).

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Alistair, a British national who is married to a Lebanese woman and living in Beirut, said that day-to-day life was mainly carrying on as normal.

Asked about the intensification of the conflict, he told BBC’s PM programme: “It’s a different level isn’t it?”

He urged diplomats to “get a deal made so the violence ceases” and to “bring peace because the ordinary folks here are just recipients of whatever is dealt out”.

The 700 British troops deployed to Cyprus will join 500 military personnel who were sent there over the summer as part of the MoD’s contingency plans for an evacuation operation.

Two British warships are already in the region and Royal Air Force planes and helicopters on standby.

Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if he sensed the world was on the brink of all-out war in the Middle East, Sir Keir said he was “deeply concerned”.

He said he “put it in those terms, that we are potentially at a brink point, and we have to come back from the brink”.

He repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation, along with other ministers.

Defence Secretary John Healey said: “We continue to urge all sides to step back from conflict to prevent further tragic loss of life.

“Our government is ensuring all preparations are in place to support British nationals should the situation deteriorate.

“I want to thank the British personnel who are deploying in the region for their commitment and professionalism.”

Healey held a meeting with fellow ministers, intelligence chiefs and diplomats on Tuesday afternoon to work through the government’s plans.

Officials say the UK already has a significant diplomatic and military presence close to Lebanon, including RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and two Royal Navy ships – RFA Mounts Bay and HMS Duncan – which have been in the eastern Mediterranean over the summer.

The Royal Air Force also has planes and helicopters on standby.

The escalating conflict in the Middle East is likely to be a significant topic of discussion for the prime minister and other world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Sir Keir arrived in the city on Tuesday evening local time.

Tensions have been growing across the Middle East since Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages.

The Israel military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack has killed more than 41,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Previously sporadic fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated on 8 October – the day after Hamas’s unprecedented attack. Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions, in solidarity with Hamas.

Hezbollah has launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It has also fired anti-tank missiles at armoured vehicles and attacked military targets with explosive drones.

Last week Hezbollah’s communication devices started exploding all across Lebanon.

Israel then launched a massive series of air strikes on Monday that have so far killed 560 people according to the Lebanese government.

Last year, the British government helped co-ordinate the evacuation of British nationals from Gaza, with some 200 UK citizens thought to be living in the territory before the war broke out.

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The UN’s refugee agency says one of its staff members and one of her children were killed in an Israeli air strike in eastern Lebanon – one of well over a thousand such strikes over the past two days.

The UNHCR said Dina Darwiche’s home was hit on Monday. Her husband and her older son were rescued and are in hospital with serious injuries, the agency said.

Ms Darwiche had worked in UNHCR’s Bekaa office for 12 years.

Meanwhile Ali Basma, who had worked for UNHCR’s office in the southern city of Tyre as a cleaner, was also killed.

In a statement, the agency said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by their killing.

“Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon are now relentlessly claiming hundreds of civilian lives,” said UNHCR’s global director Filippo Grandi on Tuesday.

“And I am very saddened to confirm that two UNHCR colleagues were also killed yesterday.”

Ms Darwiche’s friends described her as “the gentlest and kindest soul we knew.”

“She had been dedicated to her humanitarian work with UNHCR for as long as I can remember,” wrote Professor Jasmin Lilian Diab, an academic at the Lebanese American University, on X. “I am broken. I am absolutely destroyed.”

Funerals for those killed have been taking place across Lebanon.

In the southern city of Sidon, Mohammed Hilal had gathered with hundreds of other mourners to say goodbye to his daughter at a funeral also held for eight other people.

Three Hezbollah members were among those being buried, according to Reuters news agency which filmed the scene.

Mr Hilal knelt over his daughter’s body, covered in an embroidered blanket, and wept.

He told Reuters news agency that he had left his house in the town of Saksakiyeh on Monday to complete paperwork identifying his family. When he returned, he said, “I found her martyred due to the brutal aggression, the cowardly aggression that is killing children.”

Israel says it has warned Lebanese to leave their homes and put distance between themselves and sites used by Hezbollah.

But Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad told the BBC Israel had caused “carnage” and it was “clear” that many victims were civilians, including children and women who were in their homes doing “normal things”.

Israel says it targeted Hezbollah sites, accusing the Iranian-backed group of hiding weapons and rockets in residential homes and of using civilians as human shields.

On Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue attacking Hezbollah sites. Israel has alleged that some weapons are being stored in civilian homes.

“Anyone who has a missile in their living room and a rocket in their garage will not have a home,” he said in a video posted on social media.

Meanwhile the UN’s children’s agency told the BBC that many of the children in shelters in the capital had been “heavily traumatised”.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are believed to have fled their homes, the country’s foreign minister says.

“Most of them have left in a few minutes without taking anything, just getting their cars and leaving the house,” Edouard Beigbeder from Unicef said.

“Some of them have seen their house being destroyed, and some have witnessed their family members, siblings killed or injured. So those who reached Beirut are heavily traumatised.”

Women working in hospitals in Pakistan say they regularly face sexual harassment, violence and verbal abuse, from male colleagues, patients and their families.

Following the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor at work in an Indian hospital, more than a dozen female medics in Pakistan told the BBC they were worried about their own safety.

But this is a largely hidden crisis, as many are too scared to come forward to report the crimes – while those who do are often told no one would believe their allegations.

Most of the women the BBC spoke to asked that their names be withheld for fear of losing their jobs, “honour and respect”.

A few months ago, a young doctor came to Dr Nusrat (not her real name) in tears. While she was using the toilet, a male doctor had filmed the woman through a hole in the wall and was using the video to blackmail her.

“I suggested filing a complaint with the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency, which handles cyber crimes], but she refused. She said she didn’t want it to be leaked and reach her family or in-laws,” Dr Nusrat explained, adding that she knows of at least three other cases where female doctors have been secretly filmed.

Dr Nusrat happened to know someone senior in the police who spoke to the blackmailer, warning him he could be arrested for what he had done. The police officer made sure the video was deleted.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t take further action, but we got the hole covered so that no-one could do it again,” says Dr Nusrat.

Other women shared experiences of being sexually harassed, including Dr Aamna (not her real name), who was a resident medical officer in a government hospital five years ago when she was targeted by her senior doctor, a powerful man.

“When he saw me with a file in my hand, he would try to lean over it, make inappropriate comments, and try to touch me,” she says.

She filed a complaint with the hospital administration, but says she was met with indifference. “I was told I had only been there for a short time, and asked what proof I had of this harassment. They said, ‘We’ve been unable to fix this person in seven years – nothing will change, and no-one will believe you’.”

Dr Aamna says she knows of other women who have managed to record videos of harassment, “but nothing happens – the harasser is merely transferred to another ward for a few months, then comes back”.

She had to complete her placement to qualify as a doctor, but moved as soon as it was over.

Testimony gathered by the BBC suggests her story is disturbingly common.

The root of the problem lies in a lack of trust and accountability, according to Dr Summaya Tariq Syed, the chief police surgeon in Karachi and head of Pakistan’s first rape crisis centre.

She describes her 25 years of service as a constant battle against violence and betrayal, and says she has been disappointed with how things are handled.

She recounts how, a few years ago when she was in a different role, she was shut in a room by colleagues who wanted her to change what she had written in a post-mortem examination report about someone who had been killed.

“They said, ‘Sign it or you have no idea what we’ll do to you’,” but she refused. Given the senior position of one of the people involved, she says, no action was taken against them.

Another female doctor at a government hospital in Punjab explains that it can be hard for women to report abuse.

“The [hospital] committees that do exist often include the same doctors who harass us, or their friends. So why would anyone file a complaint and make their life even more difficult?”

There are no official statistics available on assaults against female health workers in Pakistan. However, a report in the US National Institutes of Health in 2022 paints a troubling picture. It indicates that up to 95% of nurses in Pakistan have faced workplace violence at least once in their career. This includes assault and threats as well as verbal and mental abuse, from colleagues, patients and hospital visitors.

This tallies with a report in the Pakistan Journal of Medicine and Dentistry, which quotes a 2016 study of public sector hospitals in Lahore that suggested 27% of nurses had experienced sexual violence. It also cites a study from Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkha province that indicated that 69% of nurses and 52% of female doctors there had experienced some sort of sexual harassment in the workplace from other staff.

Dr Syed recounts a particularly disturbing attack that happened in Karachi in 2010: “A doctor at a government hospital lured a nurse to his hostel, where he wasn’t alone – two other doctors were there as well.” The nurse was raped and was so distraught that she jumped off the roof and was in a coma for about a week. “Nothing that happened was consensual. But she decided not to pursue the case.”

Dr Syed believes that society often blames victims and if the nurse had reported it “the blame would have fallen on her”.

Harassment and threats come from patients, their friends and families too, she says, describing how members of the public attacked her team while they were handling bodies in the mortuary last year.

“Two people had to ward off blows from a person who tried to hit me, just because I told him not to make videos.”

She registered a complaint with the police and is now waiting for the case to work its way through court. “We must continue our part of the fight – staying quiet will only strengthen the culprits.”

Other female doctors also describe a lack of security as a problem, especially in state-run hospitals, where they say anyone can walk in unchecked. At least three said people who attacked them were ordinary citizens who had entered the hospital while drunk. Drinking alcohol is largely banned in Pakistan.

Dr Saadia (not her real name) explains that several of her colleagues at a major government hospital in Karachi have been repeatedly sexually harassed. “It’s often people under the influence of drugs wandering into the hospital,” she says.

“One evening, a colleague was on her way to another ward when a drunken man started harassing her. Another time, a different doctor was attacked. Some other doctors managed to get rid of the man, but there were no security guards around.”

Nurse Elizabeth Thomas (not her real name) says incidents where drunk patients try to touch them are common. “We feel terrified, unsure whether to treat the man or protect ourselves. We feel utterly helpless. And there are no security staff to help us.”

Dr Saadia says they don’t even know “if the person sweeping the floor or roaming around the ward claiming to be staff is actually staff”.

Looking back at her time at a government hospital in Punjab five years ago, Dr Aamna says: “In remote areas, forget about security; they don’t even have proper lighting in the hallways.”

According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2023, there are 1,284 government hospitals in the country. Doctors say security measures are extremely poor.

Healthcare workers say many either lack CCTV cameras or have too few, and those that do exist often don’t function properly. They say thousands of patients and their families visit these hospitals daily, and attacks on medical staff have become common.

Dr Saadia recounts how she once had to hide after a patient’s relative attacked her for waiting for test results to arrive before administering an injection.

“He was a tall man, and he started yelling at me. I was pressed against the door. He threatened me, saying, ‘Give the injection now, or I’ll kill you’.”

Many of Pakistan’s nursing staff come from minority non-Muslim communities, which can make them vulnerable in other ways, says Elizabeth Thomas.

“I know many nurses who are harassed, and if they don’t comply, they’re threatened with accusations of blasphemy. If a nurse is attractive, they’re often told to convert their religion.

“We’re always left wondering how to respond because if we don’t do what they want, they might falsely accuse us of blasphemy. This has happened to nurses.”

On top of the abuse, female doctors describe enduring long, demanding shifts with a lack of basic facilities.

“During my house job, we went through times when, during a 30-hour shift, we didn’t have a room to rest in. We would go outside and rest in a colleague’s car for 15 minutes or so,” says Dr Saadia.

“When I was in the emergency ward, there was no toilet. We couldn’t go to the loo during 14-hour shifts. Even when we were menstruating, we couldn’t use a toilet.”

She says toilets for hospital staff were in other blocks, so far away that they didn’t have time to go and use them.

The BBC asked local health ministers in the four provinces where these women have worked to comment, as well as the national health co-ordinator in Islamabad but did not receive any replies.

