Former Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina, who was ousted in a coup last week, has been stripped of his citizenship by the new regime.

The order, signed by new Prime Minister Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo, cited local laws stipulating that people who acquired foreign citizenship should lose their Malagasy nationality.

Rajoelina, 51, obtained French citizenship a decade ago, prompting calls for his disqualification from the 2023 presidential election. But he defied those calls and went on to win.

He fled the African island nation after weeks of protests over persistent power and water shortages, culminating in a military takeover led by Col Michael Randrianirina.

Rajoelina has said he has gone into hiding for his own safety, and his whereabouts remain unclear.

When he disclosed his French nationality months before Madagascar's last presidential election, he argued he had only secretly acquired it to make things easier for his children studying in France.

In recent weeks, he had faced demonstrations initially organised by youth movement Gen Z Mada and inspired by similar anti-government protests in Nepal, which were only exacerbated when his government responded with violence.

Rajoelina sacked his energy minister and then his government - but this did little to quell the calls for him to step down.

Protesters had hoped that Rajoelina would resign to pave the way for a smooth, democratic transition.

Instead, he clung to power, eventually leading to Madagascar's elite military unit, of which Randrianirina was chief, to seize power.

He has now been sworn in and has formed a new government, pledging to hold elections within two years.

A 69-year-old Japanese tourist has died after falling off the perimeter wall of the Pantheon in Rome, local media reports.

Morimasa Hibino is said to have fallen from a height of about seven metres (22.9 ft) at around 21:50 local time (19:50 GMT). A priest who was passing by alerted the police when he saw the man lying in the ditch, according to local newspaper la Repubblica.

Emergency services and firefighters reportedly had to force open a gate outside the ancient Roman temple, before finding the man dead in a ditch.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the death.

The man was sitting on the edge of the wall, lost his balance and fell, la Repubblica reported, citing police.

Investigators have obtained surveillance images and videos overlooking the spot where the man was sitting, local media reports.

The Pantheon is one of Italy's most visited attractions, with millions of tourists estimated to see it every year.

Police are continuing a manhunt for an asylum seeker who was mistakenly released from prison on Friday, weeks after being jailed for sexually assaulting a schoolgirl in Essex.

Ethiopian national Hadush Kebatu was meant to be sent to an immigration detention centre from HMP Chelmsford ahead of a planned deportation on Friday but Justice Secretary David Lammy said the 41-year-old is now "at large" in London.

Lammy said officers from the Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police (BTP) and Essex Police were working together to trace Kebatu, who was jailed for 12 months in September.

Sir Keir Starmer described the release as "totally unacceptable".

The prime minister said Kebatu "must be caught and deported for his crimes", adding that police are "working urgently to track him down".

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the release was a "level of incompetence that beggars belief".

"Conservatives voted against Labour's prisoner release program because it was putting predators back on our streets," she said on X.

The Prison Service has removed an officer from discharging duties while an investigation takes place.

Essex Police said Kebatu boarded a London-bound train at Chelmsford station at 12:41 on Friday.

The force said it was informed by the prison services about "an error" at 12:57 on Friday.

A statement continued: "We understand the concern the public would have regarding this situation and can assure you we have officers working to urgently locate and detain him."

Lammy said he was "appalled" and "livid on behalf of the public".

He continued: "Let's be clear Kebatu committed a nasty sexual assault involving a young child and a woman. And for those reasons this of course is very serious."

A Prison Service spokesperson said: "We are urgently working with police to return an offender to custody following a release in error at HMP Chelmsford.

"Public protection is our top priority, and we have launched an investigation into this incident."

Kebatu's arrest in July sparked protests outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he had been living after arriving in the UK on a small boat.

In September, Chelmsford Magistrates' Court heard Kebatu tried to kiss a teenage girl on a bench and made numerous sexually explicit comments.

The following day, he encountered the same girl and tried to kiss her before sexually assaulting her. He also sexually assaulted a woman who had offered to help him draft a CV to find work.

During the trial, Kebatu gave his date of birth as December 1986, making him 38, but court records suggested he was 41.

He was found guilty of five offences and sentenced to 12 moths. He was also given a five-year sexual harm prevention order, which banned him from approaching or contacting any female, and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.

The court heard it was his "firm wish" to be deported.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "He is now walking the streets of Essex. Britain is broken."

A report from His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service said 262 prisoners in England and Wales were released in error between April 2024 and March 2025, up from 115 in the previous 12 months.

