Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has presented MPs with a long-awaited “victory plan” that aims to strengthen his country’s position enough to end the war with Russia.

Zelensky told parliament in Kyiv that the plan could finish the war – which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – no later than next year.

Key elements include a formal invitation to join Nato, the lifting by allies of restrictions on long-range strikes on Russia, a refusal to trade Ukraine’s territories and sovereignty, and the continuation of the incursion into the Kursk region of Russia.

The Kremlin dismissed the plan with a spokesman saying Kyiv needed to “sober up”.

Addressing MPs, Zelensky also criticised China, Iran and North Korea for their backing of Russia, and described them as a “coalition of criminals”.

He said he would present the victory plan at an EU summit on Thursday.

“We are at war with Russia on the battlefield, in international relations, in the economy, in the information sphere, and in people’s hearts,” Zelensky told parliament.

The plan outlined by Zelensky consists of five key points:

• Inviting Ukraine to join Nato
• The strengthening of Ukrainian defence against Russian forces, including getting permission from allies to use their long-range weapons on Russian territory, and the continuation of Ukraine’s military operations on Russian territory to avoid creation of the “buffer zones” in Ukraine
• Containment of Russia via a non-nuclear strategic deterrent package deployed on Ukrainian soil
• Joint protection by the US and the EU of Ukraine’s critical natural resources and joint use of their economic potential
• For the post-war period only: replacing some US troops stationed across Europe with Ukrainian troops

Three “addendums” remain secret and will only be shared with Ukraine’s partners, Zelensky said.

The plan was presented to US President Joe Biden, as well as presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, back in September.

Key allies such as Britain, France, Italy and Germany have also reportedly been shown the plan.

However Zelensky’s conditions for peace are increasingly at odds with the situation which surrounds him.

In front of MPs he acknowledged the growing fatigue in his country. His own tiredness was etched across his face as he said that “victory has become for some an uncomfortable word and it’s not easy to achieve.”

National morale has gradually been crumbling under the weight of a mounting death toll, a controversial mobilisation law and never-ending Russian assaults on Ukrainian territory.

It’s increasingly thought any peace deal would have to involve Ukraine conceding territory in exchange for security guarantees.

However, there was no hint of a compromise to bring the end of the war closer. Instead, Zelensky doubled down on wanting to force Russia to negotiate and to not cede Ukraine’s territory, through the strengthening of his own military.

He also claimed his extensive plan could be implemented with the agreement of his allies, and not Russia.

In public, Zelensky evidently still sees this war as existential, and warned of Russian President Vladimir Putin continuing to strengthen his position.

He also seemed to frame his vision as an investment opportunity for Western allies in terms of natural resources and economic potential.

The Ukrainian president wants his exhausted troops to keep fighting.

But with his army so reliant on Western aid, his “victory plan” will need the approval of the next US president.

Immediately after Zelensky finished speaking, the Kremlin rubbished his “ephemeral peace plan,” saying Kyiv needed to “sober up”.

The only way the war would end was Ukraine to “realise the futility of the policy it is pursuing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Workers at Samsung Electronics’ factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have called off a labour strike that went on for more than a month.

Around 1,500 workers in Chennai city had participated in the strike to demand better pay, working facilities and recognition of a newly-formed union.

A labour activist who supported the workers told the BBC that while Samsung hadn’t recognised the union yet, it had agreed to engage with the other demands.

The strike was one of the largest the South Korean technology giant had seen in recent years.

It also threatened to cast a shadow over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to position India as a viable alternative to China for manufacturing activities.

On Wednesday, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu), a politically-backed national labour union which led the protests, announced the workers’ decision to call off the strike after a meeting.

“During the meeting it was decided that the workers would return to their jobs on Thursday,” E Muthukumar told the BBC.

He added that the issue of registration of the new union – called the Samsung India Labour Welfare Union (SILWU) – will be decided by a court.

“We have decided to call off the protest as the Samsung management has decided to engage with workers on all key demands like higher wages, medical insurance and better facilities. So those discussions will continue,” he said.

On Tuesday, representatives of the protesting workers met with officials from the Tamil Nadu labour department.

After the meeting, the state’s Minister for Industries TRB Rajaa said that the striking workers had decided to return to work immediately and that Samsung had agreed to “not to victimise the workers only for having participated in the strike”.

He also said that the workers had agreed to cooperate with the management fully and that Samsung would file a written reply to the charter of demands filed by them.

Later, Samsung released a statement saying that it welcomed Citu’s decision to call off the strike.

“We will not take action against workers who merely participated in the illegal strike. We are committed to work closely with our workers to make the Chennai factory a great place to work,” the statement said.

The workers had begun their protest on 9 September near the factory in Chennai city, which employs nearly 2,000 workers and is one of its two plants in India.

The factory produces home appliances, contributing about a third to the company’s annual $12bn (£9bn) revenue in India.

One of the workers’ key demands was for Samsung to recognise their union, as they said that only that could help them negotiate better wages and working hours with the management.

Akriti Bhatia, a labour rights activist, told the BBC that multinational companies which set up factories in India often don’t follow Indian labour laws, which allow workers the right to association and collective bargaining.

These firms, she said, often side-step this by setting up internal unions, which are led by workers only on paper as the management continues to exert control over their decisions. They stridently oppose external, politically-backed unions.

A source in Samsung had told the BBC earlier that the organisation “fully supports unions but not ones backed by a third-party”.

Earlier this year, hundreds of workers at a manufacturing plant of an Apple supplier in Tamil Nadu also went on a one-day strike, demanding recognition of their union.

North Korea has accused South Korea of flying drones into its capital, ratcheting up tensions that have been simmering for months.

The drones allegedly scattered propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang in what the North described as a provocation that could lead to “armed conflict and even war”.

After levelling these allegations at the South on Friday, Pyongyang said it had ordered border troops to be prepared to fire. South Korea in turn said it was ready to respond, and warned that if the safety of its citizens was threatened it would signal the “end of the North Korean regime.”

Then, on Tuesday, the North blew up sections of two roads that connected it to South Korea, making good on an earlier threat. The next day, it claimed that 1.4 million young North Koreans had applied to join or return to the army.

These flare-ups are the latest in a string of exchanges between the two Koreas, which have seen tensions rise to their highest point in years since the North’s leader Kim Jong Un declared in January that the South is his regime’s number one enemy.

On 11 October, North Korea’s foreign ministry accused the South of sending drones to Pyongyang at night over the course of two weeks. It said that leaflets dispersed by the drones contained “inflammatory rumours and rubbish”.

Kim’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned Seoul of “horrible consequences” if the alleged drone flights happened again. She later said there was “clear evidence” that “military gangsters” from the South were behind the alleged provocations.

North Korea has released blurry images of what it said were the drones flying in the sky, as well as pictures allegedly showing the leaflets, but there is no way of independently verifying their claims.

While South Korea initially denied flying drones into the North, its Joint Chiefs of Staff later said that it could neither confirm nor deny Pyongyang’s allegation.

There has been local speculation that the drones were flown by activists, who have been sending the same materials to the North using balloons.

Park Sang-hak, the leader of the Free North Korea Movement Coalition, denied North Korea’s claim about the drone incursion, stating, “We did not send drones to North Korea”.

On Monday, Kim met the head of the army, military chiefs, the ministers of state security and defence, and top officials, the North’s official news agency KCNA said.

There, Kim set the “direction of immediate military action” and tasked officials with the “operation of the war deterrent and the exercise of the right to self-defence”.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff public relations officer, Lee Sung-joon, said the North could mount “small-scale provocations” such as small explosions on roads connecting the Koreas.

Then came the explosions at the symbolic Gyeongui and Donghae roads.

While both roads have long been shuttered, destroying them sends a message that Kim does not want to negotiate with the South, according to analysts.

Following the explosions, the South Korean military said it had fired weapons on its side of the border as a show of force, and had heightened surveillance of the North.

Hours later, the government of Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, designated 11 inter-Korean border areas as “danger zones” in a bid to stop people from sending anti-North propaganda leaflets across the border.

“Gyeonggi Province has determined that the act of scattering leaflets toward North Korea is an extremely dangerous act that could trigger a military conflict,” Kim Sung-joong, vice governor of Gyeonggi Province, said in a media briefing.

The scattering of such leaflets could threaten the “lives and safety of our residents”, Kim added, as “inter-Korean relations are rapidly deteriorating”.

Analysts say the drone incident suggests that North Korea is shoring up internal support by making it appear as though threats against the country are escalating.

Using terms like “separate states” in reference to the South, and dropping words like “compatriots” and “unification”, is part of this strategy, said Professor Kang Dong-wan, who teaches political science and diplomacy at Dong-a University in Busan.

“The North Korean regime relies on the politics of fear and needs an external enemy,” Prof Kang said. “Whenever tensions rise, North Korea emphasises external threats to boost loyalty to the regime.”

Analysts say the tit-for-tat between the two Koreas shows how they are locked in a “chicken game”, with both sides unwilling to blink first.

“Neither side is willing to make concessions at this point,” said Professor Kim Dong-yup from the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

As there is mutual distrust, Seoul “needs to strategically consider how to manage the crisis”, Prof Kim added.

Not at the moment, analysts say.

“I doubt that the situation would escalate to the level of war. North Korea is exploiting military confrontation to strengthen internal cohesion,” Prof Kang said.

“I question North Korea’s ability to initiate a full-scale war. The regime is well aware of the severe consequences such a conflict would bring,” Prof Kim said.

The most recent spat over alleged drone flights will most likely remain a “verbal fight”, said Prof Nam Sung-wook, who teaches North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul.

Because Seoul and Pyongyang know that they can’t bear the cost of a full-blown war, Prof Nam said, “the likelihood of actually using nuclear weapons is low”.

The two Koreas are technically still at war since they did not sign a peace treaty when the Korean War ended in 1953.

Reuniting with the South had always been a key, if increasingly unrealistic, part of the North’s ideology since the inception of the state – until Kim abandoned reunification with the South in January.

Kim has brought North Korea closer to Russia under Vladimir Putin, placing him at odds with the US and the West, which are South Korea’s key allies.

Also significant are North Korea’s long-standing ties with China, arguably its most important ally. In the wake of the drone incident, a spokesperson from China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday called on all parties “to avoid further escalation of conflicts” on the peninsula.

Tensions in the Korean peninsula are rising as the US presidential campaign enters the home stretch.

Members of a Malaysian religious group accused of human trafficking and child sexual abuse continued committing crimes even after a large-scale police crackdown, according to authorities.

The Islamic Global Ikhwan Group (GISB) made international headlines in September after police rescued 402 minors suspected of being abused across 20 care homes.

Authorities arrested 171 suspects at the time, including teachers and caretakers – but hundreds more have been arrested since, as further details emerge of the group’s alleged crimes.

Among those are allegations that, until 1 October, five GISB members trafficked people for the purpose of exploitation by forced labour through threats.

Two of the accused were managers of a GISB-owned resort in the southern state of Johor. They were charged on Sunday with four counts of human trafficking involving three women and a man aged between 30 and 57. The third, a worker at the same resort, was charged with two counts of sexually abusing a 16-year-old.

At least two other suspects in the incident, which took place between August 2023 and 1 October 2024, are still at large.

Hundreds of other victims, aged between one and 17, are said to have endured various forms of abuse at care homes linked to GISB, with some allegedly sodomised by their guardians and forced to perform sexual acts on other children, according to police.

In a press conference on Monday, lawyers representing GISB denied allegations of illegal business activities and organised crime, asking for a “fair investigation” as police investigations continue.

However, its CEO, Nasiruddin Mohd Ali, had earlier admitted there were “one or two cases of sodomy” at the care homes.

“Indeed, there were one or two cases of sodomy, but why lump them (the cases) all together?” Nasiruddin said in a video posted to the company’s Facebook page.

GISB has hundreds of businesses across 20 countries, operating across sectors including hospitality, food and education. It has also been linked to Al-Arqam, a religious sect that was banned by the Malaysian government in 1994 due to concerns about deviant Islamic teachings.

Khaulah Ashaari, the daughter of Al-Arqam founder Ashaari Muhammad, is a member of GISB, and has denied that the group still follows her late father’s teachings.

The lower house of Malaysia’s parliament on Tuesday held a special motion discussing issues relating to GISB, where government ministers flagged a number of findings made since the children were rescued from the care homes last month.

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, told the hearing that some children from as young as two years old were separated from their families and instructed to work under the pretence of “practical training”.

He also said they were occasionally forced to perform hundreds of squats as punishment for “disciplinary breaches”.

“If they did any wrongdoings, for something as simple as not queuing up properly, they would be punished with not 100 but 500 ketuk ketampi (squats),” Saifuddin said, according to a report by local outlet The Star.

“According to assessments by psychologists – either through the police’s D11 unit or the Welfare Department – these children missed their parents,” he added. “Some don’t even know them.”

To date, the police operation against GISB has resulted in 415 arrests and the rescue of 625 children, according to Saifuddin.

The Malaysian authorities have also expanded their investigations into GISB internationally, seeking the assistance of Interpol.

Visit BBC Action Line for details of organisations that can provide advice, information and support for people affected by sexual abuse.

At least 10 Indian flights have received hoax bomb threats over the past 48 hours, leading to long delays and diversions.

On Tuesday, Singapore’s Air Force sent two fighter jets to escort an Air India Express plane away from populated areas following a bomb threat.

Hours before that, an Air India plane from Delhi to Chicago had to land at a Canadian airport as a precuationary measure.

Hoax bomb threats to airlines are not unusual in India but it’s not clear what triggered the sudden surge since Monday.

Officials from the government’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security did not respond to the BBC’s emails for comment.

Apart from Air India, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air flights also received threats.

On Monday, three international flights that took off from Mumbai were diverted or delayed after an X (formerly Twitter) handle posted threats. Police have detained a teenager in connection with this.

On Tuesday, seven flights, including the two Air India planes, were affected by the threats issued by another X handle which has now been suspended. Screenshots of some of the posts show the user had tagged the airline and local police and mentioned the flight number.

Air India said in a statement that it was co-operating with authorities to identify the people behind the threats and would consider legal action to recover damaged incurred.

Every Indian airport has a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee which assesses the gravity of the threat and takes action accordingly. A threat can lead to the involvement of the bomb disposal squad, sniffer dogs, ambulances, police and doctors.

Passengers are off-loaded from the plane along with cabin baggage, check-in baggage and cargo, and they are all screened again. Engineering and security teams also search the plane before it is cleared for flying again.

The resultant delay can cost thousands of dollars in damages to airlines and security agencies.

For flights heading for other countries, it can also lead to international agencies getting involved, like in Singapore and Canada.

On Tuesday, Singapore’s defence minister said that two of the city state’s fighter jets “scrambled and escorted” the Air India Express plane before it landed safely at Changi airport. The plane was flying from Madurai in India to Singapore.

“Once on the ground, the plane was handed to the Airport Police. Investigations are ongoing,” Ng Eng Hen wrote.

The aircraft later landed safely at Changi.

In Canada – where the Air India flight to Chicago had landed at Iqaluit airport as a precautionary measure – the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it was investigating the threat.

Air India said on Wednesday that a Canadian Air Force plane was taking the passengers to Chicago. It’s not clear yet when the Air India plane will be allowed to take off.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of raping a woman as “payback” for suggesting he was involved in the murder of Tupac Shakur.