Since the rape and murder of the trainee doctor in India, discussions have intensified among female doctors in Pakistan about how to ensure their own safety.

Dr Saadia says it has affected her deeply and she has changed her routine: “I no longer go to dark or deserted places. I used to take the stairs, but now I feel safer using the lifts.”

And Elizabeth Thomas says it has shaken her too. “I have a seven-year-old daughter, and she often says she wants to become a doctor. But I keep wondering, is a doctor safe in this country?”

The tragic death of a 26-year-old Indian employee at a leading accounting firm has ignited a serious debate about workplace culture and employee welfare in corporate environments.

Anna Sebastian Perayil, a chartered accountant at Ernst & Young (EY), died in July, four months after joining the firm. Her parents have alleged that the “overwhelming work pressure” at her new job took a toll on her health and led to her death.

EY has refuted the allegation, saying that Perayil was allotted work like any other employee and that it didn’t believe that work pressure could have claimed her life.

Her death has resonated deeply, sparking a discussion on the “hustle culture” promoted by many corporates and start-ups – a work ethic that prioritises productivity, often at the expense of employee well-being.

Some argue that this culture drives innovation and growth, with many choosing extra hours out of passion or ambition. Others say that employees are often pressured by management, leading to burnout and a diminished quality of life.

Perayil’s death came under the spotlight after a letter written by her mother Anita Augustine to EY went viral on social media last week. In the letter, she detailed the alleged pressures her daughter had experienced at work, including working late into the night and on weekends, and appealed to EY to “reflect on its work culture” and take steps to prioritise its employees’ health.

“Anna’s experience sheds light on a work culture that seems to glorify overwork while neglecting the very human beings behind the roles,” she wrote. “The relentless demands and the pressure to meet unrealistic expectations are not sustainable, and they cost us the life of a young woman with so much potential.”

Many people condemned EY for its “toxic work culture”, sharing their experiences on Twitter and LinkedIn. One user alleged that he had been made to work for 20 hours a day at a top consultancy firm without being paid overtime.

“Work culture in India is horrid. Pay is dismal, exploitation is max [maximum]. There are zero repercussions and no remorse on the part of employers who routinely harass workers,” another user wrote, adding that managers are often praised for overworking and underpaying their employees.

A former EY employee criticised the work culture at the firm and alleged that employees were often “mocked” for leaving on time and “shamed” for enjoying weekends.

“Interns [are] given crazy workload, unrealistic timelines and [are] humiliated during reviews as it builds character for their future,” he wrote.

EY’s India chief, Rajiv Memani, has since said that the firm attaches the “highest importance” to the wellbeing of its employees. “I would like to affirm that the wellbeing of our people is my top-most priority and I will personally champion this objective,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn.

Perayil’s death isn’t the first incident that has brought India’s work culture under scrutiny. In October last year, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy faced criticism for suggesting that young Indians should work 70-hour weeks to boost the country’s economic growth.

His views were backed by Ola’s India chief Bhavesh Aggarwal, who said that he didn’t believe in the concept of work-life balance because “if you are enjoying your work, you will find happiness in life also and work also, and both of them will be in harmony”.

In 2022, Shantanu Deshpande, founder of the Bombay Shaving Company, asked youngsters to stop “cribbing” about working hours and suggested that new recruits at any job should be prepared to work 18 hours a day for the first four to five years of their career.

But mental health experts and labour rights activists say that such demands are unfair and put employees under immense stress. In her letter, Perayil’s mother alleged that her daughter had experienced “anxiety and sleeplessness” soon after joining EY.

India is known to have one of the most overworked workforces globally. A recent report by the International Labour Organisation said half of India’s workforce worked for over 49 hours each week, making India the second country after Bhutan to have the longest working hours.

Labour economist Shyam Sunder said India’s work culture had shifted post-1990s with the rise of the service sector, leading firms to bypass labour laws to meet round-the-clock demands.

He added that the culture has now been “institutionalised” by firms but it has also been accepted by employees. “Even in business schools, students are tacitly told that working long hours to earn a high salary is normal and even desirable,” he said.

According to him, for there to be any real change in corporate culture, a “mindset shift” is necessary – one where both firms and employees approach work with a more mature outlook, viewing it as important, but not the only part and purpose of life.

“Till then, all the other steps by corporates, like offering period leave or partnering with mental health firms will remain supplementary at best and symbolic at worst,” he said.

Chandrasekhar Sripada, a professor at the Indian School of Business, agrees with this view. He said that toxic work culture was a “complex, multi-stake holder problem” and that everyone, from industry leaders to managers to employees and even society, would have to change the way they viewed productivity in order for there to be any real change.

“We’re still confusing hard work with productive work,” Mr Sripada said. “The point of technology is to reduce human work so why are working hours getting longer?”

“We need to start focussing on sustainable growth, not just from an environmental standpoint, but also from a labour rights perspective,” he added.

“Scandinavian countries have already created much gentler working environments, so there are models for India to follow. All it needs is willpower.”

US President Joe Biden has spent nearly a year vowing his determination to prevent the war in Gaza engulfing the wider Middle East. On Tuesday, he repeated that resolve in his last ever United Nations speech as president, as he addressed the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“A diplomatic solution is still possible. In fact, remains the only path to lasting security,” Biden said.

“Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest,” he added.

But the Israel-Lebanon crisis is now on the brink.

And Biden’s calls for restraint from the podium of the UN, like his pleas for Israel and Hamas to finally reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal, are being heard in the hall but not in the region.

On Monday, Israel unleashed hundreds of airstrikes on Lebanon, inflicting the deadliest day on the country since the end of its bloody, sectarian civil war more than three decades ago. Israel’s bombardment killed more than 500 people, according to Lebanese health officials.

Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group that dominates the country – reeling and damaged from Israel’s wave of exploding pager attacks last week – launched hundreds of rockets into northern Israel, smashing homes and setting streets ablaze.

Once again the US is trying to restrain Israel, the key regional ally it arms, and urging its adversaries against escalating too, all the while seeking a diplomatic outcome that the sides themselves lack either the ability or will to agree.

Israel says it’s acting to disarm the Lebanese militia so Israeli residents can return to their homes in the north. Hezbollah says it’s been striking Israel for the past 11 months to deter and degrade Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. Months of shuttle diplomacy by the US envoy Amos Hochstein – building on already established UN Security Resolutions on Israel and Hezbollah – have come to nothing.

Instead, in another split screen moment as Biden was urging calm at the podium at the UN, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on X vowing: “We will continue to hit Hezbollah. He who has a missile in his living room and a rocket in his garage – he will not have a home.”

The White House supports what it calls Israel’s right to hit Hezbollah. But the often dysfunctional political relationship with the Israeli leadership has again become apparent over recent weeks, amid serious concerns in the administration that the exploding pager attacks and subsequent Israeli airstrikes could lead to all out war.

No call between Biden and Netanyahu was announced despite the crisis of the last week. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently made his tenth trip to the region since the 7 October attacks but for the first time did not visit Israel. Critics both within and outside the administration have repeatedly blamed an inability of the White House to wield influence over Netanyahu on a failure to condition US weapons supply. The administration categorically rejects this, saying it is committed to Israel’s defence.

President Biden always believed the key to solving the crisis on the Israel-Lebanon border, involving 11 months of cross border fire and tens of thousands of people displaced on either side, was instead clinching the ceasefire deal in Gaza. But this is badly stalled with few signs either side is willing to reach it. Blinken recently pinned this on a lack of “political will” by both Israel and Hamas.

The White House denies that it is pursuing a diplomatic effort doomed to defeat – and that President Biden, with four months left in office, has given up hope of achieving a breakthrough.

“No, he absolutely hasn’t given up,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said of Biden’s attempts to reach a deal that would end the war in Gaza.

“There have been difficulties and setbacks. We’ve had challenges getting the [Israeli] prime minister across the line. We’ve had challenges getting Hamas’s leader Sinwar across the line. But we’re determined to keep at it,” Mr Sullivan told CNN.

“The president this week in New York will be huddling with other leaders to try to bring about a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza and really critically, to try and avert an all-out war in the Middle East.”

Behind the scenes here in New York, a stream of diplomacy is taking place. According to a senior state department official, the US is presenting allies with potential plans to resolve the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.

“We’ve got some concrete ideas we’re going to be discussing with allies and partners this week to try to figure out the way forward on this,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pressed on what the “concrete ideas” were, the official would not be drawn, noting instead that while the US does not speak directly to Hezbollah, some of its allies gathered in New York do and these partners “might have a more refined sense of Hezbollah thinking so we can stress test our ideas.”

But the official also renewed US opposition to any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon. And they rejected Israeli officials’ reported belief that ramping up the conflict with Hezbollah could force them into cutting a diplomatic deal that would stabilise the situation on either side of the Israel-Lebanon border – a strategy referred to as “de-escalation by escalation”.

“I can’t recall, at least in recent memory, a period in which an escalation or intensification led to a fundamental de escalation and led to profound stabilisation of the situation,” said the official.

At first glance, Dunpo Elementary is no different from the thousands of elementary schools dotted across South Korea.

But look just beneath the surface and the differences are stark.

For one thing, most of the students in this school in Asan, an industrial city near the capital Seoul, may look ethnically Korean, but cannot speak the language.

“If I don’t translate into Russian for them, the other kids won’t understand any of the lessons,” says 11-year-old Kim Yana.

Yana speaks the best Korean in her class – but she and most of her 22 classmates are native Russian speakers.

Nearly 80% of the pupils at Dunpo are categorised as “multicultural students”, meaning they are either foreigners or have a parent who is not a Korean citizen.

And while the school says it is difficult to know exactly what these students’ nationalities are, most of them are believed to be Koryoins: ethnic Koreans typically hailing from countries in Central Asia.

Amid a plummeting birth rate and associated labour shortages, South Korea is touting the settlement of Koryoins and other ethnic Koreans as a possible solution to the nation’s population crisis. But discrimination, marginalisation, and the lack of a proper settlement programme are making it hard for many of them to integrate.

Koryoins are descendants of ethnic Koreans who migrated to the far east of the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries – before many were forcibly transferred to Central Asia in the 1930s as part of Stalin’s “frontier-cleansing” policy.

They lived in former Soviet states such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and, over the generations, assimilated into those cultures and stopped speaking Korean, which was forbidden.

South Korea started granting residency to Koryoins as well as ethnic Koreans in China after a landmark ruling by the country’s constitutional court in 2001. But the number of Koryoin migrants began growing rapidly from 2014 when they were allowed to bring their families into the country as well.

Last year, about 760,000 ethnic Koreans from China and Russian-speaking countries were living in South Korea, making up about 30% of the country’s foreign population. Many have settled in cities like Asan, which have more factories and therefore greater job opportunities.

Ni Denis, who migrated to South Korea from Kazakhstan in 2018, is one of them.

“These days, I don’t see Koreans in the factory [where I work],” he says. “They think the job’s difficult, so they leave quickly. More than 80% of the people I work with are Koryoins.”

It isn’t only Koryoins, however, who are benefitting from the immigration boost. The influx of ethnic Koreans from abroad is also helping to address a severe labour shortage in a country whose population continues to shrink.

South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, which keeps dropping year on year. In 2023, the birth rate was 0.72 – far behind the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population in the absence of immigration.

Estimates suggest that if this trend continues, South Korea’s population could halve by the year 2100.

The country will need 894,000 more workers, especially in the service industry, to “achieve long-term economic growth projections” over the next decade, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labour.

Workers from overseas are helping to bridge the gap.

“While the overseas Korean visa is often perceived as a form of support for ethnic Koreans, it has been primarily serving to provide stable labour for manufacturing,” says Choi Seori, a researcher at the Migration Research and Training Centre.

