The health ministry initially reported two people killed and 13 wounded, but in the early hours of Friday, Toufic Hasaba, an official at the ministry, told state TV that "the final toll reached 14 injuries", with three people in a critical condition. The interior ministry reported the same toll. What were originally identified as human remains were brought to a hospital, but these were later determined to belong to injured victims. The interior ministry said that "specialised units moved immediately after the explosion to secure the scene, collect evidence and pursue investigations to determine the circumstances of the crime, identify those responsible, and bring them to justice".

Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said in a post overnight on X that "targeting civilians and attempts to undermine security and stability will not deter Syrians from continuing on the path of recovery and state- building". He pledged that "state institutions will continue to fulfil their duty to protect citizens, pursue those responsible for these crimes and bring them to justice". Syria's Islamist authorities have faced significant security challenges since overthrowing Assad, with Damascus and its suburbs the site of multiple attacks and incidents targeting civilians.

A case of the Andes strain of hantavirus, the only strain known to spread between humans, was confirmed on Thursday in a Franco-Argentine national who had been travelling in France in July. The patient is now isolating with family in Spain and is asymptomatic. Health authorities said the period during which the patient may have been contagious was from July 18-28.

"The risk of transmission is nevertheless considered low. It concerns only the closest contacts," the ministry said, adding that tracing of potential at-risk contacts was ongoing. The ministry stressed the case was "in no way linked to the patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship in May 2026" -- an outbreak that led to the identification of 13 cases, including three deaths, and sparked international alarm. Andes strain hantavirus, which is initially transmitted to humans by animals such as rodents, can cause severe pulmonary complications and is fatal in 30 to 40 percent of cases.

At least 97 people have died in the floods in Assam that have affected nearly 170,000, including thousands who have been forced into temporary shelters as swollen rivers inundate homes and farmland.

Floodwaters have submerged more than 14,000 hectares of cropland, an area almost one-and-a-half times the size of Paris.

An AFP journalist saw half-submerged houses, uprooted trees and vehicles buried under mud across the worst-hit district of Sivasagar.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma posted a video on Friday of him consoling the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died while trying to rescue his pet dog from floodwaters.

"No parent should ever have to bid farewell to their child," he wrote.

India's Health Minister J.P. Nadda, who visited the flood-hit region on Thursday, said the scale of the devastation was "so huge that it will take time" for normality to be restored.

"Village after village has been submerged," he told reporters.

Like most of the subcontinent, flooding is common in Assam during the June-September monsoon as the Brahmaputra -- India's biggest river -- and its many tributaries overflow.

However, experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing the frequency, severity and impact of the disasters.

Residents and officials have blamed illegal coal mining in the neighbouring state of Nagaland for worsening the flooding, saying it has affected areas not historically prone to inundation.

Sarma has said he would raise the issue with the national government in New Delhi.

Advocacy group Climate Trends said the increasing severity of floods in the state was "driven by the interaction of global warming, changing river dynamics and growing human exposure, making them more frequent, more complex and more costly".

Saudi Arabia's Alekhbariya television reported that the Turkish president had arrived in the Red Sea port city.

The third phase of elections was scheduled for August 10, but polling in Poonch and Palandri has been postponed, the commission said.

"A new date and revised schedule will be announced after reviewing the situation," it added.

The postponement comes after unrest was sparked by demands to abolish 12 seats in the local legislature reserved for people who migrated from the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir.

The movement was led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), which the government banned under anti-terrorism laws.

Pakistan's government also instructed international media to seek permission to report outside major cities after foreign news organisations covered protests and elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The information minister and the ministry's external media wing did not immediately respond to AFP's questions about whether the unrest in the Himalayan region had prompted the new guidelines.

Internet restrictions were also reported by digital monitor NetBlocks in the region, which residents said affected voter turnout during the first two phases of the elections.

Kashmir is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan but has been divided between the two countries since 1947.

"Firefighters have been deployed to the company's logistics centre in Yekaterinburg... where a fire broke out as a result of an attack," Wildberries said in a statement, adding that all staff had been moved to safety.

Regional governor Denis Pasler said three drones crashed into the roof of the warehouse early on Friday without causing any casualties in the city, more than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

Since mid-July, Ukraine has struck around 20 sites belonging to Wildberries, an online retail platform often described as Russia's Amazon.

More than four years since the start of Russia's large-scale offensive against Ukraine, diplomacy is at a standstill and the two countries are escalating their long-range strikes, causing a growing number of civilian casualties.

The archipelago nation's main island Luzon has been battered by heavy rains over the past four days.

Government offices and schools were ordered closed in the capital and across a swathe of northern provinces due to the rain.

In Benguet province, a six-hour drive north of Manila, a hillside gave way and collapsed on a small restaurant on Thursday, burying three employees who had been in the kitchen.

"One is alive. Two were dead on the spot," Colonel Dionisio Bonoy of the Benguet provincial police told reporters.

"At 10:00 am (0200 GMT), the survivor was retrieved. That was our priority earlier. With the help of God, we hope he survives."

The country's national disaster agency separately confirmed two others had been killed in a landslide in neighbouring Rizal province the day before.

Earlier Thursday, government meteorologist John Manalo said sustained winds were at about 55 kilometres (34 miles) per hour, as the depression, formerly Tropical Storm Kujira, moved towards the Philippine Sea.

"Severe winds can still affect most parts of the country," he warned.

"Since our land is already saturated and soaked, the potential for flooding and landslides will be higher."

The Philippines is the first major landmass facing the Pacific cyclone belt, and the archipelago is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, putting millions of people in disaster-prone areas in a state of constant poverty.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme weather more frequent, prolonged and intense.

"During the night... air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 605 Ukrainian aerial drones," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry flagged attacks in the Tver region about 180 kilometres (110 miles) northwest of Moscow, where local authorities reported a logistics centre belonging to the e-commerce giant Wildberries had been damaged.

Regional governor Vitaly Korolyov said air defence systems had repelled the Ukrainian attack.

"As a result of the fall of debris from one of the drones, the facade of the Wildberries logistics centre was slightly damaged," he wrote on Telegram, adding that no one had been wounded.

Ukraine has repeatedly struck sites belonging to Wildberries -- a popular online commerce platform often described as Russia's Amazon -- across the country since mid-July.

Mikhail Yevrayev, governor of the Yaroslavl region around 250 kilometres north of Moscow, reported the "most massive attack" against his region, saying 92 drones had been shot down.

Debris caused fires in houses and damaged cars, he added on Telegram.

More than four years after the start of Russia's large-scale offensive against Ukraine, diplomacy is at a standstill and the two countries are ramping up long-range strikes, causing a growing number of civilian casualties.

The military identified the two reservists, who were killed in combat on Wednesday, as Major Harel Birenstock, 34, and Sergeant Major Tamir Vaknin, 33, of the 2855th Battalion, 55th Brigade.

The deaths were the first Israeli fatalities reported in southern Lebanon since June 28.

The Israeli strikes, accompanied by the first evacuation warning in weeks, came as the United States led diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon in Rome aimed at putting an end to hostilities, with Beirut seeking Israel's phased withdrawal from the south.

"In response to a blatant violation of the ceasefire by the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, the IDF has begun conducting precise strikes in southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement, shortly after telling residents to evacuate the town of Mansouri in the south.

Lebanese state media said one person died and 11 were wounded in a separate strike.

In Rome, Israel requested that the day's talks with Lebanon end three hours early, a source in the negotiations told AFP, saying the head of the Israeli delegation, US ambassador Yechiel Leiter, had blamed alleged "misleading leaks" by the Lebanese side.

But the talks were expected to resume on Thursday for a third and final day.

In previous US-sponsored talks in June, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a framework deal that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon's south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in test areas known as "pilot zones".

This week's negotiations are the seventh round since Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March with rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer Iran.

Israel responded with heavy airstrikes and a ground invasion that Lebanon says have killed more than 4,300 people.

In its first such warning since June, the Israeli military on Wednesday told the residents of Mansouri: "In light of Hezbollah's violations of the ceasefire agreement, the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to act against it with force."

"For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move north," the military's Arabic-language spokeswoman, Ella Waweya, posted on X.

The UN's humanitarian agency had said just the night before that more than 800,000 people displaced by earlier fighting in Lebanon had begun heading back home following the recent lull in violence, though more than 360,000 remained displaced.

- 'Shame, humiliation' -

The town of Mansouri, located around nine kilometres (six miles) south of Tyre and 10 kilometres north of Israel, and its surroundings were subjected to several Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in recent weeks despite the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel that took hold in June.

The town's municipality told residents on June 22 that they could return, but asked them to avoid the part of the town that fell within Israel's so-called "security zone" in southern Lebanon.

The "security zone" designates a strip of territory where Israeli forces continue to operate that runs around 10 kilometres deep inside southern Lebanon along its border with Israel.

A US State Department official had told AFP that this week's discussions would "include expanding the pilot zone process, resolving all outstanding border issues, and working on a comprehensive peace and security agreement".

As the delegations met in Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani spoke with his counterpart from Iran, Hezbollah's main patron, and called on Tehran to halt the group's operations.

Tajani, in a post shortly before the Israeli strikes, voiced hope that the talks would "yield concrete results".

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that the direct negotiations would bring "nothing but shame, humiliation" and successive concessions for Lebanon.

Hezbollah has repeatedly rejected the direct talks and refuses to surrender its weapons.

Violence in Lebanon has decreased since the Lebanon-Israel deal and the signing in June of a preliminary US-Iran agreement on the Middle East conflict.

But Lebanon continued to report intermittent Israeli strikes and shelling, as well as detonations and demolitions in southern villages.

Since the war between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in early March, Israel's military has lost 38 soldiers and one civilian contractor.

The company's first mRNA-based flu vaccine, mFLUSIVA, has been approved for use in all adults age 50 and older, the US-based pharmaceutical firm said in a release.

"Moderna expects to have mFLUVISA available for eligible populations in the US for the 2026-2027 respiratory virus season," the release said.

Moderna went public with news in February that federal vaccine regulators had called its clinical trials inadequate and rejected their application for review of the new shot.

But the FDA walked back its previous position a week later, after what Moderna called a "constructive" meeting.

The new shot uses mRNA technology, which health chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a vocal vaccine skeptic, has criticized. He notably cut off federal research grants that funded mRNA development.

Under Kennedy, and US President Donald Trump, the FDA has called for a reconsideration of approval procedures for certain vaccines, including for influenza, along with proposed federal policy changes that have triggered widespread alarm among public health and medical professionals.

During his first term Trump called mRNA technology a "modern-day miracle."

It was used during the Covid-19 pandemic to swiftly develop an immunization against the fast-spreading illness, and was credited with saving millions of lives.

Vaccines against Covid-19 are considered safe and effective by global health authorities, and protect against the most severe forms of the infection.

The agreement would be a step towards reopening the key energy route, but official sources briefing Iranian media stressed that any easing still hinged on Washington ending its own naval blockade of Iran's ports.

Iran has exercised de facto control of the waterway and threatened any vessels transiting routes it deems unauthorised ever since the United States and Israel launched their war against the country on February 28.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted Tehran is keen for a deal to reopen Hormuz, but Iran has denied this and said it will instead make arrangements with its neighbour across the strait, Oman.

"The geographical coordinates of the route envisaged by the two sides have been agreed upon and, if certain third parties do not obstruct the process, the joint statement of the two countries, containing the main considerations and points of agreement, is also in the final review and drafting stage," Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, according to state news agency IRNA.

According to the report, Baqaei told journalists that talks with Oman were moving forward, but that even if an understanding was reached, it would not mean that the strait had become safe for all passing vessels.

"The factors making the Strait of Hormuz insecure still exist on the part of the United States, particularly the naval blockade and other aggressive and threatening actions against Iran and its interests," he said.

Highlighting the risks, the captain of an oil tanker reported hearing two explosions while transiting the strait, nine nautical miles (17 kilometres) southeast of Kumzar, Oman, Britain's maritime security agency UKMTO said on Wednesday. The crew and vessel were safe.

Yemen's Houthis said separately they had struck two Saudi oil tankers, the eighth and ninth hit since they launched a blockade of the kingdom last month.

Military spokesman Yahya Saree said missiles hit the tanker Wafa off Yanbu in the northern Red Sea and the tanker Daisy in the Gulf of Aden.

Saudi authorities did not immediately comment.

- 'Fractured system' -

Before the war, Hormuz carried around a fifth of the world's oil and LNG exports, and prices have repeatedly surged since the dispute over the waterway erupted, piling economic and political pressure on Washington.

US Vice President JD Vance acknowledged American frustrations with the pace of diplomacy with Iran, saying negotiations would take time because of divisions within the country's leadership.

"It's going to be messy and it's going to take some time to get there," Vance told Fox News in an interview broadcast Wednesday.

"The reality... is that number one, the Iranians are extraordinarily difficult people. Number two, they have a fractured system," he said.

After imposing an effective blockade on the strait, Iran has insisted ships take a route that hugs the Iranian coast.

Many vessels have instead chosen to take a southern route, close to Oman on the opposite side of the strait, occasionally coming under fire.

Iran wants to control the strait and charge tolls, powers it did not exercise before the war and a development that the US would fiercely oppose.

In what has become a regular pattern, Trump last week threatened to hit Iran "very hard", potentially with attacks against civilian infrastructure, only to pull back, hinting a deal was near.

But Iran's foreign ministry denied negotiations were taking place with Washington.

Although the season began with below-normal activity, prolonged hot and dry weather since July has driven the rapid spread of fires across the country, with Ontario and the Northwest Territories especially impacted.

More than 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) have burned so far this year, displacing thousands of people and exposing millions to dangerous smoke levels.

To assess the role of climate change, researchers at the World Weather Attribution group used observations and climate models to compare conditions to what the world would have looked like without climate change warming the planet by 1.4C since pre-industrial times.

Focusing on the 7-day and the 30-day periods of most extreme "fire weather" in Ontario and the Northwest Territories, they found human-induced climate change made the events about twice as likely.

"Based only on observations, fire weather as seen in this year's event is no longer rare in today's climate, expected to occur once every 2-6 years in the Northwest Territories, and every 6-15 years in Ontario," the WWA said.

In a world without climate change, it would have occurred around every 40 years.

"Since 2023, the wildfires we've seen across Canada have been fundamentally different in their scale and intensity," said lead author Theodore Keeping of Imperial College London.

"The geographic spread of these fires is scary and shows that despite preparedness from wildfire governance, adaptation alone is not enough," he added.

"We need to rapidly move away from fossil fuels to avoid events like this becoming even more of a reality."

Human-caused climate change is increasingly creating conditions for more frequent and intense wildfires, through increased heat, extended drought, and a "thirsty" atmosphere that enhances the drying of organic matter.

It is a vicious loop, with increased wildfires releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating planetary warming.

Kyiv was unable to shoot down any of the missiles launched by Russia, whose intensifying attacks have prompted Kyiv to plead for more US-made Patriot interceptors.

Russia has significantly upped its attacks on the Ukrainian capital in recent months, typically firing salvos of hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles in short blitzes that rock buildings and send booms echoing across the city.

"Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, announcing 17 people had been killed.

A cloud of smoke hovered over the capital at sunrise, AFP journalists saw, after the attacks sparked fires in several locations in the region.

Over 40 people were wounded in the capital and its surrounding areas, local authorities said.

AFP journalists heard explosions in Kyiv after midnight (2100 GMT Tuesday), following Ukrainian air force warnings of incoming ballistic missiles.

One journalist reported seeing dark smoke and the acrid smell of burning lingering in the air hours later.

"The night was so terrifying, so hard," Kyiv resident Natalia Reutska told AFP in the morning after the attack.

"We've gotten used to waking up thinking, 'we were lucky today,' and that's very scary," she added.

Ukraine shot down 98 of the 115 drones fired by Russia overnight, the air force said.

But it was unable to shoot down any of the missiles, preliminary statistics from the air force showed.

Kyiv can intercept the vast majority of drones, but still relies on supplies from allies to counter missiles.

Zelensky has warned that Ukraine faces critical shortages of air defences needed to counter missile attacks, particularly Russia's increasing use of ballistic missiles.

Moscow fired a record number of missiles at Ukraine in July, an AFP analysis of Ukrainian air force data published Saturday showed.

- Warehouses hit -

The Russian attacks overnight mainly targeted warehouses, Kyiv said, with some strikes on infrastructure and a railway station.

Eight people were killed in a strike on a train station on the eastern edge of Kyiv, a local official said.

Logistics centres of the general merchandise chain Epicentr were struck, burning one hub completely to the ground and killing an employee, the company said.

Three people working at a postal sorting centre were also killed.

Moscow said it hit "transportation, logistics, and distribution centres in the city of Kyiv and the Kyiv region that were involved in the storage, delivering various weapons and military cargo, as well as in the production and distribution of unmanned aerial vehicles."

Its own network of online retailer, Wildberries, has been hit around a dozen times since mid-July by Ukrainian forces.

The series of strikes killed at least eight people and have knocked out a large chunk of the company's storage capacity.

Kyiv accuses the e-commerce giant -- which employs tens of thousands of people and is sometimes referred to as "Russia's Amazon" -- of storing drone parts and helping the Russian army.

This was the eighth Saudi oil tanker targeted since the start of the blockade on July 22, a Houthi military spokesman said.

The group "successfully targeted the Saudi oil tanker 'Wafa' in the northern Red Sea, off the coast of Yanbu, with a number of ballistic missiles," Yahya Saree said in a video statement.

The Houthis declared they will escalate attacks in the northern Red Sea because Saudi Arabia is diverting its oil tankers there from the south in response to their blockade.

The blockade has threatened top oil exporter Saudi Arabia's ability to get its supplies to the world following Iran's parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the kingdom's only other maritime route.

Saree said that the group's blockade had pushed Saudi Arabia to divert "its oil tankers towards the northern Red Sea".

So the group will now "escalate in targeting Saudi oil tankers in the northern Red Sea to close all access points and prevent their passage".

With Iran's closure of Hormuz, the Saudi port of Yanbu on the Red Sea became the main exit point for Saudi oil, with the Bab al-Mandeb Strait turning into a crucial transit route for crude.

The narrow waterway connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and, via the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean.

Saudi seaborne crude exports via the Bab al-Mandeb strait surged eightfold between March and mid-July 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to data from maritime tracker Kpler.

It skyrocketed to nearly 100 million barrels for the month of June, compared to 7 million barrels in February.

In April and May, all of Saudi Arabia's seaborne crude exports departed from Yanbu port, according to Kpler data.

The quake, which hit 32 kilometres (about 20 miles) southwest of the small island of Sarangani at 12:14 pm (0414 GMT), according to the USGS, did not trigger a tsunami warning. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Sarangani Island rescuer Harly Sauro told AFP the quake had struck while a large number of people had gathered to receive a government subsidy.

"The shaking was quite strong. I saw people in panic. They were running and shouting," he said.

"The earthquake came while the local government was giving a financial subsidy, so there were many people at the court, but everyone's safe," he added.

"Based on our assessment and experience, we don't think there will be casualties or damage."

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center placed Wednesday's quake at a depth of 62 kilometres.

The quake follows a powerful June 8 tremor that toppled buildings, triggered landslides and killed at least 76 people on the nearby island of Mindanao.

That earthquake, driven by a shifting of the Cotabato trench, raised the seabed by as much as two metres (6.6 feet), exposing coral and harming marine life.

Earthquakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Kyiv has in recent months urged allies to supply more US-made Patriot interceptors as Russia steps up its use of ballistic missiles more than four years into its full-scale invasion.

AFP journalists heard explosions in Kyiv after midnight (2100 GMT Tuesday), following Ukrainian air force warnings of incoming ballistic missiles.

One journalist reported seeing dark smoke and the acrid smell of burning lingering in the air hours later.

Kyiv's military administration said the missile and drone barrage slammed into residential buildings and several warehouses.

"The enemy is once again deliberately striking civilians and civilian infrastructure," it said on Telegram.

The military administration reported one woman killed and at least 24 other people wounded in the capital after strikes sparked fires in four districts.

In the Kyiv region, 14 people were killed in strikes, regional authorities said, noting more than 20 were wounded in Kyiv's surrounding areas.

"Kyiv region experienced one of its most tragic enemy attacks yet again tonight," Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.

"Russia has once again brought death and destruction to our land, taking the lives of civilians. Just accountability will certainly follow for every such crime."

The violence follows a series of deadly overnight strikes in the capital.

Russian attacks on Kyiv and its suburbs on Saturday killed 10 people and wounded more than 30 others while Ukrainian drones sank a huge Russian container ship in the Black Sea.

- A deliberate 'hunt' -

Both sides have increased long-range attacks in recent weeks, with Russia more than doubling its use of missiles in July, according to an AFP analysis.

Drone strikes have also become a regular occurrence, with Ukraine intensifying its attacks on civilian infrastructure, including oil and gas facilities and logistics in Russia.

Five people were killed and 10 others wounded in the Moscow region on Tuesday morning in strikes that targeted depots of the Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries.

Moscow's mayor said Wednesday the country's air defences had intercepted and destroyed at least 10 drones heading toward the Russian capital.

And the governor of Tula region, south of Moscow, said Russian defences destroyed 107 Ukrainian drones in the area overnight.

He said at two apartment buildings were damaged and said a drone fell on the grounds of a Wildberries logistics facility in the region, causing a fire.

The company, which Ukraine has accused of storing drone parts and helping the Russian army, said it ordered a "precautionary evacuation".

Ukraine, meanwhile, expressed outrage over a video showing a man chased by a drone in Kherson city, calling it a deliberate "hunt" and "safari" targeting civilians.

UN human rights monitors have voiced concern about rising numbers of civilian casualties, which have reached their highest level since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said a lack of ballistic missile interceptors "only encourages Russia to launch such attacks that take human lives".

He met his US counterpart Donald Trump last Tuesday, partly to lobby Washington for licences to produce Patriots domestically.

Russia said Saturday's attack struck "military-industrial complex industries and logistics centres". One of the buildings damaged in Kyiv was Lithuania's embassy. Another was a five-storey residential building.

The Brazilian government also said it was reducing "bilateral diplomatic representation to the level of Charge d'Affairs," Argentina's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Japan has been gradually moving away from its post-World War II pacifist status -- increasing military spending, ramping up defence pacts and deploying missile launchers to its outer islands.

Tokyo's defence minister said Tuesday the military needs to be boosted with a "sense of urgency and crisis", as a new government assessment warned of growing threats from China, Russia and North Korea.

In a statement carried by North Korean state media, Kim Yo Jong said Pyongyang's "leadership will set up additional military options which are obviously due to Japan's transformation".

"Japan, a war criminal state, is accelerating its transformation into a war state," said her statement published by the Korean Central News Agency.

Kim cited Tokyo's recent test-firing of Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles and its May participation in US-led drills in the Philippines as evidence of Washington's support for "dangerous military moves" in the Pacific.

Tokyo is moving "to formulate the possession of the capability for preemptive attack", she said. "We will never remain a passive onlooker to the military evolution of Japan which may pose a grave threat."

Japan occupied all of Korea before its 1945 surrender in the Second World War, after which the peninsula was divided into separate states along the 38th parallel.

The legacy of the violent colonial period continues to weigh on the foreign policies of both North and South Korea.

"If the descendants of militarism, who have inherited the genes of cunning and aggression, have seized deadly weapons in their hands, something unpleasant will happen," Kim's statement said.

Japan has hosted US military bases ever since its surrender in World War II.

The nation raised its military expenditure by 9.7 percent to $62.2 billion in 2025 -- equivalent to 1.4 percent of GDP, its highest share since 1958.

China -- a key ally North Korean -- has also recently expressed alarm at what it sees as "new militarism" by Japan.

Relations have worsened since Tokyo's hawkish new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made comments in November suggesting Chinese action to seize Taiwan could merit a reaction from Japan's military.

Beijing has long claimed the island is part of its territory and has not ruled out taking it by force.

Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear state since leader Kim Jong Un's 2019 summit with US President Donald Trump collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.

"We're having very good discussions," Trump said during a visit to California, insisting that Iran was keen to seal a deal to bring an end to months of conflict.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said they "successfully targeted a sensitive target belonging to the Saudi enemy at Najran Airport using a drone," adding that the strike on the southern airport was "in response to the Saudi enemy's violation of airspace over the Saada and Hajjah governorates using drones".

A regional source with knowledge of the matter told AFP that the airport's main radar was hit, affecting operations.

Saudi Arabia has not, so far, issued any comment on the claimed attack.

"We can confirm that the efforts are still ongoing with all parties," foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari told reporters at a regular briefing.

