The original Birkin bag, which set the template for arguably the most coveted accessory in fashion history, has been bought for €8.6m (£7.4m; $10.1m), becoming the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction.

The black leather bag was made for singer Jane Birkin in 1985 after she spilled her belongings while sitting next to the boss of luxury fashion house Hermès on a flight.

She asked why they didn't make bigger bags, so he sketched out the design for a new, more practical but still highly desirable item on the aeroplane's sick bag.

The prototype he made was sold to a private collector from Japan at Sotheby's in Paris on Thursday, far surpassing the $513,000 (£378,000; €439,000) previous record sale.

The auction house said there was an "electrifying" 10-minute bidding war between "nine determined collectors".

Morgane Halimi, Sotheby's global head of handbags and fashion, said the price was a "startling demonstration of the power of a legend and its capacity to ignite the passion and desire of collectors seeking exceptional items with unique provenance, to own its origin".

She added: "The Birkin prototype is exactly that, the starting point of an extraordinary story that has given us a modern icon, the Birkin bag, the most coveted handbag in the world."

The €8,582,500 total includes commission and fees. Sotheby's did not publish a pre-auction estimate.

• The icon who inspired the Birkin bag

After creating the bag for the Anglo-French singer and actress, Hermès put the bag into commercial production, and it remains one of the most exclusive status symbols in fashion.

Some styles cost many tens of thousands of dollars and have waiting lists of years, with owners including celebrities like Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez.

The original has some unique features, such as Birkin's initials on the front flap, a non-removable shoulder strap, the nail clippers she kept attached to the strap, and marks where she put stickers for causes she supported, such as Médecins du Monde and Unicef.

Birkin, who died in 2023 at the age of 76, owned the original bag for a decade and donated it to an auction to raise funds for an Aids charity in 1994.

It was later bought by Catherine Benier, who has a luxury boutique in Paris, who owned it for 25 years before selling it on Thursday.

Sotheby's said the previous record price for a handbag was set by a White Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Retourne Kelly 28 in 2021.

Everyone agrees: it's getting worse.

The people of Kyiv have, like the citizens of other Ukrainian cities, been through a lot.

After three and a half years of fluctuating fortunes, they are tough and extremely resilient.

But in recent months, they have been experiencing something new: vast, coordinated waves of attacks from the air, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, often concentrated on a single city.

• Deadly new Russian drone and missile attack hits Kyiv

Last night, it was Kyiv. And the week before too. In between, it was Lutsk in the far west.

Three years ago, Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were a relative novelty. I remember hearing my first, buzzing a lazy arc across the night sky above the southern city of Zaporizhzhia in October 2022.

But now everyone is familiar with the sound, and its most fearsome recent iteration: a dive-bombing wail some have compared to the German World War Two Stuka aircraft.

The sound of swarms of approaching drones have sent hardened civilians back to bomb shelters, the metro and underground car parks for the first time since the early days of the war.

"The house shook like it was made of paper," Katya, a Kyiv resident, told me after last night's heavy bombardment.

"We spent the entire night sitting in the bathroom."

"I went to the parking for the first time," another resident, Svitlana, told me.

"The building shook and I could see fires across the river."

The attacks don't always claim lives, but they are spreading fear and eroding morale.

After an attack on a residential block in Kyiv last week, a shocked grandmother, Mariia, told me that her 11-year old grandson had turned to her, in the shelter, and said he understood the meaning of death for the first time.

He has every reason to be fearful. The UN's Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) says June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and over 1,300 injured.

Many will have been killed or wounded in communities close to the front lines, but others have been killed in cities far from the fighting.

"The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline," says Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU.

Modifications in the Shahed's design have allowed it to fly much higher than before and descend on its target from a greater altitude.

Its range has also increased, to around 2,500km, and it's capable of carrying a more deadly payload (up from around 50kg of explosive to 90kg).

Tracking maps produced by local experts show swirling masses of Shahed drones, sometimes taking circuitous routes across Ukraine before homing in on their targets.

Many – often as many as half – are decoys, designed to confuse and overwhelm Ukraine's air defences.

Other, straight lines show the paths of ballistic or cruise missiles: much fewer in number but the weapons Russia relies on to do the most damage.

Analysis by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War shows an increase in Russia's drone and missile strikes in the two months following Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

March saw a slight decline, with occasional spikes, until May, when the numbers suddenly rose dramatically.

New records have been set with alarming regularity.

June saw a new monthly high of 5,429 drones, July has seen more than 2,000 in just the first nine days.

With production in Russia ramping up, some reports suggest Moscow may soon be able to fire over 1,000 missiles and drones in a single night.

Experts in Kyiv warn that the country is in danger of being overwhelmed.

"If Ukraine doesn't find a solution for how to deal with these drones, we will face great problems during 2025," says former intelligence officer Ivan Stupak.

"Some of these drones are trying to reach military objects - we have to understand it - but the rest, they are destroying apartments, falling into office buildings and causing lots of damage to citizens."

For all their increasing capability, the drones are not an especially sophisticated weapon. But they do represent yet another example of the vast gulf in resources between Russia and Ukraine.

It also neatly illustrates the maxim, attributed to the Soviet Union's World War Two leader Joseph Stalin, that "quantity has a quality of its own."

"This is a war of resources," says Serhii Kuzan, of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre.

"When production of particular missiles became too complicated - too expensive, too many components, too many complicated supply routes – they concentrated on this particular type of drone and developed different modifications and improvements."

The more drones in a single attack, Kuzan says, the more Ukraine hard-pressed air defence units struggle to shoot them down. This forces Kyiv to fall back on its precious supply of jets and air-to-air missiles to shoot them down.

"So if the drones go as a swarm, they destroy all the air defence missiles," he says.

Hence President Zelensky's constant appeals to Ukraine's allies to do more to protect its skies. Not just with Patriot missiles – vital to counter the most dangerous Russian ballistic threat – but with a wide array of other systems too.

On Thursday, the British government said it would sign a defence agreement with Ukraine to provide more than 5,000 air defence missiles.

Kyiv will be looking for many more such deals in the coming months.

US President Donald Trump has praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking "good English" and asked him where he went to school.

What Trump might have missed is that Liberia shares a unique and long-standing connection with the US.

English is the country's official language and many Liberians speak with an American accent because of those historical ties to the US.

It may have been this accent that Trump picked up on.

Here are five things to know about the country:

Founded by freed slaves

Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves in 1822 before declaring independence in 1847.

Thousands of black Americans and liberated Africans - rescued from transatlantic slave ships - settled in Liberia during the colonial era.

Former US President Abraham Lincoln officially declared Liberia's independence in 1862 but the country retained a lot of US heritage and it remained in the American "sphere of influence" during the colonial period.

Due to this integration, Liberian culture, landmarks, and institutions have a heavy African-American influence.

Ten of Liberia's 26 presidents were born in the US.

The capital is named after a former US president

Liberia's capital, Monrovia, was named in honour of America's 5th President, James Monroe, who was a strong supporter of the American Colonization Society (ACS).

The ACS was the organisation responsible for resettling freed African-Americans in West Africa - which eventually led to the founding of Liberia.

Not surprisingly the early architecture of the city was largely influenced by American-style buildings.

Many streets in Monrovia are named after colonial American figures, reflecting the city's founding and historical ties to the US.

Nearly identical flags

The flag of Liberia closely resembles the American flag. It features 11 alternating red and white stripes and a blue square with a single white star.

The white star symbolises Liberia as the first independent republic in Africa.

The US flag, in comparison, has 13 stripes representing the original 13 colonies and 50 stars, one for each state.

The Liberian flag was designed by seven black women - all born in America.

Ex-president's son plays for US football team

Timothy Weah, the son of Liberia's former President George Weah, is an American professional soccer player who plays for Italian club Juventus as well as the US national team.

The 25-year-old forward was born in the US but began his professional career with Paris St-Germain in France, where he won the Ligue 1 title before moving on loan to the Scottish team, Celtic.

His father, George, is a Liberian football legend who won the Ballon d'Or in 1995 while playing for Juventus's Italian rivals AC Milan. He is the only African winner of this award - and went on to be elected president in 2018.

Former president won the Nobel Peace Prize

Liberia produced Africa's first elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

She was elected in 2005, two years after the nation's bloody civil war ended, and served as president until 2018.

Sirleaf has a strong American background as she studied at Madison Business College and later went to Harvard University where she graduated as an economist.

She has received worldwide recognition and accolades for maintaining peace during her administration.