In a lawsuit filed in California, Ashley Parham also claims the musician threatened to slash her face with a knife in retaliation for her comments.

Mr Combs has yet to respond to the allegations, but has consistently denied all claims of sexual assault.

He has also previously denied any involvement in the drive-by shooting that killed rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996.

The murder has never been solved, although former gang member Duane “Keffe D” Davis was charged with murder last year. Mr Davis, whose trial will begin in March 2025, previously claimed that Mr Combs offered him $1m (£769,000) for a hit on Shakur.

• Warning, the rest of this story contains details of sexual assault that readers may find upsetting
• If you are affected by any of these issues, BBC Action Line has links to services that can offer support

In legal papers filed in California on Tuesday, Ms Parham says she landed on Mr Combs’ radar after meeting one of his friends at a bar in 2018.

The friend was “attempting to impress” people by making a video call to Mr Combs, but Ms Parham refused to take part because she believed the rapper “had something to do with the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur”.

In the lawsuit, she claims Mr Combs overheard her comment and said she would “pay” for it.

About a month later, the friend invited her to his home asking for help with his cancer drugs, and Mr Combs unexpectedly turned up, she claims.

Ms Parham alleges that the rapper then approached her “with a knife and held it to the right side of [her] face and threatened to give her a ‘Glasgow smile’ in retaliation for her previous statements”.

Mr Combs then ripped off her clothes and “violently” raped her with a television remote control, the documents say.

During the ordeal, Mr Combs allegedly told her that her life was in his hands and that, if he so desired, she would never be seen again.

Ms Parham alleges that she was then raped by multiple people, “until eventually she had no control over her body nor could she move her body”.

Ms Parham says she eventually tried to escape but was confronted by Mr Combs, who offered her money to say the rape was consensual, she claims.

She ran to neighbours for help, the lawsuit says, as gunshots were fired in her direction. They had already called the police, having heard the disturbance next door.

Ms Parham says she told the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department she had been gang raped by Mr Combs and his associates, but no further action was taken.

She went to hospital three weeks later and staff called local police. However, Ms Parham claims neither of her police reports led to an investigation.

She is suing Mr Combs and six other people for sexual assault and battery, abuse, false imprisonment and kidnapping, and is demanding a trial by jury.

The BBC has contacted his lawyers for comment and is similarly seeking a response from his co-defendants.

Ms Parham’s case is the latest in more than a dozen claims of rape, sexual assault and physical abuse that have been filed against Combs in the past year.

Six new cases were lodged in New York on Monday alone, including allegations that he molested a 16-year-old boy at a party in his mansion.

Responding to those cases, lawyers for the star told the BBC that Mr Combs “has never sexually assaulted anyone – adult or minor, man or woman”.

They have also described previous lawsuits as a “money grab” and “clear attempts to garner publicity”.

Mr Combs is currently being held at a detention centre in New York, as he awaits trial on federal criminal charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

On Tuesday, his lawyers filed a motion requesting the identities of his accusers, in order to prepare for the trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin on 5 May 2025.

They added that the number of anonymous accusations against Mr Combs have been “irreparably damaging” to his “character and reputation”.

“These swirling allegations have created a hysterical media circus that, if left unchecked, will irreparably deprive Mr Combs of a fair trial, if they haven’t already,” the motion concluded.

The music mogul’s lawyers have also argued for his release on bail, citing the “horrific” conditions he faces in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.

However, prosecutors have countered that he poses a risk of witness intimidation.

The musician, who was one of the most influential producers in the 1990s hip-hop scene, is known for solo hits like I’ll Be Missing You and his work with Notorious B.I.G. on tracks like Juicy and Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.

He took the unusual step of posting to Instagram from jail on Tuesday, wishing his two-year-old daughter a happy birthday.

A highly anticipated museum housing the world’s largest collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts has opened the doors to some of its galleries.

More than 20 years in the making, the sprawling 120-acre Grand Egyptian Museum near the pyramids of Giza, will showcase more than 100,000 objects, including treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

The boy-king’s priceless collection is yet to be displayed, but visitors can now see items varying from pharaonic statues to sarcophagi and mummified bodies.

The museum was initially scheduled to open in 2012, but cost, political turmoil and later, the Covid-19 pandemic, caused repeated delays. To date, the mega-project has cost more than $1bn (£768m).

The partial opening is a trial run, following the last year’s opening of the main hall and stairway. The official opening date yet to be announced.

Here, we collect some of the most striking pictures of the newly opened galleries.

A fuel tanker exploded overnight in northern Nigeria, killing at least 104 people who rushed to the scene of the accident to collect leaking petrol.

The fire engulfed the overturned vehicle, which had been cordoned off by officers after it crashed, the police told the BBC.

A hundred other people injured in the explosion have been taken to hospital in the nearby town of Ringim in Jigawa state, many of them in critical condition.

Officers had warned people not to approach the tanker after the accident late on Tuesday night, but they were unable to contain the growing crowd, said police spokesman Lawal Shiisu Adam.

“We tried our best to stop people going to the vehicle to get petrol but despite cordoning [off] the area, we were overpowered and as people were scooping fuel, fire erupted,” he told the BBC.

The crash happened in the town of Majia in the northern state of Jigawa at around 23:30 local time (22:30 GMT), he said.

“The fuel tanker was coming from Kano and heading to Nguru in Yobe state when the driver lost control of the vehicle.”

The driver, who was not injured, has been taken into custody while the police conduct an investigation.

• Driver of burning fuel tanker honoured for heroism
• The Nigerian truckers risking attack

A distressing video has been shared on social media showing the moments after the fire erupted.

“Fire service and other emergency units rushed to the scene to help after the incident,” Mr Adam said.

Many of the victims have been burnt beyond recognition. The recovered bodies have been covered by tree branches to shield them from onlookers.

Rescue workers have been finding more bodies – the number of dead has risen from 94 to 104 – with 50 more people being admitted to hospital by midday on Wednesday, bringing the total number of injured to 100.

A mass burial was planned for later on Wednesday, Mr Adam said.

Fuel tanker explosions and accidents are common in Nigeria – often caused by the poor state of roads and badly maintained vehicles.

As the clear-up operation was under way in Jigawa, there was another fuel tanker accident in south-western Ogun state in the town of Ibafo.

It overturned on Wednesday morning on a main road in front of a commercial bank, spilling petrol before bursting into flames.

The fire ravaged the area damaging other lorries. No-one was injured in the incident, but it is estimated to have caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.

In September, 59 people died in Nigeria’s Niger state after a fuel tanker collided with a lorry carrying passengers and cattle.

• Nigeria town celebrates after hunting down ‘killer hippo’
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• Is Nigeria on the right track after a year of Tinubu?

A man who was detained in Russia after his daughter drew an anti-war picture – in a case that generated global headlines – has been released from a penal colony.

The drawing – featuring the phrases “No to war” and “Glory to Ukraine”, by Alexei Moskalev’s daughter Masha – was reported to the police in 2022.

He was later accused of repeatedly criticising the Russian army on social media and, in March 2023, sentenced to two years in jail for discrediting the army.

Footage shared online on Tuesday shows him after leaving the penal colony in the Tula region, and embracing his daughter, while still wearing his prison uniform.

His release was reported by his lawyer from OVD-Info, Vladimir Biliyenko, the Russian human rights group said.

Moskalev described spending two months in a punishment cell while he was detained.

He said: “It was just a torture chamber. Just a torture chamber. First of all, the cell was two metres by one metre, do you understand what that is?

“At first, I was sitting alone, then they put a second person in. And the two of us were sitting in a cell measuring two by one meter.

“The floors were rotten, rats were everywhere, coming from the sewers and everywhere, huge rats.”

Russia’s federal prison service has not immediately commented, and has not replied to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.

The family’s problems began back in 2022 after Masha, then 12, drew a Ukrainian flag in April with the words “Glory to Ukraine”, rockets and a Russian flag with the phrase “No to war!”

Moskalev said the school reported his daughter’s drawing to police. After that, he was fined for an anti-war social media post.

But after his flat was searched in December of that year he was charged under the criminal code because he had already been convicted of a similar offence.

Authorities separated Masha from her father and placed her into a children’s home, and later into the custody of her estranged mother.

Moskalev was sentenced to two years in jail in March 2023.

He did not attend the sentence hearing, having escaped house arrest to flee the country for neighbouring Belarus, OVD-Info said.

He was later detained and extradited back to Russia the following month, the organisation added.

Speaking to the BBC last year, the town councillor Olga Podolskaya said she was in “shock”.

“A prison sentence for expressing your opinion is a terrible thing. A two-year jail term is a nightmare.”

The case comes against a background of a severe deterioration of human rights in Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to a recent UN report.

The investigation details police brutality, widespread repression of independent media and persistent attempts to silence Kremlin critics using punitive new laws.

Among the cases the report highlights is that of Artyom Kamardin, who was jailed for seven years for reading an anti-war poem in public – an act authorities deemed to be “inciting hatred”.

The report accuses the government of seeking to propagate its views on the Ukraine conflict among children via the introduction of mandatory school lessons, officially labelled as “important conversations”.

“Children refusing to attend such classes and their parents are subject to pressure and harassment,” it adds.

South Korean football player Hwang Ui-jo has apologised for secretly filming sexual encounters with his partners.

Prosecutors say the 31-year-old striker filmed sexual encounters with two of his partners without their consent on four occasions between June and September 2022.

In his first court appearance in Seoul on Wednesday, Hwang said he was “deeply sorry” for causing “disappointment”.

The former striker had just last month left England’s Nottingham Forest for Turkey’s Alanyaspor.

The videos came to light after Hwang’s sister-in-law shared them on social media last June, in an attempt to blackmail him.

She was sentenced to three years in prison in September for the blackmail after Hwang sued her.

However, the charges against him proceeded as prosecutors said he filmed the videos illegally.

Prosecutors refused to provide details on the women in the videos to prevent further harm.

“I will not do anything wrong in the future and will do my best as a footballer,” Hwang told the court in Seoul.

“I sincerely apologise to the victims who have been affected by my actions, and I am deeply sorry for the disappointment I have caused to all those who have cared and supported me,” he added.

The US has written to Israel, giving it 30 days to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza or risk having some US military assistance cut off.

The letter, sent on Sunday, amounts to the strongest known written warning from the US to its ally and comes amid a new Israeli offensive in northern Gaza that has reportedly caused a large number of civilian casualties.

It says the US has deep concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation, adding that Israel denied or impeded nearly 90% of humanitarian movements between the north and south last month.

Israel is reviewing the letter, an Israeli official was reported as saying, adding the country “takes this matter seriously” and intends to “address the concerns raised” with US counterparts.

Israel has previously said it is targeting Hamas operatives in the north and not stopping the entry of humanitarian aid.

On Monday, the Israeli military body responsible for managing crossings into Gaza, Cogat, said 30 lorries carrying aid from the World Food Programme had entered northern Gaza through the Erez crossing.

That ended a two-week period during which the UN said no food aid was delivered to the north, and supplies essential for survival were running out for the 400,000 Palestinians there.

A UN official has said that Gaza is in a state of “constant peak emergency”.

Antoine Renard, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the occupied Palestinian territories, told the AFP news agency people in the north of the territory were “relying solely on assistance” with practically no access to fresh food other than that provided by UN agencies.

The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, and the Israeli military has relied heavily on US-supplied aircraft, guided bombs, missiles and shells to fight the war against Hamas in Gaza over the past year.

The US letter to the Israeli government – the contents of which have now been confirmed by the state department – was first reported by the Axios website. It is signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“We are now writing to underscore the US government’s deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and seek urgent and sustained actions by your government this month to reverse this trajectory,” it says.

It states that Israeli evacuation orders have forced 1.7 million people into the narrow, coastal al-Mawasi area where they are at “high risk of lethal contagion” due to extreme overcrowding, and that humanitarian organisations report that their survival needs cannot be met.

“We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government – including halting commercial imports, denying or impeding nearly 90% of humanitarian movements between northern and southern Gaza in September, continuing burdensome and excessive dual-use restrictions, and instituting new vetting and onerous liability and customs requirements for humanitarian staff and shipments – together with increased lawlessness and looting – are contributing to an accelerated deterioration in the conditions in Gaza,” it adds.

The letter says Israel “must, starting now and within 30 days” act on a series of concrete measures to boost aid supplies, adding that failure may “have implications for US policy”.

It cites US laws which can prohibit military assistance to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian aid.

It says Israel must “surge all forms of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza” before winter, including by enabling a minimum of 350 lorries a day to enter through all four major crossings and a new fifth crossing, as well as allowing people in al-Mawasi to move inland.

It also calls on Israel to end the “isolation of northern Gaza” by reaffirming that there will be “no Israeli government policy of forced evacuation of civilians” from north to south.

At a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, US state department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the letter was “a private diplomatic communication that we did not intend to make public”.

“Secretary [Blinken] along with Secretary Austin thought it was appropriate to make clear to the government of Israel that there are changes they need to make again to see the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up,” he said.

Mr Miller declined to speculate on what consequences there might be for Israel if it did not boost humanitarian aid access.

But he noted: “Recipients of US military assistance do not arbitrarily deny or impede provisioning of US humanitarian assistance. That’s just the law and we of course will follow the law. But our hope is that Israel will make the changes that we have outlined.”

He also said the 30-day time limit was not linked to the upcoming US presidential election on 5 November, saying it was “appropriate to give them time to work through the different issues”.

Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid or humanitarian assistance that can be delivered into and across Gaza, and blames UN agencies for failing to distribute supplies. It also accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

Before Israel’s ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in May, President Joe Biden suspended a single consignment of 2,000 and 500lb bombs for the first time as he tried to dissuade it from an all-out assault.

But the president immediately faced a backlash from Republicans in Washington and from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared to compare it to an “arms embargo”. The suspension was partially lifted in July and has not been repeated.

Earlier on Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that families in northern Gaza were “facing unimaginable fear, loss of loved ones, confusion, and exhaustion” because of the Israeli offensive that began 10 days ago.

The Israeli military says it has sent tanks and troops back into the town of Jabalia and its urban refugee camp for a third time to root out Hamas fighters who have regrouped there.

It has ordered residents of Jabalia, as well as neighbouring Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, to evacuate to the al-Mawasi “humanitarian area”.

The UN says about 50,000 people have fled to Gaza City and other parts of the north. But for many it is unsafe to leave their homes or they are unable to leave because they are sick or disabled.

Khalid, a resident of Jabalia whose accounts of the past year are featured in a new BBC documentary, said in a voice note that he and his family had been living in fear for a week.

“We were told to go to the south, but we couldn’t because the Israeli army has surrounded the area, either with dirt barricades or using quadcopter drones. We can’t move, it’s too difficult.”

“At the same time, because of the intense bombing we’re living in constant terror. My daughter has become sick and she has a fever. Her entire body is shaking in fear because of the sound of the bombings and I don’t know what to do with her. I can’t even take her to the hospital,” he added.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said its first responders had recovered the bodies of 42 people killed by Israeli air and artillery strikes in Jabalia and neighbouring areas on Tuesday.

They reportedly included 11 members of the same family, nearly all of them women and children, whose home was destroyed in an air strike overnight.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its troops had killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia area over the previous day.

On Monday, Israeli human rights groups warned of what they called “alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement the Generals’ Plan”, echoing widespread Palestinian concerns.