He said that negotiations were focused on "a short-term resolution that would help us reignite the talks and go back to the mediation efforts in its totality".

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he had agreed to continue to pursue talks with Iran at the request of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries but that Tehran had a "last chance" in negotiations.

The talks are focused on the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said, and the vital waterway could open "literally by tomorrow".

"Our focus right now is on lowering escalation, reopening the strait, and reopening the door for diplomacy between the parties" Al Ansari said.

"We are hopeful that if we can get a resumption of the talks anytime soon, we'll be able to push forward towards a major deal," he added.

Iran's foreign ministry denied on Monday that negotiations with Washington were taking place.

Qatar, a key intermediary in talks between Iran and the United States, had previously refused to enter negotiations under Iranian fire.

Tehran launched an unprecedented aerial bombardment against Gulf states in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes beginning at the end of February.

However, the Gulf emirate has played a more active role in negotiations recently, alongside mediator Pakistan and traditional mediator Oman.

"Qatar, Pakistan and now Oman are all working together," Al Ansari said

"We are coordinating very closely with the Omanis to facilitate the talks between both sides and exchanging ideas and exchanging drafts between both sides," he added. 

At negotiations in Washington in June, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a framework deal that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon's south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in test areas known as "pilot zones".

This week's negotiations, set to continue until Thursday, are the seventh round of US-sponsored talks since Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March with rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer Iran.

Israel responded with heavy airstrikes and a ground invasion that Lebanon says have killed more than 4,300 people.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that the direct negotiations would bring "nothing but shame, humiliation, and successive compromises" for Lebanon.

In a televised address, he also criticised Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun, saying he "has not acted as an arbiter, nor as a unifying figure, but has become biased and divisive, which is incompatible with his role and with Lebanon's strength".

On Monday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani urged Lebanon and Israel to "continue in a constructive spirit, identifying shared solutions that will allow for the full implementation of the framework agreement", his ministry said.

After talks last month, Israel's military withdrew from the outskirts of the village of Zawtar al-Gharbiya, one of the first pilot zones.

The Lebanese army deployed to the area and has allowed residents to inspect their homes and businesses.

- Pilot zones -

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told a cabinet meeting on Monday that his country was pursuing "efforts towards successive Israeli withdrawals from Lebanese territory, leading to a full withdrawal".

A US State Department official had told AFP that this week's discussions would "include expanding the pilot zone process, resolving all outstanding border issues, and working on a comprehensive peace and security agreement".

On Monday, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa warned that "moving too quickly risks jeopardising the very civilians this process is meant to protect".

"It is better to take the time needed to get this right the first time. Doing so will allow subsequent pilot zones to move forward more efficiently," Issa said.

"Both sides must agree on a clear, workable process before proceeding."

The Lebanese army's deployment is a major test, with experts expressing doubt over the authorities' ability to disarm Hezbollah -- which opposes the Israel deal and refuses to surrender its weapons -- and prevent further non-state military activity.

Observers say Israel's commitment to withdraw will also be tested when pilot zones are selected in areas fully under its occupation.

Violence in Lebanon has decreased since the Lebanon-Israel deal and the signing in June of a preliminary US-Iran agreement on the Middle East conflict.

But Lebanon continues to report intermittent Israeli strikes and shelling, as well as detonations and demolitions in southern villages.

Zaluzhny, an ultra-popular former top commander whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sacked in 2024, delivered the comments at a meeting of Kyiv's ambassadors on Monday, according to the European Pravda news outlet.

"I know NATO very well. For roughly 12 years I've personally worked on mastering NATO standards, and every year I've listened to the same fairytale that we're about to join," Zaluzhny was quoted as saying.

"Unfortunately, we never will," added Zaluzhny, currently the Ukrainian ambassador to Britain.

He said that "given the current level of development of the Ukrainian Armed Forces" it was impossible for Ukraine to join the alliance that, according to Zaluzhny, "adheres to doctrines dating from the Second World War".

Ukraine prides itself on its military industry progress, particularly in drone technology, which it has extensively developed since Russia invaded four and a half years ago.

In an opinion piece for British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published last month, Zaluzhny said the Ukraine war had "exposed uncomfortable questions about whether NATO is equipped for the conflicts of the 21st century".

"Ukraine has every reason to appreciate the support NATO members have provided, and continues to provide. But respect for the alliance should not prevent an honest assessment of its shortcomings," he wrote.

He added that "Ukraine's ability to sustain the war depends heavily upon continued backing from its allies".

Zaluzhny remains Ukraine's most trusted public figure, with 73 percent support, according to a June poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Speaking from the White House on Monday, the US leader continued his now familiar combination of bullish optimism about diplomacy and bellicose threats, warning that this was Iran's "last chance before decapitation".

Tehran and Washington have been at war since February 28, when the US and Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran. Despite a ceasefire and a preliminary deal in the months since, diplomacy has failed to end the war.

The Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for global oil and gas supplies, has been the spark for repeated returns to fighting.

Iran wants to maintain control over and charge tolls for the strait, powers it did not exercise before the war and which the US fiercely opposes.

In what has become a regular pattern, Trump last week threatened to hit Iran "very hard" -- potentially with attacks against civilian infrastructure -- only to pull back on Saturday, saying the "perimeters" of a deal were in place.

On Monday, he said he had agreed to continue to pursue talks with Iran at the request of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other countries.

But Iran's foreign ministry denied that negotiations with Washington were taking place, even as Trump insisted they were. "We are talking right now," the US president said.

The talks are focused on reopening Hormuz, which Trump said could come "literally by tomorrow", and the denuclearisation of Iran, which he said could "take a little while".

- 'Not very complex' -

Trump said he expected to know by Tuesday how the talks were going, "one way or the other", but insisted "it's not very complex".

Hours earlier on social media, the president had called Tehran "duplicitous" for saying it was not negotiating.

"Whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades," he added.

Trump pointed to the United States' counter-blockade of Iranian ports, saying: "Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished."

More than five months into a war that has cost Washington billions of dollars, Iran remains able to fire missiles and drones at US and allied targets in the region and retains its enriched uranium stockpiles.

Trump has placed particular emphasis on ending Iran's nuclear programme, which Western nations say is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons. Tehran insists it is a civilian programme.

Early on Tuesday, Britain's maritime security agency UKMTO said a cargo vessel had been struck by an "unknown projectile" in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman.

The vessel was not named and authorities were investigating, UKMTO said, without offering information on damage or injuries.

Iran continues to impose an effective blockade on the strait and insists ships coordinate crossings with it and take a route that hugs the Iranian coast.

Many vessels have instead chosen to take a southern route, close to Oman on the opposite side of the strait.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has said Tehran is negotiating a new route with Muscat, but that this was not about reopening Hormuz.

There were 236 people on board the vessel when it left Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, for Makassar on Sulawesi island on Sunday morning, search and rescue agency head Nanang Sigit said.

Nanang told Kompas TV on Monday 229 people had been rescued alive and five bodies were also recovered.

"Mathematically, only two that have yet to be evacuated. We are confirming this data with the shipowner," he said.

Numbers provided by officials have fluctuated wildly. The last toll given on Sunday was 41 people missing and five dead from a total manifest of 271 people.

Arman Asmara Syarifuddin, an East Java police official, told Kompas TV on Monday some 28 people were still missing.

The reason for the discrepancy was not clear.

The fire broke out on Sunday morning as passengers were eating breakfast, survivor Muhammad Abdul Karim told reporters in Surabaya after disembarking from a rescue vessel.

"Initially, the smoke entered the information room, the sleeping quarters. And then explosions happened," he said.

The blaze originated in the stern, sending passengers fleeing to the bow where they were all given life jackets, Muhammad said.

He said he jumped overboard with an elderly man as the fire came closer, and saw flames engulfing "almost all" of the ferry as he looked back.

"The waves were big and the ship coming to save us was quite far. Those were our fears when we were about to jump," said Muhammad -- who was rescued drifting at sea in his life jacket about seven hours later.

He said he had not seen any lifeboats aboard the ferry.

- 'No choice' -

Rescuers worked through the night to find survivors even as estimates of the number of missing people kept changing.

Most evacuees were taken back to Surabaya, a six-hour boat ride from where the ferry ran into trouble.

Bambang Susilo, 36, said he felt the blaze come closer to the bow of the ferry and the floor getting warmer, convincing him and a female passenger to jump some 10 metres (33 feet) into the sea.

"We had no choice but to surrender" to our fate, he told reporters at the Bhayangkara Hospital in Surabaya, where he was waiting to retrieve the body of a colleague.

Bambang and five other survivors had swum to the nearest rescue ship, some five kilometres (three miles) from the blazing ferry.

Another rescue vessel was deployed on Monday to help find the missing, said Nanang.

Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, partly due to lax safety standards and unpredictable weather.

A ferry transporting more than 70 people sank while sailing near Selayar, a small tropical island south of Sulawesi, last month.

At least four people were found dead and 14 others remained missing until the end of the search operation.

Since the start of the war with Israel and the United States in February, Tehran has ramped up executions, with many of the convicts accused of spying for Israeli intelligence.

"Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat were hanged this morning for transmitting the coordinates of sensitive military and security sites to Mossad agents," said Mizan, the media outlet for Iran's judiciary, referring to Israel's foreign intelligence service.

It did not specify when the pair were arrested or when they went on trial, but said they were convicted of "espionage and collaboration with the Zionist regime".

"They helped the intelligence services achieve their objectives by providing them with information on military and security centres during the war," Mizan added.

The number of executions in Iran has risen since the start of the war, which broke out on February 28 with massive US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader.

Iran is the world's second-most prolific executioner after China, according to rights groups including Amnesty International.

The authorities executed at least 1,639 people last year, a record high since 1989, according to Iran Human Rights, an NGO based in Norway, and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), which is headquartered in Paris.

On Tuesday, Amnesty denounced what it said was the "escalation" in executions after Iran announced the hanging of two men found guilty of taking part in anti-government protests during the winter.

"A fire broke out at one of the company's logistics sites in the Vladimir region following an attack," Wildberries said in a statement, adding that warehouse staff had been evacuated.

Regional governor Alexander Avdeyev said the attack was carried out by drones.

"There is damage and a fire," he posted on the Russian messaging app Max, adding that "a young man was injured".

Since mid-July, Ukraine has struck around 20 sites belonging to Wildberries across various parts of Russia and in annexed Crimea.

The initial attacks on the night of July 17-18 left eight people dead and nearly 90 wounded at sites in the Moscow and Tambov regions.

Since then, Ukrainian drone strikes have targeted sites near Saint Petersburg, in Simferopol in Crimea, in Krasnodar and Volgograd, and in Samara.

Wildberries is a highly popular online retail platform in Russia, often dubbed the "Russian Amazon".

The attacks on its warehouses are part of a campaign of long-range Ukrainian strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia, which has been waging a large-scale offensive in Ukraine since February 2022.

Kyiv says the aim is to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

The Emergency Lawyers, which has documented abuses by both the army and its rival paramilitaries throughout the three-year conflict, said the strike hit the court in the village of Garra al-Zawaya in North Darfur state at around 1:00 pm local time (1100 GMT), as civilians had "gathered to attend hearings on local cases and disputes".

The village is under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been locked in a brutal conflict with the army since April 2023.

"The court session was being held under a tree with the participation of local community leaders," a witness from the area told AFP on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

Among those killed were "four tribal leaders and two RSF commanders", the witness added.

There was no immediate response from the army. The RSF's self-declared government condemned the attack as "a horrific crime", saying 37 people had been killed and 50 others wounded.

- Drone warfare -

Garra al-Zawaya lies near the town of Kabkabiya in North Darfur, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of El-Fasher, the army's last stronghold in Darfur before it was captured by the RSF in a bloody offensive last October.

UN investigators have said violence linked to the RSF's siege and capture of El-Fasher bears "the hallmarks of genocide".

Following its takeover of the city, the RSF, which emerged from the Janjaweed militia accused of atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s, consolidated control over much of the region.

Since El-Fasher campaign, both sides have increasingly relied on drone warfare. According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes during the first five months of this year.

Last week, after losing control of a key highway linking the capital Khartoum and the city of El-Obeid, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo released a video message in which he told his fighters to consider themselves "unleashed" in their war against the army.

El-Obeid, the largest city in the southern Kordofan region, has come under intense drone attacks in recent weeks, prompting the UN to issue a "red alert" over the unfolding "catastrophe" there, where the RSF has sought to reimpose a blockade and is feared to be preparing a ground offensive.

The UN has repeatedly warned that RSF advances in El-Obeid and the wider Kordofan region could lead to mass atrocities.

The war between Daglo and his former ally, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and created what the United Nations describes as the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, but the RSF has been particularly accused of systematic sexual violence, looting and mass atrocities.

"The vessel and crew are all reported as safe," said the UKMTO. The master is the highest-ranking person on an oil tanker.

The incident happened 20 nautical miles (37 kilometres) northeast of Khasab, in Oman, the monitor added.

"Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity," the UKMTO advised.

The report came as Iran said Sunday it was nearing a deal with Oman over a new route through the Strait of Hormuz, hours after the US called off major strikes to allow for diplomacy.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told state television that a deal was close with Oman, which sits on the other side of the strait, over a new route through it.

But he insisted that such an agreement did not mean the reopening of the strait.

Todd Blanche's announcement came after the Senate Judiciary Committee pushed back a vote on advancing his nomination owing to his continuing dispute with Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Cornyn and Tillis have said they will withhold support for Blanche until the Trump administration rescinds plans for a controversial $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund for people claiming they have been victims of politically motivated prosecutions.

"My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions," Blanche wrote on X.

"We have enjoyed good faith discussions, and as a result issue the following order and update with regard to the May IRS settlement," he added.

A signed order attached to Blanche's post said: "The Attorney General's May 18, 2026 Order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund... is rescinded and shall have no force or effect.

"This Order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund."

The Senate Judiciary Committee is now due to vote on Blanche's nomination on Tuesday.

For its part, Iran said it was nearing a deal with Oman over a new route through the strait, where a tanker reported an explosion nearby on Sunday, underscoring the continued volatility of the strategic waterway. Oil prices fell on Monday at the opening of Asian trade after Trump announced the new negotiations, with West Texas Intermediate dropping 4.7 percent to $80.72 per barrel.

Washington and Tehran have been at war since February 28, when the US and Israel launched surprise strikes against Iran, though months of on-off diplomacy have led to periods of relative calm. Following a return to strikes last month, fears had mounted that the fighting could escalate once again. Trump had threatened to hit Iran "very hard" and was reportedly considering renewed attacks including against energy infrastructure, with US embassies across the region on alert.

Trump pulled back from that threat Saturday, saying the "perimeters" of a deal were there. "Now what we're doing is we're talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, without providing details of the venue or participants in the talks. The US president said he had been asked by Iran as well as US partners Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to hold off on the strikes, which he claimed would have been "the biggest attack since World War II."

Iranian media denied that Tehran had asked Trump not to strike. A previous ceasefire deal that included the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz fell through, and Iran has since tightened its control over the waterway.

The US president said at the start of the conflict that the war was necessary to deal with Iran's nuclear programme. Western nations accuse Iran of seeking a bomb, though Tehran insists the programme is entirely civilian in nature. Iranian lawmaker Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman for the parliament's national security commission, said on Sunday that mediators were trying to revive the US-Iran memorandum of understanding that was agreed in June.

That agreement was not intended as a final peace deal, but as a stepping stone to negotiations on a comprehensive agreement, though it did include provisions on Hormuz. "They know that the main issue and, in fact, the key to the matter right now is the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, so yes, there is an exchange of views," Ghashghavi said.

Posting on X, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said: "We must strive to compel the enemy to remain committed to what it has signed." Before the war, there was free passage for all vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran closed the strait during the war and now insists on retaining control and charging tolls, something the US rejects.

That dispute sparked the return to strikes last month, as Tehran refused to let ships travel any route other than one which hugs the Iranian coast. On Sunday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told state television that a deal was close with Oman, which sits on the other side of the strait, over a new route through it.

"We are now going to reach an understanding on a route acceptable to both sides -- neither the northern route nor the southern route -- but one that respects the sovereign rights of both sides and safeguards our national interests and security," he said. He insisted though that such an agreement did not mean the reopening of the strait. Maritime trade tracking firm Kpler said Friday that traffic through Hormuz had dropped sharply.

On Sunday, a tanker off the coast of Oman reported hearing an explosion near the vessel, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre reported, adding that the vessel and crew were all safe.

"The USA is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

"Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack," he said. "Based on this request, I have agreed... to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL. The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment."

Gaza's civil defence agency said it found the remains or body parts following 136 hours of digging, largely with bare hands, in Sabra, a neighbourhood in the south of Gaza City.

The remains included those of 40 children, 38 women and seven people who had had physical disabilities, according to the agency, which serves as a rescue service under Hamas.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it supported the operation, which took place over nearly two weeks.

"For more than two and a half years, thousands of families in Gaza have lived in pain and uncertainty, waiting for the chance to recover the remains of their loved ones, mourn them and lay them to rest with dignity," said Amani Al-Naouq, ICRC spokesperson in Gaza.

"The search for missing persons and the recovery of human remains is a critically important humanitarian issue," she told AFP.

Colonel Mohammed Abu Dan, who is in charge of the site for the civil defence agency, said that the team has not yet found 157 other bodies believed to be under the rubble there.

He described the search as arduous, with teams sifting by hand through destroyed concrete and twisted metal.

Thousands of people's remains are still unaccounted for in Gaza, many of them believed to have been buried under rubble from intense Israeli air strikes.

Restrictions imposed on media outlets and limited access in Gaza prevent AFP from independently verifying tolls or freely covering the violence.

The Hamas-run health ministry has confirmed the deaths of more than 73,300 people in the war, in figures that are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The war broke out when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,221 people and dragging 251 hostages into Gaza in the deadliest attack on the Israeli population since the creation of the state in 1948.

The fire department said over 300 firefighters were operating in the area of Porto Germeno, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of Athens in the region of Viotia.

"The fire has reached the sea... homes have certainly been damaged," a fire department spokesman told AFP.

"The winds are very strong. Aircraft are trying to operate as best they can, but some are unable to and have been transferred to another fire (in the Peloponnese) where conditions are milder," he added.

The fire broke out Friday near the neighbouring coastal village of Agios Vasileios. Residents initially ignored a civil protection call to evacuate, and some 300 people had to be rescued by sea.

Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist and senior researcher at the National Observatory of Athens on Saturday said the damage to the Porto Germeno area was "inconceivable".

"The area that has been affected appears to exceed 4-5,000 hectares," he said in a Facebook post.

Wildfires have flared in several parts of the country this week, including on the popular island of Crete, and three firefighters have so far lost their lives.

On Friday, another fire threatened the suburb of Haidari west of Athens that had to be partly evacuated.

A maximum fire risk alert has been issued for Saturday in the greater Athens area, parts of the Peloponnese and Crete, central Greece and the border region with Turkey.

Greece's geography, with its hundreds of islands, complicates the rapid deployment of emergency responders.

Hit hard by the climate crisis like the rest of the Mediterranean region, the country is plagued by wildfires every summer due to high temperatures, frequent heat waves, and drought.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned on Thursday that Greece -- which had been relatively spared from heat waves and major fires earlier this summer, unlike France and Spain -- was headed for "difficult days".

The avalanche struck Thursday, cutting off contact with the ten-member international expedition led by renowned British-Nepali climber Nirmal Purja -- who is not among the remains recovered so far.

Those recovered -- flown by helicopter to hospital for formal identification -- included an American woman, an Omani woman, and a Nepali man, the regional government said in a statement released Friday night.

Police in the mountainous northern Gilgit-Baltistan region said in a statement that high-altitude porters and rescue teams had begun a second day of the operation Saturday after the search was paused due to difficult weather conditions on Friday.

Rescuers and military helicopters had been scouring the area, and teams had stayed at the base camp overnight, according to the regional government.

"The rescue team has reported that they have spotted a few (more) dead bodies of the climbers through drone footage," the statement said.

"The rescue operation is being conducted under extremely challenging terrain and high-altitude weather conditions by the Pakistani army in coordination with local high-altitude climbers and rescuers," it added.

- Powerful avalanche -

The avalanche struck while the mountaineers were on a mission to summit Broad Peak (8,047 metres, 26,400 feet) on Thursday while the team were ascending at an altitude of around 6,600 metres, according to regional authorities.

The expedition comprised 10 people -- including Purja, five Nepalis, a Pakistani, an Omani, an American, and a climber from China.

The team were last in contact on Thursday morning, the official statement said, with reports emerging that evening of the powerful avalanche.

"Data from their tracking devices indicates that they were thrown hundreds of metres down the mountainside," Naila Kiani, from Pakistan's Alpine Club, told Le Monde newspaper.

- Super peaks -

Purja, 43, had written on X this week that he was close to becoming the first person to climb all 14 "super peaks" twice without oxygen.

"Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down," he wrote.

Purja, who served with Britain's Brigade of Gurkhas before joining the Special Boat Squadron of the Royal Marines, has broken multiple climbing records since becoming a full-time mountaineer and tour guide.

He climbed all 14 "eight-thousanders" (peaks above 8,000 metres) in six months and six days between April and October 2019 -- then a record.

Broad Peak is the world's 12th highest mountain, located in the Karakoram range in northern Pakistan, and is regarded as one of the toughest and most technical climbs of all the 8,000-metre-plus ascents.

It was first summited in 1957 by an Austrian team.

"Fires and destruction occurred in 5 districts of the capital," the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said on Telegram, adding that 23 people were wounded in the ballistic missile attack.

Humala, a former army officer who led the country from 2011 to 2016, left the prison in Lima in a vehicle at about 7:40 pm (0040 GMT Saturday), under police escort.

A crowd of supporters was on hand to see his release.

Humala, 64, was the first Peruvian ex-leader to face trial in the Odebrecht corruption scandal, which has also tainted three other former presidents -- Alejandro Toledo, Martin Vizcarra and Pedro Castillo.

All four were serving their sentences in a prison reserved especially for them, on a police base.

Humala and his wife were convicted last year for receiving illegal contributions from Odebrecht and the Venezuelan government in two presidential campaigns.

"We have been victims of political and judicial persecution," Humala told reporters outside the small prison facility.

His wife Nadine Heredia sought asylum in Brazil after her conviction, and remains there.

Upon arriving at his home, where he said his mother-in-law and a child were waiting for him, Humala said he had "never received campaign contributions from either Venezuela or Brazil."

"But they dragged us into a trial; they subjected us to a criminal proceeding because of our ideology," he said.

Peru's Constitutional Court declared Humala's sentence null and void, in a ruling published Thursday. A criminal court then ordered his release.

The country's new Foreign Minister Carlos Espa called the ruling "fair."

"I am very pleased" with the court's decision, Espa -- who is in the government of right-wing President Keiko Fujimori, a political rival of the leftist Humala -- had said earlier.

In 2016, Odebrecht agreed to pay $3.5 billion in penalties after having spent $788 million in bribes to foreign leaders and government officials in order to win infrastructure projects in Latin America.

Odebrecht admitted to having paid at least $29 million in bribes to Peruvian officials between 2005 and 2014.

The company is considered responsible for one of the biggest foreign bribery schemes in history.

Fujimori also faced legal proceedings in connection with campaign contributions from Odebrecht and others. She spent more than a year in pre-trial detention before the proceedings were annulled.

Humala defeated Fujimori in a 2011 runoff to win the presidency.

The migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco, the enclave's regional president Juan Jesus Vivas told reporters, but by Friday evening officials said more than 48,000 had returned.

To cross into Ceuta, many swam around a small border barrier that juts out into the Mediterranean. At least 34 people died in the attempt.

The sudden influx sparked an international crisis.

France tightened checks on its border with Spain and said it would increase its police presence there fivefold to 334 officers and gendarmes by Saturday.

Italy announced it had suspended its Schengen agreement with Spain allowing for visa-free movement between borders.

Italian officials said the suspension would take effect on Saturday and last for one month.

Several European countries suggested Spain's membership in the Schengen free movement zone should be suspended, though Spain's foreign minister said integrity of the zone was "guaranteed".

Across the Atlantic, US President Donald Trump led far-right efforts to seize on the crossing to advance hardline immigration policies.

'Trafficking mafias' -

Madrid rushed troops, more police, drones, divers and boats to the outpost that it has run for centuries as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his interior minister visited on Friday.

Overnight into Saturday, AFP journalists observed groups of young people wandering the beaches and streets of Ceuta. Dozens of men slept on the sand.