Her story is pitted with remarkable feats of defiance and courage.

In 2011, along with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karmān, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts to further women's rights.

In 2016, Forbes listed her among the most powerful women in the world.

What do Liberians make of the comments?

There has been a mixed reaction.

Accountant Joseph Manley, 40, told the BBC that Trump should have been properly briefed before meeting Liberia's leader.

"Liberia has always been an English-speaking country. Our president represents a country with a rich educational tradition."

For human resources professional Henrietta Peter-Mogballah, The US president's surprise at Boakai's eloquence reflects a broader problem of global ignorance about African nations and its peoples.

"From travel experiences and observations, most citizens of other nations outside Africa do not know a lot about African countries," she said. "The few that know a little, their minds are clouded by narratives of war, poverty, and lack of education."

While many have criticised Trump, others see nothing wrong in his comments.

"I believe President Trump's remark was a genuine compliment on President Boakai's command of English," lawyer and politician Kanio Gbala told the BBC. "There is no evidence of sarcasm. Reading it as disrespectful may reflect political agendas."

More about Liberia from the BBC:

• Why Trump invited five African leaders to the White House
• Liberian president killed in coup gets state funeral after 45 years
• How President Joseph Boakai hopes to rid Liberia of its problems
• Liberia's war and peace: Lessons from 30 years' reporting

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

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has survived a confidence vote tabled by a far-right faction in the European Parliament.

Although the outcome was not a surprise, the fact that it came about at all was not a positive signal for von der Leyen, who began her second term as Commission chief only a year ago.

Confidence votes of this kind are rare and the last one was tabled against Jean-Claude Juncker more than a decade ago.

Two-thirds of all 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) - or 480 - would have had to back the motion for it to pass.

Instead, only 175 voted in favour; 360 voted against and 18 abstained. The remaining MEPs did not vote.

The vote was initiated by Romanian far-right MEP Gheorghe Piperea, who accused von der Leyen of a lack of transparency over text messages she sent to the head of Pfizer during negotiations to secure Covid-19 vaccines.

The text of the motion said that von der Leyen's Commission could no longer be trusted to "uphold the principles of transparency, accountability, and good governance essential to a democratic Union".

During a fierce debate on Monday von der Leyen slammed her accusers as "conspiracy theorists".

Hitting back at Piperea and what she called "his world of conspiracies and alleged sinister plots", she said he and his cohort were "extremists", "anti-vaxxers" and "Putin apologists".

She also said the accusations against her over so-called Pfizergate were "simply a lie."

Piperea had the backing of figures such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who posted on X a photo of von der Leyen alongside the caption "Time to go".

But his own European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group was split.

A sizeable portion of the ECR is made up by Brothers of Italy (FdI), the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. FdI has been fostering a good relationship with von der Leyen and its MEPs voted against the motion.

In the end the votes in favour came primarily from the far-right groups Patriots for Europe (PfE) and the European of Sovereign Nations (ENS).

Von der Leyen survived the vote thanks to the support of her own centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the Socialist & Democrats (S&D), the liberal Renew, the Greens and left-wing groups.

However, the days in the lead-up to the vote saw several groupings caveat their support with gripes over von der Leyen's leadership.

Over the last year her centre-right EPP has increasingly teamed up with the far-right to pass amendments and resolutions on issues like migration and the environment, often irking liberals and left-wing parties.

Valérie Hayer, president of the centrist Renew Europe, echoed the sentiment, warning von der Leyen that her group's support was "not guaranteed" and urging the Commission chief to "take back control" of the EPP and end "alliances with the far right."

Ahead of the vote Iratxe García, leader of the S&D, said dismantling the Commission in the midst of geopolitical crisis would have been "irresponsible".

"Our vote doesn't mean that we are not critical of the European Commission," García said, citing "the recent shifts by von der Leyen towards far-right pledges."

Earlier this week there was a suggestion that the S&D might abstain from the vote, but were eventually persuaded to back von der Leyen after she reportedly ruled out cuts to social programmes in the upcoming budget.

As the vote against her leadership was taking place, Von der Leyen was giving a speech at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome.

Shortly after the motion was turned down, however, she posted on X: "As external forces seek to destabilise and divide us, it is our duty to respond in line with our values."

"Thank you, and long live Europe," she added.

US President Donald Trump has praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking "good English" and asked him where he went to school.

What Trump might have missed is that Liberia shares a unique and long-standing connection with the US.

English is the country's official language and many Liberians speak with an American accent because of those historical ties to the US.

It may have been this accent that Trump picked up on.

Here are five things to know about the country:

Founded by freed slaves

Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves in 1822 before declaring independence in 1847.

Thousands of black Americans and liberated Africans - rescued from transatlantic slave ships - settled in Liberia during the colonial era.

Former US President Abraham Lincoln officially declared Liberia's independence in 1862 but the country retained a lot of US heritage and it remained in the American "sphere of influence" during the colonial period.

Due to this integration, Liberian culture, landmarks, and institutions have a heavy African-American influence.

Ten of Liberia's 26 presidents were born in the US.

The capital is named after a former US president

Liberia's capital, Monrovia, was named in honour of America's 5th President, James Monroe, who was a strong supporter of the American Colonization Society (ACS).

The ACS was the organisation responsible for resettling freed African-Americans in West Africa - which eventually led to the founding of Liberia.

Not surprisingly the early architecture of the city was largely influenced by American-style buildings.

Many streets in Monrovia are named after colonial American figures, reflecting the city's founding and historical ties to the US.

Nearly identical flags

The flag of Liberia closely resembles the American flag. It features 11 alternating red and white stripes and a blue square with a single white star.

The white star symbolises Liberia as the first independent republic in Africa.

The US flag, in comparison, has 13 stripes representing the original 13 colonies and 50 stars, one for each state.

The Liberian flag was designed by seven black women - all born in America.

Ex-president's son plays for US football team

Timothy Weah, the son of Liberia's former President George Weah, is an American professional soccer player who plays for Italian club Juventus as well as the US national team.

The 25-year-old forward was born in the US but began his professional career with Paris St-Germain in France, where he won the Ligue 1 title before moving on loan to the Scottish team, Celtic.

His father, George, is a Liberian football legend who won the Ballon d'Or in 1995 while playing for Juventus's Italian rivals AC Milan. He is the only African winner of this award - and went on to be elected president in 2018.

Former president won the Nobel Peace Prize

Liberia produced Africa's first elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

She was elected in 2005, two years after the nation's bloody civil war ended, and served as president until 2018.

Sirleaf has a strong American background as she studied at Madison Business College and later went to Harvard University where she graduated as an economist.

She has received worldwide recognition and accolades for maintaining peace during her administration.

Her story is pitted with remarkable feats of defiance and courage.

In 2011, along with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karmān, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts to further women's rights.

In 2016, Forbes listed her among the most powerful women in the world.

What do Liberians make of the comments?

There has been a mixed reaction.

Accountant Joseph Manley, 40, told the BBC that Trump should have been properly briefed before meeting Liberia's leader.

"Liberia has always been an English-speaking country. Our president represents a country with a rich educational tradition."

For human resources professional Henrietta Peter-Mogballah, The US president's surprise at Boakai's eloquence reflects a broader problem of global ignorance about African nations and its peoples.

"From travel experiences and observations, most citizens of other nations outside Africa do not know a lot about African countries," she said. "The few that know a little, their minds are clouded by narratives of war, poverty, and lack of education."

While many have criticised Trump, others see nothing wrong in his comments.

"I believe President Trump's remark was a genuine compliment on President Boakai's command of English," lawyer and politician Kanio Gbala told the BBC. "There is no evidence of sarcasm. Reading it as disrespectful may reflect political agendas."

More about Liberia from the BBC:

• Why Trump invited five African leaders to the White House
• Liberian president killed in coup gets state funeral after 45 years
• How President Joseph Boakai hopes to rid Liberia of its problems
• Liberia's war and peace: Lessons from 30 years' reporting

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

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he is ready to match any tariffs imposed on Brazil by the United States.

Lula was responding to Wednesday's threat by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, to impose a 50% import tax on Brazilian goods from 1 August.

In a letter, Trump cited Brazil's treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro as a trigger for tariff-hike.

Bolsonaro is currently on trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup against Lula after being defeated by him in the 2022 election.

Trump referred to Bolsonaro as "a highly respected leader throughout the world". "This Trial should not be taking place," he wrote, calling on Brazil to immediately end the "witch hunt" against the former president.

