The UN's humanitarian chief has said people in Gaza are being subjected to forced starvation by Israel.

In an interview with the BBC, Tom Fletcher said he believed this had led to a change in the international response to Gaza.

Asked if his assessment of forced starvation amounted to a war crime, he said: "Yeah, it is. It is classified as a war crime. Obviously, these are issues for the courts to take the judgement on, and ultimately for history to take a judgement on."

Mr Fletcher also expressed regret for saying recently that 14,000 babies could die within 48 hours in Gaza if aid was not allowed in - a claim the UN later drew back - and acknowledged a need to be "precise" with language.

Israel began to allow limited aid into Gaza last week, after an almost three-month blockade had halted the delivery of supplies such as food, medicine, fuel and shelter.

It also resumed its military offensive two weeks after imposing the blockade, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.

Israel said the steps were intended to put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Since the easing of the blockade, scenes of chaos have broken out at aid distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - a US- and Israeli-backed group.

The UN, which refuses to cooperate with the GHF, said 47 people were injured earlier this week after crowds overwhelmed one of the centres.

Mr Fletcher said: "We're seeing food set on the borders and not being allowed in when there is a population on the other side of the border that is starving, and we're hearing Israeli ministers say that is to put pressure on the population of Gaza."

He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should "absolutely" disavow a statement made by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich - who had said people in Gaza would be "totally despairing understanding that there's no hope and nothing to look for", and would be looking to relocate to begin a "new life in other places".

"We would expect governments all over the world to stand for international humanitarian law, the international community is very, very clear on that," Mr Fletcher said.

He called on Netanyahu to ensure that "this language, and ultimately, this policy... of forced displacement, isn't enacted".

Israel has faced growing international criticism over its conduct of the war.

On Tuesday, the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said: "Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas."

Her remarks followed an intervention by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who declared he "no longer understands" Israel's objectives.

Earlier this month, the leaders of the UK, France and Canada called on the Israeli government to "stop its military operations" and "immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza". In response, Netanyahu accused them of siding with Hamas.

On 14 May, Mr Fletcher called on the UN Security Council to act to prevent genocide in Gaza.

Asked why he had made that statement, he referred to reporting from colleagues on the ground in Gaza.

"What they're reporting is forced displacement. They're reporting starvation, they're reporting torture, and they're reporting deaths on a massive scale," he said.

Mr Fletcher said in the cases of Rwanda, Srebrenica and Sri Lanka, "the world had told us afterwards that we didn't act in time, that we didn't sound a warning".

"And that's my call to the [UN] Security Council and the world right now, 'will you act to prevent genocide?'"

Mr Fletcher came under strong criticism from Israel after he claimed 14,000 babies in Gaza would die in 48 hours if aid was not allowed into the Strip.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused Mr Fletcher of ignoring Hamas's atrocities and echoing their propaganda. "It's not humanitarian work, it's blood libel," the ministry said at the time.

Mr Fletcher said: "At the point when I made those comments, we were desperately trying to get that aid in.

"We were being told we couldn't get it in, and we knew that we'd probably have a couple of days, a window to get as much aid in as possible, and that was being denied, and we were desperate to get that in. And so yes, we've got to be utterly precise with our language, and we've clarified that."

Asked about his claim – repudiated by Israel - that thousands of lorries were waiting on the border to enter Gaza, Mr Fletcher repeated that he especially needed to be "careful and really precise".

He agreed there was a risk of being seen to hype the situation, but he added: "I'm not going to stop speaking up for the need to save these lives in Gaza, to save as many survivors as possible. That's my job, and I've got to do it better, and I will do it."

He said mediation and negotiation was the way to resolve the crisis in Gaza and repeated his call for Hamas to release the Israeli hostages being held by the militant group.

"We all want to see those hostages freed and back with their with their families," he said.

"I don't know now what the aim of this war is anymore. I think it has clearly gone beyond just the hostage releases. There's a lot of talk about finishing off Hamas.

"And clearly, as many people have said, there can't be a part for Hamas in the new equation, the new governance of Gaza and the Palestinian territories."

Mr Fletcher rejected Israeli claims Hamas was stealing large amounts of food aid.

"I don't want to see any of that aid getting to Hamas. That matters to us because these are our principles, neutral, impartial, independent. Its in our interest to stop that aid getting to Hamas and ensure it gets to civilians."

"As a humanitarian, my interest is just in getting as much of that aid in as possible, as quickly as possible, and saving as many lives as we're allowed to do in the time we have."

Mr Fletcher is also dealing with crises in Ukraine, Sudan and Syria, among others, and said the world was facing a "profoundly dangerous" moment.

"The Security Council is polarized, divided," he said.

"That means it makes it much harder for us to end conflicts; the conflicts we're dealing with are more ferocious, there's more impunity, and they're lasting longer.

"It's getting harder and harder to end wars and we humanitarians... deal with the consequences."

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,249 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,986 since Israel resumed its offensive, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

With additional reporting by Olivia Lace-Evans and Maarten Lernout.

Mr Fletcher's full interview will be broadcast on the BBC News Channel at 00:30BST and 16:30BST on Saturday.

Flights were temporarily disrupted at Liberia main airport on Thursday night after a private jet carrying President Joseph Boakai almost crashed while landing.

Part of the presidential jet's landing gear malfunctioned while approaching the runway, causing a rough landing, airport authorities said.

The incident, which sparked panic at the airport, forced the cancellation of all scheduled flights for the night, local media reported.

President Boakai, who was returning from a trip in Nigeria with his entourage, was safely evacuated unharmed, as authorities announced an investigation.

Photos of the stalled jet at the Roberts International Airport (RIA) circulated on social media, triggering concerns about the president's safety.

Local media, citing airport authorities, said one of the plane's tyres had burst upon landing leaving it stranded on the runway.

In a statement, the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA) confirmed the "unfortunate near-accident situation" involving the presidential jet.

The authority dismissed reports suggesting that the incident was caused by poor runway conditions.

"The runway infrastructure remains fully compliant with international aviation safety standards," the LAA said.

The aircraft has since been removed from the runway and normal operations have resumed at the airport, the authorities said.

"At this stage, investigation to establish the actual cause of the incident is ongoing, and the airport authority will keep the public informed," the LAA said.

The Liberian presidency is yet to comment on the incident but it shared photos of Boakai arriving at the airport, where he briefly spoke to journalists without mentioning the plane scare.

He had gone to Nigeria to attend the 50th anniversary of the regional Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).

More BBC stories on Liberia:

• Top Liberian doctor struck off over qualification doubts
• How President Joseph Boakai hopes to rid Liberia of its problems
• Liberia's war and peace: Lessons from 30 years' reporting
• How returning $50,000 changed a taxi driver's life

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

A senior Hamas official has told the BBC the Palestinian armed group will reject the latest US proposal for a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

The White House said on Thursday that Israel had "signed off" on US envoy Steve Witkoff's plan and that it was waiting for a formal response from Hamas.

Israeli media cited Israeli officials as saying it would see Hamas hand over 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in two phases in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Hamas official said the proposal did not satisfy core demands, including an end to the war, and that it would respond in due course.

The Israeli government has not commented, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told hostages' families on Thursday that he accepted Witkoff's plan.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza and resumed its military offensive against Hamas on 18 March following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt.

It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release the 58 hostages it is still holding, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

On 19 May, the Israeli military launched an expanded offensive that Netanyahu said would see troops "take control of all areas" of Gaza. The next day, he said Israel would also ease the blockade and allow a "basic" amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine.

Almost 4,000 people have been killed in Gaza over the past 10 weeks, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

The UN says another 600,000 people have been displaced again by Israeli ground operations and evacuation orders, and a report by the UN-backed IPC warns that about 500,000 people face catastrophic levels of hunger in the coming months.

At a news conference in Washington DC on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked whether she could confirm a report by Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV that Israel and Hamas had agreed a new ceasefire deal.

"I can confirm that Special Envoy Witkoff and the president submitted a ceasefire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed and supported. Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas," she said.

"I can also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home," she added.

However, a senior Hamas official later said the deal contradicted previous discussions between the group's negotiators and Witkoff.

The official told the BBC that the offer did not include guarantees the temporary truce would lead to a permanent ceasefire, nor a return to the humanitarian protocol that allowed hundreds of trucks of aid into Gaza daily during the last ceasefire.

Nevertheless, he said Hamas remained in contact with the mediators and would submit its written response in due course.

Earlier, Israel's Channel 12 TV reported the Netanyahu told hostages' families at a meeting: "We agree to accept the latest Witkoff plan that was conveyed to us tonight. Hamas has not yet responded. We do not believe Hamas will release the last hostage, and we will not leave the Strip until all the hostages are in our hands."

His office later issued a statement accusing one of the channel's reporters of trying to "smuggle" a recording device into the room where the meeting took place. But it did not deny that he had agreed to the US proposal.

Netanyahu has previously said that Israel will end the war only when all the hostages are released, Hamas is either destroyed or disarmed, and its leaders have been sent into exile.

Hamas has said it is ready to return all of those held captive, in exchange for a complete end to hostilities and full Israeli pull-out from Gaza.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response Hamas' cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Another four people, two of them dead, were already being held captive in Gaza before the conflict.

So far, Israel has secured the return of 197 hostages, 148 of them alive, mostly through two temporary ceasefire deals with Hamas.

At least 54,249 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, including 3,986 since Israel resumed its offensive, according to the territory's health ministry.

On Thursday, at least 54 people were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency. They included 23 people who died when a home in the central Bureij area was hit, it said.

The Israeli military said it had struck "dozens of terror targets" over the past day.

There is a state of chaos, a breakdown of security, and looting in north Gaza's main city, where Palestinians are desperately searching for food and where aid is difficult to access.

The Hamas-run interior ministry said seven of its police officers deployed to a market in Gaza City on Thursday were killed by an Israeli air strike as they attempted to restore order and confront what it called "looters".

The Israeli military has not commented on the incident, but it did say it had struck "dozens of terror targets" throughout Gaza over the past day.

Local medics and rescuers said at least 44 people were killed across the territory on Thursday, including 23 at the central Bureij refugee camp.

It comes a day after the UN's World Food programme (WFP) said at least two people were shot dead as what it described as "hordes of hungry people" broke into its warehouse in the central town of Deir al-Balah in search of food after 11 weeks of a total Israeli blockade. It was not clear who opened fire.

Almost 50 people were also reportedly shot and injured when thousands overran a new aid distribution centre run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the southern city of Rafah on Tuesday, according to a senior UN official in Gaza. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots into the air but not at the crowds.

On Thursday, interior ministry police officers armed with Kalashnikov-style rifles and handguns went to a market near Gaza City's central al-Saraya junction, which houses a number of small stalls selling canned food and vegetables.

