Information collected during the yearslong Salt Typhoon attack could allow Beijing’s intelligence services to track targets from the United States and dozens of other countries.
When world leaders meet in New York this month, several plan to recognize a Palestinian state, but Palestinian leaders may not be there to revel in the moment.
At least three people have been killed and 20 others injured after Lisbon's famous Gloria funicular cable railway derailed and crashed, emergency services said.
In an earlier statement, the head of Portugal's Civil Protection Authority said that several people remained trapped at the scene and two people were in a serious condition.
Portuguese newspaper Observador reported that a cable came loose along the railway's route, causing it to lose control and collide with a nearby building.
The incident happened near the Avenida da Liberdade around 18:05 on Wednesday evening.
Footage shared widely on social media showed the yellow funicular overturned and almost entirely destroyed.
People could be seen fleeing the area on foot as what appears to be smoke smoke filled the air.
The Gloria Funicular is one of the most famous sights and tourist attractions in Lisbon. It was opened in 1885 and electrified three decades later.
At least three people have been killed and 20 others injured after Lisbon's famous Gloria funicular cable railway derailed and crashed, emergency services said.
In an earlier statement, the head of Portugal's Civil Protection Authority said that several people remained trapped at the scene and two people were in a serious condition.
Portuguese newspaper Observador reported that a cable came loose along the railway's route, causing it to lose control and collide with a nearby building.
The incident happened near the Avenida da Liberdade around 18:05 on Wednesday evening.
Footage shared widely on social media showed the yellow funicular overturned and almost entirely destroyed.
People could be seen fleeing the area on foot as what appears to be smoke smoke filled the air.
The Gloria Funicular is one of the most famous sights and tourist attractions in Lisbon. It was opened in 1885 and electrified three decades later.
The UK and its allies stand ready to support Ukraine before negotiations to end the war as well as to secure an eventual peace deal, the UK defence secretary says.
On the eve of a top-level meeting in Paris, John Healey told the BBC in Kyiv that Ukraine's allies would "help make the skies safe, to make the seas safe, and to secure the land", once a peace deal had been struck.
But moments earlier, Russia's President Vladimir Putin had conveyed a defiant message from China, vowing that his full-scale invasion could continue.
Healey suggested there was bluster in Putin's words, insisting that Russia was under pressure. He also praised US President Donald Trump who he said had "brought Putin into talks" and "not closed off any options", despite widespread criticism of the warm welcome Trump gave the Russian leader last month in Alaska.
As late as Tuesday, Trump said he was "disappointed" in Putin, but he has said that before. He has also threatened to punish the Russian leader for the apparent refusal to end the war - or even meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky for peace talks.
When asked on Wednesday whether the war in Ukraine could end soon, Putin said "there is a certain light at the end of the tunnel".
"It seems to me that if common sense prevails, it will be possible to agree on an acceptable solution to end this conflict," he said, before threatening: "If not, then we will have to resolve all our tasks militarily."
He went on to list Russia's maximalist demands as usual - including for the authorities in Kyiv to end what he called discrimination against ethnic Russians - one of the allegations mentioned as a pretext for the full-scale invasion of the neighbour he launched in February 2022.
As for meeting Zelensky, Putin seemed to mock the very idea – which Trump had said he was ready for.
"I have never ruled out the possibility of such a meeting. But is there any point? Let's see," Putin said in Beijing.
Zelensky could always go to Moscow to see him, he said – a "knowingly unacceptable" idea, Ukraine's foreign minister was quick to point out.
Last week, France's President Emmanuel Macron suggested Putin was "playing" Trump.
But John Healey stressed that the US president "has not ruled out any further action, including economic measures, to put more pressure on Putin".
"We in the Coalition of the Willing, nations like the UK are willing to put extra economic pressure on Putin. We're willing to give extra aid to Ukraine so they can keep in the fight.
"It's why we've passed today £1bn ($1.24bn) of seized Russian assets, recycled into military aid and kit to Ukraine. If you like, Putin's dirty money returned with interest."
On Thursday, Macron will host a meeting of that so-called Coalition of the Willing - a grouping of allies of Ukraine, committed to enforcing any peace deal.
A source at the Élysée, Macron's office, has said the group are now ready to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, only waiting for US confirmation that it will act as the ultimate backstop.
The proposed deal includes continuing to train and supply Ukraine's own army.
It also envisages European troops being deployed to Ukraine - in unspecified numbers - to deter any future to Russian aggression - a signal that Ukraine can count on its allies "full solidarity and... commitment", the Élysée source said.
