Five Al Jazeera journalists were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Sunday - among them 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had reported prominently on the war since its outset.

The other four Al Jazeera journalists killed were correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, Al Jazeera said.

Two others were also killed, the broadcaster said. Hospital officials named Mohammed al-Khaldi, a local freelance journalist, as one of them.

The targeted attack on a tent used by journalists has drawn strong international condemnation including from the UN, Qatar where Al Jazeera is based, and media freedom groups.

Israel says Sharif was "the head of a Hamas terrorist cell" but has produced little evidence to support that. Sharif previously denied it, and Al Jazeera and media rights groups have rejected the allegation.

The BBC understands Sharif worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before the current conflict.

In some of his social media posts before his death, the journalist can be heard criticising Hamas.

Committee for the Protection of Journalists CEO Jodie Ginsberg told the BBC there was no justification for Sharif's killing.

"International law is very clear on this point that the only individuals who are legitimate targets during a war are active combatants. Having worked as a media advisor for Hamas, or indeed for Hamas currently, does not make you an active combatant", she said.

"And nothing that the Israeli forces has produced so far in terms of evidence gives us any kind of assurance that he was even an active member of Hamas."

The 'only voice' left in Gaza City

Anas al-Sharif became one of Al Jazeera's most prominent reporters in Gaza during the war.

Born in the densely populated Jabalia area in the north of the Strip, he worked for Al Jazeera for about two years, the broadcaster said.

"He worked for the whole length of the war inside Gaza reporting daily on the situation of people and the attacks which are committed in Gaza," Salah Negm, director of news at Al Jazeera English, told the BBC.

Married with a four-year-old daughter, Sham, and a one-year-old son, Salah, he was separated from them for long stretches during the war while he continued to report from the north of the territory after refusing to follow Israeli evacuation orders.

A joint Instagram post on his official account along with his wife's in January this year showed a picture of Sharif smiling with his two children. The caption said it was the first time he was meeting Salah, after 15 months of war.

Sharif appeared frequently in live broadcasts, reporting extensively on the situation in Gaza.

He reported on the targeting of his colleagues, including prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in 2024 in an air strike in Gaza City.

His father had already been killed in December 2023 when the family home was targeted in an Israeli strike. Hours before he himself was killed, he posted about an intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza City.

Mohamed Moawad, Al Jazeera's managing editor, described him as the "only voice left in Gaza City" - which Israel now plans to militarily occupy.

Raed Fakih, input manager at Al Jazeera's Arabic-language channel, told the BBC Sharif was "courageous, dedicated, and honest - that's what made him successful as a journalist with hundreds of thousands of social media followers from all over the world".

Fakih, who is in charge of the channel's bureaux and correspondents, added: "His dedication took him to areas where no other reporter ventured to go, especially those that witnessed the worst massacres. His integrity kept him true to his message as a journalist."

Fakih said he spoke to Sharif many times on the phone throughout the war.

"In our last conversations, he told me about the famine and starvation he was enduring, about how hard it is to survive with so little food," he said.

"He felt he had no choice but to amplify the voice of the Gazans. He was living the same hardships they are living now, suffering from famine, mourning loved ones.

"His father was killed in an Israeli bombing. In that way, he was like all Gazans: carrying loss, pain, and resilience. And even in the face of death, he persisted, because this is a story that must be told."

Mohammed Qreieh, 33, was a father of two from Gaza City, the Associated Press news agency reported. Like Sharif, he was separated from his family for months during the war as he reported from the front lines in northern Gaza, AP added.

Qreieh's last live broadcast was on Sunday evening, minutes before he was targeted, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Israel alleges Sharif led 'terrorist cell', with little evidence

The Israeli military accused Sharif of posing as a journalist, saying he had "served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas" and was responsible for launching rocket attacks at Israelis - but it has produced little evidence to support these claims.

In a statement, the IDF said it had documents which "unequivocally prove" his "military affiliation" with Hamas, including "personnel rosters, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and salary documents".

It has publicly released some screenshots of spreadsheets apparently listing Hamas operatives from the northern Gaza Strip, noting injuries to Hamas operatives and a section of what is said to be a phone directory for the armed group's East Jabalia battalion.

Israel had previously accused Sharif of being a member of Hamas's military wing - something he and his employer strongly denied.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom group, said the allegations against him were "baseless" and called on the international community to intervene.

"Without strong action from the international community to stop the Israeli army... we're likely to witness more such extrajudicial murders of media professionals," RSF said.

Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in the war Israel launched in response to Hamas's October 7, 2023 assault, according to RSF.

Fakih from Al Jazeera accused the Israeli military of fabricating stories about journalists before killing them, to "hide what [it] is committing in Gaza". Israel has previously denied targeting journalists.

He described this as a "longstanding pattern" and referred to the Israeli military's killing of veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqla, who was shot in the head during an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

The Israeli military concluded that one of its soldiers probably killed her, but called her death unintentional. Al Jazeera said its evidence showed it was a "deliberate killing".

"Here is a crucial fact: had Israel been held accountable for Shireen's assassination, it would not have dared to kill 200 journalists in Gaza," said Fakih.

Sharif knew he risked being targeted by Israel after its Arabic-language spokesman posted a video of him in July and accused him of being a member of Hamas' military wing.

In a post published on his X account, which was prewritten in the event of his death, Sharif said he "gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people... Do not forget Gaza."

A US judge has ruled grand jury materials in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex-trafficking case will remain sealed, saying that making them public "would not reveal new information of any consequence".

The justice department had asked Judge Paul Engelmayer to unseal the documents, in an effort to assauge anger among President Donald Trump's supporters over the decision not to release all federal files on Maxwell's associate, deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for crimes tied to Epstein, opposed unsealing the materials.

The judge wrote it was important to protect the secrecy of grand juries, who decide whether to indict people accused of crimes.

There are special circumstances where that secrecy is broken, Judge Engelmayer wrote in his 31-page decision.

But he wrote that "applying the exception casually or promiscuously, as the government's motion to unseal the summary-witness grand jury testimony here invites" would hurt the grand jury system. It could, he wrote, set a precedent where people do not believe the proceedings will be kept secret, which may discourage witnesses from testifying and jurors from focusing solely on the merits of the case.

He dismissed the government's argument that much of the information given to the grand jury was made public during her trial, although he agreed that "a member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who reviewed the grand jury materials...would thus learn next to nothing new".

The materials "do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor" and "do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein's or Maxwell's," he wrote.

Maxwell, 63, was convicted in December 2019 and was recently moved from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas.

Last week, one of her accusers said outside the court in New York that she should stay in prison for the rest of her life.

The BBC has reached out to Maxwell's lawyers for comment.

Last month, she was interviewed by justice department officials under the Trump administration's directive to gather and release credible evidence relating to the Epstein case.

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to release what are known as "The Epstein Files". But this summer the justice department and FBI said they had concluded that Epstein did not keep a "client list" and that the justice department would not be making additional files public.

In response to the backlash, Trump said Bondi should release "whatever she thinks is credible". Meanwhile, a congressional committee has sent a subpoena to the justice department related to federal investigations into the allegations against Epstein and Maxwell, which go back 20 years.

The president, who was friends with Epstein, has denied prior knowledge of Epstein's crimes and has said that he and the financier, who died in federal custody while awaiting trial, fell out in the early 2000s.

President Donald Trump has deployed the National Guard to Washington DC and taken control of the city's police force as he pledges to crack down on crime and homelessness in the nation's capital.

Trump declared a "public safety emergency" on Monday, deploying 800 National Guard troops who will bolster hundreds of federal law enforcement officers who were deployed over the weekend.

"It's becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness," he told reporters at the White House.

The city's Mayor Muriel Bowser has rejected the president's claims about crime and while there was a spike in 2023, statistics show it has fallen since then. Violent crime in the city is also at a 30-year low.

"I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse," Trump said during a news conference in which he was flanked by US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who will lead the city's police force while it is under federal control.

"This is liberation day in DC, and we're going to take our capital back," he said.

Trump said Washington DC had been "taken over by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals" as well as "drugged out maniacs and homeless people".

According to data from the city's Metropolitan Police Department, homicides dropped by 32 percent between 2023 and 2024 and reached their lowest level since 2019.

There has been another substantial drop this year of 12 percent, the data shows.

Mayor Bowser, a Democrat, acknowledged there had been a "terrible" spike in crime in 2023, which mirrored a national trend, but she pushed back against any claims of a crimewave in the city.

"We are not experiencing a crime spike," she told MSNBC on Sunday. "The president is very aware of our efforts."

When asked about White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's comment that Washington is more violent than Baghdad, Bowser said "any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false".

Of the 800 National Guard troops who will be activated, between 100-200 will be deployed and supporting law enforcement at any given time, the army said in a statement.

As well as that deployment, Trump said he would place the city's police department under direct federal control using the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.

That act was instituted by former President Richard Nixon to allow residents of Washington DC - which is the only US city that is not in any of the 50 states - to elect a city council and a mayor.

But it also has a caveat that allows the president to take control of the city's police force if "special conditions of an emergency nature exist".

If the president intends to take control for longer than 48 hours, they need to provide a written notice to Congress. And even if that notice is provided, they cannot keep control of the police for longer than 30 days.

