A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central Israel killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others on Sunday, the Israeli military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.

Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city a retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It later said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defence systems during the assault by “squadrons” of drones.

Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. With Israel’s advanced air-defence systems, it is rare for so many people to be hurt in aerial attacks, but Israel has struggled to deal with Hezbollah’s newly deployed Iranian-made drones in the past 12 months; they are small and hard to detect as they emit only weak radar signals.

Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily in the year since the war in Gaza began, and fighting has escalated.

The attack followed news that the US is sending a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) missile defence battery to Israel, reportedly along with about 100 US troops, deepening American involvement in the crisis-hit region. The last time the US sent such a missile system to the Middle East was in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 October last year. The Pentagon said a Thaad was deployed to southern Israel for drills in 2019, the last and only time it was known to be there.

When asked why he had decided to give permission for the deployment, the US president, Joe Biden, said: “To defend Israel”, which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on 1 October.

The Pentagon spokesperson Maj Gen Patrick Ryder described the deployment as part of “the broader adjustments the US military has made in recent months” to support Israel and defend US personnel from attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.

US officials did not say how quickly the system would be deployed to Israel, and an Israeli army spokesperson declined to provide a timeline for the arrival of the system.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned earlier on Sunday that the US was putting the lives of its troops “at risk by deploying them to operate US missile systems in Israel”. “While we have made tremendous efforts in recent days to contain an all-out war in our region, I say it clearly that we have no red lines in defending our people and interests,” Araghchi posted on X.

A Thaad battery usually requires about 100 troops to operate. It counts six truck-mounted launchers, with eight interceptors on each launcher, and a powerful radar.

Early on Monday, Hezbollah threatened Israel with more attacks if its offensive in Lebanon continues.

In a statement, the group described the Binyamina attack as a “complex” operation, in which dozens of missiles were launched towards Nahariya and Acre, north of Haifa, “with the goal of keeping Israeli defence systems busy”.

At the same time, it launched “squadrons of various drones, some of which were being used for the first time”, which were able to “get past Israeli air defence radars without being detected” and hit the training camp in Binyamina south of Haifa.

They “exploded in the rooms where dozens of officers and soldiers of the Israeli enemy were present”, the Hezbollah statement claimed. The IDF said the drone struck the dining room at the site during the evening meal, penetrating the roof.

In Lebanon, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Sunday denounced attacks that have injured several peacekeepers, his spokesperson said, after a UN peacekeeping mission, Unifil, said two Israeli tanks destroyed a gate and forcibly entered a base in the south of the country. Stéphane Dujarric, Guterres’s spokesperson, said: “Unifil peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly.

“The secretary general reiterates that Unifil personnel and its premises must never be targeted. Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” he said.

In a statement released late on Sunday, the Israeli military said a Merkava tank had been trying to evacuate injured soldiers and had backed into the Unifil post accidentally while under fire amid a smokescreen.

In a videoed statement addressed to Guterres on Sunday, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterated Israeli calls for Unifil troops to evacuate. “The time has come for you to withdraw Unifil from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones,” he said. “The IDF has requested this repeatedly and has met with repeated refusal, which has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”

He later said on X: “Israel will make every effort to prevent Unifil casualties and will do what it takes to win the war.”

The incident in Ramyah on Sunday morning was the latest in a string of violations that Unifil, the UN force deployed since 1978 to southern Lebanon, has blamed on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Inside Gaza, Israeli tank shelling killed at least 20 people including children at a school on Sunday night, according to two local hospitals. The school in Nuseirat was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the war.

Meanwhile, explosions hit early on Monday in the courtyard of al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing at least four people and wounding 40.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers is expanding, according to research, transporting up to 70% of the country’s seaborne oil despite western efforts to curb Moscow’s wartime energy revenues.

The volume of Russian oil being transported by poorly maintained and underinsured tankers has almost doubled in a year to 4.1m barrels a day by June, according to a report published on Monday by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).

The findings underscore the multiple difficulties faced by Kyiv’s western allies in their efforts to isolate Russia’s economy in an attempt to force Moscow to end its war in Ukraine.

In December 2022, the UK – alongside G7 countries, Australia, and the EU – implemented a price cap of $60 a barrel to restrict western companies from transporting, servicing or brokering Russian crude oil cargoes in order to undermine Russia’s oil trade, which is heavily reliant on western-owned and insured tankers.