Mr Lee, a recruiter in Asan who asked to be identified only by his surname, highlighted the workforce’s dependence on immigration another way.

“Without Koryoins,” he said. “these factories wouldn’t run.”

Yet while immigration may be one solution to the country’s workforce problem, it comes with its own set of issues in this ethnically homogenous society.

Language is one of them.

“Korean kids only play with Koreans and Russian kids only play with Russians because they can’t communicate,” says 12-year-old student Kim Bobby.

In an attempt to overcome the language barrier, Dunpo Elementary School runs a two-hour Korean class for foreign students every day. Even so, teacher Kim Eun-ju is worried that many children “hardly understand the lessons” as they move up grades.

Academic competition in South Korea is notoriously rife and the school is losing local students, as parents worry their children’s education is being affected because lessons have to be conducted at a slower pace for Koryoins.

The high school enrolment rate for multicultural students is already slightly lower than for locals, according to an official national survey conducted in 2021. Park Min-jung, a researcher at the Migration Research and Training Centre, worries that more Koryoin students will drop out of school if they don’t get the support they need.

And language is not the only point of difference.

Mr Ni says he has noticed that many of his Korean neighbours have moved out of their building.

“Koreans seem to dislike having Koryoins as neighbours,” he says with an awkward laugh. “Sometimes Koreans ask us why we don’t smile at them. It’s just the way we are; it’s not that we’re angry.”

He says there have been disputes between children in his neighbourhood, and he has heard of cases where Koryoin children have been “rough” during arguments. “After that, Korean parents tell their kids not to play with Koryoin kids. I think that’s how segregation happens.”

“I am concerned about how Korea will be able to accept other immigrants,” says Seong Dong-gi, an expert of Koryoin at Inha University, explaining that there is already “significant resistance” to the influx of ethnic Koreans who “do not look different”.

The population crisis should be a “catalyst for society to look at immigration differently”, says Ms Choi. “It’s time to think about how to integrate them”.

In 2023 there were roughly 2.5 million foreigners living in South Korea, which is also a popular destination for migrant workers from places such as Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Most of them work in manual jobs, with only 13% in professional roles.

“There is no clear plan for immigration at the national government level,” says Lee Chang-won, the director of the Migration Research and Training Centre. “Solving the country’s population problem with foreigners has been an afterthought.”

Mr Lee adds that the current immigration policy is “heavily weighted towards low-skilled workers”, leading to a “common view” that foreigners only work in South Korea for a while and then leave. As a result, he says, there has been little discussion about long-term settlement for all immigrants.

According to current laws, the government is only required to provide support with things like vocational training for foreigners who marry locals. The same rights, however, are not extended to families entirely made up of foreigners.

Analysts say a new law for these families is urgently needed.

An Asan official, who requested anonymity, says it is difficult to secure funding for more supporting facilities for Koryoin families because there is no legal requirement to do so.

But despite these challenges, Mr Ni says he has not regretted the decision to move to South Korea. He still gets a better living environment and higher wages here.

“For my children, this is home,” he says. “When we visited Kazakhstan, they asked: ‘Why are we here? We want to go back to Korea.’”

The cryptocurrency industry is “rife with fraud and hucksters and grifters”, one of the United States’ top financial regulators has told the BBC.

The chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, says the “investing public around the globe has lost too much money” because of crypto companies not following the laws his agency tries to enforce.

It comes as the industry is spending millions of dollars on political donations, trying to influence the outcome of November’s US elections in the hope of more favourable future laws.

In addition to the presidential battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, all 435 districts in the House of Representatives are up for re-election, as well as 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate.

The future of cryptocurrency, one of the world’s most hotly-debated technologies, is an issue where there appears to be a clear dividing line between Donald Trump and the outgoing Biden administration.

Trump has been courting the votes of crypto enthusiasts by promising to make America “the crypto capital of the planet”, and creating a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” similar to the US government’s gold reserves.

Last week he launched a new crypto business called World Liberty Financial, and although he provided few details, he said “I think crypto is one of those things we have to do”.

It’s a huge turnaround from three years ago, when he dismissed Bitcoin as something that “seems like a scam” and a threat to the US dollar.

Trump’s new-found enthusiasm is a stark contrast to the Biden administration, of which Harris is the vice president. The White House has led a sweeping crackdown on crypto firms in recent years.

In March, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and boss of FTX was jailed for 25 years for fraud, after he stole billions of dollars from customers around the world, many of whom are still trying to recover their money.

Then in April, the founder of the world’s biggest crypto exchange, Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, got four months in prison, and the company paid a $4.3bn (£3.2bn) fine. He admitted to allowing criminals, child abusers and terrorists to launder money on his platform, in a case brought by the US Justice Department.

The SEC also has a case against Binance going through the courts. It is one of a record-high 46 enforcement actions the financial regulator took last year against firms trying to profit from what is still an emerging technology.

“This is a field that has come along, and just because they’re recording their crypto assets on a new accounting ledger, they [wrongly] say ‘we don’t think we want to comply with the time-tested laws’,” says Mr Gensler.

He explains that rules that force companies that want to raise money from the public to “share certain information” with them have been in place to protect investors since the SEC was created.

This was back in 1934, in the aftermath of the infamous Wall Street crash of 1929 that heralded the Great Depression.

“Crypto is just a small piece of the US and worldwide capital markets, but it can undermine trust that everyday investors have in the capital markets,” says Mr Gensler.

Whilst fans argue that crypto offers a fast, cheap and secure way to move funds, a survey by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, found that the number of Americans using it has dropped from 12% in 2021 to 7% last year.

Harris hasn’t said much about cryptocurrencies, but one of her advisors did say last month that she would “support policies that ensure that emerging technologies, and that sort of industry, can continue to grow”.

Recent meetings between her team and industry executives have been trying to build trust, and given crypto bosses hope of a brighter future whoever wins in November.

“I can’t underscore enough how important this is, not just for the US, but for the for the world,” according to Paul Grewal, who is chief legal officer at crypto firm Coinbase. He has been at these meetings.

“Not only is the US an important market for crypto, but so much of the important technology surrounding has been developed here. And I think it’s also critically important that we not lose sight of the fact that the rest of the world is not simply waiting for the US to get its act together.”

He adds that given how tight the race for the White House is, “every vote is going to count, and crypto votes are no exception”.

The clampdown on cryptocurrencies in the US this year has been mirrored in Europe. In April, the European Union agreed new laws to try to reduce the risk of crypto being used by criminals.

However, other regulators are being slower to act. The G20 group of leading economies is working on minimum standards for cryptocurrencies, but they are not legally binding, and uptake has been slow.

Back in the US, a bill to regulate cryptocurrencies has been passed by the House, but not the Senate. Its critics argue it will give less protection to consumers.

Coinbase’s Mr Grewal backs the bill, and says: “This is not an industry that is shying away from regulation.” He adds that the sector just wants the same standards applied to crypto as are applied to other assets, “no tougher, but no weaker”.

With November’s US elections on the horizon, the crypto industry has sensed an opportunity to help elect lawmakers who take a sympathetic view of the businesses.

By last month, the sector had already spent an unprecedented $119m on donations, according to research by the non-profit Public Citizen.

The consumer advocacy organisation’s research director Rick Claypool says the money is being used “to help elect pro-crypto candidates and attack crypto critics, this is regardless of political affiliation”.

They’ve spent more than any other industry when it comes to corporate donations, because they “are attempting to discipline the US congress to give in to their demands for less oversight, and to weaken protections for consumers,” he adds.

The recent wave of abductions, arrests and the brutal killing of an opposition official in Tanzania seems to be dimming the ray of political hope that came with President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s rise to power in 2021.

There was huge relief when Samia – Tanzania’s first female president – took office, with opposition parties allowed to organise rallies and criticise the government without the fear of grave repercussions.

But concern is growing that Tanzania is sliding back to the era of her autocratic predecessor, John Magufuli.

In the span of weeks, two of the most senior opposition leaders have been arrested twice, and another opposition official, Ali Kibao, was abducted, killed and his body doused in acid by unknown assailants.

“The political situation in Tanzania is worrisome in the extreme,” said the deputy leader of the main opposition Chadema party, Tundu Lissu.

He was speaking to the BBC a week before his arrest on Monday, when his party had planned to protest against the killing of Kibao and the alleged disappearance of several other government critics. Lissu was later released on bail, along with party leader Freeman Mbowe.

He was also released on bail last month, following his arrest on the eve of a banned opposition rally in the south-western town of Mbeya.

Chadema said about 100 of its members had been detained to prevent the rally from taking place.

“We’re beginning to see the kind of the wave of repression and state-orchestrated violence which was characteristic of the period from 2016 to 2020 [during the Magufuli administration],” Lissu told the BBC.

In 2017, Lissu sustained heavy injuries during an assassination attempt, when his vehicle was sprayed with at least 16 bullets.

He was treated abroad and stayed in exile in Belgium until his return last year to, as he put it, “write a new chapter” for the country after the president lifted a ban on rallies.

Lissu now sees the promised reforms as a façade.

“[There have been] no reforms whatsoever. No reforms of a democratic nature,” he told the BBC.

The violent incidents are politically motivated and “associated with the security forces” he alleged, adding that they were a harbinger of worse to come.

The police have denied involvement, while the ruling CCM party’s secretary-general, Emmanuel Nchimbi declined to speak to the BBC.

There is no doubt that the crackdown has sullied the image of the president.

Rights groups and western diplomats have called for an immediate end to “arbitrary detention” and have demanded “independent and transparent investigations”.

In her response, the president warned “outsiders” against meddling in Tanzania’s affairs but she also denounced the killing of Kibao, and ordered speedy investigations.

“Our country is a democracy, and every citizen has the right to live,” she said.

“It is surprising that the death of our brother Kibao has stirred up such a huge outcry of condemnation, grief, and accusations of calling the government murderers.

“This is not right. Death is death. What we Tanzanians must do is stand together and condemn these acts,” she added.

Tanzanian political analyst Thomas Kibwana said there appeared to be a lack of good faith between the main political parties, which has led to negotiations aimed at bringing about reforms stalling.

He added that while being confrontational may suit the opposition to win votes, it fuelled tensions.

Samia had indicated that she was “very open to dialogue” and, from her perspective, Chadema had “shut the doors to negotiation” and had resorted to protest action, Mr Kibwana said.

“This is up to both sides – for them to sit down and come back to the talks,” he added.

At the beginning, Samia was very much focused on her much-publicised mantra of the four Rs – reconciliation, resilience, reforms and rebuilding.

Her moves to mend fences with the opposition and initiate reforms – especially when she did not seem to be under political pressure to do so – won her praise locally and abroad.

There are still signs of the positive image she wants to retain.

One billboard in the centre of the capital, Dodoma, says: “The president of all Tanzanians – irrespective of their party, religion, ethnicity or gender. Mama [Samia] delivers”.

The billboard bears her picture sitting in a conversation with Lissu, now one of her fiercest critics.

Other billboards, including in the largest city Dar es Salaam, show her with other opposition leaders, depicting her intention to unite people across the political divide.

They appear to be campaign advertisements ahead of local government elections next month and presidential and parliamentary elections a year later.

The elections will be her first real test. She was Magufuli’s deputy, and inherited the presidency following his sudden death during the coronavirus pandemic.

Like Magufuli, she belongs to the CCM party, which has won every election it has contested since independence from Britain in 1961.

According to the second-biggest opposition party, ACT-Wazalendo, Samia’s reform drive may have been stymied by the CCM’s fear that it may lose elections.

“We have heard a CCM bigwig saying that if she had maintained that pace which she came in with, she would lose the country to the opposition,” party leader Dorothy Semu told the BBC.