On Sunday, when asked about the possibility of the president taking control of the city's police department, Mayor Bowser said: "There are very specific things in our law that would allow [that]. None of those conditions exist in our city right now."

She said she was "concerned" about the National Guard enforcing local laws.

The mayor's office has not yet responded to a request for comment from the BBC on Trump's Monday announcement.

As well as crime, Trump also spoke at length about homelessness in Washington DC.

"We're getting rid of the slums," he said, without giving further details. He said homeless people would be sent elsewhere but did not say where.

Trump added that "everything should be perfect" when dignitaries and foreign leaders visit the city.

"It's a very strong reflection of our country," he said. "If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty and they don't respect us."

Local groups working with homeless people in the capital told the BBC they had actually seen progress in recent years.

Homelessness is down almost 20% for individuals in Washington DC in 2025 compared to five years ago, said Ralph Boyd, the president and chief executive of So Others Might Eat (SOME) - a group that provides people in the city with housing, clothing and other social services.

He also said Trump's proposal to move people out of the city was not a long-term solution.

"All it will do is transfer the problem somewhere else into communities that are perhaps less equipped to deal with it than we are," Boyd said.

Meanwhile, outside the White House, protesters concerned about Trump's actions gathered and chanted "hands off DC" and "protect home rule".

"Trump does not care about DC's safety, he cares about control," a speaker at the event said.

The president's actions follow a series of social media posts in recent days in which he has criticised the running of Washington DC. Trump has long complained about the city's Democratic leadership for their handling of crime and homelessness.

He has also responded angrily to a former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who was attacked recently in in the city.

During Monday's press conference, Trump said the employee was "savagely beaten by a band of roaming thugs" and was "left dripping in blood".

He also mentioned other federal government employees and elected officials who have been attacked, including a Democratic lawmaker and an intern.

"This is a threat to America," Trump said.

The first time Trump deployed the National Guard was in June, when he ordered 2,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles to deal with unrest over raids on undocumented migrants.

The last time the National Guard was deployed to Washington DC was in response to the Capitol riot in 2021.

US President Donald Trump has said he will try to get some territory back for Ukraine during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

"Russia's occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We're going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine," he told a news conference.

Trump said the talks in Alaska would be a "feel-out meeting" aimed at urging Putin to end the war, and that there would be "some swapping, changes in land".

It is not the first time he has used the phrase "land-swapping", though it is unclear what land Russia could cede to Ukraine. Kyiv has never lay claim to any Russian territories.

Trump said he will update European leaders if Putin proposes a "fair deal" during the talks, adding that he would speak to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky first "out of respect".

"I'll call him first... I'll call him after, and I may say, 'lots of luck, keep fighting,' or I may say, 'we can make a deal'", he said.

Trump also said that while he and Zelensky "get along", he "very severely disagrees with what he has done". Trump has previously blamed Zelensky for the war in Ukraine, which was sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.

The US president announced the meeting with Putin last Friday - the day of his self-imposed deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire or face more US sanctions.

In response to news of the Alaska summit, Zelensky said any agreements without input from Kyiv would amount to "dead decisions".

The UN's human rights office has condemned a targeted Israeli attack that killed six journalists in Gaza, calling it a "grave breach" of international humanitarian law.

Five Al Jazeera journalists, including prominent correspondent Anas al-Sharif, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night, alongside a sixth freelance journalist.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Sharif, alleging he had "served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas".

Media rights groups and countries including Qatar have condemned the attack. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's spokesman said the UK government is "gravely concerned" and called for an independent investigation.

• Follow live - Israel kills prominent Al Jazeera journalist and four colleagues in targeted attack in Gaza

Speaking to reporters, Starmer's official spokesman said Israel should ensure journalists can work safely and report without fear.

The funerals of Sharif, fellow Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa took place on Monday following the targeted missile strike on their tent in Gaza City.

Mohammad al-Khaldi was named by medics at al-Shifa hospital as the sixth journalist who was killed during the strike, Reuters news agency reported. Another person was also killed in the attack, it said.

Reporters Without Borders, a media freedom group, strongly condemned what it called the assassination of Sharif.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was appalled by the attack and Israel had failed to provide evidence to back up its allegations against him.

"Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof," the organisation added.

The Israeli military has suggested it has documents found in Gaza that confirmed Sharif belonged to Hamas.

It said these include "personnel rosters, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories and salary documents".

The only materials that have been released for publication are screenshots of spreadsheets apparently listing Hamas operatives from the northern Gaza Strip, noting injuries to Hamas operatives and a section of what is said to be a phone directory for the armed group's East Jabalia battalion.

The BBC cannot independently verify these documents.

The BBC understands Sharif worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before the current conflict.

Israel says he was "the head of a Hamas terrorist cell" but has produced little evidence to support that.

In some of his social media posts before his death, the journalist can be heard criticising Hamas.

No Israeli explanation has so far been given for the killing of the entire Al Jazeera news crew.

CPJ says at least 186 journalists have been killed since the start of Israel's military offensive in Gaza in October 2023 - the deadliest period for journalists since it began recording such data in 1992.

"Israel must respect & protect all civilians, including journalists," the UN Human Rights office said in a post on X. "We call for immediate, safe and unhindered access to Gaza for all journalists."

Last month, the BBC and three other news agencies - Reuters, AP and AFP - issued a joint statement expressing "desperate concern" for journalists in the Strip, who they say are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families.

The Israeli government does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza to report freely, so many outlets rely on Gaza-based reporters for coverage.

Meanwhile in Gaza, five more people have died from malnutrition in the past 24 hours, including one child, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

This brings the total number of malnutrition deaths to 222, including 101 children, the health ministry said.

The UN's humanitarian agency said on Friday that the amount of aid entering Gaza continues to be "far below the minimum required to meet people's immense needs". Last month, UN-backed global food security experts warned the "worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out".

Israel has continued to deny there is starvation in Gaza and has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it.

The UN's humanitarian agency has said it continues to see impediments and delays as it tries to collect aid from Israeli-controlled border zones.

Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, 61,430 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israel's military campaign, according to the health ministry.

A Chinese warship ploughed into its own coast guard vessel on Monday while the latter was chasing a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea, Manila said.

Philippine coast guard officials were distributing aid to fishermen in the disputed Scarborough Shoal, Commodore Jay Tarriela said, when the Chinese coast guard "performed a risky manoeuvre" which inflicted "substantial damage" on the Chinese warship's forward deck.

China confirmed that a confrontation took place and accused the Philippines of "forcibly intruding" into Chinese waters, but did not mention the collision.

The South China Sea is at the centre of a territorial dispute between China, the Philippines and other countries.

Tensions between Beijing and Manila have sharply escalated in recent years, with each side accusing the other of provocations and altercations at sea, including some involving weapons such as swords, spears and knives.

The Scarborough Shoal, a triangular chain of reefs and rocks, has been a flashpoint between the two countries since China seized it in 2012.

Video released by Manila showed a Chinese coast guard vessel firing water cannons as it chased the Philippine coast guard ship, before slamming loudly into a much larger Chinese ship after making a sudden turn.

The collision rendered the Chinese warship "unseaworthy", Tarriela said. It is unclear if anyone was injured in the incident.

The Philippines Coast Guard has "consistently urged" the Chinese authorities to respect international conventions in handling territorial disputes, "especially considering their role in enforcing maritime laws", Tarriela said.

"We have also emphasised that such reckless behaviour at sea could ultimately lead to accidents," he added.

China's coast guard, however, said it was acting "in accordance with the law" and took "all necessary measures" to drive the Philippine vessels away.

This is the latest in a string of dangerous encounters over the last two years as Beijing and Manila seek to enforce their claims on disputed reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea.

In December last year, the Philippines said China's coast guard fired water cannons and "sideswiped" a government vessel during a maritime patrol near the Scarborough Shoal.

Beijing initially said Philippine ships "came dangerously close" and that its crew's actions had been "in accordance with the law". It later accused Manila of making "bogus accusations in an attempt to mislead international understanding".

In June 2024, Filipino soldiers used their "bare hands" to fight off Chinese coast guard personnel armed with swords, spears and knives in the area. The skirmish led to one Filipino soldier losing his thumb, Manila said.

Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot in the head in a targeted attack which shocked the South American nation.

The 39-year-old was hit by three bullets - two of them in the head and one in the leg - at a campaign rally on 7 June in the capital, Bogotá.

His wife confirmed his death on social media, paying tribute to "the love of my life".

A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the shooting, but the motive behind the attack is still unclear.

Uribe's wife, María Claudia Tarazona, thanked her late husband for "a life full of love" and for being "the best father" for their children.

According to a statement published on Saturday by the hospital where Uribe was being treated, the senator had suffered a bleed to his central nervous system and was due to undergo surgery.

He had already had several surgeries since he was first taken to the Santa Fe clinic in June.

His wife had asked people to pray for his recovery and thousands had turned out at vigils and rallies to show their support.

Uribe, who had been a senator since 2022, had been seeking his party's nomination for the 2026 presidential election.

He was attending a political event in a middle-class neighbourhood of the capital when he was shot.

A teenage suspect was arrested as he was fleeing the scene. The 15-year-old has been charged with attempted murder and pleaded not guilty.