The controversial plan calls for the forcible transfer of all civilians in the north followed by a siege of the Hamas fighters remaining there to force their surrender and the release of Israeli hostages.

The Israeli military denies it is being implemented, saying it is only “getting civilians out of harm’s way”.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 42,340 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Warning: This story contains details which some people may find upsetting

Witnesses to an Israeli air strike and resulting fire at a tent camp in a Gaza hospital compound have shared with the BBC their horror and helplessness at seeing people injured and killed in the flames.

One mother called it “one of the worst scenes we’ve witnessed”, while an injured girl said she heard screaming as people tore down their tent to get them out. A man said he had “broken down” as he was “unable to do anything” to help those who burned to death.

The strike hit the al-Aqsa Hospital compound in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in the early hours of Monday, igniting a fire that burned makeshift shelters for displaced people.

At least four people were killed and dozens injured, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The BBC has verified the location of a video that shows what appears to be a person on fire. Other footage captures people rushing to extinguish the flames amid screams and explosions sending fireballs into the night sky.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas fighters operating inside a command centre in the car park, after which a fire broke out “likely due to secondary explosions”. The military said the incident was under review.

Charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), which has staff working at al-Aqsa, told the BBC “it had no knowledge“ of a Hamas centre and said “the hospital functions as a hospital”.

The UN’s humanitarian affairs agency said in a statement that “people burned to death” and “atrocities must end”, while a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council called the footage “disturbing”.

“The images and video of what appear to be displaced civilians burning alive following an Israeli air strike are deeply disturbing and we have made our concerns clear to the Israeli government,” the spokesperson told the BBC’s partner CBS.

“Israel has a responsibility to do more to avoid civilian casualties — and what happened here is horrifying, even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields.”

Witnesses said the strike happened at about 01:15 local time on Monday (23:15 BST on Sunday).

It hit an area between buildings filled with makeshift shelters, next to an outdoor outpatient waiting area that had no one there at night, Anna Halford, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza who was not at the hospital during the strike, said in a phone call from Deir al-Balah.

Hiba Radi, a mother who was living in a tent behind the hospital, told a BBC freelancer in Gaza she woke up to the sound of “explosions and fires erupting around the tents”.

“There were explosions everywhere, and we were shocked at whether this was gas or weapons,” she said.

“This is one of the worst scenes we’ve witnessed and lived through,” she added. “We’ve never seen destruction like this before. It’s hard, really hard.”

Atia Darwish, a photographer who recorded some of the verified videos, told the BBC it was a “big shock” and he was “unable to do anything” watching people burn.

“I was so broken down,” he said.

Um Yaser Abdel Hamid Daher, who also lives at the hospital, told the BBC “we’ve seen so many people burning that we started feeling like we might burn like them”.

The injured included her son, and his wife and children. Her granddaughter Lina, 11, who had shrapnel in her hand and leg injuries, said she had heard people screaming.

”Our neighbour’s daughter was injured in her head and her dad was killed. And our other neighbours were killed. The people next to us tore down the tent to get us out,” she said.

Her grandmother said the family “lost their tent and everything they had; they have nothing left”.

The health ministry reported on Monday that more than 40 people were injured and four killed.

MSF on Tuesday shared a higher toll, saying five people had died, their bodies burned by the time they were recovered, and 65 injured.

Forty of the injured – 22 men, eight women and 10 children – stayed at al-Aqsa. The others were transferred to different hospitals, with eight going to a specialist burns unit.

Ms Halford said her colleagues were treating burns victims ”who will almost certainly not survive”, saying “there is very little you can do for burn victims of that severity”.

“You come home with the smell of it on your clothes. It’s a viscerally affecting experience. It stays with you,” she said.

Monday’s strike was the seventh on the hospital site since March, and the third in two weeks, Ms Halford said.

When she arrived at the hospital after the most recent hit, she said she found people picking through twisted metal and burned debris to salvage any belongings.

Another mother the BBC spoke to whose children suffered burns injuries had already evacuated from north Gaza – and now has nothing.

The acting chief of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the strike occurred in an area where north Gaza residents had been told to relocate.

“There really is no safe place in Gaza for people to go,” the statement read.

The UN’s human rights office has called for an investigation into an Israeli air strike that killed 23 people in northern Lebanon on Monday.

Spokesman Jeremy Laurence said the strike, on the Christian-majority village of Aitou, raised “real concerns” with respect to international humanitarian law.

Laurence said that 12 women and two children were understood to be among the dead from the bombing, which destroyed a residential building that had been recently rented out to a family displaced from the south.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the rubble in Aitou on Tuesday – far from the focus of the conflict to date in the south of Lebanon, Beqaa Valley and parts of Beirut.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is yet to comment on the strike.

Elie Alwan, the owner of the house in Aitou, told reporters that it had been rented to a family of around 10 people, who were later joined by around 10 more.

Alwan said there had been no problems with the tenants until a car came to the house on Monday – the driver apparently delivering cash – when the air strike hit.

Israeli air strikes on members of Hezbollah in the areas where the group usually operates have pushed its members to other parts of the country, creating fears across Lebanon that Israeli targets could be anywhere.

An Aitou resident, Sarkis Alwan, told the AFP news agency that the village “maybe… won’t welcome” displaced people anymore. “And villagers who have taken in displaced people, I think they will ask them to leave,” he said.

Israel has demonstrated a willingness during its recent escalation to strike residential buildings without warning as it attempts to degrade Hezbollah, which has been sporadically firing rockets into Israel for a year since the day after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023.

On Thursday night, an Israeli strike hit a residential building in central Beirut killing 22 people, according to figures from the Lebanese health ministry.

Unconfirmed reports said that the strike, which came with no warning and wounded 117, targeted Wafiq Safa, a senior member of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group that is a powerful force in Lebanon.

The reports said that the strike failed to kill him and Hezbollah has not commented on his status.

Israel says it is necessary to take on Hezbollah in order for people in the north of the country to be able to return to their homes.

A drone attack launched by Hezbollah on a military base in northern Israel killed four Israeli soldiers on Sunday and severely wounded seven more – the deadliest strike by the group since Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon two weeks ago.

Also on Tuesday, the UN refugee agency said that more than a quarter of Lebanon was now covered by Israeli military evacuation orders.

“People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing,” the agency’s Middle East director Rema Jamous Imseis told a press briefing.

The evacuation orders, coupled with Israel’s ground invasion and bombing campaign, have driven a massive exodus of Lebanese people from the affected areas.

More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, according to the Lebanese government. They have fled villages and major cities in the south, and moved north to Beirut, Tripoli and other cities.

Many have ended up in unsafe and unsanitary conditions in shelters in and around the capital, where schools and shops have been closed to house people.

The sheer volume of displaced people has overwhelmed welfare services, the mayor’s office told the BBC, leaving thousands of displaced people on the streets.

Using plans made for the previous invasion, in 2006, the municipality had prepared for just 10% of the actual number of people, mayor Abdallah Darwich told the BBC last week.

“We did not imagine it could be this huge,” he said. “Every day our calculations have become larger and larger.”

The Israeli strikes on Beirut, focused on the southern suburb of Dahieh, had become a daily and nightly occurrence over the past three weeks, but the capital has not been hit for nearly five days.

On Tuesday, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington had raised “concerns” with the Israeli government over the “scope and nature” of its bombing of Beirut in recent weeks.

“Israel does have a right to defend itself against those terrorists who pose a threat to the state of Israel, but we’ve had real concerns about the nature of the campaign that we saw roll out across Beirut over the past few weeks,” he said.

“We’ve seen [the number of strikes] come down over the past few days,” he added.

Following the Hezbollah drone strike on Sunday, Netanyahu threatened on Monday night that he would continue striking the group in Lebanon “without mercy”, including Beirut.

On Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said in a phone call with President Emmanuel Macron that he was opposed to “a unilateral ceasefire, which would not change the security situation in Lebanon and would return the country to its previous state”.

Earlier in the day, the deputy leader of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, issued his own threat to Israel, saying the group had “a new calculation” to inflict pain on its enemy.

At the same time, Qassem, speaking in a televised address, called for a ceasefire, saying that it was the only solution to the current conflict. “If the Israelis do not want that, we will continue,” he added.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,309 people over the last year, according to figures from the Lebanese government, which does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

Israel has said around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed.

The Pentagon has confirmed it is sending a high-altitude anti-missile system operated by US troops to Israel.

Officials say the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) battery will bolster Israeli air defences after Iran’s missile attack on the country earlier this month.

President Joe Biden has said it is meant “to defend Israel”, which is still expected to retaliate against an Iranian strike involving more than 180 ballistic missiles fired at Israel on 1 October.

The move has become the focus of attention as it involves putting American boots on the ground in Israel.

There are already a small number of US forces in the country – but this new deployment of about 100 troops is significant as it signals further US entanglement in the expanding regional war.

It is also being scoured for clues as to what it means about the effectiveness of Israel’s missile defences as the crisis grows.

Israel has yet to launch its retaliation for Iran’s attack, which will be “lethal, precise and above all, surprising” according to Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Tehran said it fired on Israel because it assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, in Beirut.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Analysing footage from the Gaza strikes
• Watch: ‘I say bye to my kids, in case we don’t wake up’ – two Gazans film a year under attack by Israel
• Analysis: Drone attack on Israel puts spotlight on Iron Dome’s limitations
• Gaza Strip in maps: How a year of war has drastically changed life in the territory

The Pentagon said an advance team and components needed for the battery arrived in Israel on Monday – with further personnel and parts to follow in the coming days. The battery will be operational in the “near future”, a statement said.

Israeli journalist Avi Scharf, who routinely monitors flight tracking data, said two C-17 US military transporters flew from Alabama to the Israeli Air Force’s Nevatim base overnight, likely carrying Thaad equipment.

It’s still unclear whether the Thaad deployment is part of US contingency planning to bridge gaps identified in Israel’s aerial defences, or whether it points to growing concerns in Washington of a more forceful Israeli strike on Iran.

President Biden has opposed any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, as well as on its oil or energy infrastructure, amid fears that it would trigger a spiralling conflict and affect the global economy.

Whatever the background to the decision, it signals a further need by Israel for US defence assistance amid the expanding Middle East war.

Ballistic missiles like the Fattah-1used by Iran earlier this month are fired upwards into the Earth’s atmosphere, where they change trajectory and descend towards their target. One of their military advantages is their immense speed compared with cruise missiles or drones.

The Thaad system is highly effective against ballistic missiles, according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the biggest US arms maker.

Raytheon, another American weapons firm, builds its advanced radar.

The system counts six truck-mounted launchers, with eight interceptors on each launcher. It costs about $1bn (£766m) a battery and requires a crew of about 100 to operate it.

Thaad is much sought after including by Ukraine to counter Russian missile attacks.

Saudi Arabia has orders in for it, and reportedly wanted more as part of an American weapons bonanza in return for officially recognising Israel: a so-called “normalisation” deal which was largely derailed after the 7 October attack by Hamas.

Iran’s 1 October strikes on Israel killed one man in Jericho in the occupied West Bank, who was hit by part of a missile that was apparently shot down.

Israel has a much vaunted aerial defence system, developed with the US, including Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 exo-atmospheric missiles.

These fly at hypersonic speed and can shoot down ballistic missiles in space. The system’s Israeli designers said Arrow “performed as expected” with “wonderful” results against the Iranian strike.

The US supported the defensive operation, firing interceptors from two naval destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean, alongside support from some European and Arab countries.

Washington presented the Iranian strike as “defeated and ineffective”.

But damage on the ground told a less emphatic picture. Satellite images showed damage at the Nevatim base, which houses F-35 fighter planes, including craters on a runway and taxiway.

Decker Eveleth from the Washington-based Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) said the images showed 32 impact points, including multiple hits in the area of F-35 hangers.

“Some F-35s got really lucky,” Mr Eveleth posted on X.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that it was still unclear whether damage was caused directly by missiles or interception shrapnel.

There were other direct impacts, including in Tel Aviv. One missile reportedly blew a 30ft (nine metre) deep crater in a densely populated area close to the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.

Politically, the Thaad announcement is couched in terms of the Biden administration’s “ironclad” support for Israel’s defence.

The US has sent more than 50,000 tonnes worth of weapons to Israel in the last year, according to Israeli figures.

But it also highlights some of the policy contortions carried out by Washington: first trying to pressure Israel and its adversaries not to escalate the war, instead urging diplomacy.

When that has failed the White House has then firmly backed its Israeli ally’s decisions while moving to shield it diplomatically and militarily.

The Iranian missile strikes followed Israel’s assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh (a negotiator in the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks), Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Israeli air strikes in densely populated parts of Beirut and its ground invasion of Lebanon.

Israel said it has been striking against Hezbollah’s leadership and destroying its vast missile stores due to 11 months of cross-border rocket fire into Israel.

It argues only military pressure and degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities will ensure 60,000 Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel.

The Pentagon describes the Thaad deployment as part of “the broader adjustments the US military has made in recent months” to support Israel and defend American personnel from attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.

It says a Thaad was deployed in southern Israel for an exercise in 2019, the last and only time it was known to be there.

A US military deployment to Israel outside of drills is extremely rare, given Israel’s own capabilities.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi warned on Sunday that the US was putting the lives of its troops “at risk by deploying them to operate US missile systems in Israel”.

On Monday, Canadian police made a sensational claim.

They alleged at a press conference that agents of the Indian government were using “organised crime groups like the Bishnoi group” to target leaders of the pro-Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in India.

This was hours after both countries expelled top diplomats as tensions escalated over last year’s assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. Delhi dismissed the allegations as “preposterous”, accusing PM Justin Trudeau of catering to Canada’s sizeable Sikh community for political gain.

The Canadian police were referring to Lawrence Bishnoi, a 31-year-old gangster from India, now back in the spotlight domestically and internationally.

Indian police say his gang is allegedly linked to the killing of a prominent politician in Mumbai at the weekend – gunmen shot dead 66-year-old Baba Siddique near his son’s office. Three suspects are in custody. An alleged aide of Bishnoi has posted on social media that the gang is behind the murder.

Once among India’s most wanted, Bishnoi has been in prison since 2015, now held far from his native Punjab state in Gujarat.

Yet, the police believe his audacious influence endures. Bishnoi is the prime accused in the sensational murder of Sidhu Moose Wala, the popular Punjabi singer gunned down near his village in October 2022.

In 2018, Bishnoi gained notoriety for threatening Bollywood star Salman Khan, accusing him of allegedly poaching two blackbuck antelopes – a revered species for Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community to which Lawrence belongs.

When he was produced in a court in Jodhpur city, he openly told the waiting media: “Salman Khan will be killed here, in Jodhpur… Then he will come to know about our real identity.” Incidentally, Siddique, the murdered politician, was a close friend of the Bollywood star.

In March last year, a news channel aired two interviews with Bishnoi from inside a Punjab jail, prompting an outraged high court to order an investigation. How a high-security inmate managed phone interviews from prison remains a mystery.

Federal investigators estimate Bishnoi continues to control a gang with 700 members across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi, involved in extorting celebrities, smuggling drugs and weapons and carrying out targeted assassinations. His partner Goldy Brar, also a co-accused in the Moose Wala killing, runs the gang by remote control from Canada, say the police. Bishnoi faces more than 30 cases, with 19 currently being tried in court.

“He runs his gang seamlessly from prison without needing to co-ordinate everything,” says Gurmeet Chauhan, a senior officer in Punjab’s anti-gangster task force. “Unlike other gangsters confined to a region, he thinks big.”