“So maybe she absorbed that fear that if you reform, you will eventually end giving in to the opposition,” she added.

But Semu feels the political climate is better than during the Magufuli era, even if government officials sometimes acted like “they are doing us a favour”.

“We have now a more open civic space. We can talk about politics freely. We can discuss as political parties. We can take part in political rallies. We can organise meetings,” she told the BBC.

Semu added that as elections approach, “we are hopeful, but we not assured everything is going to be OK”.

Lawyer and activist Fatma Karume told the BBC that genuine reform hinged on overhauling the country’s laws so that the president has less power.

“In Tanzania we have something called an imperial presidency,” she said.

“All we have is a head of state who is less oppressive… let’s say, not as comfortable as Magufuli in using the oppressive powers of the state.”

• Tanzanian minister sacked after poll rigging remarks
• The Tanzanians searching for their grandfathers’ skulls in Germany
• A quick guide to Tanzania

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is currently in federal custody awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

His arrest last week in New York comes amid a series of civil suits alleging sexual assault and physical violence, some going back to the 1990s.

The 11th and latest accuser to come forward, Thalia Graves, claims Combs and his bodyguard drugged, bound and raped her in 2001, and filmed the incident.

The Harlem-born rapper has denied criminal wrongdoing.

Combs, 54, was arrested on Monday 16 September in a New York hotel on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force and transportation for purposes of prostitution.

Federal prosecutors have accused him of “creating a criminal enterprise” in which he “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfil his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct”.

They said Combs had used drugs, violence and the power of his status to “lure female victims” into extended sex acts called “Freak Offs”.

They also revealed they had uncovered firearms, ammunition and more than 1,000 bottles of lubricant during raids on Combs’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles in March.

Prosecutors have reportedly been in touch with several witnesses who worked under Combs and some of the accusers currently suing him, and have left open the possibility of more charges.

The singer-producer has pleaded not guilty to the three felony counts against him and his attorney told reporters he was a “fighter” who was “not afraid of the charges”.

Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal jail notorious for its violence and poor inmate care.

MDC includes an extra-security section with barracks-style housing reserved for special detainees, and US media report that Combs is sharing the space with convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

His legal team sought his release pending trial because of the jail’s “horrific” conditions, but prosecutors argued he posed “a serious flight risk” and Combs has twice been denied bail.

If convicted, he faces a sentence of anywhere from 15 years to life in prison.

Combs’s former on-and-off girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, was first to blow the whistle on the self-proclaimed “bad boy for life”.

In a lawsuit filed last November, the model and musician alleged he had “trapped” her for over a decade in a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking”.

Combs “vehemently” denied the claims. A day after the suit landed in court, both parties said they had “amicably” settled the case, though Combs’s attorney said the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing”.

But in May, CNN obtained surveillance footage that showed the entertainer-turned-entrepreneur assaulting Ms Ventura in a 2016 altercation that is detailed in her suit.

Combs finally acknowledged the incident in an Instagram video two days later, saying he was “disgusted” by what he had done.

“My behaviour on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions,” he said.

Ten others – including one man – have since come forward with their own claims.

Joi Dickerson-Neal, who said Ms Ventura had inspired her to speak out, alleged Combs had “intentionally drugged” and raped her when she was a Syracuse University student in 1991, and had made her a victim of revenge porn by filming the assault and showing it to others.

Representatives for Combs blasted the lawsuit as “purely a money grab” and have asked for it to be dismissed.

Liza Gardner accused Combs and R&B crooner Aaron Hall of plying her with drinks and then forcing her to have sex with them against her will when she was 16 years old. She also claimed that Combs had visited her home the next day and choked her until she passed out. Combs’s attorney slammed the claims as “bogus”.

The three initial lawsuits were brought under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act, which granted adult victims a one-year window to bring claims against their abusers regardless of statutes of limitation.

A woman so far identified only as Jane Doe claimed that Combs, former Bad Boy Records president Harve Pierre and a third person had violently gang-raped her in a New York City studio when she was a 17-year-old high school student.

A few days later, Combs broke his silence on social media against “sickening allegations… by individuals looking for a quick pay day”. His attorneys are seeking to dismiss the “baseless and time-barred” case. Mr Pierre has meanwhile called the suit a “tale of fiction”.

Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a producer and videographer who worked on Combs’s most recent album, accused the mogul of running an illegal racketeering enterprise in which he was forced to procure drugs, solicit sex workers and tape sex acts. He also claimed Combs and actor Cuba Gooding Jr had groped him without consent.

Grace O’Marcaigh, who worked on a yacht leased by the Combs family in 2022, accused the rapper and his son, Christian “King” Combs, of sexual assault. She blamed them for creating an “environment of debauchery” with suspected sex workers and top celebrities aboard.

Crystal McKinney claimed she had been drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs following a Men’s Fashion Week event in 2003 when she was 22 years old. She also said he had subsequently “blackballed” her in the modelling world.

April Lampros, who says she met Combs as a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 1994, detailed “four terrifying sexual encounters” through the early 2000s.

Adria English, a former adult-film actress who worked with Combs in the 2000s, said he had used her as a “sexual pawn for the pleasure and financial benefit of others” during the “White Parties” he hosted at his homes in New York and Miami.

Dawn Richards, who once sang in two Combs-assembled groups including Danity Kane, said she had personally witnessed his violence against Ms Ventura and that he had threatened her life when she tried to intervene.

Thalia Graves, who is backed by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, claimed Combs and his bodyguard Joseph Sherman had sedated, overpowered and tied her up before recording themselves raping her and later distributing the sex tape.

Representatives for Combs have denied the claims of all six most recent accusers.

Vishal Jaiswal has been flying drones since he was young.

Now 27, that childhood hobby has become his profession. A recent project involved mapping part of the Sundarbans, a vast area of mangrove forests where the waters of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers spill into the Bay of Bengal.

Covering more than 4,000 sq miles (10,360 sq km) of coastal India and Bangladesh, it is the world’s biggest area of mangroves.

“It’s a very dense area with mix of everything, including forests with wild animals,” says Mr Jaiswal.

Along with two other team members he mapped 150 sq km in three days.

“A trained and skilled person is needed to fly a drone in thick mangroves area,” he says.

“It was a difficult task. We mapped the area from deep inside the forest, travelling there on boats and roads.”

It was one of many projects aimed at protecting the mangrove forest from the effects of climate change and human activities.

Globally, more than half of all mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse by 2050, according to a recent report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“Mangroves are threatened by deforestation, development, pollution, and dam construction, but the risk to these ecosystems is increasing due to sea-level rise and the increased frequency of severe storms associated with climate change,” the report said.

In India the picture is mixed.

The mangroves of South India, Sri Lanka and Maldives are “critically endangered,” according to the IUCN report.

Other Indian mangroves are not on that “red list”.

The Sundarbans are one of those mangroves not considered endangered by the (IUCN).

However, Dr Sahadev Sharma, a consultant scientist to the USDA Forestry Service, says there are signs of both manmade and natural stress, which he identified during his field survey beginning of this year.

“We are seeing a loss in dense mangrove cover in Sundarbans. Additionally, patches on the western coast are extremely fragmented and eroded due to shrimp farming and development,” he says.

But it’s hard for scientists to know exactly what’s happening to the Sundarbans. There’s a lack of field research, partly because it’s a difficult place to work.

“It requires coordination with officers and ground staff, procuring field supplies in remote areas, and planning extensive logistics for field operations.

“The risk of saltwater crocodiles and Bengal tigers, tides and treacherous terrain make the field work even more difficult,” he says.

So, scientists are turning to tech, like Mr Jaiswal’s drones, to monitor the mangroves.

One key bit of information needed is the height of the mangroves in relation to the sea level.

The rivers flooding into the Sundarbans dump sediment, raising the ground level.

But if the sea level rises faster than that soil building process, then the mangroves will be threatened.

This process is monitored by installing rSETs (rod surface elevation tables) across mangrove forests.

The first part of the process is to drive steel rods into the mud, to provide a base for the measuring equipment.

Then Lidar scanners are attached to the top of the rods. These use lasers to scan the ground up to 2m away from the central rod, taking hundreds of thousands of extremely accurate measurements.

It’s a big improvement on the previous system, which involved attaching cumbersome fibreglass arms to the rods, which were extended to take height measurements.

That method would take hours to produce just 36 measurements and relied on the user placing the arms in the exact same positions as previous surveys.

“Because we are using a laser, there is minimal human error and the precision of this method is much greater than the traditional pin methods,” says Mr Sharma.

But it has one drawback – it’s more expensive than the old way.

Nevertheless, the project is making progress with the help of local partners.

Measuring sites are in place in the Andaman Islands, Sundarbans and Coringa and there are plans to install more in Bhitarkanika National Park, Orissa.

The research is still in its early days, they have a few data sets, but are waiting for the water level to recede before they can start measuring in the Sundarbans.

Many who live in the coastal regions that support mangrove forests rely on them for survival.

In Andhra Pradesh, which has a long coastline in eastern India, fisherman Laxman Anna blamed the destruction of mangroves for poor catches.

“A few years back it had become a frustrating job. Going into the creek to catch fish and coming back empty handed.”

“Imagine a day when I made just 60 cents for my entire day in the creek, as there were no fishes. Barely enough to sustain my family of five.”

He blamed shrimp farms for upsetting the ecosystem.

But Mr Anna says communities in his area have realised the importance of preserving the mangroves.

“We are planting saplings, nurturing them back to life with help of an NGO and the forest department.”

And that effort is paying off.

“Things are changing I have a smile on my face when I go to fishing now. I am able to get a good catch and make around seven to eight dollars a day, which is a good catch for my survival.”

The Bird Photographer of the Year award has been announced, with Canadian photographer Patricia Homonylo scooping the top prize for her thought-provoking image titled When Worlds Collide.

The picture was taken in Toronto and beat more than 23,000 entries to claim the prize.

The photograph shows more than 4,000 birds that died colliding with windows and other reflective surfaces in the city.

“Each year more than one billion birds die in North America alone due to collisions with windows,” says Homonylo.

“I am a conservation photojournalist and have been working with the Fatal Light Awareness Program, where we save window-collision survivors in Toronto.

“Sadly, most of the birds we find are already dead.

“They are collected and at the end of the year we create this impactful display to honour the lives lost and increase public awareness.”

Homonylo’s entry was also among the winners selected for the Conservation (Single Image) category.

The Young Bird Photographer of the Year 2024 was awarded to 14-year-old Spanish photographer Andrés Luis Domínguez Blanco for his creative angle on a nuthatch scrambling down an oak tree.

Photographers competed in a eight of different categories in the adult competition, including a Conservation Award, Portfolio Award, and Video Award.

Here is a selection of the pictures that were awarded a gold, silver or bronze, with descriptions by the photographers.

“This Peregrine Falcon fledgling had been flying for over a week and his skills had improved by the day.

“While he still took food from parents, he had started to practise his hunting skills.

“He was not good enough to catch live birds in the air yet, so he took baby steps by chasing a fluttering butterfly.

“I have been photographing peregrines for years, and this was the first time I have seen fledglings play with butterflies.”

“For several weeks each year, Black Grouse gather at [the] leks on spring mornings for courtship and display.

“The males come down, each claiming their patch, and spend a couple of hours sizing each other up, charging at each other, engaging in mostly mock battles.

“Sometimes, however, the encounters escalate to real fights.

“The heated breath of a solitary fighter is steaming in the cold air, which I captured while sitting inside a small photography hide, revelling in the sounds and sights of this ancient play.”

“In the dead of winter, I marvel at the aerial ballet of the garden birds that come to visit my trees and to take advantage of the seeds that I put out for them.

“Discreetly hidden, I tried to immortalise their flight and its delicate trail using a flash and camera in ‘rear curtain’ mode.