Videos circulating on social media, too graphic to share, show bodies, blood, and scattered remains lying on the ground following what the ministry said was an Israeli attack.

"Israeli occupation aircraft targeted a number of police officers... while they were performing their duty in confronting a group of looters earlier today, leading to the martyrdom of several officers and civilians in yet another massacre," a statement said.

The BBC sought comment from the Israeli military about the incident.

A statement from the military on Thursday afternoon said aircraft had struck dozens of targets over the past day, including "terrorists, military structures, observation and sniper posts that posed a threat to [Israeli] troops in the area, tunnels, and additional terrorist infrastructure sites".

There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting the Gaza interior ministry's police officers last year, citing their role in Hamas governance.

After the territory's police chief and his deputy were killed in a strike in January, the ministry insisted the force was a "civilian protection agency". The Israeli military accused the force of "violating human rights and suppressing dissent".

There were reports of a breakdown of order elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday, as desperate people searched for food and other supplies.

One witness who had gone to a GHF aid distribution centre near Rafah told the BBC that thousands of people had gathered in the area from dawn, and that they ended up breaking through the site's gate to try to obtain supplies.

At 08:00 local time, the witness said, the Israeli military issued a warning via a quadcopter drone instructing people to head to the distribution centre, and that they began moving in an orderly way towards the area.

"For exactly 10 minutes, things were organised but then the crowd broke through the gate and rushed into the courtyard."

"People grabbed boxes and sacks of flour and left, all under the surveillance of the Israeli quadcopter," they added.

Footage from near the GHF site shows thousands of Palestinians walking near the centre on Thursday morning. Some are in horse-drawn carts, while others wheel bicycles covered with goods.

Young men, for the most part, can be seen carrying sacks of flour on their heads and backs. One exhausted woman appears to struggle to walk among the crowd.

Abu Fawzi Faroukh, a 60-year-old Palestinian man who was at the site on Thursday morning, told AFP news agency that aid supplies were more difficult for the elderly and vulnerable to obtain.

"The young men are the ones who have received aid first, yesterday and today, because they are young and can carry loads. But the old people and women cannot enter due to the crowding."

"We have been humiliated, the Palestinian people are humiliated," he added.

People described similar scenes at the newly opened GHF distribution site in central Gaza, with a number telling the BBC they had come away empty-handed.

Umm Mohammed Abu Hajar said she had heard there was aid being distributed in the area, so took her ID and went to see what she could get.

"I found all the people hungry," she said. "So, I couldn't get anything. I left like this... empty-handed."

She said more organisation was needed in order to distribute aid "fairly", adding that currently, "some people eat and some people don't".

Another man, Hani Abed, who was at the same distribution centre, said he'd failed to get any aid for him and his 10 family members.

"I came empty-handed and I left empty-handed," he said. "I will take dirt for my children to eat."

The GHF said approximately 17,280 food boxes, containing the equivalent of 997,920 meals, were handed out to Gazans at its three operational distribution sites on Thursday.

"Operations will continue scaling, with plans to build additional sites across Gaza, including in the northern region, in the weeks ahead," it added.

It also rejected the reports of Palestinians being shot at while trying to obtain aid at its centres. "No shots have ever been fired," it said.

The GHF's new aid system bypasses the UN and requires Palestinians to collect food parcels from distribution sites protected by US security contractors in areas controlled by the Israeli military in southern and central Gaza.

The UN has refused to co-operate with the system, saying it is unethical and workable.

The head of the UN's humanitarian office in Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, said on Wednesday that GHF could not possibly meet the needs of the 2.1 million population and was "essentially engineering scarcity".

The US and Israeli governments have said the new system is preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas, which the armed group denies doing.

Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.

It said the steps put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

On 19 May, the Israeli military launched an expanded offensive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would "take control of all areas" of Gaza. The following day, he said Israel would also temporarily ease the blockade and allow a "basic" amount of food in.

The families of the remaining hostages have urged Netanyahu to agree a new ceasefire with Hamas to secure their release.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Israeli government "supported" a new ceasefire proposal that was sent to Hamas by US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

"Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas," she said.

However, a senior Hamas official later told the BBC that the group rejected the proposal because it contradicted the discussions that it had with Witkoff.

The official said it did not include guarantees that the temporary ceasefire would lead to a permanent end to the fighting or that Israeli troops would withdraw to the positions they held before 2 March.

Israeli and US media cited Israeli officials as saying Witkoff's proposal included releasing 10 living hostages and the remains of dead hostages in two phases in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response Hamas' cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,249 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,986 since Israel resumed its offensive, according to the territory's health ministry.

The Trump administration has said it will take its tariffs case to the Supreme Court Friday, unless an order that struck down many of President Donald Trump's new import taxes is put on hold.

In a filing on Thursday, lawyers for the White House asked the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to block that decision, issued late on Wednesday, from going into effect.

That response came as a second court ruled that Trump had overstepped his power in imposing the tariffs.

The decisions, victories for small businesses and states that have challenged the measures, took aim at policies at the heart of Trump's economic and international agendas.

They drew fury from Trump officials, who said they were examples of judicial overreach.

"America cannot function if President Trump, or any other president, for that matter, has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges," White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing.

In its appeal, the Trump administration said the decision issued Wednesday by a lower trade court had improperly second-guessed the president and threatened to unravel months of hard-fought trade negotiations.

"The political branches, not courts, make foreign policy and chart economic policy," it said in the filing.

"Absent at least interim relief from this Court, the United States plans to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court tomorrow to avoid the irreparable national-security and economic harms at stake."

The eruption of the legal battle raised new questions about the fate of the tariffs, which have rattled the global economy since the White House started threatening the measures earlier this year.

In February, Trump ordered tariffs on goods from China, Mexico and Canada, saying the move was intended to help address a fentanyl crisis.

Then last month, he unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on goods from most countries around the world, with higher duties on products from certain trade partners, including the European Union and China, that it called "bad actors".

The White House has since suspended parts of many of those orders, while it pursues trade negotiations.

'Power grab'

To impose the tariffs in question, Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law more typically applied in cases of trade sanctions, such as those on Iran.

Those challenging the case said the law did not grant him such sweeping power over trade and tax policy, traditionally the responsibility of Congress.

It put a spotlight on questions of the limit of presidential power, which Trump has tested repeatedly since re-entering office in January.

Lawyer Ilya Somin, who helped work on the case brought by businesses before the trade court, said he was "guardedly optimistic" that the ruling would be upheld on appeal, noting that the trade court order came from justices appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, including one by Trump himself.

"It's not normal for the president of the United States to make such an enormous power grab and start the biggest trade war since the Great Depression," he said.

But Terry Haines, founder of the Pangaea Policy, which advises firms on Washington policies, said he thought the decision may not ultimately make a difference once higher courts take the case.

"All these things are going to be litigated through and the president is probably going to be given the benefit of the doubt," he said.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs and other firms said Trump was likely to look for other ways to justify tariffs, if the administration loses this case.

Business owners, while expressing relief, said they did not yet feel like the situation was resolved.

"I was incredibly happy and relieved but I'm also still very cautious," said Kara Dyer, the owner of Boston-based Story Time Toys, which makes toys in China and imports them to the US for sale.

"It's just been so chaotic and so impossible to plan as a business," she said.

"I want this to work its way through our court system so we have a little bit more certainty about what tariffs will be in the future."

However the process plays out, Dmitry Grozoubinski, a former trade negotiator who represented Australia at the World Trade Organization, said the decision would make it more difficult for the White House to suddenly impose tariffs, weakening Trump's ability to use the duties for leverage over other countries.

"It will be a lot harder for him to raise tariffs in the future," he said. "This was ultimately a negotiation in which President Trump was threatening other countries with a big stick and that stick just got considerably more ephemeral."

With reporting from the BBC's World Business Report and Opening Bell.

The FBI is investigating an effort by one or more unknown people to access the personal phone of Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, sources told the BBC's US news partner CBS.

The key Trump ally told people that her phone had been hacked after a impersonator - or impersonators - used her contacts file to message other top US officials, sources told CBS.

Some recipients of the messages raised suspicions after they were asked if they could continue a conversation in another platform, such as Telegram.

"The White House takes the cybersecurity of all staff very seriously, and this matter continues to be investigated," a White House spokesperson said.

The period of time over which the messages were received is unknown.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the incident and the FBI probe launched in response.

The impersonation was targeted at her personal phone, not government phone, the Wall Street Journal reported. It also reported that the recipients included US senators, governors and top business executives.

Wiles is the first female White House chief of staff and was seen as a key architect of US President Donald Trump's re-election campaign.

It is not the first time she has been at the centre of concerns around cybersecurity.

Last year, three members of a cyber espionage unit associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards - a powerful branch of Iran's armed forces - were indicted for launching cyber attacks on the Trump campaign team, which Susie Wiles led.

Responding to the latest incident, FBI director Kash Patel said in a statement to CBS News: "The FBI takes all threats against the President, his staff, and our cybersecurity with the utmost seriousness; safeguarding our administration officials' ability to securely communicate to accomplish the President's mission is a top priority."

Russia has continued to make billions from fossil fuel exports to the West, data shows, helping to finance its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – now in its fourth year.

Since the start of that invasion in February 2022, Russia has made more than three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid allocated by its allies.

Data analysed by the BBC show that Ukraine's Western allies have paid Russia more for its hydrocarbons than they have given Ukraine in aid.

Campaigners say governments in Europe and North America need to do more to stop Russian oil and gas from fuelling the war with Ukraine.

How much is Russia still making?

Proceeds made from selling oil and gas are key to keeping Russia's war machine going.

Oil and gas account for almost a third of Russia's state revenue and more than 60% of its exports.

In the wake of the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine's allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. The US and UK banned Russian oil and gas, while the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, but not gas.

Despite this, by 29 May, Russia had made more than €883bn ($973bn; £740bn) in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of the full-scale invasion, including €228bn from the sanctioning countries, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

The lion's share of that amount, €209bn, came from EU member states.

EU states continued importing pipeline gas directly from Russia until Ukraine cut the transit in January 2025, and Russian crude oil is still piped to Hungary and Slovakia.

Russian gas is still piped to Europe in increasing quantities via Turkey: CREA's data shows that its volume rose by 26.77% in January and February 2025 over the same period in 2024.

Hungary and Slovakia are also still receiving Russian pipeline gas via Turkey.

Despite the West's efforts, in 2024 Russian revenues from fossil fuels fell by a mere 5% compared with 2023, along with a similar 6% drop in the volumes of exports, according to CREA. Last year also saw a 6% increase in Russian revenues from crude oil exports, and a 9% year-on-year increase in revenues from pipeline gas.