Bishnoi was born into affluence. His family is among the wealthiest in their village in Punjab, living in a spacious bungalow surrounded by more than 100 acres of land. His father, a former policeman, eventually gave up his job to take care of the family land, while his mother is a homemaker. The couple raised two sons Lawrence and Anmol – both now prime suspects in Moose Wala’s killing.

Ramesh Bishnoi, a relative, told Jupinderjit Singh, a journalist with The Tribune newspaper and author of Who Killed Moose Wala, that Lawrence was named after British officer Henry Montgomery Lawrence, founder of the prestigious Lawrence School in the hill town of Sanawar.

Lawrence Bishnoi himself attended a convent school, riding his own bike by the eighth grade and wearing expensive shoes – luxuries unheard of for most. Known for quietly helping local children in need, he was an introverted figure with undeniable influence, Mr Singh says.

After finishing school in 2008, he moved to a college in Chandigarh, quickly immersing himself in student politics in the city. “He had money, style and guts,” a Chandigarh police officer told Mr Singh, explaining how easily Bishnoi attracted followers. He joined a student organisation, ran for student elections and lost – a defeat he took personally.

Police records say this turning point nudged him closer to a world of violence as he mingled with some former student leaders-turned-criminals. Soon, police say, Bishnoi’s name was tied to brawls, arson and gunfire incidents on campus.

Punjab, Bishnoi’s home state, is overrun with gangs that fuel drugs and weapon smuggling, extortion and the local film and music industry. A cash-driven economy, bolstered by drugs, real estate and illegal liquor sales, has fuelled this rise, creating an ecosystem that blends crime with Punjabi pop culture, many say.

Punjab’s gangsters don’t enter the underworld for wealth alone – they crave notoriety, a deep-seated desire to “be somebody”, according to Mr Singh.

This twisted pursuit of fame finds roots in feudal, patriarchal culture. Social media amplifies it, with many gangsters showcasing their lives online. They flaunt their lifestyles on social media, where crime is often seen as a path to quick money and glamour. This has lured retired sportsmen and young recruits across Punjab to the dark side.

By September, police reported dismantling more than 500 gangs and arresting more than 1,400 gangsters since mid-2021. In clashes with the police, 16 gangsters had been killed and over 80 wounded, while three officers lost their lives and 26 more were injured. According to police, Bishnoi has been convicted in four cases, though none yet for serious crimes like murder.

With his neatly trimmed beard, the hoodie pulled over watchful eyes, Bishnoi often wears the casual look of a young man. When the stakes are high, he demonstrates a shrewdness in managing his image. During one court appearance, he wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of Bhagat Singh, the revered Indian revolutionary.

In a widely circulated video, reportedly recorded in prison, the bearded gangster declares, “There is a desire for revolution in our hearts. Let’s see how much strength the enemy has.” The exact meaning of his words remains ambiguous.

Bishnoi’s rise is unlike any other. “Despite being in prison, he appears to be running his gang. Who provides him logistics or media access? Such control would be impossible without powerful allies,” says Mr Singh. Separating the man from the myth remains elusive.

India and Canada have expelled their top diplomats amid escalating tensions over the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil, marking a new low in a historically cordial relationship. While past disagreements have strained ties, none have reached this level of open confrontation.

In 1974, India shocked the world by detonating a nuclear device, drawing outrage from Canada, which accused India of extracting plutonium from a Canadian reactor, a gift intended solely for peaceful use.

Relations between the two nations cooled considerably – Canada suspended support to India’s atomic energy programme.

Yet neither expelled their top diplomats like they did on Monday as the row intensified over last year’s assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canada-based Sikh leader labelled a terrorist by India.

The tit-for-tat expulsions followed PM Justin Trudeau’s claim that Canadian police were investigating allegations of Indian agents’ – and the Indian government’s – direct involvement in the June 2023 killing.

Canadian police further accused Indian agents of involvement in “homicides, extortion and violent acts” targeting pro-Khalistan supporters advocating a separate Sikh homeland in India. Delhi rejected the allegations as “preposterous”.

There are some 770,000 Sikhs living in Canada, home to the largest Sikh diaspora outside the Indian state of Punjab. Sikh separatism – rooted in a bloody insurgency in India during the 1980s and early ’90s – continues to strain relations between the two countries. Canada has faced sharp criticism from Delhi for failing to oppose the pro-Khalistan movement within its borders. Canada, says India, is aware of local Khalistani groups and has been monitoring them for years.

“This relationship has been on a downward trajectory for several years, but it’s now hit rock bottom,” Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, told the BBC.

“Publicly laying out extremely serious and detailed allegations, withdrawing ambassadors and top diplomats, releasing diplomatic statements with blistering language. This is uncharted territory, even for this troubled relationship.”

Other analysts agree that this moment signals a historic shift.

“This represents a significant slide in Canada-India relations under the Trudeau government,” added Ryan Touhey, author of Conflicting Visions, Canada and India in the Cold War World.

A history professor at St Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Mr Touhey notes that a key success of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government was fostering a “prolonged period of rapprochement” between Canada and India, moving past grievances related to Khalistan and nuclear proliferation.

“Instead, a focus was placed on the importance of trade and education ties and people-to-people links given the significant Indian diaspora in Canada. It is also worth noting that the Khalistan issue had seemed to have disappeared since the beginning of the millennium. Now it has suddenly erupted all over again.”

Still, Harper was not faced with allegations from Canadian security services of a potential link between agents of India’s government and the killing of a Canadian citizen.

On Monday, Canadian police said they had approached at least a dozen people over the past few months, specifically members of the pro-Khalistan movement, because they believed they faced credible and imminent threats.

They alleged subsequent investigations uncovered “a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated” by India agents, and consequential threats to Canadians.

“No country, particularly not a democracy that upholds the rule of law, can accept this fundamental violation of its sovereignty,” Trudeau said.

Canada’s allegations have come at a time when Trudeau appears to be battling anti-incumbency at home with elections barely a year away. A new poll by Ipsos reveals only 28% overall think Trudeau deserves re-election and only 26% would vote for the Liberals. India’s foreign ministry, in bruising remarks on Monday, ascribed Canada’s allegations to the “political agenda of the Trudeau government that is centred around vote bank politics”.

In 2016, Trudeau told reporters that he had more Sikhs – four – in his cabinet than Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s in India. Sikhs exert considerable influence in Canadian politics, occupying 15 seats in the House of Commons – over 4% – while representing only about 2% of the population. Many of these seats are in key battlegrounds during national elections. In 2020, Trudeau had expressed his concern over protests by farmers in India, drawing sharp criticism by Delhi.

“I think broadly speaking this crisis will give a feeling that this is a prime minister who is seeming to go from one debacle to another. More specifically, within the Indo-Canadian community it may well hurt more than ever,” says Mr Touhey.

He explains that the Indian diaspora in Canada, once predominantly Punjabi and Sikh, has become more diverse, now including a significant number of Hindus and immigrants from southern India and the western state of Gujarat.

“They are proud of India’s economic transformation since the 1990s and will not be sympathetic to Sikh separatism. Historically, the Liberals have been quite politically successful with the Sikh vote, especially in British Columbia.”

However, Mr Touhey doesn’t feel that the crisis with India has to do with vote bank politics.

Instead, he believes this is more about the Canadian government “repeatedly missing signals from Delhi regarding Indian concerns over pro-Khalistani elements in Canada”.

“My strong sense is that after decades of pleading with Canadian governments to take Indian concerns over pro-Khalistani elements in Canada, they feel that they’re back to square one – except this time you have a much more different government in Delhi that is willing to act forcefully, right or wrong, to rein in perceived domestic threats,” says Mr Touhey.

Mr Kugelman echoes a similar sentiment.

“There’s a lot at play that explains the rapid deterioration in bilateral ties. This includes a fundamental disconnect: what India views, or projects, as a dangerous threat is seen by Canada as mere activism and dissent protected by free speech. And neither is willing to make concessions,” he says.

All may not be lost. The two countries have a long relationship. Canada hosts one of the largest Indian-origin communities, with 1.3 million residents, or about 4% of its population. India is a priority market for Canada, ranking as its 10th largest trading partner in 2022. India has also been Canada’s top source of international students since 2018.

“On the one hand, the relationship is far more broad-based than ever thanks to the size of the diaspora, the diversity of that diaspora and the increase in bilateral trade, increased student exchanges – albeit this last point has become a problematic issue for the Trudeau government as well,” says Mr Touhey.

“So, I think those people-to-people links will be okay. At the high bilateral level, I don’t think there is much the current Canadian government can do as it pretty much enters the final year with an election to be held at the latest by the autumn of 2025.”

For the moment, though, things look pretty bad, experts say.

“Delhi now levels the same allegations against Canada that it has regularly levelled against Pakistan. It accuses Ottawa of sheltering and sponsoring anti-India terrorists. But of late, the language making these allegations against Canada has been stronger than it has been against Pakistan. And that’s saying something,” says Mr Kugelman.

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Donald Trump has pledged to drastically increase tariffs on foreign goods entering the US if he is elected president again.

He has promised tariffs – a form of tax – of up to 20% on goods from other countries and 60% on all imports from China. He has even talked about a 200% tax on some imported cars.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

He has claimed on the campaign trail that these taxes are “not going to be a cost to you, it’s a cost to another country”.

This is almost universally regarded by economists as misleading.

In practical terms, a tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import.

So a car imported to the US with a value of $50,000 (£38,000) subject to a 10% tariff, would face a $5,000 charge.

The charge is physically paid by the domestic company that imports the goods, not the foreign company that exports them.

So, in that sense, it is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.

Over the course of 2023, the US imported around $3,100bn of goods, equivalent to around 11% of US GDP.

And tariffs imposed on those imports brought in $80bn in that year, around 2% of total US tax revenues.

The question of where the final “economic” burden of tariffs falls, as opposed to the upfront bill, is more complicated.

If the US importing firm passes on the cost of the tariff to the person buying the product in the US in the form of higher retail prices, it would be the US consumer that bears the economic burden.

If the US importing firm absorbs the cost of the tariff itself and doesn’t pass it on, then that firm is said to bear the economic burden in the form of lower profits than it would otherwise have enjoyed.

Alternatively, it is possible that foreign exporters might have to lower their wholesale prices by the value of the tariff in order to retain their US customers.

In that scenario, the exporting firm would bear the economic burden of the tariff in the form of lower profits.

All three scenarios are theoretically possible.

But economic studies of the impact of the new tariffs that Trump imposed in his first term of office between 2017 and 2020 suggest most of the economic burden was ultimately borne by US consumers.

A survey by the University of Chicago in September 2024 asked a group of respected economists whether they agreed with the statement that “imposing tariffs results in a substantial portion of the tariffs being borne by consumers of the country that enacts the tariffs, through price increases”. Only 2% disagreed.

Let’s use a concrete example.

Trump imposed a 50% tariff on imports of washing machines in 2018.

Researchers estimate the value of washing machines jumped by around 12% as a direct consequence, equivalent to $86 per unit, and that US consumers paid around $1.5bn extra a year in total for these products.

There is no reason to believe the results of even higher import tariffs from a future Trump administration would be any different in terms of where the economic burden would fall.

The non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated Trump’s new proposed tariffs would lower the incomes of Americans, with the impact ranging from around 4% for the poorest fifth to around 2% for the wealthiest fifth.

A typical household in the middle of the US income distribution, the think tank estimates, would lose around $1,700 each year.

The left-of-centre think tank Centre for American Progress, using a different methodology, has an estimate of a $2,500 to $3,900 loss for a middle-income family.

Various researchers have also warned that another major round of tariffs from the US would risk another spike in domestic inflation.

Yet Trump has used another economic justification for his tariffs: that they protect and create US domestic jobs.

“Under my plan, American workers will no longer be worried about losing your jobs to foreign nations, instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America,” he said on the campaign trail.

The political context for Trump’s tariffs was longstanding concern about the loss of US manufacturing jobs to countries with lower labour costs, particularly after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) with Mexico in 1994 and the entry of China into the World Trade Organisation in 2001.

In January 1994, when Nafta came into effect, the US had just under 17 million manufacturing jobs. By 2016, this had declined to around 12 million.

Yet economists say it is misleading to attribute this decline to trade, arguing that growing levels of automation are also an important factor.

And researchers who studied the impact of Trump’s first-term tariffs found no substantial positive effects on overall employment in US industrial sectors that were protected.

Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel in 2018 to protect US producers.

By 2020, total employment in the US steel sector was 80,000, still lower than the 84,000 it had been in 2018.

It is theoretically possible that employment might have dropped even further without the Trump steel tariffs but detailed economic studies of their impact on US steel still showed no positive employment impact.

And economists have also found evidence suggesting that, because the domestic price of steel rose after the tariffs were imposed, employment in some other US manufacturing sectors, which relied on steel as an input – including the agricultural machinery manufacturer Deere & Co – was lower than it otherwise would have been.

Trump has criticised America’s trade deficit, which is the difference between the value of all the things the country imports and the value of its exports in a given year.

“Trade deficits hurt the economy very badly,” he has said.

In 2016, just before Trump took office, the total goods and services deficit was $480bn, around 2.5% of US GDP. By 2020, it had grown to $653bn, around 3% of GDP, despite his tariffs.

Part of the explanation, according to economists, is that Trump’s tariffs increased the international relative value of the US dollar (by automatically reducing demand for foreign currencies in international trade) and that this made the products of US exporters less competitive globally.

Another factor behind this failure to close the trade deficit is the fact that tariffs, in a globalised economy with multinational companies, can sometimes be bypassed.

For example, the Trump administration imposed 30% tariffs on Chinese imported solar panels in 2018.

The US Commerce Department presented evidence in 2023 that Chinese solar panel manufacturers had shifted their assembly operations to countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and then sent the finished products to the US from those countries, effectively evading the tariffs.

There are some economists who support Trump’s tariff plans as a way to boost US industry, such as Jeff Ferry of the Coalition for A Prosperous America, a domestic lobby group, but they are a small minority of the profession.

Oren Cass, the director of the conservative think tank American Compass, has argued tariffs can incentivise firms to keep more of their manufacturing operations in America, which he argues has national defence and supply chain security benefits.

And the Biden/Harris administration, while sharply criticising Trump’s proposed extension of tariffs, has kept in place many of the ones he implemented after 2018.

It has also imposed new tariffs on imports of things like electric vehicles from China, justifying them on the grounds of national security, US industrial policy and unfair domestic subsidies from Beijing.

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The government says it is allowing some “eligible” Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside the British military to resettle in the UK, after they were previously rejected.

Under the previous government, about 2,000 Afghans who served with specialist units – known at the “Triples” – were denied permission to relocate to the UK after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Armed forces minister Luke Pollard told the House of Commons a review had now found some applications were wrongly turned down.

Pollard said there was no evidence of “malicious intent” in the initial decision-making process, instead blaming poor record-keeping for any errors.

The so-called “Triples” were elite units of Afghan soldiers set up, funded and run by the UK.

On Monday, Pollard said the government has so far overturned 25% of the rejections.

He said a review had found new evidence that some of the Afghan soldiers had been directly paid by the UK government, meaning they were eligible for resettlement – and this evidence had been “overlooked” during the initial resettlement applications.

These errors were caused by a “failure to access and share the right digital records, and challenges with information flows across departmental lines”, he said.