Several others have been detained on suspicion of aiding the gunman.

The brazen attack on the senator has brought back memories of the turbulent decades of the 1980s and 90s in Colombia, when several presidential candidates and influential Colombian figures were assassinated.

Uribe's own mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped by Los Extraditables in 1990 - an alliance created by leading drug lords.

She was held hostage by them for five months before being shot dead during a botched rescue attempt.

Uribe often cited her as his inspiration to run for political office "to work for our country".

Los Extraditables, who said they would prefer a grave in Colombia to a prison cell in the US, abducted and attacked renowned Colombians in an attempt to force the government at the time to overturn its extradition treaty with the US.

India's top court has ordered authorities in Delhi and its suburbs to move all stray dogs from streets to animal shelters.

The court expressed concerns over rising "menace of dog bites leading to rabies" and gave an eight-week deadline to officials to finish the task.

Delhi's stray dog population is estimated at one million, with suburban Noida, Ghaziabad, and Gurugram also seeing a rise, municipal sources say.

India has millions of stray dogs and the country accounts for 36% of the total rabies-related deaths in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

• Do India's stray dogs kill more people than terror attacks?

"Infants and young children, not at any cost, should fall prey to rabies. The action should inspire confidence that they can move freely without fear of being bitten by stray dogs," legal news website Live Law quoted the court as saying on Monday.

The court took up the issue following reports of increasing dog bites in Delhi and other major cities.

The court directed that multiple shelters be established across Delhi and its suburbs, each capable of housing at least 5,000 dogs. These shelters should be equipped with sterilisation and vaccination facilities, as well as CCTV cameras.

The court ruled sterilised dogs must not be released in public areas, despite current rules requiring their return to the capture site.

It also ordered that a helpline should be set up within a week to report dog bites and rabies cases.

Animal welfare groups, however, have voiced strong concerns over the court's directive. They said that the timeline set up by the court was unrealistic.

"Most Indian cities currently do not have even 1% of the capacity [needed] to rehabilitate stray dogs in shelters," said Nilesh Bhanage, founder of PAWS, a prominent animal rights group.

"If the court and the authorities actually want to end the menace, they should focus on strengthening the implementation of the existing regulations to control dog population and rabies - they include vaccination, sterilisation and efficient garbage management."

Government data shows that there were 3.7 million reported cases of dog bites across the country in 2024.

Activists say the true extent of rabies-related deaths is not fully known.

The World Health Organization says that "the true burden of rabies in India is not fully known; although as per available information, it causes 18,000-20,000 deaths every year".

On the other hand, according to data submitted in the parliament by the Indian government, 54 rabies deaths were recorded in 2024, up from 50 in 2023.

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Dozens of soldiers have been arrested in Mali accused of plotting to topple the country's military leaders, sources say.

The wave of arrests, which reportedly went on overnight and are expected to continue, reflect increased tensions within the military government, with reports that a jihadist insurgency in the north is gaining ground. The authorities have not commented on the arrests.

Initial reports indicated that Gen Abass Dembele, the former governor of the Mopti region and Gen Nema Sagara, one of the few women at the highest levels of the Malian army, were among those detained.

However, a source close to Gen Dembele told the BBC that neither of them had been arrested.

The source, who confirmed the ongoing arrests, told a BBC reporter in Bamako that he had just left Gen Dembele's house and he was "doing well".

The AFP news agency reported that the detained soldiers were allegedly planning to overthrow the government, citing multiple sources within the military and junta-backed transitional council.

"All are soldiers. Their objective was to overthrow the junta," it quoted an unnamed lawmaker in the National Transition Council as saying.

He said there had been about "50 arrests", while a security source said there were at least 20 arrests, linked to "attempts to destabilise the institutions," AFP reports.

The arrests have reportedly been going on over a number of days.

They come amid political tension heightened by the junta's crackdown on former Prime Ministers Moussa Mara and Choguel Maiga over accusations of harming the reputation of the state and embezzlement.

Mara, a recent outspoken critic of the military government, has been in detention since 1 August, while Maiga is facing judicial sanctions.

In May, the junta dissolved all political parties following rare anti-government protests, which Mara described as a severe blow to reconciliation efforts initiated by the military leaders last year.

The junta leader Gen Asimi Goïta, who seized power through two coups in 2020 and 2021, had promised elections last year, but these have never been held.

In July, the transition period was extended by five years, clearing him to continue leading the country until at least 2030.

Mali has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since 2012 - one of the reasons given for the military takeover but attacks by jihadist groups have continued and even increased.

Alongside its neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, it has enlisted the help of Russian allies to contain the jihadist attacks in the region after breaking ties with France - but there has been no significant improvements in security.

You may also be interested in:

• The region with more 'terror deaths' than rest of world combined
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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 man in Austria has jumped on to a high-speed train after apparently being left behind at a station stop.

According to local media reports, the man, an Algerian aged 24, is reported to have decided to take advantage of a scheduled stop a St Poelten, 64km (60 miles) west of the capital Vienna, for a cigarette break.

It was too late by the time he realised the train had started pulling out of the station, but he took the decision to climb on to the space between two carriages, anyway.

He started banging on the windows to alert fellow passengers before an emergency stop was performed to allow him on board.

He had a heated argument with the train conductor, Austrian tabloid Heute said.

The service from Zurich, Switzerland, to Vienna arrived with a seven minute delay, a spokesman for Australian rail (OBB) told AFP news agency.

"It is irresponsible, this kind of thing usually ends up with someone dying," he said.

The man has been arrested.

A similar incident occurred in January in Germany when a passenger - this time a fare-dodger - clang to the outside of a German high-speed train.

The man, a Hungarian national, told police he had left his luggage on the train during his cigarette break and did not want to be parted from it.

A British backpacker has pleaded guilty to killing a man in Australia after hitting him while riding an e-scooter with an alcohol level more than three times the legal limit.

Alicia Kemp, 25, had been drinking with a friend on a Saturday afternoon in May when she was kicked out of a bar because the two of them were drunk, the court heard earlier.

The pair hired an e-scooter in the evening, and Kemp was driving at speeds of 20 to 25km/h (12 to 15mph) when she hit 51-year-old Thanh Phan from behind on a pavement in Perth's city centre.

The father-of-two hit his head on the pavement and died in hospital from a brain bleed two days later.

Kemp's passenger was also hurt in the crash - sustaining a fractured skull and broken nose - but her injuries were not life-threatening.

In Perth's Magistrates Court on Monday, Kemp - appearing via video link - pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death while intoxicated. The charge carries a maximum 20-year prison term.

Prosecutors dropped a second charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm to her passenger.

Earlier, the court heard that Kemp's blood alcohol content level was 0.158 after the crash, more than three times the legal limit of 0.05 in Australia.

Prosecutors said CCTV footage showed Kemp's "inexplicably dangerous" riding before she struck Mr Phan, who was waiting to cross the road.

In a statement from Mr Phan's family earlier this year, the structural engineer was described as a beloved husband, father, brother and dear friend.

Kemp's lawyer Michael Tudori said she was relieved after pleading guilty and hoped to be sentenced before Christmas, according to local media.

"You could see she was ready to say those words, you know, she's obviously done something stupid," Mr Tudori told the ABC.

Kemp, who was in Western Australia on a working holiday visa, will remain in custody until her sentencing.

A shooting at a nightclub in Ecuador killed eight people and injured three others, police have said.

Authorities were called to the Santa Lucía property in the early hours of Sunday morning, where they found seven people already deceased after gunmen opened fire. An eighth person died in hospital.

Police said the motive for the shooting remains unclear.

Santa Lucía is a small town in the coastal province of Guayas, one of four provinces currently under a state of emergency in an attempt to curb gang violence.

Among the dead was the owner of the nightclub, who was brother to Santa Lucia's mayor Ubaldo Urquizo, according to AFP news agency and local media.

The local government's Facebook page offered condolences to the mayor after the death of his brother, writing "we join with respect and solidarity with their grief, lifting our prayers that they may find strength and comfort during this difficult time."

The shooting is the latest in a spate of violent attacks in Guayas. Nine people were shot dead in a pool hall on 19 July, and another 17 were killed in a bar on 27 July.

Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa declared war on gang crime in January 2024, but violence has continued despite the increased military presence.

Official figures state that 4,051 homicides were recorded between January and May 2025.

The country sees 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world pass through its ports, according to government data.

Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the broadcaster has said.

Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal were in a tent for journalists at the hospital's main gate when it was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.

A fortnight ago, it condemned the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for what it called a "campaign of incitement" against its reporters in Gaza, including al-Sharif.

Shortly after the strike, the IDF confirmed that it had struck Anas al-Sharif, posting on Telegram that he had "served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas".

The IDF did not mention any of the other journalists who were killed. The BBC has contacted Al Jazeera for comment.

Al-Sharif, 28, appeared to be posting on X in the moments before his death, warning of intense Israeli bombardment within Gaza City.

A post which was published after he was reported to have died appears to have been pre-written and published by a friend.

In two graphic videos of the aftermath of the strike, which have been confirmed by BBC Verify, men can be seen carrying the bodies of those who were killed. Some shout out Mohammed Qreiqeh's name, and a man wearing a press vest says that one of the bodies is that of Anas Al-Sharif.