Russian estimates say gas exports to Europe rose by up to 20% in 2024, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports reaching record levels. Currently, half of Russia's LNG exports go the EU, CREA says.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, says the alliance has not imposed "the strongest sanctions" on Russian oil and gas because some member states fear an escalation in the conflict and because buying them is "cheaper in the short term".

LNG imports have not been included in the latest, 17th package of sanctions on Russia approved by the EU, but it has adopted a road map towards ending all Russian gas imports by the end of 2027.

Data shows that money made by Russia from selling fossil fuels has consistently surpassed the amount of aid Ukraine receives from its allies.

The thirst for fuel can get in the way of the West's efforts to limit Russia's ability to fund its war.

Mai Rosner, a senior campaigner from the pressure group Global Witness, says many Western policymakers fear that cutting imports of Russian fuels will lead to higher energy prices.

"There's no real desire in many governments to actually limit Russia's ability to produce and sell oil. There is way too much fear about what that would mean for global energy markets. There's a line drawn under where energy markets would be too undermined or too thrown off kilter," she told the BBC.

'Refining loophole'

In addition to direct sales, some of the oil exported by Russia ends up in the West after being processed into fuel products in third countries via what is known as "the refining loophole". Sometimes it gets diluted with crude from other countries, too.

CREA says it has identified three "laundromat refineries" in Turkey and three in India processing Russian crude and selling the resulting fuel on to sanctioning countries. It says they have used €6.1bn worth of Russian crude to make products for sanctioning countries.

India's petroleum ministry criticised CREA's report as "a deceptive effort to tarnish India's image".

"[These countries] know that sanctioning countries are willing to accept this. This is a loophole. It's entirely legal. Everyone's aware of it, but nobody is doing much to actually tackle it in a big way," says Vaibhav Raghunandan, an analyst at CREA.

Campaigners and experts argue that Western governments have the tools and means available to stem the flow of oil and gas revenue into the Kremlin's coffers.

According to former Russian deputy energy minister Vladimir Milov, who is now a diehard opponent of Vladimir Putin, sanctions imposed on trade in Russian hydrocarbons should be better enforced - particularly the oil price cap adopted by the G7 group of nations, which Mr Milov says "is not working".

He is fearful, though, that the US government shake-up launched by President Donald Trump will hamper agencies such as the US Treasury or the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which are key for sanctions enforcement.

Another avenue is continued pressure on Russia's "shadow fleet" of tankers involved in dodging the sanctions.

"That is a complex surgery operation. You need to periodically release batches of new sanctioned vessels, shell companies, traders, insurers etc. every several weeks," Mr Milov says. According to him, this is an area where Western governments have been much more effective, particularly with the introduction of new sanctions by Joe Biden's outgoing administration in January 2025.

Mai says that banning Russian LNG exports to Europe and closing the refining loophole in Western jurisdictions would be "important steps in finishing the decoupling of the West from Russian hydrocarbons".

According to Mr Raghunandan from CREA, it would be relatively easy for the EU to give up Russian LNG imports.

"Fifty percent of their LNG exports are directed towards the European Union, and only 5% of the EU's total [LNG] gas consumption in 2024 was from Russia. So if the EU decides to completely cut off Russian gas, it's going to hurt Russia way more then it's going to hurt consumers in the European Union," he told the BBC.

Trump's oil-price plan to end war

Experts interviewed by the BBC have dismissed Donald Trump's idea that the war with Ukraine will end if Opec brings oil prices down.

"People in Moscow are laughing at this idea, because the party which will suffer the most… is the American shale oil industry, the least cost-competitive oil industry in the world," Mr Milov told the BBC.

Mr Raghunandan says that Russia's cost of producing crude is also lower than in Opec countries like Saudi Arabia, so they would be hurt by lower oil prices before Russia.

"There is no way that Saudi Arabia is going to agree to that. This has been tried before. This has led to conflict between Saudi Arabia and the US," he says.

Ms Rosner says there are both moral and practical issues with the West buying Russian hydrocarbons while supporting Ukraine.

"We now have a situation in which we are funding the aggressor in a war that we're condemning and also funding the resistance to the war," she says. "This dependence on fossil fuels means that we are really at the whims of energy markets, global energy producers and hostile dictators."

A former assistant of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs has told a New York court that he repeatedly sexually assaulted her while she was employed by him for eight years.

The witness - who testified anonymously under the pseudonym "Mia" - also tearfully said she lived in fear of violent rages from Mr Combs as she worked by his side.

The hip-hop mogul watched from the defence table with arms folded in his lap as she testified about her fears of retribution for reporting his alleged abuse.

Mr Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Warning: This story contains details some readers may find distressing

"I couldn't tell him no about a sandwich," she said. "I couldn't tell him no about anything."

Mr Combs' legal team has not yet had the chance to question Mia, or respond to her claims.

She is the second witness in the New York trial to allege that Mr Combs sexually abused her, along with Mr Combs' ex-girlfriend, Casandra Ventura.

Mia testified that she started working for Mr Combs as a personal assistant in 2009 when she was in her mid-20s, joining what she described as a "chaotic" and "toxic" work environment.

"The highs were really high and the lows were really, really low," she told the court on Thursday.

The job required her being "always within eyesight" of Mr Combs, she testified, and "anticipating his needs, whims and moods".

She said she was often required to stay at his homes, where she could not lock the door or leave without the rapper's permission.

During her time working for Mr Combs, he was frequently violent towards her, Mia testified.

On one occasion, she said he threw a spaghetti bowl at her, which narrowly missed her head, Mia told the court.

Another time, she said Mr Combs forcefully threw his computer at Mia's head when she told him the wifi nearby was still being fixed, she testified.

She also testified about another situation when she witnessed Mr Combs being violent with his ex-girlfriend, Ms Ventura, who had became close friends with Mia during her time working for the rapper.

Mia once went on holiday with the couple in the Turks and Caicos, she told the court. One late night on the trip, she said Ms Ventura ran into her room screaming that Mr Combs was "going to kill me", she testified. They ran away and hid on the beach, she said.

Also on that holiday, Mia testified that she and Ms Ventura had used a paddle board to go into the water to escape Mr Combs, who was pacing back and forth on the beach. Before they knew it, the sky turned dark, portending a storm.

"I was trying to weigh if it was scarier to face mother nature, or go back to Puff [Mr Combs]," Mia testified.

Mia was also there one night in 2013 when she said that Mr Combs was banging on Ms Ventura's door in Los Angeles.

She testified that he attacked her and cut open her eyebrow when throwing her on to the bed frame. Mia told the court that she tried to jump on Mr Combs' back, but he threw her against the wall.

"He's actually going to kill her," Mia said she remembered thinking to herself.

Mia told the court that despite witnessing Mr Combs's abuse toward Ms Ventura, she did not report him because she "believed that Puff's authority was above the police".

She testified about multiple instances where she alleged Mr Combs sexually assaulted her, including one time when she said she woke up to him trying to rape her.

Mia told the court that the assaults began early in her career working for Mr Combs, including one night on his 40th birthday at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

She said he gave her two vodka shots that hit her "very hard" and kissed her and put his hand up her dress.

Another night, between the years of 2009-10, while Mia was sleeping in a bunk bed at Mr Combs' Los Angeles home, she said she woke up to the "weight" of Mr Combs on top of her. She was confused, she said, and Mr Combs began to rape her.

"I just froze," she said. "It was very quick but it felt like forever."

Mia told the court that Mr Combs sexually assaulted her "sporadically" throughout her time working for the rapper.

But she told the court she didn't always remember the details, only a "dark feeling in my stomach".

Pressed by a prosecutor on why she did not say "no" when Mr Combs assaulted her or go to the police, Mia told the court she feared what he would do.

"I knew his power," she said. "I knew his control over me and I didn't want to lose everything I worked so hard for."

She told the court that another assistant had been fired for reporting Mr Combs' violence toward Ms Ventura.

Mr Combs also threatened to tell Ms Ventura, Mia's close friend, about the sexual encounters between them, she testified.

After the alleged assaults, Mia told the court that she tried her best to pretend the "most shameful thing" of her life never happened.

Asked by prosecutors why she was telling her story in court, she replied: "I had to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Mia will continue to testify on Friday and Mr Combs' defence team will be able to question her on the stand.

Get all the latest trial updates on the BBC Sounds 'Diddy on Trial' podcast available wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Airline passengers to Turkey are to be fined if they stand up before the seatbelt sign turns off after landing, regulators have said.

The Turkish civil aviation authority said it imposed the order after receiving complaints from passengers. The rules came into effect earlier this month.

Turkish media reports say fines will be about about US$70 (£50), although no amount is mentioned in the authority's guidance.

The authority warned that there was a "serious increase" in such incidents, with many complaints about passengers grabbing overhead baggage before the plane has been parked.

Turkey is a destination for tens of millions of tourists every year.

The aviation authority said commercial airlines must now issue an in-flight announcement and report those who do not follow orders.

Passengers must be told to keep their seatbelts locked, and refrain from standing and opening overhead lockers until the seatbelt sign is off.

Those who do not follow these rules must be reported to the authority, it says.

Turkish Airlines, the national carrier, has updated its landing announcement, according to Euronews.

"Passengers who do not comply with the rules will be reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation through a Disruptive Passenger Report, and an administrative fine will be imposed in accordance with the applicable legal regulations," the airline says upon landing, according to the TV network.

The BBC has contacted the airline for comment.

Poles will vote for a new president on Sunday in a tight election that will have major consequences for the future of the country's pro-EU government.

Opinion polls say Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and national conservative historian Karol Nawrocki are running neck and neck.

Poland's president is a largely ceremonial role, but it does come with significant negative power.

The president has the right to veto legislation, and the coalition government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn it.

Karol Nawrocki is a staunch opponent of Donald Tusk's coalition, and he is expected to use the veto as much if not more frequently than the incumbent conservative President Andrzej Duda, who cannot run for a third consecutive term.

Tusk has been unable to deliver many of his campaign promises since taking office 18 months ago due to Duda's veto and divisions within his coalition which includes conservatives, centrists and leftists.

Tusk promised Polish women legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy and voters he would repair the rule of law in the judiciary.

Many critics say Poland's top courts were politicised under the previous Law and Justice-led (PiS) government that lost power in late 2023.

On both issues, Tusk has made little headway.

After narrowly winning the election's first round on 18 May, Rafal Trzaskowski pledged to co-operate with the government to accomplish both.

Whichever candidate mobilises their voters in Sunday's second round run-off will be key to who becomes the next president.

Another significant factor is who can attract the votes of two far-right candidates who placed third and fourth in the first round.

The anti-establishment candidates received three times as many votes as they did in the last presidential election in 2020.