“Hundreds of shots were required before I captured the perfect moment, which portrayed the fleeting magic of nature in winter.”

“Here we see a trio of northern gannets diving into the ocean on a sunny day in Shetland. .

“The species is Scotland’s largest seabird, and they are remarkably adept in the water, with the ability to dive to depths as far as 22 metres.

“I took this photo while scuba diving from a boat near Noss, which is home to the UK’s seventh largest colony of northern gannets.

“In the past the population has been estimated at around 25,000 birds, though their numbers were unfortunately severely reduced by the avian flu outbreak.

“It is unclear when, or if, their population will be able to recover. Dead herring from a local herring fishery were used to attract the birds to the boat.”

“This photograph shows a hoary-headed grebe as it disappears below the surface of the water to feed, pushing into the depths with its huge paddle-like feet.

“I took the image from a raised platform high above the wetland.

“With a little bit of imagination, the combination of bird and ripples look like the head of a hippo.”

“We were on a safari, and returning to camp in Sabi Sands, South Africa, on a dark March evening.

“We stopped, having picked up some unusual sounds, although unsure what they were.

“Then we heard chattering and fluttering high above us.

“When illuminated with the lamp on the vehicle, we saw these helmetshrikes huddling together against a night that was starting to turn colder.”

“Goosanders breed in the park about one kilometre from Poland’s life-giving River Vistula.

“Each mother has to move her brood to the river as quickly as possible due to lack of food and safety in the park.

“They make the journey through a series of underground passages and over a six-lane highway.

“Each year a group of volunteers help them cross this deadly road by stopping the traffic.

“This image shows a mother goosander crossing a smaller road because she decided not to use the scary and dark underground passage below it.”

“This poignant image captures the harsh reality in one of Bali’s bird markets.

“The pair of lovebirds face each other in separate cages, appearing to say their final farewells, not knowing if they will see each other again.

“Who knows what joys they would have experienced together in their lush native rainforests and whether they will ever experience that again.

“Their silent connection transcends physical barriers, emphasising the complex interaction between yearning for freedom and the urge to escape from captivity for human pleasure.”

“I took this photo on a beautiful beach on the Baltic Sea.

“There are a number of waders and other birds here, but also many visitors who enjoy the beautiful landscape.

“In this case there was also a dog who initially did not notice the grey plover. The grey plover, however, did notice the dog and flew away shortly after I took the photo.

“While I do not believe this incident greatly stressed the bird, it is crucial to acknowledge the potential impact of human activity and tourism on protected species and their habitats.”

“Lake Federsee is a famous wintering area for numerous migratory birds.

“From November to March, Eurasian bitterns are frequent visitors to this lake.

“As soon as the lake freezes over, these rare birds retreat to trenches through the reeds.

“Surprisingly, this individual was very close to the boardwalk that leads through the nature reserve.

“From there, I could easily watch its fishing campaign and take numerous photos.”

All photographs courtesy Bird Photographer of the Year

A former Canadian envoy whose imprisonment in China kicked off a high-profile diplomatic spat has accused Chinese authorities of inflicting “psychological torture” on him.

Michael Kovrig says he was placed in solitary confinement for months and subjected to “relentless interrogation” when he was arrested in December 2018 and held for more than 1,000 days.

The Chinese government has rejected his allegations, saying it handled his case lawfully.

Mr Kovrig and fellow Canadian Michael Spavor were detained on spying charges following the arrest of Chinese businesswoman Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, in a case that Canada called “hostage diplomacy”.

The Canadian government had at that time detained Ms Meng, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, on US fraud charges.

The “two Michaels” were only freed nearly three years later, after US prosecutors dropped the extradition request and agreed to release Ms Meng.

“It was the most gruelling, painful thing I’ve ever been through,” said Mr Kovrig in an interview with Canadian public broadcaster CBC that aired on Monday night.

Describing his ordeal for the first time, Mr Kovrig said that on the night he was arrested he was walking home from dinner in Beijing with his partner, who was six months pregnant at the time.

“We came up a spiral staircase right in front of the plaza in front of my apartment building, and boom,” he said.

“There’s a dozen men in black with cameras on them surrounding us, shouting in Chinese, ‘That’s him.’”

Mr Kovrig, a former diplomat who was working as a senior advisor for the International Crisis Group think tank at the time, said he was then handcuffed, blindfolded and thrown into a black SUV.

After being driven for almost an hour, he was taken into a padded cell, where he would remain for several months.

“At that point they said, ‘You are under suspicion of endangering China’s state security. You are going to be interrogated,’” Mr Kovrig said. “A chill went down my spine.”

Mr Kovrig alleged his treatment by the Chinese authorities broke international law.

“The United Nations standard is no more than 15 days in solitary confinement. More than that is considered psychological torture. I was there for nearly six months,” he said.

He added that he was kept in complete isolation under fluorescent lights for six months, while being subjected to six to nine hours of interrogation a day.

Often, he said, he was locked in a chair for hours on end and at times was forced to survive on three bowls of rice per day.

“They are trying to bully and torment and terrorise and coerce you into accepting their false version of reality,” Mr Kovrig said.

After six months Mr Kovrig and Mr Spavor, who were held separately, were formally arrested.

Mr Kovrig was moved from his windowless cell to a pre-trial detention facility, where he shared a room with a dozen inmates.

“That was kind of like moving from hell to limbo,” he said, describing how this time there was daylight coming in through Plexiglass windows and room to walk around.

Mr Kovrig stayed there for the next two years, before his release in September 2021 – the same day that the US dropped its request to extradite Meng Wanzhou.

Within two hours of Ms Meng’s extradition request being dropped, he and Mr Spavor had cleared Chinese airspace on a plane to Canada, according to CBC.

Responding to Mr Kovrig’s interview, Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Chinese judicial authorities handled the case strictly in accordance with the law.

“Lies and smears cannot change the fact that the person you mentioned committed a crime. We advise the relevant parties to respect the facts and reflect on their mistakes,” he told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.

Mr Kovrig’s allegations of his treatment by the Chinese authorities stands in contrast with Ms Meng’s experience in Canada.

The heiress was released on bail and placed under house arrest, but was allowed to leave her home in the daytime and roam within a large swathe of Vancouver while under supervision.

She reportedly went on private shopping sprees at high-end boutiques, and had massages and art lessons in her mansion. Ms Meng later wrote she had time to finally “read a book cover to cover” and “carefully complete an oil painting”.

Her release was covered prominently and celebrated in China where many supported her and her father, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei.

But the case severely strained China’s diplomatic ties with Canada and the US, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at one point accusing China of “using arbitrary detention as a tool to achieve political goals”.

China denied these accusations, and countered that Ms Meng’s arrest was an example of “political persecution of Chinese citizens with the aim of suppressing China’s high tech enterprises”.

China’s central bank has unveiled a major package of measures aimed at reviving the country’s flagging economy.

People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Pan Gongsheng announced plans to lower borrowing costs and allow banks to increase their lending.

The move comes after a series of disappointing data has increased expectations in recent months that the world’s second largest economy will miss its own 5% growth target this year.

Stock markets in Asia jumped after Mr Pan’s announcement.

Speaking at a rare news conference alongside officials from two other financial regulators, Mr Pan said the central bank would cut the amount of cash banks have to hold in reserve – known as reserve requirement ratios (RRR).

The RRR will initially be cut by half a percentage point, in a move expected to free up about 1 trillion yuan ($142bn; £106bn).

Mr Pan added that another cut may be made later in the year.

Further measures aimed to boost China’s crisis-hit property market include cutting interest rates for existing mortgages and lowering minimum down payments on all types of homes to 15%.

The country’s real estate industry has been struggling with a sharp downturn since 2021.

Several developers have collapsed, leaving large numbers of unsold homes and unfinished building projects.

The PBOC’s new economic stimulus measures come just days after the US Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the first time in more than four years with a bigger than usual cut.

The plans also included measures to help support the stock market.

The news pushed up share prices, with the leading stock indexes in Shanghai and Hong Kong ending the day more than 4% higher.

Marcellus Williams was executed on Tuesday night in the US state of Missouri after spending more than two decades on death row.

Williams, who had two previous executions stayed, maintained he was innocent in the 1998 fatal stabbing of Felicia Gayle in a St Louis suburb, and a wide swath of people had opposed his death sentence.

An attorney representing Williams argued there was racial discrimination in selecting jurors and that DNA evidence in the case was mishandled.

Williams was denied a last-minute reprieve from the US Supreme Court, after Missouri’s top court and governor rejected his clemency requests early this week.

In a rare move, the three liberal justices on the US Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said on Tuesday they disagreed with the conservative majority and would have granted a stay. They did not give a reason.

Missouri Department of Corrections communications director Karen Pojmann said no witnesses for Ms Gayle’s family attended the execution, CBS, the BBC’s US partner, reported.

Williams’ son and two of his attorneys were present.

At his trial, prosecutors said Williams broke into Ms Gayle’s home in August 1998 and stabbed her 43 times with a large butcher knife before stealing her purse and her husband’s laptop.

Ms Gayle was a social worker and former reporter at the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

Lawyers for Williams had said there were concerns over the handling of his case, arguing black jurors were wrongly excluded from his trial.

They also said there was no forensic evidence linking Williams to the crime scene and that the murder weapon had been mishandled, raising questions over DNA evidence.

The trial prosecutor has said he followed procedure at the time by touching the murder weapon without gloves after it was tested in a crime lab.

Williams had requested clemency from Missouri’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, which was denied.

“We hope this gives finality to a case that’s languished for decades, re-victimising Ms Gayle’s family,” Parson said in a statement.

“No juror, no judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible.”

Many people, including British billionaire Richard Branson, campaigned against the execution, the third in Missouri this year.

Mr Branson told the BBC earlier on Tuesday that he had spent part of the day focused on the Williams case.

“He’s an innocent person,” he said.

“Even the prosecuting council have told the governor they should not, this man is innocent.”

The victim’s family had supported a life sentence instead of the death penalty, while local prosecutors had pressed to have the conviction overturned.

His execution had been stayed twice – once in 2017 and once in 2015 – due to the discovery of male DNA on the murder weapon that did not match Williams.

The state’s then-governor, Eric Greitens, a Republican, formed a panel to examine the case after granting the second stay, but he then left office amid a scandal and the panel never formed a conclusion.

Also concerned about the DNA, the local prosecuting attorney, Wesley Bell, requested a hearing.

But at that point it was discovered that the DNA evidence was spoiled from someone in the prosecutor’s office touching the knife without gloves, and the hearing was cancelled.

“This outcome did not serve the interests of justice,” Mr Bell said in a statement on Tuesday.

“If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option.”

Midwest Innocence Project, a legal group whose attorneys represented Williams, worked to reach an agreement with the prosecutor’s office that Williams would enter a no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for life in prison.

But the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ruled the death sentence would stand.

“Mr Williams’ story echoes that of too many others caught in our country’s broken criminal legal system,” the Innocence Project said in a statement.

“A Black man convicted of killing a white woman, Mr Williams maintained his innocence until the very end.”

Thailand’s king has signed a marriage equality bill into law, making the country the first in South East Asia to recognise same-sex unions.

The bill cleared the Senate in June but required royal endorsement to become law. It was published in the Royal Gazette on Tuesday and will come into effect on 22 January next year.

Activists hailed the move as historic – it marks the culmination of years of campaigning for marriage equality.

Thailand has long been seen as a relative haven for the LGBTQ+ community in a region where such attitudes are rare.

The new law uses gender-neutral terms in place of “husbands”, “wives”, “men” and “women”. And it grants same-sex couples adoption and inheritance rights.