The move was viewed at the time as a compromise amid concerns that a full embargo could lead to rocketing oil prices and a global oil price shock.

However, Russia quickly discovered a workaround to the measures by utilising a so-called shadow fleet of older tankers with opaque ownership, enabling it to sell a significant portion of its oil above the price cap.

The KSE paper estimates that Russia has invested at least $10bn (£7.6bn) into the fleet since early 2022. “The strategy has significantly reduced the sanctions regime’s leverage,” the report says.

More than 630 tankers – some more than 20 years old – are involved in shipping Russian oil, as well as Iranian crude that has been subjected to sanctions, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime information service.

Western governments have attempted to clamp down on Russia’s shadow fleet, with the UK last month announcing sanctions on 10 ships that it believes to be at the heart of the operation.

KSE, which calls for tougher sanctions on Russian oil, has also warned that the uninsured Russian shadow fleet could soon cause an environmental catastrophe in European waters. Much of the Russian oil is transported through busy international transport routes, including the Baltic Sea and the strait of Gibraltar.

“Large oil spills have so far been avoided but a major disaster is waiting to happen and cleanup costs would reach billions,” the KSE paper reads.

The Swedish foreign minister previously told the Guardian that Moscow appeared prepared to create “environmental havoc” by sailing unseaworthy oil tankers through the Baltic Sea in breach of maritime rules.

Donald Trump railed against a just released biopic about his life in a social media screed early on Monday, calling it a “cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job” meant to thwart his presidential candidacy.

The Apprentice portrays how Trump created his real estate empire under the tutelage of Roy Cohn, a notoriously cutthroat attorney and power-broker in 1970s and 1980s New York City, Intelligencer notes. Trump is played by the Marvel actor Sebastian Stan and Cohn by the Succession star Jeremy Strong.

Trump’s ex-wife Ivana Trump is played by Maria Bakalova – whose breakout role in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm landed her an Academy award nomination. There is a disclaimer at the beginning of The Apprentice indicating that portions were “fictionalized for dramatic purposes”, Intelligencer notes.

In his rant Trump described the film as “fake and classless”. Trump said he hoped it would “bomb” and alleged that the was “put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’”

The Apprentice has spurred praise and controversy since its premiere at the Cannes film festival in May. The screenwriter, Gabriel Sherman, described numerous roadblocks in its production.

Actors were reluctant to “humanize” Trump, Sherman said in Vanity Fair, and Hollywood institutions did not want to fund the project. And, the most significant investor into this project allegedly threatened to kill the film after viewing it.

This investor was Dan Snyder, a billionaire who formerly owned the NFL’s Washington Commanders and a major Trump supporter. Snyder reportedly invested in The Apprentice through his son-in-law Mark Rapaport’s film production company, Variety said.

“He was under the impression that it was a flattering portrayal of the 45th president,” the outlet reported.

The Apprentice is anything but. It contains a scene in which Trump’s character appears to sexually assault his first wife, Ivana, takes amphetamines, undergoes liposuction, and receives a hair transplant.

Ivana claimed that Trump raped her during a divorce deposition, but later recanted this allegation. Trump has denied attacking Ivana. Trump, who has been found liable of sexually abusing the writer E Jean Carroll in civil court, has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women.

Trump’s lawyers sent The Apprentice’s film-makers cease-and-desist letters, and prominent distributors would not go near it. “Hollywood fashions itself as a community of truth tellers,” Sherman said, “but here they were running from a movie to prepare for a Trump presidency.”

In his social media attack posted just before 1am, Trump focused on the film’s depiction of Ivana, who died in July 2022 after an accidental fall.

“My former wife, Ivana, was a kind and wonderful person, and I had a great relationship with her until the day she died,” Trump wrote. “The writer of this pile of garbage, Gabe Sherman, a lowlife and talentless hack, who has long been widely discredited, knew that, but chose to ignore it.

“So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us. MAGA2024!”

The film’s director, Ali Abbasi, seemed unbothered by Trump’s Truth Social invective.

“Thanks for getting back to us @realDonaldTrump,” Abbasi posted on X this morning, with a screenshot of his post. “I am available to talk further if you want. Today is a tight day w a lot of press for #TheApprentice but i might be able to give you a call tomorrow.”

Asked to elaborate on Trump’s statement, his campaign pointed to Sherman’s comments about fictionalization in the film.

“The filmmakers now readily admit they fabricated scenes and created fake stories to fit some deranged narrative about President Trump that is completely untrue. This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” Steven Cheung, Trump campaign communications director, said in a statement.