He criticised the previous government for a “critical failure” in locating the correct paperwork.

The defence minister said the government had reviewed many of the cases as a matter of urgency because many of the Afghan troops “remain at risk” under Taliban rule.

Some of the Triples are reported to have been targeted and killed by the Taliban.

The review into the rejected applications was announced by the previous Conservative government in February, after former armed forces minister James Heappey said the decision-making process behind some rejections had not been “robust”.

Pollard said the review’s findings did not mean that all Triples would be eligible for relocation, adding officials were still re-assessing some of the applications.

Shadow veterans minister Andrew Bowie welcomed the continuation of the review.

He said the Conservatives wanted the correct decisions made on the “very important and highly sensitive applications as speedily and fairly as possible”.

A 14-year-old girl from Kenya has achieved global fame for her efforts to save the planet, meeting the likes of King Charles and teaming up with Grammy award-winner Meji Alabi and ex-football star David Beckham in the campaign against climate change.

Ellyanne Wanjiku Chlystun was just four years old when she was motivated to act on the issue with her inspiration coming from Kenya’s most-famous tree planter and Nobel laureate, Prof Wangari Maathai.

“I was doing a project in kindergarten about people who had made a difference in the world, such as Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Florence Nightingale.

“However, it was Wangari Maathai, this amazing Kenyan woman, who had planted millions of trees in her community to spread awareness about what tree planting can do, and how it can develop a country or continent, who inspired me,” Ellyanne tells the BBC.

Prof Maathai championed the view that women, especially in rural areas, could improve the environment by planting trees to provide a fuel source and to slow deforestation and desertification.

She became the first black African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, and was also referred to as the first “green” Nobel laureate.

Prof Maathai founded The Green Belt Movement in 1977. It planted an estimated 45 million trees in Kenya by the time she died in 2011.

Determined to follow in her footsteps, Ellyanne went home to tell her mother, Dorothy, about what she had learned.

However, her mother – who was very familiar with the story of Prof Maathai, including her role as a political activist who challenged the regime of then-President Daniel arap Moi – tried to discourage her.

Recalling the conversation, Ellyanne says: “I said I want to be just like her [Prof Maathai]. But because mum knows of her and how she got beaten and hurt and put in jail, she said: ‘No, it’s better to become a lawyer or doctor and go to Harvard’.”

However, the young child was persistent until her mother agreed that she could emulate her hero.

“I remember at the time eating either an orange or lemon and I took the seed… and put it in the soil and then it started growing and sprouting,” adds Ellyanne.

“I fell in love with what I was doing, so I planted more.”

This motivated her to learn about the science behind trees.

“Dr Jane Njuguna, from the Kenya Forestry Research Institute, taught me about Species Site Matching, which is finding the right tree to plant in the right area at the right time with the right tools and the right soil,” she says.

With the help of her family, Ellyanne launched a not-for-profit organisation, Children With Nature, in 2017.

“Through Children With Nature, I wanted to teach kids. Some of them don’t know how they can make a difference in the area they live in,” Ellyanne says.

She says that she had personally planted about 250,000 trees by 2020, but had built a “community” of tree-lovers – not just in Kenya but also abroad – and together they had crossed the 1.3 million mark.

“I have planted trees all over the world in countries I have visited, including Uganda, Poland, the UK, Crater Lake in the USA, Zanzibar, Morocco and Zambia,” Ellyanne says, adding: “I have planted the most trees here in Kenya.”

However, she has fallen behind on tree-planting in the last three years as she has became involved in other campaigns to tackle climate change.

“I usually get sponsorship and collaborate with various partnerships to fund the travel. Brands can pay for the tickets and hotel. As a child I can’t pay for my tickets yet, although I’m getting there,” Ellyanne adds.

On how she juggles her time between going to school and being a globe-trotting campaigner, the 14-year-old replies: “School has been very easy for me as I have excellent grades. I’m very proud of myself and so is my mum.”

She attended the climate summit in Dubai in 2023, where she met the British monarch, and gave a speech that drew a link between climate change and the water-borne disease malaria.

“As weather patterns change, malaria cases are rising. Where I live in Kenya, malaria is appearing in new places where it has never been seen before,” Ellyanne told the delegates.

She returned to the theme in a video released by UK-based charity Malaria No More.

Directed by Alabi and featuring Beckham, she is the presenter of the video, which dramatically illustrates the effects of climate change.

“An angry sun, erratic skies, cyclones, floods of a cosmic size, thirsty land, falling trees – the perfect storm to spread disease,” Ellyanne says in the film.

Along with children from other parts of the world, she also features in SaveOurWildlife, a documentary film produced by Sky News and Sky Kids FYI that looks at the impact of climate change on animals.

It has been nominated for a prize in the children’s category at the Wildscreen Panda Awards ceremony, billed as the Oscars of the wildlife film and TV industry, currently under way in the UK city of Bristol.

In the film, Ellyanne reports on her favourite animal – elephants – and says that drought caused by changing weather patterns now poses a greater threat to their survival than poaching.

Despite the fact that she has branched out into filming, she tells the BBC that she remains passionate about tree-planting, and intends to take it up again.

“My greatest dream is to plant trees in Africa’s Green Belt,” Ellyanne says, referring to the initiative to halt the advancing Sahara Desert by planting trees from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east.

And she wants to be a “catalyst” for the planting of one-trillion trees around the world by the time she turns 18 – a goal that she regards achievable.

“I was brought up to believe that everything is possible, especially for me as a young person.

“Look what GenZ has done in Kenya, out of resilience, they managed to get a whole finance bill cancelled and the entire cabinet fired,” she adds, giving a glimpse of the political streak of her hero, Prof Maathai.

But she says has no intention of forging a political career like Prof Maathai, saying: “I want to graduate from primary school and then get into high school and then get into college. I want to specialise in economics, that’s for sure.”

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“Choose peace not war” is the main message from Georgian Dream, the party that has been in power in Georgia for the past 12 years.

Russia’s war in Ukraine is featuring prominently in the governing party’s parliamentary election campaign, ahead of a decisive choice for Georgians on 26 October.

Billboards featuring images of bombed-out Ukrainian churches and swimming pools, burnt-out buses and school classrooms are contrasted with peaceful images from Georgia.

The implication is that the opposition will drag Georgia into a Ukraine-style war, while Georgian Dream can guarantee peace.

It is a powerful message in a country of 3.7 million people that borders Russia and suffered a short, but devastating conflict with its neighbour in 2008.

The real threat, says the country’s opposition, represented in the forthcoming elections by several pro-Western coalitions, is the loss of Georgian democracy along with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the European Union.

Georgia received candidate status to join the EU in December 2023, but the European Union has frozen the accession process due to increased anti-Western rhetoric by Georgian Dream and the passing of a controversial “foreign influence” law in June 2024.

It was a law that brought tens of thousands of young Georgian protesters onto the streets in the spring. The law requires media and civil society groups funded from abroad to register as acting in the interest of a foreign power. Protesters saw it as a threat to the country’s democracy and its future in Europe.

Critics say it was inspired by a Russian law used to crush dissent.

Georgia’s most powerful man, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has promised to outlaw opposition groups if Georgian Dream wins. He founded the party and is currently the honorary chairman.

He lumps all the opposition groups together as a collective United National Movement, or UNM, the name of Georgia’s largest opposition party.

“Today, the collective UNM supported from abroad is trying to come to power through unrest and get this country entangled in war and chaos,” Ivanishvili told supporters in Batumi on 10 October.

“This is to end once and for all. This is why Georgia needs the ruling party to win a constitutional majority in the 26 October elections.”

The risk of war and other “threats” feature prominently in pro-government media.

These include the idea that Europe wants to make Georgian men gay, or that an army of “foreign agents” from the country’s vibrant civil society and free media are part of a Western “Global War Party” conspiracy to foment revolution.

In the western city of Kutaisi, a crowd of several hundred supporters listen to Nika Gvaramia, from the opposition Coalition for Change, as he speaks from a stage backlit by EU and Georgian flags on flat screens.

“Our future is in Europe,” he cries.

His coalition aims to attract Georgia’s Gen Z voters – the very people who came out in big numbers to protest against the “foreign influence” law.

Leaving the stage, he told the BBC the parliamentary election was in essence a referendum on Georgia’s European future.

“There is no such thing as some kind of threat to peace in Georgia,” Gvaramia said. “That’s Russian propaganda. The main point of our agenda is how to survive. How to save our homeland. That is an issue of Russia or Europe.”

The opposition is hoping next week’s vote will bring in the first coalition government in Georgia and an end to what they describe as “one-party rule” by Georgian Dream.

But, with Bidzina Ivanishvili at its helm, Georgian Dream is confident it will secure a decisive victory.

“We have reached a historical maximum approval rating mainly due to two factors. The first is that despite challenges peace is ensured in our country. The second is quick economic growth over the past three to four years,” said Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze as he presented his party’s election programme on 7 October.

Critics instead point to the number of Georgians heading abroad in search of work. According to official statistics, 243,000 emigrated in 2023.

“If the economy is doing so incredibly well why are Georgians leaving the country?” asks Zviad Adzinbaia, a senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

The opposition has complained the authorities have not set up enough polling stations outside Georgia to accommodate their votes.

The Central Election Commission announced last month that it would open 60 polling stations in 42 countries.

The EU, US and UK have all spoken out against the direction Georgian Dream is pulling its country, with talk of democratic backsliding and narratives that serve only Russia.

On Tuesday, the UK froze its annual security dialogue with Georgia, with its ambassador to Tbilisi citing concerns about the decline of democracy and anti-Western rhetoric from the Georgian government.

The Kremlin insists it is not interfering in Georgia’s domestic affairs, arguing it is the West making “brazen attempts” to put pressure on the government.

Beyond the big cities, though, it is not geopolitics that pre-occupy many Georgians.

For months, Tamaz Neparidze, 66, and dozens of others from Shukruti protested outside parliament in Tbilisi, saying their village on a hillside above the town of Chiatura was collapsing because of a vast underground mine network.

They blamed the mining company and the government for their plight.

“I have lost all expectations. I don’t think I will vote in these elections I don’t believe in any of it,” said Tamaz.

It’s when dark falls over Bucha that the witches come out, because that’s when the Russian attack drones start swarming.

The Witches of Bucha, as they call themselves, are a volunteer air defence unit made up almost entirely of women, now helping to protect Ukraine’s skies as more and more men are sent to the frontlines.

There are more drones to shoot down, too, often launched from Russia in waves to overwhelm the main defences ahead of a missile strike.

The night-time shifts allow the women to combine their work defending their country with day jobs as teachers, doctors – there’s even a manicurist.

Many say it’s a way of overcoming the powerlessness they felt when Russian forces occupied Bucha region at the start of the full-scale invasion.

The horror stories of those weeks – including of killing, torture and abduction – only began to emerge after Ukrainian forces freed the area at the end of March 2022.

“I’m 51, I weigh 100kg, I can’t run. I thought they’d send me packing, but they took me on!” Valentyna recalls, a veterinarian who signed up with the drone-busters this summer and now goes by the callsign Valkyrie.

She talks about friends deployed to the front, and others who’ve died in the fighting, as part of what brought her to this role.

“I can do this work. The kit’s heavy, but we women can do it.”

Valentyna gets to demonstrate that a few hours later as an air alert is activated across the region.

Her unit scramble from their base in the woods, and we follow their pick-up truck through the darkness as it bumps towards the middle of a field. The team of four jump out to begin mounting their weapons.

The machine-guns are from another era: two Maxims made in 1939, ammunition boxes stamped with red stars from Soviet days.

Serhiy, the only man on the team, has to pour in bottled water by hand as a coolant.

This is all that’s available: Ukraine’s best kit is at the frontline, and it is constantly asking its allies for more.

But the ancient weapons are impeccably maintained and the Witches say they’ve downed three drones since the summer.

“My role is to listen for them,” Valentyna explains. “It’s nervous work. But we have to stay focussed, to [listen out] for the slightest sound.”

Her friend Inna is also in her early 50s and out on one of her first deployments.

“It’s scary, yes. But so’s giving birth, and I still did that three times,” she laughs, telling me her own callsign is Cherry: “Because of my car, not the tomatoes.”

A maths teacher, she occasionally has to rush back from the woods to take a class.

“I keep my clothes in the car. My heels. I put on some lipstick, teach the lesson. Then it’s back in the car, quick change round the corner and I’m off.”

“The guys have gone, but we’re here. What can’t Ukrainian women do? We can do everything.”

Somewhere on the horizon is a beam of light from another group, scouring the skies for danger over their own patrol zone.

There’s no public data on the total number of volunteer units – or how many women are involved. But as Russia sends drones packed with explosives almost every night, they help form an extra shield around big towns and cities.

From the Witches’ position in a field, Yulia tracks two drones on her tablet. They’re over the neighbouring region, so there’s no imminent danger for Bucha, but the machine guns will stay in place until the alert ends.

The volunteers’ commander is a big bear of a man, just back from Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbas region where the fighting is fiercest.

“There are fireworks, non-stop,” is how Andriy Verlaty describes it there, with a smile.

He used to have around 200 men operating mobile air defence units in the Bucha region and patrolling during the nightly curfew, many of them unfit for full military service.

Then Ukraine overhauled its mobilisation law, in urgent need of more soldiers, and many of the colonel’s crew suddenly found themselves eligible for the frontline.

“About 90% of my men ended up in the army and another 10% hid, scattering like rats. We were left with barely anyone,” Col Verlaty says bluntly. “Just men with no legs, or half a skull missing.”

He had a choice: to fill the roles with men below mobilisation age, or recruit women.

“At first it was like a joke: ‘Let’s take women!’ There wasn’t much trust in them, in the armed forces. But that has really changed,” he says.

The Witches spend their weekends undergoing a broader military training. On the day we visit, it’s their first lesson on storming a building. They practice in the ruins of a farm outhouse, poking rifles round empty doorways before edging warily past.

Some manage to look more convincing than others, but the women’s commitment and focus is clear – because their reasons for doing this are deep and personal.

“I remember the occupation. I remember the horror. I remember the screams of my own child,” Valentyna tells me, through small sighs. “I remember the dead bodies, when we were fleeing.”

Her family escaped Bucha past burned out tanks, dead soldiers and civilians. At one Russian checkpoint she says a soldier made them wind down the car window, then put a gun to her son’s head.

She is filled with quiet fury.

That’s also why Valentyna refuses to stop believing in Ukraine’s victory, despite the gloom that has settled over much of her country after almost 1,000 days of full-scale war.

“Life has changed, all our plans have been torn apart. But I’m here to help speed up the end of this war. As our girls here say, it won’t end without us.”

Crunching over broken glass and rubble in army boots, rifle in hand, office manager Anya is another volunteer Witch. Now 52, she finds the military training empowering.

“Under occupation, I felt the utter pointlessness of my existence. I could neither help anyone else, nor defend myself. I wanted to learn how to use weapons, so I could be some use.”

There’s a lot of backchat with the trainers: the women are enjoying themselves. But later that night, at their base in the woods, one of them opens up even more and shares a chilling story.

When Bucha was taken over, Russian forces began going house to house. They raped and they murdered. Then one day, a rumour spread that the occupiers were coming to kill the children.

“For the decision I took that day, I will never forgive the Russians,” this woman confides.

I won’t share the details of what she told me – the extreme decision she took – only that the soldiers never came and she never had to act on it. But this woman has been haunted by that moment ever since, and by guilt.