Donald Trump has said he would like to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to Asia.

"I would. If you want to put out the word, I'm open to it," the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One as he departed for the region, adding that he "had a great relationship" with Kim.

Trump made history during his first term, becoming the first sitting US president to set foot into North Korea when they last shook hands in 2019.

His trip to Malaysia and Japan will see him meet a number of world leaders including China's Xi Jinping, amid trade negotiations sparked by Trump's imposition of sweeping tariffs earlier this year.

Trump has taken an atypical approach to North Korea - a secretive communist totalitarian state largely isolated on the world stage - and its attempts at creating nuclear weapons, initially taunting Kim as a "little rocket man".

The pair met face-to-face three times during Trump's previous tenure in the White House but failed to agree a denuclearisation programme. North Korea has since conducted multiple tests of intercontinental missiles, its neighbours say.

Asked if he would recognise North Korea as a nuclear state, Trump told reporters late on Thursday: "I think they are sort of a nuclear power... They got a lot of nuclear weapons, I'll say that."

Kim has said he was open to meeting Trump again, provided the US stopped pursuing its "absurd" demand for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

"I still have a good memory of President Trump," Kim said in a speech last month, according to state media.

• Friends reunited? Trump faces a very different Kim Jong Un this time

South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who handles relations between the North and South, said there was a "considerable" chance the two leaders might meet while Trump is in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum, according to news agency AFP.

A senior US official told reporters that a meeting was not in Trump's schedule, according to the Anadolu Agency - though their last meeting in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas came off the back of an invitation by Trump on social media.

Trump's first stop will be in Malaysia, where he will attend Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.

He is expected to land in the South Korean city Busan on Wednesday ahead of the Apec summit.

He will meet South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung, who discussed peace on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of a Trump-Kim meeting while visiting the White House in August.

Lee told the BBC he was open to a deal between Trump and Kim in which North Korea agreed to freeze production of its nuclear weapons.

Trump's meeting with China's President Xi comes on the backdrop of a trade war between the two nations.

The two have agreed to hold off triple-digit tariffs threatened against one another while seeking a trade agreement - but that detente is in jeopardy after Trump said he would level a 100% trade levy on Chinese goods over Beijing's curbs on rare earth exports.

The minerals are essential for many electronics and China is currently responsible for around 90% of exports of their refined form.

The first illicit production facility for weight loss medicine found in the UK has been dismantled.

The discovery, in Northampton, led to the largest single seizure of trafficked weight loss drugs ever recorded by a law enforcement agency worldwide, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.

It said it seized tens of thousands of empty weight loss pens ready to be filled, raw chemical ingredients and more than 2,000 unlicensed Retatrutide and Tirzepatide pens due to be sent to customers.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, said: "This is a victory in the fight against the shameless criminals who are putting lives at risk.

"Don't line the pockets of criminals who don't care about your health."

The haul was estimated to be worth more than £250,000.

Alongside Northamptonshire Police, MHRA officers also found £20,000 in cash, suspected to be linked to medicines trafficking, and large amounts of sophisticated packaging and manufacturing equipment.

Andy Morling, head of MHRA's criminal enforcement unit, said people should be "extremely cautious" when buying medicines online and only get them from a registered pharmacy.

"These products are untested, unauthorised and potentially deadly," he said.

"By taking this organised criminal network out of operation and stopping tens of thousands of potentially fatal products from entering circulation, we've prevented a serious risk to public health.

"This is an illicit global market that endangers patients, puts big money in the pockets of organised criminals, and undermines legitimate healthcare."

Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Lucy Powell has been elected as deputy leader of the Labour Party, by 87,407 votes to 73,536.

Her political life started very early. Powell's mother went into labour with her on the day of the general election in 1974.

She even delayed going into hospital to make sure she could vote first.

"We used to say 'she was in Labour and she voted for Labour'," Lucy Powell told the Political Thinking podcast.

At the age of nine, her father, a Labour activist, recruited her to help with the party's campaigning efforts. Her dad rewarded her with a one pound note.

Powell grew up in Didsbury, Manchester, an area which has been variously dubbed the "stockbroker" or "muesli" belt following a few years of gentrification.

"It is posh now, it was not that posh then," she has said.

Of the 200 people at her sixth form, she says she was the only one to be accepted to Oxford University - not an achievement that made her happy at the time.