Cheung likened the film to purported “witch-hunts” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, saying it was “election interference by Hollywood elites right before November, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.

“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should never see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire,” Cheung also said.

A far-right Danish-Swedish politician who burned copies of the Qur’an in Sweden has gone on trial charged with incitement against an ethnic group.

Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the Danish political party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), is the first person to go on trial in Sweden in relation to Qur’an burnings.

He refused to attend Malmö district court as proceedings began on Monday, saying his life would be in danger if he went to the southern Swedish city. Instead, he appeared by video link from an undisclosed location in Sweden.

Paludan, 42, is charged with two counts of incitement against an ethnic group and one count of insult in relation to gatherings held in Sweden in 2022.

In April of that year, Paludan held a public meeting that was followed by riots in Swedish cities including Malmö, Landskrona, Linköping and Örebro during the Easter weekend. At the meeting he made several statements that the prosecutor alleges were incitement against an ethnic group.

At another meeting, in September 2022, Paludan is accused of racially motivated verbal attacks on “Arabs and Africans”. For this he is charged with insult, a crime that under Swedish law is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to six months. Paludan denies all the charges.

Taking the stand remotely, Paludan said: “I am a critic of Islam and criticise Islam. Not Muslims.” He added: “I want to criticise ideas not people.”

In the summer of 2023 a string of Qur’an burning protests in Sweden, including outside parliament, prompted domestic debate over Sweden’s exceptionally liberal freedom of expression laws. It also led to a diplomatic row between Sweden and Muslim countries.

Paludan’s burning of the Qur’an outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January 2023 is widely thought to have slowed Sweden’s passage to Nato membership.

Vilhelm Persson, a law professor at Lund University, said Paludan’s trial had “a fundamental significance” in that it was the first case to be tried in connection to burning of the Qur’an. But he said the fact that the trial was being heard in a district court meant it had limitations. In order for it to set legal precedent, it would need to be heard in the Swedish supreme court.

The prosecutor’s office said on Monday: “Today, October 14, the main hearing starts in Malmö district court in the case where a 42-year-old man has been charged with two counts of incitement against an ethnic group and an insult. The events took place in April and September 2022 in Malmö.”

The senior prosecutor Adrien Combier-Hogg said in August: “My assessment is that there are sufficient reasons to bring charges and now the district court will hear the case.”

A former officer in the East German secret police has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for the murder of a Polish firefighter at a Berlin border crossing 50 years ago.

Martin Naumann, now 80, shot Czesław Kukuczka in the back at close range on 29 March 1974 as Kukuczka walked towards the last in a series of control posts at a transit area in the divided city, having been told he had a free pass to escape to West Berlin.

The truth surrounding Kukuczka’s death was never revealed to his family. Instead, his cremated remains were sent in an urn to his wife, Emilia, weeks later, after which he was buried in a private ceremony by his family in southern Poland.

It took the dogged research skills of a historian immersed in the history of the Ministry for State Security (MfS), or the Stasi – which was the intelligence service and secret police of the communist GDR – to unearth the details of the case years later.

Stefan Appelius found documents about the shooting and the subsequent attempts to cover it up in the archives of the former Stasi, and tracked down Kukuczka’s family in Poland. They alerted the Polish judiciary to the case, who issued a European arrest warrant for Naumann in 2021, which put pressure on German investigative authorities to reopen the case after decades of inaction. Naumann was charged with murder in October last year.

Details specifically linking Naumann to the killing had only emerged in 2016, after documents shredded by Stasi officers in the dying days of the regime in order to cover up its activities were pieced together by a digital puzzler machine manufactured specially for the purpose.

Naumann, from Leipzig, who had repeatedly denied the charges against him, was one of the first former East German officials to be charged with murder instead of manslaughter. Prosecutors had demanded a 12-year prison sentence for him, highlighting the “particularly treacherous” characteristic of the killing, namely that Kukuczka was shot having believed he had made it to freedom.

The court heard how Kukuczka, a 38-year-old father of three from the mountain village of Kamienica near Krakow in southern Poland, had entered the Polish embassy in East Berlin, demanding permission to allow him to go to West Germany. He had threatened to detonate a fake explosive, which he claimed would have blown up the embassy and other buildings, if he was turned down.