The first time she felt relief was when she began learning to defend herself, her family and her country.

“Coming here really helped,” she tells me quietly. “Because I won’t ever sit like a victim again and be so very afraid.”

France football captain Kylian Mbappé is “astonished” to see his name linked in media reports to a rape inquiry in Sweden, but his lawyer says the player is calm because he has nothing to be sorry about.

Swedish authorities have confirmed that a senior prosecutor is investigating a report of a suspected rape in Stockholm, without naming anyone in connection with the case.

However, Swedish media report that the French footballer is being linked to the allegations which involve an incident at a hotel in central Stockholm last Thursday.

Kylian Mbappé has also reacted, summing up the reports as “FAKE NEWS”, to his 14 million followers on X.

Swedish media said the footballer had stayed in Stockholm for two days last week, visiting a restaurant on Thursday evening before moving on to a nightclub. He was pictured walking in the centre of the capital with three other people.

Swedish prosecutors clarified on Monday that according to a “criminal report” submitted to police, the incident under investigation took place on 10 October at a hotel.

Police were seen visiting the Bank hotel he had stayed at on Monday, with officers later leaving with bags. One report said they had taken clothing from the hotel in evidence.

“The investigation is being led by senior prosecutor Marina Chirakova, who is unable to provide more information at this time,” the Swedish prosecution authority said.

Mbappé was not called up for France’s Uefa Nations League matches over the past week and has returned to training with his team Real Madrid.

Lawyer Petra Eklund, who is acting for the complainant in the case, has said she cannot comment on the case at the moment because of legal constraints.

However, Sweden’s SVT and other media outlets reported the allegation involved reasonable suspicion of rape, considered a lower level of suspicion under Swedish law.

Kylian Mbappé’s lawyers have condemned the media reports as defamatory, and on Tuesday night lawyer Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard appeared on the main evening news programme on TF1, saying nothing was known of the complaint or even if it had been made against her client, who she said was “stunned” by the media frenzy.

“[Kylian Mbappé] is never alone. He is never put in a position where he ends up in a situation that would lead to him taking a risk,” she insisted.

“As a result that totally rules out any possibility of reprehensible actions on his part. I can tell you that with absolutely certainty.”

She said a complaint proved nothing and that she was preparing to hit back with a claim for defamation.

Meanwhile, in his social media post on Monday night, the footballer appeared to connect the reports emerging from Sweden to a case with his previous French club Paris Saint-Germain over €55m (£46m) that he alleges was unpaid in wages and bonuses.

“It’s becoming so predictable, on the eve of the hearing, as if by chance,” he said.

Kylian Mbappé was the top goalscorer in PSG’s history but he left the club over the summer after months of dispute. Tuesday’s hearing was before a French football league (LFP) appeals committee. PSG denies the player’s allegations and another of Mbappé’s lawyers said a decision was expected on 25 October.

Sweden’s rape laws were reformed in 2018, so a perpetrator can be convicted of negligent assault or rape if they “should have realised the other person was not participating voluntarily”.

Models and pop stars took to the catwalk as the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show made its comeback, five years after being cancelled.

The lingerie brand’s catwalk show was scrapped after its 2018 edition drew low ratings as well as criticism that it was sexist, outdated and lacked diversity.

It returned on Tuesday in New York, where British supermodel Kate Moss, 50, made her debut at the event, with her 22-year-old daughter Lila also appearing on the runway.

The show also featured musical performances from Cher, Tyla and Blackpink’s Lisa.

The fashion show, which was launched in 1995, would ordinarily attract millions of viewers each year and big-name performers like Rihanna and Taylor Swift.

But ratings dropped and controversies plagued the brand. Its chief executive departed shortly after its 2018 show, which was watched on US TV by three million people – down from nine million four years earlier.

At the time, the New York Times declared Victoria’s Secret a name in “steady decline”, while the Wall Street Journal said it had “lost its appeal”.

In 2017, the event had been held in Shanghai, China, but hit problems when Katy Perry and Gigi Hadid were reportedly denied visas.

Marketing head Ed Razek apologised in 2018 for comments he made about why transgender and plus-sized models were not featured on the runway.

This year’s comeback promised to “celebrate all women”, with the company’s British chief design and creative officer Janie Schaffer telling WWD Victoria’s Secret had “moved on as a business so much over the last three years”.

Those on the catwalk on Tuesday included Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio, who became the first transgender model to represent Victoria’s Secret in 2019.

There was also an appearance from another transgender model, Alex Consani.

Plus-sized models including Ashley Graham and Paloma Elsesser also walked the famous runway, but some saw this as a token gesture considering the company’s history.

While Kate Moss’s appearance in a black lace dress and trademark angel wings was unexpected, a few familiar faces made their runway returns.

Gigi and Bella Hadid showcased a number of looks including matching red lingerie, with fan favourites Barbara Palvin and Candice Swanepoel also walking.

Former America’s Next Top Model host Tyra Banks, 50, appeared at the event for the first time since 2009.

Another model to make her return was Adriana Lima, who walked in 2018 before the show was scrapped.

Reaction to this year’s show has been mixed, with Harper’s Bazaar’s Dani Maher writing: “Were there any moments burned into my brain with similar urgency [to previous shows]? I’m not so sure.”

Schaffer highlighted its diversity, saying there were 50 models from 25 different countries.

But Maher wrote that despite this, “the runway was still overwhelmingly dominated by thin conventionally attractive models”.

This was echoed by Teen Vogue associate editor Aiyana Ishmael, who wrote: “As I watched thin model after thin model take the runway, I was catapulted right back to my childhood living room, watching women who didn’t look like me set a beauty standard most women will never meet.”

For more than 20 years, Robert Roberson has been awaiting an execution for a crime he says never happened.

He was sentenced in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, after doctors and an autopsy report concluded she died of injuries from abuse. But Roberson, his lawyers and others say she did not die from “shaken baby syndrome”, as prosecutors had claimed, but complications related to pneumonia.

Prosecutors, however, insist Roberson’s new evidence does not disprove their case that the child died from injuries inflicted by her father.

A diverse group is calling for clemency as Roberson’s execution date of 17 October approaches. It includes 86 Texas lawmakers from both major parties, dozens of medical and scientific experts, autism advocates, lawyers, and even the lead detective in the case who helped secure Roberson’s conviction. There’s also bestselling author John Grisham.

“In Robert’s case there was no crime and yet we’re about to kill somebody for it in Texas,” Grisham told reporters in September.

An appeals court in 2023 agreed there was insufficient evidence to overturn the conviction. The Supreme Court declined to hear his case.

Roberson’s last-ditch efforts to appeal against his conviction have failed. The Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles has until 15 October to recommend clemency, which would be up to Governor Greg Abbot to grant.

“We have to do all we can to pump the brakes before this stains Texas justice for generations,” said Democratic state representative Joe Moody.

Roberson’s case is the latest in a string of high-profile death row cases that have received significant public attention in recent weeks.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve US, an anti-death penalty organisation, told the BBC that there is currently an “execution spree” in the country.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments for overturning the murder conviction of Richard Glossip, found guilty of orchestrating the killing of his boss. He had been scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma nine different times.

The court will decide if his conviction should be overturned based on the allegation that prosecutors withheld information about a key witness against him, who had also lied on the stand.

The court had already put his execution on hold.

But last month, the Supreme Court declined to halt the execution of Marcellus Williams, a black man convicted of murdering a journalist in 1998.

Prosecutors had since doubted his guilt, and the victim’s family had opposed his execution. He was put to death on 24 September.

Four other men were executed the same week as Williams – making it the highest execution rate since 2003, an “unusual” number, according to Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit research organisation that is critical of how the death penalty is applied in America.

“The unusual number of executions was not the result of any single event or co-ordinated effort,” she said.

“They simply reflected the agendas of elected state officials, who are increasingly disconnected from the interests and priorities of their constituents regarding the death penalty.”

Polls indicate support for it has declined over the past 30 years, with one recent Gallup poll suggesting 53% of Americans are in favour of capital punishment.

If Roberson is executed on Thursday, his death will be the 19th execution in 2024.

The likelihood of being executed varies widely by state. Twenty-three states do not have the death penalty, while an additional 15 have not executed anyone for at least five years. Last year five states – Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri and Alabama – accounted for all 24 executions.

If Roberson’s death sentence is carried out, he would be the first person in the US to be executed for a “shaken baby syndrome” case.

Medical experts once used the syndrome to describe brain injuries and deaths of children who were violently shaken or assaulted. But it has come under scrutiny in recent years because of how it has been used in court cases.

In 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics changed the name of shaken baby syndrome to “abusive head trauma”. Regardless of its name, it is the leading cause of fatal brain injury in children under two.

It is usually diagnosed after finding evidence of retinal haemorrhage, brain swelling and bleeding in the brain.

While the diagnosis is broadly accepted by the medical community, a recent report highlighted the need to thoroughly examine other causes before concluding injuries were due to abuse.

“The question to be answered is, ‘Is there a medical cause to explain all the findings or did this child suffer from inflicted injury?” the world’s leading paediatric organisations wrote in a consensus statement published in Pediatric Radiology.

According to Roberson’s account, Nikki fell out of bed before she died. He says he

comforted her and went back to sleep – but when he awoke, she wasn’t breathing and her lips were blue. Roberson says he took her to hospital, where doctors said she had signs of brain death. She died the next day.

Court documents show medical staff immediately suspected abuse, because of bruises on her head, brain swelling and bleeding behind her eyes. An autopsy, conducted after Roberson was arrested, determined she died of blunt-force head trauma and her death was ruled a homicide.

Roberson’s lawyers argue that new evidence shows she had pneumonia at the time of her death that developed into sepsis.

Roberson had taken her to the hospital and to see doctors repeatedly in the days leading up to her death. His lawyers noted she was prescribed medications that are no longer given to children because they can cause serious complications. They argue the medications, plus her fall, could have accounted for the bruising, swelling and bleeding doctors found in her brain and behind her eyes.

Roberson was also diagnosed with autism after being convicted, which his lawyers say explains the lack of emotion that police witnessed when his daughter died, and biased them against him.

Brian Wharton, the lead detective in Roberson’s case who testified against him at trial, is one of the people now seeking clemency for the man.

“I will forever be haunted by the role I played in helping the state put this innocent man on death row,” he wrote in a letter of support. “Robert’s case will forever be a burden on my heart and soul.”

US rapper Kendrick Lamar stole the show at the 2024 BET Hip Hop Awards, taking home eight prizes including song of the year and artist of the year.

The Not Like Us artist was nominated for a total of eleven awards.

Hosted by Fat Joe for the third year in a row, the ceremony in Las Vegas actually took place last week, but were broadcast on Tuesday night.

Other notable winners included Nicki Minaj with hip hop album of the year, Sexyy Red as breakthrough hip hop artist and Missy Elliott as best live performer.

The awards are a spin-off of the main BET Awards, with the ceremony focusing on celebrating black entertainment.

Highest in the Room hitmaker Travis Scott also won the I Am Hip Hop award, recognising his work as a producer and artist for over a decade.

“I’ve always had this idea and vision still to this day to take the sound, and take things to the next level,” the 10-time Grammy Award nominee said while accepting his prize.

“I’m just so glad that we made it this far. I want to let everybody know where you come from doesn’t really matter, what goes on in your brain can take you to the next level and beyond.”

50 Cent also picked up hustler of the year, with the star recently announcing his first residency in Las Vegas.

There were also live performances from Trina, Yung Miami, Juicy J, and 2 Chainz.

Despite the performances and big-name winners, some fans took to social media to criticise the awards.

One user on X/Twitter commented that the “stage looks a mess”, while another said: “The BET Hip Hop Awards are being held in a small night club”.

The full list of winners:

Best hip hop video: Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us

Best collaboration: Metro Boomin, Future, Kendrick Lamar – Like That

Best duo or group: Future and Metro Boomin

Best live performer: Missy Elliott

Lyricist of the year: Kendrick Lamar

Video director of the year: Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar

Song of the year: Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us

Hip Hop album of the year: Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday 2

Hip Hop artist of the year: Kendrick Lamar

Best breakthrough Hip Hop artist: Sexyy Red

Hustler of the year: 50 Cent

Sweet 16: Best featured verse: Kendrick Lamar – Like That (Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar)

Impact track: Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us

Best international flow: Ghetts

I Am Hip Hop Award: Travis Scott

Producer of the year: The Alchemist

Best hip hop platform – Club Shay Shay

DJ of the year – The Alchemist

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

A man who allegedly left his dog tied to a post in floodwaters ahead of Hurricane Milton has been charged with aggravated animal cruelty, officials say.

The animal was rescued by Highway Patrol near a Florida highway on 9 October.

Bodycam footage posted online, which has been viewed more than 12 million times, showed the dog standing beside a wire fence in water up to his chest.

His former owner, Giovanny Aldama Garcia, was arrested on Monday, according to the state government’s highway safety body.

He reportedly told investigators that he had abandoned the animal, originally called Jumbo, because he was leaving Florida due to the storm and could not find anyone to look after him.

According to ABC News, Mr Aldama Garcia later agreed to surrender ownership after turning up at the animal shelter where the dog was being looked after to try and claim him.

The 23 year old could face up to five years in jail if found guilty of animal cruelty.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that Jumbo, now renamed Trooper in honour of the Highway Patrol officer who rescued him, would be adopted.

“You don’t just tie up a dog and have them out there for a storm, totally unacceptable,” DeSantis told a news briefing on Tuesday.

State Attorney Suzy Lopez said Trooper had “touched the hearts of a lot of people”. The dog would have faced a “sure death” if he had not been rescued, she added.

The Leon County Humane Society, which had been caring for the dog before he was put in foster care, said that it had received hundreds of inquiries about Trooper.

Hurricane Milton tore through Florida last week after making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane. Thousands of people had to be rescued from flooded areas.

At least 24 people died as a result of the storm, according to official counts.

South Korean football player Hwang Ui-jo has apologised for secretly filming sexual encounters with his partners.

Prosecutors say the 31-year-old striker filmed sexual encounters with two of his partners without their consent on four occasions between June and September 2022.

In his first court appearance in Seoul on Wednesday, Hwang said he was “deeply sorry” for causing “disappointment”.

The former striker had just last month left England’s Nottingham Forest for Turkey’s Alanyaspor.

The videos came to light after Hwang’s sister-in-law shared them on social media last June, in an attempt to blackmail him.

She was sentenced to three years in prison in September for the blackmail after Hwang sued her.

However, the charges against him proceeded as prosecutors said he filmed the videos illegally.

Prosecutors refused to provide details on the women in the videos to prevent further harm.

“I will not do anything wrong in the future and will do my best as a footballer,” Hwang told the court in Seoul.

“I sincerely apologise to the victims who have been affected by my actions, and I am deeply sorry for the disappointment I have caused to all those who have cared and supported me,” he added.

At least 10 Indian flights have received hoax bomb threats over the past 48 hours, leading to long delays and diversions.

On Tuesday, Singapore’s Air Force sent two fighter jets to escort an Air India Express plane away from populated areas following a bomb threat.

Hours before that, an Air India plane from Delhi to Chicago had to land at a Canadian airport as a precuationary measure.

Hoax bomb threats to airlines are not unusual in India but it’s not clear what triggered the sudden surge since Monday.

Officials from the government’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security did not respond to the BBC’s emails for comment.