While those voters support Nawrocki's socially conservative views, some libertarians disagree with his support for generous state benefits for the less well-off.

Both candidates led large, rival patriotic marches in Warsaw last Sunday to show who had the biggest support.

Almost all the participants at Nawrocki's rally carried the red-and-white Polish flag. No-one had the blue EU flag. One banner read "Enough of Tusk's [demolition] of democracy".

Magdalena and her sister Marta said Nawrocki's patriotism was important. "We care first for our family, then the nation and after that the world," Magdalena told me.

"A lot of politicians say, 'Oh, we can't do that because what will the Germans think about us?' Sorry, I don't care what they think," she said.

Karol Nawrocki, 42, is head of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state body that investigates crimes dating back to the communist era and World War Two. He was relatively unknown nationally before he was picked by PiS to run.

According to the CBOS polling company, voters view him as someone who supports traditional Catholic values and stands up for average Poles, including small farmers who consider themselves threatened by the EU's Green Deal limiting the use of chemicals and greenhouse gases.

His typical voter is seen as aged over 40, conservative and family-oriented and living in the countryside or small towns and cities.

Previously he was director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk where he changed the exhibition to emphasise Polish heroism and suffering during the conflict.

A keen amateur footballer and boxer, he likes to publish images of himself working out on social media.

His strongman image has been pushed by Polish and foreign politicians alike. Ex-PM Mateusz Morawiecki posting a mock-up of Nawrocki as a Polish Captain America on social media.

Supporter Magdalena said he wasn't particularly charismatic, but Poland needed "a strong man who will be stable when he's pushed by the world".

Earlier this week, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem flew to a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Poland to endorse him as a "strong leader" like President Donald Trump.

"I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen, he needs to be the next president of Poland," she said five days ahead of the vote.

Noem said his rival Trzaskowski was "an absolute train wreck of a leader".

Nawrocki's campaign has been bedevilled by revelations from his relatively unknown past, although so far the allegations appear not to have damaged his support.

He does not deny taking part in football hooligan brawls, and has called them "noble fights". But in that he is not alone, as several years ago Donald Tusk spoke of taking part in similar fights as a young man.

However he has strongly denied a series of other allegations - that he had links with gangsters and neo-Nazis; that he took advantage of an ill senior citizen to acquire his council flat at a huge discount; and that he helped arrange prostitutes for guests at the luxury Grand Hotel in the seaside resort of Sopot when he worked there as a security guard.

Nawrocki has said he will donate the flat to charity and threatened to sue the news website that published the prostitute story because it was a "pack of lies".

Many of his supporters think the the stories were made up by the mainstream media, which they see as largely pro-Trzaskowski.

Shaking off the revelations, Nawrocki posted a video on social media set to an old Chumbawamba song, with the chorus, "I get knocked down, but I get up again".

Trzaskowski's supporters have been more inclined to believe the allegations, with one man in Warsaw holding a banner reading: "No to the gangster".

The son of a famous jazz pianist, the 53-year-old mayor of Warsaw is deputy leader of Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Platform party.

He is also speaks multiple languages who once served as Europe minister.

He was joined in last Sunday's march in Warsaw by another liberal mayor who won the Romanian presidency earlier this month. Nicusur Dan told supporters they shared the same values of a united and strong European Union.

According to CBOS, Trzaskowski's typical voter is in his 30s, fairly well-off and lives in a city. Voters see him as having left-liberal views supporting LGBT and migrants' rights.

While his opponents see Trzaskowski as part of Poland's privileged elite, supporter Malgorzata, a statistician, told me he was "an intelligent, professional European. That's enough to be a president of Poland".

Against a backdrop of war in neighbouring Ukraine and the Tusk government's tough stance against illegal migration, Trzaskowski has portrayed himself, artificially according to some voters, as a man who believes in a strong nation state and patriotism.

Another supporter, Bartosz, said he wanted Poland to remain safely anchored in Europe.

"We know history. In 1939, we counted on Britain and France, but nobody came. If we are partners with Europe politically and economically, then it's in their interests to support us," he said.

The trial of Diego Maradona's medical staff has collapsed in Argentina after it was found that a judge involved in the case had taken part in a documentary about it.

The judge in charge of the proceedings said the trial, which began on 11 March and was expected to last until July, would have to start again.

Seven members of Maradona's medical team were charged with negligent homicide relating to the former footballer's death in 2020. They deny the allegations.

One of the three presiding judges, Julieta Makintach, stepped down this week.

Maradona, a former Napoli and Argentina midfielder, had been recovering at his home in Buenos Aires from brain surgery for a blood clot in November 2020 when he died of a heart attack, aged 60.

Among the medical team on trial are a neurosurgeon, a doctor and a night nurse. They claim the retired footballer refused further treatment and should have stayed at home for longer after his operation.

If convicted, they face between eight and 25 years in prison.

Earlier this week, Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari accused Makintach of behaving "like an actress and not a judge" after she took part in a documentary about the case.

As a trailer for the documentary series, called Divine Justice, was played in court, defence lawyer Rodolfo Baque shouted "trash!" at Makintach.

Maradona's daughter Gianinna and his former partner Veronica Ojeda both cried after seeing the footage.

It is a violation of court rules for unauthorised filming to take place and the documentary was being filmed without the permission of the court.

Following criticism for taking part in the show, Makintach said she had "no choice" but to excuse herself from the case.

The trial was then adjourned pending the decision on Thursday, which ultimately was to declare a mistrial.

Since beginning, the trial had heard the testimony of almost 50 witnesses, including Maradona's daughters.

The date for the new trial was not initially set and new judges were not nominated.

Harvard University won a reprieve in its fight to enrol international students, after the Trump administration appeared to walk back its initial decertification and a federal judge upheld a block on the government's order.

The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday it would now give Harvard University 30 days to prove it meets the requirements of the Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP), which authorises universities to host academics on visas.

A letter from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem noted the agency's "intent to withdraw" certification Harvard needs to have foreign students on campus.

"Failure to respond to this notice within the time allotted will result in the withdrawal of your school's certification," she wrote.

A previous notice from 22 May revoked Harvard's certification with SEVP, prompting a swift lawsuit from the university and an equally rapid restraining order from a judge.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs indicated Thursday she would later issue a longer-term hold, known as a preliminary injunction, that would stand while the case played out in court. That development would allow international students and faculty to continue studying at Harvard during ongoing litigation.

The legal battle is being closely watched by other US universities and the thousands of foreigners who study at Harvard and around the country.

There are two main questions at play in Harvard's lawsuit, lawyers say.

Do the government's reasons for targeting Harvard's participation in the student visa programme hold up under the law?

And, are those reasons legitimate, or just a pretext for punishing Harvard for constitutionally protected speech the administration dislikes?

While legal experts agree the Trump administration could lose if courts find it targeted Harvard for ideological reasons, the government has taken steps that could help it prevail – with broader, thorny implications.

Looming over the showdown is a bigger question: Can the US government dictate what universities can teach, who they can hire, and who can enrol?

"This could be the type of case that could, on a fast track-basis, flow from the district court to the First Circuit to the US Supreme Court," said Aram Gavoor, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School and a former Department of Justice attorney.

How much power does the government have to revoke Harvard's visa certification?

America's academic visas on which international students, researchers and faculty rely to study in the US is overseen by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, a subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security.

To participate, universities must receive certification from DHS through the Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP). The government last week revoked Harvard's SEVP certification, gutting its ability to host international students and researchers.

"In terms of the general authority of DHS, it's quite strong. It's a certifying agency for this programme and there's a variety of bases on which decertification can take place," Mr Gavoor said. Courts tend to be deferential to the agency, as well.

"There are certain limits to it, though," he said.

The US Constitution's First Amendment, which guarantees free speech for individuals as well as corporations and entities like Harvard, is a powerful protection – and one that Harvard invoked again and again in its lawsuit.

If judges determine DHS' basis for withdrawing Harvard's certification stems from ideological differences and violates the university's free speech rights, the court could rule against the government.

"A lot will turn on whether the courts conclude whether the First Amendment is implicated here," Mr Gavoor said.

Free speech and antisemitism concerns

References to Harvard's alleged ideological leanings appear throughout the Trump administration's letters and statements - possibly problematic for the White House in court, legal experts say.

An 11 April letter ordered the university to make significant changes to its operations, including bringing in a third party "to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity."

President Trump attacked Harvard on Truth Social for "hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and 'birdbrains'". A separate post called for the university to lose its tax-exempt status "if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness'".

In her initial 22 May letter to Harvard about student visa eligibility, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Harvard was "hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' policies."

Harvard argues that the Trump administration's actions are not about combatting antisemitism or keeping Americans safe.

Revoking visa certification is "the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government's demands to control Harvard's governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students," the school says in its lawsuit. It also alleges the government violated Harvard's right to due process and ignored proper procedures for taking action against it.

"The administration is making clear that they are going after Harvard on account of viewpoints it's ascribing to Harvard students and faculty and the institution itself," said Will Creeley, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression legal director.

"The smoking gun is very smoky indeed, it's right out there," he said.

Harvard must comply with federal non-discrimination laws that bar prejudice based on race, gender, national origin, or other protected classes, but "that doesn't mean that the federal government can dictate acceptable pedagogy in Harvard's classrooms," he said.

Decades of legal precedent and a critical 1957 US Supreme Court decision underpin this concept, said Mr Creeley.

Could the Trump administration win?

Despite Harvard's argument, nuances could complicate its case.

The US historically screens prospective international students for viewpoints it deems unsafe, which could include allegedly supporting terror or totalitarian regimes. In the past, communist leanings were used to bar foreign academics from the US. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against Jewish students.

Secretary Noem's letter to Harvard in on 22 May invokes these concepts to justify pulling certification, meaning it could "read in a way where all that conduct is potentially unlawful" on the university's part, Mr Gavoor said.

"The government could win here," he said.

Even if a judge bans the visa policy, Trump may already have won by chilling international enrollment, said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an immigration attorney representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a high-profile deportation case.

"It's similar to self-deportation. They want people to self-unenrol," he said.

At the White House on Wednesday, President Trump floated the idea of capping international students at 15% of Harvard's student body.

"We have people [who] want to go to Harvard and other schools," he said. "They can't get in because we have foreign students there."

Five musicians who disappeared in the Mexican city of Reynosa, near the US border, were murdered by suspected drug cartel members, Mexican authorities have said.

Nine alleged members of the notorious Gulf Cartel have been arrested on suspicion of murder, according to Irving Barrios Mojica, attorney general for the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

The musicians - known as Grupo Fugitivo - were kidnapped while travelling to a private event on 25 May, Barrios Mojica said. Soon after, their relatives reported receiving ransom demands.

Investigators are working to establish a motive for the killings.