Research by the historians Filip Gańczak and Hans-Hermann Hertle found that embassy staff had contacted the Stasi, telling them of Kukuczka’s threat. In apparent collusion with the embassy, Stasi officials came to meet the Pole, handed him an exit visa and five West Deutschmarks and drove him to the nearby Friedrichstraße border point. While Kukuczka was under the impression he was soon to be a free man, Stasi officers had been ordered that he should be “rendered harmless”, using a euphemism commonly used for the killing of political opponents.

Naumann, hiding behind a strategically placed screen at the station, shot Kukuczka in the back from a distance of around 2 metres after he had crossed two of three control points.

According to the Stasi’s report into the incident, “operative forces” succeeded at around 3pm “to render [Kukuczka] harmless without attracting any special attention from other outgoing travellers”.

Naumann was described by a lawyer for Kukuczka’s daughter, who was 18 at the time of her father’s death, as “the last link in a chain of command” that led to the killing, but ultimately it was he who carried out the order, the court heard.

Naumann’s lawyer, Andrea Liebscher, had insisted her client was innocent and that there was no proof that he carried out the shooting or that the killing could be deemed murder rather than manslaughter, on which the statute of limitations would have already expired. She said having made a bomb threat, Kukuczka was not an innocent party and “would have to have expected authorities to intervene with weapons”.

Naumann typically appeared in court wearing a black corduroy cap and trainers, and clutching an office file to cover his face. He was described as having lived a life of quiet retirement for decades in suburban Leipzig, until his past caught up with him in 2016. He spoke only once to confirm his identity. He was decorated after the murder, for special services to border protection (as was the doctor who treated Kukuczka in hospital before he was pronounced dead).

Among those to give evidence were three pensioners who were at the time teenagers on a school trip to the communist East Berlin from West Germany. Petra L, 65, a retired teacher from Hessen, recalled having spent a “typical day” in East Berlin before returning with her classmates through the border controls in the heavily guarded underground tunnel at Friedrichstraße station. A man in sunglasses caught her attention, she said. “It was odd, because we were underground.” She told the court how the man had pulled a pistol, and shot at a man who had passed him with a briefcase, and recalled how those around her “held their hands to their mouths in shock”.

“Suddenly doors opened where none had been before then, and people in uniform emerged and sealed the passage,” she said.

On the sidelines of the trial, Gańczak said that while authorities in communist Poland and their counterparts in East Germany (GDR) had attempted to cover up the murder, they disagreed on how to present it. “Whilst the Polish side wanted it to look like Kukuczka had taken his own life, the GDR was not in agreement … According to a shortened version of events they prepared, there had been an incident at the border crossing, which had resulted in Kukuczka being killed. The family was not allowed to ask further questions.”

In one version, Kukuczka was said to have been armed, but there is no evidence to back this up. The explosive he alleged he was carrying was nonexistent.

Kukuczka was taken to the Stasi prison hospital in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, where he was pronounced dead after having bled to death, according to an autopsy.

In a reflection of its historical importance, the trial was recorded, similarly to some Holocaust-related trials of recent years.

Kukuckza’s family, including his sister, and his daughter, now 68, do not know to this day what their father had planned. According to anecdotes he had hankered after a life in Florida.

An estimated 140 people or more were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall, which divided the city between 1961 and 1989. The handful of East German officials and border guards who have so far faced prosecution for the deaths have mostly been charged with manslaughter.

Higher-ranked officials have often escaped justice. Attempts to try Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1989, repeatedly failed until, in 1993, he was sentenced to six years in prison for the 1931 murder of two police officers as a young communist combatant.

A former officer in the East German secret police has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for the murder of a Polish firefighter at a Berlin border crossing 50 years ago.

Martin Naumann, now 80, shot Czesław Kukuczka in the back at close range on 29 March 1974 as Kukuczka walked towards the last in a series of control posts at a transit area in the divided city, having been told he had a free pass to escape to West Berlin.

The truth surrounding Kukuczka’s death was never revealed to his family. Instead, his cremated remains were sent in an urn to his wife, Emilia, weeks later, after which he was buried in a private ceremony by his family in southern Poland.

It took the dogged research skills of a historian immersed in the history of the Ministry for State Security (MfS), or the Stasi – which was the intelligence service and secret police of the communist GDR – to unearth the details of the case years later.

Stefan Appelius found documents about the shooting and the subsequent attempts to cover it up in the archives of the former Stasi, and tracked down Kukuczka’s family in Poland. They alerted the Polish judiciary to the case, who issued a European arrest warrant for Naumann in 2021, which put pressure on German investigative authorities to reopen the case after decades of inaction. Naumann was charged with murder in October last year.