"I cried the day I got the offer," she says. "I didn't want to go."

In the end, she did go to Oxford to study chemistry but only lasted one year before heading to King's College London, where she said she "felt more comfortable".

"As a northern comprehensive girl arriving in Oxford in 1993, I was a duck out of water."

"Harry Potter had not been written then, but it was like Hogwarts," she told the i newspaper, adding that for a teenager who spent weekends clubbing at the Hacienda, the "stuffy environment" of Oxford's Somerville College did not suit her.

After leaving university, she embarked on her political career, going to work for Labour MP (and Oscar-winning actress) Glenda Jackson and later Beverley Hughes, another Labour MP.

Between 1998 and 2005, she worked for Britain in Europe, a group campaigning in favour of the UK's membership of the EU.

In 2010, she ran Ed Miliband's successful bid to lead the Labour Party and continued working for him as his deputy chief of staff until 2012, when she won a by-election to represent the safe Labour seat of Manchester Central.

A year later she was promoted to the shadow cabinet and continued to serve in different frontbench roles until 2016.

She had been one of a few party centrists to stay in the shadow cabinet when Jeremy Corbyn, who came from the left of the party, unexpectedly became Labour leader.

However, in 2016 she quit in protest at his leadership and backed an ultimately unsuccessful coup attempt by Owen Smith.

She only returned to the shadow cabinet in 2020, when Sir Keir Starmer took over as leader and appointed her as shadow housing secretary.

When Labour won the 2024 election, she became Leader of the House of Commons, whose main job is managing government business in Parliament, as well as modernising Parliament and improving working conditions for MPs and staff.

In the major reshuffle that followed Angela Rayner's resignation in September, Powell was one of the few ministers to be sacked from government.

She described it as "kind of a shock but not a total surprise".

Asked if the prime minister gave her a reason for her demotion, she said "No, I did ask but he just said 'I need to make some changes'."

Reflecting on the possible reason, she said "I know I am not in the in-crowd. I don't play some of the parlour games".

"I have fed back things that in hindsight - I thought I was doing the job I was suppose to be doing - but perhaps it was feedback people didn't want to hear."

"Some of what I was feeding back - especially how difficult legislation on welfare was going to be to land - I thought I was doing that to be helpful but maybe it was a message people didn't want to hear."

Ahead of the vote, she said that if she did win the deputy leadership, she did not want to be given a government role, adding that she did not want to be "constrained" by a cabinet job.

She said she viewed the deputy leader role as being a "bridge between the leadership and the members, a constant feedback loop" as well as a "campaigner-in-chief".

Asked about her vision for Labour, she said her Manchester Central constituency was made up of "classic Red Wall constituents - white working class, older voters" and "younger, liberal, left-leaning voters who haven't got that long-standing cultural loyalty to Labour".

The question for Labour, she said is "how we unite them together".

"I don't think tacking one way or tacking the other is how we do that."

She argued that Labour could achieve that by building a "fairer economy, an economy that works in the interests of the many, not the few".

Citing decisions to cut the winter fuel payment and welfare, she said: "Some of the mistakes we have made, some of the unforced errors have given a sense that we are not on the side of ordinary people."

Caitlin Graham wanted to learn to drive in an automatic car as she hoped the test would be quicker to pass without having to get to grips with a gear box.

But the 22-year-old says she had little choice but to learn in a manual due to any available automatic instructors being more than 20 miles away.

Motorists have seen a quiet shift in how they drive in recent years - with one in three cars on UK roads now an automatic.

A quarter of driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales last year were taken in automatic cars.

The AA says the trend is being driven by the UK's ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars coming in 2030, as elecric cars do not have manual gearboxes.

For new drivers, this presents a dilemma - whether to learn and take their test in an automatic or a manual car.

Boxed in

It is a decision that could affect the rest of their driving lives - pass your test in an automatic and you will forever be boxed into only driving automatics - or indeed electric vehicles. Pass in a manual, and you will have the freedom to pick and choose.

But many young people say it is not a decision they are freely able to make. Some would-be automatic learners have complained about a lack of instructors and the higher cost of lessons.

Others feel the jeopardy of learning in a manual is just too high. With huge competition for driving test slots, and long waits to re-take for those who fail, some young drivers feel learning in an automatic is the only way out of the fail-rebook, fail-rebook doom loop.