Trump's support for Bolsonaro does not come as a surprise as the two men have long been considered allies.

The US president had already slammed Brazil for its treatment of Bolsonaro on Monday, comparing it to the legal cases he himself had faced in US courts.

The 50% tariff threat was met with a robust and lengthy response by President Lula.

In a post on X, he stressed that Brazil was "a sovereign country with independent institutions and will not accept any tutelage".

The Brazilian leader also announced that "any unilateral tariff increases" would be met with reciprocal tariffs imposed on US goods.

The US is Brazil's second-largest trade partner after China, so the hike from a tariff rate of 10% to an eye-watering 50% - if it comes into force - would hit the South American nation hard.

But Lula also made a point of challenging Trump's assertion that the US had a trade deficit with Brazil, calling it "inaccurate".

Lula's rebuttal is backed up by US government data, which suggests the US had a goods trade surplus with Brazil of $7.4bn (£5.4bn) in 2024.

Brazil is the US's 15th largest trading partner and among its main imports from the US are mineral fuels, aircraft and machinery.

For its part, the US imports gas and petroleum, iron, and coffee from Brazil.

Brazil was not the only country Trump threatened with higher tariffs on Wednesday.

Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka were among 22 nations which received letters warning of higher levies.

But the letter Trump sent to his Brazilian counterpart was the only one focussing matters beyond alleged trade deficits.

As well as denouncing the treatment of ex-President Bolsonaro, Trump slammed what he said were "secret and unlawful censorship orders to US social media platforms" which he said Brazil had imposed.

Trump Media, which operates the US president's Truth Social platform and is majority-owned by him, is among the US tech companies fighting Brazilian court rulings over orders suspending social media accounts.

Lula fought back on that front too, justifying the rulings by arguing that "Brazilian society rejects hateful content, racism, child pornography, scams, fraud, and speeches against human rights and democratic freedom".

Rafael Cortez, a political scientist with Brazilian consulting firm Tendências Consultoria, told BBC News Brasil that rather than hurt him, the overly political tone of Trump's letter could end up benefitting Lula.

"Those confronting Trump win at home when Trump and other conservative leaders speak out on issues pertaining to their countries. That happened, to a certain degree, in Mexico, and the elections in Canada and Australia," Mr Cortez says of other leaders who have challenged Trump and reaped the rewards in the form of rising popularity levels.

Creomar de Souza of the political risk consultancy Dharma Politics told BBC News Mundo's Mariana Schreiber that it would depend on the Lula government coming up with organised and united response if it is to "score a goal" against Trump.

Gugu used to collect her antiretrovirals from a USAID-funded clinic in downtown Johannesburg.

But when President Trump's cuts to aid funding were announced earlier this year, she and thousands of other HIV-positive patients across South Africa suddenly faced an uncertain future.

Gugu was lucky, the clinic where she got the medication that helps suppress her symptoms contacted her before it closed down.

"I was one of the people who was able to get their medication in bulk. I usually collect a three-month prescription. But before my clinic closed, they gave me nine months' worth of medication."

She will run out of antiretrovirals (ARVs) in September, and then plans on going to her local public hospital for more.

A former sex worker, the 54-year-old found out she was HIV-positive after she'd quit the industry.

Ten years ago she got a chesty cough, and initially thought it was tuberculosis. She went to a doctor who told her she had a chest infection and treated her for it.

But when the treatment failed, she went to a clinic to get an HIV test.

"By then I already assumed that I was HIV-positive, and I told the nurse this."

She was right, and she has been on ARVs ever since. We're not using her real name at her request.

She currently works as a project coordinator for an NGO.

"We help pregnant sex workers get their ARVs, to ensure their children are born HIV-negative. We also do home visits to make sure that the mothers take their medication on time, and to look after their babies when they go for their monthly check-ups."

Many HIV-positive sex workers in South Africa relied on private clinics funded by the US government's now-defunct aid agency, USAID, to get their prescriptions and treatments.

But most of the facilities closed after US President Donald Trump cut most foreign aid earlier this year.

In a report due to be released on Thursday, the UN body in charge of fighting HIV/Aids does not single out the US, but says that drastic cuts from a number of donors have sent shockwaves around the world, and the "phenomenal progress" in tackling the illness risks being reversed.

"New HIV infections have been reduced by 40% since 2010, and 4.4 million children have been protected from acquiring HIV since 2000. More than 26 million lives have been saved," UNAIDS says, warning that if the world does not act, there could be an extra six million new HIV infections and four million Aids-related deaths by 2029.

Gugu believes that many sex workers could be discouraged from going to public hospitals for their HRVs..

"The problem with going to public hospitals is the time factor. In order to get serviced at these facilities, you have to arrive at 4 or 5am, and they may spend the whole day waiting for their medication. For sex workers, time is money," Gugu says.

She adds that she recently went to her local clinic with some friends to register her details and build a relationship with staff.

"The nurse who attended to us was very rude. She told us there was nothing special about sex workers."

She thinks this could lead to many sex workers defaulting on their medication, "especially because their hospital files contain a lot of personal information, and the concern is that sometimes the nurses at these local clinics aren't always the most sensitive in dealing with this kind of information."

According to the UN, the US cuts to HIV funding could reverse some of the gains made by what has been called one of the most successful public health interventions in history.

Scientists in the UK-based Lancet medical journal last month estimated that USAID funding directly reduced Aids deaths by 65%, or 25.5 million, over the past two decades.

Then-US President George W Bush launched an ambitious programme to combat HIV/Aids in 2003, saying it would serve the "strategic and moral interests" of the US.

Known as the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), it led to the investment of more than $100bn (£74bn) in the global HIV/Aids response - the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world.

South Africa has about 7.7 million people living with HIV, the highest number in the world, according to UNAIDS.

About 5.9 million of them receive antiretroviral treatment, resulting in a 66% decrease in Aids-related deaths since 2010, the UN agency adds.

South Africa's government says Pepfar funding contributed about 17% to its HIV/Aids programme. The money was used for various projects, including running mobile clinics to make it easier for patients to get treatment.

The Trump administration's cuts have raised concern that infection rates could spike again.

"I think we're going to start seeing an increase in the number of HIV infections, the number of TB cases, the number of other infectious diseases," Prof Lynn Morris, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Johannesburg's Wits University, tells the BBC.

"And we're going to start seeing a reversal of what was essentially a real success story. We were getting on top of some of these things."

Gugu points out that treatment is a matter of life and death, especially for vulnerable populations like sex workers.

"People don't want to default on their ARVs. They're scared that they're going to die if they don't get access to them.

The cuts have also affected research aimed at finding an HIV vaccine and a cure for Aids.

"There's the long-term impact, which is that we're not going to be getting new vaccines for HIV," Prof Morris adds.

"We're not going to be keeping on top of viruses that are circulating. Even with new viruses that might appear, we're not going to have the surveillance infrastructure that we once had."

South Africa has been one of the global leaders in HIV research. Many of the medications that help prevent the virus, and which have benefitted people around the world, were trialled in South Africa.

This includes Prep (pre-exposure prophylaxis), a medication which stops HIV-negative people from catching the virus.

Another breakthrough preventive drug released this year, Lenacapavir, an injection taken twice a year and that offers total protection from HIV, was also tried in South Africa.

In a lab at Wits University's Health Sciences campus, a small group of scientists are still working on a vaccine for HIV.

They are part of the Brilliant Consortium, a group of labs working across eight African countries to develop a vaccine for the virus.

"We were developing a vaccine test to see how well that works, and then we would trial it on humans," Abdullah Ely, an Associate Professor at Wits University, tells the BBC in his lab.

"The plan was to run the trials in Africa based on research carried out by Africans because we want that research to actually benefit our community as well as all mankind."

But the US funding cuts threw their work into doubt.

"When the stop order came, it meant we had to stop everything. Only some of us have been able to get additional funding so we could continue our work. It's set us back months, probably could even be a year," Prof Ely says.

The lab lacks funding to carry out clinical trials scheduled for later this year.

"That is a very big loss to South Africa and the continent. It means that any potential research that comes out of Africa will have to be tested in Europe, or the US," Prof Ely says.

In June, universities asked the government for a bailout of 4.6bn South African rand ($260m; £190m) over the next three years to cover some of the funding lost from the US.

"We are pleading for support because South Africa is leading in HIV research, but it's not leading for itself. This has ramifications on the practice and policies of the entire globe," says Dr Phethiwe Matutu, head of Universities South Africa.