Apart from Air India, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air flights also received threats.

On Monday, three international flights that took off from Mumbai were diverted or delayed after an X (formerly Twitter) handle posted threats. Police have detained a teenager in connection with this.

On Tuesday, seven flights, including the two Air India planes, were affected by the threats issued by another X handle which has now been suspended. Screenshots of some of the posts show the user had tagged the airline and local police and mentioned the flight number.

Air India said in a statement that it was co-operating with authorities to identify the people behind the threats and would consider legal action to recover damaged incurred.

Every Indian airport has a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee which assesses the gravity of the threat and takes action accordingly. A threat can lead to the involvement of the bomb disposal squad, sniffer dogs, ambulances, police and doctors.

Passengers are off-loaded from the plane along with cabin baggage, check-in baggage and cargo, and they are all screened again. Engineering and security teams also search the plane before it is cleared for flying again.

The resultant delay can cost thousands of dollars in damages to airlines and security agencies.

For flights heading for other countries, it can also lead to international agencies getting involved, like in Singapore and Canada.

On Tuesday, Singapore’s defence minister said that two of the city state’s fighter jets “scrambled and escorted” the Air India Express plane before it landed safely at Changi airport. The plane was flying from Madurai in India to Singapore.

“Once on the ground, the plane was handed to the Airport Police. Investigations are ongoing,” Ng Eng Hen wrote.

The aircraft later landed safely at Changi.

In Canada – where the Air India flight to Chicago had landed at Iqaluit airport as a precautionary measure – the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it was investigating the threat.

Air India said on Wednesday that a Canadian Air Force plane was taking the passengers to Chicago. It’s not clear yet when the Air India plane will be allowed to take off.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of raping a woman as “payback” for suggesting he was involved in the murder of Tupac Shakur.

In a lawsuit filed in California, Ashley Parham also claims the musician threatened to slash her face with a knife in retaliation for her comments.

Mr Combs has yet to respond to the allegations, but has consistently denied all claims of sexual assault.

He has also previously denied any involvement in the drive-by shooting that killed rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996.

The murder has never been solved, although former gang member Duane “Keffe D” Davis was charged with murder last year. Mr Davis, whose trial will begin in March 2025, previously claimed that Mr Combs offered him $1m (£769,000) for a hit on Shakur.

• Warning, the rest of this story contains details of sexual assault that readers may find upsetting
• If you are affected by any of these issues, BBC Action Line has links to services that can offer support

In legal papers filed in California on Tuesday, Ms Parham says she landed on Mr Combs’ radar after meeting one of his friends at a bar in 2018.

The friend was “attempting to impress” people by making a video call to Mr Combs, but Ms Parham refused to take part because she believed the rapper “had something to do with the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur”.

In the lawsuit, she claims Mr Combs overheard her comment and said she would “pay” for it.

About a month later, the friend invited her to his home asking for help with his cancer drugs, and Mr Combs unexpectedly turned up, she claims.

Ms Parham alleges that the rapper then approached her “with a knife and held it to the right side of [her] face and threatened to give her a ‘Glasgow smile’ in retaliation for her previous statements”.

Mr Combs then ripped off her clothes and “violently” raped her with a television remote control, the documents say.

During the ordeal, Mr Combs allegedly told her that her life was in his hands and that, if he so desired, she would never be seen again.

Ms Parham alleges that she was then raped by multiple people, “until eventually she had no control over her body nor could she move her body”.

Ms Parham says she eventually tried to escape but was confronted by Mr Combs, who offered her money to say the rape was consensual, she claims.

She ran to neighbours for help, the lawsuit says, as gunshots were fired in her direction. They had already called the police, having heard the disturbance next door.

Ms Parham says she told the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department she had been gang raped by Mr Combs and his associates, but no further action was taken.

She went to hospital three weeks later and staff called local police. However, Ms Parham claims neither of her police reports led to an investigation.

She is suing Mr Combs and six other people for sexual assault and battery, abuse, false imprisonment and kidnapping, and is demanding a trial by jury.

The BBC has contacted his lawyers for comment and is similarly seeking a response from his co-defendants.

Ms Parham’s case is the latest in more than a dozen claims of rape, sexual assault and physical abuse that have been filed against Combs in the past year.

Six new cases were lodged in New York on Monday alone, including allegations that he molested a 16-year-old boy at a party in his mansion.

Responding to those cases, lawyers for the star told the BBC that Mr Combs “has never sexually assaulted anyone – adult or minor, man or woman”.

They have also described previous lawsuits as a “money grab” and “clear attempts to garner publicity”.

Mr Combs is currently being held at a detention centre in New York, as he awaits trial on federal criminal charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

On Tuesday, his lawyers filed a motion requesting the identities of his accusers, in order to prepare for the trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin on 5 May 2025.

They added that the number of anonymous accusations against Mr Combs have been “irreparably damaging” to his “character and reputation”.

“These swirling allegations have created a hysterical media circus that, if left unchecked, will irreparably deprive Mr Combs of a fair trial, if they haven’t already,” the motion concluded.

The music mogul’s lawyers have also argued for his release on bail, citing the “horrific” conditions he faces in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.

However, prosecutors have countered that he poses a risk of witness intimidation.

The musician, who was one of the most influential producers in the 1990s hip-hop scene, is known for solo hits like I’ll Be Missing You and his work with Notorious B.I.G. on tracks like Juicy and Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.

He took the unusual step of posting to Instagram from jail on Tuesday, wishing his two-year-old daughter a happy birthday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has presented MPs with a long-awaited “victory plan” that aims to strengthen his country’s position enough to end the war with Russia.

Zelensky told parliament in Kyiv that the plan could finish the war – which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – no later than next year.

Key elements include a formal invitation to join Nato, the lifting by allies of restrictions on long-range strikes on Russia, a refusal to trade Ukraine’s territories and sovereignty, and the continuation of the incursion into the Kursk region of Russia.

The Kremlin dismissed the plan with a spokesman saying Kyiv needed to “sober up”.

Addressing MPs, Zelensky also criticised China, Iran and North Korea for their backing of Russia, and described them as a “coalition of criminals”.

He said he would present the victory plan at an EU summit on Thursday.

“We are at war with Russia on the battlefield, in international relations, in the economy, in the information sphere, and in people’s hearts,” Zelensky told parliament.

The plan outlined by Zelensky consists of five key points:

• Inviting Ukraine to join Nato
• The strengthening of Ukrainian defence against Russian forces, including getting permission from allies to use their long-range weapons on Russian territory, and the continuation of Ukraine’s military operations on Russian territory to avoid creation of the “buffer zones” in Ukraine
• Containment of Russia via a non-nuclear strategic deterrent package deployed on Ukrainian soil
• Joint protection by the US and the EU of Ukraine’s critical natural resources and joint use of their economic potential
• For the post-war period only: replacing some US troops stationed across Europe with Ukrainian troops

Three “addendums” remain secret and will only be shared with Ukraine’s partners, Zelensky said.

The plan was presented to US President Joe Biden, as well as presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, back in September.

Key allies such as Britain, France, Italy and Germany have also reportedly been shown the plan.

However Zelensky’s conditions for peace are increasingly at odds with the situation which surrounds him.

In front of MPs he acknowledged the growing fatigue in his country. His own tiredness was etched across his face as he said that “victory has become for some an uncomfortable word and it’s not easy to achieve.”

National morale has gradually been crumbling under the weight of a mounting death toll, a controversial mobilisation law and never-ending Russian assaults on Ukrainian territory.

It’s increasingly thought any peace deal would have to involve Ukraine conceding territory in exchange for security guarantees.

However, there was no hint of a compromise to bring the end of the war closer. Instead, Zelensky doubled down on wanting to force Russia to negotiate and to not cede Ukraine’s territory, through the strengthening of his own military.

He also claimed his extensive plan could be implemented with the agreement of his allies, and not Russia.

In public, Zelensky evidently still sees this war as existential, and warned of Russian President Vladimir Putin continuing to strengthen his position.

He also seemed to frame his vision as an investment opportunity for Western allies in terms of natural resources and economic potential.

The Ukrainian president wants his exhausted troops to keep fighting.

But with his army so reliant on Western aid, his “victory plan” will need the approval of the next US president.

Immediately after Zelensky finished speaking, the Kremlin rubbished his “ephemeral peace plan,” saying Kyiv needed to “sober up”.

The only way the war would end was Ukraine to “realise the futility of the policy it is pursuing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Members of a Malaysian religious group accused of human trafficking and child sexual abuse continued committing crimes even after a large-scale police crackdown, according to authorities.

The Islamic Global Ikhwan Group (GISB) made international headlines in September after police rescued 402 minors suspected of being abused across 20 care homes.

Authorities arrested 171 suspects at the time, including teachers and caretakers – but hundreds more have been arrested since, as further details emerge of the group’s alleged crimes.

Among those are allegations that, until 1 October, five GISB members trafficked people for the purpose of exploitation by forced labour through threats.

Two of the accused were managers of a GISB-owned resort in the southern state of Johor. They were charged on Sunday with four counts of human trafficking involving three women and a man aged between 30 and 57. The third, a worker at the same resort, was charged with two counts of sexually abusing a 16-year-old.

At least two other suspects in the incident, which took place between August 2023 and 1 October 2024, are still at large.

Hundreds of other victims, aged between one and 17, are said to have endured various forms of abuse at care homes linked to GISB, with some allegedly sodomised by their guardians and forced to perform sexual acts on other children, according to police.

In a press conference on Monday, lawyers representing GISB denied allegations of illegal business activities and organised crime, asking for a “fair investigation” as police investigations continue.

However, its CEO, Nasiruddin Mohd Ali, had earlier admitted there were “one or two cases of sodomy” at the care homes.

“Indeed, there were one or two cases of sodomy, but why lump them (the cases) all together?” Nasiruddin said in a video posted to the company’s Facebook page.

GISB has hundreds of businesses across 20 countries, operating across sectors including hospitality, food and education. It has also been linked to Al-Arqam, a religious sect that was banned by the Malaysian government in 1994 due to concerns about deviant Islamic teachings.

Khaulah Ashaari, the daughter of Al-Arqam founder Ashaari Muhammad, is a member of GISB, and has denied that the group still follows her late father’s teachings.

The lower house of Malaysia’s parliament on Tuesday held a special motion discussing issues relating to GISB, where government ministers flagged a number of findings made since the children were rescued from the care homes last month.

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, told the hearing that some children from as young as two years old were separated from their families and instructed to work under the pretence of “practical training”.

He also said they were occasionally forced to perform hundreds of squats as punishment for “disciplinary breaches”.

“If they did any wrongdoings, for something as simple as not queuing up properly, they would be punished with not 100 but 500 ketuk ketampi (squats),” Saifuddin said, according to a report by local outlet The Star.

“According to assessments by psychologists – either through the police’s D11 unit or the Welfare Department – these children missed their parents,” he added. “Some don’t even know them.”

To date, the police operation against GISB has resulted in 415 arrests and the rescue of 625 children, according to Saifuddin.

The Malaysian authorities have also expanded their investigations into GISB internationally, seeking the assistance of Interpol.

Visit BBC Action Line for details of organisations that can provide advice, information and support for people affected by sexual abuse.

Marcie Paul is nervous.

A Democratic activist, Ms Paul has been knocking on hundreds of strangers’ doors, making phone calls and sending out flyers, all in an effort to woo people here to vote for Kamala Harris.

When Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate in July, Ms Paul was hopeful, as she saw the vice-president go “off like a rocket” in Michigan.

The state is one of three “blue wall” states – along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that went Democrat in 2020, and if won again, would help clinch a presidential victory for Harris.

But with less than a month to go before election day, Harris’s honeymoon period in Michigan could be ending, leaving her pathway to victory less certain. A Quinnipiac poll last week indicated Donald Trump is leading in the swing state by three points.

“To keep that pace for the whole race – even though it’s seriously abbreviated – would be really unrealistic for anyone,” said Ms Paul, a resident of West Bloomfield, Michigan and co-founder of the liberal advocacy group Fems for Dems. “But I thought that we’d be a little more comfortable.”

Ms Paul is among several Democratic organisers and lawmakers in Michigan who say the presidential race here is tighter than expected, even as the Harris campaign appears to be heeding lessons from 2016. Critics say then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost the state because she took it for granted.

A reliably blue Midwestern state for decades before 2016, Michigan has since become a battleground state with 15 key Electoral College votes.

At this point in the election cycle four years ago, when it was Biden versus Trump, the Democratic candidate had a comfortable lead, and went on to win the state by 150,000 votes. Now it’s a dead heat.

There is “no obvious solution” for Harris to break ahead, said Michigan State University politics professor Matt Grossmann.

The Democrats have poured millions into advertising in the state. Harris’s entrance into the race led to more than 100,000 new volunteers in Michigan, while she has visited Michigan more than any other state besides Pennsylvania, according to her campaign.

Trump has also made at least a dozen stops in Michigan this year, but some campaign operatives have sounded the alarm that his campaign has let old-fashioned ground game tactics, like door-knocking and billboards, slide in several swing states, including Michigan.

But Harris is ramping up her campaign visits this week after at least three Michigan Democratic lawmakers warned of slipping support.

But the tightness of the race in Michigan should not come as a surprise to anyone, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes told the BBC.

“No one operating here on the ground in Michigan should have, or would have, expected this to be any easier than it has been,” she said. “We always knew it was going to be hard.”

Although the state is far from the southern border, Democratic organisers keep hearing that immigration is a top concern for Michigan voters.

“I don’t understand why,” said Ms Paul, the Fems for Dems leader. “It’s just really not relevant for us.”

But the issue has resonated with many of the voters the BBC spoke to, including Mary Beierschmitt of Novi, Michigan.

“It’s a big issue,” she said, adding that she thought Harris had not handled the situation well as vice-president, when Harris was tasked with finding solutions to tackle the source of migration.

Illegal border crossing reached a record high last year. After the Biden administration enacted asylum restrictions, they fell to their lowest in four years.

Trump has made attacks on Harris’s immigration record a central part of his campaign. His focus has not just been at the southern border, but in midwestern states as well, including Michigan’s neighbour Ohio, where the former president has falsely claimed Haitian immigrants are settling illegally in the town of Springfield and eating residents’ pets.

Voters tend to blame the party in power for their frustrations with national issues like the economy and immigration, even if the Biden administration isn’t solely responsible for the border crisis and the rising cost of living, said Jonathon Hanson, a lecturer at University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.

“The downside for Harris and Biden is, although they’ve done a lot of things to help the economy recover from a major downturn, it’s a more difficult story to tell politically,” he said.

Trump also may have the upper hand among some swing voters in Michigan because he is more well known than Harris after four years in office and years in the public eye, said Mr Hanson.

Tim and Janet of Novi, Michigan, say they know Trump’s personality well – and they don’t like it. But the independent voters already cast their ballots for Trump because they believe he is better at articulating his policies than Harris.

“I can’t vote for somebody just because it’s a feel-good time,” said Tim, a 75-year-old who declined to share his last name for privacy reasons. “They need to be doing things and have policy initiatives that are going to be beneficial.”

But in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Harris’s new economic policies are swaying independent voter Darrell Sumpter.

The vice-president has laid out a number of economic proposals during her campaign, including a plan to offer first-time home buyers an average of $25,000, and an expansion of the child tax credit.

“I’ve never been able to even afford a house. I’ve been waiting for years,” said Mr Sumpter, 52, who voted for Trump in 2020 and is leaning toward Harris this year.