In July, the Al Jazeera Media Network issued a statement denouncing "relentless efforts" by the IDF for an "ongoing campaign of incitement targeting Al Jazeera's correspondents and journalists in the Gaza Strip".

"The Network considers this incitement a dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of its journalists in the field," it added.

The IDF statement accused al-Sharif of posing as a journalist, and being "responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops"

It said it had previously "disclosed intelligence" confirming his military affiliation, which included "lists of terrorist training courses".

"Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munition, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence," the statement added.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 186 journalists have been confirmed killed since the start of Israel's military offensive in Gaza in October 2023.

Additional reporting by Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Verify

Australia has announced a plan to recognise a Palestinian state, following similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the move will happen at the UN general assembly in September and after it received commitments from the Palestinian Authority.

"A two-state solution is humanity's best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza," he said on Monday.

Israel, which is under increasing pressure to end the war in Gaza, has said recognising a Palestinian state "rewards terrorism".

The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has earlier said recognition of statehood shows growing support for self-determination of its people.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

No-one would want to work without getting a salary, or even worse – having to pay to be there.

Yet paying companies so you can pretend to work for them has become popular among young, unemployed adults in China. It has led to a growing number of such providers.

The development comes amid China's sluggish economy and jobs market. Chinese youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, at more than 14%.

With real jobs increasingly hard to come by, some young adults would rather pay to go into an office than be just stuck at home.

Shui Zhou, 30, had a food business venture that failed in 2024. In April of this year, he started to pay 30 yuan ($4.20; £3.10) per day to go into a mock-up office run by a business called Pretend To Work Company, in the city of Dongguan, 114 km (71 miles) north of Hong Kong.

There he joins five "colleagues" who are doing the same thing.

"I feel very happy," says Mr Zhou. "It's like we're working together as a group."

Such operations are now appearing in major cities across China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Kunming. More often they look like fully-functional offices, and are equipped with computers, internet access, meeting rooms, and tea rooms.

And rather than attendees just sitting around, they can use the computers to search for jobs, or to try to launch their own start-up businesses. Sometimes the daily fee, usually between 30 and 50 yuan, includes lunch, snacks and drinks.

Dr Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington's School of Management in New Zealand, is an expert on the Chinese economy.

"The phenomenon of pretending to work is now very common," he says. "Due to economic transformation and the mismatch between education and the job market, young people need these places to think about their next steps, or to do odd jobs as a transition.

"Pretend office companies are one of the transitional solutions."

Mr Zhou came across the Pretend To Work Company while browsing social media site Xiaohongshu. He says he felt that the office environment would improve his self-discipline. He has now been there for more than three months.

Mr Zhou sent photos of the office to his parents, and he says they feel much more at ease about his lack of employment.

While attendees can arrive and leave whenever they want, Mr Zhou usually gets to the office between 8am and 9am. Sometimes he doesn't leave until 11pm, only departing after the manager of the business has left.

He adds that the other people there are now like friends. He says that when someone is busy, such as job hunting, they work hard, but when they have free time they chat, joke about, and play games. And they often have dinner together after work.

Mr Zhou says that he likes this team building, and that he is much happier than before he joined.

In Shanghai, Xiaowen Tang rented a workstation at a pretend work company in Shanghai for a month earlier this year. The 23-year-old graduated from university last year and hasn't found a full-time job yet.

Her university has an unwritten rule that students must sign an employment contract or provide proof of internship within one year of graduation; otherwise, they won't receive a diploma.

She sent the office scene to the school as proof of her internship. In reality, she paid the daily fee, and sat in the office writing online novels to earn some pocket money.

"If you're going to fake it, just fake it to the end," says Ms Tang.

Dr Biao Xiang, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, says that China's pretending to work trend comes from a "sense of frustration and powerlessness" regarding a lack of job opportunities.

"Pretending to work is a shell that young people find for themselves, creating a slight distance from mainstream society and giving themselves a little space."

The owner of the Pretend To Work Company in the city of Dongguan is 30-year-old Feiyu (a pseudonym). "What I'm selling isn't a workstation, but the dignity of not being a useless person," he says.

He himself has been unemployed in the past, after a previous retail business that he owned had to close during the Covid pandemic. "I was very depressed and a bit self-destructive," he recalls. "You wanted to turn the tide, but you were powerless."

In April of this year he started to advertise Pretend To Work, and within a month all the workstations were full. Would-be new joiners have to apply.

Feiyu say that 40% of customers are recent university graduates who come to take photos to prove their internship experience to their former tutors. While a small number of them come to help deal with pressure from their parents.

The other 60% are freelancers, many of whom are digital nomads, including those working for big ecommerce firms, and cyberspace writers. The average age is around 30, with the youngest being 25.

Officially, these workers are referred to as "flexible employment professionals", a grouping that also includes ride-hailing and trucker drivers.

Over the longer term Feiyu says it is questionable whether the business will remain profitable. Instead he likes to view it more as a social experiment.

"It uses lies to maintain respectability, but it allows some people to find the truth," he says. "If we only help users prolong their acting skills we are complicit in a gentle deception.

"Only by helping them transform their fake workplace into a real starting point can this social experiment truly live up to its promise."

Mr Zhou is now spending most of his time improving his AI skills. He says he's noticed that some companies are specifying proficiency in AI tools when recruiting. So he thinks gaining such AI skills "will make it easier" for him to find a full-time job.

Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the broadcaster has said.

Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal were in a tent for journalists at the hospital's main gate when it was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.

A fortnight ago, it condemned the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for what it called a "campaign of incitement" against its reporters in Gaza, including al-Sharif.

Shortly after the strike, the IDF confirmed that it had struck Anas al-Sharif, posting on Telegram that he had "served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas".

The IDF did not mention any of the other journalists who were killed. The BBC has contacted Al Jazeera for comment.

Al-Sharif, 28, appeared to be posting on X in the moments before his death, warning of intense Israeli bombardment within Gaza City.

A post which was published after he was reported to have died appears to have been pre-written and published by a friend.

In two graphic videos of the aftermath of the strike, which have been confirmed by BBC Verify, men can be seen carrying the bodies of those who were killed. Some shout out Mohammed Qreiqeh's name, and a man wearing a press vest says that one of the bodies is that of Anas Al-Sharif.

In July, the Al Jazeera Media Network issued a statement denouncing "relentless efforts" by the IDF for an "ongoing campaign of incitement targeting Al Jazeera's correspondents and journalists in the Gaza Strip".

"The Network considers this incitement a dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of its journalists in the field," it added.

The IDF statement accused al-Sharif of posing as a journalist, and being "responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops"

It said it had previously "disclosed intelligence" confirming his military affiliation, which included "lists of terrorist training courses".

"Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munition, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence," the statement added.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 186 journalists have been confirmed killed since the start of Israel's military offensive in Gaza in October 2023.

Additional reporting by Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Verify

Chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of their semiconductor sales in China, the BBC has been told by a source close to the matter.

The agreement is part of a deal to secure export licences to the world's second biggest economy.

"We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven't shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide," Nvidia told the BBC.

AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay 15% of its revenues from H20 chip sales in China to the US government, while AMD will give the same percentage from its MI308 chip revenues, which was first reported by the Financial Times.

Washington has previously banned the sale of Nvidia's H20 chips to Beijing over security concerns, although the firm recently announced that this would be reversed.

The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after US export restrictions were imposed by the Biden administration in 2023. Its sale was effectively banned by the Trump administration in April this year.

Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang has spent months lobbying both sides for a resumption of sales of the chips in China.

One person has died in Turkey after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the north-west province of Balikesir on Sunday evening.

An 81-year-old woman passed away shortly after she was pulled out from rubble in the town of Sindirgi, which was the epicentre of the quake, Turkey's interior minister said.

Sixteen buildings collapsed as a result of the tremors, and 29 people had been injured, Ali Yerlikaya added.

Turkey's disaster management agency said the quake was recorded at around 19:53 local time (16:53 GMT), and was felt as far away as Istanbul.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement wishing a swift recovery to everyone who was affected, and said that all recovery efforts were being closely monitored.

"May God protect our country from any kind of disaster," he wrote on X.

Search and rescue operations have now concluded, and the interior minister said that there were no other signs of serious damage or casualties.

Pictures from Sindirgi, however, show large buildings totally flattened and towering piles of twisted metal and debris.

Turkey is located at the intersection of three major tectonic plates, and experiences frequent seismic activity as a result.

In February 2023, more than 50,000 people were killed when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the south-eastern region of the country.

A further 5,000 were killed in neighbouring Syria.

More than two years on from that quake, hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced.

Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the broadcaster has said.

Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal were in a tent for journalists at the hospital's main gate when it was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.

A fortnight ago, it condemned the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for what it called a "campaign of incitement" against its reporters in Gaza, including al-Sharif.

Shortly after the strike, the IDF confirmed that it had struck Anas al-Sharif, posting on Telegram that he had "served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas".

The IDF did not mention any of the other journalists who were killed. The BBC has contacted Al Jazeera for comment.

Al-Sharif, 28, appeared to be posting on X in the moments before his death, warning of intense Israeli bombardment within Gaza City.

A post which was published after he was reported to have died appears to have been pre-written and published by a friend.