South Africa's Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced on Wednesday that some alternative funding for research had been secured.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust have agreed to donate 1m rand each with immediate effect, while the government would make available 400m rand over the next three years, he said.

This would bring the total to 600m rand, way below the 4.6bn rand requested by researchers.

As for Gugu, she had hoped that by the time she was elderly, a cure for HIV/Aids would have been found, but she is less optimistic now.

"I look after a nine-year-old. I want to live as long as I can to keep taking care of him," she tells the BBC.

"This isn't just a problem for right now, we have to think about how it's going to affect the next generation of women and young people."

You may also be interested in:

• 'My wife fears sex, I fear death' - impacts of the USAID freeze
• 'People will starve' because of US aid cut to Sudan
• What is USAID and why is Trump closing it down?

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

At least 15 Palestinians, including eight children and two women, have been killed in an Israeli strike near a medical point in central Gaza, a hospital there says.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said the strike hit people queueing for nutritional supplements in the town of Deir al-Balah. Graphic video from the hospital showed the bodies of several children and others being treated for their wounds.

The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

Another 26 people were reportedly killed in strikes elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday, as Israeli and Hamas delegations continued negotiations for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal at indirect talks in Doha.

Despite optimism expressed by the US, which is acting as a mediator along with Qatar and Egypt, they do not so far seem to have come close to a breakthrough.

On Wednesday night, a senior Israeli official told journalists in Washington that it could take one or two weeks to reach an agreement.

The official, who was speaking during a visit to the US by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also said that if an agreement was reached on a 60-day ceasefire, Israel would use that time to offer a permanent end to the war that would require Hamas to disarm. If Hamas refused to disarm, Israel would "proceed" with military operations, they added.

Earlier, Hamas issued a statement saying that the talks had been difficult, blaming Israeli "intransigence".

The group said it had shown flexibility in agreeing to release 10 hostages, but it reiterated that it was seeking a "comprehensive" agreement that would end the Israeli offensive.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza 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.

At least 57,680 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times. More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

Gugu used to collect her antiretrovirals from a USAID-funded clinic in downtown Johannesburg.

But when President Trump's cuts to aid funding were announced earlier this year, she and thousands of other HIV-positive patients across South Africa suddenly faced an uncertain future.

Gugu was lucky, the clinic where she got the medication that helps suppress her symptoms contacted her before it closed down.

"I was one of the people who was able to get their medication in bulk. I usually collect a three-month prescription. But before my clinic closed, they gave me nine months' worth of medication."

She will run out of antiretrovirals (ARVs) in September, and then plans on going to her local public hospital for more.

A former sex worker, the 54-year-old found out she was HIV-positive after she'd quit the industry.

Ten years ago she got a chesty cough, and initially thought it was tuberculosis. She went to a doctor who told her she had a chest infection and treated her for it.

But when the treatment failed, she went to a clinic to get an HIV test.

"By then I already assumed that I was HIV-positive, and I told the nurse this."

She was right, and she has been on ARVs ever since. We're not using her real name at her request.

She currently works as a project coordinator for an NGO.

"We help pregnant sex workers get their ARVs, to ensure their children are born HIV-negative. We also do home visits to make sure that the mothers take their medication on time, and to look after their babies when they go for their monthly check-ups."

Many HIV-positive sex workers in South Africa relied on private clinics funded by the US government's now-defunct aid agency, USAID, to get their prescriptions and treatments.

But most of the facilities closed after US President Donald Trump cut most foreign aid earlier this year.

In a report due to be released on Thursday, the UN body in charge of fighting HIV/Aids does not single out the US, but says that drastic cuts from a number of donors have sent shockwaves around the world, and the "phenomenal progress" in tackling the illness risks being reversed.

"New HIV infections have been reduced by 40% since 2010, and 4.4 million children have been protected from acquiring HIV since 2000. More than 26 million lives have been saved," UNAIDS says, warning that if the world does not act, there could be an extra six million new HIV infections and four million Aids-related deaths by 2029.

Gugu believes that many sex workers could be discouraged from going to public hospitals for their HRVs..

"The problem with going to public hospitals is the time factor. In order to get serviced at these facilities, you have to arrive at 4 or 5am, and they may spend the whole day waiting for their medication. For sex workers, time is money," Gugu says.

She adds that she recently went to her local clinic with some friends to register her details and build a relationship with staff.

"The nurse who attended to us was very rude. She told us there was nothing special about sex workers."

She thinks this could lead to many sex workers defaulting on their medication, "especially because their hospital files contain a lot of personal information, and the concern is that sometimes the nurses at these local clinics aren't always the most sensitive in dealing with this kind of information."

According to the UN, the US cuts to HIV funding could reverse some of the gains made by what has been called one of the most successful public health interventions in history.

Scientists in the UK-based Lancet medical journal last month estimated that USAID funding directly reduced Aids deaths by 65%, or 25.5 million, over the past two decades.

Then-US President George W Bush launched an ambitious programme to combat HIV/Aids in 2003, saying it would serve the "strategic and moral interests" of the US.

Known as the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), it led to the investment of more than $100bn (£74bn) in the global HIV/Aids response - the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world.

South Africa has about 7.7 million people living with HIV, the highest number in the world, according to UNAIDS.

About 5.9 million of them receive antiretroviral treatment, resulting in a 66% decrease in Aids-related deaths since 2010, the UN agency adds.

South Africa's government says Pepfar funding contributed about 17% to its HIV/Aids programme. The money was used for various projects, including running mobile clinics to make it easier for patients to get treatment.

The Trump administration's cuts have raised concern that infection rates could spike again.

"I think we're going to start seeing an increase in the number of HIV infections, the number of TB cases, the number of other infectious diseases," Prof Lynn Morris, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Johannesburg's Wits University, tells the BBC.

"And we're going to start seeing a reversal of what was essentially a real success story. We were getting on top of some of these things."

Gugu points out that treatment is a matter of life and death, especially for vulnerable populations like sex workers.

"People don't want to default on their ARVs. They're scared that they're going to die if they don't get access to them.

The cuts have also affected research aimed at finding an HIV vaccine and a cure for Aids.

"There's the long-term impact, which is that we're not going to be getting new vaccines for HIV," Prof Morris adds.

"We're not going to be keeping on top of viruses that are circulating. Even with new viruses that might appear, we're not going to have the surveillance infrastructure that we once had."

South Africa has been one of the global leaders in HIV research. Many of the medications that help prevent the virus, and which have benefitted people around the world, were trialled in South Africa.

This includes Prep (pre-exposure prophylaxis), a medication which stops HIV-negative people from catching the virus.

Another breakthrough preventive drug released this year, Lenacapavir, an injection taken twice a year and that offers total protection from HIV, was also tried in South Africa.

In a lab at Wits University's Health Sciences campus, a small group of scientists are still working on a vaccine for HIV.

They are part of the Brilliant Consortium, a group of labs working across eight African countries to develop a vaccine for the virus.

"We were developing a vaccine test to see how well that works, and then we would trial it on humans," Abdullah Ely, an Associate Professor at Wits University, tells the BBC in his lab.

"The plan was to run the trials in Africa based on research carried out by Africans because we want that research to actually benefit our community as well as all mankind."

But the US funding cuts threw their work into doubt.

"When the stop order came, it meant we had to stop everything. Only some of us have been able to get additional funding so we could continue our work. It's set us back months, probably could even be a year," Prof Ely says.

The lab lacks funding to carry out clinical trials scheduled for later this year.

"That is a very big loss to South Africa and the continent. It means that any potential research that comes out of Africa will have to be tested in Europe, or the US," Prof Ely says.

In June, universities asked the government for a bailout of 4.6bn South African rand ($260m; £190m) over the next three years to cover some of the funding lost from the US.

"We are pleading for support because South Africa is leading in HIV research, but it's not leading for itself. This has ramifications on the practice and policies of the entire globe," says Dr Phethiwe Matutu, head of Universities South Africa.

South Africa's Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced on Wednesday that some alternative funding for research had been secured.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust have agreed to donate 1m rand each with immediate effect, while the government would make available 400m rand over the next three years, he said.

This would bring the total to 600m rand, way below the 4.6bn rand requested by researchers.

As for Gugu, she had hoped that by the time she was elderly, a cure for HIV/Aids would have been found, but she is less optimistic now.

"I look after a nine-year-old. I want to live as long as I can to keep taking care of him," she tells the BBC.

"This isn't just a problem for right now, we have to think about how it's going to affect the next generation of women and young people."