When Caitlin moved back home to a "super rural" part of Cumbria after university she was eager to pass her driving test as quickly as possible. There is no public transport in her village and she wanted to get on with finding a job.

But unable to get hold of an automatic instructor she went for manual and passed almost a year after her first lesson. She says it only took her sister, who learned to drive in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, five months to pass in an automatic.

But it is a common misconception that the automatic test is easier - the pass rate for the manual test is higher at 50.4% than automatic at 43.9%, according to Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) figures for the financial year ending 2025.

"People still need to make the right decisions at the right time - make the correct observations at the right time and drive at appropriate speeds," says Stewart Lochrie, chairman of the Approved Driving Instructors National Joint Council (ADIJC).

Cleo Moseley really weighed up the decision. "Automatic felt like the slightly easier option" but "manual lessons were cheaper," she says.

Automatic and electric cars tend to cost more to buy than manuals so instructors charge more to cover this, adds Stewart from the ADIJC.

For the same reason Cleo says: "I also didn't know if I would be able to afford an automatic car at the end."

The 25-year-old from Northumberland has decided to start learning in a manual.

"I did really think about it," she says. "Automatic cars are basically becoming the norm. But I don't see manual cars [being] the majority five, 10, 15 years from now, so I don't think everyone should learn manual."

For Luke Breaban-Cook the decision was pretty much made for him - he has just passed his test after learning in his parents' manuals.

"They were the only cars available to me," says the 18-year-old from Battle in East Sussex.

"I didn't want to get my own car as it was too expensive," he adds. "Plus I'm moving to London for uni and I'm not planning on driving there."

Luke found clutch control difficult at first. "I stalled once in my test," he says, but he still passed first time.

Luke does nott think every learner should do a manual test: "Even if there is a chance that you might have to drive a manual courtesy car or rental car, that chance is getting smaller and smaller."

For some people with disabilities automatic cars can be more accessible.

David Robinson, who's 29 and from Cardiff, booked his driving test in September and has to wait until February to take it.

He opted to learn in an automatic because he has dyspraxia, which affects movement and coordination.

"It just seemed like a better idea because I didn't want to have to balance the clutch, the brake, the accelerator, check the revs, make sure I'm getting into the right gear," he says.

David hasn't ruled out getting a manual licence in future, but he says he would wait and see what happens after the ban on new petrol and electric cars takes effect in 2030.

"It might be that in five years I don't see the point," he says.

While the number of driving tests in automatic vehicles continues to rise, the vast majority of instructors are still teaching in manual cars," says Stewart from the ADIJC.

"This will change eventually, as the price of EVs continues to decrease, and driving instructors begin to see the commercial advantages of teaching in these kinds of vehicles."

But for now there's a stigma around an automatic-only licence, says motoring journalist and author Maria McCarthy.

"People would say, oh, one day you might need to hire a van or hire a car on holiday and then you'll need to drive a manual.

"But these days when you hire a car or a van, most of them are electric. And how often do people do things like that anyway?"

Caitlin's instructor did eventually buy a second automatic car but at that stage she had "already committed lots of time to manual".

She passed her test in September and now she's behind the wheel of her manual 2018 Volkswagen T-Roc and an hour to her new job in Workington, she has no regrets.

"If I'd had the choice back then an automatic would have been the dream," she says. "But now I'm glad I learned manual because I can drive any car and the insurance is cheaper."

Additional reporting by Connie Bowker

Beef prices have gotten so high in the US that it has become a political problem.

Even Donald Trump, who long ago declared inflation "dead", is talking about it, as the issue threatens to undercut his promises to bring down grocery prices for Americans.

This week, he took to social media, urging ranchers to lower prices for their cattle.

But his demand - and other proposals his administration has floated to address the issue - has sparked a backlash among ranchers, who worry some of his solutions will make it harder for them to make a living, while making little dent at the grocery store.

The number of beef cattle farmers and ranchers in the US has dwindled steadily since 1980, reducing domestic supplies and driving up prices, as demand remains high.

The country's cattle inventory has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 75 years, while the US has lost more than 150,000 cattle ranches just since 2017 - a 17% drop, according to the Agriculture Department.

Ranchers say they are under pressure from four decades of consolidation among the meat processors that buy their livestock, while high costs for key inputs like fertiliser and equipment have intensified the strain.

The contraction in the industry has worsened, as several years of drought have forced ranchers to slash their herds.