There was a massive police and military presence in the area, and some young people were seen turning back, saying "adios" or "goodbye" to officers before crossing over the border to Morocco.

Inside the city, shops were closed and annual fiestas were cancelled.

"It's catastrophic," said Mohammed, a local taxi driver and Ceuta resident.

"Sure, we sympathise with them -- they're having a terrible time in their own country, and all that -- but this isn't the way to enter a place, nor is it a way to live."

Previous migrant surges have occurred during tensions between Spain and Morocco.

Sanchez visited Algiers on July 20 -- the first such visit by a Spanish head of government in four years -- marking a thaw in relations with Morocco's rival Algeria.

But it was not clear if there was any connection between that visit and this latest influx.

In Ceuta, Sanchez blamed the surge on people-traffickers spreading rumours about a Spanish Supreme Court ruling this month that irregular migrants arriving by sea could not be immediately returned.

"What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling," he said.

Diplomatic fallout -

Fears of the crowds entering EU member states sparked diplomatic fallout.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called the scenes at Ceuta "unacceptable".

"We cannot allow anyone to come to our (European) Union without abiding by our rules," she said on social media.

Finland and Denmark on Friday backed Italy's moves, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded Morocco "take back illegal migrants immediately".

France and Britain said they stood ready to help Spain with the sudden surge, even as France tightened border checks.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said he was considering reinforcing border checks but saw no need to suspend Spain from the Schengen zone.

Trump, meanwhile, warned: "It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people, and that same thing's going to happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected, except worse, much bigger."

Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares tried to allay fears, saying it was "not possible to travel from Ceuta and Melilla to the Peninsula without identifying oneself at a police checkpoint," referring to Spain's two North African enclaves.

"Enough of this deliberate confusion".

Successive crises -

Ceuta, a territory of 18.5 square kilometres (seven square miles), and the nearby enclave of Melilla are Europe's only two land borders with Africa.

Morocco's authorities have not yet issued an official statement on the flow of migrants.

During a similar surge in 2021, more than 10,000 migrants reached Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco over the course of two days during a diplomatic spat between the two countries.

The row erupted after Spain decided to host for medical treatment a leader of the Polisario Front, whose guerillas fought a long war with Rabat over the independence of the Western Sahara region.

The crisis ended in 2022 when Madrid reversed its long-standing policy of neutrality and backed Morocco's plan for Western Sahara -- a move that had caused a diplomatic rift between Madrid and Algiers.

The vessel reported it was "struck by an unknown projectile which has caused damage to the engine room", the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said, adding no injuries were reported in the incident around 12.5 miles off the coast of Lima, Oman.

After five months of war, Trump's room for maneuver seems extremely limited, and he gives the impression of increasingly making up his plans as he goes along.

"We're going to be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them," Trump said Wednesday of upcoming strikes against Tehran in retaliation for its attacks against bases hosting US forces in Jordan.

The Republican leader has clearly demonstrated the limits of his so-far unsuccessful efforts to attempt to force Iranian capitulation through air strikes.

As the conflict in the Middle East spreads from Iraq to Saudi Arabia to even Egypt, the US president finds himself at an impasse.

He convened members of his cabinet at the Camp David presidential retreat on Friday -- but gave no indication of a possible shift in strategy.

Citing unnamed US officials, NBC News reported earlier this week that Trump erupted in anger during a recent White House meeting and was "exasperated" by his limited available options to end the war.

The situation effectively largely depends on Tehran.

After the US launched strikes in concert with Israel against Iran on February 28 -- killing numerous officials, including Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei -- things have not gone according to plan for Trump.

'No quick solutions' -

The US president spoke earlier in the conflict of a four- to six-week timeline for the offensive, which he says is aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

While US officials maintain that they have achieved key military objectives, destroying Iran's navy and degrading its ballistic missile capabilities, the conflict is now centered on control of the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has disrupted key maritime traffic with attacks on shipping vessels.

That seems to have caught Washington off guard, and a June 17 agreement to halt the fighting has already broken down.

The US military has since carried out repeated strikes on Iranian military targets, while Tehran's Revolutionary Guards have retaliated by striking US bases and allies in the region.

"It is hard to see why this approach would work now when it hasn't worked over the past five months," Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a Friday newsletter.

Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the "conflict is still in early stages... We should be prepared for prolonged disruption."

"This is a conflict that has no quick solutions really, even with a regime transition that could lead to more instability in the region rather than less," she told journalists this week.

That is especially true now that attacks on Saudi Arabia and other wealthy, oil-producing Gulf states have left them weakened.

Unpopular war -

In the United States, the war is largely unpopular, especially due to higher gas prices that have angered consumers.

An average of polls compiled by political expert Nate Silver and updated Thursday shows that 58.3 percent of Americans oppose the war -- a figure that has been steadily rising since March -- while 37.4 percent say they support it.

The issue is politically explosive, with November midterm elections just about three months away -- contests that are historically difficult for the party that controls the White House, and which could see Trump lose Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Alex Vatanka, another senior fellow from the Middle East Institute, summed up the situation, describing it as a "lose-lose equation" in which "neither side is benefiting."

"There was a steady stream of people all night long," and while arrivals were lower than during the day, migrants "continued to arrive overnight and are still arriving" on Friday morning, the source said.

A total of 18 people died while attempting to reach the Spanish enclave, the source said.

"According to information received from the deployed teams, 34x Dead bodies have been recovered," southern Balochistan's provincial disaster management authority said in a statement.

"The Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) has received deeply concerning reports of an avalanche that struck a team of climbers on Broad Peak (8,047m) in the Karakoram mountain range," the club said late on Thursday, adding the team had been led by Nepal-born Purja and could not be reached since the incident.

In July of that year, the Venezuelan government ordered the withdrawal of its diplomatic staff from Chile and six other countries that had called for a review of election results that declared Maduro victorious.

Since his ouster by US forces in January, several countries have resumed relations with Caracas.

"As of today, Chile and Venezuela are beginning a new phase," Chile's hard-right President Jose Antonio Kast stated.

"The agreement will allow us to move forward on the tremendous challenges we face as countries on the same continent...related to security, migration, and economic development," he added.

Kast is looking to expel some 330,000 undocumented people from Chile, and not having diplomatic ties with Venezuela has proven to be an obstacle to that objective.

Under a bill enacted in May, Japan has upgraded an existing intelligence body to serve as the central command for collecting and analysing information related to security and public safety.

The new National Intelligence Bureau will integrate information gathered by ministries and report to the National Intelligence Council, also newly created and headed by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Japanese officials have long argued that the nation needs to improve its intelligence capacity to deter foreign spies, prevent terrorism, safeguard sensitive technologies and improve national security.

Critics say Tokyo's existing policies and law enforcement against espionage are too relaxed.

The New York Times reported this month that Russia had turned Japan into a "den of spies" and a key source of dual-use technology needed for its war in Ukraine.

The report cited Ukrainian government estimates that 90 percent of Russian missiles and drones contain Japanese components.

Concerns have in recent years also been raised about weaknesses in Japan's cybersecurity defences.

Takaichi's critics have voiced concerns that the upgraded intelligence apparatus might lead to the government's overreach and infringe upon individual freedom and privacy.

"We are doing our utmost to bring all parties back to the Islamabad MoU," foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi told reporters, adding Pakistan was encouraging the countries to "fully adhere to their commitments to hold technical talks" under the agreement.

"Last night, two oil tankers, encouraged by American aircraft, attempted to leave through the unsafe southern route of the Strait of Hormuz," the Guards said in a statement.

"After a major fire broke out on one of them, both vessels quickly turned back."

Iran has kept control of the Hormuz since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East on February 28.

It has since insisted that ships transiting the waterway crucial for energy trade should cross through a route designated by Iran after requesting permission and paying service fees.

On Thursday, the powerful Guards reiterated that the strait was "our territory" and "cannot be reopened as long as the excessive rhetoric and threats of American officials and their interference in maritime movements in the region continue."

"A US attack on a residential home in the Chah Tangu neighbourhood of Qeshm killed three members of a family: the father, the mother, and their 2-year-old child," Fars reported citing the Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, adding that two other children were injured.

The reignited hostilities have drawn in the Islamic republic's proxies, and appear to have dashed hopes of a quick return to negotiations between the foes.

US President Donald Trump had vowed to hit Iran "hard" after Tehran launched missiles at Jordan, its first regional strike in days.

American forces "successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran", and struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard targets including military command centres, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.

Iran's state news agency IRNA reported hits on several cities in the southwestern Khuzestan province, as well as on Qeshm island in the Gulf.

Areas around the cities of Abadan, Shadegan, Arvandkenar and Ahvaz -- all in Khuzestan -- were struck, the agency said, citing provincial authorities.

In a sign of the war's spread, Saudi Arabia and the United States announced strikes Wednesday on militant bases in Iraq, while US ally Israel accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of a truce violation.

The world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia has reported two days of drone attacks targeting crude facilities that it blames on Iraqi armed groups allied with Tehran.

Jordan's army said it had intercepted five Iranian missiles, after Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it had targeted US bases there.

"As long as the threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran continue... the resistance will continue," the IRGC said.

On another front, Israel accused Hezbollah of deploying a drone overnight against an Israeli vehicle inside Lebanon, in what the military called "a blatant violation of the ceasefire".

Israel fought alongside the United States in the first weeks of the war against Iran, while battling Hezbollah in Lebanon, but it has yet to join the latest round of strikes against the Islamic republic.

- 'Dangerous' -

In Iraq, the joint US-Saudi air operation followed attacks by what Riyadh called "terrorist militias loyal to Iran" on its oil facilities.

The US military said logistics and weapons sites belonging to an Iran-aligned group were targeted in the strikes.

Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi alliance said the attacks killed at least 20 of its members.

It denounced a "dangerous escalation" against an "official security institution".

Two Hashed officials said five Iranian advisors were among those killed, and AFP correspondents saw coffins draped with Iranian flags.

The Hashed al-Shaabi alliance, also known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces, was created in 2014 to fight jihadists before its integration into the military.

It includes brigades belonging to Iran-backed groups reputed for acting unilaterally.

Iraq denounced the US-Saudi strikes and said it rejects "all acts of aggression, regardless of the party responsible or the justifications presented".

The Ministerial Council for National Security said it would "confront any violation of Iraq's sovereignty, and prevent any source from using Iraqi territory to threaten neighbouring states".

According to Fox News, however, Trump said the strikes were "coordinated with the Iraqi government".

The strikes follow growing US pressure on Iraq to disarm pro-Iran groups. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi visited both the US and Iran.

- Red Sea -

The United States had said the days-long cessation in fighting was aimed at kickstarting a new round of negotiations, including over the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded throughout much of the war.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday they had attacked and stopped three tankers in the strait, insisting Iran has "full control" of the waterway that was previously free to transit.

Tehran has insisted it will retain control of the crucial conduit for energy shipments, and has also announced plans to collect fees for passage, which Washington opposes.

Crude oil prices slipped on Thursday after a jump the day before.

The United States also announced new sanctions targeting entities linked to Iran's Guards that it accused of extorting ships transiting the strait.

The head of the information and culture department in Badakhshan, Zabihullah Amiri, was shot dead Tuesday while en route to the provincial capital Faizabad.

The Islamic State-Khorasan group -- the chapter in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- said Wednesday it carried out the attack.

"The soldiers of the Caliphate targeted a commander from the apostate Taliban militia... with machine guns, killing him along with one of his guards," it said in a statement quoted by monitoring organisation SITE Intelligence Group.

Amiri was a nephew of Amanuddin Mansur, the governor of southern Helmand province.

Afghanistan's information and culture ministry said one of the assailants was killed and a second arrested after the "cowardly attack".

The ministry "reminds the enemies of the Islamic government that such cowardly acts will never weaken our firm resolve and steadfast determination", it said Tuesday.

Taliban officials have vowed to restore security to Afghanistan, but sporadic attacks remain since they returned to power in 2021.

The regional branch of the Islamic State group has claimed some of them, including an explosion at a Chinese restaurant in central Kabul that killed at least seven people in January.

The jihadist group also claimed responsibility for a December 2024 suicide bombing in Kabul that killed refugees minister Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani.

The reversal follows criticism from teachers, nutritionists and parents who argued that removing eggs from school lunches could deprive children from poor families a key source of protein.

The issue erupted last month after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, elected for the first time in the state in May, removed eggs from meals in some state-run schools and arranged for a Hindu religious charity to provide vegetarian food instead.

The move rekindled a long-running debate over food and religion in the world's most populous country, with critics accusing the government of trying to turn schoolchildren vegetarian.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said eggs would again be provided to schoolchildren from August.

Under the new arrangement, eggs will be provided separately through women's welfare groups while the charity would continue to supply "pure" vegetarian meals.

"The state government will supply boiled eggs separately to these schools by engaging self-help groups from August 1," Adhikari told reporters.

"Some guardians requested the government to ensure that eggs were included in the meals," he added.

The BJP often promotes vegetarianism as a part of its broader nationalist agenda, although most Hindus eat meat and fish.

Eggs, which Hindus consider non-vegetarian, are also widely consumed.

Teachers and nutrition experts had criticised the move to remove eggs from the menu, saying they helped improve both nutrition and school attendance among children from low-income families.

India's free school lunch programme, the largest of its kind in the world, is widely credited with improving enrolment rates and helping reduce malnourishment and stunting among children.

The change could leave some 25 million senior citizens facing serious cost increases for prescription drugs, the report said.

Citing anonymous Trump administration officials, the newspaper said $3.6 billion in federal subsidies paid to stymie increases in Medicare insurance premiums will end this December.

Those on the subsidized plans will learn of their new premium rates in autumn.

The move could become a political issue ahead of November's US midterm elections, with prescription drug costs a key concern for many retirees and people living on fixed incomes.

Health policy nonprofit KFF said the average premium for a subsidized plan was around $36 a month.

A Trump administration official told the Journal that around a quarter of those on the subsidized plan will see their premiums decrease or stay the same in 2027, while another 30 percent will have a monthly increase of under $10.

The remaining 45 percent will have a monthly cost increase between $11 and $20, the official said.

The United States and Saudi Arabia said they had struck Iran-backed militants in Iraq in response to attacks on US forces and Saudi oil facilities.

"These attacks resulted in the martyrdom of a number of personnel and injuries to others, as well as material damage to several buildings and properties," the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), known as Hashed al-Shaabi in Arabic, said in a statement.

Wellington unveiled plans in 2025 to retool its military for modern warfare, including investments in submarine-hunting helicopters and unmanned drones.

Penk said New Zealand was seeking human-operated strike drones that offered a cheaper alternative to conventional missiles.

The "one-way strike drones" would be equipped with explosive payloads, he said.

Penk said New Zealand would soon go to market to find drone suppliers, with a particular interest in working with homegrown businesses.

New Zealand was also looking to buy long-range unarmed drones for maritime surveillance, he said.

New Zealand has been embarking on a major effort to rebuild its military, facing what it described in 2025 as the "most challenging and dangerous" security environment in decades.

Although not a treaty ally of the United States, Wellington and Washington nonethless have a close strategic partnership.

"We have received reports of seven people with serious injuries and 29 with minor injuries. Furthermore, as of 7:00 am today (2200 GMT Tuesday), 9,186 people have sought refuge in 506 evacuation centres across five prefectures, including Kumamoto and Fukuoka," government spokesman Minoru Kihara said a day after the quake that killed at least 13 people.

The discovery of the new species, named Musango matusadonaensis, is based on a skeleton excavated on the shores of Lake Kariba in northern Zimbabwe in 2018, and is the fifth dinosaur identified from the country, they said.

It lived about 210 million years ago during the Late Triassic, when dinosaurs were beginning to spread across the planet but had yet to become the dominant land animals, said the international team of palaeontologists behind the discovery.

Unlike the giant long-necked dinosaurs that evolved millions of years later, Musango was relatively lightly built, about 4.5 metres (15 feet) long and weighing an estimated 222 kilogrammes (490 pounds) -- about the weight of a fully grown pig.

It was named after the local Shona word "musango", meaning "living in the bush".

"Until recently, it was assumed that the dinosaurs living across southern Africa were largely the same," said Paul Barrett, researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.

The discovery suggests the region was instead made up of several distinct ecosystems, each home to different dinosaur species, Barrett said in a statement.

"It suggests that what we've found so far is only the tip of the iceberg," he said.

His team's findings were published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

The fossil is among the most complete dinosaur skeletons of its age found in Zimbabwe, with bones from its spine, ribs, arms, legs and feet preserved.

Researchers estimated Musango was about eight years old and nearly fully grown when it died. The bones also showed it had recovered from a serious injury or infection.

While its skull has not been found, researchers believe Musango was probably a herbivore or an omnivore, feeding on plants growing along rivers and streams.

In 2022, scientists in Zimbabwe discovered the remains of Africa's oldest dinosaur, which roamed the earth around 230 million years ago.

The dinosaur, named Mbiresaurus raathi, was only about one metre tall, with a long tail, and weighed up to 30 kilogrammes.

"The ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Venezuela was summoned to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry in order to be given a note of protest over the contemptuous and inappropriate remarks made against Venezuela's institutions and authorities," the statement shared via social media said.

Asked by AFP, Venezuelan authorities did not specify what remarks they referred to, but video circulating online indicates Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had recently said Iran is "not Venezuela" when it come to negotiations with the United States.

The Guards' navy said "three violating oil tankers, which ignored our warnings and continued sailing an unsafe and illegal route, were struck and brought to a halt", the Tasnim News agency reported.

The 7.1-magnitude tremor on Tuesday flattened homes, triggered fires, ruptured bridges and left tens of thousands without power in the southwestern Kumamoto region, where twin quakes killed hundreds in 2016.

"Extensive damage has been confirmed, including casualties, collapsed buildings, fires and damage to roads," Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in Tokyo as she announced the 13 fatalities.

Government spokesman Minoru Kihara said that seven others were seriously injured and that as of early Wednesday more than 9,000 people had sought refuge in 506 shelters in three regions of Kyushu island.

Some stunned locals said the quake was the biggest they had felt in their lifetimes, measuring at the top of Japan's seven-level shindo scale of shakiness, at which it is impossible to remain standing.

"It was the strongest quake I ever experienced," Kanzo Matsumoto, 73, the operator of a luxury onsen hot spring inn in Yatsushiro, told AFP.

"I'm not sure if (the region) will be able to recover from the damage."

Chiharu Hara, a 35-year-old recruitment agent, told AFP that she was "terrified" when the quake struck.

"The office swayed violently side to side. I was afraid it would collapse. Everyone panicked," Hara said.

At least two of the dead were two women killed in a shopping mall in the town of Kashima apparently gutted by a gas explosion around half an hour after the quake, which was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

Footage from inside the mall showed rescue workers in orange overalls and white helmets picking their way through a mass of twisted steel, dangling cables and chunks of ceiling.

"The explosion occurred after the customers and staff had evacuated," a spokesman for the mall's operator Aeon told AFP.

Eight people were rescued from the mall, five of whom had injuries, a local official told AFP.

Initial reports said that as many as 20 to 30 people were trapped inside, but broadcaster NHK cited police early Wednesday as saying that the number was "lower than that".

Nine people were meanwhile unaccounted for in a Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro, where part of a red-and-white smokestack smashed into the sprawling facility below, officials said.

Across Kumamoto 36,880 households and facilities still had no power on Wednesday morning, officials said.

The powerful tremor struck at 4:27 pm (0727 GMT) on Tuesday and was measured at 6.8 by the US Geological Survey (USGS) at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles).

The temblor also knocked over a cargo train, flattened a traditional "torii" gateway and cracked roads, making many impassable. High-speed shinkansen trains remained suspended on Wednesday.

Footage also showed parts of a wall at the centuries-old Kumamoto Castle collapsing.

Kumamoto airport was closed for several hours before re-opening on Tuesday evening.

The Japanese military has mobilised 3,600 personnel for disaster relief operations and sent 20 aircraft to assess the damage from the air, the defence minister said.

Japan is one of the world's most seismically active countries, sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, typically experiences hundreds of jolts every year and accounts for about 18 percent of the world's earthquakes.

The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and the depth below the Earth's surface at which they strike.

Japan is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that killed or left missing around 18,500 people and wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The tremor at 4:27 pm (0727 GMT) on the island of Kyushu also measured at the highest possible level seven on Japan's own Shindo scale of shaking, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The tsunami could measure up to one metre (three feet), the agency said.

Broadcaster NHK said that waves of up to that level may already have been recorded.

No immediate abnormalities were recorded at nuclear power plants, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said.

About 45,000 households and facilities have no power in the Kumamoto region, according to local utility Kyushu Electric Power.

The firm added that three nuclear reactors operating at the time in the region were continuing their normal operations.

Around half an hour after the quake, a local NHK staffer wearing a helmet reported live on air that the shaking was continuing, with the newsroom shaking so violently it was difficult to remain standing.

"Shaking is continuing as I speak. Including myself, there may be some people who feel their hearts racing," he said.

"When the quake struck, the shaking was so big that I could not stand up. Please be aware of possibility that shaking might continue after this."

- History of quakes -

In 2016, Kumamoto was hit two devastating earthquakes -- one of magnitude 6.5, followed two days later by one of magnitude 7.3 -- which killed 273 people and injured more than 2,800 others.

A quake with a magnitude of 7.2 hit northern Japan on June 25 but caused no deaths or major damage.

Japan is one of the world's most seismically active countries, sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, typically experiences hundreds of jolts every year and accounts for about 18 percent of the world's earthquakes.

The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and the depth below the Earth's surface at which they strike.

It is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that killed or left missing around 18,500 people and wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant.

On April 20 this year, a tremor measuring 7.7 hit the country's north, injuring at least 10 people and shaking large buildings in Tokyo.

This prompted authorities to issue a special advisory warning of an increased risk of earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 or stronger.

The advisory was lifted after a week.

"Between 8:30 pm (1730 GMT) and 6:30 am, more than 390 drones were flying towards the Moscow region. Most were neutralised by air defence forces well before reaching the city. 81 enemy UAVs were destroyed as they approached Moscow," Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.

Moscow regional governor Andrey Vorobyov also reported that drone attacks damaged housing in the town of Chekhov and the Vaulovo village.

The Russian Federal Security Service -- commonly known as the FSB -- said a man living in the southeastern city of Khabarovsk had been arrested after passing information to New Zealand spies.

The Russian citizen had proactively contacted the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, the FSB said in comments published by local media.

New Zealand then convinced him to pass on information that could damage the security of the Russian Federation, the FSB added.

New Zealand's Security Intelligence Service said it had a "longstanding practice of not commenting on what may or may not be operational matters".

But it added: "It should also be noted that Russian state media are often not the most reliable source of accurate reporting."

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he would follow the convention against commenting on intelligence matters.

"I don't comment on security intelligence issues," he told reporters.

While New Zealand is not typically associated with sophisticated subterfuge, it is part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Foreign affairs expert Alexander Gillespie said Russia's accusations should be taken with "a large bucket of salt".

"New Zealand has some history of spies and espionage, but it is nearly always with us being spied on," said Gillespie, a professor at New Zealand's University of Waikato.

"The history is of Russia spying on us, not the other way around," he told AFP.

Gillespie said the arrest could be turned into a high profile show-trial used to tarnish the New Zealand government.

"If this gets bad, expect relations between the two countries to sour even further."

New Zealand is among a host of nations to have hit Russia with sanctions in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump's government has imposed two rounds of tariffs on Brazil this month, which left-wing president and candidate for re-election Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has denounced as election interference.

"Brazil submitted, on July 27, a request for consultations with the United States within the framework of the WTO dispute settlement system," the ministry said in a statement, noting Brazil considers the US measures "unjustified and incompatible" with international trade rules.

This month, the United States put in place new tariffs on several Brazilian products, charging 25 percent for alleged unfair trade practices and 12.5 percent for alleged use of forced labor.

A request for consultation with another country is a preliminary step in opening a panel on the case in the WTO framework.

Brazil took the same step in 2025, when Washington imposed 50 percent tariffs in retaliation for the coup-related trial that sent former president Jair Bolsonaro to prison.

Now Bolsonaro's son, right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, is running against Lula in the October election.

That first round of tariffs was largely reversed later on.

Lula has accused Flavio Bolsonaro, a staunch ally of Trump, of encouraging US tariff pressure to gain an advantage at the ballot box -- which Bolsonaro denies.

Brazil denied visas for two US officials who sought to meet with Brazilian election authorities ahead of the tense presidential vote, a diplomatic source told AFP on Saturday.