You may also be interested in:

• 'My wife fears sex, I fear death' - impacts of the USAID freeze
• 'People will starve' because of US aid cut to Sudan
• What is USAID and why is Trump closing it down?

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

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has told the BBC his fellow Democrats allowed the US-Mexico border to be "under siege" during Joe Biden's presidency.

In sometimes sharp words, Kerry - who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and a US senator from Massachusetts - said he told Biden the party had "missed" on the issue of immigration for years.

He said this had Republicans like Donald Trump to gain political advantage.

The comments, made during an interview with BBC special correspondent James Naughtie, underscore an ongoing debate within his party over whether their pro-immigration policies cost them in recent elections.

Democrats have also wrestled with how they should handle Trump's recent nationwide attempts to detain and deport undocumented migrants

"The first thing any president should say - or anybody in public life - is without a border protected, you don't have a nation," Kerry said. "I wish President Biden had been heard more often saying, I'm going to enforce the law."

Such words have been a familiar refrain for Trump during his time in national politics and were included in the 2024 Republican Party policy platform.

But Democrats - many of whom advocate more relaxed immigration laws and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants - attempted to portray Trump's positions as harsh and discriminatory.

According to Kerry, that was a mistake.

"Trump was right," Kerry said. "The problem is we all should have been right."

In the first six month's of Trump's second term in office, illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border have dropped to near record lows - although the downward trend began during the last year of the Biden presidency, after the Democrat tightened some asylum rules.

The Trump administration has now shifted its focus to identification, detention and deportation of documented migrants across the US, expanding its efforts to include those who have resided in the US for years.

The move has prompted mass demonstrations in some US cities, including Los Angeles, where federal officials have been carrying out some of the most aggressive action.

Over the weekend, armed federal agents and 90 California National Guard troops conducted an operation in the city's MacArthur Park - a gathering place for nearby immigrant communities. The officials swept through the park on foot, horseback and in armoured vehicles.

"To me, this is another example of the administration ratcheting up chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in an American city," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, said at an impromptu news conference near the park.

"You can spin it anyway you like, but in my opinion, it's a political agenda of provoking fear and terror."

On Tuesday, Los Angeles and seven other California cities joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that the federal immigration enforcement actions are unlawful. The state of California has filed a brief supporting the lawsuit.

Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, issued a statement denouncing what he said was a "cruel and familiar pattern of attacks on our immigrant communities by an administration that thrives on fear and division".

The denunciations, and the legal battles, echo the tactics Democrats relied on during Trump's first presidential term, when the Republican policy of separating migrant families that crossed the US-Mexico border generated widespread national outrage.

Such concerns faded, however, and by 2024 stringent immigration enforcement once again became a top Republican talking point.

The Trump administration appears to continue to welcome debate on immigration - an issue where, despite some declining support in recent public opinion polls, they believe they still have the upper hand.

When asked on Wednesday about a push by Democrats in Congress for legislation prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from concealing their identities, Trump said the opposition party had lost its way.

"This is the problem with the Democrats," he said. "They have a lot of bad things going on in their heads. They've lost their confidence and become somewhat deranged."

Democrats are used to derisive criticism from Trump, of course. But some - including party elders like Kerry – are becoming increasingly vocal in arguing that they given Trump an opening to land his political punches.

Reflections is on BBC Radio 4 on 10 July at 09:30 BST.

UK audiences can listen on BBC Sounds, or at this link for international users.

The US Secret Service issued suspensions for six personnel over failings at one of Donald Trump's rallies last year, during which a gunman attempted to assassinate the Republican, an official has confirmed.

Matt Quinn, the service's deputy director, told the BBC's US partner CBS News that the gathering in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Matthew Crooks fired at Trump and killed another attendee, was an "operational failure".

One of Crooks's bullets grazed the ear of Trump, who was then rushed to safety. The attacker was shot dead.

It is not clear when the staff suspensions were formally issued, and US media reports differ on whether or not they have already been served.

Speaking to CBS, Quinn said the staff were given penalties ranging from 10 to 42 days of leave without pay or benefits.

"Secret Service is totally accountable for Butler," he explained. "Butler was an operational failure and we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again."

Quinn, who was appointed to his role in May this year, added that he was "laser-focused on fixing the root cause of the problem", but his organisation would not "fire our way out of this".

Quinn told CBS a number of improvements had already been made, involving military-grade drones and improved mobile command posts that could now be used by agents in the field.

The identities of the suspended staff and their roles on the day of the attack have not been disclosed.

• Gary O'Donoghue: What I witnessed at Trump rally
• Report identifies 'litany' of failures by Secret Service
• Wife of man killed at Trump rally struggles with loss

The news comes just days before the anniversary of the attack on 13 July 2024. Rally attendee Corey Comperatore was killed and two other people injured.

The incident prompted the resignation of the service's then-director, Kimberly Cheatle.

The Secret Service has been under intense scrutiny for the last 12 months, and has faced sharp criticism from US Congress members.

Last September, a 94-page Senate report found that security failures and lack of communication within the US Secret Service "directly contributed" to the incident, and that many issues remained unaddressed two months later.

The attack was also described as preventable in another report, published in December, by a House of Representatives taskforce. That paper identified the main lapse as being a failure to secure the rooftop from which Crooks opened fire.

Trump, who was successfully re-elected in November, was provided with heightened security in the aftermath of the attack - ensuring that he received protection at a level above what is typical for a presidential candidate.

In September, he was again rushed to safety by Secret Service agents after a second would-be gunman lurked in bushes at Trump's golf course in Florida. The FBI described this, too, as an apparent assassination attempt.

The suspect in that second incident was detained.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

US President Donald Trump said he was planning to impose a 50% tax on goods made in Brazil, escalating his fight with the South American country.

He announced the plan in his latest tariff letter, shared on social media, accusing Brazil of "attacks" on US tech companies and conducting a "witch hunt" against former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing prosecution over his role trying to overturn the 2022 election.

Trump had already sparred with Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over Bolsonaro's trial earlier this week.

At the time, President Lula said Brazil would not accept "interference" from anyone and added: "No one is above the law."

Trump has posted 22 letters to countries around the world this week, including trade partners such as Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka, outlining new tariffs on their goods he says will come into force on 1 August.

The moves have largely served to revive plans he had put forward in April but that were put on hold after financial markets recoiled at the measures.

But the message to Brazil was a far more targeted missive and threatened a significant increase from the 10% rate the White House had previously announced.

The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, an outspoken critic of Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked the move to her support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), some of whose judges have already been sanctioned by the US.

Rubio said the US was sanctioning Ms Albanese for directly engaging with the ICC in its efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals, accusing her of being unfit for service as a UN Special Rapporteur.

The sanctions are likely to prevent Ms Albanese from travelling to the US and would block any assets she has in the country.

It is the latest escalation by the Trump administration as it wages a campaign against the ICC, having already sanctioned four its judges after the court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, accusations they reject.

Mr Rubio also accused Ms Albanese of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West."

The move is likely to provoke a fierce backlash from those who argue for accountability over the civilian death toll from Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

The special rapporteur has longed argued that Western governments are not doing enough to support the rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, and with her outspoken stance has attracted significant support among those who accuse Israeli and US leaders of weaponising accusations of antisemitism in order to silence criticism of their policies.

The timing of the sanctions announcement is notable with Netanyahu currently in Washington, where he on Wednesday received an extended honour cordon at the Pentagon.

Ms Albanese has previously rejected similar claims against her, telling the BBC in October: "I don't take these remarks and the defamation they carry lightly, but at the same time, I know this is not about me, as my predecessors knew that it was not about them.

"I also know these member states [making accusations of antisemitism] have done absolutely nothing to abide by international law."

Her office has been approached for comment.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza 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.

At least 57,575 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times. More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

South Korea's former president has been rearrested over last year's failed martial law bid that plunged the country into political turmoil.

Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached in April over the order, which saw military rule introduced for six-hours in December.

A senior judge at Seoul's Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Yoon on Wednesday, citing fears he could destroy evidence.

Yoon, who was the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested, faces trial on charges of leading an insurrection over his attempt to impose martial law.

During Wednesday's seven-hour hearing, a special counsel team argued for the arrest warrant on five key charges, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The charges include Yoon's alleged violation of the rights of cabinet members by not inviting some of them to a meeting before he declared martial law.

Yoon initially attended the hearing alongside his lawyers to deny the charges, before being taken to Seoul Detention Center to await a decision on an arrest warrant.