The musicians were aged between 20 and 40, and often played at local parties and dances.

Nine firearms and two vehicles were also seized during the arrests.

Grupo Fugitivo performed a range of regional Mexican music, a genre which includes corridos - songs that have historically been used to pay homage to drug cartels and their leaders.

It is not immediately clear if the group was targeted because of their music, or were caught up in the violence that has long beset Tamaulipas, where the Gulf Cartel has a strong presence.

The Trump administration has designated the Gulf Cartel, alongside several other criminal groups, a "global terrorist organisation".

In January, the US embassy in Mexico issued a level 4 travel advisory, the highest level, warning its citizens not to travel to several Mexican cities, including Reynosa.

It cited the risk of "crime and kidnapping" and "increasingly frequent gun battles occurring in and around" the city.

"Heavily armed members of criminal groups often patrol areas of the state and operate with impunity particularly along the border region from Reynosa to Nuevo Laredo," the US state department said.

"In these areas, local law enforcement has limited capacity to respond to incidents of crime."

France will ban smoking in all outdoor places that can be frequented by children, health and family minister Catherine Vautrin has said.

The ban will come into force on 1 July and will include beaches, parks, public gardens, outside schools, bus stops and sports venues.

"Tobacco must disappear where there are children," Vautrin said in an interview published by Ouest-France daily.

Vautrin added that "the freedom to smoke must end where the freedom of children to breathe fresh air begins".

The outdoor areas of cafes and bar - known as terrasses - will be exempt from the ban, she said.

Vautrin explained that breaking the rules would incur a €135 (£113; $153) fine.

She said regular police would enforce the ban but also added that she was a great believer in the "self-regulation".

Although electronic cigarettes are exempt, Vautrin said that she was working to introduce limits on the amounts of nicotine they contain.

According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 23.1% of the French population smokes on a daily basis - the lowest percentage ever recorded, and a fall of over five points since 2014.

France's National Committee Against Smoking says more than 75,000 smokers die each year of tobacco-related illnesses - 13% of all deaths.

Smoking in establishments like restaurants and nightclubs has been banned in France since 2008.

Widespread measures to ban smoking on beaches, parks and other public places were meant to kick in in 2024, but the decree needed to was never adopted.

However, more than 1,500 municipalities have already voluntarily banned smoking in public places, and hundreds of beaches across France have been non-smoking for severeal years.

A recent report by France cancer association La Ligue Contre le Cancer shows almost 80% of French people are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places like woodland, beach, parks and terrasses.

A Chinese paraglider has survived being accidentally propelled 8,500m (27,800ft) into the sky above north-west China, state media report.

Peng Yujiang, 55, was testing new equipment at 3,000m above sea level, over the Qilian mountains, when a rare updraft or air current known as a "cloud suck" pulled him about 5,000m higher into a cloud formation.

Saturday's events were filmed on a camera that was mounted on Mr Peng's glider and the footage has gone viral after being posted on Douyin, China's version of TikTok.

It showed Mr Peng holding on to the glider's controls, with his face and much of his body covered in ice crystals.

"It was terrifying... Everything was white. I couldn't see any direction. Without the compass, I wouldn't have known which way I was going. I thought I was flying straight, but in reality, I was spinning," he told China Media Group.

Mr Peng narrowly survived death as oxygen levels are thin at that altitude, which is slightly lower than the 8,849m peak of Mount Everest. Temperatures can also plummet to -40C.

"I wanted to come down quickly, but I just couldn't. I was lifted higher and higher until I was inside the cloud," he said.

Mr Peng, who has been paragliding for four-and-a-half years, said he might have lost consciousness during his descent, adding that the most frightening part of his ordeal was trying to regain control of the glider as it spiralled in the air.

Chinese authorities are investigating the incident and Mr Peng has been suspended for six months because the flight was unauthorised, state-run Global Times reported.

Mr Peng had no intention to fly that day and was only testing the fit and comfort of his parachute on the ground, Global Times said.

However, strong winds lifted him off the ground and grew even stronger, until he encountered the updraft that shot him up into the clouds.

The victims of prolific French paedophile Joel Le Scouarnec have expressed their dismay that the former surgeon's 20-year prison sentence does not include preventive detention - meaning he could be released from jail in the early 2030s.

The 74-year-old was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing hundreds of people, most of them underage patients of his, over decades.

Over the course of the trial he had confessed to committing 111 rapes crimes and 188 sexual assaults, and was sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in jail.

Prosecutors - who dubbed Le Scouarnec "a devil in a white coat" - had asked the court to take the extremely rare provision to hold him in a centre for treatment and supervision even after release, called preventative detention.

But the judge rejected this demand, arguing Le Scouarnec's age and his "desire to make amends" had been taken into account.

Le Scouarnec will have to serve two-thirds of his sentence before being eligible for parole.

But because he has already served seven years due to a previous conviction for the rape and sexual assault of four children, he may be eligible for parole by 2032.

His lawyer, Maxime Tessier, pointed out that saying Le Scouarnec could be released then was "inaccurate", as parole is not tantamout a release.

But his victims - many of whom assiduously attended the three-month-long trial in Vannes, northern France - are lamenting the sentence.

"For a robbery you risk 30 years. But the punishment for hundreds of child rapes is lighter?" one victim told Le Monde.

The president of a child advocacy group, Solène Podevin Favre, said that she might have expected the verdict "to be less lenient" and to include a post-sentence preventative detention.

"It's the maximum sentence, certainly," she said. "But it's the least we could have hoped for. Yet in six years, he could potentially be released. It's staggering."

Marie Grimaud, one of the lawyers representing the victims, told reporters that while she "intellectually" understood the verdict, "symbolically" she could not.

Another lawyer, Francesca Satta, said that she felt 20 years was too short a time given the number of victims in the case.

"It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences," she argued.

But in her judgement read out to the court, Judge Aude Burési said that, while the court had "heard perfectly the demands from the plaintiffs that Le Scouarnec should never be released from jail, it would be demagogic and fanciful to let them believe that would be possible".

"In fact," she added, "the rule of law does not allow for that to happen."

One of Le Scouarnec's victims, Amélie Lévêque, said the verdict had "shocked" her and that she would have liked preventative detention to be imposed. "How many victims would it take? A thousand?"

She argued that French law needed to change and allow for harsher sentences to take into account the serial nature of crimes.

Similar complaints were raised in the aftermath of the Pelicot trial last December, in which Dominique Pelicot was found guilty of drugging and raping his wife, Gisèle, and recruited dozens of men to abuse her over almost a decade.

Pelicot, too, was sentenced to 20 years - the maximum sentence for rape in French law - with the obligation to serve a minimum of two-thirds in jail.

His case, however, will have to be re-examined at the end of the prison sentence before the question of preventative detention can be explored.

In France, sentences are not served consecutively. Public prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger noted last week that had Le Scouarnec been on trial in the US - where people serve one prison sentence after another - he may have faced a sentence of over 4,000 years.

But Cécile de Oliveira, one of the victims' lawyers, praised the sentence, which she said had been "finely tailored" to Le Scouarnec's "psychiatric condition".

She agreed with the court's decision not to impose preventative detention on the former surgeon, adding: "It needs to remain an entirely exceptional punishment."

After the verdict was read out, victims, journalists and lawyers mingled outside the courthouse in Vannes. Many of the civil parties and their relatives, angered by the verdict, brought their frustration to the media.

"All that I ask for is that this man cannot offend again," the mother of a victim told French outlets.

"If this kind of behaviour needs to entail a life sentence, so be it."

Since returning to power, US President Donald Trump has wielded tariffs – or the threat of them - as his economic weapon of choice.

He has slapped import duties against allies and adversaries alike, and raised their rates to staggeringly high levels, only to change his mind and abruptly pause or reduce the charges.

Markets and global leaders have scrambled trying to guess his next moves, while major retailers have warned of rising prices for American consumers and potentially empty shelves in shops.

The president has claimed this power to impose tariffs unilaterally. He says that as president he is responding to a national economic emergency - and he cannot wait for Congress to pass legislation.

In effect, this meant his finger was constantly poised on one of the most effective triggers of US economic policy. Firing off a threatening missive to a country playing hardball was as easy as posting on Truth Social (just ask the European Union, which he called "very difficult to deal with" in negotiations last week).

However, late on Wednesday, the US Court of International Trade ruled that he had exceeded the authority of the emergency powers he was using. The court gave the White House 10 days to remove almost all tariffs, which it says have been imposed illegally.

The White House appealed, and a federal appeals court has stayed the trade court's ruling, which means that those tariffs will stay in place - for now.

The administration argued in its appeal that a ruling against Trump "would kneecap the president on the world stage, cripple his ability to negotiate trade deals, imperil the government's ability to respond to these and future national emergencies".

On Thursday night, Trump was back on Truth Social, rebuking the lower court judges who had ruled against him, calling their decision "wrong" and "horrible".

• Trump tariffs can stay in place for now, appeals court rules
• What tariffs has Trump announced and why?
• Simon Jack: Tariff ruling doesn't really change US-UK deal

Until now, the power to make or break the economy has rested on his shoulders, as the tariff rates levelled against other countries keep going up and down – seemingly according to Trump's mood.

He raised the tariffs on imported Chinese goods all the way up to 145% before dropping them down to 30%. A few weeks later he used a social media post to threaten the EU with 50% tariffs, before backing down a couple of days later.

Wall Street analysts have even reportedly now coined the phrase "Taco trade", referring to their belief that Trump Always Chickens Out from imposing steep import taxes. He looked furious when asked about the acronym in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

"That's a nasty question" he said, arguing that it was only by making these threats that he got the EU to the negotiating table.

Trump's ambassador to the EU during his first term, Gordon Sondland, told the BBC this so-called wishy-washy-ness was by design.

"What Trump is doing is exactly what he would do as a business person. He would immediately find a point of leverage to get someone's attention today. Not next month, not next year... he wants to have these conversations now," he said earlier this week, before the latest legal twists.

"How do you get someone as intransigent and as slow moving as the EU to do something now? You slap a 50% tariff on them and all of a sudden the phone start ringing."

If Trump's tariffs plan continues to meet resistance in the courts, one option at his disposal is asking Congress to legislate the taxes instead. But that would eliminate one of his biggest tools - the element of surprise.

For decades, Trump has been convinced that trade tariffs are the answer to many of America's economic problems. He has appeared to welcome the prospect of global trade war sparked by his tariff agenda, insisting that it is by raising the price of imported goods and reviving the US manufacturing sector that he will "Make America Great Again".

Trump touts the money - billions of dollars, not trillions, as he says - that tariffs have already brought in to US government coffers.

The president argues they will help to revive American manufacturing by persuading firms to move their factories to the US to avoid import duties.