“Today we’re not only getting to write our names in marriage certificates, but we are also writing a page in history… that tells us that love never set a condition of who we were born to be,” Ann Chumaporn, a longtime LGBTQ+ activist and co-founder of the Bangkok Pride movement, told the BBC.

“It’s a triumph of equality and human dignity.”

She said she plans to organise a mass wedding for more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ couples on 22 January.

“[The legal recognition] means we are fully accepted and can live our lives without conditions or compromises,” said advertising strategist Kwankaow Koosakulnirund.

“Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community can now look toward a future beyond relationships, embracing the sense of pride that this law brings,” he said.

“We are all delighted and excited. We’ve been fighting for our rights for over 10 years, and now it’s finally happening,” another activist, Siritata Ninlapruek, told AFP news agency.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on X: “Congratulations on everyone’s love. #LoveWins.”

Former PM Srettha Thavisin, who has been vocal in his support for the bill, also applauded the development as a “significant step” for Thailand.

“Equity and equality have become concrete in the Thai society. Gender diversity will eventually be fully accepted. Congratulations,” he wrote on X.

When the law comes into effect, Thailand will become only the third place in Asia, after Taiwan and Nepal, where same-sex couples can get married.

In 2019, Taiwan’s parliament became the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. Nepal registered its first same-sex union in November last year, five months after its Supreme Court ruled in favour of it.

This was just one month after India’s top court had ruled against it, leaving the decision to the government, which said it would set up a panel to decide on more legal rights for same-sex couples.

Singapore scrapped a colonial-era law that banned gay sex in 2022, but also amended its constitution to prevent the courts from challenging the definition of marriage as one between a man and a woman.

Eswatini’s main opposition leader has been poisoned as part of an assassination attempt and is being treated in hospital, his party says.

Mlungisi Makhanya, 46, has been living in exile in neighbouring South Africa for the last two years, saying he fears for his life at home following a violent crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy.

“Our president has been stabilised but he is still in a critical condition,” the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo) said.

Eswatini spokesman Alpheous Nxumalo denied state involvement, saying the “government does not kill or poison suspects”.

Pudemo says the attempt on its leader’s life comes ahead of planned protests next month calling for multi-party elections.

The country, formerly known as Swaziland, allows independent candidates to stand for parliament but does not allow political parties to participate.

King Mswati III has been on the throne since 1986 and rules by decree. He has been criticised for his extravagant lifestyle and is regularly accused of not allowing any dissent, which his government denies.

Last year, Thulani Rudolf Maseko, a human rights lawyer, who was opposed to the king, was killed in his home in the capital, Mbabane, sparking widespread condemnation.

In September 2022, Makhanya’s home in Eswatini was set alight in an alleged fire bomb attack by state agents. He now lives in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, with his family.

• What does this activist’s death mean for Eswatini?
• Zuma’s daughter marrying polygamous king ‘for love’

Makhanya leads Pudemo, one of the leading pro-democracy parties which are theoretically allowed, but banned from participating in elections.

He was allegedly poisoned in the early hours of Tuesday inside his house in Pretoria by an unnamed “young boy”, who Pudemo said was used as an “agent of evil intent by Swazi government”.

Makwanya was rushed to a Pretoria hospital escorted by the South African police, the Swaziland News website reported. He was later moved to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), in a critical but stable condition, it added.

He reportedly informed police and doctors that he had been poisoned and robbed of his cell phones.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, Wandile Dludlu, the Pudemo deputy president, said an “extremely dangerous and fatal” pesticide poison was used in the incident.

“It is encouraging that the president has survived a day,” Dludlu added.

“It was an assassination attempt on the life of our leader.”

This was rejected by the Eswatini government.

“Government, through the law enforcement agencies – that adheres to a strict code of ethics and professionalism – only apprehend suspects and bring them to Justice, and they are brought to justice ‘alive’, not ‘dead’,” Nxumalo said in a statement.

The Pudemo party has appealed for international support to ensure Makhanya’s security and that of his family while in hospital.

The Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN), a group of Swazis living in South Africa, condemned what it termed a “bold attack” and a “clear assassination attempt” against Makhanya.

It called on the South African government to take action against Swazi state agents it said were targeting exiled pro-democracy activists “fighting for freedom” .

Opposition parties have accused security agents of killing dozens of protesters who have blamed the lack of development in the country on the current political system.

In 2021, student-led protests that began over alleged police brutality morphed into calls for political change. At least 46 people died in a series of clashes between the security forces and demonstrators, according to Human Rights Watch.

The government has disputed this figure and said that the police were responding to violent attacks.

“This is a political fight between the oppressed masses and the traditional autocratic monarch,” Dludlu said, vowing that Pudemo would proceed with next month’s protests as planned.

• The election in a kingdom where parties are banned
• Why people in Eswatini are protesting
• Find out more about Eswatini

The union representing thousands of striking Boeing workers says a survey of its members shows they are “not interested” in the aviation giant’s latest pay offer.

“Many comments expressed that the offer was inadequate,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said in a post on X.

It comes after Boeing made a new offer earlier this week to striking workers, which proposed a 30% pay rise over four years.

BBC News has requested a statement from Boeing in response to the IAM announcement.

“The survey results from yesterday were overwhelmingly clear, almost as loud as the first offer: members are not interested in the company’s latest offer that was sent through the media,” the IAM post said.

On Monday, Boeing made what it called its “best and final” pay offer, which included the reinstatement of a performance bonus, improved retirement benefits and a one-off $6,000 (£4,470) bonus for signing a new pay deal.

The company said the offer was dependent on it being ratified by union members by midnight pacific time on Friday 27 September (7:00 GMT on Saturday 28 September).

However, IAM said Boeing had sent the new offer directly to union members and the media without telling the union’s representatives.

It also said the company’s deadline did not give it enough time to organise a vote by its members.

Boeing denied that it had not informed IAM representatives about the offer, and said it would give the union more time, as well as logistical support, to ballot its members.

More than 30,000 Boeing workers have been on strike since 13 September after rejecting a 25% pay rise offer.

Union members – who produce planes including the 737 Max and 777 – voted overwhelmingly to reject the offer and back strike action until an agreement could be reached.

IAM had initially aimed for a number of improvements to workers’ packages, including a 40% pay rise.

The strike threatens to cost Boeing billions of dollars, deepening the crisis at a company already facing significant challenges.

The company has already suspended the jobs of tens of thousands of staff.

China has said it successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean.

The ICBM was launched at 08:44 local time (04:44 GMT) on Wednesday and “fell into expected sea areas”, Beijing’s defence ministry said, adding that the test launch was “routine” and part of its “annual training”.

The type of missile and its flight path remained unclear, but Chinese state media said Beijing had “informed the countries concerned in advance”.

Japan later said that it received “no notice” of the test launch.

China’s nuclear weapon tests usually take place domestically, and it previously test-fired ICBMs west into the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region.

This is believed to be the first time since 1980 that it launched an ICBM into international waters.

“Unless I’m missing something, I think this is essentially the first time this has happened – and been announced as such – in a long time,” Ankit Panda, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on X.

He added that Beijing’s description of the test as “routine” and “annual” was odd, “given that they don’t do this sort of thing either routinely or annually”.

The Japanese government said on Wednesday that China had given it no prior notice of the ICBM launch.

“There was no notice from the Chinese side in advance,” government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

Japan’s defence ministry had earlier said there was no damage to its vessels.

“We will continue to collect and analyse information on the movements of the Chinese military and will take all possible precautions in our vigilance and monitoring,” the ministry said early Wednesday afternoon, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

When China last did such a test – in May 1980 – the ICBM flew 9,070km and landed in the Pacific. That test involved 18 Chinese naval ships and is still considered one of China’s biggest naval missions.

“Timing is everything,” Drew Thompson, a visiting research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, wrote on X.

“[China’s] statement claims the launch does not target any country, but there are high-levels of tension between China and Japan, Philippines, and of course perpetual tension with Taiwan.”

“The launch is a powerful signal intended to intimidate everyone,” he added.

John Ridge, a US-based defence analyst, said China could have conducted the test as a form of “posturing or signalling to the United States”.

While the relationship between Beijing and Washington has improved in the past year, China’s increasing assertiveness in the region remains a sticking point.

Tensions have ramped up between China and the Philippines as their ships have repeatedly collided in disputed waters. Last month, Japan scrambled fighter jets after it accused a Chinese spy plane of breaching its air space, a move that it called “utterly unacceptable”.

Beijing’s claims over self-governed Taiwan have been another source of strain.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said earlier on Wednesday that China had been carrying out “intensive” missile firing and other drills recently. In the same statement, the ministry said it had detected 23 Chinese military aircraft operating around Taiwan on “long-range missions”.

Beijing routinely sends ships and aircraft into Taiwanese waters and airspace in what analysts say is a “greyzone warfare” tactic meant to normalise the incursions.

In July this year, China suspended its nuclear arms control talks with Washington, in retaliation for the US’ continued arms sales to Taiwan.

Last year, China replaced two leaders of the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force unit – the elite unit managing its nuclear arsenal – over corruption allegations.

In a report published last year, the Pentagon estimated that China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal, of which approximately 350 are ICBMs.

The report also projected that China will reach over 1,000 warheads by 2030. Still, that is a fraction of the more than 5,000 warheads that the US and Russia each say they possess.

The murder of a 19 year-old female student in an exclusive neighbourhood of Paris is fuelling new calls from the French right for tougher action on immigration.

The body of the young woman, named only as Philippine, was found on Saturday, half-buried in the Bois de Boulogne park on the western edge of the capital.

She had last been seen on Friday lunchtime a few hundred metres away, as she left the Paris-Dauphine university campus where she was studying economics.

The suspected killer was traced to Geneva, where he was arrested on Tuesday and awaits deportation to France.

He is a 22 year-old Moroccan man who was released from detention in France earlier this month after serving five years for raping a student in 2019.

Named by French media as Taha O, he was the subject of an expulsion order from France, which had not been carried out.

For France’s hardline new interior minister Bruno Retailleau, it is a first test after he took office last week promising that his top three priorities would be to “establish order, establish order and establish order.”

“It is up to us as public officials to … change our legal arsenal in order to protect the French,” he said on the X social media platform.

The far-right National Rally (RN) seized on the murder as more evidence of the laxity of the French judicial system.

“This migrant had no right to be here, but he was able to offend again in total impunity. Our justice is too lenient; our state is dysfunctional. It is time for the government to act,” said the RN’s president, Jordan Bardella.

With more than 120 members of parliament, the RN has leverage over the minority government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier because it can decide at any time to support a vote of no confidence and potentially bring it down.

Some left-wing politicians joined calls for greater effectiveness in carrying out expulsion orders.

The suspect “should have gone straight from prison to plane”, said Socialist party leader Olivier Faure.

Currently fewer than 10% of French expulsion orders are carried out, according to government figures.

Sandrine Rousseau of the Ecologists said the murder was a “femicide” which should be “punished severely”. But she warned that the far right would “exploit it to spread its racist and xenophobic hate”.

Philippine’s disappearance led to an alert on a phone app called The Sorority, whose network of members are pledged to come to the help of women in distress.

Philippine did not have the app, but The Sorority said it issued a “missing persons notice” on Saturday to encourage members to join the search.

Philippine was on her way home to her parents’ house west of Paris when she disappeared. She was described as a quiet, model student by her colleagues and was involved in the scouting movement.

Her killing has raised fears about safety in the Bois de Boulogne, which abuts the expensive areas of Paris’s 16th (district).

The park has long been a centre of prostitution but local residents say parts have become increasingly frightening in recent years, because of the presence of drug-addicts and other suspicious characters.

Israel’s leaders are jubilant about the progress of the offensive against Hezbollah that started with the detonation of weaponised pagers and radios and moved on to intense and deadly airstrikes.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant did not hold back his praise after Monday’s air strikes.