In two graphic videos of the aftermath of the strike, which have been confirmed by BBC Verify, men can be seen carrying the bodies of those who were killed. Some shout out Mohammed Qreiqeh's name, and a man wearing a press vest says that one of the bodies is that of Anas Al-Sharif.

In July, the Al Jazeera Media Network issued a statement denouncing "relentless efforts" by the IDF for an "ongoing campaign of incitement targeting Al Jazeera's correspondents and journalists in the Gaza Strip".

"The Network considers this incitement a dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of its journalists in the field," it added.

The IDF statement accused al-Sharif of posing as a journalist, and being "responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops"

It said it had previously "disclosed intelligence" confirming his military affiliation, which included "lists of terrorist training courses".

"Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munition, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence," the statement added.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 186 journalists have been confirmed killed since the start of Israel's military offensive in Gaza in October 2023.

Additional reporting by Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Verify

A few days ago, India's Election Commission released updated draft electoral rolls for Bihar state, where key elections are scheduled for November, following a month-long revision of the voters' list.

But opposition parties and election charities say the exercise was rushed through - and many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.

The Special Intensive Revision - better known by its acronym SIR - was held from 25 June to 26 July and the commission said its officials visited each of the state's listed 78.9 million voters to verify their details. It said the last such revision was in 2003 and an update was necessary.

The new draft rolls have 72.4 million names - 6.5 million fewer than before. The commission says deletions include 2.2 million dead, 700,000 enrolled more than once and 3.6 million who have migrated from the state.

Corrections are open until 1 September, with over 165,000 applications received. A similar review will be conducted nationwide to verify nearly a billion voters.

But opposition parties have accused the commission of dropping many voters - especially Muslims who make up a sizeable chunk of the population in four border districts - to aid Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming state election.

The poll body and BJP have denied the allegations. In response to the BBC's questions, the Election Commission shared its 24 June order on conducting the SIR and a 27 July press note outlining efforts to ensure no eligible voter was "left behind".

"Further, [the commission] does not take any responsibility of any other misinformation or unsubstantiated allegations being floated around by some vested interests," it added in the response.

The commission has not released the list of deleted names or given any break-up according to religion, so it's not possible to verify the opposition's concerns.

A review by Hindustan Times newspaper found high voter deletions in Kishanganj, a district with the largest share of Muslims in Bihar, but not in other Muslim-dominated constituencies.

Parliament has faced repeated adjournments as opposition MPs demand a debate on what they call a threat to democracy. Outside, they chanted "Down down Modi", "Take SIR back" and "Stop stealing votes". The Supreme Court is also reviewing the move after watchdog ADR questioned its timing.

"It comes just three months before the assembly elections and there has not been enough time given to the exercise," Jagdeep Chhokar of ADR, told the BBC.

"As reports from the ground showed, there were irregularities when the exercise was being conducted and the process of data collection was massively faulty," he added.

The ADR has argued in court that the exercise "will disenfranchise millions of genuine voters" in a state that's one of India's poorest and is home to "a large number of marginalised communities".

It says the SIR shifts the burden onto people to prove their citizenship, often requiring their own and their parents' documents within a short deadline - an impossible task for millions of poor migrant workers.

While the draft roll was being published, we travelled to Patna and nearby villages to hear what voters think of SIR.

In Danara village, home to the poorest of the poor known as Mahadalits, most residents work on farms of upper-castes or are unemployed.

Homes are crumbling, open drains line the narrow lanes and a stagnant puddle near the local temple has turned brackish.

Most residents had little to no idea about SIR or its impact, and many weren't sure if officials had even visited their homes.

But they deeply value their vote. "Losing it would be devastating," says Rekha Devi. "It will push us further into poverty."

In Kharika village, many men said they'd heard of SIR and submitted forms, spending 300 rupees (£3.42; £2.55) on getting new photos taken. But after the draft rolls came out, farmer and retired teacher Tarkeshwar Singh called it "a mess". He shared pages showing his family's details - pointing out errors, including the wrong photo next to his name.

"I have no idea whose photo it is," he says, adding that his wife Suryakala Devi and son Rajeev also have wrong pictures. "But the worst is my other son Ajeev's case - it has an unknown woman's photo."

Mr Singh goes on to list other anomalies - in his daughter-in-law Juhi Kumari's document, he's named as husband in place of his son. Another daughter-in-law, Sangeeta Singh, is listed twice from the same address - only one has her correct photo and date of birth.

Many of his relatives and neighbours, he says, have similar complaints. He points out the name of a cousin who died more than five years back but still figures on the list - and at least two names that appear twice.

"There's obviously been no checking. The list has dead people and duplicates and many who did not even fill the form. This is a misuse of government machinery and billions of rupees that have been spent on this exercise."

Mr Chhokar of ADR says they will raise these issues in the Supreme Court this week. In July, the court said it would stay the exercise if petitioners produce 15 genuine voters missing from the draft rolls.

"But how do we do that since the commission has not provided a list of the 6.5 million names that have been removed?" he asks.

Mr Chhokar says a justice on the two-judge bench suggested delinking the exercise from upcoming elections to allow more time for a proper review.

"I'll be happy with that takeaway," he says.

The SIR and draft rolls have split Bihar's parties: the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) questions them, while the ruling Janata Dal (United) - BJP alliance backs them.

"The complexity of this revision has left many people confused," says Shivanand Tiwari, general secretary of the RJD.

Tiwari questions the Election Commission's "claims that 98.3% electors have filled their forms" and says "in most villages, our voters and workers say the Block Level Officer (BLO) - generally a local schoolteacher appointed by the commission to go door-to-door - did not visit them. Many BLOs are not trained and don't know how to upload forms". (The commission has said the BLOs have worked "very responsibly".)

Tiwari alleges that the "commission is partisan and this is manipulation of elections".

"We believe the target are border areas where a lot of Muslims live who never vote for the BJP," he says.

The BJP and the JD(U) have rejected the criticism, saying "it's entirely political".

"Only Indian citizens have the right to vote and we believe that a lot of Rohingya and Bangladeshis have settled in the border areas in recent years. And they have to be weeded out from the list," said Bhim Singh, a BJP MP from Bihar.

"The SIR has nothing to do with anyone's religion and the opposition is raising it because they know they will lose the upcoming election and need a scapegoat to blame for their loss," he added.

JD(U)'s chief spokesperson and state legislator Neeraj Kumar Singh said "the Election Commission is only doing its job".

"There are lots of voters on the list who figure twice or even three times. So shouldn't that be corrected?" he asks.

US President Donald Trump has said homeless people must "move out" of Washington DC as he vowed to tackle crime in the city, while the mayor pushed back against the White House likening of the capital to Baghdad.

"We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital," he posted on Sunday. The Republican president also trailed a news conference for Monday about his plan to make the city "safer and more beautiful than it ever was before".

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said: "We are not experiencing a crime spike."

Trump signed an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people, and he last week ordered federal law enforcement into the streets of Washington DC.

"The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY," Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday.

"We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong."

Alongside photos of tents and rubbish, he added: "There will be no 'MR. NICE GUY.' We want our Capital BACK. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

The specifics of the president's plan are not yet clear, but in a 2022 speech he proposed moving homeless people to "high quality" tents on inexpensive land outside cities, while providing access to bathrooms and medical professionals.

On Friday, Trump ordered federal agents - including from US Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the US Marshals Service - into Washington DC to curb what he called "totally out of control" levels of crime.

A White House official told National Public Radio that up to 450 federal officers were deployed on Saturday night.

The move comes after a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was assaulted in an alleged attempted carjacking in Washington DC.

Trump vented about that incident on social media, posting a photo of the bloodied victim.

Mayor Bowser told MSNBC on Sunday: "It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023.

"We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low."

She criticised White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller for dubbing the US capital "more violent than Baghdad".

"Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false," Bowser said.

Washington DC's homicide rate remains relatively high per capita compared to other US cities, with a total of 98 such killings recorded so far this year. Homicides have been trending higher in the US capital from a decade ago.

But federal data from January suggests that Washington DC last year recorded its lowest overall violent crime figures - once carjacking, assault and robberies are incorporated - in 30 years.

On Saturday, Trump announced plans on Truth Social to host a news conference at the White House on Monday, "which will, essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, DC".

In another post on Sunday he said the event at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) would address ending "crime, murder and death" in the city, as well as its "physical renovation".

He described Bowser as "a good person who has tried", adding that despite her efforts crime continues to get "worse" and the city becomes "dirtier and less attractive".

Community Partnership, an organisation that works to reduce homelessness in Washington DC, told Reuters news agency that the city of 700,000 residents had about 3,782 people homeless on any given night.

Most were in public housing or emergency shelters, but about 800 were considered "on the street".

As a district, rather than a state, Washington DC is overseen by the federal government, which has the power to override some local laws.

The president controls federal land and buildings in the city, although he would need Congress to assume federal control of the district.

In recent days, he has threatened to take over the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department, which Bowser argued was not possible.

"There are very specific things in our law that would allow the president to have more control over our police department," Bowser said. "None of those conditions exist in our city right now."

Meir Simcha agreed to talk, but he wanted to do it somewhere special, because for him, this is a special time. In a place where nation, religion and war are linked inextricably with politics and the possession of land, Simcha chose a patch of shade under a fig tree next to a spring of fresh water.