“I don’t want the country to regress right back to the same state it was with Trump,” he added.

In 2016, former secretary of state Clinton ran a predominately national campaign in the state rather than a local one, said Mr Grossmann.

“The ads were the same here as elsewhere,” he said. “They were about Trump’s personality and saying negative things, and there was a perception that that really didn’t work.”

She lost the state by only 10,000 votes.

Now, both Harris and Trump are focusing their messages in Michigan on the state’s largest industry, car manufacturers, as they try to appeal to working-class and union voters.

In recent weeks, Trump and his running mate JD Vance have criticised the Biden administration’s support of the electric vehicle industry, saying it will cost Michigan auto workers their jobs.

Harris and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz have hit back, arguing Trump cost the state manufacturing jobs when he was president.

But on other local issues, vagueness may actually be beneficial for Trump, political experts say.

Michigan, home to the largest Arab-American population in the US, is the birthplace of the Uncommitted movement, a protest campaign to pressure Biden and Harris to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

The movement has declined to endorse Harris, sparking worries that the reliably Democratic voting bloc will not turn out for the party this time.

Meanwhile, Trump has won over some Arab-Americans by saying less, Mr Grossmann said. The former president has been vocal about his support for Israel, but has also promised to end the war, without providing specifics on how he would do so.

“Among this community, to some extent, being vague or unclear has been an advantage,” Mr Grossmann said.

In Hamtramck, a suburb of Detroit where about 60% of the population is Muslim, the city’s first Arab mayor, a Democrat, has endorsed Trump.

“President Trump and I may not agree on everything, but I know he is a man of principles,” Mayor Amer Ghalib told media.

“We asked multiple times that [Biden and Harris] should change course, but nothing happened.”

Despite concerns about slipping support, several political experts and Democratic strategists say Harris’s campaign is doing nearly all it can to stay on top of the Michigan race.

Still, Alysa Diebolt, the chair of the Democratic Party in Macomb County, which Trump won in 2020, said more could always be done to turn out apathetic voters.

“I think Harris absolutely has work to do,” Ms Diebolt said. “You need to sprint through the finish line in Michigan.”

Sharon Baseman, the vice chair of Fems for Dems, said she hopes these concerns motivate people not to become complacent.

“We’re all scared,” she said.

Mr Hanson noted that polls in Michigan and across the country likely will be off by several points on Election Day. But, he said, it’s hard to know in which direction.

“This is a razor-thin margin,” he said, “so it could really go either way.”

• What young Democrats want from Harris
• Six swing states that could decide election
• What could be the ‘October Surprise’?

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A highly anticipated museum housing the world’s largest collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts has opened the doors to some of its galleries.

More than 20 years in the making, the sprawling 120-acre Grand Egyptian Museum near the pyramids of Giza, will showcase more than 100,000 objects, including treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

The boy-king’s priceless collection is yet to be displayed, but visitors can now see items varying from pharaonic statues to sarcophagi and mummified bodies.

The museum was initially scheduled to open in 2012, but cost, political turmoil and later, the Covid-19 pandemic, caused repeated delays. To date, the mega-project has cost more than $1bn (£768m).

The partial opening is a trial run, following the last year’s opening of the main hall and stairway. The official opening date yet to be announced.

Here, we collect some of the most striking pictures of the newly opened galleries.

North Korea has accused South Korea of flying drones into its capital, ratcheting up tensions that have been simmering for months.

The drones allegedly scattered propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang in what the North described as a provocation that could lead to “armed conflict and even war”.

After levelling these allegations at the South on Friday, Pyongyang said it had ordered border troops to be prepared to fire. South Korea in turn said it was ready to respond, and warned that if the safety of its citizens was threatened it would signal the “end of the North Korean regime.”

Then, on Tuesday, the North blew up sections of two roads that connected it to South Korea, making good on an earlier threat. The next day, it claimed that 1.4 million young North Koreans had applied to join or return to the army.

These flare-ups are the latest in a string of exchanges between the two Koreas, which have seen tensions rise to their highest point in years since the North’s leader Kim Jong Un declared in January that the South is his regime’s number one enemy.

On 11 October, North Korea’s foreign ministry accused the South of sending drones to Pyongyang at night over the course of two weeks. It said that leaflets dispersed by the drones contained “inflammatory rumours and rubbish”.

Kim’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned Seoul of “horrible consequences” if the alleged drone flights happened again. She later said there was “clear evidence” that “military gangsters” from the South were behind the alleged provocations.

North Korea has released blurry images of what it said were the drones flying in the sky, as well as pictures allegedly showing the leaflets, but there is no way of independently verifying their claims.

While South Korea initially denied flying drones into the North, its Joint Chiefs of Staff later said that it could neither confirm nor deny Pyongyang’s allegation.

There has been local speculation that the drones were flown by activists, who have been sending the same materials to the North using balloons.

Park Sang-hak, the leader of the Free North Korea Movement Coalition, denied North Korea’s claim about the drone incursion, stating, “We did not send drones to North Korea”.

On Monday, Kim met the head of the army, military chiefs, the ministers of state security and defence, and top officials, the North’s official news agency KCNA said.

There, Kim set the “direction of immediate military action” and tasked officials with the “operation of the war deterrent and the exercise of the right to self-defence”.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff public relations officer, Lee Sung-joon, said the North could mount “small-scale provocations” such as small explosions on roads connecting the Koreas.

Then came the explosions at the symbolic Gyeongui and Donghae roads.

While both roads have long been shuttered, destroying them sends a message that Kim does not want to negotiate with the South, according to analysts.

Following the explosions, the South Korean military said it had fired weapons on its side of the border as a show of force, and had heightened surveillance of the North.

Hours later, the government of Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, designated 11 inter-Korean border areas as “danger zones” in a bid to stop people from sending anti-North propaganda leaflets across the border.

“Gyeonggi Province has determined that the act of scattering leaflets toward North Korea is an extremely dangerous act that could trigger a military conflict,” Kim Sung-joong, vice governor of Gyeonggi Province, said in a media briefing.

The scattering of such leaflets could threaten the “lives and safety of our residents”, Kim added, as “inter-Korean relations are rapidly deteriorating”.

Analysts say the drone incident suggests that North Korea is shoring up internal support by making it appear as though threats against the country are escalating.

Using terms like “separate states” in reference to the South, and dropping words like “compatriots” and “unification”, is part of this strategy, said Professor Kang Dong-wan, who teaches political science and diplomacy at Dong-a University in Busan.

“The North Korean regime relies on the politics of fear and needs an external enemy,” Prof Kang said. “Whenever tensions rise, North Korea emphasises external threats to boost loyalty to the regime.”

Analysts say the tit-for-tat between the two Koreas shows how they are locked in a “chicken game”, with both sides unwilling to blink first.

“Neither side is willing to make concessions at this point,” said Professor Kim Dong-yup from the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

As there is mutual distrust, Seoul “needs to strategically consider how to manage the crisis”, Prof Kim added.

Not at the moment, analysts say.

“I doubt that the situation would escalate to the level of war. North Korea is exploiting military confrontation to strengthen internal cohesion,” Prof Kang said.

“I question North Korea’s ability to initiate a full-scale war. The regime is well aware of the severe consequences such a conflict would bring,” Prof Kim said.

The most recent spat over alleged drone flights will most likely remain a “verbal fight”, said Prof Nam Sung-wook, who teaches North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul.

Because Seoul and Pyongyang know that they can’t bear the cost of a full-blown war, Prof Nam said, “the likelihood of actually using nuclear weapons is low”.

The two Koreas are technically still at war since they did not sign a peace treaty when the Korean War ended in 1953.

Reuniting with the South had always been a key, if increasingly unrealistic, part of the North’s ideology since the inception of the state – until Kim abandoned reunification with the South in January.

Kim has brought North Korea closer to Russia under Vladimir Putin, placing him at odds with the US and the West, which are South Korea’s key allies.

Also significant are North Korea’s long-standing ties with China, arguably its most important ally. In the wake of the drone incident, a spokesperson from China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday called on all parties “to avoid further escalation of conflicts” on the peninsula.

Tensions in the Korean peninsula are rising as the US presidential campaign enters the home stretch.

The US has hit Lufthansa with a record $4m (£3m) penalty after the airline barred Jewish passengers from a 2022 flight because some allegedly refused to follow rules requiring face masks.

The Department of Transportation said Lufthansa discriminated against the passengers, treating them “as if they were all a single group”, though many were not travelling together and did not know one another.

It said the penalty was the largest it had ever issued against an airline for civil rights violations.

Lufthansa said in the consent order that it was agreeing to the payment to avoid litigation but denied discrimination, blaming the incident on “an unfortunate series of inaccurate communications”.

“Lufthansa is dedicated to being an ambassador of goodwill, tolerance, diversity, and acceptance,” the company said in a statement, adding that it had cooperated with the investigation and remained focused on training for its staff.

The episode involved passengers who were travelling from New York to Budapest, with a connection in Frankfurt, in May 2022.

Many of the passengers were male, wearing “distinctive garb typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men” and had used the same handful of travel agencies to book their tickets, according to the DOT.

During the first flight, the captain alerted Lufthansa security that some passengers had failed to follow crew instructions requiring masks, and barring gathering in aisles and other places on board.

The alert led to holds on tickets of more than 100 passengers, all of them Jewish, which led to them being blocked from their connecting flight.

The DOT said Lufthansa recognised that the action also would hurt people who had complied with the instructions but “concluded it was not practical to address each passenger individually”.

The majority were rebooked on other flights the same day.

“No one should face discrimination when they travel, and today’s action sends a clear message to the airline industry that we are prepared to investigate and take action whenever passengers’ civil rights are violated,” US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.

The DOT said passengers interviewed for the investigation said they had not witnessed misbehaviour and Lufthansa later failed to identify any one passenger who had not followed the rules.

But in the consent order, Lufthansa said its staff was unable to single out passengers because “the infractions were so numerous, the misconduct continued for substantial portions of the flight and at different intervals and the passengers changed seats during the flight”.

The DOT said it was requiring Lufthansa to pay $2m and would give the airline credit for $2m it has already paid to passengers as part of a legal settlement.

On Monday, Canadian police made a sensational claim.

They alleged at a press conference that agents of the Indian government were using “organised crime groups like the Bishnoi group” to target leaders of the pro-Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in India.

This was hours after both countries expelled top diplomats as tensions escalated over last year’s assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. Delhi dismissed the allegations as “preposterous”, accusing PM Justin Trudeau of catering to Canada’s sizeable Sikh community for political gain.

The Canadian police were referring to Lawrence Bishnoi, a 31-year-old gangster from India, now back in the spotlight domestically and internationally.

Indian police say his gang is allegedly linked to the killing of a prominent politician in Mumbai at the weekend – gunmen shot dead 66-year-old Baba Siddique near his son’s office. Three suspects are in custody. An alleged aide of Bishnoi has posted on social media that the gang is behind the murder.

Once among India’s most wanted, Bishnoi has been in prison since 2015, now held far from his native Punjab state in Gujarat.

Yet, the police believe his audacious influence endures. Bishnoi is the prime accused in the sensational murder of Sidhu Moose Wala, the popular Punjabi singer gunned down near his village in October 2022.

In 2018, Bishnoi gained notoriety for threatening Bollywood star Salman Khan, accusing him of allegedly poaching two blackbuck antelopes – a revered species for Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community to which Lawrence belongs.

When he was produced in a court in Jodhpur city, he openly told the waiting media: “Salman Khan will be killed here, in Jodhpur… Then he will come to know about our real identity.” Incidentally, Siddique, the murdered politician, was a close friend of the Bollywood star.

In March last year, a news channel aired two interviews with Bishnoi from inside a Punjab jail, prompting an outraged high court to order an investigation. How a high-security inmate managed phone interviews from prison remains a mystery.

Federal investigators estimate Bishnoi continues to control a gang with 700 members across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi, involved in extorting celebrities, smuggling drugs and weapons and carrying out targeted assassinations. His partner Goldy Brar, also a co-accused in the Moose Wala killing, runs the gang by remote control from Canada, say the police. Bishnoi faces more than 30 cases, with 19 currently being tried in court.

“He runs his gang seamlessly from prison without needing to co-ordinate everything,” says Gurmeet Chauhan, a senior officer in Punjab’s anti-gangster task force. “Unlike other gangsters confined to a region, he thinks big.”

Bishnoi was born into affluence. His family is among the wealthiest in their village in Punjab, living in a spacious bungalow surrounded by more than 100 acres of land. His father, a former policeman, eventually gave up his job to take care of the family land, while his mother is a homemaker. The couple raised two sons Lawrence and Anmol – both now prime suspects in Moose Wala’s killing.

Ramesh Bishnoi, a relative, told Jupinderjit Singh, a journalist with The Tribune newspaper and author of Who Killed Moose Wala, that Lawrence was named after British officer Henry Montgomery Lawrence, founder of the prestigious Lawrence School in the hill town of Sanawar.

Lawrence Bishnoi himself attended a convent school, riding his own bike by the eighth grade and wearing expensive shoes – luxuries unheard of for most. Known for quietly helping local children in need, he was an introverted figure with undeniable influence, Mr Singh says.

After finishing school in 2008, he moved to a college in Chandigarh, quickly immersing himself in student politics in the city. “He had money, style and guts,” a Chandigarh police officer told Mr Singh, explaining how easily Bishnoi attracted followers. He joined a student organisation, ran for student elections and lost – a defeat he took personally.

Police records say this turning point nudged him closer to a world of violence as he mingled with some former student leaders-turned-criminals. Soon, police say, Bishnoi’s name was tied to brawls, arson and gunfire incidents on campus.

Punjab, Bishnoi’s home state, is overrun with gangs that fuel drugs and weapon smuggling, extortion and the local film and music industry. A cash-driven economy, bolstered by drugs, real estate and illegal liquor sales, has fuelled this rise, creating an ecosystem that blends crime with Punjabi pop culture, many say.

Punjab’s gangsters don’t enter the underworld for wealth alone – they crave notoriety, a deep-seated desire to “be somebody”, according to Mr Singh.

This twisted pursuit of fame finds roots in feudal, patriarchal culture. Social media amplifies it, with many gangsters showcasing their lives online. They flaunt their lifestyles on social media, where crime is often seen as a path to quick money and glamour. This has lured retired sportsmen and young recruits across Punjab to the dark side.

By September, police reported dismantling more than 500 gangs and arresting more than 1,400 gangsters since mid-2021. In clashes with the police, 16 gangsters had been killed and over 80 wounded, while three officers lost their lives and 26 more were injured. According to police, Bishnoi has been convicted in four cases, though none yet for serious crimes like murder.

With his neatly trimmed beard, the hoodie pulled over watchful eyes, Bishnoi often wears the casual look of a young man. When the stakes are high, he demonstrates a shrewdness in managing his image. During one court appearance, he wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of Bhagat Singh, the revered Indian revolutionary.

In a widely circulated video, reportedly recorded in prison, the bearded gangster declares, “There is a desire for revolution in our hearts. Let’s see how much strength the enemy has.” The exact meaning of his words remains ambiguous.

Bishnoi’s rise is unlike any other. “Despite being in prison, he appears to be running his gang. Who provides him logistics or media access? Such control would be impossible without powerful allies,” says Mr Singh. Separating the man from the myth remains elusive.