Details specifically linking Naumann to the killing had only emerged in 2016, after documents shredded by Stasi officers in the dying days of the regime in order to cover up its activities were pieced together by a digital puzzler machine manufactured specially for the purpose.

Naumann, from Leipzig, who had repeatedly denied the charges against him, was one of the first former East German officials to be charged with murder instead of manslaughter. Prosecutors had demanded a 12-year prison sentence for him, highlighting the “particularly treacherous” characteristic of the killing, namely that Kukuczka was shot having believed he had made it to freedom.

The court heard how Kukuczka, a 38-year-old father of three from the mountain village of Kamienica near Krakow in southern Poland, had entered the Polish embassy in East Berlin, demanding permission to allow him to go to West Germany. He had threatened to detonate a fake explosive, which he claimed would have blown up the embassy and other buildings, if he was turned down.

Research by the historians Filip Gańczak and Hans-Hermann Hertle found that embassy staff had contacted the Stasi, telling them of Kukuczka’s threat. In apparent collusion with the embassy, Stasi officials came to meet the Pole, handed him an exit visa and five West Deutschmarks and drove him to the nearby Friedrichstraße border point. While Kukuczka was under the impression he was soon to be a free man, Stasi officers had been ordered that he should be “rendered harmless”, using a euphemism commonly used for the killing of political opponents.

Naumann, hiding behind a strategically placed screen at the station, shot Kukuczka in the back from a distance of around 2 metres after he had crossed two of three control points.

According to the Stasi’s report into the incident, “operative forces” succeeded at around 3pm “to render [Kukuczka] harmless without attracting any special attention from other outgoing travellers”.

Naumann was described by a lawyer for Kukuczka’s daughter, who was 18 at the time of her father’s death, as “the last link in a chain of command” that led to the killing, but ultimately it was he who carried out the order, the court heard.

Naumann’s lawyer, Andrea Liebscher, had insisted her client was innocent and that there was no proof that he carried out the shooting or that the killing could be deemed murder rather than manslaughter, on which the statute of limitations would have already expired. She said having made a bomb threat, Kukuczka was not an innocent party and “would have to have expected authorities to intervene with weapons”.

Naumann typically appeared in court wearing a black corduroy cap and trainers, and clutching an office file to cover his face. He was described as having lived a life of quiet retirement for decades in suburban Leipzig, until his past caught up with him in 2016. He spoke only once to confirm his identity. He was decorated after the murder, for special services to border protection (as was the doctor who treated Kukuczka in hospital before he was pronounced dead).

Among those to give evidence were three pensioners who were at the time teenagers on a school trip to the communist East Berlin from West Germany. Petra L, 65, a retired teacher from Hessen, recalled having spent a “typical day” in East Berlin before returning with her classmates through the border controls in the heavily guarded underground tunnel at Friedrichstraße station. A man in sunglasses caught her attention, she said. “It was odd, because we were underground.” She told the court how the man had pulled a pistol, and shot at a man who had passed him with a briefcase, and recalled how those around her “held their hands to their mouths in shock”.

“Suddenly doors opened where none had been before then, and people in uniform emerged and sealed the passage,” she said.

On the sidelines of the trial, Gańczak said that while authorities in communist Poland and their counterparts in East Germany (GDR) had attempted to cover up the murder, they disagreed on how to present it. “Whilst the Polish side wanted it to look like Kukuczka had taken his own life, the GDR was not in agreement … According to a shortened version of events they prepared, there had been an incident at the border crossing, which had resulted in Kukuczka being killed. The family was not allowed to ask further questions.”

In one version, Kukuczka was said to have been armed, but there is no evidence to back this up. The explosive he alleged he was carrying was nonexistent.

Kukuczka was taken to the Stasi prison hospital in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, where he was pronounced dead after having bled to death, according to an autopsy.

In a reflection of its historical importance, the trial was recorded, similarly to some Holocaust-related trials of recent years.

Kukuckza’s family, including his sister, and his daughter, now 68, do not know to this day what their father had planned. According to anecdotes he had hankered after a life in Florida.

An estimated 140 people or more were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall, which divided the city between 1961 and 1989. The handful of East German officials and border guards who have so far faced prosecution for the deaths have mostly been charged with manslaughter.