However, University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers described Trump's methods as "madness".

"If you believe in tariffs, what you want is for businesses to understand that the tariffs are going to... be permanent so that they can make investments around that and that's what would lead the factories to come to the United States," he told the BBC.

He said that whatever happens with this court challenge, Trump has already transformed the global economic order.

Prof Wolfers said while Trump "chickens out from the very worst mistakes" - citing his original 'Liberation Day' levies and the threat of 50% tariffs on the EU - he doesn't backflip on everything.

The president wants to keep 10% reciprocal tariffs on most countries and 25% tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium.

"Yes, he backs off the madness, but even the stuff he left in meant that we had the highest tariff rate yesterday than we'd had since 1934," Prof Wolfers said.

All signs point to this being a fight that the Republican president won't give up easily.

"You can assume that even if we lose, we will do it another way," Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro said after Thursday's appeals court ruling.

While the litigation plays out, America's trade partners will be left guessing about Trump's next move, which is exactly how he likes it.

Two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead outside a Jewish museum in downtown Washington DC by a man who police say shouted "free, free Palestine" after the attack.

The victims, a young couple, were shot while leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, DC police said, adding that the incident appears targeted.

The shooting happened at 21:05 local time (01:05 GMT) in an area with numerous tourist sites, museums and government buildings, including the FBI's Washington field office.

After the suspect, who has been detained by authorities, opened fire, he walked inside the museum and was stopped by security, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said.

The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was seen pacing outside the museum before opening fire on a group of four - killing the couple, Chief Smith said at a news conference.

• LIVE: Follow breaking coverage of the DC shooting

Police "have not had any prior interactions" with the suspect, she added.

"We don't see anything in his background that would have placed him on our radar."

Israeli ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter shared at the conference that the couple killed had been planning to get engaged.

Mr Leiter said the male victim had purchased a ring this week and had planned to propose on a trip they'd planned to Jerusalem. The victims' names have not been released.

"We heard gunshots and then a guy came in looking really distressed. We thought he needed help," eyewitness Katie Kalisher told the BBC, referring to the suspect.

JoJo Kalin, a board member of the American Jewish Committee who helped organise the event, said she didn't witness the shooting but felt a "sense of guilt" about what happened.

"I'm not going to lose my humanity over this or be deterred. And that Israelis and Palestinians both still deserve self-determination and [it is] just deeply ironic that that's what we were discussing," she said.

US President Donald Trump suggested the killings were driven by antisemitism.

"These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA," he wrote on the Truth Social platform.

In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "we will track down those responsible and bring them to justice".

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations called the incident a "depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism".

"Harming diplomats and the Jewish community is crossing a red line," Ambassador Danny Danon wrote on X. "We are confident that the US authorities will take strong action against those responsible for this criminal act."

The incident triggered a major police response and shut down several core streets in the city.

Israeli embassy spokesman Tal Naim Cohen confirmed that two staff members were shot "at close range" while attending the event at the museum.

The embassy had "full faith" that authorities would "protect Israel's representatives and Jewish communities throughout the United States", he said.

The Israeli ambassador was reportedly not at the museum event at the time of the shooting, US media reported.

The DC campus of Georgetown University also was temporarily locked down, according to CBS.

"When we went to leave the cops and security were downstairs and told us we can't leave," said one student, who was on lockdown in their building for over an hour.

The Capital Jewish Museum like many other Jewish institutions in the US has struggled with security issues amid rising antisemitism.

"Jewish institutions all around town, all around the country, are concerned about security due to some very scary incidents that some institutions have faced and because of a climate of antisemitism," executive director Beatrice Gurwitz told NBC News in a separate news report before the attack on Wednesday.

The museum recently received a grant to upgrade its security in part, she said, because of a new exhibit on LGBT pride.

"We recognise that there are threats associated with this as well," Ms Gurwitz said. "And again, we want to ensure that our space is as welcoming and secure for everybody who comes here while we are exploring these stories."

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee posted to X to call the attack a "horrific act of terror that the people of Israel are waking up to this morning".

Two Israeli embassy staff have been shot dead outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC.

Police say the victims, a man and a woman, were killed by a man who shouted "free, free Palestine". The suspect is in custody.

Here's what you need to know about the shooting.

How the attack unfolded?

At 21:08 local time police received multiple calls about a shooting outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in downtown Washington DC.

A man and a woman were found unconscious and not breathing at the scene, and later died.

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said the couple were leaving the event at the museum in 3rd St NW - an area with numerous tourist sites, museums and government buildings, including the FBI's Washington field office.

Police believe the shooting was committed by Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, who is being questioned in custody.

MPD chief Pamela Smith said he was seen pacing up and down outside the museum before approaching a group of four people and opening fire with a handgun,

The suspect then entered the museum, where he was detained. He then chanted "free, free Palestine" while in custody, police said.

MPD are leading the investigation. The FBI said it is looking into "ties to potential terrorism or motivation based on bias-based crime or a hate crime".

• Follow live: Two Israeli embassy staff shot dead near Jewish museum in Washington DC

What do we know about the victims?

Yechiel Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the US, said the young couple were about to be engaged.

"The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem," he told a press conference.

"They were a beautiful couple."

They have not yet been named by police.

What did witnesses say?

Witnesses described the aftermath of the attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum.

"At around 09:07 we heard gunshots, and then a guy came in and seemed really distressed and we thought he just needed help and he needed safe shelter," Katie Kalisher said.

Yoni Kalin, who was also at the event, said: "So people were calming him down, giving him water, taking care of him. Little did we know he was somebody that executed people in cold blood.

"He was the shooter. Once the police originally showed up, he's like 'I did this. I'm unarmed.'

"He pulls out a red kaffiyeh and he was like, 'I did this for Gaza. Free Palestine. There's only one solution. Intifada revolution', and he just kept yelling 'free Palestine'."

What was the event?

The event at the Capital Jewish Museum was billed as a cocktail evening for young Jewish professionals to foster unity and celebrate Jewish heritage.

The organiser, American Jewish Committee, said it was open to those in the DC diplomatic community. The event's theme was advertised as "turning pain into purpose".

The event description said it invited humanitarian aid organisers responding to humanitarian crises in the Middle East, including Gaza.

The event's hours were publicly advertised. Its location was only shared with those who signed up to attend.

What did Donald Trump say?

President Donald Trump has condemned the attack and called it antisemitic.

Posting on his social media platform Truth Social, he said: "These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, now!

"Hatred and radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims.

"So sad that such things as this can happen! God bless you all!"

What did Israel say?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was was "outraged by the horrifying antisemitic murder" of the victims.

"My heart grieves for the families of the young beloveds, whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer," he said.

"I have directed that security be increased at Israeli missions around the world and for the state's representatives."

Israeli ambassador to the US Leiter said: "We are a resilient people... Together we won't be afraid, together we'll stand and we're going to overcome moral depravity of people who think they're going to achieve political gains through murder."

He said Trump told him his administration would do everything it can to fight antisemitism.

Three months into Donald Trump's second term, foreign leaders should be aware that a coveted trip to the Oval Office comes with the risk of a very public dressing down, often straying into attempts at provocation and humiliation.

Wednesday's episode with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa was a classic of its kind, with the added twist of an ambush involving dimmed lights, a lengthy video screening and stacks of news story clippings.

As television cameras rolled, and after some well-tempered discussion, Trump was asked by a journalist about what it would take for him to be convinced that discredited claims of "white genocide" in South Africa are untrue.

Ramaphosa responded first, by saying the president would have to "listen to the voices of South Africans" on the issue. Trump then came in, asking an assistant to "turn the lights down" and put the television on, so he could show the South African leader "a couple of things".

Elon Musk, his adviser and a South Africa-born billionaire, watched quietly from behind a couch.

• WATCH: 'Turn the lights down' - Trump confronts Ramaphosa with video
• ANALYSIS: Ramaphosa survives mauling by Trump over 'white genocide'
• WHAT HAPPENED: Trump ambushes S African leader with claim of Afrikaners being 'persecuted'

What followed was an extraordinary and highly choreographed onslaught of accusations from the US president about the alleged persecution of white South Africans, echoing the aggressive treatment of Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky during his February visit to the White House.

The footage on the large screen showcased South African political firebrands chanting "Shoot the Boer", an anti-apartheid song. And Trump, so often critical of the news media, seemed happy to parade pictures of uncertain provenance. Asked where alleged grave sites of white farmers were, he simply answered, "South Africa".

The US leader also seemed to believe the political leaders in the footage - who are not part of the government - had the power to confiscate land from white farmers. They do not.

While Ramaphosa did sign a controversial bill allowing land seizures without compensation earlier this year, the law has not been implemented. And the South African distanced himself publicly from the language in the political speeches shown.

But the top ally of South Africa's Nelson Mandela and negotiator who helped bring an end to the apartheid regime of white-minority rule came to this meeting prepared.

Trump sometimes appears unaware of transparent efforts made by foreign leaders to flatter and that was clearly part of the South African strategy.

True, Donald Trump is a golf fanatic, but Ramaphosa's gambit of bringing two top golfers – Ernie Els and Retief Goosen - to a meeting about diplomatic problems and trade policy is not taken from any textbook on international relations I've ever read.

However, the US president's pleasure at having the two white South African golfers there was on show for all to see.

Their prognostications on the fate of white farmers got nearly as much screen time as South Africa's democratically-elected president, who largely restricted himself to quiet, short interventions.

But Ramaphosa will likely be happy with that. The golfers, along with his white agriculture minister, himself from an opposition party which is part of the national unity government, were there, at least in part, as a shield - a kind of diplomatic golden dome if you will, and it worked.

• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his South African refugee offer?
• White South Africans going to US are cowards, Ramaphosa says

Trump returned repeatedly to the issue of the plight of the farmers – dozens of whom he has welcomed into the US as refugees. But President Ramaphosa wasn't biting and the provocations were largely left to blow in the breeze.

At one point, he referred to the golfers and an Afrikaner billionaire who had joined his delegation, telling Trump: "If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentleman would not be here."

But even though President Trump didn't manage to get a rise out of the South African president, that does not mean his efforts over more than an hour were in vain; they certainly were not.

This performative style of diplomacy is aimed as much at the domestic American audience as it is at the latest visitor to the Oval Office.

Central to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) project is keeping up the energy around perceived grievances and resentment and President Trump knows what his supporters want.

If some foreign leaders are learning to navigate these moments with skill, Donald Trump may have to change the playbook a bit to continue to have the impact he wants.

The government has temporarily been banned from concluding talks on the Chagos Islands deal by a last-minute injunction by a High Court judge.

An injunction was granted at 02:25 BST when Mr Justice Goose granted "interim relief" to Chagossian Bertrice Pompe who had brought a case against the Foreign Office.