Zaidi directed "the competent security authorities to investigate the statement issued by the ministry of defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regarding the targeting of the kingdom with drones launched from Iraqi territory", spokesman Sabah al-Numan said in a statement.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella network of Iran-backed Shia militias conducting attacks against US and Israeli targets while operating outside Iraq's formal military structure, said the Saudi accusations were "fabrications that serve only as an attempt to justify their inability to respond to the painful Yemeni strikes".

It warned Riyadh that any "foolish action" in Iraq will be met with a "tough" response.

The rollout widens access to a product that had been available since late June as a test to a limited group of top-tier subscribers.

X Money lets users hold deposits, send peer-to-peer payments, pay bills, transfer money by wire, and mail checks without leaving the X app.

Deposits are held at Cross River Bank, a New Jersey-based lender that is used by several financial-technology apps, and are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to $250,000.

Musk has said for years that he wants X to resemble China's WeChat.

WeChat, a single app for messaging, shopping and payments, is a pillar of consumer spending in China.

A post by X Money said deposits would earn an annual percentage yield of up to six percent.

This was well above the roughly four to five percent offered by the most competitive US high-yield savings accounts and far above the near-zero rates at large traditional banks.

Premium+ subscribers can earn the top rate directly, while Premium users must meet direct-deposit requirements, according to the company.

Cross River described the launch as the first government-insured banking platform in the United States built on a social network.

The launch positions X to compete with established payment apps such as PayPal's Venmo, Block's Cash App and SoFi, drawing on the app's user base of millions.

Ahead of its launch, the service drew scrutiny in Washington.

In an April 14 letter, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, pressed Musk on how X Money would "generate revenue sufficient to pay that yield."

She also cited past FDIC enforcement actions against Cross River over lending practices.

Fighting between the longtime foes has been paused since Friday after 13 nights of renewed US strikes on the Islamic republic sparked by a breakdown in diplomacy over Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

But the US leader expressed hope that renewed diplomacy could bring an end to the war that began in late February with a wave of US-Israeli strikes, rattling both the region and the global economy.

"I have a lot of patience... We'll see what happens," he said aboard Air Force One. "I think there is a good chance that something could happen."

Tehran had earlier denied that there were any talks with the US to end the conflict.

"Mediators may convey messages from the American side to us regarding current developments in the region. But at present, we are not engaged in any negotiations with the United States," said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.

But Trump insisted during a speech in Michigan that "right now, they're talking to us about making a deal".

Aboard Air Force One, the US president had earlier said that if the new efforts failed, "we go back to doing what we were doing" before the pause in fighting.

On that subject, he dismissed concerns that US ammunition stockpiles were running low nearly five months after the war began.

"We have a lot of ammunition. We have a lot of the mid-level stuff too, more than we could ever use no matter what," he said.

- Saudi Arabia attacked -

Despite the recent lull, Saudi Arabia came under attack on Monday, with its defence ministry saying it had intercepted several drones fired by Iran-linked groups in Iraq targeting oil facilities.

No group claimed responsibility, but Riyadh called on Baghdad to prevent such attacks from being launched from its territory.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi later called for an investigation into Saudi Arabia's allegations.

Pakistan, which has been mediating a resolution to the Middle East war, condemned the drone attacks, saying they "pose a grave threat to peace and stability" in the Middle East.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels also said they launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure in response to incursions by the kingdom's drones. Riyadh is yet to comment on the claim.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations accused pro-Iran militias in Iraq of launching waves of attacks on their territory during the conflict's earlier phase, but the groups have not claimed any attacks in the region since the resumption of hostilities.

Elsewhere, the Israeli military, which has not joined the recent fighting, said it had intercepted two drones near the Jordanian border and was investigating where they had been launched from.

Global stock markets meanwhile rallied and oil prices tumbled on Monday after the pause in strikes between Washington and Tehran.

It came as respite for Gulf shipping and the oil industry, with international benchmark Brent dropping six percent to around $86 a barrel.

- 'Mafia gang' -

Control of the Strait of Hormuz remains a hurdle to any peaceful resolution, and Iran insists on managing the crucial conduit for oil and gas.

Its powerful Revolutionary Guards have been stopping vessels trying to transit the trade route in recent days, including six that state television on Monday said had sailed outside Iran's designated route.

Tehran says it has held talks in recent days with Oman, which also borders the strait, on "common principles and operational mechanisms" to ensure the safe passage of shipping.

In June, Muscat and Tehran said they would discuss imposing service fees, a move Washington opposes.

But Oman also angered Iran after saying vessels could transit the Hormuz strait via its waters, with Tehran responding by attacking ships.

Baqaei, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, on Monday said the United States was not involved in the recent discussions with Oman.

Instead he criticised Washington, saying its conduct in recent years has "resembled that of a mafia gang that adheres to no rules or laws".

The visit came ahead of Zelensky's trip to Washington on Tuesday, as he makes a new bid to end the four-year war with Russia.

Zelensky is expected to renew calls to boost defence as both Moscow and Kyiv intensify drone and missile strikes, with US-led negotiations stuck while Washington's attention has been diverted to the Iran war.

Zelensky and Burnham were to visit a naval base in the southern city of Portsmouth to speak to armed forces personnel involved in training Ukrainian service members.

Downing Street said Burnham would vow "to continue the unbreakable bond between the two nations", echoing what he told Zelensky in a call last Monday within hours of replacing Keir Starmer.

"Britain stands with Ukraine, shoulder to shoulder, and our support remains unwavering," Burnham said in a statement.

"Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve, and we will not back down until we achieve long-lasting and just peace for Ukraine."

Landing in Britain, Zelensky hailed the alliance as "the strongest relationship in the entire history" of the two countries.

London also announced it will share with Kyiv information on a new battle-tested electronic jamming capability dubbed "Stone Cloak".

When attached to drones, the tablet-seized, military-grade jammers can hinder Russian air defence systems from tracking and targeting such weapons in-flight, Downing Street said.

Thousands of the jammers, developed under a 100-year partnership pact between the countries, have already been gifted to Kyiv, according to London.

Following their roll-out and potential mass production in Ukraine, Stone Cloak will be built into the next generation of UK deep-strike capabilities, it noted.

"Stone Cloak is the best of homegrown British innovation and proven on the frontline, and it will be vital to protecting our security in both our countries," Burnham said.

- 'Drone deal' with Britain -

In another sign of Ukraine's deepening defence ties with Britain, Zelensky told broadcaster Sky News on Sunday he wanted to sign a strong "drone deal" to boost production and technology-sharing.

He admitted "we don't have enough missiles to defend", referring to Russia's ultra-fast ballistic missiles that have put Ukraine's air-defence system under strain in a recent spate of deadly attacks.

Moscow "can increase the production of ballistic missiles and that's why we need air defence as quick as possible," Zelensky said.

Burnham and Zelensky will meet some of the approximately 200 Ukrainian military personnel who have been in Britain for the past three weeks participating in a maritime security and counter-mine exercise.

It was held to prepare for future missions in the Black Sea.

Downing Street noted the UK's total support for Ukraine has reached 25 billion pounds ($33 billion) since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, including 16 billion pounds in direct military assistance.

Zelensky is due in Washington on Tuesday for talks with US President Donald Trump, a White House official said last week.

The Ukrainian leader is also expected to attend the funeral of US senator Lindsey Graham, a supporter of Ukraine who died earlier this month.

Trump and Zelensky have had a fraught relationship that has veered from a shouting match in the Oval Office in February 2025 to warmer ties in recent months.

The US president told Zelensky on the sidelines of a NATO summit this month that he was giving Ukraine permission to build US-designed Patriot air defence systems capable of downing ballistic missiles.

Washington has also advanced bipartisan legislation targeting countries buying Russian energy -- potentially clearing the way for stronger pressure on Moscow.

Trump's support for Ukrainian defence comes as the president faces domestic pressure to end the Middle East war.

"I understand the United States is focusing on the Middle East," Zelensky told Sky News.

"I try to manage it now with some Europeans and with Americans and with some other countries.

"This, for me, it's a big challenge, a big challenge for Ukraine."

Guterres's envoy, Maria Angela Holguin, said the UN chief hoped to encourage Cypriots and their leaders to embrace peace negotiations.

"The mission of the secretary-general is to facilitate, encourage the people and the leaders to look forward to a negotiation," Holguin told reporters Monday after meeting Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.

She said Guterres "is visiting Cyprus after pushing, supporting Cyprus for almost 10 years. So... I hope we can have some progress."

The visit comes after elections in Turkish-speaking northern Cyprus in October that pro-unification candidate Tufan Erhurman won in a landslide against Ankara-backed outgoing president Ersin Tatar.

It also marks the first trip by a UN chief since Guterres' predecessor Ban Ki Moon visited in 2010.

On Tuesday, Guterres will meet Christodoulides and Erhurman separately on either side of the ceasefire line, followed by a joint dinner, ahead of a trilateral meeting on Wednesday.

"This is a very important visit," government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said. "Our aim and hope is that it will serve as the starting point" for further negotiations.

He said Guterres was personally undertaking the initiative to get Cyrus talks back on track.

He expressed hopes that the UN chief's continued commitment, combined with developments in EU-Turkey relations, could "create an opportunity for progress".

"If there is even the slightest glimmer of hope or window of opportunity, we will make use of it," said Letymbiotis.

Turkey has thus far been opposed to unification efforts, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan instead calling for "the coexistence of two states" on the island.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded the north of the island in response to a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece's then-military junta.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983, is recognised only by Ankara.

Decades of UN-backed talks have failed to reunify the island.

The last major round of peace talks collapsed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017.

The kingdom "affirms the necessity for the Iraqi government to take all necessary measures to ensure the prevention of the use of its territory as a launching point for aggression", read a statement posted by an official Saudi broadcaster.

The wildfires that broke out in forested areas around the Spanish capital at the height of the summer holidays have forced some 60,000 people to flee their homes, often with just minutes' notice, leaving pets and medicine behind.

"You run to save what you can and then you turn to defend" against the fire, said Karim Benali, 39, a volunteer who spoke to AFP on a road near Navaluenga, west of Madrid.

"There were some 48 homes here, they burned," he said, surrounded by charred earth and trees blanketed with a persistent smell of smoke.

The fires have been feeding on forests left tinder-dry by successive heatwaves and lack of rain since May.

Overnight, lower temperatures, weaker winds and higher air humidity helped make progress against the blazes west of the capital, the Madrid regional government said.

The flames have "slowed their advance" during the night, it said, urging residents to remain "extremely cautious".

"The situation has improved slightly, but the fire is still active," it said.

But with humidity levels set to drop and temperatures soar across Spain, hitting 40C in the centre and south according to meteorological agency AEMET, firefighters face a small window of opportunity.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters on Monday that "today and tomorrow are absolutely decisive days" to control the fires, "because from Wednesday the weather forecasts become highly unfavourable for firefighting efforts".

"The next two days will not bring the most favourable conditions, nor the ones we would have wanted, but they are two days in which we can take the initiative, make progress, and work towards controlling and containing the blaze."

AEMET said that from Tuesday onwards the fire risk would "surge to very high or extreme levels across almost the entire country."

"This situation will persist, or may even worsen, in the following days," it added.

- 'Lost everything' -

Maria Angeles Canete fought back tears as she looked around the desolation that used to be her home at a campsite near Navaluenga, after authorities said they would allow people to return to some evacuated places.

"We lost everything," she said. "We had this campsite, we had another one, and we've lost it all. We have nothing."

Madrid regional authorities said on Monday they were planning to restore the bus service between Madrid and the Villamanta area close to the fires, and allow farmers to return to feed their animals.

Scientists say climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and intense.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez directly blamed global warming on Monday, describing the fires as "the most painful expression of a climate emergency".

"This is no longer an exception, this is a rule itself," he added during a meeting in Madrid.

Sanchez is due to visit a fire-hit area in Valencia, in the east of the country where firefighters are battling a separate blaze and 15,000 people have been evacuated.

The fires in the Iberian country have affected an area of 77,000 hectares (190,271 acres) -- nearly the size of New York City -- according to the authorities.

Since the start of the year, fires in Spain have ravaged 150,000 hectares and killed 13 people, according to Sanchez.

Unlike the publicly funded NHS, which is struggling with long waiting lists and stretched resources, social care for elderly and disabled people is largely privatised in Britain.

"Whatever political capital I have, I will put into fixing broken social care and I would not want to leave office without having brought in the substantial change," Burnham told the BBC in an interview one week after taking office.

Burnham, whose father has Alzheimer's, has campaigned to fix the social care system for years, including as a health secretary under Gordon Brown between 2009 and 2010.

He had proposed the creation of a publicly funded National Care Service, which would be free at the point of use like the NHS, when he was health secretary, but those plans fell through.

"I will go as quickly as I can on the reform of social care," said Burnham, adding that while bringing in a new system would "take time" he still hoped to achieve "substantial change" while in office.

Currently, the system for home and residential care is means-tested and local authorities, who are responsible for providing the services, are struggling to keep up with the demands of an ageing population.

The NHS's chronic bed and staff shortages stem partly from its inability to discharge elderly and dependent patients who don't have social care in place.

The prime minister also acknowledged the need to reduce Britain's ballooning welfare bill and suggested tightening conditions for accessing benefits to encourage people to return to work.

"It's about changing the nature of the support and making some of the support conditional upon people taking opportunities that are presented in front of them," said Burnham.

His predecessor Keir Starmer had attempted to reform the welfare system but was forced to scale back the changes after facing opposition from within his own party.

"It is understood that many American artificial intelligence enterprises have distilled Chinese models during their research, development and training processes," the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement.

News agency SANA, quoting a health ministry official, also said 30 others were injured in the "collision between two passenger buses on the Damascus-Deir Ezzor road".

The interior ministry said the crash was between "a bus carrying a number of internal security forces personnel and a civilian bus", without specifying how many of the casualties were from its forces.

State media broadcast footage of the crash, including images of a bus on fire and with debris strewn along the highway, and reported that military helicopters had been deployed to airlift casualties from the scene.

Emergency and disaster management minister Raed Al Saleh described the crash as "one of the deadliest road accidents in Syria in recent years in terms of the number of victims".

He said it "places a shared national responsibility on all of us to work to prevent such painful incidents from recurring", according to SANA.

"It also underscores the urgent need to address the accumulated challenges facing the country's road infrastructure, which is burdened by years of neglect and the damage inflicted on various public service sectors."

Earlier this month, five people were killed and dozens of others injured, most of them Lebanese, when a bus carrying pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia overturned on a highway in southern Syria's Daraa province.

After years of civil war and neglect, Syria's infrastructure is crumbling and many of its roads are in need of repairs.

State television quoted the director of road transport in Damascus, Moaz Najjar, as saying that authorities "have directed that road maintenance in the eastern region be treated as a priority".

He added that "most roads are in a state of disrepair and have not undergone maintenance for the past 15 years".

Last year, at least 12 people were killed and several others injured when a bus collided with an oil tanker in northeastern Syria.

But Saturday's accident was one of the worst in recent years.

In 2020, at least 32 died when a fuel tanker crashed into two buses on a road between Damascus and Homs province.

The accusation came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had carried out long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea against vessels involved in transporting military cargo involving Iran, underscoring the increasingly international dimensions of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Iran's foreign ministry said the attack on Saturday morning caused the ship "to explode, killing one sailor and injuring another", according to the official IRNA news agency.

The Islamic republic "has never intervened in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine", it asserted.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that armed forces had achieved "very strong results with long?range strikes in the Caspian Sea -- including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship".

Ukraine's intelligence services (SBU), for their part, reported on Telegram that drone attacks had been carried out against "cargo vessels under international sanctions that were used to transport military cargo between Iran and Russia".

According to Iranian state television, the foreign ministry summoned the Ukrainian charge d'affaires in Tehran on Saturday to protest this "hostile and criminal act".

And in a conversation with the European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called for a "firm response" by the EU and the United Nations Security Council to this attack, IRNA added.

The cargo vessel Khoi Nguyen 18 encountered trouble near Yongshu Reef, also known as Fiery Cross Reef, state broadcaster CCTV reported, adding that 39 people had been rescued.

A Chinese rescue vessel first spotted what was believed to be a distress signal from the endangered ship shortly before 6:30 pm on Saturday (1030 GMT), state news agency Xinhua said.

Six Chinese vessels and a rescue helicopter as well as one Vietnamese vessel were conducting search and rescue operations in the area, Xinhua said.

According to authorities in the Chinese island province of Hainan, the Khoi Nguyen 18 is a Vietnamese-registered ship measuring just under 70 metres in length, Xinhua added.

Vietnam's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Beijing claims the South China Sea in nearly its entirety, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

Vietnam, along with the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, have competing claims to areas of the busy waterway, including the Spratlys, which are believed to sit on vast oil and gas resources.

55,000 more evacuated near France's Bordeaux

Authorities in France's Gironde region ordered the evacuation of 55,000 more people on Saturday because of a resurgence of the wildfire that has been ravaging the area since Wednesday.

The latest operation brings the number of people evacuated in Gironde to well over 200,000.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said it was "highly likely" to be the largest peacetime civilian evacuation operation ever carried out in France.

Eight more Spanish towns evacuated

Spanish authorities ordered the evacuation of eight more municipalities near Toledo on Saturday evening as wildfires threatened areas west of Madrid.

The interior ministry said residents of Buenaventura, Navamorcuende, Real de San Vicente, Hinojosa de San Vicente, Castillo de Bayuela, Garciotum, Nuno Gomez and Pelahustan had been told to leave.

'Difficult' hours ahead

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned that "the coming hours could be difficult" in Gironde after weather forecasts deteriorated.

Nunez said the blaze would be a long battle and that evacuated residents would not be allowed to return until the fire was brought under control.

Three arrests in Gironde

Three men were arrested on Saturday in Gironde -- where a wildfire has already scorched 32,000 hectares -- on suspicion of endangering lives, prosecutors said. Two of them are accused of setting off fireworks.

Var wildfire still active

Around 2,000 people were still unable to return home in France's southeastern Var department because of the Ponteves wildfire, which authorities said was still "very active" after burning 4,000 hectares in five days.

In Corsica, firefighters were still struggling to contain a blaze near Corte that had spread across more than 800 hectares.

Residents return home

Authorities allowed 3,000 residents to return home on Saturday evening in safe areas of Biscarrosse in France's southwestern Landes department.

Officials said the affected sectors were now considered fully secure.

'We will rebuild'

France's President Emmanuel Macron vowed the damage from the fires would not last, posting on X: "We will rebuild, we will repair and we will be there for as long as is needed."

One dead in Spain

A wildfire in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia killed one person before firefighters brought it under control, authorities there said.

'Grave situation'

The threat to the southwestern French department of Gironde "remains very serious", said top regional official Sophia Brocas.

"We are still facing a grave situation," she added, but the blaze has lost "some of its intensity".

Tonnes of help

A military transport plane deployed by the French government on Saturday to help fight wildfires carried out its first mission in the southwest of the country, AFP journalists saw.

The A400M military aircraft, equipped with a dispensing kit that can release 20 tonnes of water or fire retardant, flew over a forest in Lacanau in southwestern France.

France sends 500 more troops

France's government ordered 500 more soldiers to the wildfire zone in the southwest, bringing the total number deployed to 1,500.

The troops will assist with evacuating residents from areas threatened by the fires and help safeguard homes left unattended during the emergency, the defence ministry said.

Tour de France affected

Tour de France organisers announced that they were shortening the following day's final stage of the cycling race due to the wildfires ravaging southwest France.

"In a spirit of national solidarity with the areas and communities affected, it was decided to adapt the route for the final stage from Thoiry to Paris," organisers ASO said in a statement.

More than 250,000 evacuated

The wildfires have forced the evacuation of more than 250,000 people in total, authorities in both countries said.

The French government said 197,000 people were evacuated because of wildfires near Bordeaux.

Spain's interior ministry said 60,000 people had been evacuated from villages west of Madrid. Officials had earlier given a higher estimate of 70,000.

Record area burnt in France

Fires across France have burned nearly 98,000 hectares (242,163 acres), Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, describing the total as a "historic record".

"There are still a number of fires across the country that have not yet been brought under control," he said, singling out major blazes in the southwestern departments of Gironde and Landes.

"There are dogs here, people snoring," says the resident of the village of Chapineria, evacuated on Friday to escape to the out-of-control fire west of Madrid.

Like some 200 other people, she found refuge in this large gymnasium in Villaviciosa de Odon, 30 kilometres (19 miles) from her home in the capital's suburbs.

Even tens of kilometres away from the blaze ravaging the Madrid countryside, the sky remained hazy with smoke Saturday morning before the winds cleared the air.

The historic El Escorial monastery -- a major tourist attraction -- was shrouded in a grayish, smoke-filled mist.

The fire has "surpassed all possible and imaginable limits," said Mar Nicolas, mayor of the nearby small town of Brunete, which is hosting around a hundred evacuees.

"The priority" was "saving lives," she said, though she made no secret of her concern regarding "the immense natural disaster this is causing".

Inside the Villaviciosa de Odon gymnasium, volunteers tried to keep children occupied with games and colouring activities, while others distributed meals after the evacuees had spent their first night sleeping on cots.

The volunteers "are taking good care of us; we were given blankets and facilities to shower," Elvira Menendez said.

"I'm 80 years old and I've never seen anything like this," she said. As the flames advanced, she was terrified that her "whole life" would go up in smoke.

By Saturday, the fire had already ravaged more than 25,000 hectares, and some 60,000 people had to be evacuated in the Madrid region and the province of Avila.

Victoria Hurtado, a 61-year-old home care worker, had to flee Chapineria with the elderly, sick man she cares for daily.

The two of them only had time to grab a small bag each, containing a few clothes and some medication.

"They welcomed us with open arms," she told AFP, though the uncertainty over when she might be able to return home still worried her.

But she remained optimistic, hopeful that the situation will improve "because firefighters are working night and day to put out the fire".

- Undergrowth -

The fierce fires ravaging parts of France and Spain are the result of forests and vegetation becoming more flammable because of drought and a series of record-breaking heatwaves that have hit Western Europe since May.

Antonio-Luis Rodriguez spent the night in the Villaviciosa de Odon sports hall with his son.

Having left with only the clothes he stood in, he was consumed with worry for his dog, left behind at his farm on the outskirts of the village of San Martin de Valdeiglesia, which was also evacuated.

Deeply affected by the ordeal and still in shock, the 48-year-old did not mince his words regarding the authorities, who he believes failed to sufficiently clear the undergrowth in the surrounding countryside.

"It rained a lot this winter; the pastures were very overgrown," Rodriguez said. He also lamented the fact that so many farms in Spain have been abandoned.

As a result, fallow fields are in a "deplorable state, and at the slightest spark, the blaze spreads like wildfire" due to vegetation dried out by the heat.

He put sheep in his fields when the grass was tall so they would clear away the vegetation, he said. Thanks to their grazing, he believed his farm was still standing, even if he knew "the surrounding plots were reduced to ash".

He was convinced that keeping more herds of goats and sheep in the mountains "would really help a lot" in controlling wildfires.

France initially hustled 197,000 people from areas around popular vacation spot Bordeaux -- one of its biggest-ever peacetime evacuations, though 3,000 were later allowed to return.

In Spain, where 60,000 people were evacuated from villages west of Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the priority was "to save lives" as he visited the fire zone.

In the Spanish town of Brunete, west of Madrid, mayor Mar Nicolas told AFP she was "very worried".

"Every year there are fires, but this one has been tremendous," she said. "It is a catastrophe."

A separate wildfire near the eastern Spanish city of Valencia killed one person before firefighters brought it under control.

Overstretched firefighters in Spain and France battling around the clock for days have been unable to contain the infernos, which also claimed the lives of two French firefighters near Bordeaux earlier this week.

Earlier Saturday, authorities in both countries suggested the intensity of some of the blazes had lessened.

But the battles were far from won.

The forecasts in France are "turning unfavourable again", Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned in a post on X Saturday evening, adding that coming hours "could be difficult".

Spain's Sanchez warned: "We are going to have some complex hours ahead."

Jacqueline Villafranca, a 38-year-old who evacuated to Madrid on Friday, said that when smoke filled her village of Navalagamella "I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything.

"Here you can breathe normally -- yesterday it was unbearable," she said, sitting in a gymnasium-turned-shelter.

- Tinderbox conditions -

The fires in Spain and France advanced quickly because of tinderbox conditions worsened by successive heatwaves the two countries have experienced since May.

Scientists say global warming is increasing droughts and causing weather emergencies to become more extreme and more frequent. Europe is the fastest-warming continent due to climate change.

Both countries were receiving EU help in the form of firefighting aircraft from other European countries.