“Today was a masterpiece… This was the worst week Hezbollah has had since its establishment, and the results speak for themselves.”

Gallant said airstrikes destroyed thousands of rockets that could have killed Israeli citizens. In the process Lebanon says Israel killed more than 550 of its citizens, including 50 children. That is almost half Lebanon’s dead in a month of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

Israel believes that a ferocious offensive will coerce Hezbollah into doing what it wants, inflicting so much pain that its leader Hassan Nasrallah and his allies and backers in Iran decide that the price of resistance is too high.

Israel’s politicians and generals need a victory. After almost a year of war Gaza has become a quagmire. Hamas fighters still emerge out of tunnels and ruins to kill and wound Israeli soldiers and are still holding Israeli hostages.

Hamas caught Israel by surprise last October. The Israelis did not see Hamas as a significant threat, with devastating consequences. Lebanon is different. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Mossad spy agency have been planning the next war against Hezbollah since the last war ended in a stalemate in 2006.

Israel’s leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believes the current offensive is making big progress towards his declared objective of tipping the balance of power away from Hezbollah.

He wants to stop Hezbollah firing rockets over the border into Israel. At the same time, the Israeli military says the plan is to force Hezbollah back from the border and to destroy military facilities that threaten Israel.

The last week in Lebanon brings back echoes of the last year of war in Gaza. Israel issued warnings to civilians, as it did in Gaza, to move out of areas about to be attacked. It blames Hezbollah, as it blames Hamas, for using civilians as human shields.

Some critics as well as enemies of Israel said the warnings were too vague and did not give enough time for families to evacuate. The laws of war demand that civilians be protected, and forbid indiscriminate, disproportionate use of force.

Some of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel have hit civilian areas, breaking laws designed to protect civilians. They have also targeted the Israeli military. Israel and key Western allies, including the US and UK, classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.

Israel insists it has a moral army that respects the rules. But much of the world has condemned its conduct in Gaza. The ignition of a wider border war will deepen the gap at the centre of a highly polarised argument.

Take the pager attack. Israel says it was aimed at Hezbollah operatives who had been issued with the pagers. But Israel could not know where they would be when the bombs inside the pagers were triggered, which was why civilians and children in homes, shops and other public places were wounded and killed. That, some leading lawyers say, proves that Israel was using deadly force without distinguishing between combatants and civilians; a violation of the rules of war.

The fight between Israel and Hezbollah started in the 1980s. But this border war began the day after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, when Hassan Nasrallah ordered his men to begin a limited, but almost daily barrage over the border to support Hamas. It tied up Israeli troops and forced around 60,000 people in border towns to leave their homes.

A few voices in the Israeli media have compared the impact of the air strikes on Hezbollah’s capacity to wage war to Operation Focus, Israel’s surprise attack on Egypt in June 1967. It was a famous raid that destroyed the Egyptian air force when its aircraft were lined up on the ground. Over the next six days Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The victory created the shape of the current conflict as Israel captured the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

It is not a good comparison. Lebanon, and war with Hezbollah, is different. Israel has inflicted heavy blows. But so far it has not stopped Hezbollah’s capacity or will to fire into Israel.

Israel’s earlier wars with Hezbollah were grinding, attritional and never produced a decisive victory for either side. This one might go the same way, however satisfying the last week of offensive action has been for Israel, its intelligence services and its military.

Israel’s offensive rests on an assumption – a gamble – that a point will come when Hezbollah will crumple, retreat from the border and stop firing into Israel. Most observers of Hezbollah believe it will not stop. Fighting Israel is the main reason why Hezbollah exists.

That means Israel, just as reluctant to admit defeat, would have to escalate the war further. If Hezbollah continued to make northern Israel too dangerous for Israeli civilians to return home, Israel would have to decide whether to launch a ground offensive, probably to capture a strip of land to act as a buffer zone.

Israel has invaded Lebanon before. In 1982 its forces swept up to Beirut to try to stop Palestinian raids into Israel. They were forced into an ignominious retreat in the face of fury at home and abroad, after Israeli troops held the perimeter as their Lebanese Christian allies massacred Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.

By the 1990s Israel still occupied a broad band of Lebanese land along the border. Today’s Israeli generals were then young officers, who fought in endless skirmishes and firefights against Hezbollah, which was growing stronger as it fought to drive Israel out. Ehud Barak, then Israel’s prime minister and a former chief of staff of the IDF, withdrew from the so-called “security zone” in 2000. He decided that it did not make Israel any safer and was costing Israel the lives of too many soldiers.

In 2006 an ill-judged raid by Hezbollah across the tense and highly militarised border killed and captured Israeli soldiers. After the war ended Hassan Nasrallah said he would not have allowed the raid had he realised what Israel would do in return. Ehud Olmert, by then Israel’s prime minister, went to war.

At first Israel hoped air power would stop rocket attacks into Israel. When it did not, ground troops and tanks once again rolled back over the border. The war was a disaster for Lebanese civilians. But on the last day of the war, Hezbollah was still launching salvoes of rockets into Israel.

Israel’s commanders know that entering Lebanon under fire would be much more formidable military challenge than fighting Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah has also been making plans since the end of the 2006 war, and would be fighting on home ground, in south Lebanon which has plenty of rugged, hilly terrain that suits guerrilla tactics.

Israel has not been able to destroy all the tunnels Hamas dug through sand in Gaza. In the borderlands of south Lebanon, Hezbollah has spent the last 18 years preparing tunnels and positions in solid rock. It has a formidable arsenal, supplied by Iran. Unlike Hamas in Gaza, it can be resupplied by land through Syria.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington DC, estimates that Hezbollah has around 30,000 active fighters and up to 20,000 reserves, mostly trained as mobile small units of light infantry. Many of its men have combat experience fighting in support of the Assad regime in Syria.

Most estimates say that Hezbollah has something between 120,000 and 200,000 missiles and rockets, ranging from unguided weapons to longer-range weapons that could hit Israel’s cities.

Israel may be gambling that Hezbollah will not use all of them, fearful that the Israeli air force will do to Lebanon what it did to Gaza, turning entire towns to rubble and killing thousands of civilians. Iran might not want Hezbollah to use weapons it would like to reserve as insurance against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That’s another gamble. Hezbollah might decide to use more of its arsenal before Israel destroys it.

With the war continuing in Gaza, and rising levels of violence on the occupied West Bank, Israel would also have to contemplate a third front if it invaded Lebanon. Its soldiers are motivated, well trained and equipped, but the reserve units that provide much of Israel’s fighting power are already feeling the strain after a year of war.

Israel’s allies, led by the United States, did not want Israel to escalate the war with Hezbollah and do not want it to invade Lebanon. They insist that only diplomacy can make the border safe enough for civilians to return to their homes on either side of it. An American envoy has worked out an agreement, partly based on UN Security resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war.

But diplomats have their hands tied without a ceasefire in Gaza. Hasan Nasrallah has said Hezbollah will stop attacking Israel only when the Gaza war stops. At the moment neither Hamas nor the Israelis are prepared to make the necessary concessions that would produce a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and a swap of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

As Israeli air strikes continue to pound Lebanon, civilians who were already struggling to provide for their families in a broken economy face terrible pain and uncertainty. Fear crosses front lines. Israelis know that Hezbollah could do them much worse damage than they have in the last year.

Israel believes the time has come to be aggressive and audacious, to blast Hezbollah away from its borders. But it faces an obdurate, well-armed and angry enemy. This is the most dangerous crisis in the long year of war since Hamas attacked Israel and at the moment nothing is stopping it spiralling towards something much worse.

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A zoo in Finland will return two giant pandas to China eight years early, saying it can no longer afford to look after them.

Lumi and Pyry were brought to Finland in 2018, after the two countries signed an agreement to protect the animals.

They were meant to stay in the Nordic country for 15 years, but will be sent home in November – with Ähtäri Zoo blaming inflation and debt linked to the Covid pandemic for the pandas’ eviction.

It also said the zoo spent €1.5m (£1.2m) a year on the pandas’ upkeep, as well as more than €8m on their enclosure.

Mahrko Haekosky, curator at Ähtäri Zoo, said the €1.5m upkeep was “much more than all the other species combined”.

It included a keeper required to stay with them at all times, a preservation fee to China and imported bamboo.

“It’s a good thing for the zoo because they were so expensive,” but the pandas had been “doing really well, so it’s a pity”, said Mr Haekosky.

“They’re really nice to work with.”

Another factor in the decision to return the pandas was the Finnish government rejecting pleas for state funding last year.

“They thought the pandas would bring more visitors, and that it was a good investment – turns out it wasn’t so”, said Mr Haekosky.

The zoo revealed last year that it was discussing their return.

Lumi and Pyry will soon go into a month-long quarantine before they are shipped back to China.

A spokesperson for Finland’s foreign ministry said the pandas’ return was a business decision that did not involve the government, and that it should not impact relations between Finland and China.

Finland’s Chinese embassy, meanwhile, told the Reuters news agency that while efforts had been made to try and help the zoo, a joint decision was eventually made to send the animals back.

China sends pandas to foreign zoos to strengthen its trading ties, relationships and image abroad – termed ‘panda diplomacy’.

Australian Olympic swimming coach Dick Caine has died, weeks after he was found guilty of raping and sexually abusing six female students.

Caine, who had been in palliative care for terminal cancer, died on Wednesday morning, the BBC understands. He was 78.

Caine was charged with 39 offences committed against the teenage girls in the 1970s and 1980s. The assaults took place at a swimming pool in Sydney, in his home and in his car.

The six victims were due to deliver their victim impact statements at a special hearing in December, but this is unlikely to go ahead due to Caine’s death.

Caine took an interest in pre-pubescent and pubescent girls, District Judge Paul McGuire said during his conviction hearing in August. One of his victims was only 10 years old at the time.

The judge noted the power imbalance between Caine and the young girls due to his authority and their age differences, adding that the girls relied on Caine to help them achieve their swimming aspirations.

Caine, who was arrested in 2022, did not appear for a single day of his hearing because he was deemed unfit to do so. A court previously heard he had terminal lung and throat cancer.

According to reports, Caine was the head coach at Carss Park swimming pool in Sydney for more than 40 years until he retired in 2018. He trained several Olympic and world champion swimmers, including Michelle Ford, Janelle Elford and Stacey Gartrell.

Child protection activist Hetty Johnston said it was disappointing that the special hearing in December will no longer proceed, as the victims had waited decades for their day in court, according to an ABC report.

“The whole thing is just a tragedy that it took so long to get to this point of the legal process, that he’s now passed,” she said.

The late leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, once famously called Cuba “the safest country in the world”.

In terms of the island’s low rates of violent crime and the scarcity of guns circulating among the civilian population, he may well have had a case for that title.

His critics, of course, responded that the low crime rate was achieved through intimidation, that Castro’s Cuba was – and still remains – a police state which brokered no criticism of its communist-led government, and which rode roughshod over its opponents’ human rights.

However it was done, few could deny that Cuba’s streets have traditionally been among the safest in the Americas.

Yet it doesn’t feel to Samantha González like she lives in the world’s safest nation. Her younger brother, an aspiring music producer called Jan Franco, was murdered two months ago in an apparent gang-related dispute.

From the low-income Havana neighbourhood of Cayo Hueso and just 19 years old when he was killed, Jan Franco was stabbed twice in the chest outside a recording studio, caught in the middle of an argument when someone pulled a knife.

“I still can’t understand it,” says Samantha, struggling to express her grief as she scrolls through old photos of her brother on her phone.

“He was the light of our family.”

Just 20 herself and mother of a one-year-old boy, Samantha says that Jan Franco was one of many young people to lose their lives in the streets in recent months:

“So many young people have been killed this year,” she explains.