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Nike says it will raise the prices of some products from 1 June, with the increases hitting everything from shoes to clothing.

The sportswear giant says it is making the changes as part of "seasonal planning" and did not mention US President Donald Trump's tariffs policies that have upended global trade.

The firm also says its will sell products directly to Amazon in the US for the first time since 2019.

Last month, rival firm Adidas warned that levies imposed by Trump will lead to higher prices in the US for popular trainers including the Gazelle and Samba.

From next Sunday, most Nike shoes that cost more than $100 (£74.50) will see prices rise bay as much as $10.

Prices of clothing and equipment will also be raised by between $2 to $10.

The popular Air Force 1 trainers as well as shoes that cost less than $100 will be exempted from the price hikes. Children's products and Jordan branded apparel and accessories will also be excluded.

Nike's move was driven by a range of internal and external factors, the BBC understands.

"We regularly evaluate our business and make pricing adjustments as part of our seasonal planning," a spokesperson said.

Companies around the world are contending with the uncertainty of Trump administration's trade policies.

A slew of steep so-called "reciprocal tariffs" which were announced on 2 April were put on hold as countries from around the world negotiate with the White House. The 90-day pause is due to expire in early July.

On Wednesday, UK sportswear retailer JD Sports said higher prices in its key US market due to tariffs could hit customer demand.

Almost all Nike trainers are made in Asia – a region targeted by Trump's tariffs salvo against foreign countries he accuses of "ripping off" Americans.

Goods from Vietnam, Indonesia and China faced some of the heaviest US import taxes - between 32% to 54%.

On Thursday, Nike also said it will once again sell its products directly Amazon in the US.

It had previously listed its goods on the platform, but stopped six years ago to focus on its official website and physical stores.

Nike relies heavily on the US for sales. The the world's biggest economy accounts for almost everything it sells in its largest market of North America.

However, a slump in sales has curbed the company's ability to command full price for its products.

Legendary British designer Sir Jony Ive, who helped create the Apple iPhone, is joining forces with OpenAI, as the artificial intelligence (AI) firm sets its sights on developing hardware.

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, will buy a start-up founded by Sir Jony, who will "assume deep design and creative responsibilities" across the company, the two firms said in an announcement.

Open AI boss Sam Altman said the goal was to create a "family of devices" made specifically with AI in mind.

The deal comes as the tech industry has been looking for its next hardware hit after the iPhone and takes particular aim at Apple, which some say has been moving too slowly to incorporate AI into its devices.

"I think we have the opportunity here to kind of completely re-imagine what it means to use a computer," Mr Altman said in video.

Shares in Apple fell more than 2% after the announcement.

Sir Jony worked for Apple for more than 30 years, helping to revive the company with pathbreaking products including the iPhone and iPod.

He left the firm in 2019 to found his own company, LoveFrom, which has worked with companies such as Airbnb and Moncler.

The idea for io, which Sir Jony founded last year, grew out of several years of quiet collaboration between the two companies, according to the announcement.

"It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company," it said.

OpenAI had a 23% stake in the startup prior to Wednesday's announcement, according to US media.

US media reported that the merger valued io at roughly $6.4bn (£4.7bn). LoveFrom will remain independent.

In the video announcing the merger, Sir Jony said he believed the world was on the "brink of a new generation of technology".

OpenAI set off a wave of investment in AI in 2022 when it unveiled ChatGPT.

It has continued to push into new areas, such as shopping and search, in a challenge to established tech giants.

The foray into hardware comes as tech rivals such as Meta, Google and Apple have also been investing in products such as headsets and glasses, seeing new opportunity due to advances in AI.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has condemned a "serious accident" during the launch of a new warship on Thursday, calling it a "criminal act" that could not be tolerated.

Parts of the 5,000-ton destroyer's bottom were crushed, tipping the vessel off balance, state media reported.

Kim, who was present at the launch, has ordered the ship be restored before a key party meeting in June, and for those involved in designing the ship to be held responsible for the incident which he said "severely damaged the dignity and pride of our nation in an instant."

State media reports did not mention any casualties or injuries as a result of the incident.

Kim attributed Thursday's accident, which took place at a shipyard in the eastern port city of Chongjin, to "absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism".

He added that the "irresponsible errors" of those involved will be dealt with at a plenary meeting next month.

It's not clear what punishment they might face but the authoritarian state has a woeful human rights record.

People can be jailed for almost anything, activists have said, from watching a South Korean DVD to trying to defect.

It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents - though it has done this a handful of times in the past.

Last November, it described the mid-air explosion of a military satellite six months earlier as a "gravest failure" and criticised officials who "irresponsibly conducted preparations" for it.

In August 2023, the state blamed another botched satellite launch on an error in the emergency basting system, but said it was "not a big issue".

Thursday's incident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a new 5,000-ton destroyer on the country's west coast which it said is equipped to carry over 70 missiles.

Kim had called the warship a "breakthrough" in modernising the country's naval forces and said it would be deployed early next year.

The US has accepted a plane from Qatar, a gift that sparked criticism including from some of President Trump's biggest supporters.

"The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations," Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday.

The plane will need to be modified before it can be used as part of the Air Force One fleet - the president's official mode of air transport.

The White House insists that the gift is legal, but the announcement of the transfer a week ago caused huge controversy.

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The Canadian government said it is in talks with the US over joining its proposed "Golden Dome" missile defence system, aimed at countering "next-generation" aerial threats.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's office said there are "active discussions" between Canada and the US on security, including on existing and new programmes like the Golden Dome.

US president Donald Trump unveiled the plan for the new missile defence system earlier on Tuesday, announcing an initial sum of $25bn (£18.7bn) to build it. He added Canada has expressed interest in joining.

There are doubts from experts on how the US would deliver a comprehensive system and it is unclear how Canada would participate or how much it would pay.

Canada's openness to joining the proposed Golden Dome system comes amid ongoing trade and security negotiations between the two countries, after Trump threatened steep tariffs on Canada and said it would be better off as a US state.

This galvanised a wave of national patriotism in Canada that ushered in a historic election win for Carney's Liberal government.

"Canadians gave the prime minister a strong mandate to negotiate a comprehensive new security and economic relationship with the United States," said Audrey Champoux, a spokesperson for Carney.

"To that end, the prime minister and his ministers are having wide-ranging and constructive discussions with their American counterparts," she said.

"These discussions naturally include strengthening NORAD and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome."

But Ms Champoux added it is too early to say what Canada might pay into the programme, or how it would work for the country.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said that Canada has expressed interest in being part of the Golden Dome.

"We'll be talking to them," the US president said. "They want to have protection also, so as usual, we help Canada."

Trump said that the new Golden Dome defence missile programme would be operational by the end of his time in office, and that it would come with a price tag of $175bn. He added that he his administration is looking for Canada to "pay their fair share."

Canada and the US already partner on the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD - a system that is responsible for aerospace and maritime surveillance, warning and defence of the region, and that can detect and shoot down cruise missiles.

NOARD has been in place since 1958, and both countries in recent years have been engaged in discussions to modernise it.

Trump said the proposed Golden Dome is meant to target increasingly sophisticated aerial weapons, and will include space-based sensors and interceptors.

He said the system would be "capable even of intercepting missiles launched from the other side of the world, or launched from space".

It is partly inspired by Israel's Iron Dome, which the country has used to intercept rockets and missiles since 2011.

Experts have expressed doubts on whether the US would be able to build a similarly comprehensive defence system, given its larger land mass.

Shashank Joshi, defence editor at the Economist, told the BBC that one way the Golden Dome could work was by using thousands of satellites to spot and track missiles and then use interceptors in orbit to fire at the missiles as they take off and take them out.

He said the US military would take the plan seriously but it was unrealistic to think it would be completed during Trump's term, and the huge cost would suck up a large chunk of the US defence budget.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the eventual price tag could be $542bn over 20 years, on the space-based parts of the system alone.

A federal judge has said the deportation of eight men to South Sudan "unquestionably" violated his order that migrants must be allowed to challenge their removal to third countries.

Judge Brian Murphy's finding on Wednesday was the latest turn in a fast-evolving dispute.

One day earlier, he ordered US authorities to keep custody of the men, over concerns that the US had violated his injunction against sending migrants to countries other than their own without allowing them to raise concerns.

The Department of Homeland Security has said it was seeking to deport "uniquely barbaric monsters" who were convicted of crimes including murder, and South Sudan was not their final destination.

At a hearing on Wednesday Judge Murphy said the Department of Homeland Security's attempts to deport the men "are unquestionably violative of this court's order", according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

"I don't see how anybody could say that these individuals had a meaningful opportunity to object," Judge Murphy said.

Justice Department attorneys said his orders were unclear and had led to "misunderstanding".

Earlier, a lawyer for the Justice Department confirmed the aircraft carrying the deportees had landed but did not say where, citing "very serious operational and safety concerns", as reported by Reuters.

The judge has said he would decide on another day whether he would hold Homeland Security officials in contempt of court.

Earlier on Wednesday, the department shared on X the photographs, nationalities and criminal convictions of eight men on board the deportation flight.

They are listed as citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

Department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told a briefing earlier on Wednesday: "Every single one of them was convicted of a heinous crime, murder, rape, child rape, rape of a mentally and physically handicapped victim."

She said it was "absurd for a US judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the US".

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said: "If we don't have a country that'll take their citizens back, we do have an option to find a safe third country."

They did not specify where the migrants might ultimately be bound.

Judge Murphy issued a ruling on 18 April requiring that illegal migrants have a "meaningful opportunity" to challenge their removal to countries other than their homelands.

After learning the men were on a flight leaving the country, he quickly scheduled a hearing on Tuesday where he said the migrants must remain in the government's custody and be "treated humanely". He did not order the plane to turn back to the US.

One of the deported men was Nyo Myint, a citizen of Myanmar. According to homeland security, he had been convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to 12 years of confinement. He was arrested by immigration authorities on 19 February, and was detained in Texas.

In August 2023, an immigration court in Omaha, Nebraska, issued Myint a final order of removal, according to court documents filed by groups representing multiple deportees.

His immigration attorney, Jonathan Ryan, told the BBC that his client had received two conflicting deportation notices on 19 May.

The first, which arrived at about 10:59 local time, notified Myint he would be sent to South Africa, but subsequent several hours later declared he would be taken to South Sudan.

Both notices were provided in English, a language that Mr Ryan said his client barely speaks. On Tuesday, Mr Ryan said he was notified that Myint was being removed from the country.

"I have no idea where he is," Mr Ryan said. "He's been disappeared by the United States government."

Mr Ryan acknowledged his client's criminal record, but said he and the other deportees were still entitled to the same due process rights as any other individual.