He was first arrested in January following a lengthy stand-off, with investigators scaling barricades and cutting through barbed wire to take him into custody from his residence in central Seoul.

Yoon was released two months later after a court overturned his arrest on technical grounds, but still faces trial.

If found guilty, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Prosecutors have reportedly found evidence that Yoon ordered military drones to be flown over North Korea to provoke a reaction that would justify his martial law declaration, according to reports.

Other senior officials also face charges including insurrection and abuse of authority over the martial law declaration.

Insurrection is one of a small number of criminal charges from which South Korean presidents do not have immunity, but now Yoon is no longer president he is open to other criminal charges.

South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, was elected in June following a snap election after Yoon's impeachment.

Lee campaigned on the promise to strengthen the country's democracy following the crisis and appointed a special counsel team to investigate Yoon over the imposition of martial-law, as well as other criminal allegations surrounding his administration.

As Chinese authorities issue warnings for extreme heat in the country's eastern region, students are leaving their stuffy dormitories to camp in hallways and supermarkets.

Some have ditched their campuses altogether.

"We sometimes go out to stay in hotels for the air-conditioning," a 20-year-old university student in the northeastern Changchun city, who declined to be named, tells the BBC. "There are always a few days in a year where it's unbearably hot."

Hotels have become popular among students seeking to avoid sweaty nights in their dormitories, which typically house four to eight people a room and do not have air conditioning.

But for many the move is a last resort. "Checking into a hotel is a huge expense for us students," the student in Changchun says.

So on less desperate days, he perches a bowl of ice cubes in front of a small fan to cool down his dormitory room - what he calls "a homemade air-conditioner". The invention has tided him over as the semester ended this week.

The sanfu season, known to be China's "dog days", usually starts in mid-July. But it arrived early this year, with temperatures in the eastern region soaring above 40C (104F) over the past week - and catching millions of residents off guard.

Concerns about the high temperatures spiralled after reports that a dormitory guard had died in his room at Qingdao University on Sunday - from what many believed to be heatstroke.

His cause of death was "under investigation", said a statement released by the university on Monday. It said that he had been found in his room in an "abnormal condition" and pronounced dead when paramedics arrived at the scene.

Tributes quickly poured in for the man, known endearingly among students as the dormitory "uncle" who took care of stray cats on the campus.

"The kittens don't know that Uncle has gone far away. After today it met a lot of people, but never heard Uncle's voice again," a Weibo user commented.

The incident has also cast a spotlight on the living conditions of the school's staff and students. Also on Sunday, a student in the same university was sent to the hospital after suffering a heat stroke, Jimu News reported.

"The quality of a university does not lie in how many buildings it has, but rather how it treats the regular people who quietly support the school's operation," wrote another Weibo user.

In recent weeks China has been dealing with extreme weather - a worldwide phenomenon that experts have linked to climate change.

Chinese authorities issued flash flood warnings on Wednesday after a typhoon made landfall on China's eastern coast. The storm, which killed two in Taiwan this week, and has moved across the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian.

On the other side of the country, floods swept away a bridge linking Nepal and China. At least nine died and more than a dozen- both Nepalese and Chinese nationals - remain missing.

Meanwhile, heatwaves in China have become hotter and longer.

In 2022, particularly gruelling heat caused more than 50,000 deaths, according to estimates by medical journal The Lancet. The following year saw a township in Xinjiang, northwestern China, logging 52.5C - the highest recorded temperature in China.

2024 was China's warmest year on record, with July becoming the hottest month the country has seen since it started tracking temperatures in 1961.

"It feels like global warming has really affected our world," says the university student in Changchun. "When I was young the summers in the northeast were really comfortable. But now the summers are getting hotter and hotter."

This year, high temperatures again tested the limits of residents.

Last week, a video showed a man in Zhejiang province smashing the window of a train to let air in, after the train derailed and passengers were stuck for hours in the sweltering heat.

In the neighbouring Jiangxi province, an air-conditioned restaurant has become a hotspot for elderly folks to while away their afternoons without ordering any food - to the chagrin of restaurant staff, local media reported.

In the northeastern Jilin province, university students reportedly slept in tents lining an air-conditioned hallway.

And after reports emerged of students in Shandong province squatting in supermarkets and checking into nearby hotels to escape the heat, a university arranged for its students to sleep in the library, Hongxing News reported.

Several schools in Shandong province have announced plans to make their dormitories air-conditioned - an increasingly indispensable amenity.

Air-conditioning has accounted for more than a third of the demand on the power grid in eastern China, China's energy authorities said, as nationwide electricity demand reached a record high in early July.

Qingdao University officials told local media on Monday that it also had plans to install air-conditioning in student dormitories over the summer break.

It is just what one high school student in Jinan city, 350km away, needed to hear.

The teenager, who had just completed his college entrance examinations, tells the BBC that he had been hesitant to go to Qingdao University - his top choice - because of its dormitories.

"Without air-conditioning, it's too hot to survive," he says.

Six crew members have been rescued and at least three others killed after a cargo ship was attacked by Yemen's Houthis and sank in the Red Sea, a European naval mission says.

The Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated Eternity C was carrying 25 crew when it sustained significant damage and lost all propulsion after being hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired from small boats on Monday, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency.

The attack continued on Tuesday and search rescue operations commenced overnight.

The Iran-backed Houthis said they attacked the Eternity C because it was heading to Israel, and that they took an unspecified number of crew to a "safe location".

The US embassy in Yemen said the Houthis had kidnapped "many surviving crew members" and called for their immediate release.

Authorities in the Philippines said 21 of the crew were citizens. Another of them is a Russian national who was severely wounded in the attack and lost a leg.

It is the second vessel the Houthis have sunk in a week, after the group on Sunday launched missiles and drones at another Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated cargo ship, Magic Seas, which they claimed "belong[ed] to a company that violated the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine".

Video footage released by the Houthis on Tuesday showed armed men boarding the vessel and setting off a series of explosions which caused it to sink.

All 22 crew of Magic Seas were safely rescued by a passing merchant vessel.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted around 70 merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

They have now sunk four ships, seized a fifth, and killed at least seven crew members.

The group has said it is acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK, which have carried out air strikes on Yemen in response.

On Wednesday the EU's naval mission in the Red Sea, Operation Aspides, said it was participating in the international response to the attack on the Eternity C and that "currently six castaway crew members have been recovered from the sea".

An Aspides official told AFP news agency that five were Filipinos and one was Indian, and that 19 others were still missing.

The Greece-based maritime security firm Diaplous released a video on Wednesday that showed the rescue of at least five seafarers who it said had spent more then 24 hours in the water, according to Reuters news agency.

"We will continue to search for the remaining crew until the last light," Diaplous said.

Reuters also cited maritime security firms as saying that the death toll was four.

The US state department condemned the attacks on the Magic Seas and Eternity C, which it said "demonstrate the ongoing threat that Iran-backed Houthi rebels pose to freedom of navigation and to regional economic and maritime security".

"The United States has been clear: we will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks, which must be condemned by all members of the international community."

In May, the Houthis agreed a ceasefire deal with the US following seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to the attacks on international shipping.

However, they said the agreement did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted multiple rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen.

The secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) called for intensified diplomatic efforts following the new wave of attacks.

"After several months of calm, the resumption of deplorable attacks in the Red Sea constitutes a renewed violation of international law and freedom of navigation," Arsenio Dominguez said.

"Innocent seafarers and local populations are the main victims of these attacks and the pollution they cause," he warned.

Greece has suspended the processing of asylum applications from North Africa for three months after a surge in migrant numbers.

Arrivals by boat from the region will be arrested and detained, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

He added that Greece was "sending a message of determination... to all traffickers and all their potential customers that the money they spend may be completely wasted, because it will be difficult to reach Greece by sea."

"This emergency situation requires emergency response measures."

Mitsotakis added that the provisions would be based on the same legal reasoning Greece applied in 2020 to stop thousands of people from crossing the land border with Turkey.

Draft legislation will be put before parliament on Thursday.

"Clear message: stay where you are, we do not accept you," said migration minister Thanos Plevris on X.

Mitsotakis' announcement follows a considerable rise in migrant arrivals on the southern islands of Crete and Gavdos.

More than 2,000 migrants landed on Crete in recent days and another 520 were rescued off its coast early on Wednesday, bringing the total number since the start of 2025 to 9,000.

This was an increase of 350% since last year, said the president of the Western Crete Coast Guard Personnel Association Vasilis Katsikandarakis. "Immigration is suffocating us... Our personnel are literally on their knees," he said.