From his dusty car, a small Toyota fitted with off road tyres, he produced a bottle of juice made from fruit and vegetables.

"Don't worry, there's no extra sugar," he said as he poured it into plastic cups.

Simcha is the leader of a group of Jewish settlers steadily transforming a big stretch of the rolling terrain south of Hebron in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since it was captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

He moved two large flat stones into the shade as seats, and we sat down in a patch of lush grass, kept alive in the harsh summer heat by water dripping from a pipe coming out of the spring. It was a small oasis at the foot of a steep, arid, rocky slope and the location, if not our conversation, felt peaceful in a way that the West Bank rarely does these days.

The conflict between Arabs and Jews for control of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea started well over a century ago when Zionists from Europe began to buy land to set up communities in Palestine.

It has been shaped by significant turning points.

The latest has come from the deadly 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas and Israel's devastating response.

The consequences of the last 22 months of war, and however more months are left before a ceasefire, threaten to spread across years and generations, just like the Middle East war in 1967, when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.

The scale of destruction and killing in the Gaza war obscures what is happening in the West Bank, which smoulders with tension and violence.

Since October 2023, Israel's pressure on West Bank Palestinians has increased sharply, justified as legitimate security measures.

Evidence based on statements by ministers, influential local leaders like Simcha and accounts by witnesses on the ground reveal that the pressure is part of a wider agenda, to accelerate the spread of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and to extinguish any lingering hopes of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Palestinians and human rights groups also accuse the Israeli security forces of failing in their legal duty as occupiers to protect Palestinians as well as their own citizens - not just turning a blind eye to settler attacks, but even joining in.

Violence by ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers in the West Bank has risen sharply since 7 October 2023.

Ocha, the UN's humanitarian office, estimates an average of four settler attacks every day.

The International Court of Justice has issued an advisory opinion that the entire occupation of Palestinian territory captured in 1967 is illegal.

Israel's rejects the ICJ's view and claims that the Geneva Conventions forbidding settlement in occupied territories do not apply - a view disputed by many of its own allies as well as international lawyers.

In the shade of the fig tree, Simcha denied all suggestions he had attacked Palestinians, as he celebrated the fact that most of the Arab farmers who used to graze their animals on the hills he has seized and tend their olives in the valleys had gone.

He looks back to the Hamas October attacks, and Israel's response ever since, as a turning point.

"I think that a lot has changed, that the enemy in our land lost hope. He's beginning to understand that he's on his way out; that's what has changed in the last year or year and a half.

"Today you can walk around here in the land in the desert, and nobody will jump on you and try to kill you. There are still attempts to oppose our presence here in this land, but the enemy is starting to understand this slowly. They have no future here.

"The reality has changed. I ask you and the people of the world, why are you so interested in those Palestinians so much? Why do you care about them? It's just another small nation.

"The Palestinians don't interest me. I care about my people."

Simcha says the Palestinians who left villages and farms near the hilltops he has claimed simply realised that God intended the land for Jews, not for them.

On 24 July this year, a panel of UN experts came to a different conclusion. A statement issued by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said: "We are deeply troubled by alleged widespread intimidation, violence, land dispossession, destruction of livelihoods and the resulting forcible displacement of communities, and we fear this is severing Palestinians from their land and undermining their food security.

"The alleged acts of violence, destruction of property, and denial of access to land and resources appear to constitute a systemic pattern of human rights violations."

Simcha has a plan to dig a swimming pool at the base of the spring where we sat to talk. Like many others who are leading the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, he is full of plans. When I met him first, not long after Hamas burst through Israel's border defences on 7 October 2023, he lived in a small group of isolated caravans on a hilltop overlooking the Judean desert as it sweeps down to the Dead Sea.

Since then, Simcha says his community has expanded into around 200 people on three hilltops. He was part of the faction of the settler movement known as hilltop youth, a radical fringe that became notorious for the violent harassment of Palestinians. Most Israelis who have settled in the occupied territories are not like Simcha. They went there not for ideological and religious reasons, but because property was cheaper.

But now men like Simcha are at the centre of events, with their leaders in the cabinet, leading the charge, married, older, thinking not just about swimming pools for their children but of victory over the Palestinians, once and for all, and everlasting Jewish possession of the land.

Simcha comes across as a happy man. He believes his mission - to implement the will of God by turning the West Bank into a land for Jews, and not for Palestinians - is progressing nicely.

Israel's decades-old project

Israel's project to settle Jewish citizens in the newly occupied territories started within days of its victory in 1967. Over the last almost 60 years, successive Israeli governments and some wealthy sympathisers have invested vast amounts of money and energy to get to the point where around 700,000 Israeli Jews live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

I have been watching the settlements grow for about half of the lifetime of the project, since I first reported from the occupied Palestinian territories in 1991. In that time, the terrain of much of the West Bank has been transformed. The bigger settlements look like small towns, and the West Bank is carved into sections by a network of roads and tunnels built by Israel that are as much about staking an immovable claim to the land as they are about traffic management.

On remote hilltops at night, you can see the lights coming from the caravans of settlers who see themselves as Jewish pioneers. Olive groves, orchards and vineyards owned by Palestinian farmers along the road network are often overgrown, sometimes dotted with piles of rubble left from buildings Israel has demolished.

Controlling the land around the roads is necessary, Israel says, to stop attacks on Jews in the West Bank.

Farmers in areas under settler pressure often need military permission to visit their land, sometimes just once a year.

Palestinian farmers going about their business in vans or on donkeys used to be a common sight. In many parts of the West Bank, you just do not see them anymore, especially in places like the settlements east of Shiloh on the road to Nablus, where small groups of shacks and caravans on hilltops have connected up into sprawling residential hubs linked by sinuous road networks.

When first I reported on settlements, Israeli leaders would often say that national security depended on them. Enemies lurked across the Jordan valley, and pushing out the frontier, building the land, was a Zionist imperative.

Just like the kibbutz movement of collective farms in the 1920s and 1930s inside present-day Israel, settlements in the occupied territories after 1967 were strategically placed as a first line of defence.

In this conflict, land is a vital commodity.

Trading land taken by Israel in 1967 for peace with Palestinians who wanted it for a state was at the heart of the Oslo peace process that ended in violence but provided a false dawn of hope in the 1990s.

There were headlines around the world when, after months of secret negotiations in Norway in 1993, there was a handshake on the White House lawn between Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. They had signed a declaration of principles that was hoped would lead to the end of the conflict. Israel would relinquish occupied land to Palestinians. In return, they would drop their claim to territory they had lost when Israel declared independence in 1948.

The argument at the heart of their conflict across the 20th Century, about who controlled land they both wanted, would be solved by splitting it.

After a final disastrous summit at Camp David in 2000, the hopes of 1993 were replaced by the deadly violence of a Palestinian uprising and a massive military response from Israel.

Part of the reason why the peace process failed was that other forces, outside the talks, were at work.

Hamas never dropped its belief that the entire land of Palestine was an Islamic possession and used suicide attacks to discredit the notion that peace was possible.

Among religious Zionists in Israel, the victory in 1967 had supercharged a wave of messianism - the belief that a divine being was coming who would redeem the Jewish people.

It electrified the settler movement.

Rabin was assassinated in November 1995 by a Jewish extremist brought up in Herzliya on the Mediterranean coast who spent weekends at settlements in the West Bank. During his first interrogation by the Israeli security service, Shin Bet, he asked for a drink so he could toast the fact that he had saved the Jewish people from a disastrous path that denied the will of God.

Warning: This section contains an image some people might find upsetting

Today, the messianic idea grips settlers like Simcha more powerfully than ever.

They believe the victory in 1967 was a miracle granted by God, that restored to the Jewish people the ancestral lands that he had given them in the mountain heartland of Judea and Samaria - the area that much of the rest of the world calls the West Bank. Some believe events since 7 October have extended the miracle.

Last summer, the Minister for Settlements and National Missions, Orit Strock, put it like this to a sympathetic audience at an outpost in the Hebron hills, the area where Simcha operates.

"From my point of view, this is like a miracle period," she said. "I feel like someone standing at a traffic light, and then it turns green."

Minisyer Strock was speaking a few days before the ICJ issued its opinion.

She made her remarks at a settlement in the Hebron hills that the government had just "legalised".

Israeli law distinguishes between "legal" settlements and "illegal" outposts - a distinction that is in practice being blurred by the government's actions.

Outposts rebranded as "young settlements" are being retrospectively legalised as the government directs funds towards them.

At a ceremony in one of them in the south Hebron Hills in April this year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose powers over the running of the occupation also make him something like the governor of the West Bank, donated 19 all-terrain vehicles to the settlers. He praised them for "grabbing massive territories".

A sharp-eyed reporter at the Times of Israel pointed out that one of the settlers at the ceremony, Yinon Levi, had been filmed harassing Palestinians from an all-terrain vehicle. Levi is sanctioned by the UK and the European Union for using violence to drive Palestinians off their land, though President Trump lifted similar sanctions imposed by Joe Biden.

Levi is radical settler royalty, married to the daughter of Noam Federman - a notorious extremist. Federman is a former leader of the Kach party, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, the European Union and others.