France has deployed 1,500 soldiers and 1,700 security personnel to help firefighters near Bordeaux, and on Saturday an A400M military transport aircraft joined the fleet of smaller planes already dousing flames.

Dozens of firefighters were deployed from Paris to boost the fight. Lecornu said a total of 1,400 firefighters were tackling the blazes.

Local authorities set up emergency shelters in schools and gymnasiums in southwestern France for tourists and residents left wondering what they would return to.

Nuala Kelly, a 75-year-old Irish tourist, said she had never seen anything like this.

"Never, never, never, never, never, and I've travelled all over the world and been in all sorts of situations," she told AFP at Bordeaux's vast exhibition centre now housing thousands of people.

Olivier Stewart, a 38-year-old Frenchman who had to leave the village of Merignac with his wife and young children, said the children were "the most stressed".

"They think the fire is going to burn down the house, but we're coping," he said.

Sunday's final stage of the Tour de France road cycling race has been shortened after the interior ministry said it would need to redeploy officers mobilised for race security to the fires instead.

Lecornu also said that plans were being made "for pets left behind in homes".

- 'Record' area burnt -

The massive smoke clouds thrown up by the French and Spanish fires were starting to connect in the atmosphere, according to satellite images from Spain's Aemet weather agency.

Fires currently raging across France have burned nearly 98,000 hectares (242,000 acres) -- a "historic record", Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.

In the southwest alone, the flames have consumed more than 32,000 hectares -- three times the surface area of Paris -- and destroyed at least 100 buildings, authorities said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the country "will rebuild".

The blazes west of Madrid have burned up to 25,000 hectares, according to Spain's interior ministry.

Two of the three major wildfires there have merged into one, and are threatening to join up to form a massive inferno just kilometres from the capital.

"The ministry sold $11.5 billion of oil during the war and $6.5 billion during the ceasefire" that collapsed earlier this month, the ministry said in a statement carried by its official website.

"This covers more than 60 percent of the oil revenues forecast in the year's budget in the midst of the crisis," it added.

In late June, however, Iran's parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had said that Iran was unable to export any oil during the US blockade on its ports.

US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked the war on February 28, prompting Iran to retaliate against US allies in the region.

An April ceasefire largely put an end to fighting, but hostilities resumed earlier in July as the two foes battle over control of the vital Strait of Hormuz.

The lull has revived hopes of a return to negotiations after nearly two weeks of consecutive nightly US bombardments, although US media reported the pause could also reflect pressure on stockpiles of Patriot interceptors and other defensive weapons.

Fighting over the strategic Strait of Hormuz derailed diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran, but the conflict then expanded beyond the vital energy corridor to include attacks on US bases, regional shipping and Gulf allies.

However, US operations against Iran were "on a hold", CNN reported, quoting an unidentified Pentagon source, even as US President Donald Trump threatened a "much higher level" of strikes on Friday.

Plans to escalate the campaign have been shelved in part because of those shrinking supplies, The New York Times reported, citing two people briefed on the matter.

Trump also faces the risk of a wider Middle East war, the estrangement of vulnerable Gulf allies and further shocks to the global economy, the newspaper said.

Vice President JD Vance and top US general Dan Caine both raised concerns about escalation at a White House meeting on Friday, CNN reported.

Caine told Trump the military could carry out the options available to him successfully but warned of the possible implications, according to the network.

- 'Much higher level' -

Trump said on Friday he had not decided whether to return to an all-out operation.

"We're talking to them right now. I think they're getting more and more serious," he told journalists.

Trump said Iran faced a choice between a deal and strikes at a "much higher level".

The war that Trump once predicted would last four or five weeks is now nearing its fifth month, and is weighing on the Republican's approval ratings ahead of crucial US midterm elections in November.

The Pentagon had presented Trump with a plan for a 14th night of strikes but he declined to authorise it in favour of a push for talks, Axios reported.

- New front -

Fighting has meanwhile spread to a new front.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they struck Saudi Aramco sites in Jizan and Yanbu on Saturday, a day after Riyadh bombed Houthi targets.

A surface-to-air battery operated by Greek personnel in Saudi Arabia downed two ballistic missiles and a drone over Yanbu, the Greek air force media office said.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had stopped four ships attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz in 24 hours.

Tehran's effective blockade of the waterway remains the central flashpoint with Washington.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran could not be blamed for the escalation and offered to broker talks between the Houthis and Riyadh, saying "there is no military solution".

"We believe that there is no military solution to the issue of Yemen, Bab al-Mandab, and other regional issues," said Araghchi in an interview published on Saturday by the state-run Iran Daily newspaper, calling for "dialogue".

He said the situation in Yemen "cannot be attributed to Iran" and that the incidents occurring in the area of the Bab al-Mandab Strait were "rooted in old disputes and issues between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the countries of the region".

Renewed conflict between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia -- which had largely been frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022 -- flared up this month with the Tehran-backed rebels declaring a blockade of Saudi ports and claiming attacks on tankers.

The blockade has threatened Saudi Arabia's ability to get its supplies to the world following Iran's parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom's only other maritime route.

On Friday, a Houthi spokesman said the rebels were not blocking traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and that the maritime blockade "only affects the Saudi side".

"I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister," Pradhan said in a statement posted on social media platform X.

The social media-driven Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) spearheaded student protests that broke out in response to exam paper leaks, and is seeking systemic reforms in the education system.

Demonstrations at the Jantar Mantar protest site in the centre of New Delhi intensified during the week and began spreading to other parts of the country.

Police fired tear gas and charged with batons at protesters as they tried to march to parliament this week.

The government held two rounds of talks with CJP leaders on Monday and Friday but little headway was made, with the youth-led movement sticking to their demands ahead of another proposed meeting on Saturday.

Pradhan announced his resignation before that much-anticipated third round of talks.

"I am pained to see the events of the past 10 days. This is not a matter of personal prestige for me," he said in his letter in Hindi.

"India's youth power is the real strength of this nation. My resolve is that we will not let the country's youth get trapped in a vicious cycle of confusion."

Protesters erupted in joy after Pradhan's announcement.

"We have done it," CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said to a thunderous response by hundreds of protesters.

The movement has evolved to include concerns over unemployment, opportunities for young people and what critics brand as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's increasingly authoritarian style of governance.

The protests became one of the biggest challenges to Hindu nationalist Modi's administration since his 2024 re-election.

The protesters' other demands include compensation for those affected by examination irregularities and for legal cases against protesters to be dropped, according to CJP spokesman Ashutosh Ranka.

Kyiv has intensified its retaliatory strikes deep inside Russia in recent months, causing fuel shortages and disrupting ordinary life more than at any point during Moscow's over four-year offensive.

The attacks came a day after a Ukrainian strike on a factory in Russia's city of Kirov -- hundreds of miles east of Moscow -- killed several people, with authorities declaring three days of mourning in the region.

Russia's defence ministry said it had intercepted 328 drones, including over the Moscow region and regions as far as Bashkortostan and the Chuvash Republic.

The acting head of Russia's Belgorod region, Alexander Shuvayev, said two people were killed in border areas.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 200 drones were headed at the Moscow region.

In the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, Russia's online retail giant Wildberries -- hit by repeated Ukrainian strikes this week -- said it had evacuated staff.

Yekaterinburg lies just before Siberia.

Wildberries said it had "suspended" work at its "logistics facility" in the city after a "timely evacuation". It said its facility was not damaged.

Ukrainian drones have hit Wildberries warehouses around Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Crimea and southern Russia this week, causing fires and business losses.

The head of the Sverdlovsk region, of which Yekaterinburg is the capital, Denis Pasler, confirmed the city had been attacked.

Pasler said there were no casualties in the city and said the drones caused a fire at a parking lot.

Further west in the Kirov region, local governor Alexander Sokolov said he was strengthening security measures in the region after a deadly attack on a factory.

Sokolov said the final death toll from Friday's attack on a factory -- which Kyiv said was a military factory helping Russia's war effort -- was five and not six, after a man believed to be dead was found.

"One of the company's employees, who was listed as missing under the rubble and had not been in contact, is alive," Sokolov said.

Occupational authorities said the strike hit a seaside village on the Azov Sea.

Yevgeny Balitsky said "tourist camps" in the village of Kyrylivka came under attack at night, adding: "There are dead: eight people, including two children."

Balitsky said 14 others, including three children, were wounded and that rescue operations were ongoing.

He accused Ukraine of "deliberately" striking civilians.

The village fell to Russian forces in the first days of their 2022 offensive.

There has been an uptick in civilian deaths in the Russia-Ukraine war this summer, with both sides intensifying attacks.

Hundreds of firefighters have spent the past three days battling blazes in the southwestern department of Gironde, where the fires are particularly intense, as well as since Thursday near the town of Biscarrosse in the neighbouring department of Landes.

Arnaud de Cacqueray, commander of the Paris Fire Brigade, said the firefighters would primarily be involved in wildfire suppression operations.

He said 45 Paris firefighters and six vehicles had already been deployed to Gironde.

The wildfires in Gironde and Landes have forced the evacuation of more than 140,000 people and have already consumed 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres) of land.

De Cacqueray said he expected the deployment to have an impact on response times in Paris, adding people should contact firefighters in the capital "only in cases of absolute emergency".

Paris firefighters were previously sent to help combat devastating wildfires in southwestern France in 2022.

This time, however, the deployment is "nearly three times greater than what we deployed in 2022," de Cacqueray said.

The NATO member bordering Ukraine has seen frequent drone incursions, including drones crashing on its soil, since 2022.

Its forces shot down a drone for the first time on Friday, around 114 kilometres (70 miles) from Bucharest.

The military took down another drone, which "had illegally entered Romanian airspace", on Saturday at 8:34 am (0534 GMT), according to defence minister Radu Miruta.

It was shot down 9.6 kilometres (six miles) west of Sfantu Gheorghe in the Danube Delta near the border with Ukraine, he added.

"The drone was detected by Ministry of National Defence radars entering our airspace at 8:22 and was struck a few minutes later by a Romanian F-16 fighter jet," he posted on Facebook.

Drone incursions in Romania have been detected dozens of times since the start of the Ukraine war.

A drone smashed into an apartment building in May, wounding two people and drawing condemnation from NATO and the European Union, which blamed Russia and warned against further incursions.

In 2025, the Romanian parliament adopted a law allowing the country to shoot down drones breaching its airspace.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday on X that "strengthening defence and deterrence along our Eastern border remains a top priority," commending the Romanian military.

The fires in the parched countryside have forced 63,000 people to flee their homes or remain indoors, the interior ministry said, in what officials have called the region's worst fire on record.

Thick grey smoke filled the sky west of the capital and the smell of burning reached the streets of central Madrid.

With temperatures dipping, "there is a real opportunity now to tackle this fire with some guarantee of success," the central government's delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martin, told reporters late Friday.

On Friday, "the temperature has dropped, the wind has eased and the relative humidity has risen," he said.

But he warned that Saturday would be "difficult" as "the wind is expected to rise in the morning, with rather erratic gusts".

The Madrid regional government's emergency management chief Carlos Novillo had told reporters earlier Friday that the fire was "at its peak and... currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain".

Two separate wildfires combined on Friday to become one huge blaze, which was close to merging with yet another in the neighbouring Castilla y Leon region.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was scheduled to attend an emergency planning meeting on Saturday morning in Cenicientos, a village at the heart of the fire zone, and speak to the media afterwards.

During the three-day visit, Guterres is set to reaffirm support for Syria's transition, more than a year and a half after the new authorities led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad after more than 13 years of war.

Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani received Guterres "and his accompanying delegation at Damascus international airport", state news agency SANA reported.

He is the first UN chief to visit Syria since Ban Ki-moon in 2009, two years before the start of Syria's civil war which went on to kill more than half a million people before Assad's overthrow in December 2024.

Since Sharaa took power, the international community has urged the new Islamist authorities to build strong and effective institutions and establish a governance system that includes all components of Syria's multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country society.

Guterres "will emphasise that the opportunity now is not only to recover from conflict, but also to lay the foundations for a future for Syria that will be more stable, more inclusive and more prosperous for all Syrians", his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said ahead of the visit.

He will also "reaffirm the role of the United Nations is to accompany and support the Syrian people on this journey", Dujarric added.

- 'Defining moment' -

UN special envoy to the country, Claudio Cordone, said earlier this week that Guterres would "reaffirm the United Nations commitment to supporting the Syrian government and the Syrian people at this defining period in Syria's history".

Guterres is to meet Sharaa, who last year made a landmark visit to the UN where he became the first Syrian president in decades to address the body's General Assembly.

The UN chief is also set to meet representatives of Syrian civil society and non-governmental organisations supporting women's issues, and to address the new transitional parliament, which held its first session earlier this month.

He is also set to visit a UN peacekeeping force that has been stationed in south Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974.

After Assad's December 2024 overthrow, Israel sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan, and has carried out strikes and repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory.

Israeli officials have said they intend to keep forces in a "security zone" in southern Syria, where they seek a broader demilitarised zone.

Despite tensions between the neighbours, Israel and Syria's new authorities have held several rounds of direct talks and have agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism, though the move has failed to halt Israeli military actions which have been condemned by the UN and members of the international community.

Several senior UN officials have visited Syria since Assad's fall, including rights chief Volker Turk and UN nuclear watchdog head Rafael Grossi, while a UN Security Council delegation of ambassadors made its first-ever visit to Syria late last year.

The fires in the densely populated area around the Spanish capital have burned around 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres), Ayuso told reporters.

She said that while an area of this size being burnt in other, more rural regions "would not be considered so significant", in Madrid "with such a high concentration of homes and people, it is a catastrophe".

Around 100 people have been treated for minor cases, mainly smoke inhalation or anxiety attacks, while at least 43 homes have been destroyed, Ayuso said.

"The situation is completely unusual and catastrophic," she said, adding that the priority was "to save lives".

Strong winds were expected to hamper efforts to contain the blazes, which authorities said were the worst in the region's history and had forced the evacuation and confinement of 19,000 people so far.

In Navas del Rey, a town about 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of Madrid, smoke blanketed the sky and ash covered the landscape, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.

"The smoke was incredibly thick. You couldn't breathe," Jose Cobos, who fled his home with his wife and three dogs, told private broadcaster Antena 3.

Only emergency vehicles were allowed on roads near the blaze, while police set up checkpoints to prevent unauthorised access.

The main priority for firefighters is to prevent the "convergence" of the blazes, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters Friday during a visit to a command centre in Cenicientos village.

Authorities were facing an "unfavourable situation" due to strong winds, low humidity, and high temperatures, he added.

Two of three wildfires burning west of Madrid are "on the verge of merging" into a single blaze, the regional government's representative in Madrid, Francisco Martin, said.

- Evacuations -

Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government's emergency management chief, said weather conditions were "expected to improve" overnight, with cooler temperatures and higher humidity forecast for Saturday.

Spain's government declared a national emergency in the Madrid region and neighbouring Avila province late Thursday, allowing additional resources to be deployed more quickly and placing the Military Emergency Unit (UME) in charge of coordinating the response.

Around 10,000 people have been ordered to evacuate in the Madrid region, while several municipalities remained under confinement orders on Friday.

More than 430 elderly people and people with disabilities from five care homes were among the evacuated, the regional government of Madrid said in a statement.

Television images showed Guardia Civil police officers wearing face masks helping elderly residents in wheelchairs board buses as care homes were evacuated.

The largest evacuation operation took place in San Mart¡n de Valdeiglesias, with most of the 178 residents at the private Lopez Rumayor care home evacuated to the municipal sports hall.

- 'Couldn't breathe' -

Spain has seen a series of wildfires in recent days as a heatwave and dry conditions have heightened the risk of fast-moving fires, particularly in scrubland areas where dry vegetation has fuelled the flames.

The country's largest active wildfire is burning in the province of Guadalajara, around 100 kilometres north of Madrid, where it has scorched about 32,000 hectares over the past week.

"We are living through a dramatic situation, not only in various Spanish provinces but also in regions of neighbouring countries," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on X, saying the government "has deployed all available resources".

Spain recorded its worst wildfire season in recent history in 2025, when more than 393,000 hectares were destroyed by fire, according to EFFIS.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian missile strike outside the Ukrainian capital killed six people, with a rescue operation ongoing and "dozens of people reported to be injured".

Zelensky also said that Russian aerial bombing killed five people in the frontline city of Sloviansk.

On the same day, Kyiv launched a wave of long-range drone and missile attacks on Russia.

Moscow said an attack on a factory more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the front in the city of Kirov killed six people.

Ukraine also attacked warehouses belonging to Russian online retail giant Wildberries outside Saint Petersburg -- targeting Russia's equivalent of Amazon for the third time this week.

The strikes come as the four-and-a-half-year war has seen more civilians dying this summer than in any period since the first months of Russia's invasion, according to the United Nations.

Zelensky said Kyiv struck a "key military enterprise" in Russia's Kirov, saying it "supplies components for the occupier's aircraft and missile systems, which are used in the massive attacks against ou cities."

Kirov Governor Alexander Sokolov confirmed Kyiv targeted a "factory" and that the six victims were killed on the spot. Another 26 were wounded.

While Kyiv has hit Russian towns as far as the Urals and Siberia, it has mostly damaged energy infrastructure, with deaths so far into Russia rare.

- 'Frightened' -

In Saint Petersburg -- Russian leader Vladimir Putin's hometown -- the attacks on Wildberries warehouses sent smoke pouring over the historic city.

Zelensky has accused Wildberries -- Russia's most popular online retailer -- of storing drone components and helping the Russian army.

He hailed Friday's strikes as "successful".

Ukraine has said its retaliatory strikes on Russia aim to weaken Moscow's war effort and to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the fighting.

The attacks on Russia's main cities were unthinkable when the Kremlin launched its offensive in 2022, believing in a quick victory and promising Russians life back home will not be affected.

In Saint Petersburg, 50-year-old teacher Anna said the strikes only "make people angry".

"This Ukrainian tactic is not leading to peace, even in my entourage, people are getting angrier and say that if that's their way, then we should continue (the offensive)," she said.

Ukrainian cities have been under constant Russian attacks since 2022, with civilians dying across Ukraine every day during the war.

None of that is visible in Russian media, with Moscow introducing massive censorship during the war and banning criticism of its military campaign.

Svetlana, a 30-year-old cashier in Saint Petersburg, said she was "frightened" and that "everything is getting worse".

She said Ukraine was to blame: "Of course I want peace, but you see what they (Ukrainians) are doing."

Russia occupies swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, with Moscow not dropping its maximalist demands to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine.

- Russian aerial bombs -

Hours after Ukraine's attack on Saint Petersburg, AFP reporters in Kyiv heard blasts over the city, after authorities warned of incoming Russian missiles -- a rare attempted daytime strike on the Ukrainian capital.

Russia has in recent weeks launched several waves of deadly ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv.

In Ukraine's Sloviansk, local governor Vadym Filashkin said Moscow had "dropped two aerial bombs on the city".

The city, which had a pre-war population of some 105,000, lies close to the frontline and is in Moscow's sights.

Sloviansk became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in 2014, when it briefly fell to pro-Russia separatists before Kyiv retook control of the city.

The UN said this week that civilian casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war rose 37 percent in the first half of this year -- "almost double" what was documented in 2024.

Beaufort Castle, a Crusader fortress also known as Qalaat al-Shakif, was captured by Israeli forces invading Lebanon in May as part of their war with militant group Hezbollah.

It is one of five castles in the Jabal Amel area of southern Lebanon listed together by UNESCO. The mountainous area has come under repeated Israeli bombardment during the war.

UNESCO said the fortresses had sustained damage and faced ongoing threats from the conflict "serious enough to justify resorting to an emergency procedure".

Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salame told AFP the endangered listing was "a remarkable achievement in the effort to protect these important Lebanese historical landmarks".

He said only two of the castles were "within the Lebanese government's reach" and accused Israel of having already destroyed Shamaa Castle and threatening to demolish Beaufort.

Also added to the in-danger list was Sebastia, near the West Bank city of Nablus.

The site is thought to be the ancient Israeli and later Roman city of Samaria, whose name Israel still uses to refer to the northern West Bank.

In recent years, Israeli authorities have taken an interest in the site, which sits near the modern Palestinian town of Sebastia but is in an area controlled exclusively by Israel.

In 2025, they expropriated around 200 hectares of Palestinian land near the site, saying it was for preservation and development purposes.

While Palestinians in Sebastia have developed a tourism industry based on the site, the new Israeli plans threaten to bypass it with an Israelis-only road, a fence and entry fees.

"The integrity of the site is currently threatened by an expropriation project aimed at subdividing the property and creating the 'Samaria' (Shomron) National Park," UNESCO said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar hit back at the listing, blaming it on Palestinians and saying it was an attempt at "erasing and denying the Jewish connection to this land".

The sites were added to the endangered list after votes by all 196 member states of the UN agency.

The drone was shot down around 114 kilometres (70 miles) from Bucharest, according to the defence ministry of the NATO member bordering Ukraine.

"We had a drone in our airspace. It was shot down a few minutes ago, around 11:00 am (0800 GMT) by a Romanian pilot flying an F-16," President Nicusor Dan told a press conference.

"It's important to note that the area was uninhabited, which is why the pilot was able to fire from above, and now teams from various institutions are investigating to provide all the details about the incident," he added.

The drone was shot down over the village of Padina, the defence ministry said.

Surveillance systems first detected an aerial target at 9:39 am and two Eurofighter Typhoon jets of the Italian Air Force and two F-16 fighter jets of the Romanian Air Force were sent to monitor the situation.

"At 11:02, a Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft engaged the target and shot it down," the defence ministry said.

Drone incursions in Romania have been detected dozens of times since the start of the Ukraine war, but Romanian forces had so far not successfully shot any down.

A drone smashed into an apartment building in May, wounding two people and drawing condemnation from NATO and the European Union, which blamed Russia and warned against further incursions.

"A Venom helicopter has crashed at the 22nd helicopter base in Namest nad Oslavou. Five soldiers were on board. Emergency services are currently deployed at the scene," the army wrote on X.

Petr Janacek, a spokesman for the Vysocina regional rescue services, told AFP that one of the passengers was found dead and three were taken to hospitals in the region, two of them with "moderately serious injuries".

A rescue operation was still under way, he said.

No information was immediately available regarding the fifth soldier.

The Namest and Oslavou airbase is located around 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Prague.

Police were informed of the accident at 12:11 pm (1011 GMT), regional police spokeswoman Dana Cirtkova told the CTK news agency.

The Czech army bought eight UH-1Y Venom multi-purpose helicopters and four combat AH-1Z Viper helicopters from the United States in 2019, with the final two aircraft delivered in June 2024.

American instructors provided training for Czech personnel on the new aircraft until last year.

Defence Minister Jaromir Zuna said the incident was "an immense tragedy that affects us all deeply", adding that an inquiry was under way to determine the cause of the crash.

The move comes as the US fights a war with Iran that began in large part over concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme -- still a key point of contention in now-stalled peace talks.

The deal is set to generate billions of dollars for American companies and is seen as a major win for Iran's longtime regional rival, but critics fear it also carries risks.

Washington has sought in recent years to tie any nuclear agreement and defence pact to Saudi normalisation with Israel, and just hours after the deal was announced, Trump took to social media to say Riyadh must first meet that condition.

The nuclear deal "will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords", he wrote.

Critics have insisted the deal -- the text of which was not immediately made public -- could precipitate a nuclear race in a region already battered by war.

One provision would potentially see US companies build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The US Energy Department made no mention of such a provision and did not offer comment when asked about it by AFP, while Trump added in his Truth Social post that: "There will be no enrichment of material!"

The deal will be submitted to Congress for review, but the Republican-controlled legislature is unlikely to block its implementation.

US lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have previously voiced opposition to such a project over fears Saudi Arabia could eventually convert it to develop nuclear weapons.

"Trump claims his war on Iran is about stopping an authoritarian country from enriching nuclear fuel," left-wing US Senator Bernie Sanders wrote on X.

"Now he's letting his best friends in Saudi Arabia -- one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world -- do exactly that. This is absurd."

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that "any agreement that we're going to make with any country in the world on civil nuclear energy is going to be one that will have safeguards in place to ensure that it can't be turned into a weapons programme".

Riyadh, like Tehran, has long been adamant about its right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme. Last year it signed a mutual defence pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

- Proliferation concerns -

Policymakers have long feared that if Iran produced a nuclear weapon, the move would set off an arms race across the Gulf.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed concerns about proliferation, insisting the deal was in Washington's economic and strategic interest.

"These agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world's best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States," he said.