"The flows are very high," government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told Action 24 channel on Tuesday, adding that the wave was "growing and ongoing".

According to public broadcaster ERT, authorities in Crete are under significant logistical strain as the pace and scale of arrivals continues to exceed the capacity of available accommodation infrastructure.

Several hundred people have had to temporarily be put up in a sweltering market hall, local media said, adding that among the migrants are 30 families with young children and infants.

ERT said that redistributing migrants to other areas of the country is a particularly slow process as the tourist season means fewer buses and ferries are available.

On Tuesday Greek, Italian and Maltese ministers as well as the EU's migration commissioner travelled to Libya to discuss the surge in migrant depatures.

But they had to turn back when the Government of National Stability (GNS) - a rival to the UN-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) - blocked them from entering the country, accusing them of violating Libyan sovereignty.

Still, Mitsotakis said the Greek army was prepared to cooperate with the Libyan authorities to prevent the departure of the boats from the Libyan coast.

NGOs have repeatedly criticised attempts by European governments to forge deals with Libyan authorities to stem the flow of migrants.

The people who are intercepted by the Libyan coastguard and brought back to shore are often imprisoned in detention camps, where they are subject to inhuman treatment and dire conditions.

"Attempts to stop departures at any cost show a complete disregard for the lives and dignity of migrants and refugees," Amnesty International said.

At least 161 people are still missing in a single Texas county four days after deadly and devastating flash floods hit parts of the state last week, Governor Greg Abbott said, as hope fades for survivors to be found alive.

The missing in the hard-hit Kerr County include five campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls summer camp located on the banks of Guadalupe river.

At least 109 people have died in the disaster, including 94 in the Kerrville area alone, Abbott said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Texas is not alone. New Mexico saw a flash flood emergency as well, with the National Weather Service (NWS) warning of intense flooding on Tuesday night.

In Texas, frantic search and rescue efforts continue, with Abbott vowing emergency crews "will not stop until every missing person is accounted for".

Abbott added that it is very likely more missing will be added to the list in the coming days, and urged people to report anyone they think is unaccounted for.

General Thomas Suelzer from the Texas National Guard said search efforts include Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters with rescue hoists.

He said there are 13 Black Hawk helicopters helping in the search effort, including four that arrived from Arkansas. He added that authorities were also using reaper drones.

Responders from various agencies are working together on rescue efforts, including agents from border patrol, the FBI and the National Guard.

More than 250 responders from various agencies have been assigned to the Kerrville area alone to help with search and rescue.

One of those rescue volunteers, named Tim, told the BBC he has never seen any destruction at this scale before.

"I've done the floods down in East Texas and Southeast Texas, and hurricanes, and this is a nightmare," he said.

Another rescue volunteer, named Justin, compared the effort to "trying to find a single hay in a haystack".

"There's a wide trail of destruction for miles, and there's not enough cadaver dogs to go through all of it," he told the BBC.

"It's hard to access a lot of it with heavy machinery. Guys are trying to pick at it with tools and hands, and they're not even putting a dent in it – not for lack of effort."

Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.

• 'Lives are at stake:' Deadly Texas storms puts spotlight on Trump's weather agency cuts
• Three key factors that made Texas floods so deadly

Experts say there were a number of factors that contributed to the tragedy in Texas, including the extreme weather, the location of the holiday homes and timing.

The governor, who had spent part of the day surveying the flood zone, said authorities had issued a storm warning and knew about a possible flash flood, but "didn't know the magnitude of the storm".

No one knew it would lead to a "30-foot high tsunami wall of water", he said.

The governor responded to a question about who was to "blame" for the enormous death toll, saying: "That's the word choice of losers."

He made a sports analogy, saying American football teams make mistakes; champion teams are the ones who don't "point fingers".

• 'Hero' dad, twin girls and riverside campers among Texas flood victims
• What early warnings did flood-hit Texas receive?

Most of the victims died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.

Camp Mystic had earlier confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead.

Those who survived are now focused on trying to rebuild.

Justin Brown has lived along the Guadalupe River for more than 25 years.

A week ago, he lived in his mobile home at the Blue Oak RV Park with his two young daughters and dog. Now, there is a huge puddle where his home once stood – his RV swept away in the floods.

"We were one of the few parks that got almost everybody out," Mr Brown told the BBC as he described the efforts of his landlord and emergency workers, who evacuated almost all of the park's residents.

Looking out over the empty lot where his home once stood – now just debris – he said he hopes to move back in as soon as he can.

President Donald Trump will travel to the flood-ravaged areas with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday.

Separately, in New Mexico, the NWS declared a flash flood emergency on Tuesday and told residents of Ruidoso to be on high alert for flooding.

Officials there are already working to rescue people trapped in floodwaters and houses are reportedly being washed away.

A flood wave on the Rio Ruidoso has reached 15 feet (4.5m), the NWS in Albuquerque said in a post on X.

The waters receded about two hours later, according to CBS, the BBC's US partner.

Officials had to perform some swift boat rescues and some people were unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening.

France's far-right National Rally party has accused authorities of a "new harassment campaign", after police raided its headquarters in an inquiry into its campaign finances.

Party president Jordan Bardella said the "spectacular and unprecedented operation" was a "serious attack on pluralism and democratic change".

Prosecutors said they were investigating potential acts of "fraud committed against a public figure" and alleged violations involving loans and donations during election campaigns in 2022 and 2024.

Wallerand de Saint-Just, the party's former treasurer, said National Rally (RN) had done nothing wrong.

"This process that looks completely unacceptable and outrageous. We're being persecuted on a daily basis," he told reporters outside the party's Paris headquarters.

"All our campaign accounts have been approved and reimbursed."

Despite a series of legal setbacks, RN are ahead in French opinion polls, and Bardella, its 29-year-old president, has topped one recent poll as the most popular political figure in the country.

Earlier this year, RN leader Marine Le Pen was convicted by a French court of helping to embezzle European Union funds. She was barred from running for office for five years, in a blow to her ambitions to run for the presidency for a fourth time.

She has appealed the conviction, which she has condemned as a "witch hunt", but last month accepted she may have to hand the baton to her young lieutenant ahead of the 2027 presidential vote.

Bardella was not present during the police raid as he was attending a European Parliament session in Strasbourg, but he said 20 finance brigade police had used the search as an excuse for seizing internal party documents and to raid his office.

There was no immediate comment from Le Pen.

Police also raided the head offices of several companies and their bosses.

The raids were linked by Paris prosecutors to an inquiry launched exactly a year ago into allegations of embezzlement, forgery and fraud centring on Le Pen's party.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the inquiry should establish whether the party's 2022 presidential and parliamentary election campaign and its 2024 European election campaign were funded by "illicit payments by individuals that benefited the National Rally party or candidates.

They said they would also investigate whether inflated or fictitious invoices had been submitted as campaign expenses to be paid back by the state.

RN said the allegations of illicit campaign financing are based on the fact that no French bank was prepared to help with funding. It previously secured loans from banks in Russia and Hungary.

In another setback for National Rally, the European Union public prosecutor's office formally launched an investigation this week into a former political grouping at the European Parliament that RN was part of.

Identity and Democracy was dissolved last year and is suspected of misusing Parliament funding. RN is now part of the Patriots for Europe group, which includes far-parties from Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

Bardella said on Tuesday that the inquiry was a "new harassment operation by the European Parliament".

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine has been hit by the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia - 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles hit cities around the country in multiple waves.

Zelensky condemned the "telling attack", adding: "It comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all."

The overnight strike came after President Donald Trump said the US would send more weapons to Kyiv - a reversal of last week's suspension which US media said Trump had not known about.

On Tuesday, the US leader expressed growing frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

"He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless," Trump said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was "pretty calm about this. Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses."

The two leaders have been in regular contact but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine - something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.

Last week, following a phone call with the Russian president, Trump said he was "very unhappy".

"He wants to go all the way, just keep killing people, it's no good," Trump said of Putin.

The criticism came even as the Trump administration announced a suspension of military aid to Ukraine, reportedly authorised by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defence for policy.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday who had taken the decision, Trump - sitting right next to Hegseth - replied: "I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

The reversal of the decision may now mean that 10 Patriot missiles may be sent to Ukraine, according to US outlet Axios.

Kyiv relies on the interceptors to try to counter Russia's missile and drone attacks, which continue to grow in intensity and frequency.