Such a deployment would need a ceasefire, the responsibility for which "falls to the Americans who are negotiating with the Russians".
John Healey refused to give details, despite being pressed, "because that will only make Putin wiser."
The German government is also playing down expectations of any big announcement at Thursday's meeting.
For the time being, like Italy and other coalition members, Berlin has ruled out sending soldiers to Ukraine to police any future peace on the ground.
A German government spokesman told the BBC that the priority for now was getting Russia to agree to a ceasefire - which Putin has consistently rejected.
President Trump pressed Putin for that during their summit in Alaska last month, then emerged to cite Putin's argument that finding a final deal would be a better way out of the the conflict.
Reuters
Instead of peace talks, Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian cities
In the meantime, Russia's aerial attacks have intensified in both frequency and scale. On Wednesday night more than Russian 500 drones and 24 cruise missiles were launched at Ukraine.
Across the country, as civilians sheltered in basements or on the metro, the air defence guns went to work.
As usual, the government did not say whether any military targets were hit, but the impact for civilians is often devastating.
Last week, a Russian missile hit a block of flats in Kyiv killing 22 people, including four children, in one of the deadliest strikes since Russia's full-scale invasion.
There is now a heap of stuffed toys in the ruins, and photographs.
From shattered stairways, residents emerge with potted plants and bags of clothes covered in dust that somehow survived the strike. A few steps away, others stand and stare at the wreckage.
A teenage girl said she had left the bomb shelter that morning because it filled with smoke after the first missile hit. Then a second landed across the road and her sister was killed.
Ihor Maharynsky only survived because he was out of town that night. His wife, Natalia, was in their fifth-floor flat and didn't make it to the shelter. He had to identify her body in the mortuary.
"What kind of strategic target is there here?" he demanded, looking around at a car park and a technical college nearby. "There's nothing."
Right now, Ihor sees no prospect at all of peace with Russia.
And like many Ukrainians, he is furious at Donald Trump for rolling out the red carpet in Alaska last month for Vladimir Putin.
"Peace talks with Putin? With this ****?" Ihor wanted to know, with a string of expletives. "It is peaceful people who are dying."
The Port of Baltimore. Since taking office, President Trump has relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as a central part of his efforts to force companies to invest in the United States.
The United Arab Emirates has warned Israel that annexing the occupied West Bank would cross a "red line" and undermine the spirit of the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between the two countries.
A senior Emirati official, Lana Nusseibeh, said such a move would be the death knell of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinian Authority's foreign ministry said it welcomed the UAE's position.
The Israeli government has not commented. But Nusseibeh's remarks came after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a proposal for the annexation of approximately four-fifths of the West Bank.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state - during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.
The settlements are illegal under international law.
Many ministers in his current right-wing and pro-settler governing coalition have long advocated annexing part or all of the West Bank. But they have reportedly been debating whether to advance such plans in response to recent announcements by the UK, France and a number of other countries that they intend to recognise the State of Palestine this month.
Netanyahu has said recognising statehood in the wake of the Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, would amount to "a reward for terrorism".
The UAE is one of the 147 UN member states which already recognise the State of Palestine.
"From the very beginning, we viewed the [Abraham] Accords as a way to enable our continued support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspiration for an independent state," said Nusseibeh, the UAE foreign ministry's assistant minister for political affairs.
She added: "Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE.
"It would severely undermine the vision and spirit of [the] Accords, end the pursuit of regional integration and would alter the widely shared consensus on what the trajectory of this conflict should be - two states living side by side in peace, prosperity and security."
Hours earlier, Smotrich - an ultranationalist leader and settler who has control over planning in the West Bank - told a news conference in Jerusalem that "the time has come" for annexation.
"The idea of dividing the country and establishing a terrorist state at its centre must be put off the table once and for all," he added.
He presented a map that he said showed a proposal from the defence ministry's settlement administration for "applying Israeli sovereignty" to approximately 82% of the territory, which he said was in line with the principle of "maximum land with minimum Arabs".
The remaining 18% of the territory was made up of isolated enclaves around six Palestinian cities - Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, Ramallah, Jericho and Hebron.
Bethlehem was among the many other Palestinian cities, towns and villages not included, while East Jerusalem was already annexed by Israel in 1980, in a move not recognised by the vast majority of the international community.
Smotrich said Palestinians would "continue to manage their own lives, in the immediate future in the same way that this is done today through the Palestinian Authority, and later through regional civilian management alternatives".
The PA, which governs areas of the West Bank not under full Israeli control, said Smotrich's plan constituted a "direct threat" to hopes for a Palestinian state.