“The violence is getting out of hand. They’re basically gangs, and they fall out with each other as gangs. That’s where it’s all coming from, these killings and deaths of young people.”

They often solve their quarrels with knives and machetes, she says.

“Almost no-one settles an argument with their fists anymore. It’s all knives, machetes, even guns. Things I just don’t understand,” her voice trails off.

The situation has been worsened by a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap chemical high with a cannabis base. Samantha says that it’s increasingly popular among Cuban youth in the parks and on the streets.

Previously, even suggesting that Cuba had a problem with opioids and street gangs – especially to a foreign journalist – could land you in difficulties.

The Cuban authorities have always been fiercely protective of their island’s reputation as crime-free and quick to point out that the streets are demonstrably safer than those of most cities in the US. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is generally painted as biased criticism of their socialist system or as anti-revolutionary fabrications originating from Miami or Washington.

However, such has been the public perception of a worsening crime rate, a perception shared by many Cubans on social media, that the authorities have openly addressed it on state television.

In August, an edition of nightly talk programme Mesa Redonda – in which Communist Party officials are invited on air to deliver the party line – was titled Cuba Against Drugs.

During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, the head of the interior ministry’s anti-drug unit, acknowledged the existence, production and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuba’s youth. He insisted the authorities were tackling the issue.

In another edition, on crime, the government denied the situation was worsening, claiming only 9% of crimes in Cuba were violent and just 3% were murders.

However, critics question the transparency of the government’s statistics and say there’s no independent oversight of the bodies which produce them or the methodologies they use.

For its part, the government largely blames the old enemy, the United States, for both the existence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and for the decades-long US economic embargo on the island which they say is the reason some Cubans have resorted to crime.

In a rare interview, the vice-president of Cuba’s Supreme Court, Maricela Sosa Ravelo, told the BBC the problem was being blown out of proportion on social media. She refuted the suggestion that many crimes go unreported through a lack of public confidence in the police.

“In my 30 years as a judge and magistrate, I don’t think that the Cuban people lack confidence in their authorities,” she claimed, speaking inside the ornate Supreme Court building.

“In Cuba, the police have a high success rate in solving crimes. We don’t see people taking the law into their own hands – which happens in other parts of Latin America and elsewhere – which suggests the population trusts in the Cuban justice system,” she argued.

Again, though, that wasn’t the experience of another recent victim of opportunistic theft on Havana’s dimly lit streets.

Shyra is a transgender activist who is used to speaking out about rights in Cuba. She says that her story, of being robbed by a man brandishing a knife one evening, is common.

But it was the police response which disillusioned her the most.

“Just after I was attacked, I came across two motorcycle police in a side street,” Shyra recalls. Despite her obvious distress, the police ignored her pleas for help, she says.

“They openly told me: ‘We’re not here for stuff like that.’ It was such a shocking thing to hear because I told them where they could find the attacker, showed them which direction he was headed in, what he was wearing. But they just didn’t pay me any attention.”

In the small apartment she shares with her mother, Samantha González watches videos of her younger brother’s wake. A crowd of Jan Franco’s friends appeared outside his home and began singing the songs which he’d produced before his fledgling music career was cut short.

As his coffin was loaded onto the hearse, the mourners fell silent, except for the soft murmur of weeping and prayer.

Buried with him, and every young victim of violence on the island, is another piece of Cuba’s claim to be the world’s safest nation.

Canadian lawmakers are set to vote on a motion that could bring down Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and trigger an election, though it is unlikely to pass.

Wednesday’s no-confidence vote is the first in a series of similar votes expected to be put forward by the opposition Conservative Party amid Trudeau’s plummeting approval ratings.

The motion is expected to fail, as the leaders of two other political parties – the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Québécois – have indicated that they will not support it.

Trudeau, who has been Canada’s prime minister for nine years, has been leading under a minority government.

Voting is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, on the same day as Trudeau is set to host French president Emmanuel Macron.

Trudeau has been facing growing pressure to step down in recent months.

His approval rating has plummeted from 63% when he was first elected to 28% in June of this year, according to one poll tracker, amid concerns about housing unaffordability and the rising costs of living. His Liberal party lost two consequential by-elections this summer in Toronto and Montreal.

A deal between his party and the NDP has helped him stay in power since Canada’s last federal election in 2021.

But the deal collapsed early in September after NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pulled out from the coalition, saying that the Liberals are “too weak” and “too selfish” to govern.

Trudeau’s leadership has been under threat since, with Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre stating that he would put forward a no-confidence vote.

The vote would need the approval of the majority of the 338 members of parliament (MPs) in order for it to pass.

The Liberal Party, which holds 153 seats, is expected to vote against it, while the Conservative Party, which holds 119 seats, will likely vote in favour.

The bulk of the other seats are held by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois – both have signalled they will vote against it.

Pierre Polievere, who has been leading in various national polls, has urged fellow MPs to vote in favour of the motion by outlining his vision for Canada under a Conservative government.

His plan, he said on Tuesday in parliament, is “to bring home the promise of Canada, of a powerful paycheque that earns affordable food, gas and homes and safe neighbourhoods”.

But Singh, the NDP leader, said he will vote against Poilievre’s motion because he believes the Conservative Party will cut social programmes like dental care and pharmacare if it comes to power.

The Bloc Québécois – a party whose aim is to represent the interests of Quebec, Canada’s French-speaking province – has said it believes it could work with the Liberal government to secure assurances for Quebec-focused social programmes.

Trudeau was at the UN General Assembly earlier this week in New York City, where on Monday he appeared as a guest on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

In his interview with Colbert, Trudeau acknowledged that Canadians were going through “a really tough time” and struggling to afford gas, groceries and rent.

But he defended his leadership, saying that his government had invested in Canadians and would continue to do so.

“I’m going to keep fighting,” he said.

Thailand’s king has signed a marriage equality bill into law, making the country the first in South East Asia to recognise same-sex unions.

The bill cleared the Senate in June but required royal endorsement to become law. It was published in the Royal Gazette on Tuesday and will come into effect on 22 January next year.

Activists hailed the move as historic – it marks the culmination of years of campaigning for marriage equality.

Thailand has long been seen as a relative haven for the LGBTQ+ community in a region where such attitudes are rare.

The new law uses gender-neutral terms in place of “husbands”, “wives”, “men” and “women”. And it grants same-sex couples adoption and inheritance rights.

“Today we’re not only getting to write our names in marriage certificates, but we are also writing a page in history… that tells us that love never set a condition of who we were born to be,” Ann Chumaporn, a longtime LGBTQ+ activist and co-founder of the Bangkok Pride movement, told the BBC.

“It’s a triumph of equality and human dignity.”

She said she plans to organise a mass wedding for more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ couples on 22 January.

“[The legal recognition] means we are fully accepted and can live our lives without conditions or compromises,” said advertising strategist Kwankaow Koosakulnirund.

“Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community can now look toward a future beyond relationships, embracing the sense of pride that this law brings,” he said.

“We are all delighted and excited. We’ve been fighting for our rights for over 10 years, and now it’s finally happening,” another activist, Siritata Ninlapruek, told AFP news agency.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on X: “Congratulations on everyone’s love. #LoveWins.”

Former PM Srettha Thavisin, who has been vocal in his support for the bill, also applauded the development as a “significant step” for Thailand.

“Equity and equality have become concrete in the Thai society. Gender diversity will eventually be fully accepted. Congratulations,” he wrote on X.

When the law comes into effect, Thailand will become only the third place in Asia, after Taiwan and Nepal, where same-sex couples can get married.

In 2019, Taiwan’s parliament became the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. Nepal registered its first same-sex union in November last year, five months after its Supreme Court ruled in favour of it.

This was just one month after India’s top court had ruled against it, leaving the decision to the government, which said it would set up a panel to decide on more legal rights for same-sex couples.

Singapore scrapped a colonial-era law that banned gay sex in 2022, but also amended its constitution to prevent the courts from challenging the definition of marriage as one between a man and a woman.

A teacher who sent a girl naked photographs and a video of himself performing a sex act has been banned from classrooms in England.

David Amos contacted the student at Sedgefield Community College in County Durham, where he taught, by email and then on the social media platform Snapchat.

He was jailed for 30 months in October 2022 after admitting causing a child to watch a sexual activity and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Banning him from the profession for life, the Teaching Regulation Agency said his behaviour “fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession”.

The panel found Amos “used his position of trust” to engage in “sexual communications” with the girl, who was under 16.

It added his actions “were serious sexual misconduct against a child”.

The panel said a lack of insight and remorse meant there was some risk of Amos reoffending if he was allowed to return to the classroom which would put pupils’ wellbeing “at risk”.

He had been employed by the college between January 2017 and October 2022.

He is now prohibited from teaching indefinitely in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England, although he can appeal to the High Court within 28 days of the decision having been made.

As well as the jail term, Amos was also required to register with police indefinitely and a 10-year sexual harm prevention order was put in place while his iPad and phone were destroyed.

China has announced it is investigating the company that owns US fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein for suspected “discriminatory measures” against Xinjiang cotton companies.

The move marks a new effort by Beijing to fight back against allegations from western officials and human rights activists that cotton and other goods in the region have been produced using forced labour from the Uyghur ethnic group.

The US banned imports from the area in 2021, citing those concerns.

China’s Ministry of Commerce accused the firm of “boycotting Xinjiang cotton and other products without any factual basis”.

PVH, which owns the two brands and has a significant presence in China as well as the US, said it was in contact with Chinese authorities.

It has 30 days to respond to officials, at which point it could be added to the country’s “unreliable entities” list, raising the prospect of further punishment.

“As a matter of company policy, PVH maintains strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations in all countries and regions in which we operate,” the company said. “We are in communication with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and will respond in accordance with the relevant regulations.”

On Wednesday, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce official denied that the probe was linked to US plans to ban certain Chinese electric vehicle technology.

“China has always handled the issue of the unreliable entity list prudently, targeting only a very small number of foreign entities that undermine market rules and violate Chinese laws,” they said.

“Honest and law-abiding foreign entities have nothing to worry about.”

Cullen Hendrix, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, said it was not clear exactly what prompted the investigation into PVH now.

But he said the announcement was likely to hurt the firm’s reputation among Chinese shoppers – and send a wider warning to global firms of the risks of simply bowing to western concerns.

“China is, to a certain extent, flexing its muscle and reminding, not necessarily western governments, but western firms… that actions have consequences,” he said.

“This same kind of naming-and-shaming tactic, that human rights organisations in the west have used, can be weaponised here.”

The investigation of PVH comes as tensions between China and the west have been growing on a range of issues, including electric cars and manufacturing.

On Monday, the US proposed rules to ban the use of certain technology in Chinese and Russian cars, citing security threats.

China has previously put US firms on its unreliable entities list, which it created as trade tensions heated up between Beijing and Washington.

Those firms were major defence contractors, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, over their business in Taiwan.

Mr Hendrix said the decision to target PVH – a consumer-facing firm with a clearly recognisable US brand – showed the two countries’ disputes were widening beyond areas such as defence and advanced technologies.

“These things have a way of spilling over,” he said. “It’s affecting a growing number of supply chains across different sectors of the economy.”

In its annual report, PVH warned investors of revenue and reputational risks stemming from the fight over Xinjiang.

It noted that the issue had been “subject to significant scrutiny and contention in China, the United States and elsewhere, resulting in criticism against multinational companies, including us”.

The company was named in a 2020 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that identified dozens of firms that were allegedly benefiting from labour abuses in Xinjiang.

At the time PVH said it took the reports seriously and would continue to work to address the matter.

PVH employs more than 29,000 people globally and does more than 65% of its sales outside of the US.