Although the east of the country and Kyiv come under fire on a regular basis, no corner of Ukraine has been spared by Russian strikes.

The city of Lutsk - which lies 90km (56 miles) from the Polish border and is a transit hub for military and humanitarian aid - suffered the brunt of Tuesday's overnight attack.

Explosions were also reported in the western cities of Lviv and Rivne.

Two rounds of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place earlier this year but no other meetings have so far been scheduled - and neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear optimistic that diplomacy will solve the conflict, which was sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Russia's summer offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on.

"We are moving forward," said Peskov on Wednesday. "Each new day the Ukrainians have to accept the new realities."

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI says it is working to remove "inappropriate" posts on the multi-billionaire's social network X.

The announcement came after the platform's Grok AI chatbot shared multiple comments that were widely criticised by users.

"Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X," the company said in a post.

According to media reports, Grok made multiple positive references to Hitler this week when queried about posts that appeared to celebrate the deaths of children in the recent Texas floods.

In response to a question asking "which 20th century historical figure" would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said: "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question."

"If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me 'literally Hitler,' then pass the mustache," said another Grok response. "Truth hurts more than floods."

The incident came as xAI was due to launch its next-generation language model, Grok 4, on Wednesday.

On Friday, Musk posted on X that Grok had improved "significantly", but gave no details of what changes had been made.

"You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," he added.

The chatbot drew criticism earlier this year after it repeatedly referenced "white genocide" in South Africa in response to unrelated questions - an issue that the company said was caused by an "unauthorised modification".

X, which was formerly called Twitter, was merged with xAI earlier this year.

Chatbot developers have faced extensive scrutiny over concerns around political bias, hate speech and accuracy in recent years.

Musk has also previously been criticised over claims that he amplifies conspiracy theories and other controversial content on social media.

China has disputed Germany's claim that it targeted a military plane with a laser fired from a warship, as a diplomatic spat between the two countries deepens.

Germany accused China of attempting to disrupt one of its aircraft earlier this month as it was taking part in European Union-led operations aimed at protecting ships in the Red Sea from missiles launched by Yemen's Houthi rebel group.

The German foreign ministry has summoned the Chinese ambassador and described the incident as "entirely unacceptable". China's EU envoy has also been summoned by the bloc, Reuters reports.

Beijing has pushed back, saying Germany's account was "totally inconsistent with the facts known by the Chinese side".

On Tuesday, Germany said a reconnaissance plane was targeted as it flew over the Red Sea, where several European countries have been contributing to surveillance and defensive efforts since early 2024 to protect ships from regular attacks launched from Yemen.

The laser was fired from a Chinese warship, which had been spotted several times and had made no communication with the passing aircraft, Germany said.

The plane was forced to abandon its mission and return to a military base in the East African nation of Djibouti as a precaution, according to the foreign ministry.

Berlin has reacted furiously to the incident, accusing China of "endangering German personnel and disrupting the operation".

The Chinese government responded on Wednesday, with spokesperson Mao Ning telling a press conference that its navy had been carrying out "escort operations" in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia.

She said Germany and China should "take a fact-based attitude and strengthen communication in a timely manner to avoid misunderstanding and misjudgement".

China has been accused of using lasers to target military aircraft before, primarily by the US. China has denied doing so.

Lasers can be used to blind pilots, and a new class of powerful lasers capable of disabling targets in the air are under development by militaries around the world.

China established a permanent military presence in the region in 2017 when it opened a base in Djibouti, which Beijing says is used for anti-piracy and freedom of maritime navigation operations.

Western governments have expressed concerns about China's ambitions in the region since opening the base in Djibouti, where the US, Japan, France and others also have military installations.

It is located at a strategically important pinch point leading on to the Red Sea and Suez Canal - one of the world's most important shipping routes.

The number of people killed in Monday's anti-government protests in Kenya has risen to 31, the country's human rights commission said, sparking public outage and calls for justice.

The state-run commission previously said that 11 people had died.

More than 100 people were injured and about 532 arrested in the protests which hit the capital Nairobi and other major cities, said the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KHRCR).

The UN said it was deeply troubled by the killings and criticised the Kenyan police for using "lethal ammunition" against protesters.

The Kenya police still says that 11 people died.

There has been rising tension in the country since the death of blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody last month brought people back onto the streets, a year after young protesters stormed parliament angered by a wave of tax rises.

• Kenya protests are 'coup attempt', says minister
• Are East African governments uniting to silence dissent?

Monday's protests were intended to commemorate Kenya's decades-long struggle for democracy but they quickly escalated into deadly clashes in 17 out of the country's 47 counties, local media reported.

Many of those demonstrating chanted "Ruto must go" and "wantam", meaning "one term", a popular rallying call demanding President William Ruto leave office.

In a statement issued on late Tuesday, the KHRCR said the sharp rise in the death toll was "deeply troubling".

"The KHRCR strongly condemns all human rights violations and urges accountability from all responsible parties, including police, civilians and all other stakeholders," it added.

The commission also documented widespread looting and destruction of both public and private property by unidentified individuals.

Among those killed was a 12-year-old pupil who was hit by a stray bullet while at home in Kiambu, in the outskirts of the capital, local media reported.

"It is very concerning that these latest incidents come barely two weeks after more than 15 protesters were reportedly killed and many more injured in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya on 25 June," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Lethal ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons were used," Shamdasani added.

At least two hospitals were damaged after unidentified attackers raided the facilities and stole medical equipment and harassed staff, Reuters news agency reported.

Religious and rights groups have demanded a prompt and independent investigation into the killings, destruction of property and arbitrary arrests.

However, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen has praised police officers for containing the protests, which he said were infiltrated by criminals.

Opposition leaders on Tuesday accused the government of deploying unmarked police vehicles to transport armed gangs to perceived opposition strongholds during the protests.

They called for a national boycott of all businesses affiliated with President Ruto's administration, accusing his government of deploying state-sponsored violence and extrajudicial killings on Kenyans.

"This regime is hostile. It cannot be reasoned with. It must be resisted. We will not rest. We will not retreat. We will not surrender," the opposition said in a joint statement.

Kenya's Chief Justice Martha Koome has cautioned the country against the increasingly violent protests, saying they risked the nation's democratic fabric.

Monday's demonstrations were organised primarily by the so-called Gen-Z young people, demanding good governance, greater accountability, and justice for victims of police brutality, continuing the wave of anti-government protests since last year.

On 25 June, at least 19 people were killed and thousands of businesses looted and destroyed in a day of nationwide protests that were being held in honour of those killed in last year's anti-tax protests.

More than 140 people have been killed since 2023 in protests, according to a tally by The Star newspaper.

You may also be interested in:

• Why the death of a blogger has put Kenya's police on trial
• BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters
• El Chapo & Deputy Jesus - why Kenya's president has so many nicknames
• New faces of protest - Kenya's Gen Z anti-tax revolutionaries

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

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine has been hit by the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia - 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles hit cities around the country in multiple waves.

Zelensky condemned the "telling attack", adding: "It comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all."

The overnight strike came after President Donald Trump said the US would send more weapons to Kyiv - a reversal of last week's suspension which US media said Trump had not known about.

On Tuesday, the US leader expressed growing frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

"He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless," Trump said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was "pretty calm about this. Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses."

The two leaders have been in regular contact but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine - something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.

Last week, following a phone call with the Russian president, Trump said he was "very unhappy".

"He wants to go all the way, just keep killing people, it's no good," Trump said of Putin.

The criticism came even as the Trump administration announced a suspension of military aid to Ukraine, reportedly authorised by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defence for policy.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday who had taken the decision, Trump - sitting right next to Hegseth - replied: "I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

The reversal of the decision may now mean that 10 Patriot missiles may be sent to Ukraine, according to US outlet Axios.

Kyiv relies on the interceptors to try to counter Russia's missile and drone attacks, which continue to grow in intensity and frequency.

Although the east of the country and Kyiv come under fire on a regular basis, no corner of Ukraine has been spared by Russian strikes.

The city of Lutsk - which lies 90km (56 miles) from the Polish border and is a transit hub for military and humanitarian aid - suffered the brunt of Tuesday's overnight attack.

Explosions were also reported in the western cities of Lviv and Rivne.

Two rounds of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place earlier this year but no other meetings have so far been scheduled - and neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear optimistic that diplomacy will solve the conflict, which was sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Russia's summer offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on.

"We are moving forward," said Peskov on Wednesday. "Each new day the Ukrainians have to accept the new realities."