Former Harvard University President Larry Summers said he will step back from public commitments after his emails with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein were made public.

"I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein," Summers said in a statement obtained by the BBC's US partner, CBS News on Monday.

In emails released by Congress last week, Summers, a former US treasury secretary, communicated with Epstein until the day before Epstein's 2019 arrest for sex trafficking minors.

On Tuesday, House members are expected to vote on releasing all files related to Epstein.

The move comes after the US Department of Justice announced that it would investigate Epstein's "involvement and relationship" with former President Bill Clinton, who was also a friend of Epstein, and several other prominent Democrats.

The justice department's decision comes after urging from Trump, who also asked for Summers, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and banks JP Morgan and Chase, to be investigated.

"Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat's problem, not the Republican's problem!" he wrote on social media.

"They all know about him, don't waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!"

Clinton has strongly denied he had any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.

Summers served as treasury secretary under Clinton and director of the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama. He was president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006 and is currently a professor there.

In Summers' statement on Monday night, he said he wanted "to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me".

"While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort," he said.

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington where Summers was a senior fellow, announced on its website on Monday that he is no longer affiliated with the center.

The emails released by the House Oversight Committee last week indicate that Summers and Epstein met for dinner frequently, with Epstein often trying to connect Summers to prominent global figures. At one point, in July 2018, Epstein proposed a meeting with the "president [sic] of united nations, interesting person for you".

In a separate email just after US President Trump's first election in 2016, Summers told Epstein to "spend zero effort on anything about me with Trump".

Due to Trump's "approach to conflict of interest", Putin "proximity", and "mindless response" to Cuban leader Fidel Castro's death, Summers said he was "best off a million miles away".

A representative for Summers previously told US media that he "deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction" in 2008 for soliciting an underage prostitute.

The emails include many high-profile figures. A review by The Wall Street Journal found that Trump was mentioned in more than 1,600 of the 2,324 email threads.

Trump was a friend of Epstein's for years, but the president has said they fell out in the early 2000s, two years before Epstein was first arrested. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. While he was discussed in some messages released last week, he did not send or receive them.

A South African man who was seen attending neo-Nazi rally outside an Australian state parliament has had his visa revoked.

Matthew Gruter, who has been Australia since 2022, took part in an anti-Jewish protest outside the New South Wales parliament organised by the National Socialist Network earlier this month.

He was seen in the front row of around 60 men clad in black, who held up a banner that said "Abolish the Jewish lobby", Australian media reports.

Australia has seen a recent rise in right-wing extremism. Its government made the Nazi salute punishable by a mandatory prison term earlier this year.

Australia's Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed the cancellation of Mr Gruter's visa, saying: "If you are on a visa, you are a guest.

"If you're a citizen, you're a full member of the Australian family. Like with any household, if a guest turns up to show hatred and wreck the household, they can be told it's time to go home."

Mr Gruter moved to Australia with his wife and works as a civil engineer, according to ABC News.

The National Socialist Network, which organised the rally on 8 November, is a well-known neo-Nazi group in Australia. Mr Gruter is a senior member of the group in New South Wales, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Protesters repeatedly chanted "blood and honour", a slogan associated with the Hitler Youth, according to ABC News.

It last less than 20 minutes and was legally authorised, the Guardian reports.

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

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Aid agencies have reiterated calls for Israel to allow more tents and urgently needed supplies into Gaza after the first heavy winter rainfall, saying more than a quarter of a million families need emergency help with shelters.

"We are going to lose lives this winter. Children, families will perish," says Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

"It's actually so frustrating that we've now lost so many crucial weeks since the adoption of the Trump peace plan, which said humanitarian aid would flow and the Palestinians would not needlessly continue to suffer."

With a majority of the population displaced by two-years of a devastating war, most Gazans now live in tents - many of them makeshift.

They have been clearing up after widespread flooding due to a winter storm that began on Friday.

There are fears that diseases could spread as rainwater has mixed with sewage water.

"My children are already sick and look at what happened to our tent," said Fatima Hamdona, crying in the rain over the weekend, as she showed a BBC freelance journalist the ankle-deep puddle inside her temporary home in Gaza City.

"We don't have food - the flour got all wet. We're people who've been destroyed. Where do we go? There's no shelter for us to go to now."

The story was the same in the southern city of Khan Younis.

"Our clothes, mattresses and blankets were flooded," said Nihad Shabat, as she tried to dry out her possessions there on Monday.

Her family has been sleeping inside a shelter made of sheets and blankets.

"We're worried about getting flooded again. We cannot afford to buy a tent."

A recent UN report found that across Gaza more than 80% of buildings had been destroyed and 92% in Gaza City.

According to the NRC - which has long led the so-called Shelter Cluster in Gaza, made up of some 20 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) - about 260,000 Palestinian families, or about 1.5 million people, are in need of emergency shelter assistance, lacking the basics to get through winter.

The NGOs say they have been able to get only about 19,000 tents into Gaza since the US-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect on 10 October.

They say they have 44,000 pallets of aid - containing non-food items, including tents and bedding - blocked from entering. Supplies that have been bought are currently stuck in Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

Jan Egeland blames what he calls "a bureaucratic, military, politicised quagmire" running "counter to all humanitarian principles" for the hold-up.

In March, Israel introduced a new registration process for aid groups working in Gaza, citing security reasons. It requires that they give lists of their local Palestinian staff.

However, aid groups say that data protection laws in donor countries prevent them from handing over such information.

Many items, including tent poles, are also classed as "dual-use" by Israel, meaning they have a military as well as civilian purpose, and their entry is banned or heavily restricted.

The BBC has asked Cogat, the Israeli defence body that controls the border crossings, for details on numbers of imported tents but it has yet to respond.

On Sunday it posted on X: "Over the last few months, in preparation for the winter and protection from the rain, COGAT coordinated with the international community and facilitated close to 140,000 tarpaulins directly to the residents of the Gaza Strip."

"We call on international organizations to coordinate more tents and tarpaulins and other winter humanitarian responses."

It says it is working with the new US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) that has been set up in southern Israel and other international partners to plan "a catered humanitarian response for the upcoming winter".

International aid groups are hoping that the CMCC - which will oversee implementation of President Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan - will help ease restrictions on their work.

With a foreign donor conference on reconstruction in the Palestinian territory expected to take place in Egypt soon, they say basic shelter supplies must be allowed to enter while longer-term plans are developed.

"It would not be a good thing if all these nations meet in Cairo to discuss long-term reconstruction for Palestinians in great need if they die before their high-rise buildings can be reconstructed," says Mr Egeland, who was previously the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator.

"They need a tent today, they don't need a promise of a beachfront structure in five years."

Palestinians have told the BBC that many tents - brought in by international agencies and Gulf donors - have been stolen and are available on the black market in Gaza.

They say that with a small increase in supply, prices have dropped from about $2,700 (2,330 euros; £2,050) before the ceasefire, to around $900-$1,000.

There are pleas for international help to distribute more shelters, more fairly.

"I hope everyone will join with us to end this crisis we're living through," says Alaa al-Dirghali in Khan Younis. "The tents endured two years under the sun and two years under the rain and they couldn't last this downpour."

"Until this moment, people are re-erecting these broken tents because they don't have any alternative. I pray to God that those responsible for handing out tents will give them to those who actually need them. They're getting stolen and sold to people at a very expensive price."

In Gaza City, Rami Deif Allah, who was displaced from Beit Hanoun, was drying out soaked mattresses in the weak sunshine, with his elderly mother and children.

He said a relative had given him a waterproof tent but that it was still flooded.

"We evacuated about 11 times and there was no safe place for us so we took shelter in these humble tents but it was all in vain. When the rain came they couldn't protect us," he said. "The water flooded us from above and below."

Like all Gazans, Rami longs for a permanent dwelling.

"We pray for this war to be fully over, and for everyone to return to their homes," he went on. "Even if we don't find our houses standing, with our sweat and blood we will rebuild. This situation of living out on the streets is unbearable."

Freebies are powering election victories in India, but can its states afford them?

Over the years, handouts have taken different forms in the hotly contested political landscape of the world's largest democracy. Voters have been lured with everything from television sets to bicycles and sometimes even gold ornaments - blurring the fine line between welfare economics and pre-poll populism.

In recent years, cash transfers, especially directed towards women, have become a popular election-winning strategy for political parties of all stripes.

A sweeping victory last week in the eastern state of Bihar - India's poorest state - for an alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being credited in part to a 10,000 rupee ($112; £85.18) cash handout to the state's women. A record number of women turned out to vote in the election.

Similar women-oriented financial support schemes were launched by Modi's party in other states like Maharashtra ahead of polls last year. Opposition parties have also promised similar schemes in some states ahead of elections.

Economists like Jean Drèze have argued in favour of such giveaways. He says that while distinguishing between "useful" and "wasteful" handouts is important, it is only by extracting promises during elections that the poor in India get anything at all from their political representatives.

On the other hand, despite his party's own track record on the issue, Modi has in the past warned of the dangers of "revdi culture" - likening election giveaways to the frivolous distribution of sweets. India's top court had also sought to curb the distribution of such "irrational freebies" during elections back in 2023.

While there is broad agreement on the need for targeted subsidies to challenge the use of handouts as electoral bait, Indian elections are increasingly dominated by unaffordable, poll-driven freebie economics that states can ill afford.

According to research from brokerage Emkay Global, Bihar is facing considerable fiscal pressure, with the deficit or gap between what the state earns and spends at 6% of its gross domestic product (GDP).

Despite this, the state announced pre-election schemes amounting to 4% of GDP, more than its capital outlay - money that could have been spent in job-creating, long-term assets that would have aided the state's development.

It is just one example in a litany of states practising indiscriminate election populism, according to Emkay Global.

"Even good [fiscally prudent] states are now in the grip of freebie economics," the brokerage said, as a result of which the 3% fiscal deficit to GDP ceiling that has been mandated for states, to curb non-budgeted spending, is now actually the floor.

Some estimates suggest that 21 of India's 29 states have crossed this 3% deficit target, with disproportionate costs imposed by election-driven spending being one of the reasons.