The United States has agreements governing nuclear cooperation with more than 50 countries.

Experts said such a deal had been in the works for a while, but some raised concerns about the potential for uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.

"It would be a mistake to allow Saudi Arabia the capability for enrichment," said Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council in comments made before the deal was formally announced.

"Washington is right to strengthen its relationship with Riyadh, but it should not do so at the expense of its effective nuclear weapons nonproliferation standards."

Paul Dickman, chair of the American Nuclear Society's External Affairs Committee told AFP he was confident the deal wouldn't create "additional proliferation challenges".

But he insisted transparency was important, adding: "I would like to see within the language of this agreement how that transparency will be measured".

Jennifer T. Gordon, director of the Atlantic Council's Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative, said the agreement was a "win for the United States over Russia and China".

"Saudi Arabia has made it clear that it will purchase nuclear energy technologies... the only question has been whether the kingdom would choose to work with the US and its allies, or whether it would turn to Russia or China," she said.

"The U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis themselves" should the rebels launch further attacks, Trump said on his Truth Social network.

Five Gen Z protesters at the main protest site in the capital New Delhi spoke to AFP about what was driving them to join the movement initiated by the online Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).

The protests have emerged as one of the biggest challenges to Modi's government since his re-election in 2024.

- 'Speak up' -

Madhu, 21, said the medical entrance exam paper leak that forced more than two million candidates to sit for a retest, provided the initial spark.

"The paper leak was the spark and the CJP provided a platform for people to protest," she said.

"But now it has become a forum to talk about our many problems, from unemployment to the lack of freedom to speak up under this government."

She attributed the outpouring of support for the protests to "years of repressed frustration".

"It has been a long time since this government last spoke to us in good faith," she said while cleaning up the protest site.

Madhu said her parents feared for her safety -- she had her face covered with a surgical mask and gave only her first name -- but that she felt obliged to be part of the movement.

"Sometimes you have to overcome your own fears."

- 'Just sack him' -

Aarohi Singh has travelled from the northern city of Lucknow on an overnight train, a duffel bag in tow and no return ticket -- a trip made with her family's blessing.

"My parents told me to go and mark our presence," said the 23-year-old who runs a beauty salon. "I don't have a place to stay, but that's fine -- at least I have the company of thousands of people."

For the Singh family, the movement is personal. Her younger sister was forced to resit the medical entrance exam but did not pass.

"I know how much money my parents spent on her preparation, but after the paper leaked she was demoralised and broken," she said.

Singh said she was "aghast" at the government's reluctance to sack the education minister, the protesters' main demand.

"There's the people of the country on one side and the minister on the other," she said. "Why can't the prime minister just sack him?"

- 'Demand accountability' -

Sahil, 28, a corporate employee, has been coming to the protest every day since Monday after calling in sick at work.

On Thursday, he was coordinating hundreds of food deliveries sent by well-wishers from across the country.

"I am part of this because I can relate to what the affected students must be going through," said Sahil, who asked to be identified by only one name.

"I am here to demand accountability."

Sahil said he had seen the movement grow into a broader expression of anger.

"It began with students and education, but people are coming and raising their own set of problems," he said.

"People are protesting against what they feel is wrong in the country."

- 'Hope' -

Engineering student Kunal Suryavanshi, from a small town in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, said the protest was an opportunity to be among people who dared to speak up.

"We live in a deeply unequal country where every protest is crushed with brute force," said the 17-year-old.

"I have come to be part of something that will hopefully lead to change."

Suryavanshi said he planned to stay in the capital for a while, spending his days at the protest site and sleeping at a nearby Sikh temple.

"But if I don't get space there, the pavement is just fine," he said, his face half-covered by a handkerchief.

"All I have brought with me is hope."

- 'Broken' system -

Yuvraj, training to be a lawyer in northern Punjab state, sported a Spiderman mask but could barely conceal his anger.

"We live in a surveillance state," the 24-year-old said, giving only one name.

"The state is watching us, so we cannot afford to take a chance."

But not coming "would have been the biggest regret of my life", he said.

"We have to protest because the system is completely broken and some things are bigger than you."

Yuvraj said the entrance test for a government job he had applied for last year was also found to have been compromised.

"You prepare for years for an exam only for the paper to be leaked, and then you're told to try again next time," he said.

"It is just not acceptable. There has to be some accountability."

The fire, which broke out on Wednesday near the city of Toledo, around 75 kilometres (45 miles) from the Spanish capital, prompted authorities to order the evacuation of several districts as flames advanced towards homes.

Emergency alerts were sent to residents' mobile phones, with three villages ordered to evacuate and people in a fourth instructed to remain indoors with doors and windows closed.

Emergency services said on Thursday that all evacuated residents had now been allowed to return home except those living in the El Encinar del Alberche residential area in the municipality of Villa del Prado.

Firefighters described overnight efforts as "very positive", although the blaze had not yet been stabilised and several roads in the area remained closed.

The latest blaze comes as hundreds of firefighters continue to battle a much larger wildfire in Guadalajara province, around 100 kilometres north of Madrid, which has burned about 32,000 hectares since it started last Thursday.

In 2025, more than 393,000 hectares were destroyed by fire, according to the European Forest Fire Information System -- the most in Spain's recent history.

Nearly 125,000 hectares have burned in Spain since the start of the year.

The sit-down came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had spoken with US envoys in a bid to revive stalled talks aimed at ending the years-long war.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who hosted the Manila meeting, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were seated at a table as journalists entered the room. They made no statements to the press.

Both are in the Philippines for meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The US State Department said the two discussed the "US-Russia relationship and the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war" during the meeting, without providing further details.

They were also expected to discuss the conflict in the Middle East, which has seen Moscow condemn Washington's strikes on its ally Iran.

"The war in Ukraine, I think, has in many ways impeded the ability of Russia and the United States to find areas of agreement on other topics," Rubio told reporters on Wednesday.

"That doesn't mean we won't seek to find other areas of potential cooperation.

"But by the same token... we'd like to see that war come to an end," he said.

For his part, Lavrov indicated the meeting would "be useful in any case. It's good to ask questions and get answers".

Discussions aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine have been at a standstill, with US attention now focused on the Middle East and Moscow maintaining its demand that Kyiv cede territory.

On Thursday, Zelensky said in a post on X that he had "a good, important conversation on how to reinvigorate diplomacy" with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Rubio spoke briefly with Lavrov at a gala dinner on Tuesday, and the two participated in a meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum on Thursday morning.

US President Donald Trump has voiced support for Ukraine's campaign of long-range drone strikes targeting Russian energy infrastructure, saying it could "help bring about an end" to the conflict.

Ukraine has been escalating its drone strikes, targeting refineries, oil depots and cargo ships at sea, which has caused fuel shortages in Russia.

In late June, a massive barrage of Russian missiles and drones killed at least 30 people in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

In recent weeks, Iran has hit tankers using a route hugging the Omani coast to traverse the strait, in a bid to strongarm vessels into using its own waters and pay for safe passage.

"Three oil tankers, provoked and tempted by the child-killing American army, were trying to pass through the mine-laid route south of the Strait of Hormuz, but after one of them exploded and caught fire, the other two quickly turned around and turned back," the Guards said in a statement quoted by Iranian state media.

The statement did not say when the incident happened.

"The powerful IRGC Navy emphasizes that the Strait of Hormuz is under our control... and any ship that is deceived by the US and intends to pass without coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran will suffer the same fate," the Guards added.

The move comes as the United States under President Donald Trump fights a war with Iran that began in large part over concerns with Tehran's nuclear program -- an issue that remains a key point of contention during now-stalled peace talks.

Two agreements -- one on "peaceful nuclear cooperation" and another on "bilateral safeguards" -- were signed by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the US Energy Department said.

The text of the deals were not immediately made public.

"Together, these two agreements lay the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership that advances several priority economic and strategic objectives, including nuclear nonproliferation," the department said in a statement.

A provision in the deal would potentially see US companies build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Energy Department statement made no mention of such a provision and did not offer comment when asked about it by AFP.

The deal will be submitted to Congress for review, but the Republican-controlled legislature is unlikely to block its implementation.

US lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have previously voiced opposition to such a project over fears Saudi Arabia could eventually convert it to develop nuclear weapons.

Saudi Arabia, like Tehran, has long been adamant about its right to pursue a civilian nuclear program. Last year it signed a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Washington has sought in recent years to include any deal concerning a nuclear agreement in a wider strategic play that would see Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel, along with the signing of a US-Saudi defense pact.

- Proliferation concerns -

The United States signed a nuclear agreement with the kingdom's neighbor the United Arab Emirates in 2009, although the country does not enrich its own uranium.

A drone struck a generator in May near the UAE's Barakah nuclear plant, the Arab world's only such facility, causing a fire.

Policymakers have long feared that if Iran produced a nuclear weapon, the move would set off an arms race across the Gulf.

US Energy Secretary Wright dismissed concerns about proliferation, insisting the deal was in Washington's economic and strategic interest.

"Rest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world's best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States," he said in a statement.

The US-Saudi deal was signed under Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act. The United States has agreements governing nuclear cooperation with more than 50 countries, although the extent varies by each deal.

Experts said such a deal had been in the works for a considerable period, but some raised concerns about the potential for enrichment on Saudi soil.

"It would be a mistake to allow Saudi Arabia the capability for enrichment," said Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council in comments made before the deal was formally announced.

"Washington is right to strengthen its relationship with Riyadh, but it should not do so at the expense of its effective nuclear weapons nonproliferation standards."

Jennifer T. Gordon, director of the Atlantic Council's Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative, lauded the agreement as a "win for the United States over Russia and China."

"Saudi Arabia has made it clear that it will purchase nuclear energy technologies and begin a civil nuclear program; the only question has been whether the kingdom would choose to work with the US and its allies, or whether it would turn to Russia or China," she said.

The Trump administration has prepared fresh tariffs targeting 60 trading partners over their alleged failures to act against forced labor, as officials push to rebuild the US leader's trade agenda after legal setbacks.

"We expect to see some action soon," Greer told CNBC when asked if new duties were incoming. He did not specify a timeline.

Trump imposed a 10-percent global duty this year after a swath of his tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court in February, but this levy expires on Friday.

Analysts expect that new tariffs over forced labor concerns -- set between 10 percent and 12.5 percent -- would replace these temporary duties.

They come as Trump makes a renewed push to use tariffs as leverage against US trading partners, sparking fears of retaliation and diplomatic tensions.

Washington announced a fresh 25-percent duty on certain Brazilian goods last week, and on Monday unveiled a 50-percent levy on many Canadian products to take effect in 30 days.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday that he was looking at "all options," adding that he and Trump had agreed to "intensify discussions" in the coming weeks on a possible deal.

On Tuesday, Trump announced a new 100 percent sector-specific tariff on imported generic drugs to take effect from August 2028, with that level rising to 200 percent in 2029.

For now, the US leader said the tariff on generic drugs would be cut to zero from August 2026, in an effort to build a window for the onshoring of such pharmaceutical production to the United States.

- Forced labor concerns -

Greer said Tuesday that new action on forced labor will cover the majority of US trade, with the moves likely to reignite trade tensions.

A 10-percent tariff rate would hit US imports from partners including Canada, the European Union, Mexico, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. They were found to have taken steps against forced labor.

Goods from over 40 other major economies like China, India and Japan face a 12.5 percent levy.

The EU previously said that it considers tariffs imposed on these grounds "unjustified."

- Canada pressure -

Washington's planned 50-percent tariff on Canada also comes as US-Mexico talks over a North American free trade pact intensify.

Washington recently declined to extend the accord in its current form.

Greer is set to travel to Mexico from Wednesday to Friday for discussions linked to a joint review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

But negotiations with Canada have proceeded at a slower pace. Carney on Tuesday did not suggest that he would head to Washington for talks.

Some lawyers see Trump's use of an untested legal provision -- Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 -- as a means to gain leverage over Canada in USMCA negotiations.

Trade lawyer Dave Townsend of Dorsey & Whitney added that higher tariffs "appear to be aimed at encouraging an agreement between Canada and the United States, or in retaliation for the failure to reach such agreement, or both."

The question, he said, is whether both sides will start a "cycle of escalation and retaliation."

Crucially, Trump's latest salvo will not exempt affected Canadian products entering his country under the USMCA.

Trump told reporters Tuesday that the Canada tariffs were unrelated to his earlier threats over wildfire smoke that descended into the United States.

- Brazil tensions -

US plans for a 25-percent tariff on Brazilian goods over accusations of unfair trade practices have separately drawn a sharp rebuke from the Latin American giant.

The levy is due to take effect Wednesday, while shaping up as a major campaign flashpoint just months before Brazil's presidential election.

A range of products like beef, coffee and certain aircraft parts will be exempted, as will some goods that the United States does not produce.

Still, the American Chamber of Commerce for Brazil recently warned that Washington's measure places Brazil among countries "facing the most restrictive conditions for access to the US market," affecting more than $11 billion in exports.

"The strikes are designed to continue degrading Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," CENTCOM said in a post on X, adding strikes began at 2300 GMT.

The strikes concluded Wednesday at 0015 GMT, the US military said in a follow-up post, adding its assets "targeted Iranian military operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure."

CENTCOM said Iran has attacked over 30 commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz within the past three months.

"The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation," CENTCOM said in a statement.

The US military said it has facilitated the transit of about 900 vessels through the Strait of Hormuz since early May, allowing the passage of 450 million barrels of crude.

The US State Department said operations had started in "pilot zones" in Froun, Srifa and Zawtar al-Gharbiya "in accordance with the Trilateral Framework and under the auspices of the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon."

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott described the step as "a direct outcome" of talks held between Israeli and Lebanese delegations in Rome last week, adding that Washington would keep working with both sides "to implement the framework to a successful conclusion."

The framework, signed by Lebanon, Israel and the United States on June 26 after several rounds of direct negotiations, envisions a phased Israeli pullback from positions in south Lebanon.

In exchange, the Lebanese Armed Forces are to assume sole security control of vacated areas and certify that they have been cleared of Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure.

The pilot zones are intended to trial the approach in a handful of villages straddling the Litani River before it is extended to other areas.

Hezbollah has rejected the framework, with the Iran-backed group insisting any arrangement in Lebanon be linked to wider negotiations between Washington and Tehran. It has not said whether it will resist implementation in the designated areas.

The agreement does not set a timetable for Israel's withdrawal.

Israeli officials have also vowed that their forces will remain in a "security zone" 10 kilometres (six miles) deep along the frontier for as long as Hezbollah remains armed.

Lebanon and Israel, which have no formal relations, started negotiations after Iran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the broader Middle East war by attacking Israel in March.

A Lebanese military source told AFP that troops had begun intensifying patrols in several villages adjacent to areas occupied by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, including Froun.

The framework agreement was reached following a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israel still launches occasional strikes in southern Lebanon and carries out detonations in villages it occupies near the border.

The talks in Rome came ahead of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's planned meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday.

On Monday, the Palestinian Islamist movement named him as its new chief, favouring him over longtime leader Khaled Meshaal.

"Khalil al-Hayya was elected by an overwhelming majority," a senior Hamas official told AFP, adding that he is expected to formally assume the role next week.

"The election process was conducted through a highly complex and secretive mechanism because of the difficult security situation and the occupation's assassination of several political and military leaders," another source in Hamas said.

A former official from the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the founders of Hamas, Hayya is viewed as a moderate, and will replace slain leader Yahya Sinwar.

Along with Meshaal, he survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Doha in September 2025 that left several dead, including one of his sons and his chief of staff.

The Qatari capital serves as an informal base for Hamas, from which it can cultivate ties with the Arab and Islamic world.

From Qatar and Turkey, the tall and bearded Hayya will lead Hamas, including in Gaza, where the movement still controls large swathes of the territory along with a security apparatus comprising thousands of fighters.

Hayya is known to have good relations with Lebanon's Hezbollah, with Arab countries such as Qatar, Egypt and Algeria, as well as with Iran, his movement's main financial and military backer, a Hamas official close to him told AFP.

- Pragmatic and conservative -

The official highlighted Hayya's pragmatic and conversative temperament.

"He doesn't get carried away easily, and is respected by all members of the political bureau as well as by military commanders," the official said.

Hayya was raised in a religious and conservative family in Gaza, before studying at the territory's Islamic University.

He then completed a master's degree in Jordan, followed by a doctorate in Islamic law in Sudan.

Hayya spent three years in Israeli prisons in the late 1990s and survived two other assassination attempts, in 2007 and in 2014.

Hayya, who has repeatedly stressed the importance of armed struggle, lost several family members in Israeli military operations, including one that targeted his house in the northern Gaza Strip in 2007, leaving his wife and three of his children dead.

In 2006, Hayya headed Hamas's parliamentary bloc, which had just won elections. The subsequent months of political and administrative discord marked the beginning of the schism between the Islamist movement and Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Hayya's predecessor Sinwar, whom Israel accused of being one of the principal architects of the October 7, 2023 attack, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza a year later.

Since his death, Hamas has been led by a five-member leadership council headed by senior official Mohammed Darwish.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that the council would be dissolved, with its members submitting their resignations to the group's Shura Council.

"The political bureau will meet in Istanbul within days to form committees and begin restructuring Hamas's leadership bodies," the official said.

But as of Monday afternoon, 23 of the estimated 40 passengers had been found alive, they said. Around 12 are still unaccounted for. Such accidents are common on Nigeria's busy rivers and waterways, often caused by overloaded boats, poor maintenance or failure to comply with safety regulations. Scores die each year. Police spokesman Shi'isu Adam told AFP a body was recovered on Sunday and five more were found early on Monday. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) gave a lower toll, saying that only five people were confirmed dead.

"The search and rescue is still ongoing," Nura Abdullahi, Jigawa state spokesman for NEMA, told AFP. Rains are currently inundating the west African country, which is in its annual rainy season. But Abdullahi said they were not a factor in Sunday's accident.

"Police found him and took him to the Nimroz provincial hospital for treatment because he was exhausted from thirst and extreme heat," said Qudrat, without detailing when the driver was found. Five migrants who had been in the vehicle and died from thirst and exhaustion were subsequently recovered, police said earlier. "There is still no news about the fate of the other 14 people (missing). Search operations are ongoing in the areas of Chahar Burjak district of Nimroz," Qudrat said on Monday. People are drawn to Iran by better job opportunities and a common language, but legal routes are limited.

A doctor at Nimroz provincial hospital told AFP that two brothers were among the five victims brought to the facility by security forces. "Such cases happen every day; there are many casualties because they lose their way on this route," he said, requesting anonymity for security reasons. The latest victims were from Balkh province, hundreds of kilometres away in northern Afghanistan, the doctor said Sunday. Police said a search was underway for the driver, who had fled the hospital. Temperatures near the Iran border reach dangerous highs in the summer, but they can also plunge in winter. At least 18 migrants froze to death while trying to reach Iran from Afghanistan's Herat province in December, when temperatures were around -3C.

A dozen of the EU's 27 nations called for a delay in implementation, saying the rules would narrow Europe's supplier base at a time when energy markets are still reeling from the US-Iran war. The call was backed by the United States, the bloc's biggest oil supplier. The European Commission, the EU's executive, in recommendations to member states stuck to the 2027 start date for the rules to come into effect. But Brussels said that countries should refrain from handing out fines until the end of 2029 to energy importers that fail to do their reporting.

It said the move would help to ensure "security of supply in a context of global energy markets tightness caused by the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the conflict in the Middle East." Environment activists have called on the EU to maintain its methane rules unchanged. The United Nations last month urged renewed efforts to reduce methane emissions, which account for one-third of greenhouse gas warming and are about 80 times more potent than CO2. The fossil fuel sector accounts for 35 percent of methane released by human activity, mainly via leaks, flaring and venting from oil and gas operations.

Cuba "has infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists (and) backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil," the report said. While the allegations represent an escalation in US-Cuba tensions, espionage between the two countries has long been known and the report released Monday contained little new information.

It coincides with a revival of alarmist, Cold War-style warnings -- spearheaded by Trump -- about left-wing extremism in the United States and of a communist "menace" that needs to be cut out "like a cancer." In 2015, then president Barack Obama attempted a rapprochement with the Cuban government, hoping a more diplomatic approach would yield better relations after a half-century of hostility.

Trump quickly restored a hardline stance, reinstating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be next after Venezuela to fall to US pressure, and said in June that Washington would be "taking over" the Caribbean island, about 90 miles (145 km) from Florida, "almost immediately."

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X that the strikes began at 2200 GMT and "are designed to further degrade Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who launched attacks against American service members in Jordan last night."

The Iranian news agencies Fars and Tasnim simultaneously reported US attacks on Sirik, a port located on the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran.

Earlier Saturday, CENTCOM announced the deaths of two US servicemen -- the first since the resumption of hostilities on July 7 -- and that a third American was missing during "Iranian missile and drone attacks" on Friday in Jordan.

"The family's only surviving member is one child, who was not inside the house at the time of the strike," Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for the agency, told AFP. Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital confirmed it had received the five bodies. An Israeli military spokeswoman said a strike had been carried out in Gaza City on Saturday "targeting a Hamas terrorist".

She said the military was still assessing the results.

Gaza resident Mousa Al-Aimawi said the strike came without warning.

"Suddenly there was a missile hitting the building. No one knew, no one, no warning, nothing," he told AFP.

"They hit it without caring that there are civilians, children, women, girls."

Mohammed Kali, who lives in the same building, said he saw several people lying on the ground.

"There were bodies scattered on the ground -- women and children dead, and elderly people too," he said.

AFP footage from the scene showed large sections of the building's facade torn away, as rescue teams helped the wounded.

Onlookers picked through shattered concrete blocks and twisted metal, searching for any belongings that could be salvaged.

Three more people were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a group of civilians in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, the agency reported.

Al-Shifa hospital confirmed it had received the three bodies.

Hours later, Bassal announced the death of a woman after "Israeli artillery shelling" struck "a tent sheltering displaced people" east of the Zeitoun neighbourhood.

Gaza's Al-Ahli Hospital confirmed it had received the body of the woman along with several wounded individuals, including her daughter.

Several people were wounded and three others remain missing in the targeted area, the spokesman added.

Health officials said two other people were killed elsewhere in Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The military did not offer an immediate comment on those attacks.

Violence has persisted despite the ceasefire.

Before Friday's casualties, at least 1,144 Palestinians had been killed since the truce took effect last October, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli military says it has lost five soldiers in Gaza over the same period, as well as one civilian contractor.

Restrictions imposed on media outlets and limited access in Gaza prevent AFP from independently verifying tolls or freely covering the violence there.

"The repeated targeting of these vital facilities reveals a systematic hostile approach targeting civilian sites and vital infrastructure that endangers the lives and safety of civilians," the foreign ministry said.

"The fire that broke out at the facility in Tambov region has been contained," the company said. Firefighters were still in action at Elektrostal, it added. One person was killed and 37 were injured at the Elektrostal warehouse, according to the region's governor, Andrei Vorobyov. A fire also broke out "at an oil depot in Noginsk", Vorobyov said.

Two people were injured and a nearby maternity hospital was evacuated "for safety reasons". An AFP journalist observed thick black smoke rising into the sky above the town on Saturday morning, as well as several fire engines heading there from Moscow. More than 370 drones were launched toward the Moscow region overnight, the mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin, said on Saturday. "Most were neutralised by air defence forces at distant approaches. Sixty four enemy UAVs were destroyed on approach to Moscow," Sobyanin wrote on the state-backed MAX platform.

Ukraine is increasingly striking Russian cities far from the border in retaliation for Moscow's daily attacks. "Two major logistics facilities were hit in the Moscow and Tambov regions, more than 500 and nearly 700 kilometres (300 and 430 miles) from the front line," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. He alleged the centres were used "to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment". In Ukraine, Russian strikes left one person dead and 13 injured. US-led diplomatic efforts to end the fighting have stalled in recent months, as Washington has shifted focus to its war against Iran.

More than 238 hectares of rice and other crops across four northern mountainous provinces had been damaged since Wednesday, with livestock or poultry killed or washed away by floodwaters, according to Vietnam's disaster and dyke management authority.

Authorities have deployed 500 rescuers to search for missing persons and evacuate residents from areas at risk of landslides, state outlet Cong Ly said.

Natural disasters between January and June have left at least 30 people dead in the country and caused more than $21.7 million in damage.

The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientists have identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.

The Vikram-1 rocket, built by Skyroot Aerospace and designed to carry small satellites into low-Earth orbit, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota amid loud cheers.

"Hello space, we have arrived!" Skyroot Aerospace said in a post on X. "Vikram-1's Test Flight-1 has completed its mission. The first ever Indian private sector launch has been successfully completed."