On 28 July this year, Yinon Levi fired a bullet that killed Odeh Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist, during a disturbance in the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair. Levi pleaded self-defence and was released after three days of house arrest.

When we went to Umm al-Khair, Hathaleen's dried blood was still at the place where he was killed.

His brother, Khalil, told me the dead man was holding his five-year-old son, Watan, and filming the violent scenes on his phone when he was killed.

The settlement movement in the West Bank has powered ahead since 7 October, under the direction of hardline Jewish nationalists in the cabinet, men like Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, who is Strock's leader in the Religious Zionist Party.

Ben Gvir was not drafted by the IDF when he turned 18, because of his extreme beliefs. He claims he campaigned to serve.

The two ministers are very different people to the secular politicians - retired generals like Yigal Allon from the Israeli left and Ariel Sharon from the right - two men who drove the settlement movement forward in its first two decades after 1967.

Just like Allon and Sharon, they believe that security requires power.

But for Smotrich, Ben Gvir and their followers, that is underpinned by the certainty of religious belief.

The influence they have acquired in return for supporting Netanyahu and keeping him in power continues to frustrate and enrage secular Israel.

Smotrich's Israeli opponents use the word "messianic" as term of abuse when they talk about him.

Allon and Sharon could be ruthless. After the 1967 war, Allon advocated the annexation of large parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Neither man believed they were doing the will of God.

Hamas uses religion to justify its violent opposition to the existence of Israel. Religious Zionists in the settler movement believe they are doing God's will.

Belief in a direct connection with God does not guarantee war. But it makes the compromises necessary for peace hard to achieve.

'Now the settlers are the military'

We arranged to meet Yehuda Shaul at the road junction next to Sinjel. He is one of Israel's most prominent opponents of the occupation.

Shaul founded an organisation called Breaking the Silence after, as a soldier, he saw first-hand the inherently brutal realities of a military occupation that has lasted almost 60 years.

Fellow Israelis have branded supporters of Breaking the Silence, which he no longer leads, as traitors many times.

Israeli military crackdowns since the October attacks have reduced Palestinian violence against settlers, while settler attacks on Palestinians have grown sharply.

Shaul says that the line between settlers and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has become blurred.

The war in Gaza has required the longest mobilisation of military reservists - the backbone of the IDF - in Israel's history. To get more Israelis into uniform, brigades in the West Bank have formed regional defence units made up of settlers.

"Now the settlers are the military. In the military are the settlers. So that settler on the hilltop nearby a Palestinian herding community that was beating them up and throwing stones for the past two three or four years, trying to get him out, now is the soldier or the officer in uniform with a gun responsible for the area.

"So when he comes to a Palestinian and says, 'you have 24 hours to pack up and leave or I'm going to shoot you,' the Palestinian knows there is nothing to protect him."

Shaul believes Israel has two choices left. One direction, he argues, is "the vector that this government is writing, displacement, abuse, killing, destroying Palestinian life, ultimately, writing a vector to mass population transfer".

"Or, it is two states where Palestine resides besides Israel and both peoples here have rights and dignity. These are the only two options in our cards. Now you and anyone who watches us, need to choose which one you support."

He uses language about Netanyahu's conduct of the Gaza war since 7 October that is rare in Israel but common among Palestinians and increasingly heard among Israel's critics in Europe.

This is part of our conversation, in the shadow of the steel and razor wire between the village of Sinjel and Road 60 - the West Bank's main highway.

He says: "I think while we see a war of extermination in Gaza... we see a massive campaign by the state and the settlers... to basically ethnically cleanse as much land of the West Bank from Palestinians."

I reply: "Of course, if Netanyahu was here, any of his supporters, they'd say, 'what a load of rubbish. This is about Israeli security against terrorism and attacks on Jews.' What do you make of that?"

He responds: "I actually believe that if 7 October taught us one thing it is, if you really care about protecting Israelis and Palestinian life, you need to take care of the root causes of the violence: decades of brutal military occupation, displacement of Palestinians and a conflict that is going on for about 100 years.

"Ultimately, the security protection, the sustainability of Jewish self-determination in this land, is interlinked and intertwined with achieving self-determination rights and equality for Palestinians."

UN ambassadors have condemned Israel's plans to "take control" of Gaza City as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted it was the "best way" to end the war.

During a press conference, which Netanyahu said was intended to "puncture the lies", the Israeli leader said the planned offensive would move "fairly quickly" and would "free Gaza from Hamas".

He also claimed Israeli hostages held in Gaza were "the only ones being deliberately starved" and denied Israel was starving Gazans.

Meanwhile, Israel came under heavy criticism at an emergency meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, with the UK, France and others warning the plan risked "violating international humanitarian law".

Along with Denmark, Greece and Slovenia, they called for the plan to be reversed, adding it would "do nothing to secure the return of hostages and risks further endangering their lives".

Other council members expressed similar alarm. China called the "collective punishment" of people in Gaza unacceptable, while Russia warned against a "reckless intensification of hostilities".

UN Assistant Secretary General Miroslav Jenca told the meeting: "If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction."

Thousands of protesters have also taken to the streets across Israel to oppose the government's plan, fearing it puts the lives of hostages at risk.

In his presser, Netanyahu said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had been instructed to dismantle the "two remaining Hamas strongholds" in Gaza City and a central area around al-Mawasi.

He also outlined a three-step plan to increase aid in Gaza, including designating safe corridors for humanitarian aid distribution and more air drops by Israeli forces and other partners.

It would also include increasing the number of safe distribution points managed by the controversial US and Israeli-backed Gazan Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The UN reported earlier this month that 1,373 Palestinians had been killed seeking food since late May, when GHF set up aid distribution sites.

Netanyahu claimed Hamas had "violently looted the aid trucks", and, when asked about Palestinians killed at GHF sites, said "a lot of firing was done by Hamas".

Asked about the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza - 20 of whom are still thought to be alive - Netanyahu said "if we don't do anything, we are not going to get them out".

The Israeli leader also took aim at the international press, saying it had bought into Hamas propaganda. He labelled some of the photos of malnourished children in Gaza that have run on newspaper front pages across the world as "fake".

Throughout the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists into Gaza to report freely. But Netanyahu said a directive telling the military to bring in foreign journalists had been in place for two days.

Since Saturday, five people have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, bringing the total number to 217 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

It also said that in total more than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel's military campaign since 2023.

Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October that year, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

In the past, figures from the Hamas-run health ministry were widely used in times of conflict and seen as reliable by the UN and other international organisations.

Two men and one woman were killed by sea mines while swimming in Odesa, according to Ukrainian media.

A local official confirmed the three had been killed by "explosive devices", at beaches close to Zatoka, where recreational swimming is banned.

The Black Sea has long been a popular holiday destination in Ukraine, but many of its beaches have been deemed unsafe since Russia's full scale invasion.

Officials have urged holiday goers not to swim in prohibited waters.

Witnesses told local outlet Dumskaya that the explosions happened at 11:30 (09:30 BST) on Sunday between Karolino-Buhaz and Zatoka.

"All of them have been killed by explosive devices while swimming in areas prohibited for recreation," regional governor Oleh Kiper confirmed.

"This once again proves that being in unchecked waters is fatally dangerous."

Police say they have not yet confirmed the identity of the swimmers, and warned visitors "not to neglect safety measures".

"It has been previously determined that three vacationers - a woman and two men - died while swimming as a result of two explosions of unknown objects. The identities of the deceased are being established," the police report states.

Thirty two areas are safe for swimming, with 30 of these located in Odesa, according to authorities.

US fashion designer Willy Chavarria has apologised after a shoe he created in collaboration with Adidas Originals was criticised for "cultural appropriation".

The Oaxaca Slip-On was inspired by traditional leather sandals known as huaraches made by Indigenous artisans in Mexico.

The Mexican president was among those who spoke out against the footwear, which was reportedly made in China without consultation or credit to the communities who originated the design.

Chavarria said in a statement sent to the BBC: "I am deeply sorry that the shoe was appropriated in this design and not developed in direct and meaningful partnership with the Oaxacan community." The BBC has contacted Adidas for comment.

Cultural appropriation is defined as "the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, of one people or society by members of a typically more dominant people or society".

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum told a press conference: "Big companies often take products, ideas and designs from Indigenous communities."

She added: "We are looking at the legal part to be able to support them."

Adidas had contacted Oaxacan officials to discuss "restitution to the people who were plagiarised", Mexico's deputy culture minister Marina Nunez added.

Promotional images of the black moulded open-toe footwear have been taken down from the brand's social media accounts as well as Chavarria's.

In his statement, the designer said he wanted "to speak from the heart about the Oaxaca slip-on I created with Adidas".

"The intention was always to honor the powerful cultural and artistic spirit of Oaxaca and its creative communities - a place whose beauty and resistance have inspired me. The name Oaxaca is not just a word - its living culture, its people, and its history."

He went on to say he was "deeply sorry" he did not work with the Oaxacan community on the design.

"This falls short of the respect and collaborative approach that Oaxaca, the Zapotec community of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, and its people deserve," he added.

"I know love is not just given - it is earned through action."

Adidas has not responded to the BBC's request for a comment.

The Associated Press reported that Adidas responded to Mexican authorities in a letter on Friday.