The fact that such populism is unsustainable is illustrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance's Ladki Bahin (Beloved Sister) financial assistance scheme, which led to a 0.4% jump in Maharashtra state's deficit, according to Emkay Global. It forced the government to roll back some of the promises once the polls were over.

India's central bank has also flagged the rising burden of such subsidies on state-level debt as a key emerging concern.

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), while overall debt of Indian states declined to about 28.5% of GDP by March 2024 compared with the levels seen over the past decade, it remains well above the 20% recommended threshold, with new pressures emerging in the form of an increasing subsidy burden.

"An area of incipient stress is the sharp rise in expenditure on subsidies, driven by farm loan waivers, free/subsidised services (like electricity to agriculture and households, transport, gas cylinder) and cash transfers to farmers, youth and women," the RBI said in its 2024-25 report on state finances.

"States need to contain and rationalise their subsidy outgoes, so that such spending does not crowd out more productive expenditure."

This warning comes as the private sector continues to hold back on investment in new job-creating factories, and the government, forced to slow its own capital spending on infrastructure, turns instead to tax cuts and giveaways to spur middle-class consumption.

But with freebies seeing such success in Bihar - and more state elections looming - that warning is unlikely to be heeded.

"This [Bihar] election outcome reinforces the freebie wave that has swept states in the last two years, and with Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and crucially, West Bengal going to polls next year, one can expect this race to the bottom to continue," Emkay Global economists Medhavi Arora and Harshal Patel said in their note.

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Canada's parliament has narrowly approved Prime Minister Mark Carney's first federal budget, allowing his minority Liberal government to avert an early election.

The fiscal plan, which raises Canada's deficit to a projected C$78 bn ($55.3 bn; £42.47 bn), was passed thanks to crucial support from opposition MPs, including Green Party leader Elizabeth May.

Many opposition lawmakers have sharply criticised the fiscal plan - the second largest in history. The plan passed with 170 votes in favour and 168 against it.

Carney, who served as the former central banker for both Canada and the UK, has defended the budget as a "generational investment" to help Canada strengthen its economy.

The vote was crucial for Carney's Liberal government, which currently sits two seats short of a majority.

It meant that if all 169 Liberal MPs voted in support, the budget would need the backing from either two opposition MPs, or have four opposition MPs abstain.

Two NDP MPs abstained along with House Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia, who casts a vote in the event of a tie. Conservative MPs Shannon Stubbs and Matt Jeneroux - who announced earlier this month that he was resigning - also abstained.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May's support also proved crucial. May told reporters she voted yes based on commitments made by Carney that he would support Canada's climate targets.

"Without what I heard from the Prime Minister today, I would have voted no," she said.

• Six takeaways from Canada's federal budget

The Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, and the Quebec nationalist Bloc Québécois both voted against the budget, accusing Carney's government of failing to address affordability concerns.

Poilievre labelled the budget a "credit card budget", arguing it does little to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

"The Prime Minister's costly deficit gambles our future on the national credit card," Poilievre said in the House of Commons on Monday ahead of the vote.

Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who supported the budget, raised concerns of his own, suggesting that while the plan offered much-needed investment, it fell short in addressing Canada's housing crisis and stalled progress on climate action.

The budget proposes C$140bn of new spending over the next five years "to strengthen Canada's productivity, competitiveness, and resilience".

It includes money to update ports and other trade infrastructure with the goal of doubling Canadian exports to non-US markets over the next decade.

Additionally, the plan allocates direct support for businesses hurt by US tariffs on Canadian goods, with Carney's government projecting the initiatives will attract C$1 trillion in private sector investment over the next five years.

To balance the fiscal plan, Carney has proposed cutting the federal workforce by 10% over the coming years - a move that has drawn strong criticism from public sector employees, who cautioned that a leaner federal workforce would slow government operations.

The budget was first put forward in early November, and has already survived two votes.

• Canada's Carney welcomes MP who defected to the Liberals
• Conservatives accuse Carney of being 'undemocratic' as MP resigns

Debate around it had been partially eclipsed by partisan drama between Carney's Liberals and the Conservative opposition, who lost a member of their caucus to the Liberals shortly after the fiscal plan was proposed.

Chris d'Entremont of Nova Scotia said he defected over what he believed was Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's "negative" style of politics. He added that the Liberal budget "hits the priorities" of his constituents.

Another Conservative lawmaker, Matt Jeneroux of Alberta, later resigned from parliament that same week, saying he did so to spend more time with family.

The departures fuelled questions about Poilievre's leadership. On Wednesday, he told reporters that he plans to stay on as leader.

"My plan is to continue to lead and be the only leader that's fighting for an affordable Canada where our people who work hard can afford a home and food," Poilievre said.

A US federal judge says "investigative missteps" and "government misconduct" may have tainted the Trump administration's criminal case against former FBI director James Comey.

In a 24-page opinion, Judge William Fitzpatrick ordered justice department lawyers to release grand jury materials, including transcripts and evidence, to Comey's defence team. The justice department has appealed against the order.

Comey was charged in September after President Donald Trump called for his prosecution and appointed a new federal prosecutor to pursue the case.

Comey, who has long drawn Trump's ire, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include obstructing a congressional investigation.

The former FBI chief was fired by Trump during his first term, after Comey led an investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Since then, Comey has been a frequent target of the two-term US president.

Comey was accused of lying to lawmakers during a congressional hearing in 2020 about his Russian election interference investigation.

After other federal prosecutors had reportedly declined to pursue the case against Comey, citing lack of evidence, Trump tapped Lindsey Halligan as the lead prosecutor in the case. She secured an indictment three days later.

An indictment in the US justice system is a formal accusation issued by a grand jury - a group of citizens who examine the merits of evidence - to determine if a case should proceed.

Comey was formally charged in October in a federal court in Virginia where he pleaded not guilty.

His defence team has not only taken issue with the legality of Halligan's quick appointment to the role of interim US attorney, a process by which she circumvented congressional approval, but also filed motions over how she brought the Comey indictment.

On Monday, Judge Fitzpatrick wrote that he identified at least two statements Halligan made to grand jurors that could be seen as "fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process".

One statement Halligan made, the judge noted, "suggests" that grand jury "did not have to rely on only the record before them", and that there was "more evidence - perhaps better evidence" that the government had that would be used at trial.

In granting Comey's defence team access to all grand jury materials, Judge Fitzpatrick has also ordered the justice department to hand over complete audio recordings of the proceedings.

"The court recognizes this is an extraordinary remedy," Judge Fitzpatrick said.

He continued: "Under these unique circumstances (it) is necessary to fully protect the rights of the accused."

Since 2018, the United States has been tightening its laws to prevent its rivals from buying into its sensitive sectors – blocking investments in everything from semiconductors to telecommunications.

But the rules weren't always so strict.

In 2016, Jeff Stein, a veteran journalist covering the US intelligence community, got a tip-off: a small insurance company that specialised in selling liability insurance to FBI and CIA agents had been sold to a Chinese entity.

"Someone with direct knowledge called me up and said, 'Do you know that the insurance company that insures intelligence personnel is owned by the Chinese?'" he remembers. "I was astonished!"

In 2015, the insurer, Wright USA, had been quietly purchased by Fosun Group, a private company believed to have very close connections with China's leadership.

US concerns became immediately clear: Wright USA was privy to the personal details of many of America's top secret service agents and intelligence officials. No one in the US knew who might have access to that information now the insurer and its parent, Ironshore, were Chinese-owned.

Wright USA wasn't an isolated case.

The BBC has exclusive early access to brand new data that shows how Chinese state money has been flowing into wealthy countries, buying up assets in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Australia.

In the past couple of decades China has become the world's biggest overseas investor, giving it the potential to dominate sensitive industries, secrets and key technologies. Beijing considers the details of its foreign spending overseas – how much money it's spending and where - to be a state secret.

But on the terms of the Wright USA sale, Stein says: "There was nothing illegal about it; it was in the open, so to speak. But because everything's intertwined so closely in Beijing, you're essentially giving that [information] up to Chinese intelligence."

The Chinese government was involved in the deal: fresh data seen by the BBC reveals that four Chinese state banks had provided a $1.2bn (£912m) loan, routed through the Cayman Islands, to allow Fosun to buy Wright USA.

Stein's story ran in Newsweek magazine. And there was a swift reaction in Washington: triggering an inquiry by the branch of the US Treasury that screens investments, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Shortly after, the company was sold again - back to Americans. It's unclear who ordered that sale.

Fosun and Starr Wright USA, the company that now owns Wright USA, did not respond to a BBC request for comment.

High-level US intelligence sources confirm the Wright USA sale was one of the cases that led the first Trump administration to tighten its investment laws in 2018.

Very few could have understood at the time that this Chinese state-backed spending appears to have been part of a much bigger strategy carried out by Beijing to invest and buy assets in every continent.

"For many years, we assumed that virtually all of China's money flows were going to developing countries," says Brad Parks, executive director of AidData. "And so, it came as a great surprise to us when we realised that actually there were hundreds of billions of dollars going into places like the US, the UK and Germany, happening right underneath our noses."

AidData is a research lab based in Virginia that specialises in tracking how governments spend their money outside their borders. It's based at William & Mary, one of America's oldest universities and it gets its funding from governments and charitable organisations around the world. For the past 12 years, AidData has had a major focus on China.

A four-year effort involving 120 researchers has led to the first known effort to tally all of China's state-backed investments around the world. The group's entire dataset is available open source although the BBC was given exclusive advance access.

AidData's key discovery: since 2000, Beijing has spent $2.1 trillion outside its borders, with a roughly equal split between developing and wealthy countries.

"China has a kind of financial system that the world has never seen," says Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Centre at University of California San Diego. China has the largest banking system in the world – larger than the US, Europe and Japan put together, he adds.

That size, along with the amount of control Beijing exerts over state banks, gives it unique capabilities.

"The government controls interest rates and directs where the credit goes," Mr Shih says. "This is only possible with very strict capital control, which no other country could have on a sustainable basis."

Some of the investments in wealthy economies appear to have been made in order to generate a healthy return. Others fall in line with Beijing's strategic objectives, set out a decade ago in a major government initiative called Made in China 2025.