"These people were purposefully selected by the government for this maneuver, to divert our attention from the government's blatant disregard for a federal judicial order," he said.

"If we allow the government to pick and choose who deserves due process and who has rights, we're relinquishing all rights," he said.

As it accelerates and expands deportations, the Trump administration is working with other countries to accept both their citizens removed from the US, as well as citizens of other nations. Most notably, it sent migrants it said were originally from Venezuela to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

Rwanda confirmed it was in such talks with the US, while Benin, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and Moldova have all been named in media reports.

In early April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US was revoking visas issued to all South Sudanese passport holders because the African nation was refusing to accept its citizens who had been removed from the US.

US President Donald Trump seemed to ambush his South African counterpart at the White House on Wednesday, confronting him with a video that Trump said supported his claim that white farmers were being "persecuted" in the country.

The footage, shown during a news conference with Cyril Ramaphosa, purported to show the gravesites of murdered farmers. Trump did not say where it was filmed, and the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Ramaphosa - who appeared to weigh up carefully how to respond - disputed Trump's allegation. He said black people were far more likely to be victims of violence in South Africa than white people.

Trump also said that he would seek an "explanation" from his guest on widely discredited claims of a white "genocide" in South Africa.

Ramaphosa came to the White House on Wednesday for trade talks to reset US-South African relations.

He had hoped to charm Trump with the inclusion of two of South Africa's best-known golfers in the delegation. Ramaphosa also came equipped with a gift of a huge book featuring his country's golf courses.

But after a cordial start, the mood in the Oval Office shifted as Trump asked for the lighting to be lowered so a video could be played.

• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his refugee offer?
• 'I didn't come here for fun' - Afrikaner defends refugee status in US

The film featured the voice of leading South African opposition figure Julius Malema singing the song: "Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer".

It also showed a field of crosses, which the US president, talking over the images, said was a burial site of white farmers.

He then handed Ramaphosa what appeared to be print-outs of stories of white people being attacked in South Africa.

"What you saw - the speeches that were made... that is not government policy," Ramaphosa responded.

"We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.

"Our government policy is completely against what he [Malema] was saying even in the parliament and they are a small minority party, which is allowed to exist according to our constitution."

Ramaphosa said he hoped that Trump would listen to the voices of South Africans on this issue.

The South African leader pointed out the white members of his delegation, including golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and South Africa's richest man Johann Rupert.

"If there was a genocide, these three gentlemen would not be here," Ramaphosa said.

Trump interrupted: "But you do allow them to take land, and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer nothing happens to them."

"No," Ramaphosa responded.

Trump appeared to be referring to a controversial law signed by Ramaphosa earlier this year, which allows the government to seize privately-owned land without compensation in some circumstances. The South African government says no land has yet been seized under the act.

Speaking to Trump on Wednesday, Ramaphosa did acknowledge that there was "criminality in our country... people who do get killed through criminal activity are not only white people, the majority of them are black people".

As Trump pressed the issue, Ramaphosa stayed calm - and tried to work his charm by making a joke about offering a plane to the US.

He invoked the name of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, saying South Africa remained committed to racial reconciliation.

When a journalist asked what would happen if white farmers left South Africa, Ramaphosa deflected the question to his white agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, who said that most farmers wanted to stay.

But Trump kept firing salvoes at Ramaphosa, who avoided entering into a shouting match with him - something that happened to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he met Trump in the same room in February.

Earlier this month, a group of 59 white South Africans arrived in the US, where they were granted refugee status. Ramaphosa said at the time they were "cowards".

Before Wednesday's White House meeting, South Africa's leader had stressed that improving trade relations with the US was his priority.

South African exports into the US face a 30% tariff once a pause on Trump's new import taxes ends in July.

Tensions between South Africa and the US ramped up days after Trump took office for his second term in January.

It was at that point that Ramaphosa signed into law the controversial bill that allows South Africa's government to expropriate privately-owned land in cases when it is deemed "equitable and in the public interest".

The move only served to tarnish the image of Africa's biggest economy in the eyes of the Trump administration - already angered by its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

In February, the US president announced the suspension of critical aid to South Africa and offered to allow members of the Afrikaner community - who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers - to settle in the US as refugees.

South Africa's ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was also expelled in March after accusing Trump of "mobilising a supremacism" and trying to "project white victimhood as a dog whistle".

Additional reporting by Khanyisile Ngcobo and Farouk Chothia

More on South African-US relations:

• Can Mandela's former negotiator fix fractious relations with Trump?
• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?
• What's really driving Trump's fury with South Africa?

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

Intensified Israeli ground operations and new evacuation orders are stretching Gaza's health system beyond breaking point, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Indonesian, Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals in the northern towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia were inside an evacuation zone announced on Tuesday. Another two hospitals are within 1km (0.6 miles) of it.

Kamal Adwan was out of service due to hostilities nearby and the Indonesian hospital was inaccessible because of the presence of Israeli forces around it, he added.

Al-Awda hospital is still functioning, but its director told the BBC on Wednesday that it was "totally under siege".

"Nobody can move out and we can't receive any cases from outside the hospital," Dr Mohammed Salha said.

He added that there was a quadcopter drone "shooting in the surroundings of the hospital and the outdoor area of the hospital".

"We also hear shooting from the tanks... maybe 400 or 500 metres [away]."

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that it was "operating in the area against terror targets", but that it was "not aware of any siege on the hospital itself".

Dr Tedros said: "Even if health facilities are not attacked or forced to evacuate, hostilities and military presence obstruct patients and staff from accessing care, and WHO from resupplying hospitals, which can quickly make them non-functional."

"We've seen this too many times - it must not be allowed to happen again."

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also said that at least 20 medical facilities across Gaza had been damaged, or forced partially or completely out of service, in the past week by Israeli ground operations, air strikes and evacuation orders.

The charity demanded that Israeli authorities stop what it called the "deliberate asphyxiation of Gaza and the annihilation of its healthcare system".

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining 58 hostages, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

After several days of intense bombardment, the IDF launched an expanded offensive on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would see ground forces "take control of all areas" of Gaza. The plan reportedly includes completely clearing the north of civilians and forcibly displacing them to the south.

More than 600 people have been killed and 2,000 injured across Gaza over the past week, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. The UN says tens of thousands of people have been newly displaced.

Netanyahu also said Israel would allow a "basic" amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine. But the UN has so far been unable to collect the dozens of lorry loads of supplies allowed in since Monday.

MSF said the volume of aid allowed in so far was not nearly enough, describing it as "a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over".

On Tuesday, the WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories said he had recently returned from Gaza and witnessed how the health system was facing attacks and acute shortages of supplies.

"Every time you get into Gaza you always think it cannot get worse. But it gets worse," Dr Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva.

He described how al-Awda hospital was "overwhelmed with injuries" and running low on supplies. Hostilities had damaged the facility, disrupted access and deterred people from seeking healthcare, he added.

He said the Indonesian hospital was barely functioning, almost inaccessible, and that most patients had left last week after a staff member was killed, one patient was injured and the facility was damaged during intensified hostilities.

Only 15 people, including patients and staff, were still inside the hospital as of Tuesday, urgently in need of food and water, he added.

The hospital's generator was also struck by an Israeli quadcopter on Monday night, causing a large fire and a blackout, according to MER-C Indonesia, the NGO that built the facility.

On Wednesday, a woman inside the hospital told the BBC by telephone that two of the patients were in a "serious condition".

In the background of the call, crashes could be heard.

"Five minutes ago, there was intense shooting in the surroundings of the hospital," she said, adding that she could see tanks.

The woman also said that they still had supplies of food inside the hospital, but were "facing a water crisis".

The IDF told the BBC it was operating in the area around the hospital and targeting "terrorist infrastructure sites", but that it was not targeting the hospital itself.

In another incident on Tuesday, a paramedic said his ambulance was shot at by an Israeli drone while he was transporting staff and food between al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals.

Khaled Sadeh said he was with another ambulance when bullets hit both vehicles' windshields. Nobody was injured.

Dr Salha shared photos of the ambulances and confirmed that Mr Sadeh was unable to return to al-Awda because of the threat of Israeli fire.

The BBC supplied details of the allegations and photos to the IDF, but it said it "could not confirm" the reports.

Hospitals and medical personnel are specially protected under international humanitarian law.

Hospitals only lose that protection in certain circumstances. They include being used as a base from which to launch an attack, as a weapons depot, or to hide healthy fighters.

The IDF has insisted that its forces operate in accordance with international law. In most instances where it has attacked hospitals, it has said they were being used improperly by Hamas - an allegation the group has denied.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the European hospital - the only facility providing neurosurgery, cardiac care and cancer treatment in Gaza - has been out of service since 13 May.

That day, the hospital's courtyard and surrounding area was hit by a series of Israeli air strikes that Israel's defence minister said targeted an underground bunker where the head of Hamas's military wing, Mohammed Sinwar, was hiding. Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said the attack killed at least 28 people, but it is not clear yet whether Sinwar died.

The facility has also been inside an Israeli-designated evacuation zone covering almost the entire eastern half of Khan Younis since Monday.

Dr Tedros said Nasser, al-Amal and al-Aqsa hospitals, as well as one field hospital, were within 1km of the zone.

Dr Victoria Rose, a British surgeon working at Nasser hospital, said in a video posted on social media on Wednesday that she was very worried about the facility being evacuated or cut off by an Israeli troops advance from al-Aqsa, which in the central town of Deir al-Balah.

"If we get cut off from the Middle Area, there really are no other hospitals around us that could cope with the evacuation of Nasser," she explained.

"We have some amazing field hospitals... but none of them are capable of doing the type of surgery that we're doing here. And none of them have ICU capacity or generated oxygen. So, even all of them together couldn't cope with the amount of patients that we have."

She warned: "If Nasser is evacuated, we really are looking at the imminent death of hundreds of patients because we won't be able to take them anywhere."

Nasser was also hit by an Israeli strike on 13 May, killing two people including a Palestinian journalist who was being treated for injuries he sustained in a previous strike on a tented camp at the complex. The attack also destroyed 18 beds in a burns unit, according to the WHO.

The IDF accused the journalist of being a Hamas operative and alleged that the hospital was being used by the group to "carry out terrorist plots".

Another strike on Monday severely damaged Nasser's medical warehouse and destroyed critical WHO supplies, according to the hospital's director.

Suha Shaath, a pharmacist from Khan Younis who has been told by the IDF to evacuate and head to camps in the coastal al-Mawasi area, told the BBC in a voice note: "I have not left my house until now because I haven't found any place to set up my tent."

"The humanitarian situation is very serious - no water, no food, no fuel. The shelling is hitting everywhere," she added.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 53,655 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,509 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory's health ministry.