The company reportedly said it "deeply values the cultural wealth of Mexico's Indigenous people and recognizes the relevance" of criticisms, and requesting a sit-down to talk about how to "repair the damage" to Indigenous communities.

Thousands of people gathered in central Dhaka this week celebrating the anniversary of the downfall of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the promise of a new future for the country.

In the pouring rain, the head of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, leaders of various political parties and activists stood united as they unveiled plans for a "New Bangladesh".

Across the country, people waved the national flag in concerts, rallies and special prayer sessions marking what some activists are calling the "second liberation" of this Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people.

But these jubilant scenes did not tell the whole story in the last 12 months.

Rights groups say there have been instances of lynching, mob violence, revenge attacks, and a resurgence of religious extremism which threaten to derail the country's journey towards democracy.

Meanwhile, the ex-prime minister who was so spectacularly pushed from power watches from the sidelines of exile in neighbouring India, denying her role in the deadly crackdown and refusing to return to face charges that amount to crimes against humanity.

"I think we had a regime change, not a revolution. Fundamentally, misogyny remains intact, male dominance remains unchallenged," Shireen Huq, a women's rights activist, tells the BBC.

Ms Huq headed the Women's Affairs Reform Commission, one of the bodies set up by the interim government to bring social and political changes reflecting the uprising's goals of democracy and pluralism.

In April this year, the 10-member body submitted its report calling for gender equality - particularly over women's right to inheritance and to divorce, called for criminalising marital rape and protecting the rights of sex workers, who face abuse and harassment from police and others.

The next month, thousands of Islamist hardliners took to the streets against the proposed recommendations, saying they were anti-Islamic and that "men and women can never be equal".

The protesters - led by Hefazat-e-Islam, which has a representative on the interim government's cabinet of advisers - demanded the disbanding of the women's commission, and its members punished for making those proposals.

Subsequently, no detailed public debate was held on the commission's proposals.

"I was disappointed that the interim government did not support us enough when we were subjected to lots of abuses by Hefazat-e-Islam," Ms Huq says.

Yunus's office did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation.

Activists say the protests were just one example of how the hardliners - who had been pushed to the fringes during Hasina's tenure - had become emboldened.

They have also objected to girls playing football matches in some parts of the country, women celebrities participating in commercial promotional events, and, in some instances, have harassed women in public places because of how they were dressed.

But it is not just women who have borne the brunt. Hardliners have also vandalised scores of shrines of minorities like the Sufi Muslims in the past year.

But, even as people like Ms Huq look to the future, Bangladesh is still confronting its past.

There's a groundswell of anger against Hasina's Awami League-led government, which is accused of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, and brutal suppression of dissent.

"You have a huge constituency of people in Bangladesh who wanted to see not just accountability but vengeance and retribution," says David Bergman, a journalist and a long-time Bangladesh watcher.

However, he says, "one can't continue with the injustices that existed in the Awami League period and just replicate them in the current period".

But that is what Hasina's Awami League claims is happening. It says hundreds of its supporters have been lynched over the past year - allegations the interim government denies.

Several journalists and supporters of the Awami League have been jailed for months on murder charges. Their bail applications have been repeatedly rejected by courts.

Critics say there is no thorough investigation over those murder accusations, and they have been kept in detention only because of their previous support for the Awami League.

"It takes time for stability to return after a major uprising. We are in a transitional phase," acknowledged Nahid Islam, a student leader who helped spearhead the protests and acted as an adviser to the interim government until recently.

Islam agrees there are challenges facing the country, but dismisses concerns of growing Islamist influence, saying it was "part of a broader cultural struggle" that has existed for years.

But there are also signs of progress. Many credit the interim government with stabilising the country's economy and, contrary to fears, the banking sector has survived.

Bangladesh has met its loan obligations, kept food prices largely stable, and maintained robust foreign exchange reserves - currently at $30bn (£22bn) - thanks to remittances and international loans. Exports have also held steady.

Then there are other, less easily measurable things.

Islam argues that, since the fall of Hasina, "a democratic environment has been established, and now everyone can express their views freely". That is something to be celebrated in a country shaped by a history of political turbulence, military coups, assassinations, and bitter rivalries.

But that is being questioned by some.

The influence of student leaders over the interim government has drawn criticism. They were given the roles in recognition for their leadership in the unprecedented protests which toppled Hasina.

Today, two remain in the cabinet, and critics say some controversial decisions, such as the temporary ban on the Awami League, were made under student pressure.

"The government has at times complied with some of the populist demands, particularly by the students, fearing more threatening protests could otherwise erupt. However, that was the exception rather than the rule," Mr Bergman says.

Meanwhile, an exiled leader from the Awami League alleges that the party's supporters are being silenced by not being allowed to contest the next poll - with most of its leaders in exile or in prison.

"The elections will not be inclusive without the participation of the Awami League," Mohammad Ali Arafat, former minister in Hasina's cabinet, tells the BBC.

In its latest report, the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) said there had been an alarming rise in mob violence while extra-judicial killings and deaths in custody had persisted in the past year.

"We have overthrown an authoritarian regime, but unless we put an end to the authoritarian practices, we cannot really create a new Bangladesh," Iftekhar Zaman, the executive director of the TIB, said during the launch of the report earlier this week.

As Bangladesh stands at a crossroads, the next six months will be critical.

Some argue that, if there are no meaningful changes to the chequered political system, the sacrifices of those killed in the uprising could be rendered meaningless.

A meteorite that crashed into a home in the US is older than planet Earth, scientists have said.

The object flew through the skies in broad daylight before exploding across the state of Georgia on 26 June, Nasa confirmed.

Researchers at the University of Georgia examined a fragment of the rock that pierced the roof of a home in the city of McDonough.

They found that, based on the type of meteorite, it is expected to have formed more than four billion years ago, making it older than Earth.

Residents in Georgia and Atlanta reported hundreds of sightings and a loud booming noise when the fireball tore through the skies.

The rock quickly diminished in size and speed, but still travelled at least 1 km per second, going through a man's roof in Henry County.

Multiple fragments that struck the building were handed over to scientists, who analysed their origins.

"This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough," Scott Harris, a geologist at the University of Georgia, said.

Using optical and electron microscopy, Harris and his team determined the rock was a chondrite - the most abundant type of stony meteorite, according to Nasa - which meant that it was approximately 4.5 billion years old.

The home's resident said he is still finding pieces of space dust around his home from the hit.

The object, which has been named the McDonough meteorite, is the 27th to have been recovered from Georgia.

"This is something that used to be expected once every few decades and not multiple times within 20 years," Harris said.

"Modern technology, in addition to an attentive public, is going to help us recover more and more meteorites."

Harris is hoping to publish his findings on the composition and speed of the asteroid, which will help to understand the threat of further asteroids.

"One day there will be an opportunity, and we never know when it's going to be, for something large to hit and create a catastrophic situation. If we can guard against that, we want to," he said.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Israel to oppose the government's plan to expand its military operation in Gaza.

On Friday, Israel's security cabinet approved five principles to end the war that included 'taking security control' over the Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military saying it would "prepare for taking control" of Gaza City.

Protesters, including family members of 50 hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are still thought to be alive, fear the plan puts the lives of hostages at risk, and urged the government to secure their release.

Israeli leaders have rejected criticism of its plan, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying "this will help free our hostages".

A group representing families of the hostages said on X: "Expanding the fighting endangers the hostages and the soldiers - the people of Israel are not willing to risk them!"

One protester Shakha, rallying in Jerusalem on Saturday, told the BBC: "We want the war to end because our hostages are dying there, and we need them all to be home now."

"Whatever it takes to do, we need to do it. And if it needs to stop the war, we'll stop the war."

Among the protesters in Jerusalem was a former soldier who told the BBC he is now refusing to serve. Max Kresch said he was a combat soldier at the beginning of the war and "has since refused."

"We're over 350 soldiers who served during the war and we're refusing to continue to serve in Netanyahu's political war that endangers the hostages (and) starving innocent Palestinians in Gaza," he said.

The Times of Israel reported that family members of hostages and soldiers at a protest in Tel Aviv near the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters called on other soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded military operation to protect hostages.

The mother of one of the hostages has called for a general strike in Israel, although the country's main labour union will not back it, according to the Times of Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also faced strong opposition from the army's Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to Israeli media, had warned the prime minister that a full occupation of Gaza was "tantamount to walking into a trap" and would endanger the living hostages.

Polls suggest most of the Israeli public favour a deal with Hamas for the release of the hostages and the end of the war.

Netanyahu had told Fox News earlier this week that Israel planned to occupy of the entire Gaza Strip and eventually "hand it over to Arab forces".

"We are not going to occupy Gaza - we are going to free Gaza from Hamas," Netanyahu said on X on Friday. "This will help free our hostages and ensure Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future."

The Israeli security cabinet's plan lists five "principles" for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing "an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority".

The United Nations has warned that a complete military takeover of Gaza City would risk "catastrophic consequences" for Palestinians civilians and hostages.

Up to one million Palestinians live in Gaza City in the north of the Gaza Strip, which was the enclave's most populous city before the war.

The UK, France, Canada and several other countries have condemned Israel's decision and Germany announced that it would halt its military exports to Israel in response.

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Sunday to discuss Israel's plan.

Israel began its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, more than 61,300 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli military operations, the Hamas-run health ministry says.