In it the Chinese authorities outlined a clear plan to dominate 10 cutting-edge industries, like robotics, electric vehicles and semiconductors by this year.

Beijing wanted to fund big investments abroad so key technologies could be brought back to China.

Global alarm at the plan led China to drop public mention of it, but Victor Shih says it "stayed very much alive" as a guiding strategy.

"There are all kinds of plans still being published," he says, "including an artificial intelligence plan and a smart manufacturing plan. However, the mother of all plans is the 15th five-year plan."

At a key meeting of the Communist Party last month, China's leaders set the goal of accelerating "high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement" until 2030.

AidData's new database highlights state-backed spending overseas that matches the 10 sectors targeted in 2015. The BBC's earlier reporting detailed how the Chinese government bankrolled the purchase of a UK semiconductor company.

The United States, the UK and many other major economies have tightened their investment screening mechanisms after each country appears to have been caught off-guard by deals like the sale of the insurer, Wright USA.

AidData's Brad Parks says wealthy governments didn't realise at first that Chinese investments in each country were part of Beijing's larger strategy.

"At first blush, they thought it was just a lot of individual initiative from Chinese companies," he says. "I think what they've learned over time is that actually Beijing's party state is behind the scenes writing the cheques to make this happen."

However, it must be underlined that such investments and purchases are legal, even if they are sometimes obscured within shell companies or routed through offshore accounts.

"The Chinese government has always required Chinese enterprises operating overseas to strictly comply with local laws and regulations, and has consistently supported them in conducting international co-operation based on mutual benefit," the Chinese embassy in London told the BBC.

"Chinese companies not only provide quality products and services to people around the world, but also contribute actively to local economic growth, social development and job creation."

China's spending patterns are changing, the AidData database shows, with Beijing's state money flowing to countries that have decided to welcome Chinese investment.

In the Netherlands there's been debate around Nexperia, a troubled Chinese-owned semiconductor company.

It shows up in the AidData database too – Chinese state banks loaned $800m to help a Chinese consortium acquire Nexperia in 2017. Two years later, the ownership passed to another Chinese company - Wingtech.

Nexperia's strategic value was highlighted when the Dutch authorities took control of the company's operations in September - in part, the Dutch government said, over concerns that Nexperia's technology was at risk of being transferred to other parts of the larger Wingtech company.

That bold move had resulted in Nexperia effectively being cut into two – separating Dutch operations from its Chinese manufacturing.

Nexperia confirmed to the BBC that its Chinese business had stopped operating within Nexperia's governance framework and was ignoring instructions.

The company said it welcomed China's commitment to resuming exports of its critical chips to global markets.

Xioaxue Martin, a research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, says many in the Netherlands were surprised at how the government handled the case, since they've always managed their relationship with China carefully in the past.

"We're a country that has always done very well with open trade, free trade. And this is really the merchant side of Dutch policy," she says. "Only recently we found that actually, hold on - geopolitics makes it necessary to have more industrial policy, to have this investment screening, when in the past there wasn't that much attention for this."

Xiaoxue Martin is clear – it's easy to go too far down the path of fearing what could happen as a result of doing so much business with a superpower like China.

"There's a danger of making it seem as if China is this monolith, that they all want the same thing, and that they're all out to get Europe, and to get the United States, when obviously that's not the case," she says.

"Most companies, especially if they're private, they just want to make money. They want to be treated as a normal company. They don't want to have this negative reception that they're getting in Europe."

If China is so far ahead of its rivals in its plans to buy into sensitive sectors, does that mean the race to dominate these arenas is already over?

"No! There's gonna be multiple laps," maintains Brad Parks. "There are many Chinese companies that are still trying to make these types of acquisitions. The difference is, now they're facing higher levels of scrutiny to vet these inbound sources of foreign capital.

"So China makes its move. China is not the follower any more, it is the leader. It is the pace setter. But what I'm anticipating is that many G7 countries are going to move from the back foot to the front foot.

"They're going to move from defence to offence."

This is part of the Global Women series from the BBC World Service, sharing extraordinary interviews and stories from around the globe.

"I hated that I looked Asian, that I didn't have blue eyes and blonde hair, because that's what was beautiful at the time," says Arden Cho, the actress who voiced Rumi, star of Netflix's chart-topping animated film, KPop Demon Hunters.

Cho, 40, is describing her childhood in Texas, as the eldest daughter of Korean immigrant parents and her struggle for acceptance in American society.

In the film, which tells the story of a female K-Pop trio who must save the world from evil forces, Rumi has to come to terms with her identity as part human, part demon - and when Cho first read the script this resonated powerfully.

"Being born in America, feeling American but having people treat me like I'm not, trying to figure out my identity as an Asian-American, as a Korean-American, as a woman," she says.

These were all elements of her early life that mirrored Rumi's journey.

"I can honestly say that at different points in my life, I hated a lot of myself and I wanted to be someone else.

"As kids, what you see shapes who you become and I feel like I just didn't see enough people that look like me."

When it launched on Netflix in June, KPop Demon Hunters registered 33 million views in just two weeks, and reached the top 10 of the Netflix charts in 93 countries. To star in the first Hollywood animated film set in Korea, with Korean leads, was for Cho "a dream come true" – but it has also made her a powerful role model for Asian-American children, of the kind that she lacked when she was young.

Cho says many Korean-Americans have told her it's "such a refreshing moment", making them proud for the first time of their dual heritage and culture.

"I feel like K-Pop really, truly, has paved the way. K-beauty has had such a big impact on Korea being loved. But I feel like this movie is the one that tipped it over the edge of, everybody wants to go to Korea, now," Cho says.

But the film's success was not guaranteed and Cho says she felt the team making it were "sometimes facing an uphill battle".

"I feel like it kind of sucks to say this, but any time there's an Asian-led project, people feel like it's a risk," she says.

So, when she took on the role, she made an effort to meet everyone working on the film in person, she says.

The film was released against the backdrop of increased immigration raids in the US as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation effort, which sparked protests in many states.

As an Asian-American living in the US "it's heartbreaking and disappointing," says Cho. "Immigrants have made America what it is."

Korean news sources have estimated that up to 150,000 Korean immigrants without proper documentation, including adopted children, are among those who could be deported.

As an adult, Cho came to realise that the racism she had experienced when she was younger stemmed mainly from a lack of education, as people didn't know what it meant to be Korean or Asian.

"But now in this day and age, when I feel like the world and people should know better, it is beyond disappointing and sometimes I feel like we feel so hopeless," she says.

Because of this, it feels very special, she says, that KPop Demon Hunters could bring "hope and joy and love to all these different communities".

"Maybe that's why it's sort of like this movie of the summer, because we just needed some hope and something to unite us all together."

The growth of AI is a major concern for the film industry, raising the possibility that in future it could be used to make a film like KPop Demon Hunters.

Cho says she is aware that AI is already being used to replicate actors' voices, but wants to "have hope in humanity" that people will still seek out art created by humans.

"Sure, I'm sure they're going to have AI actors and singers. I know they already exist. I know our voices are already being manipulated, but I hope people have some respect and want and love for something real."

KPop Demon Hunters has also been dominating the global music charts, with seven tracks from its soundtrack featured on the Billboard Hot 100. It has its own fan art, and audiences around the world are demanding a sequel.

Cho tells us she wishes she could answer the question of whether that will happen - but both she and fans will have to wait for Netflix or Sony Pictures Entertainment, which made the film, to give it the green light.

"I know there's lots of murmurs, I've heard wonderful things," she says. "So we shall see, and I think everyone in the world would riot if there wasn't."

• Starting conversations, building connections and challenging misinformation through features, investigations, interviews and extraordinary stories

The UN Security Council has voted in favour of a US-drafted resolution, which endorses Donald Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza.

Included in the plan is the establishment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF), which the US says multiple unnamed countries have offered to contribute to.

The resolution was backed by 13 countries - including the UK, France and Somalia - with none voting against the proposal. Russia and China abstained.

Hamas has rejected the resolution, saying it fails to meet Palestinians' rights and demands.

The plan "imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject," the group said on Telegram.

"Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favour of the occupation," it added.

According to reports on the latest draft, part of the ISF's role would be to work on the "permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups" - including Hamas - as well as protecting civilians and humanitarian aid routes.

This would require Hamas, proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, to hand over its weapons - something it is meant to do under Trump's peace plan.

As well as authorising an ISF, which it says would work with Israel and Egypt - Gaza's southern neighbour - the draft also calls for creation of a newly trained Palestinian police in Gaza.

Until now, the police there have operated under the authority of Hamas.

Mike Waltz, the US's ambassador to the UN, told the Council that the ISF would be "tasked with securing the area, supporting the demilitarization of Gaza, dismantling the terrorist infrastructure, removing weapons, and ensuring the safety of Palestinian civilians".

The initial phase of the plan - a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the handing over of hostages and detainees - came into force on 10 October. Waltz described it as a "fragile, fragile first step".

The ISF is a central plank of Trump's plan which also includes establishing a so-called Board of Peace, which the US president himself is expected to head.

Financing for reconstruction of Gaza following two years of war would come from a trust fund backed by the World Bank, according to the resolution.

The draft also raises the possibility of a Palestinian state - something Israel strongly opposes. A path to future statehood was included following pressure from key Arab states.

Trump's peace plan in effect suspended the fighting between Israel and Hamas which had raged since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in that attack.

More than 69,483 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

South Africa has said it does not want to receive any more chartered flights carrying Palestinians, days after the controversial arrival of 153 passengers from Gaza in the country.

Many aspects of their arrival remain unclear and disputed.

The flight was part of "a clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank", Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said on Monday.

The Israeli authorities have not responded to this allegation. However, they said that South Africa had previously agreed to receive the 153 Palestinians.

The BBC has asked the South African authorities to comment.

The Palestinian embassy in South Africa has said the group left Israel's Ramon Airport and flew to the country via the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, "without any prior note or coordination".

It said that "an unregistered and misleading organization" had exploited the plight of the Gaza citizens, "deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner".