Yehuda Shaul of the Ofek Centre, a think tank which campaigns to end Israel's occupation, reposted Smotrich's map on X and wrote: "Reminds me of another map in a different continent, from the 20th Century. There is a word in Afrikaans to describe that regime."
A number of international human rights groups have concluded that Israel is already operating an apartheid system in the West Bank - a characterisation that the Israeli government has rejected.
Last month, there was a wave of international outrage after the Israeli government approved plans unveiled by Smotrich for a major settlement project in the E1 area, which would effectively cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem and divide the territory in two.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion saying that Israel's "continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful" and that the country was "under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence... as rapidly as possible".
Netanyahu said at the time that the court had made a "decision of lies".
Portrait of a Lady, by Italian master Giuseppe Ghislandi, had been missing for 80 years before it was spotted last month on an estate agent's website, where a photo showed it hanging in a house that had belonged to Patricia Kadgien's late father, Friedrich Kadgien.
Kadgien senior was a top adviser to Hermann Goring, who plundered thousands of works from across Nazi-occupied Europe.
Patricia Kadgien and her husband were ordered to remain under house arrest for three days starting Monday, local media reported. They will be questioned for obstructing the investigation to locate the painting, according to a judicial official quoted in local media.
The pair are expected to face a hearing on Thursday, where they will likely be charged with "concealment of theft in the context of genocide", the official added.
The couple insist they are the rightful owners of the artwork, which they had inherited, according to Argentina's La Nacion newspaper.
The lawyer for Kadgien's daughter, Carlos Murias, told local newspaper La Capital that the pair would cooperate with the authorities. However, prosecutors on Tuesday said the artwork had not yet been handed over.
Four other properties were searched in the hunt for the painting, the prosecutor's office said.
During these searches, two paintings and a series of drawings and engravings from the 19th Century were found at the home of Ms Kadgien's sister, La Capital reported, and will be analysed to determine if they are items stolen during the war.
The painting first spotted online, Portrait of a Lady, was among the collection of Amsterdam art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, much of which was forcibly sold by the Nazis after his death. It is listed on a database of art stolen by the Nazis.
Peter Schouten of the Dutch Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper, which broke the initial story about the long-lost artwork's reappearance, said there was evidence "the painting was removed shortly afterwards or after the media reports about it appeared".
"There's now a large rug with horses and some nature scenes hanging there, which police say looks like something else used to hang there."
Following the photo's appearance, one of the sisters told the Dutch paper she didn't know what they wanted from her, nor what painting they "are talking about".
Lawyers for Goudstikker's estate said they would make every effort to reclaim the painting.
Some of the works owned by Goudstikker were recovered in Germany after the war, and put on display in Amsterdam as part of the Dutch national collection.
His sole-surviving heir, daughter-in-law Marei von Saher, said her family "aims to bring back every single artwork robbed from Jacques' collection, and to restore his legacy".
According to AD, she took possession of 202 pieces in 2006.
The proposed 211-mile industrial road over pristine land would allow a mining company to reach a copper deposit. Critics say it would destroy a fragile environment.
All the players in Soyuz, the local Para ice hockey team, lost limbs fighting in Ukraine
At an ice rink in Vladivostok in Russia's far east, 30-year-old Dmitry Afanasyev is in training with teammates from Soyuz, the local Para ice hockey team.
The players have removed their prosthetic legs and are sitting in specially designed sleds. They're using their hockey sticks to propel themselves around the rink.
Dmitry hopes that one day he'll be a Paralympic ice hockey champion.
Making that happen won't be easy. Russian teams were banned from the last Paralympic Games over the war in Ukraine.
And like all his teammates, Dmitry was on the front line.
"A mine came flying towards me," recalls Dmitry, who was mobilised to fight in Ukraine. "I fell to the ground and could feel my leg burning. I looked down and everything was torn apart. I put on a tourniquet myself and told the guys to drag me out of there.
"My wife's a surgeon. So, I sent her a picture of my leg and she replied: 'They'll probably saw it off.' 'OK,' I said. Whether I have one leg, or two legs. Whatever."
The port city of Vladivostok is more than 4,000 miles from Ukraine and from Russia's capital. This is Asia. The border with North Korea is 80 miles from Vladivostok. China is just 35 miles away.
Yet the consequences of a distant war in Europe are more than visible.
At a cemetery on a hill overlooking Vladivostok there are lines of fresh graves: Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. In addition to Orthodox Christian crosses, military banners and Russian tricolours mark each plot.