Vikram-1 is about as tall as a seven-storey building and capable of carrying payloads weighing up to 350 kilograms (771 pounds).

Pawan Goenka, chairman of the government's Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, said the achievement went "way beyond expectation for the very first orbital launch ever taken by an Indian private company".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the endeavour as "a defining moment in India's space journey".

"The growing participation of our private sector is opening new frontiers and accelerating innovation," Modi said.

"This achievement will encourage countless youngsters to dream bigger and innovate fearlessly."

The rocket is carrying a diverse range of payloads, including a lab-grown diamond and robotic arms capable of removing space debris.

A miniature 18-karat gold rocket that has mini sculptures of Indian physicists Vikram Sarabhai, CV Raman and former Indian president and noted aerospace engineer APJ Abdul Kalam is also aboard the vehicle.

India's space ambitions, built on decades of investment by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), have gathered pace in recent years.

The country's space economy -- valued at around $8.4 billion -- has rapidly expanded since the sector opened up to private players in 2020, and is now home to more than 400 space startups.

- 'New heights' -

"India's space ambitions soar to new heights!" Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said after the successful launch.

In August 2023, India became only the fourth country to successfully land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, after Russia, the United States and China.

Former ISRO chairman K. Sivan hailed the work done by space startups, adding that the country was witnessing the "fruits of the seeds sown" when it opened up the sector to private players.

"With Skyroot especially, the rocket is one of the most challenging and complex technologies in the space system... It is going to motivate many people," he told AFP.

Sivan added that "there is no doubt" the launch will have a global impact.

"If an Indian startup can make one of the most challenging things in the space industry, then it gives a huge boost to India's reputation globally."

Two Danish citizens, an American, a Briton and two Australians died following what media reports said was a night out on the town in Vang Vieng in November that year.

"To date, authorities do not yet have evidence that can establish whether the deaths... were caused by the actions of any individual or by any particular cause, because no autopsies were conducted on the bodies," the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.

"Another electricity and water distillation plant was targeted by a hostile attack that led to a fire erupting in one of the plant's components," which resulted in the deactivation of some power generation units, the ministry of electricity and water said in a statement.

In Kuwait, Iranian forces targeted an ammunition depot at the Al-Adiri camp, the headquarters buildings and ammunition depots at the Ali Al-Salem base and several communication bridges.

In Jordan, fuel tanks at the Al-Azraq base were also targeted, the state broadcaster said on Telegram.

Kuwait's army wrote on X on Saturday that explosions may be heard as a result of "air defense systems intercepting hostile targets".

Air raid sirens were also sounded in Bahrain, which hosts a major US naval base, according to the country's interior ministry.

"US Central Command (CENTCOM) hit surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities," the military said in a post on X.

Idriss Kohlwazi from the Komala party told AFP that "the Iranian regime attacked with drones and rockets a camp" belonging to the party and its vicinity near the city of Sulaimaniyah in the early morning.

The attack resulted in the "martyrdom of eight of our members and wounding others," he added.

The escalation in Iraq comes against the backdrop of renewed military escalation between the United States and Iran, Iraq's main allies.

During the Middle East war, the Kurdistan region, which hosts US troops and foreign oil companies as well as exiled Iranian Kurdish rebels, has been a primary target for attacks carried out by Iran and pro-Iran Iraqi armed groups.

Even after a ceasefire was announced in April, Iran continued to strike Kurdish opposition groups, which Tehran accuses of serving Western or Israeli interests.

But Friday's attack marked the biggest escalation after the ceasefire with these groups having mostly evacuated their bases and camps since the war.

In Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, the US-led anti-jihadist coalition shot down several drones on Friday in the second such incident in the city this week.

Erbil is home to a major US consulate complex and its airport houses military advisers attached to the US-led coalition.

Kurdish counterterrorism forces said that "coalition forces downed eight explosive-laden drones over Erbil between 04:19 and 05:25 am (0119 and 0225 GMT)" on Friday, with no damage or casualties reported.

On Wednesday evening, the coalition also shot down eight drones over Erbil, with AFP journalists reporting that the drones were hit by air defences near the US consulate, which was a primary target of attacks during the regional war.

No group has claimed responsibility for any attacks in Erbil.

During the Middle East war, pro-Iran armed groups, operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, targeted US facilities in Iraq more than 600 times in support of Tehran.

"Some infrastructure in several provinces of the country came under US military attack," the IRNA news agency said, reporting that six bridges in the southern province of Hormozgan were targeted.

Here are the latest developments:

US forces board ship -

American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman as part of Washington's renewed blockade of Iranian ports, the US military said.

US Central Command also said it had "redirected" three vessels trying to circumvent the blockade since it went back into effect amid renewed fighting.

Reports of explosions -

Iranian state TV reported two explosions in the city of Bushehr -- home to Iran's only civilian nuclear plant -- in a "continuation of the American enemy aggression".

The official news agency IRNA also said there were "American enemy attacks on areas around Ahvaz".

Later on, state television IRIB reported US strikes on an airport, a railway station in the port city of Bandar Abbas and two bridges in southern Iran near the Strait of Hormuz.

New US strikes -

US forces launched strikes against Iran for a sixth night in a row, the US military said.

The strikes -- which began at 1800 GMT -- were carried out to "further degrade Iranian military capabilities", US Central Command said in a post on X.

Ship struck off Iraq -

A drone struck a ship off the port in Iraq's southern province of Basra, a security official told AFP, while the country's oil ministry said an unspecified object fell near a tanker.

The official told AFP that a drone had struck a ship "carrying American-branded cars" near an oil terminal after it had arrived from the United Arab Emirates.

Iraq's oil ministry said that "the incident involved a tanker reporting a sighting of a foreign object in its vicinity. However, no fire or damage to the vessel has occurred."

Trump 'open to diplomacy' -

US President Donald Trump remains open to diplomacy with Iran, the White House said, adding that Washington was still talking to Tehran despite the renewal of hostilities.

"The president will hold them accountable when they turn their back on the words that they state to the United States. But he is always open to diplomacy at the very same time," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Iranian island strikes -

Iranian news agencies reported that the United States had launched strikes around Iran's Gulf island of Qeshm near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Fars news agency reported an "American missile strike in the vicinity of Qeshm", citing local authorities. Tasnim reported that one of its correspondents had reported that locations around the island "were struck by projectiles from the American enemy".

Houthis threaten attacks -

Yemen's Houthis warned they would target Saudi Arabia's oil facilities and other infrastructure if conflict escalated between the two sides, days after the airport in the rebel-held capital Sanaa was struck.

"All Saudi oil facilities and vital installations are targets for our missiles and drones if it gets itself involved in a full-scale aggression against our country and moves towards escalation," the group's leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi said.

Syria seizes weapons -

Syria said it had foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon by seizing a shipment that included missiles at its border with Iraq.

"Specialised units thwarted an attempt to bring in a shipment of sophisticated weapons and missiles through the Syrian-Iraqi border," a source from the interior ministry was quoted as saying by Syria's official Sana news agency.

Iran alleges 'barbaric' attack -

Tehran accused the United States of carrying out a "barbaric attack" after a cancer hospital in Iran's southwest was forced to evacuate due to nearby strikes.

"This barbaric attack, reminiscent of Israel's atrocities against healthcare facilities, caused severe suffering and anxiety upon the hospitalised children," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X, saying "211 patients undergoing chemotherapy" had been evacuated.

The east African country has a notorious road safety record, frequently recording bus or truck accidents along poorly maintained highways.

The bus from King David Junior School in the capital, Kampala, was returning from a school trip to Sipi Falls in Kapchorwa District when it veered off the road, according to preliminary investigations by the police.

"The driver reportedly lost control of the vehicle, which veered off the road, struck a large stone along the roadside, and overturned," police said in a statement on X.

"The crash claimed the lives of one adult male and 20 pupils, while three adult males and several juveniles sustained injuries," it added.

Police shared an image of a badly mangled and overturned bus, and said investigations were ongoing, with several children and adults receiving treatment in hospital.

Fatal bus accidents are relatively common in Uganda.

In October, two buses collided on a major highway, killing at least 46 people.

A 2024 report said there were 4,434 fatal collisions and 5,144 deaths that year.

The women struggle to keep their footing against the rough ocean while balancing the loads, which weigh dozens of kilograms (pounds).

The beach is far from the typical picture postcard image of the west African archipelago and Vania Tavares makes the sign of the cross before stepping into its dangerous waves.

The women, known as "sand thieves", have performed this gruelling task almost daily for more than 15 years in order to survive in one of the island nations' poorest regions.

With solemn expressions, the pair plus four other neighbouring women move in a silent, hours-long dance during low tide at Charco Beach near the town Ribeira da Barca, located on the main island of Santiago.

Maria Eleonore Monteiro's slender frame sways under the weight of the bucket as she climbs towards dry land to empty it beside a dozen large piles, which will be sold to contractors or resellers.

Buyers pay around $140 for a load of sea sand, often gathered over weeks, which is still cheaper than what is legally extracted from quarries.

"It's my only alternative, I have no other job", Monteiro told AFP, exhausted after a trip to the piles.

Her legs are scarred from falls and accidents on the rocks: "I've been gathering sand for so long that I have back pain. Sometimes I spend three days in bed", she said.

- Stones and craters -

Far from the idyllic white or black sand beaches found on some Cape Verdean islands, Ribeira da Barca attracts no tourists, much like the majority of Santiago Island's beach areas.

For decades these sites have served as artisanal open-pit mines for harvesting sand sold at rock-bottom prices, leaving behind a desolate landscape of stones and craters.

The actual beach at Charco has mostly vanished, forcing the women to extract the remaining sand from the water, even though many of them cannot swim.

Sand mining is illegal in Cape Verde under laws passed between 1997 and 2017, punishable by fines or imprisonment.

Yet the practice persists, with authorities sometimes turning a blind eye when it's a matter of survival.

The women interviewed by AFP have not had any run-ins with the police in three years.

As the only natural resource in the impoverished archipelago, sand fuelled urban expansion in the 1980s and 1990s.

Most of the capital, Praia, was literally built with it, Ana Veiga, director of the NGO Lantuna, told AFP.

To reach the remote beach where they gather sand, Monteiro and her neighbours walk half an hour from their poor community, which lacks running water.

This is where Tavares also lives. She was forced to drop out of school at age 13 to work, and has been harvesting sand for the last 16 years to feed her children.

On the day AFP visited, she was cooking over a wood fire that emits an acrid smoke, unable to afford gas.

Sand mining is one of the few means of survival for single mothers like Tavares's sister, Vanilda, 32, who has three children by three different fathers, "none of whom help" raise them.

- 'Disastrous consequences' -

The illegal beach sand trade has been curbed in recent years via a crackdown and awareness campaigns.

"Sometimes we wait a month before selling a truckload of sand", Tavares said.

Decades of sand harvesting have also left their mark on what was once the vast beach of Praia de Areia Grande, on the island's east.

The sand mining has left the area with "disastrous consequences for agriculture", said Samuel Leal, a 34-year-old agricultural engineer and representative from the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment for the municipality of Santa Cruz.

"The natural barrier was broken, seawater penetrated the land and the soil degraded due to salinisation".

Behind the Praia de Areia Grande beach, farmland has vanished, replaced by acacia trees that Leal pointed out. Nearly 100 farmers have had to abandon their fields in this region alone.

- Hoping for change -

Leal praises the government's prevention efforts in recent years, which have "helped reduce the impact" of sand harvesting.

Veiga, of the NGO Lantuna, takes a much more critical view. She slams the authorities' inaction and calls for a plan to reintegrate into society the women harvesters "who feel marginalised".

Thanks to her NGO, dozens have already transitioned to raising pigs or sheep over the past two years.

"When authorities told us the beach would end up like this, we didn't believe them", said Monteiro.

She is sad to see her surroundings scarred by decades of a practice to which she has contributed.

"If I ever find help, I won't come here to collect sand anymore", she said.

Early on Friday Iran announced attacks on an airport and railway station in Iran, and strikes on two bridges that killed seven people. "I officially declare that if the Americans strike the infrastructure of the Islamic Republic, then all infrastructure across the region will become legitimate targets for Iran," Iranian state TV quoted a senior armed forces spokesperson as saying late Thursday. The renewed fighting comes a month after the signing of a preliminary deal that aimed to end the conflict, which broke out in late February with massive US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

But the foes have been trading attacks as Iran claims control over the waterway key to the global oil supply, despite it being open to free passage before the war. Tehran had already warned it would target infrastructure across the region if US President Donald Trump followed through on a threat to attack power plants and bridges in Iran -- though the White House said he remained "open to diplomacy".

The Islamic republic responded to the apparent US attacks on its infrastructure with strikes on US allies in the Gulf.

Qatar and Kuwait said Friday they were responding to missile attacks, with AFP journalists in the Qatari capital Doha hearing several blasts.

In Bahrain, Tehran targeted US helicopters and planes at an air base "in response to the enemy's hostile action in targeting urban infrastructure and innocent people", Iranian state media reported.

The Gulf nation urged citizens to take shelter and said that a siren had been sounded.

The attacks came a day after Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they struck a US airbase in Jordan with ballistic missiles in response to what they described as an American attack near a children's cancer hospital, near Ahvaz in the southwest.

'Never back down' -

Iranian state media said the hospital was evacuated following US airstrikes on the area that foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei slammed as "barbaric".

Hani, a 34-year-old teacher from Ahvaz, said the strikes were "very intense".

"My hands are shaking. There were at least 11, 12 explosions. My ears are exploding," he said.

A senior Iranian military spokesman called for the US to withdraw from the region, saying "we will never back down over the Strait of Hormuz", state TV reported.

The Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for the world's oil, was briefly reopened after the US-Iran deal in June, but Tehran said last week it would be closed again "until the US ends its aggression".

The United States has also reimposed its blockade of Iran's ports.

On Thursday, the American military said forces had boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman to "ensure full compliance", adding that three vessels had been redirected since the blockade resumed.

Threats to infrastructure -

Pakistan's foreign office spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Islamabad would "continue to encourage all sides to end violence and resume technical-level talks" under the memorandum of understanding it helped mediate last month.

But Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has warned that a deal "only has meaning when its clauses are valid and being implemented".

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Trump would hold Iran "accountable" for going back on its word, but said "he is always open to diplomacy at the very same time".

"They have expressed they still want to make a deal to the president. We're talking to them, but again, the president is not going to allow them to fire on ships in the strait without paying a consequence for that," she said.

Trump previously threatened to hit Iranian power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to the negotiating table, telling Fox News: "Next week it gets really bad for them."

On Thursday, the spokesman for Iran's military headquarters said that if the US followed through on its threats, "all infrastructure in the region" would be "crushed".

Since last week, renewed US attacks have killed at least 30 people in Iran, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced it was conducting a new wave of strikes on Thursday evening to "further degrade Iranian military capabilities" -- the sixth straight night of attacks by American forces. Iranian state media reported strikes on two bridges, a railway station and an airport in the southern part of the Islamic republic, near the strategic strait, which is crucial to global oil and gas flows. Three people were killed in the attack on the bridges in Hormozgan province, state TV said on Telegram.

State TV in Tehran earlier reported two explosions in the western city of Bushehr -- home to Iran's only civilian nuclear plant -- in a "continuation of the American enemy aggression". Tehran had earlier warned it would target infrastructure across the region if US President Donald Trump followed through on a threat to attack power plants and bridges in Iran -- though the White House said he remained "open to diplomacy".

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Thursday that they struck a US airbase in Jordan with ballistic missiles in response to what they described as an American attack near a children's cancer hospital, near Ahvaz in the southwest.

'Never back down' -

Iranian state media said the hospital was evacuated following US airstrikes on the area that foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei slammed as "barbaric".

Hani, a 34-year-old teacher from Ahvaz, said the strikes were "very intense", adding: "My hands are shaking. There were at least 11, 12 explosions. My ears are exploding."

US allies in the Gulf, meanwhile, responded to attacks, with Kuwait saying early Friday its air defences were again combatting missile and drone attacks, and Bahrain sounding air raid sirens.

A senior Iranian military spokesman called for the US to withdraw from the region, saying "we will never back down over the Strait of Hormuz", state TV reported.

The Strait of Hormuz was briefly reopened after the US-Iran deal in June, but Tehran said last week it would be closed again "until the US ends its aggression".

The United States has also reimposed its blockade of Iran's ports.

On Thursday, the American military said forces had boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman to "ensure full compliance", adding that three vessels had been redirected since the blockade resumed.

Threats to infrastructure -

Pakistan's foreign office spokesman, Tahir Andrabi, said Islamabad would "continue to encourage all sides to end violence and resume technical-level talks" under the memorandum of understanding it helped mediate last month.

But Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has warned that a deal "only has meaning when its clauses are valid and being implemented".

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Trump would hold Iran "accountable" for going back on its word, but said "he is always open to diplomacy at the very same time".

"They have expressed they still want to make a deal to the president. We're talking to them, but again, the president is not going to allow them to fire on ships in the strait without paying a consequence for that," she said.

Trump previously threatened to hit Iranian power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to the negotiating table, telling Fox News: "Next week it gets really bad for them."

On Thursday, the spokesman for Iran's military headquarters said that if the US followed through on its threats, "all infrastructure in the region" would be "crushed".

Since last week, renewed US attacks have killed at least 30 people in Iran, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said.

"Britain has always been, and remains, with Ukraine, and we value this immensely," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Starmer at a press conference in Kyiv.

An engine failure caused the boat to sink as it sailed near Selayar, a small island south of the larger Sulawesi, said the head of the local search and rescue agency, Muhammad Arif Anwar.

The crew was unable to repair the engine, prompting the skipper to call local authorities requesting evacuation, he told AFP.

The boat was already partially sunken when rescuers reached it on Thursday, according to Arif.

Forty-nine people were rescued, one woman was found dead, and "24 people are still being searched for", said Arif.

The vessel's manifest listed 50 people on board, but further verification revealed there were in fact 74, he added.

It is common in Indonesia for the number of actual passengers on a boat to differ from the manifest.

An Indonesian Navy vessel had been deployed to assist with the search, which is expected to continue into the night, Arif said.

Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in the Southeast Asian archipelago, due in part to lax safety standards and inclement weather.

In January, three Spanish tourists died when their boat sank off eastern Indonesia, and a 10-year-old boy was listed as officially missing after authorities ended the search.

"Today's decision secures the future of steelmaking in the UK, protects skilled jobs and safeguards a vital national capability," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.

Jingye, which bought British Steel in 2020, lost control of the company in April last year when Starmer's government intervened at the struggling firm, which was facing imminent closure.

Business Minister Peter Kyle said the government stepped in last year "to keep the blast furnaces running and prevent a disorderly closure that would have put steel production, supply chains and thousands of jobs at risk".

"Since then, ministers and officials have worked intensively to find a long-term solution for the business," he added.

Starmer announced legislation in May to fully nationalise British Steel, the country's last factory that can make steel from scratch.

The UK government's takeover followed Jingye's declaration that the northern England plant was no longer financially viable.

Nationalisation brings British Steel back into government ownership for the first time since 1988.

London had seen the possible closure of the plant as a threat to Britain's long-term economic security, given the decline of the country's once-robust steel industry.

In a statement, Katz's office said the two men spoke overnight and the minister "emphasised Israel's determination to remain in the security zones in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon in order to protect Israel's borders and the communities near the border from the threats posed by jihadist forces".

"We have never asked the United States to act in our place along our borders," Katz said.

His comments come days after US President Donald Trump asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pull Israeli forces out of Syria and Lebanon, according to US news outlet Axios.

Citing a US official, Axios reported that Trump told Netanyahu the Israeli deployment was fuelling tensions in Syria.

"They don't want you there. You should redeploy," Trump told him, according to Axios.

After the December 2024 overthrow of Syria's longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights.

Israel has also carried out repeated incursions into Syrian territory since then, as well as bombings, and has said it wants a demilitarised zone in the country's south.

In Lebanon, Israeli forces remain deployed in what the military describes as a security zone extending roughly 10 kilometres (six miles) into Lebanese territory.

Lebanon and Israel, which have no formal relations, are engaged in talks to end hostilities after militant group Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the broader Middle East war by attacking Israel in March.

The two countries concluded their fifth round of talks in Rome on Wednesday.

The US-brokered negotiations are aimed at having Israeli forces steadily withdraw from Lebanon, starting with two "pilot zones" located outside the "security zone" that Israel has established in the south.

In Gaza, Israel's military controls 60 percent of the territory and is present on the entire outside perimeter along the borders with Israel and Egypt.

The civil defence was "continuing efforts to put out the fire" in the Mohammadia district of Algiers, with the cause of the blaze unknown.

"The provisional toll is 11 dead," it said, without specifying the age of the victims.

National television showed Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb visiting the wounded in hospital.

Algeria has been sweltering under a heatwave for several days, and nearly 1,000 fires have been recorded in the space of a week.

Relatives of victims are expected to attend the hearing at the court in Genoa, where the Morandi Bridge -- part of a key highway connecting France and Italy -- gave way in torrential rain on August 14, 2018.

Its collapse sent dozens of vehicles and their passengers tumbling into the abyss.

Thursday's verdict comes after four years of trial hearings for 57 defendants on charges of manslaughter, endangering transport safety and falsifying official documents.

The prosecution has requested jail sentences adding up to more than 400 years in total.

Egle Possetti lost her sister, nephew, niece and brother-in-law when pillar 9 of the bridge collapsed.

A conviction "won't bring them back", she told AFP.

"But clearly the most important thing for the victims is that the truth finally comes out," said Possetti, who heads a committee of victims' relatives.

- 'Ticking time bomb' -

The findings of the magistrates' investigation are damning: "Between the inauguration in 1967 and the collapse, i.e. 51 years later, not even minimal maintenance work was carried out to reinforce the stays of pillar number 9".

Work had been carried out on two other pillars, numbers 10 and 11, and was planned for number 9.

Prosecutor Walter Cotugno dubbed the bridge "a ticking time bomb".

Most of the defendants are executives and technicians from Autostrade per l'Italia (ASPI), which runs almost half of the country's motorway network, and engineering company Spea, in charge of maintenance.

They include the general manager of Autostrade at the time, Giovanni Castellucci, the former head of Spea, Antonino Galata, and officials from the infrastructure ministry.

Castellucci is accused of postponing work on pier number 9 and risks 18 years in prison.

The defence's main argument is that the bridge had a hidden construction defect, namely corrosion of its cables, and it was this that caused its collapse, not a lack of maintenance.

Castellucci is already serving time for his role in a 2013 accident in which a bus crashed through the barriers of a viaduct, killing 40 people.

Even though their former directors are on trial, Autostrade and Spea reached an out-of-court settlement with the public prosecutor's office, which provides for a payment of 29 million euros ($30 million) to the state.

At the time of the tragedy, Autostrade belonged to the Atlantia group, controlled by the wealthy Benetton family, but faced with popular indignation the family subsequently gave up its stake to the state.

H5 bird flu has caused severe disease and high death rates in poultry and wild birds worldwide.

"New Zealanders are being asked to be alert after a single ocean-going seabird, a brown skua, returned a confirmed positive test for H5 bird flu today after it was found on Petone beach in Wellington," said Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard.

There was no evidence of transmission between wild birds, or mass mortality in wildlife, he added.

Neighbouring Australia, for years the only continental landmass to be free of the H5 strain, detected its first case in June. Australian authorities have since reported 14 cases.

New Zealand authorities have sought to protect the country's five most endangered birds -- the kakapo, takahe, shore plover, black stilt and orange-fronted parakeet -- by vaccinating breeding bird populations.

Prior to the arrivals of humans, New Zealand had no mammals, and many of its unique bird species, such as the kiwi, do not have the ability to fly.

People were asked to report groups of three or more sick birds to authorities.

But there is no clear legal channel for such transfers because the two Koreas have no banking ties and remain technically at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty. Defectors typically rely on informal broker networks operating through China, with funds passing through multiple bank accounts before reaching recipients in the isolated North.

An appeals court acquitted the defendant on Tuesday, recognising that the actions in question were taken to assist defectors without any profit purpose, Lee Hee-suk, a lawyer representing the defendant, told AFP. The complex process of wiring funds into the North can cost as much as half of the original remittance in brokerage fees, according to the public interest foundation Dongcheon, established by law firm BKL, which represented the defendant pro bono.

South Korean authorities had long taken a relatively lenient approach toward humanitarian remittances by defectors, provided the funds were not intended to support the North Korean regime. But under former hawkish President Yoon Suk Yeol's administration, authorities launched nationwide investigations in 2023, leading to about 10 defectors being prosecuted under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, according to Dongcheon and local news reports.