The Palestinian foreign ministry went on to say, through the embassy, that it was working with South Africa to "address this situation resulting from this lapse".

The flight at the centre of the dispute arrived on Thursday, at South Africa's OR Tambo International Airport.

The passengers were initially refused entry into the country and were stuck on the plane for more than 10 hours.

Authorities in South Africa, which has strongly supported the Palestinian cause during the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, said this was because the passengers did not have departure stamps in their passports. Palestinians are allowed to travel to South Africa for 90 days without a visa.

Eventually, the group was allowed to disembark after intervention from a local charity. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said this was out of "empathy [and] compassion". Twenty-three of the passengers had already taken flights elsewhere so 130 were allowed into the country, South African authorities said.

During a media briefing about South Africa's readiness to host the G20 Leaders' Summit, taking place this weekend, Lamola said Thursday's flight looked like it was part of a "broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world".

"[This] is a clearly orchestrated operation because they are not only being sent to South Africa. There are other countries where such flights have been sent," he said, without giving any details. He added that the matter was being investigated.

Two weeks ago, another plane carrying 176 Palestinians landed in Johannesburg, with some of the passengers proceeding to other countries, according to the local Gift of the Givers charity that is assisting the arrivals.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly spoken about resettling Palestinians from Gaza "voluntarily" - a move that has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and many in the international community.

Speaking a day after the flight arrived, South Africa's president said the Palestinians "somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi" and flew to South Africa, according to local online publication News24.

Israeli military body Cogat, which controls Gaza's crossings, said in a statement: "The residents left the Gaza Strip after Cogat received approval from a third country to receive them." It did not specify the country at the time.

Cogat on Monday named South Africa as the third country that had agreed to receive the Palestinians.

South Africa has been highly critical of Israel's military operation in Gaza.

The country's sympathy for the Palestinian fight for an independent state goes back decades, particularly the early 1990s when anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela pledged support for the Palestinian cause.

Large pro-Palestinian marches have been held around South Africa since the conflict began.

Smaller pro-Israel marches and rallies have been held in the country, which hosts the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2023, the South African government filed a case against Israel with the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide in Gaza. Israel has strongly rejected the South African claim, calling it "baseless".

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Previously unknown organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach have been presented and performed in Germany for the first time in 320 years.

Germany's Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer called the discovery of the two pieces a "great moment for the world of music".

They first caught the attention of the Peter Wollny, a researcher of the German composer and musician, in 1992 when he was cataloguing Bach manuscripts at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels.

The organ works - the Chaconne in D minor BWV 1178 and Chaconne in G minor BWV 1179 - were undated and unsigned. Mr Wollny spent the next 30 years working to confirm the identity of the pieces.

They were performed at the St Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Bach is buried and where he worked as a cantor for 27 years.

The two pieces were played by Dutch organist Ton Koopman, who said he was proud to be able to perform them for the first time in 320 years.

He said the pieces were "of a very high quality" and would be "a great asset for organists today, as they are also suitable for smaller organs".

They are believed to have been composed early in Bach's career, when he was working as an organ teacher in the town of Arnstadt in Thuringia.

Mr Wollny, who is now the director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, said they displayed several characteristics unique to the composer.

"Stylistically, the works also contain features that can be found in Bach's works from this period, but not in those of any other composer," he said.

They are believed to have been written down in 1705 by one of Bach's pupils, Salomon Günther John.

At a presentation of the works, Mr Wollny said he was "99.99% sure that Bach had written the two pieces" and they have now been added to the official catalogue of his works.

Ukraine will get up to 100 of France's Rafale F4 fighter jets as well as advanced air defence systems in a major deal to boost Kyiv's ability to protect itself against deadly Russian attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the move as "historic", after signing the letter of intent with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at an air base near Paris.

Deliveries of the Rafale F4's are planned to be completed by 2035, while the joint production of interceptor drones is starting this year.

Financial details are yet to be worked out, but reports say France plans to attract EU financing and also access frozen Russian assets - a controversial move that has split the 27-member bloc.

"This is a strategic agreement which will last for 10 years starting from the next year," Zelensky said at a joint briefing with Macron on Monday.

Ukraine would also get "very strong French radars", eight air defence systems and other advanced weaponry, he added.

Zelensky stressed that using such advanced systems "means protecting someone's life... this is very important".

Russia has in recent months increased its drone and missile attacks against Ukraine, targeting energy and rail infrastructure and causing massive blackouts across the country.

Dozens of civilians have been killed in the strikes, in what Kyiv and its Western allies describe as war crimes. In the latest overnight Russian missile attack, three people were killed and 15 injured, in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliya, local officials said.

Speaking alongside Zelensky, Macron said: "We're planning Rafales, 100 Rafales - that's huge. That's what's needed for the regeneration of the Ukrainian military".

The French president added that he wanted to help Ukraine prepare for whatever was coming next.

These Rafale fighter jets are seen as crucial to protecting Ukraine's skies, because the country is almost powerless in preventing long-range air strikes on its border towns and cities.

"The Russians are using 6000 glide bombs per month," Serhiy Kuzhan, a Ukrainian defence analyst, told the BBC. "It would be important to have a French air to air system, with a 200km range, because Russians have their own system with a range of 230km."

While this announcement between Kyiv and Paris is sizeable, Justin Bronk from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) points out: "The difference they'll make will depend on the timeframe and the missiles that come with them".

This is a long-term political agreement, rather than a detailed purchase order, so few are expecting this announcement to dramatically change the dynamics of Russia's grinding invasion.

The promises of Western military hardware are only as effective as the training and logistics they come with. Whether it's a German-made Leopard 2 Tank or an American F16 fighter jet, they all require intensive training, sizable support crews and a lot of spare parts.

With the Rafales, further complexities arise around the question of who pays. It's thought France will dip into its own budget contributions for Kyiv, as well as look as joint EU borrowing mechanisms to help pay for the deal.

But what you hear privately admitted in EU's corridors of power in Brussels, is that the money is slowing running out.

The bloc has agreed to help support Ukraine's battered economy for the next two years, but there is less consensus on whether to unlock €140bn ($162bn; £123bn) of frozen Russian assets to help support Ukraine financially and militarily.

The proposals are currently illegal under international law, and some members are nervous about the prospect of having to pay Russia back when the war ends.

Ukraine's air force is already using France's Mirage warplanes as well as US-made F-16s. Kyiv has also recently provisionally agreed to obtain Sweden's Gripen fighter jets.

After France, Zelensky will travel to Spain to seek further military and other support for Ukraine.

Over the weekend, he secured a gas deal with Greece. Vital supplies of US liquefied natural gas are now expected to start flowing into Ukraine this winter via a pipeline across the Balkans.

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

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukraine's territory and Russian troops have been making slow advances along the vast front line - despite reported huge combat casualties.

The Louvre museum in Paris has announced it is closing one of its galleries because of structural weaknesses.

The Campana Gallery - consisting of nine rooms which host Greek ceramics - will remain shut as engineers investigate "certain beams supporting the floors", the Louvre said.

The announcement adds to the museum's unwelcome attention following a high-profile heist last month in which jewels worth €88m (£76m; $102m) were taken.

Criticism has focused on lax security at the world's most-visited museum in the French capital.

Four people have been arrested over the heist, but the jewels have not been recovered.

In a statement on Monday, the Louvre said that structural issues in offices on the second floor - above the Campana Gallery in the Sully wing of the museum - had led to its decision.

"During these investigations, the Campana Gallery... will be closed to the public as a precautionary measure," it said.

Three weeks after the jewel theft, a report was released in which the Court of Auditors criticised managers who had preferred to invest in new artworks and exhibitions rather than basic upkeep and protection of the museum.

Basing its findings on the years 2018-24, the report found the museum had spent €105.4m (£92.7m) on buying new artworks and €63.5m on exhibition spaces.

But at the same time it spent only €26.7m on maintenance works, and €59.5m on restoration of the palace building.

On the day of the heist, the suspects arrived at 09:30 (07:30 GMT), just after the museum opened to visitors.

The suspects arrived with a stolen vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d'Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine. The men used a disc cutter to crack open display cases housing the jewellery.

Prosecutors said the thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside at 09:38, before switching to cars.

One of the stolen items - a crown - was dropped during the escape. The other seven jewels have not been found.

The fear is that they have already been spirited abroad, though the prosecutor in charge of the case has said she is still hopeful they can be retrieved intact.

Those arrested over the heist that shocked France were all petty criminals rather than organised crime professionals, Paris's prosecutor has said.

Since the incident, security measures have been tightened around France's cultural institutions.

The Louvre has even transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France.

Second-hand clothing platform Vinted is under investigation in France after some user accounts were found to be directing visitors to pornographic content.

France's Children's Rights Commissioner Sarah El-Haïry said she had asked watchdog Arcom to examine the allegations first reported in French media.

Vinted, which has 23 million users in France, has no age-verification procedure - meaning children and teenagers could have been exposed to pornographic material without having to show proof they were over 18.

In a statement, the Lithuania-based company said it had a "zero-tolerance policy regarding unsolicited communications of a sexual nature or the promotion of sexual services".

"All inappropriate and illegal content is removed, and where necessary we take measures against users, including blocking them definitively from our site," it said.

Vinted is taking the situation "very seriously", it added.

Reports first surfaced after some sellers showing photographs of swimwear or lingerie were found to be luring viewers to their personal pages on adult platforms such as OnlyFans.

"Predators have been using the sale of ordinary items of clothing to direct people to porn sites," El-Haïry said.

France has recently issued warnings to other global e-commerce platforms, including Shein - headquartered in Singapore - after products including childlike sex dolls appeared in their marketing listings.

French officials say the case against Shein forms part of a wider investigation into other major e-commerce platforms accused of allowing illicit products to be sold online.

Paris prosecutors are examining whether Shein, AliExpress, Temu and Wish breached laws relating to violent, pornographic or "undignified" content accessible to minors.

Shein and AliExpress are also being investigated specifically over the alleged dissemination of child-related pornographic material. The cases have been referred to the Paris Office des Mineurs, which handles offences involving the protection of children.