In another section of the cemetery stands a memorial "to the heroes of the Special Military Operation", the official label the Kremlin continues to employ for Russia's war on Ukraine. Here there are more graves of Russian servicemen and the statue of an armed Russian soldier.
"Soldiers live forever," reads the inscription.
On the orders of President Putin, Russian troops poured across the border with Ukraine in February 2022. The full-scale invasion of Russia's neighbour was widely seen as the Kremlin's attempt to force Ukraine back into Moscow's orbit.
More than three and a half years later the war rages on.
Even in Vladivostok, 4,000 miles from Ukraine, signs of Russia's ongoing invasion are everywhere
On air I'm often asked: what do the Russian people think about the war in Ukraine, about confrontation with the West, and about President Putin?
"What do Russians think?" is a difficult question to answer.
After all, Russia is so big and varied. The largest country in the world spans two continents and 11 time zones. Some parts of Russia, such as Kursk and Belgorod, border Ukraine.
Other Russian regions, like Primorsky Krai where I am now are a long way from the fighting. Vladivostok is its administrative centre.
This is the furthest I've travelled inside Russia since the start of the war. It's a chance to gauge the mood in a very different part of the country.
"Of course we're worried," Svetlana tells me in a Vladivostok park when I ask her about Ukraine. "This has been going on for years now and we want it to end as soon as possible. We had hoped the Alaska summit [of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin] would change something. It hasn't.
"People are people. No matter whether they're British or American, Japanese or Ukrainian. I don't know where all the hatred comes from."
I get chatting to Ilya, who claims that war in Ukraine hasn't fundamentally changed his life in Russia.
"You can still earn a living and get by here," Ilya says.
"The standard of living isn't rising, but it's not falling, either. Still, we hope that relations with other countries will improve and that we'll be re-integrated into the global space."
Svetlana says people wanted Putin's meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska to change something
In the centre of Vladivostok I stop to listen to a band busking on a pedestrian street. I'm not alone. A large crowd has gathered to enjoy the improvised rock concert.
Between songs I talk to the lead singer, a young local musician who calls himself Johnny London.
"Do people talk much about what's happening in Ukraine?" I enquire.
"People of my age, we don't usually discuss that stuff. Not very often. I would go as far as to say we never talk about that."
"Why?" I ask.
"We can do nothing about that. It's out of our hands, out of our reach. Hopefully in a couple of years it will get back to normal."
"And what is normal?"
"No war, I guess. That would be nice."
Local musician Johnny London says young people like him never talk about Russia's war on Ukraine
When I finish talking to Johnny London, a pensioner called Viktor walks up. He's recognised me. He saw me on TV last year at a press conference with Vladimir Putin.
"You asked Putin a question, didn't you?" Viktor says. "You're with the BBC."
Viktor's a big fan. Not of the BBC, but of President Putin. He criticises my "provocative question" to the Kremlin leader on the war in Ukraine, he defends Russia's political system and takes aim at the Biden administration over the 2016 US presidential election.
"With the help of mail-in ballots Biden practically stole the election from Trump," Viktor says.
"That's what Trump says," I point out.
"Not only. Putin says it too," retorts Viktor.
"Putin saying it doesn't make it fact," I suggest.
"True," concedes Viktor. "But that's what our people think."
Viktor also thinks that the West is losing power and influence.
"Look what's happening," says Viktor. "This week in China the leaders of India, China and Russia got together, and with many other countries too. But there was no Trump, no Britain, no Germany, no France. India and China alone are three billion people."
On his way back from China Vladimir Putin is stopping off in Vladivostok. Should I get the opportunity to ask the president another question, Viktor suggests it should be about the "new world order".
The city has been preparing for the Kremlin leader's visit and participation in the Eastern Economic Forum. By the side of the road that leads to the venue, street artist Filipp Dulmachenko has used 1,800 cans of aerosol paint to create a most unusual image.
The gigantic mural depicts Vladimir Putin in military fatigues hugging a Siberian tiger.
Filipp Dulmachenko used to get in trouble for his art - but this mural was officially approved
"The Amur tiger has always been a symbol of wildlife," Filipp says. "And Vladimir Putin is a symbol of Russia."
Filipp tells me that when he was a teenager he had run-ins with the police over his street art. But the Putin mural has been officially approved by the regional authorities.
And to accompany the picture the artist has spray-painted a short sentence: a phrase Filipp says is simply about sunrise in the Russian Far East.
Combined, though, with the images of a tiger and of a president who believes he's restoring Russian power, the words seem to take on deeper meaning:
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