Higher-ranked officials have often escaped justice. Attempts to try Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1989, repeatedly failed until, in 1993, he was sentenced to six years in prison for the 1931 murder of two police officers as a young communist combatant.

Three US-based professors, including two UK-born academics, have been awarded this year’s Nobel prize in economics, for showing how the political and economic systems introduced by colonisers can determine whether a country is rich or poor today.

The explanation put forward by Turkish-American Daron Acemoğlu, Sheffield-born Simon Johnson and Briton James A Robinson, suggests that inclusive institutions set up for the long-term benefit of European migrants ended up resulting in more prosperous societies in the long term.

However, they found that in countries where the aim was to exploit the Indigenous population and extract resources for the colonisers’ benefit, the impact has been detrimental, and resulted in far poorer societies, leaving some countries trapped in low economic growth cycles.

“The laureates demonstrated that this led to a reversal of fortune. The places that were, relatively speaking, the richest at their time of colonisation are now among the poorest,” the Nobel prize announcement said.

“This is an important reason for why former colonies that were once rich are now poor, and vice versa,” it added.

However, the academics said the effect can be reversed if a country can “break free of its inherited institutions to establish democracy and the rule of law. In the long run, these changes also lead to reduced poverty.”

The trio of academics will share the award, which comes with an 11m kroner (£810,000) cash prize and a gold medal. Established in the 1960s, several decades after the original Nobel prizes, it is technically known as the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.

“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges,” Jakob Svensson, chair of the committee for the prize in economic sciences, said. “The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this.”

Acemoğlu, 57, and Johnson, 61, are both professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, in the US. Together, they co-authored a book last year, called Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity.

Johnson is also known for a brief stint at the International Monetary Fund from March 2007 to August 2008.

Robinson, 64, a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a book with Acemoğlu – Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty – which was first published in 2012.

The human sense of smell is nothing to turn one’s nose up at, research suggests, with scientists revealing we are far more sensitive to the order of odours captured by a sniff than previously thought.

Charles Darwin is among those who have cast aspersions on our sense of smell, suggesting it to be “of extremely slight service” to humans, while scientists have long thought our olfactory abilities rather sluggish.

“Intuitively, each sniff feels like taking a long-exposure shot of the chemical environment,” said Dr Wen Zhou, co-author of the research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, adding that when a smell is detected it can seem like one scent, rather than a discernible mixture of odours that arrived at different times. “Sniffs are also separated in time, occurring seconds apart from one another,” she said.

But now researchers have revealed our sense of smell operates much faster than previously thought, suggesting we are as sensitive to rapid changes in odours as we are to rapid changes in colour.

A key challenge to probing our sense of smell, said Zhou, is that it has been difficult to create a setup that enables different smelly substances to be presented in a precise sequence in time within a single sniff.

However, writing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Zhou and colleagues report how they did just that by creating an apparatus in which two bottles containing different scents were hooked up to a nosepiece using tubes of different lengths. These tubes were fitted with miniature check valves that were opened by the act of taking a sniff.

The setup meant the two scents reached the nose at slightly different times during the course of a single sniff, with a precision of 18 milliseconds (ms).

The team then carried out a series of experiments involving 229 participants.

In one experiment, participants were presented an apple-like odour and a floral scent, hooked up to the apparatus with different lengths of tubing that meant one scent would reach the nose about 120-180ms before the other. Participants were then asked to sniff the apparatus twice and report whether the order of the odours was the same or had been reversed.

The team found participants were correct in 597 out of 952 trials (63% of the time), with similar results when another 70 participants carried out the trials with lemon-like and onion-like odours.

Further tests, involving those who fared particularly well on these trials, revealed participants did better than chance even when two odours arrived at the nose a mere 40-80ms apart. The team said this interval was about 10 times shorter than previously thought to be necessary for humans to discriminate between two odours presented in one order and in the reverse order.

However, while participants could tell the smell had changed when the order of odours was switched, they found it harder to identify which odour actually came first. They fared better than chance on this task only for the lemon and onion-like smells, and then only when the odours reached the nose with an average time difference of 167ms. In this case, participants tended to report the overall smell captured in a sniff was more like the first of the two odours delivered – suggesting the order of scents shapes our perception.

“Overall, the discrimination between a pair of temporal mixtures is not dependent on accurately recognising the order of the constituent odorants,” said Zhou. “Instead, it seems to be driven by a mechanism that operates on a much faster timescale than that involved in the serial recognition of mixture components.”