Shein has already banned the sale of all sex dolls on its platform worldwide and says it is permanently blocking seller accounts linked to the items.

The French consumer watchdog, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, said descriptions of the dolls left "little doubt as to their child-pornography nature".

Bangladesh's longest-serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed began her political career as a pro-democracy icon, but fled mass protests against her rule in August 2024 after 15 years in power.

Since then, Hasina has been in self-imposed exile in India, where she flew after being deposed by the student-led uprising which spiralled into nationwide unrest.

On 17 November, a special tribunal in Dhaka sentenced her to death after convicting her of crimes against humanity. It was found Hasina had ordered a deadly crackdown on protesters between 15 July and 5 August 2024. She denied all charges against her.

Up to 1,400 people were killed during the weeks of protests leading up to her ousting, most by gunfire from security forces, UN human rights investigators said. Their report found that she and her government had tried to cling to power using systematic, deadly violence against protesters.

It was the worst bloodshed the country had seen since independence in 1971.

The protests brought an unexpected end to the reign of Hasina, who had ruled Bangladesh for more than 20 years.

She and her Awami League party were credited with overseeing the South Asian country's economic progress. But in recent years she was accused of turning autocratic and clamping down on any opposition to her rule.

Politically-motivated arrests, disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other abuses all rose under her rule.

An order to 'use lethal weapons'

In January 2024, Hasina won an unprecedented fourth term as prime minister in an election widely decried by critics as being a sham and boycotted by the main opposition.

Protests began later that year with a demand to abolish quotas in civil service jobs. By summer they had morphed into a wider anti-government movement as she used the police to violently crack down on protesters.

Amid increasing calls for her to resign, Hasina remained defiant and condemned the agitators as “terrorists”. She also threw hundreds of people into jail and brought criminal charges against hundreds more.

A leaked audio clip suggested she had ordered security forces to "use lethal weapons" against protesters. She denies ever issuing an order to fire on unarmed civilians.

Some of the bloodiest scenes occurred on 5 August, the day Hasina fled by helicopter before crowds stormed her residence in Dhaka. Police killed at least 52 people that day in a busy neighbourhood, making it one of the worst cases of police violence in the country's history.

Hasina, who has been tried in absentia, called the tribunal a "farce".

"It is a kangaroo court controlled by my political opponents to deliver a pre-ordained guilty verdict... and to distract the world's attention from the chaos, violence and misrule of [the new] government," she told the BBC in the week before her verdict.

She called for the ban on her party to be lifted before elections due in February.

Hasina is also charged with crimes against humanity relating to forced disappearances during the Awami League's rule in another case at the same tribunal in Bangladesh. Hasina and the Awami League deny all the charges.

Hasina and other senior members of her former government are also facing trial for corruption in a separate court - charges they deny.

How did Sheikh Hasina come to power?

Born to a Muslim family in East Bengal in 1947, Hasina had politics in her blood.

Her father was the nationalist leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's "Father of the Nation" who led the country's independence from Pakistan in 1971 and became its first president.

At that time, Hasina had already established a reputation as a student leader at Dhaka University.

Her father was assassinated with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975. Only Hasina and her younger sister survived as they were travelling abroad at the time.

After living in exile in India, Hasina returned to Bangladesh in 1981 and became the leader of the Awami League, the political party her father belonged to.

She joined hands with other political parties to hold pro-democracy street protests during the military rule of General Hussain Muhammed Ershad. Propelled by the popular uprising, Hasina quickly became a national icon.

She was first elected to power in 1996. She earned credit for signing a water-sharing deal with India and a peace deal with tribal insurgents in the south-east of the country.

But at the same time, her government was criticised for numerous allegedly corrupt business deals and for being too subservient to India.

She later lost to her former ally-turned-nemesis, Begum Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in 2001.

As heirs to political dynasties, both women have dominated Bangladesh politics for more than three decades and used to be known as the "battling begums". Begum refers to a Muslim woman of high rank.

Observers say their bitter rivalry resulted in bus bombs, disappearances and extrajudicial killings becoming regular occurrences.

Hasina eventually came back to power in 2009 in polls held under a caretaker government.

A true political survivor, she endured numerous arrests while in opposition as well as several assassination attempts, including one in 2004 that damaged her hearing. She has also survived efforts to force her into exile and numerous court cases in which she has been accused of corruption.

Achievements and controversies

Once one of the world's poorest nations, Bangladesh achieved credible economic success under her leadership from 2009.

Its per capita income tripled in the last decade and the World Bank estimates that more than 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 20 years.

Much of this growth has been fuelled by the garment industry, which accounts for the vast majority of total exports from Bangladesh and has expanded rapidly in recent decades, supplying markets in Europe, North America and Asia.

Using the country's own funds, loans and development assistance, Hasina's government also undertook huge infrastructure projects, including the flagship $2.9bn Padma bridge across the Ganges.

But Hasina has long been accused of enacting repressive authoritarian measures against her political opponents, detractors and the media - a remarkable turnaround for a leader who once fought for multi-party democracy.

Rights groups estimate there have been at least 700 cases of enforced disappearances, with hundreds more subject to extra-judicial killings, since Hasina took power again in 2009. Hasina denies involvement in these.

Bangladesh's security forces have also been accused of serious abuses. In 2021, the US sanctioned its Rapid Action Battalion - a notorious police unit accused of carrying out numerous extra-judicial killings - citing human rights violations.

Human rights activists and journalists also faced increasing attacks including arrests, surveillance and harassment.

Hasina's government was also accused of "judicially harassing" targets with court cases, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus - who became head of the interim government after Hasina fled. He had been jailed earlier in 2024 and faced more than 100 charges, in cases his supporters say were politically motivated.

Hasina's government flatly denied claims of such abuses, while also restricting visits when it was in power by foreign journalists seeking to investigate the allegations.

The protests against civil service quotas, which sparked last year's uprising, came as Bangladesh struggled with the escalating costs of living in the wake of the pandemic. Inflation skyrocketed, the country's foreign exchange reserves dropped precipitously, and its foreign debt doubled since 2016.

Critics blamed this on mismanagement by Hasina's government, claiming that Bangladesh's economic progress only helped those close to her.

A South African man who was seen attending neo-Nazi rally outside an Australian state parliament has had his visa revoked.

Matthew Gruter, who has been Australia since 2022, took part in an anti-Jewish protest outside the New South Wales parliament organised by the National Socialist Network earlier this month.

He was seen in the front row of around 60 men clad in black, who held up a banner that said "Abolish the Jewish lobby", Australian media reports.

Australia has seen a recent rise in right-wing extremism. Its government made the Nazi salute punishable by a mandatory prison term earlier this year.

Australia's Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed the cancellation of Mr Gruter's visa, saying: "If you are on a visa, you are a guest.

"If you're a citizen, you're a full member of the Australian family. Like with any household, if a guest turns up to show hatred and wreck the household, they can be told it's time to go home."

Mr Gruter moved to Australia with his wife and works as a civil engineer, according to ABC News.

The National Socialist Network, which organised the rally on 8 November, is a well-known neo-Nazi group in Australia. Mr Gruter is a senior member of the group in New South Wales, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Protesters repeatedly chanted "blood and honour", a slogan associated with the Hitler Youth, according to ABC News.

It last less than 20 minutes and was legally authorised, the Guardian reports.

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Armed men have killed a teacher and abducted at least 25 students in an attack on a girls' secondary school in north-western Nigeria, police say.

The gang invaded the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, at around 04:00 local time (0300 GMT) on Monday, they said.

The attackers "engaged police personnel on duty in a gun duel" before scaling the perimeter fence and seizing the students from their hostel, a statement said.

One member of staff was killed while trying to protect the students. A second sustained gunshot wounds and is now receiving treatment.

Eyewitnesses described a large group of attackers, known locally as bandits, who arrived firing sporadically to cause panic.

Residents told the BBC that the gunmen subsequently marched a number of girls into nearby bushland.

The police said they had deployed "additional police tactical units, alongside military personnel and vigilante groups" to the area.

A coordinated search and rescue operation is underway in surrounding forests and suspected escape routes.

Over the past decade, schools in northern Nigeria have become frequent targets for armed groups, who often carry out abductions to seek ransom payments or leverage deals with the government.

However, this is the first major school abduction since March 2024, when more than 200 pupils were seized from a school in Kuriga, Kaduna state.

The attack in Kebbi State highlights the persistent security crisis plaguing the region, leaving families in Maga in a state of fearful exhaustion as they wait and hope for their daughters' safe return.

You may also be interested in:

• Nigeria's kidnapping crisis: Should ransom payments be banned?
• Kuriga kidnap: More than 280 Nigerian pupils abducted
• The bandit kidnap crisis in Nigeria

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

US President Donald Trump has called on House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, in a reversal from his previous position.

"House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night.

The shift from days of Trump fighting the proposal comes as the House is expected to hold a vote this week on legislation that would force the Justice Department to release the files to the public.

Supporters of the proposal appear to have enough votes to pass the House, though it is unclear whether it would pass the Senate.

Democrats and some Republicans have been pushing a measure that would force the Justice Department to make public more documents from the case.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that as many as 100 Republicans could vote in favour.

Known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the aim of the bill is to make the justice department release all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

This is a a breaking news update. More to follow shortly.

Vital supplies of US liquefied natural gas are due to start flowing into war-ravaged Ukraine this winter via a pipeline across the Balkans.

The deal was announced after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens on Sunday. Greece has been working to increase the flow of American LNG to its terminals to "replace Russian gas in the region", Mitsotakis said recently.

The European Commission plans to ban all imports of Russian gas to EU member states by the end of 2027, arguing that revenue from such sales funds Russia's war in Ukraine.

Zelensky is now in France for talks with President Emmanuel Macron over a major deal on air defence hardware.

Fighting continued overnight, with six people reported killed in Russian attacks in the Kharkiv, Kherson and Donetsk regions of Ukraine.

Russia's military said it had taken control of three more Ukrainian villages - one each in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

None of the reports could be independently verified.

Speaking earlier in Athens, Zelensky was quoted as saying that deliveries of American LNG would begin in January.