Christian Lovell, a cattle rancher in Illinois, said parts of his farm that were lush and grassy when he was a child have now dried up, limiting where his cows can graze.

"You put all these together and you have a recipe for a really broken market," said Mr Lovell, who works with advocacy group Farm Action.

Beef inflation

Retail prices for ground beef rose 12.9% over the 12 months to September, and beef steaks were up 16.6%, according to US inflation data published Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A pound of ground chuck now costs an average of $6.33 (£4.75), compared with $5.58 a year ago.

The increases have significantly outpaced general food inflation, which stood at 3.1%.

"The cattle herd has been getting smaller for the last several years, yet people are still wanting that American beef - hence the high prices," said Brenda Boetel, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls.

Derrell Peel, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University said he expected prices to remain elevated until at least the end of the decade, noting that it takes years to replenish herds.

The Trump administration's "hands are tied" when it comes to interventions that will help lower prices, Mr Peel added.

'Chaos' for American producers

The Agriculture Department this week unveiled what it called a "big package" aimed at ramping up domestic beef production, by opening more land for cattle grazing and supporting small meat processors.

That proposal came after Trump drew the ire of ranchers when he proposed to import more beef from Argentina, potentially quadrupling the purchases.

Eight House Republicans responded with a letter to the White House expressing concern about Trump's import plans.

Even the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which has voiced support for Trump's policies in the past, said the import plan "only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices".

Trump responded by assuring farmers that he was helping them in other ways, noting tariffs that are limiting imports from Brazil.

"It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also," Trump wrote.

But that has failed to quell the furore.

Justin Tupper, president of the US Cattlemen's Association, said he thought that only the big four meat packers would benefit from Trump's import plan.

"I don't see that lowering prices here at all," Mr Tupper said.

'These are consolidated markets'

Some say the government could make an impact if it focused on the way a handful of companies dominate the market for meat processing.

Today, just four companies control more than 80% of the beef slaughtering and packing market.

"These are consolidated markets gouging ranchers and gouging consumers at the store," said Austin Frerick, an agricultural and antitrust policy expert and a fellow at Yale University.

The meat processing firms - Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef - have faced several lawsuits, including one filed by McDonald's alleging they colluded to inflate the price of beef.

Though Trump revoked a Biden-era order earlier this year that directed agencies to tackle corporate consolidation across the food system, his administration has taken other steps to investigate competition issues in the agricultural industry.

'We're not going to rebuild this cow herd'

Mike Callicrate runs a cattle ranch in St Francis, Kansas. He said the only way he has managed to stay in the industry was by cutting out the middleman and setting up his own stores to reach consumers directly.

But Mr Callicrate acknowledged that most ranchers do not have the money to make that shift. Many have left the industry - and see no incentive to jump back in.

"We're not going to rebuild this cow herd - not until we address market concentration," Mr Callicrate said.

He said he supported the Agriculture Department's plans to open up more cattle grazing land to boost production and bring down retail prices.

"But unless we have a market," he added, you're a "fool to get into the cattle business"

Bill Bullard found himself in the first wave of ranchers pushed out as the meat processing industry started to consolidate in the early 1980s.

He closed down his 300-cow operation in South Dakota in 1985.

Mr Bullard, who is now the chief executive of R-CALF USA, a cattle producer trade association, said it was only in the last year or so that ranchers had received good prices for their livestock, as supply dropped to such a low level that the prices paid by meat processors "simply had to increase".

Still, reliance on imports and meat packers' buying power persist, Mr Bullard said, meaning ranchers "lack confidence in the integrity of the marketplace" and remain reluctant to grow their herds.

He said he did not have confidence that the president's ideas would fix the issues.

"He's focused on the symptoms and not the problems," he said.

Microsoft is taking one of its most popular and recognisable game series to a rival console for the first time.

Halo, a sci-fi shooter fronted by the armour-clad Master Chief, is heading to PlayStation 5 next year, something that would have been unthinkable for gaming fans when the title first launched in 2001.

A remake of the first game Halo: Combat Evolved has been announced for Microsoft's own Xbox hardware, as well as for Sony's PS5, under the name Halo: Campaign Evolved.

It will also launch on PC, and will be playable on mobile phones and tablets through Microsoft's cloud streaming technology.

It's the latest sign Microsoft is moving away from the traditional approach of console makers keeping their own franchises and characters as exclusives.

The end of console wars?