"We rebuild each time the Russians destroy but this truly requires time, much effort, equipment and, regarding gas... imports to compensate for the destruction by the Russians of our own production," he said.

"Greece is becoming an energy security provider for your homeland," Mitsotakis told the Ukrainian president.

According to Reuters news agency, Zelensky said Ukraine had allocated funds for gas imports from European partners and banks under European Commission guarantees, as well as from Ukrainian banks, to help cover imports through to March at a cost of nearly €2bn (£1.8bn; $2.3bn).

Since 2015, when it stopped buying Russian gas directly, Ukraine has been receiving supplies from various EU states.

The Soviet-era Trans-Balkan pipeline links Ukraine to LNG terminals in Greece via Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria.

On Monday, Zelensky met Macron at Villacoublay airbase near Paris where he was to inspect Rafale fighter jets, the SAMP-T air defence system and several drone systems.

He was also due to inspect the nascent headquarters of a planned multinational force that may one day help oversee a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire.

Tens of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have been killed or injured, and millions of civilians have fled their homes, since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Jurors in a high-profile Australian murder trial have been taken to the remote Queensland beach where the victim was found.

Toyah Cordingley was "repeatedly" stabbed with a sharp object and put in a shallow sandy grave with "little or no hope of surviving", the jury has heard.

Rajwinder Singh, 41, denies murdering Ms Cordingley on a Sunday afternoon in October 2018 in Far North Queensland.

The 24-year-old's body was discovered by her father the following day on Wangetti Beach - a stretch of coastline between the tourist centres of Cairns and Port Douglas.

The jury of ten men and two women plus three back up jurors attended the beach along with the judge and barristers on Monday morning local time, as the second week of the trial got underway.

In a nod to the tropical conditions and temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, the judge, Justice Lincoln Crowley wore a T-shirt, sports shorts and trainers rather than a wig and robes. Both the lead prosecution and defence barristers opted for polo shirts, shorts and baseball caps.

The jurors were led around 1.2km north up the sand to see where Ms Cordingley was discovered.

Earlier, as they arrived by bus, four red and white cones marked where the victim's car had been parked.

The trip was intended to help the jurors get familiar with key locations in the case and no official evidence was given.

Last week, the Cairns Supreme Court heard that the day after Ms Cordingley's body was discovered, Mr Singh flew from Australia to India – leaving behind his wife, three children and parents. He was not heard from until he was arrested four years later, the prosecution said.

It is alleged that Mr Singh, who was working as a nurse in the town of Innisfail south of Cairns, had a confrontation with Ms Cordingley, whom prosecutor Nathan Crane described as "a young woman, blonde and attractive".

The pharmacy worker was found wearing a bikini, with all her other clothes and most of her possessions missing. Those items were taken by the killer to avoid detection, the crown alleged.

Her dog, Indie, which Ms Cordingley had taken to the beach for a walk, was found tied up to a tree hidden in shrubland about 30 metres from the grave.

No murder weapon was ever recovered, and no eyewitnesses have been found.

But the prosecution says the crown's case – though circumstantial – was made up of evidence that pointed to Mr Singh "and eliminated others".

This will include evidence that DNA recovered from a stick at the scene was 3.8 billion times more likely to have come from Mr Singh than a random member of the public.

The jury has already heard evidence suggesting that Ms Cordingley's phone left the beach after the killing – and that its movements matched those of a blue Alfa Romeo owned by the accused.

Mr Singh's sudden departure from Australia also pointed to his guilt, the prosecution has argued.

"As the police were finding Toyah's body, he was organising … a hurriedly-arranged one way trip back to India," Mr Crane said last week as he opened his case.

The defence is yet to present any evidence, but in his opening address, Mr Singh's barrister Greg McGuire described his client as a "placid" and "caring" man, who was in the "wrong place at the wrong time".

He also foreshadowed evidence to come later in the trial that after his arrest, Mr Singh told an undercover officer he had seen two masked men attack Ms Cordingley and then had run away in fear - something he said was his "biggest mistake".

Mr McGuire has also said he will give evidence about other people "both known and unknown" who should come under suspicion.

Ms Cordingley's boyfriend at the time, Marco Heidenreich, whom police quickly ruled out as a possible suspect, was among those who gave evidence last week.

The court heard he was an immediate police suspect - and that he had faced questions from Ms Cordingley's father about whether he was involved in his girlfriend's disappearance, even before her body was found.

Photographs showing Mr Heidenreich on a hike with a friend on the day Ms Cordingley went missing have been shown to the court, with an expert saying he was confident the pictures were genuine and had not been doctored in any way.

The trial will return to the more conventional setting of the court house on Tuesday.

A South African man who was seen attending neo-Nazi rally outside an Australian state parliament has had his visa revoked.

Matthew Gruter, who has been Australia since 2022, took part in an anti-Jewish protest outside the New South Wales parliament organised by the National Socialist Network earlier this month.

He was seen in the front row of around 60 men clad in black, who held up a banner that said "Abolish the Jewish lobby", Australian media reports.

Australia has seen a recent rise in right-wing extremism. Its government made the Nazi salute punishable by a mandatory prison term earlier this year.

Australia's Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed the cancellation of Mr Gruter's visa, saying: "If you are on a visa, you are a guest.

"If you're a citizen, you're a full member of the Australian family. Like with any household, if a guest turns up to show hatred and wreck the household, they can be told it's time to go home."

Mr Gruter moved to Australia with his wife and works as a civil engineer, according to ABC News.

The National Socialist Network, which organised the rally on 8 November, is a well-known neo-Nazi group in Australia. Mr Gruter is a senior member of the group in New South Wales, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Protesters repeatedly chanted "blood and honour", a slogan associated with the Hitler Youth, according to ABC News.

It last less than 20 minutes and was legally authorised, the Guardian reports.

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A Singapore court has sentenced an Australian man to nine days in jail for grabbing Hollywood star Ariana Grande at a movie premiere.

Johnson Wen, 26, was found guilty of being a public nuisance in the high-profile incident last Thursday at the Asia premiere for Wicked: For Good.

Videos posted on social media showed Wen jumping the barriers, charging at a visibly shocked Grande, and grabbing her shoulders while jumping up and down.

The incident sparked outrage in Singapore where many called for the arrest and deportation of Wen, who has a history of disrupting concerts and celebrity events.

Several accused him of "re-traumatising" Grande. The pop star turned actress has spoken of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder after a suicide bomb attack at her May 2017 concert in Manchester, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds.

Singapore media reported that in Wen's trial on Monday, the court heard he had attempted to intrude on the movie premiere twice.

Moments after he grabbed Grande, her co-star Cynthia Erivo forcibly pried him off and security staff escorted him out.

He then made a second attempt to jump the barricades. Security staff stopped him and this time pinned him down.

Wen later posted videos of the incident on his social media accounts thanking Grande and stating that he was "free".

Singapore police arrested him the next day and charged him for public nuisance. Wen pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors sought a week's jail for Wen, arguing that he was a "serial intruder" who publicised his behaviour to gain popularity online.

Wen has posted videos of himself disrupting concerts by Katy Perry and The Weeknd, and invading the pitch at various sporting events. Australian media have reported he is banned from some stadiums and has incurred large fines.

Wen, who was not represented in the Singapore court, told the judge in mitigation that he would "not do it again".

Under Singapore's laws against public nuisance, Wen could have been jailed for up to three months, fined up to S$2,000 (£1,167; $1,537), or both.

Grande has not commented on the case, while continuing to appear in public at events in Los Angeles over the weekend.

But two days after the incident Erivo appeared to allude to the incident when she spoke about her relationship with Grande while making the movie, saying: "We have come through some stuff in our lives, our daily workings... even this last week, let's be honest."

"This is the room where my whole family was killed," says Safa Younes.

Bullet holes pepper the front door to the house in the Iraqi town of Haditha, where she grew up. Inside the back bedroom, a colourful bedspread covers the bed where her family was shot.

This is where she hid with her five siblings, mum and aunt when US marines stormed into their home and opened fire, killing everyone apart from Safa, on 19 November 2005. Her dad was also shot dead when he opened the front door.

Now, 20 years on, a BBC Eye investigation has uncovered evidence that implicates two marines, who were never brought to trial, in the killing of Safa's family, according to a forensic expert.

The evidence - mainly statements and testimony given in the aftermath of the killings - raises doubts about the American investigation into what happened that day, and poses significant questions over how US armed forces are held to account.

The killing of Safa's family was part of what became known as the Haditha massacre, when US marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, including four women and six children. They entered three homes killing nearly everyone inside, as well as a driver and four students in a car, who were on their way to college.

The incident triggered the longest US war crimes investigation of the Iraq war, but no-one was convicted of the killings.

The marines said they were responding to gunfire after a roadside bomb went off, killing one of their squad members, and injuring two others.

But Safa, who was 13 at the time, tells the World Service: "We hadn't been accused of anything. We didn't even have any weapons in the house."

She survived by pretending to be dead among the small bodies of her sisters and brother - the youngest was three years old. "I was the only survivor out of my entire family," she says.

Four marines were initially charged with murder, but they gave conflicting accounts of the events, and over time US military prosecutors dropped charges against three of them, granting them immunity from further legal action.

That left squad leader Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich as the only one to face trial in 2012.

In a video recording of a pre-trial hearing, which has never been broadcast before, the most junior member of the squad, Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza is questioned and re-enacts events at Safa's house.

Mendoza - who was a private at the time and was never charged - admits to killing Safa's father when he opened the front door to the marines.

"Did you see his hands?" a lawyer asks him. "Yes sir," Mendoza responds, and goes on to confirm that Safa's father was not armed. "But you shot him anyways?" the lawyer asks. "Yes sir," Mendoza says.

In his official statements, Mendoza had initially claimed that after entering the house, he opened the door to the bedroom where Safa and her family were, but when he saw there were only women and children inside he did not go in, and instead shut the door.

However, in a newly discovered audio recording from Wuterich's trial, Mendoza gives a different account. He says that he walked about 8ft (2.4m) into the bedroom.

This is hugely significant, according to forensic expert Michael Maloney. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service sent him to Haditha in 2006 to investigate the killings and he examined the bedroom where Safa's family was shot.

Using the crime scene photos taken by the Marine Corps at the time of the killings, he concluded that two marines had entered the room and shot the women and children.

When we played him the recording of Mendoza saying he had walked into the room, Maloney said: "This is just amazing to me, what we're listening to, and I've never heard this before today."

He said it showed Mendoza was placing himself in the position where Maloney concluded the first shooter stood, at the foot of the bed.

"If you were to ask me: 'Is this a confession of sorts?' What I'd say is: 'Mendoza confessed to everything except for pulling the trigger.'"

Safa had given a video deposition to military prosecutors in 2006 but it was never shown in court. In it, she described how the marine who opened the bedroom door threw in a grenade, which failed to explode, and then the same man came into the room and shot her family. Mendoza is the only marine who ever said he opened the door.

Another marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum did not deny he took part in the shootings, but said he had followed the squad leader, Wuterich, into the bedroom and initially claimed he did not know there were women and children there because of poor visibility.

But in three later statements obtained by the BBC, Tatum gave a different account.

"I saw that children were in the room kneeling down. I don't remember the exact number but only that it was a lot. I am trained to shoot two shots to the chest and two shots to the head and I followed my training," Tatum told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in April 2006.

A month later, he said he "was able to positively identify the people in the room as women and children before shooting them".

And then a week after that, he said: "This is where I saw the kid I shot. Knowing it was a kid, I still shot him." He described the child as wearing a white T-shirt, standing on the bed, and having short hair.

Tatum's defence lawyers claimed these later statements had been obtained under duress. Charges against Tatum were dropped in March 2008, and the statements were disregarded at Wuterich's trial.

Forensics expert Michael Maloney said the statements by Mendoza and Tatum point to them being the two marines who shot Safa's family. He believes Mendoza went into the bedroom first and Tatum followed "firing across the head of the bed".

We put the allegations to Mendoza and Tatum. Mendoza did not respond. He has previously admitted to shooting Safa's father, but said he was following orders. He was never charged with a criminal offence.

Through his lawyer, Tatum said he wants to put Haditha behind him. He has never withdrawn his testimony that he was one of the shooters in Safa's house.

Maloney told the BBC that the prosecution "wanted Wuterich to be that primary shooter". But before Maloney was able to testify, Wuterich's trial ended in a plea deal.

Wuterich maintained he could not remember what had happened in Safa's house, and agreed to plead guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty - a charge unrelated to any direct involvement in the killings.

Wuterich's military lawyer, Haytham Faraj, a former marine himself, said the punishment was "tantamount to a slap on the wrist… like a speeding ticket".

Neal Puckett, the lead defence lawyer for Wuterich, said the whole investigation and prosecution against his client was "botched".

"The prosecution, in granting immunity to all their witnesses and dismissing all their charges… essentially rendered themselves incapable of achieving justice in this case," he said.

Haytham Faraj agreed the process was deeply flawed.

"The government paid people to come in and lie, and the payment was immunity, and that's how they misused the legal process," he told the BBC.

"The trial of Haditha was never meant to give voice to the victims," he added.

He said that survivors' "impressions of a show trial with no real outcome, with no-one being punished, was right".

The US Marine Corps told us it is committed to fair and open proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, ensuring due process of law. It added that it would not reopen the investigation unless a wealth of new, unexamined, and admissible evidence was introduced.

The lead prosecutor in the case did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Now aged 33, Safa still lives in Haditha and has three children of her own. She says she can't understand how no marine was punished for her family's deaths.

When we show her the video of Mendoza, she says he "should have been imprisoned from the moment the incident happened, it should have been impossible for him to see the light of day".

"It's as if it happened last year. I still think about it," she says of the day her family was killed.

"I want those who did this to be held accountable and to be punished by the law. It's been almost 20 years without them being tried. That's the real crime."

Additional reporting by Namak Khoshnaw and Michael Epstein

Armed men have killed a teacher and abducted at least 25 students in an attack on a girls' secondary school in north-western Nigeria, police say.

The gang invaded the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, at around 04:00 local time (0300 GMT) on Monday, they said.

The attackers "engaged police personnel on duty in a gun duel" before scaling the perimeter fence and seizing the students from their hostel, a statement said.

One member of staff was killed while trying to protect the students. A second sustained gunshot wounds and is now receiving treatment.

Eyewitnesses described a large group of attackers, known locally as bandits, who arrived firing sporadically to cause panic.

Residents told the BBC that the gunmen subsequently marched a number of girls into nearby bushland.

The police said they had deployed "additional police tactical units, alongside military personnel and vigilante groups" to the area.

A coordinated search and rescue operation is underway in surrounding forests and suspected escape routes.

Over the past decade, schools in northern Nigeria have become frequent targets for armed groups, who often carry out abductions to seek ransom payments or leverage deals with the government.

However, this is the first major school abduction since March 2024, when more than 200 pupils were seized from a school in Kuriga, Kaduna state.

The attack in Kebbi State highlights the persistent security crisis plaguing the region, leaving families in Maga in a state of fearful exhaustion as they wait and hope for their daughters' safe return.

You may also be interested in:

• Nigeria's kidnapping crisis: Should ransom payments be banned?
• Kuriga kidnap: More than 280 Nigerian pupils abducted
• The bandit kidnap crisis in Nigeria

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

The UN Security Council is expected to vote on a draft resolution backing Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza.

The text, submitted by the US, would give a mandate for the deployment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) and to set up transitional governance there.

The US says multiple unnamed countries have offered to contribute to the ISF, though it is unclear whether it would be required to ensure Hamas disarms or function as a peacekeeping force.

Its formation is a central plank of Trump's 20-point plan which last month brought a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in their two-year war.

The draft also raises the possibility of a Palestinian state - something Israel strongly opposes.

There have been intense negotiations over the draft text of the resolution, with Washington warning that any vote against it could lead to a return to fighting with Israel.

As well as authorising an ISF, which it says would work with Israel and Egypt - Gaza's southern neighbour - the draft also calls for creation of a newly trained Palestinian police in Gaza. Until now, the police there have operated under the authority of Hamas.

According to reports on the latest draft, part of the ISF's role would be to work on the "permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups" – including Hamas – as well as protecting civilians and humanitarian aid routes.

This would require Hamas to hand over its weapons - something it is meant to do under Trump's peace plan.

But in a statement published overnight, Hamas called the draft resolution "dangerous" and an "attempt to subject the Gaza Strip to international authority".

It said Palestinian factions rejected any clause relating to the disarmament of Gaza or harming "the Palestinian people's right to resistance".

The statement also rejected any foreign military presence inside the Gaza Strip, saying it would constitute a violation of Palestinian sovereignty.

The draft goes on to endorse the formation of a Board of Peace, expected to be headed by President Trump, to oversee a body of Palestinian technocrats that will temporarily administer Gaza and take charge of its redevelopment.

Following pressure from key Arab states, the latest text mentions a possible future Palestinian state, though without calling for one as the goal.

Even so, the inclusion of such a reference drew sharp reaction from Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after allies in his governing coalition criticised the draft, including threatening to leave the government if Netanyahu did not push back.

"Regarding a Palestinian state," he said on Sunday, "our opposition to a Palestinian state in any territory west of the Jordan [River], this opposition is existing, valid, and has not changed one bit."

Trump's peace plan in effect suspended the fighting between Israel and Hamas which had raged since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in that attack.

More than 69,483 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The Amazon rainforest could face a renewed surge of deforestation as efforts grow to overturn a long-standing ban that has protected it.

The ban - which prohibits the sale of soya grown on land cleared after 2008 - is widely credited with curbing deforestation and has been held up as a global environmental success story.

But powerful farming interests in Brazil, backed by a group of Brazilian politicians, are pushing to lift the restrictions as the COP30 UN climate conference enters its second week.

Critics of the ban say it is an unfair "cartel" which allows a small group of powerful companies to dominate the Amazon's soya trade.

Environmental groups have warned removing the ban would be "disaster", opening the way for a new wave of land grabbing to plant more soya in the world's largest rainforest.

Scientists say ongoing deforestation, combined with the effects of climate change, is already driving the Amazon towards a potential "tipping point" – a threshold beyond which the rainforest can no longer sustain itself.

Brazil is the world's largest producer of soya beans, a staple crop grown for its protein and an important animal feed.

Much of the meat consumed in the UK – including chicken, beef, pork and farmed fish - is raised using feeds that include soya beans, about 10% of which are sourced from the Brazilian Amazon.

Many major UK food companies, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, M&S, Aldi, Lidl, McDonald's, Greggs and KFC, are members of a coalition called the UK Soy Manifesto which represents around 60% of the soy imported into the UK.

The group supports the ban, which is known officially as the Amazon Soy Moratorium, because they argue it helps ensure UK soy supply chains remain free from deforestation.

In a statement earlier this year the signatories said: "We urge all actors within the soy supply chain, including governments, financial institutions and agribusinesses to reinforce their commitment to the [ban] and ensure its continuation."

Public opinion in the UK also appears to be firmly behind protecting the Amazon. A World Wildlife Fund survey conducted earlier this year found that 70% of respondents supported government action to eliminate illegal deforestation from UK supply chains.

But Brazilian opponents of the agreement last week demanded the Supreme Court - the highest court in the country – reopen an investigation into whether the moratorium amounts to anti-competitive behaviour.

"Our state has lots of room to grow and the soy moratorium is working against this development," Vanderlei Ataídes told the BBC. He is president of the Soya Farmers Association of Pará state, one of Brazil's main soya producing areas.

"I don't understand how [the ban] helps the environment," he added. "I can't plant soya beans, but I can use the same land to plant corn, rice, cotton or other crops. Why can't I plant soya?"

The challenge has even divided the Brazilian government. While the Justice Ministry says there may be evidence of anti-competitive behaviour, both the Ministry of the Environment and the Federal Public Prosecutors Office have publicly defended the moratorium.

The voluntary agreement was first signed almost two decades ago by farmers, environmental organisations and major global food companies, including commodities giants such as Cargill and Bunge.