Halo is often credited with helping Microsoft first break into the gaming market with its original Xbox, despite arriving after consoles from Nintendo and Sony were already popular.

But while Microsoft has rapidly expanded its presence in the industry, buying up several rival studios - including Call of Duty maker Activision for $69bn (£56bn) - it's struggled to convince gamers to buy its latest consoles.

Globally, the PlayStation 5 has reportedly outsold Microsoft's Xbox Series S and X consoles by more than two to one. Nintendo's hybrid Switch console has been even more successful.

Microsoft has instead been pushing a strategy of being able to play its games in more places, including on PCs, tablets, phones, and its new handheld console, the ROG Xbox Ally.

This has included promoting its subscription service Game Pass, where a monthly charge gets players access to a library of games, similar in style to services like Netflix and Disney+.

Increasing the Halo: Reach

While there's long been rivalry between PlayStation and Xbox players, some fans of the Halo series are happy to see it reach more people.

YouTuber Kara, who streams under the name @Eldeeable, tells BBC Newsbeat that Halo's been a big part of her life.

"Combat Evolved was one of the first games I ever played on Xbox," she says.

"I played it with my little brother split-screen and I loved it."

She says the announcement is "massive" and "broke the internet a little bit".

Some Xbox owners have criticised Microsoft for not keeping Halo as an exclusive game, but it reflects a broader move away from exclusivity - with PlayStation releasing games from its The Last Of Us and Horizon series on PC, and even Nintendo making some games with its characters available on mobile phones.

For Kara, this shouldn't be seen as a bad thing.

"I know there's a bit of controversy about it coming to PlayStation, but I don't see any reason why it should be like that at all", she says.

"I just think it's a win for all gamers."

The game's executive producer Damon Conn agrees, promising that the remake will appeal to old and new fans.

"At its heart, Halo is about connection, we're thrilled to meet a new generation of players on their platforms of choice to fall in love with Halo the same way we did," he says.

"We're not trying to rewrite Halo's legacy - we're trying to immerse you in it like never before."

Additional reporting by Georgia Levy-Collins and Peter Gillibrand.

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In a late-night communique on Thursday, the Cuban Government said that it had extradited a Chinese citizen, Zhi Dong Zhang, to the authorities in Mexico. Hours later, Mexico's security chief then confirmed his subsequent extradition to the United States on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

It brought to an abrupt end a months-long, audacious escape attempt by one of the world's most wanted fugitives.

Known by various aliases including Brother Wang, Pancho and HeHe, Zhi Dong Zhang is accused by the US Justice Department of masterminding a vast international ring of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering covering numerous nations but particularly China, Mexico and the US.

The list of charges against Mr Zhang is long but in essence US prosecutors and the Mexican Attorney General's office accuse him of being a major player in the global drug trade. They say he has laundered millions of dollars in drug money for both the Sinaloa Cartel and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) as part of a worldwide drug distribution network.

"Brother Wang can be seen as a key link between Mexican cartels and Chinese chemical companies in sourcing the pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl", explains former DEA agent, Mike Vigil, adding that he was also vital in converting drug funds into cryptocurrency.

If convicted, Zhi Dong Zhang can expect to share a similar fate as other drug kingpins like Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada in a high-security facility in the United States.

But how 'Brother Wang' ended up in custody in Havana is an extraordinary tale involving fleeing house arrest in Mexico City, reportedly through a hole in a wall, taking a private jet to Cuba and an ultimately failed attempt to enter to Russia.

Zhi Dong Zhang was arrested in Mexico City in a joint security operation in October 2024. He was initially held in a maximum-security prison but was later granted house arrest by a judge – a decision that President Claudia Sheinbaum called "outrageous".

Brother Wang's escape had all the hallmarks of another embarrassing episode for Mexico: a man considered a vital cog in the machinery of drug smuggling, able to disappear from under the noses of the Mexican authorities tasked with guarding him. El Chapo Guzman managed that feat twice, much to Washington's frustration, before he was finally put on a plane in handcuffs to the US.

That Mexican authorities were able to recover their prisoner and send him north came down to two things – an apparent stroke of luck in Russia and the strength of Mexico's security relationship with Havana.

When Zhang reached Cuba in July 2025, he set about making his next steps towards reaching a country with no extradition treaty with the US, officials say.