It followed a campaign by the environmental pressure group Greenpeace that exposed how soya grown on deforested land was being used in animal feed, including for chicken sold by McDonald's.

The fast-food chain became a champion of the moratorium, whose signatories pledged not to buy soya grown on land deforested after 2008.

Before the moratorium, forest clearance for soya expansion and the growth of cattle ranching were the main drivers of Amazonian deforestation.

After the agreement was introduced forest clearance fell sharply, reaching an historic low in 2012 during President Lula's second term in office.

Deforestation increased under subsequent administrations – notably under Jair Bolsonaro, who promoted opening the forest to economic development - but has fallen again during Lula's current presidency.

Bel Lyon, chief advisor for Latin America at the World Wildlife Fund - one of the agreement's original signatories – warned that suspending the moratorium "would be a disaster for the Amazon, its people, and the world, because it could open up an area the size of Portugal to deforestation".

Small farmers whose plots are close to soy plantations say they disrupt local weather patterns and make it harder to grow their crops.

Raimundo Barbosa, who farms cassava and fruit near the town of Boa Esperança outside Santarém in the southeastern Amazon, says when the forest is cleared "the environment is destroyed".

"Where there is forest, it is normal, but when it is gone it just gets hotter and hotter and there is less rain and less water in the rivers," he told me as we sat in the shade beside the machines he uses to turn his cassava into flour.

The pressure to lift the moratorium comes as Brazil prepares to open a major new railway stretching from its agricultural heartland in the south up into the rainforest.

The railway is expected to significantly cut transport costs for soya and other agricultural products, adding yet another incentive to clear more land.

Scientists say deforestation is already reshaping the rainforest in profound ways. Among them is Amazon specialist Bruce Fosberg, who has spent half a century studying the forest.

He climbs 15 stories up a narrow tower that rises 45 metres above a pristine rainforest reserve in the heart of the Amazon. From a small platform at the top, he looks out over a sea of green stretching to the horizon.

The tower is bristling with high-tech instruments - sensors that track almost everything happening between the forest and the atmosphere: water vapor, carbon dioxide, sunlight, and essential nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.

The tower was built 27 years ago and is part of a project - the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment (LBA) - that aims to understand how the Amazon is changing, and how close it is to a critical threshold.

Data from the LBA together with other scientific studies show parts of the rainforest may be nearing a "tipping point", after which the ecosystem can no longer maintain its own functions.

"The living forest is closing down," he says, "and not producing water vapour and therefore rainfall".

As trees are lost to deforestation, fire, and heat stress, the forest releases less moisture into the atmosphere, he explains, reducing rainfall and intensifying drought. That, in turn, creates a feedback loop that kills even more trees.

The fear is that, if this continues, vast areas of rainforest could die away and become a savannah or dry grassland ecosystem.

Such a collapse would release huge amounts of carbon, disrupt weather patterns across continents, and threaten the millions of people – as well as the countless plant, insect and animal species – whose lives depend on the Amazon for survival.

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Chile's presidential election will go to a run-off vote in December between a Communist Party and a far-right candidate, after the first round on Sunday produced no outright winner.

The election campaign was dominated by crime and immigration, as migration to the country has grown in recent years and candidates pledged to fight foreign gangs like Venezuela's Tren de Aragua.

The Communist Party's Jeannette Jara, from the governing coalition, narrowly won the first round followed closely by far-right candidate José Antonio Kast.

The result is expected to give a boost to Kast, as Jara was the only left-wing candidate running against several right-wing candidates, which split the right-wing vote.

In the 14 December run-off, voters will have to coalesce around one of these two candidates.

Kast is expected to pick up votes from other candidates who did not make the final two, including the centre-right senator Evelyn Matthei and the radical libertarian congressman Johannes Kaiser.

If this happens, it would make Chile the latest country in Latin America to shift to the right.

Kast is a conservative lawyer and former congressman who lost the 2021 election's run-off to President Gabriel Boric. This is his third time running for president.

The father of nine has promoted a tough crackdown on immigration including a Trump-style "border wall", opposes abortion even in cases of rape, has criticised environmental and indigenous activism, and wants to shrink the state.

His brother was a minister during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and his father was a member of the Nazi party.

Speaking on election night, he said Chile needed to avoid "continuity of a very bad government. Perhaps the worst government in the democratic history of Chile."

Jara is a member of the Communist Party but many see her as centre-left in practice. She was a minister in President Boric's government and her platform has included pledging to increase lithium production, raising the minimum wage, building new prisons and deploying the army to protect Chile's borders.

Both candidates talked up their pledges to tackle crime and immigration, as organised crime and kidnappings having risen in the country.

Chile's foreign population has grown since 2017. The National Migration Service said in December 2023 it reached more than 1.9 million people. Official estimates suggest at least 330,000 are undocumented migrants living illegally in the country, many from Venezuela.

Kast has blamed rising crime on immigration, although several studies suggest that those born abroad commit fewer crimes on average than Chileans.

Chile, perceived as more prosperous and safe compared to some other Latin American nations, is a desirable destination for migrants in the region, and for those returning from the US after President Trump's migration crackdown.

Kast has pledged to build ditches along Chile's northern border with Peru and Bolivia, as well as mass deportations of undocumented migrants and people who entered the country illegally.

He has also promised new maximum-security prisons, like those that have been built in El Salvador.

Jara has promised to build new prisons and expel foreigners convicted of drug trafficking.

This election was the first time that all eligible voters were automatically registered to vote, and voting was compulsory in Chile.

Forty-five Indian pilgrims have been killed after the bus they were travelling in caught fire in an accident near Medina in Saudi Arabia, the police commissioner of India's Hyderabad city has said.

The bus had 46 passengers, said VC Sajjanar in a press conference, adding that one man who survived the accident has been admitted to an intensive care unit in a local hospital.

Most of the victims are from Hyderabad, which is in southern Telangana state.

The pilgrims were travelling from the Islamic holy city of Mecca to Medina when the accident took place, the Telangana government said in a press statement.

They had gone to Saudi Arabia for the Umrah pilgrimage, which is a shorter version of Hajj, the biggest Islamic pilgrimage.

Mr Sajjanar said that an oil tanker was involved in the accident but did not give more details.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said in a post on X that he is "deeply saddened" by the news of the accident and that Indian authorities are in close contact with officials in Saudi Arabia.

"Our Embassy in Riyadh and Consulate in Jeddah are providing all possible assistance," he wrote.

Control rooms have been set up in Jeddah and Hyderabad to assist the families of the victims.

Asaduddin Owaisi, a lawmaker who represents Hyderabad in parliament, told news agency ANI that he has requested the federal government for help in bringing the bodies of the victims back to India.

Mr Sajjanar said that 54 people had travelled from Hyderabad to Jeddah on 9 November for the pilgrimage. Of these, four people stayed back in Mecca while four went to Medina by car. The remaining 46 people travelled on the bus.

As news of the tragedy broke, distraught relatives have been speaking to the media.

Mohammed Tehseen, a resident of Hyderabad, told ANI that seven of his relatives were in the bus. Mr Tehseen said that he heard the news after receiving a call from his relative, Shoaib, who survived the accident and is in hospital.

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Ecuadoreans have voted against allowing the return of foreign military bases in the country, frustrating US hopes of expanding its presence in the Eastern Pacific region.

The referendum result is a blow to Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa, who had campaigned to change the constitution in order to reverse a ban that the country's legislature passed in 2008.

He said it would help fight organised crime and reduce the soaring violence the country has seen in recent years, during which it has become one of the world's biggest drug-trafficking hotspots.

The US had hoped the referendum would pave the way for it to open a military base, 16 years after it was made to close a site on the Pacific coast.

While Ecuador does not produce cocaine, its huge ports and proximity to Colombia and Peru - where large quantities of the drug are made - make it a desirable and lucrative location for drug-trafficking gangs.

According to Noboa, about 70% of the world's cocaine passes through Ecuador.

His presidency has been defined by a tough military crackdown on criminal gangs, including by putting armed soldiers on the streets.

Supporters say his approach has helped to fight crime, but critics say his government has resorted to authoritarian tactics.

The US's former military base on Ecuador's Pacific coast was closed after left-wing president Rafael Correa decided not to renew its lease and pushed for a constitutional ban which was passed by lawmakers.

US Homeland Secretary Secretary Kristi Noem recently toured military facilities in Ecuador with Noboa.

In a BBC interview earlier this year, Noboa said he wanted foreign "armies" to join what he has described as a "war" against narco-trafficking groups. He has recently held talks over increased regional security and migration co-operation with US officials.

The referendum also saw voters reject ending public funding for political parties, shrinking the size of Congress, and establishing a constitutional assembly to re-write the Ecuador's constitution.

Noboa had argued a fresh constitution could allow for tougher punishments for criminals and stronger measures to secure the borders, but critics argued it would not solve wider social problems like insecurity and poor access to education or healthcare in some areas.

Critics also feared the plans to reduce funding for political parties and the size of Congress could lead to a reduction in checks and balances on the government and representation in poorer areas, though the government hoped it would save public funds.

Noboa reacted by saying he would "respect" the outcome of the vote.

On the day of the referendum, the leader of one of Ecuador's biggest drug-trafficking gangs, Los Lobos, was captured in an operation involving Spanish police.

According to Noboa, Wilmer "Pipo" Chavarria had faked his own death and had been hiding in Europe while controlling criminal operations like drug-trafficking, ordering murders and illegal mining in Ecuador.

Both Ecuador and the US have designated Los Lobos as a terrorist organisation under domestic law.

This referendum played came as the US sent its largest military deployment to the Caribbean in decades, including the world's largest warship and bomber planes.

It has carried out at least 21 strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, killing at least 83 people. It has not provided evidence about who is on board and some lawyers have said the strikes could breach international law.

Speculation is mounting over whether the US will strike land targets in Venezuela.

The US alleges that its President Nicolás Maduro is the head of a narco-trafficking organisation, an accusation he strongly denies.

Many observers believe the US military build-up in the region is also an attempt to put pressure on Maduro to force him from power.