There is a direct commercial flight to Moscow from Havana and Zhang, they allege, was able to secure a seat on it using fake papers. However, the papers didn't get him past the immigration authorities in Russia. It has been reported that the Russians didn't fully appreciate who they had in their custody and, after he was briefly detained, they turned Zhang around and sent him back to Cuba.

On arriving back in Havana a second time, the Cuban security services were now aware of his real identity.

Security analysts believe the authorities in Cuba held onto him for several months to interrogate him at length before sending him back to Mexico and, inevitably, onwards to the US. Mexico's Public Security Secretary, Omar Harfuch, was quick to thank Cuba for their cooperation over 'Brother Wang' – ultimately, for sparing their blushes over another escaped high-profile prisoner.

As always following the arrest of an alleged kingpin, the question becomes how far their removal will affect the global drug trade.

Given Brother Wang has spent the past year either in prison, under house arrest or on the run, the question may be moot, Mr Vigil said, as his absence has already largely been felt in Mexico's criminal underworld:

"It's really not going to have an impact as the cartels already have individuals working for them who can start to replace to Brother Wang", says Mr Vigil. "Even in the case of El Chapo Guzman who was a much bigger figure, it had no impact on the global drug trade", he argues.

Over his first year in office, US President Donald Trump has pressured his Mexican counterpart to do more on the issue of fentanyl trafficking and President Sheinbaum's administration has duly responded in kind. She has significantly increased seizures of the drug compared to her predecessor and her administration has sent dozens of convicted drug cartel members to the US to serve sentences there. They included several high-level drug names like Rafael Caro Quintero, wanted for the murder of a DEA agent in 1985.

Her cooperation on the fentanyl issue, as well as on undocumented immigration, is considered the reason Mr Trump has refrained from imposing the same level of trade tariffs on Mexico as he has on other commercial partners.

Brother Wang's extradition will bring genuine satisfaction in Washington at having taken a key figure in Mexican cartels' financial operations out of circulation. That, in turn, will please the Sheinbaum administration in Mexico and strengthen their claim to be in lockstep with their US counterparts on security.

However, slowing or reducing the movement of pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl from China to the Americas in any lasting way will take more than the extradition of one man.

Donald Trump has said he would like to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to Asia.

"I would. If you want to put out the word, I'm open to it," the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One as he departed for the region, adding that he "had a great relationship" with Kim.

Trump made history during his first term, becoming the first sitting US president to set foot into North Korea when they last shook hands in 2019.

His trip to Malaysia and Japan will see him meet a number of world leaders including China's Xi Jinping, amid trade negotiations sparked by Trump's imposition of sweeping tariffs earlier this year.

Trump has taken an atypical approach to North Korea - a secretive communist totalitarian state largely isolated on the world stage - and its attempts at creating nuclear weapons, initially taunting Kim as a "little rocket man".

The pair met face-to-face three times during Trump's previous tenure in the White House but failed to agree a denuclearisation programme. North Korea has since conducted multiple tests of intercontinental missiles, its neighbours say.

Asked if he would recognise North Korea as a nuclear state, Trump told reporters late on Thursday: "I think they are sort of a nuclear power... They got a lot of nuclear weapons, I'll say that."

Kim has said he was open to meeting Trump again, provided the US stopped pursuing its "absurd" demand for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

"I still have a good memory of President Trump," Kim said in a speech last month, according to state media.

• Friends reunited? Trump faces a very different Kim Jong Un this time

South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who handles relations between the North and South, said there was a "considerable" chance the two leaders might meet while Trump is in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum, according to news agency AFP.

A senior US official told reporters that a meeting was not in Trump's schedule, according to the Anadolu Agency - though their last meeting in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas came off the back of an invitation by Trump on social media.

Trump's first stop will be in Malaysia, where he will attend Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.

He is expected to land in the South Korean city Busan on Wednesday ahead of the Apec summit.

He will meet South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung, who discussed peace on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of a Trump-Kim meeting while visiting the White House in August.

Lee told the BBC he was open to a deal between Trump and Kim in which North Korea agreed to freeze production of its nuclear weapons.

Trump's meeting with China's President Xi comes on the backdrop of a trade war between the two nations.

The two have agreed to hold off triple-digit tariffs threatened against one another while seeking a trade agreement - but that detente is in jeopardy after Trump said he would level a 100% trade levy on Chinese goods over Beijing's curbs on rare earth exports.

The minerals are essential for many electronics and China is currently responsible for around 90% of exports of their refined form.