About half accepted fines without appealing, the organisation added. The defendant, a woman in her 50s, was indicted in 2023 on charges of violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. A lower court had acknowledged that the remittances had humanitarian motives and were effectively unavoidable under current circumstances, but ruled in February last year that they nonetheless violated the law.

She had received a suspended one million won ($670) fine, Dongcheon said. The appeals court acquitted her on Tuesday. "We welcome the acquittal ... (we) hope it will have a positive impact on the cases that are still pending," lawyer Lee said. In November last year, a Seoul court acquitted a North Korean defector in a similar case, in what was believed to be the first not-guilty ruling involving humanitarian remittances to relatives in North Korea, according to Yonhap.

"The enemy has attacked the city again," Sergiy Lysak, head of the Odesa military administration, said on Telegram, adding that the attack hit residential buildings.

"As things stand, three people are known to have been killed as a result of the enemy attack," Lysak said in an update, adding that three others were hospitalised.

Police in the northern region of Iwate, which is part of Tohoku, received a call Monday evening from a family saying a bear had intruded into their home. The animal "opened the fridge, scattering its content nearby," a local police official told AFP, declining to be named.

Footprints suggest the bear then "made its way out through a back door adjacent to the kitchen and also hunted through a bin for food waste," the official said. The incident occurred in the town of Shizukuishi, where at least four other households have reported bear intrusions since July 5, he added.

In recent months there has been a jump in sightings after the bears emerged from hibernation, and more bears have been straying into towns and cities. In June, dozens of police, hunters and city officials needed four days to trap a bear roaming Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, forcing mass school closures.

Before that another bear described as "extremely intelligent" -- it opened a window and turned on a tap -- attacked four people at two factories in Fukushima and remained at large for days.

Scientists attribute the sharp rise in incidents to an increase in the bears' population, a declining number of people in rural areas and other factors including variations in the availability of bears' usual food.

De la Espriella had earlier branded Timochenko a "war criminal," saying he deserved to spend life in prison and vowing to work toward that goal. The hard-right firebrand has promised to end talks with dissident groups, bomb drug-running guerrillas and scrap any tribunals, which he believes allowed former FARC leaders to escape punishment.

Londono warned that persistent stigmatization of former guerrillas had been accompanied by "messages of hate" that risked generating violence. "There are people with privileged platforms spreading such messages, and that is extremely dangerous," he said. "It puts everyone at risk."

He said former FARC leaders remained committed to the peace deal and hoped to discuss its implementation with the incoming government, which takes office on August 7.

The reading from the National Bureau of Statistics marked a sharp improvement from May's 0.6 percent fall.

Industrial production rose 5.3 percent year-on-year, the NBS said, beating a Bloomberg forecast of 4.6 percent.

According to the notification, the national flag will be kept at half-mast at all government, semi-government and autonomous institutions, educational institutions, government and private buildings across the country, as well as at all Bangladeshi missions abroad. The notification said Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, one of the architects of modern Qatar and a true friend of Bangladesh and Bangladeshi expatriates, passed away on July 12 this year.

As part of the national mourning, special doa will be offered at mosques across the country seeking eternal peace for the departed soul. Special prayers will also be held at other religious places of worship.

"We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate." Trump's comments came as US forces carried out strikes against Iran for a fourth day in a row and reimposed a naval blockade on the country's ports.

A fragile June 17 ceasefire between the two sides has effectively collapsed, with the focus on control of the crucial Strait of Hormuz. Asked how long the US strikes would carry on, Trump replied: "They'll continue until I say it's enough."

The flare-up is the latest to undermine an interim agreement between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending their war, which has caused global economic shockwaves since it began in late February.

The latest salvo by US forces began at 2100 GMT on Sunday, Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X, following approximately 140 strikes the previous night.

Iranian state media reported US strikes targeting large areas across southern and western Iran, including Qeshm island and Bandar Abbas near the strait, and in Khuzestan province bordering Iraq.

Oil prices, which have tumbled since the announcement of the agreement, rose over 3.5 percent when futures trading opened Monday in Tokyo, with the US benchmark WTI jumping above $74 a barrel.

Iran also reported strikes Sunday evening on two of its southern islands while Kuwait, where Tehran has repeatedly targeted US installations, said border posts and an offshore oil platform had been attacked.

The renewed fighting followed an Iranian attack early Sunday on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whose crew was forced to abandon it after it went up in flames.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said after the incident that "the Strait of Hormuz will be closed until further notice and until the end of American interventions in this region," according to state news agency IRNA.

CENTCOM countered on X that the strait was "open to all vessels seeking to lawfully transit."

The military command added that US forces were "positioned and prepared to ensure" freedom of navigation, saying: "Iran does not control the strait. Traffic is flowing."

Control of the strategic waterway has become key leverage for Iran, with an adviser to the country's supreme leader on Sunday saying it was more important than "dozens of atomic bombs."

Mediators have been trying to salvage a diplomatic solution to ending the war after President Donald Trump this week declared a ceasefire over.

Iran's foreign ministry said the US attacks on Sunday had "caused the return of insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz" and "have rendered futile all efforts" at establishing peace in the region.

- 'Hit them very hard' -

On Sunday evening, Iranian state media reported at least 10 "enemy projectiles" hitting Qeshm Island, which sits on the Strait of Hormuz.

It also reported strikes on the island of Farur, to the east of Qeshm in the Gulf, that it said killed a telecommunications worker and wounded two others.

Official news agency IRNA also reported early on Monday morning that US strikes had killed one person and wounded four at a water pumping station in the southwest city of Mahshahr.

On Sunday, Kuwait said three of its land border posts in the north were damaged in an attack, and that an offshore drilling platform "was targeted by a hostile drone," with one person injured.

Tehran said it had targeted two ships in Hormuz early Sunday, including one that caught fire.

The American military said it had responded with strikes on about 140 targets, and Iranian media reported explosions in Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Jask and on Qeshm, as well as in Khuzestan province, with one soldier reported killed.

Iran's response to the US strikes came quickly, with sirens and explosions heard in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, AFP journalists and local authorities reported.

Kuwait said it was working to intercept an attack, while Jordan said three Iranian missiles fell inside the kingdom.

Iran's Guards said they also hit Oman, which has rarely been targeted.

Muscat summoned the Iranian ambassador and handed him a formal protest -- a rare move for the sultanate, which has been attempting to balance competing demands from Washington and Tehran.

The attack came just hours after the country hosted Iran's foreign minister to discuss the Strait of Hormuz.

- 'Blatant' attack -

Sunday's attack on a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the waterway left one Indian sailor missing, New Delhi said.

Muscat, meanwhile, said it had rescued 23 crew members from a commercial ship.

The crew abandoned ship and were on a lifeboat, around 17 kilometers (10 miles) east of Oman, British maritime agency UKMTO reported.

Separate Iranian strikes on ships in Hormuz had triggered fighting earlier this week, along with heated rhetoric.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed revenge for the killing of his father and predecessor on the first day of the war, and said Iran had compiled a list of individuals to be targeted.

Trump on Saturday said any attempt to assassinate him would lead the United States to "completely decimate" Iran.

The top diplomat for Pakistan, which has been mediating, called for "de-escalation" on Sunday during a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Islamabad said.

"Dialogue and diplomacy remain the only viable path to resolving disputes and achieving lasting peace," said Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also called for peace, with his spokesman saying "these attacks must stop."

Medical professionals have told AFP C-sections were more time-efficient for medical staff -- 30 minutes, versus 12 hours for a traditional delivery -- and lowered the risk of legal action over complications, ensuring a guarantee of safety for both the physician and the women. Last year, the Turkish government began a campaign to tackle falling birthrates under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "Decade of the Family" initiative that has seen it move to exert greater control over how women give birth.

Erdogan, a pious Muslim who is pushing for women to have so-called natural births, wants to address Turkey's record number of elective C-section births, with his government in April 2025 banning such procedures at private healthcare facilities without medical justification. According to BirGun, more than 100 doctors have been fined for performed C-sections, citing figures provided by medical associations across the country, sparking a backlash from heathcare professionals.

On its website, the Antalya Chamber of Physicians said obstetricians had been "issued with warnings, subjected to disciplinary investigations, temporarily suspended from practising, and compelled to attend antenatal training courses, on the grounds of high caesarean section rates across the country". The Diken news website cited the case of one obstetrician working at a private hospital in Sakarya near Istanbul, who was dismissed at the request of the health ministry on grounds of a high rate of C-sections, then suspended for six months.

Over that period, the doctor would need to undergo training at a state hospital and would then sit an exam, and only if successful, would be able to resume practising medicine, it said. Dr Ayse Gultekingil, a top official at the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), told BirGun that penalising doctors would not solve the problem of Turkey's high Caesarian rate, which was "structural". "Turkey's caesarean birth rate exceeds 60 percent. But the method of delivery reflects various problems within Turkey's healthcare system," she said.

Nearly 1,500 people have been evacuated from the affected area as a result of one of Spain's deadliest wildfires in recent years. Antonio Sanz, the Andalusian regional government's emergency chief, said weather conditions had improved with higher air humidity levels and nearly no wind. "The overnight evolution has been favourable and the weather conditions allow us to face the day with better prospects than yesterday," he told reporters.

"For the first time we will be able to carry out a direct attack on the fire. Until now, both the weather conditions and the nature of the blaze only allowed us to work defensively," he added. The area is home to a large community of foreigners -- mainly from Britain -- and the authorities have said most of the dead are from abroad. Sanz said there had been no reports of additional deaths overnight, describing that as "the best news we could have".

He said Spain's Civil Guard police had searched the affected areas without finding any further victims, although he cautioned that the search was continuing. "That does not mean it cannot happen, but after the Civil Guard swept the area, including locations that were still hotspots, it gives us hope," he said. Authorities have urged caution over reports of dozens of missing people.

Sanz said references to 23 missing people were misleading, explaining that the figure referred to people whose relatives had been unable to contact them and who could have reached evacuation centres or other safe locations. He said seven formal missing persons reports had been filed.

However, officials said they could not establish a definitive toll until autopsies had been completed and the bodies recovered from the fire had been formally identified, meaning some of those reported missing could ultimately be among the 12 confirmed victims.

Thousands more are listed as missing. The stronger 7.5 magnitude quake -- the biggest in Venezuela in over a century -- struck 39 seconds after the first 7.2 magnitude shock, flattening entire high-rise apartment blocks to layers of rubble. Although rescue teams have abandoned their search for survivors, family members continue to search the ruins for their loved ones, in the hopes of giving them a dignified burial.

On Friday, a 3.0 magnitude tremor in central Caracas caused momentary panic and led to buildings being evacuated. The scale of the recovery effort facing Venezuela, where state services have been severely degraded by a prolonged economic crisis, is gargantuan. The United Nations on Wednesday issued an urgent appeal for nearly $300 million towards earthquake relief operations.

Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez has called for the release of frozen assets held abroad to be used towards the recovery. On Wednesday she said she asked King Charles III to release about 30 tons of Venezuelan gold frozen under UK sanctions.

Havana Syndrome was first publicly reported in 2016 when US diplomats on the communist island reported falling ill and hearing piercing sounds at night, sparking speculation of an attack by a foreign entity using an unspecified sonar weapon. Other symptoms -- including nose bleeds, headaches and vision problems -- were later reported by embassy staff in China, Europe and the US capital Washington.

In 2017, the United States withdrew non-essential employees from its recently reopened embassy in Havana and expelled Cuban diplomats over the illnesses, speculating that microwave or other electronic warfare was responsible. But in a sign of easing concerns along with policy priorities, president Joe Biden's administration in 2023 reopened the US immigration office in Havana that had been shuttered during the scare.

In early 2025, a US intelligence assessment said it was "very unlikely" that a foreign adversary was behind the symptoms. "The Department will continue to emphasize transparency and scientific integrity to achieve validated outcomes, improve care for affected individuals, and adapt to a dynamic operational environment," defense officials said in Friday's statement. "The Department of War's commitment to mitigating non-kinetic threats remains absolute."

"I feel we have put a great deal of time and effort into this, and now that the prototype has taken off and landed without problem, I must say I feel a great sense of relief," JAXA's Takashi Ito, who led the launch, told reporters. Ito said the agency will review data to fully determine the success of the test, but he is "confident" that it "obtained very useful data."

Most rockets are designed for single use, with components falling into the sea, burning up in the atmosphere or remaining in orbit as debris. The first launch stage is considered the most expensive component. But the deployment of partially reusable rockets would slash launch costs. SpaceX has been operating its reusable Falcon 9 rocket since 2017. China, however, achieved its first successful reusable rocket landing on Friday, a breakthrough that could challenge US dominance in the field.

In June last year, a subsidiary of Honda became the first Japanese company to successfully launch and land a reusable rocket. Japan is racing to boost the international competitiveness of the country's rocket industry. Its flagship H3 rocket was launched successfully in June, months after a previous mission to put a satellite into orbit ended in failure.

Trump ramped up the rhetoric between the warring sides on Saturday, threatening in a Truth Social post to "completely decimate" Iran if it attempted or succeeded in assassinating him. It came a day after the president agreed to further negotiations with Iran, even as he repeated his assertion that the ceasefire was over, just weeks after Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding pushing for peace.

While there have been no direct talks between Iran and the United States since last month, Iranian media reported that a delegation from mediator Qatar was in Tehran after the sides exchanged strikes. "The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue 'talks.' We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!" Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. Earlier this week, at a NATO summit, Trump also declared the ceasefire over, saying of Tehran: "It's just a waste of time dealing with them."

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi hit back on Saturday, insisting that Tehran "has so far kept its word, unlike the so-called US Treasury Secretary who is violating Para 9 of the MoU". That refers to part of the memorandum of understanding that Iran will "maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program" and the United States "will not impose any new sanctions, and will not deploy additional forces in the region", pending a final deal.

"That violation follows other violations and missteps by the United States. Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance," Araghchi added. US and Iranian delegations have held one round of direct talks in Switzerland since the signature of their memorandum of understanding, as well as indirect negotiations in Qatar, but there has been no sign of diplomatic progress since.

The hostile words came as Axios and Politico reported that Washington has given Tehran until Saturday to stop firing on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and acknowledge that the waterway is open. The strait, a vital shipping route for the world's oil, is a major source of contention between the United States and Iran.

Tehran effectively closed the strategic waterway in response to the war triggered by US-Israeli strikes on the city in late February. The Islamic republic insists it must control Hormuz, which comprises Iranian and Omani territorial waters, and has expressed a desire to charge fees for ships that transit it.

It did not have such powers before the war, and while the strait comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, under international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls. The United States launched extensive strikes on Iran this week following attacks on ships in the strait, triggering a wave of reprisals against American bases in the Gulf.

The US Treasury Department also revoked a temporary sanctions waiver for Iranian oil, cancelling a license announced in June that had allowed Tehran to produce, sell and deliver crude oil and related products through August 21. Araghchi will travel to Oman on Saturday for talks on the strait, the official IRNA news agency said. Doha backed the continued diplomacy, with Iran's Tasnim agency reporting on Friday that a Qatari delegation was in Tehran to "try to reinforce Qatar's role as a mediator following events on Tuesday", when Doha condemned the Islamic republic's "unacceptable assault" on one of its LNG tankers.

Iran denied the accusation. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has also been mediating the conflict, held a call with Qatar's emir on Friday to discuss the recent escalation, Sharif's office said in a statement. Sharif also spoke with Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, urging him to safeguard the "hard-earned peace", the premier said on X.

However, Iran's chief negotiator in talks with Washington, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, struck a defiant tone. "Ending the war is a priority for the countries of the world, but everyone must know that this confrontation will never end with Iran's surrender," the ISNA news agency reported him saying. Iranians, he said, were "fully prepared to defend ourselves". 

U.S. officials said recent attacks on ships were allegedly carried out by a hard-line faction within Iran seeking to undermine the truce. Although President Donald Trump described the interim ceasefire as effectively over, he stated that diplomatic efforts toward a long-term agreement would continue. The administration has reportedly given negotiators only a limited period to reach an agreement while keeping other options available if diplomacy fails.

Washington is also seeking assurances that Iran will respect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial route for global oil and gas shipments. U.S. officials claimed Iranian representatives privately acknowledged the recent maritime attacks were a mistake and expressed interest in continuing negotiations. However, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations insisted that all activities in the strait, including navigation and security operations, fall solely under Iran's authority and warned against outside involvement.

Iran has argued that it should have exclusive control over the waterway and has suggested that commercial vessels pay transit fees. The conflict previously disrupted energy markets, although oil prices have eased from wartime highs.

The United States also maintains that any future nuclear agreement must require Iran to surrender its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Officials warned that if negotiations fail, the U.S. has military options to ensure Iran cannot use its nuclear material. They emphasized that progress on nuclear talks depends on Iran fully honoring the ceasefire and ending attacks on shipping.

The conflict has created political and economic challenges for the Trump administration, which faces pressure to avoid a prolonged war while pursuing its security objectives.

Meanwhile, unexplained airstrikes continued inside Iran after Washington announced it had ended its military campaign. No group claimed responsibility. Iranian officials accused the United Arab Emirates of secretly assisting the United States, while Gulf nations and Israel declined to comment on the latest strikes.

Iran responded by launching missiles toward several Gulf countries, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and Qatar, with reports indicating limited casualties. Regional leaders and diplomats have intensified efforts to prevent further escalation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is scheduled to meet his Omani counterpart to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, while Pakistan, Qatar, Oman, and other regional partners continue diplomatic outreach. Israel has also reaffirmed that it is prepared to respond forcefully if tensions with Iran increase again.

Kyiv's army has halted the Russian advance across much of the front line in recent months, and delivered a string of major long-range attacks on Russian oil refineries.

Many in Ukraine and among their backers abroad are saying Kyiv's troops are on the front foot in the more than four-year war.

In a social media post summarising the first half of the year, Syrsky noted a decrease in the number of "active offensive fronts", and said Russia's assaults had dropped by half.

"In terms of the rate of advance, the two sides have effectively reached parity," Syrsky said.

"At the same time, the enemy must not be underestimated. We are still far from a turning point in the war," he added.

In early July, Russia announced that it had captured Kostyantynivka, a town in the eastern Donetsk region that serves as a key stronghold for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

But Ukraine has advanced in other areas of the battlefield.

According to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) analysed by AFP, Ukraine recaptured 403 square kilometres (156 square miles) during April and May, signalling a slowdown in the Russian offensive since the end of 2025.

Russia has also increased the "intensity of its missile and drone strikes" on civilian areas, Syrsky said.

Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least 93 people and wounded more than 500 since the start of July, according to a report by the foreign ministry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday told reporters the strikes were "the only advantage he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) has left", saying that Kyiv had "grown stronger both on the battlefield and in the air."

Syrsky also said Ukraine had carried out successful strikes on 697 targets inside Russia over the last six months as it upped its own campaign of retaliatory long-range attacks.

NATO member Turkey has been blocked from Washington's F-35 programme since 2019, when Ankara received its first deliveries of Russian-made S-400 air defence batteries -- a weapons system the United States had explicitly warned it against purchasing.

A columnist with Turkey's pro-government Hurriyet newspaper reported Friday that Ankara had re-sold the S-400 systems to a country in the Gulf, without citing a source.

"We have had contacts with the Turkish side on this matter, and we will continue our contacts with the Turkish side on this issue," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a briefing, when asked by AFP about the report.

Turkey bought the S-400 air defence systems from Russia in 2017, during a time of frayed relations between Ankara and Washington over the war in Syria and other issues.

The move drew criticism from other NATO members and resulted in the United States sanctioning Turkey under its counter-enemy CAATSA act, blocking Turkey from procuring US-made F-35s that it had already paid for.

During a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he "would consider" inviting Turkey back into the F-35 programme.

"We have a better relationship with Turkey, and Turkey's been -- in many ways -- much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal," Trump said, before adding later: "We're gonna be taking the sanctions off."

Turkey requires Russia's consent to re-sell the S-400s, however, as it does not have a re-export license.

Fighting picked up again this week between the US and Iran in the most significant exchange of fire since the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17, seeking to formalise an April ceasefire and guide talks to conclusively end the war. The US military carried out heavy strikes overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, saying it targeted 90 military sites.

But the Islamic republic accused Washington of also targeting civilian infrastructure in order to detract from the funeral of late supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Bridges and railway links between the capital Tehran and Khamenei's hometown of Mashhad, where he was buried on Thursday, were hit, according to Iran.

Iranian authorities say 17 people have been killed in US strikes. Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that the Israeli prime minister spoke on Thursday with the US president, who informed him of the latest American moves in the Gulf. Later on Thursday evening, Iranian state media reported a US-Israeli attack on a military headquarters near Bushehr, where Iran's only civilian nuclear plant is located.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel was prepared to resume its military campaign against Iran if needed, vowing to do so "with even greater force".

The United Nations rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani welcomed the pledge to carry out investigations, stressing that the probes "must be prompt, independent and transparent". She described the violence, and "reports of reprisals against inmates by guards at other prisons" as "deeply alarming".

"The families of the dozens killed and injured - both inmates and prison officers - deserve to know the truth and see accountability," she said. Shamdasani called on authorities in the country "to grant the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka unfettered access to Negombo, as well as all other prisons, including detention facilities where prisoners were transferred and allegedly subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment".

She stressed that the violence at Negombo "underscores the urgency of tackling structural concerns around detention in Sri Lanka", pointing to "prolonged pre-trial detention, overcrowding and inadequate conditions in detention facilities". "Furthermore, a disproportionate number of people are detained for drug-related offences, many of whom should benefit from health-centred responses as opposed to incarceration." 

"Ten people got buried and were killed" when soil saturated by days of rain caused the landslide in Mindanao's Sarangani province, regional civil defence director Rodrigo Sosmena told AFP.

Earlier in the day, at least five people were confirmed dead and six others missing in a separate landslide on the island.

Brussels accused the US tech giant of failing to limit the risks the platforms posed to users, especially children and vulnerable adults, because of features designed to keep them on Facebook and Instagram.

Of particular concern are those like endless scroll, highly personalised feeds and the automatic playback of videos.

"Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms," EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.

The European Union has in recent months stepped up its efforts to force Big Tech to better protect users online, especially children.

In a preliminary view on Friday, the European Commission said it "considers that Meta needs to implement design changes to both Instagram and Facebook" after concluding the platforms broke EU content rules.

Changes could include "disabling key addictive features such as 'autoplay' and 'infinite scroll' by default, implementing effective 'screen time breaks', and adapting its recommender system to make it less engagement-oriented", it added.

Meta said it disagreed with findings but would continue to "engage constructively" with the EU.

If the regulator's views on Meta are confirmed, the EU can slap a fine of up to six percent of the company's total worldwide annual turnover.

A senior EU official insisted Brussels did not want to punish companies.

"We want to bring about change, and if we can get that change via commitments then we would be most happy," a senior EU official said.

- Inadequate tools -

The findings come before an expert panel tasked by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen delivers its recommendations on Monday on how the EU can better shield children online from inappropriate content.

Von der Leyen faces pressure to act, with some EU states including France pushing for bloc-wide bans on social media for minors following Australia's groundbreaking ban for under-16s.

The EU delivered a similar warning to TikTok in February this year, telling the company to change its design or risk massive fines.

But the official said there was a "slight difference" with TikTok since "Meta has indeed always tried to address minor protection online".

The EU began its probe into Meta in 2024 under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The content law is a major weapon in the EU's bolstered armoury adopted in recent years to curb what Brussels describes as Big Tech's excesses.

In Friday's findings, Brussels said Facebook's and Instagram's time management tools can be easily dismissed while parental controls are only effective if parents have some technical knowledge, the commission said.

Meta also disregarded information about the time children spend on the apps at night "and how the optimisation of its different formats -- such as reels and stories -- could lead to excessive or compulsive use of the services".

But Meta said the EU's findings "don't accurately take into account the significant steps we've taken to protect teens", pointing to a type of account launched since the probe began.

Meta's Teen Accounts allow parents to block access to Instagram at night and cap daily screen time at 15 minutes, it said.

As part of the same investigation, the EU accused Meta in April of failing to prevent children under 13 using Facebook and Instagram, thereby potentially exposing them to inappropriate content.

The wide-ranging probe is still looking into the possible so-called "rabbit hole" effects -- which occurs when users are fed related content based on an algorithm, in some cases leading to more extreme content -- on the platforms.

Meta has faced similar scrutiny across the Atlantic including a US trial this year which ruled Meta's and YouTube's platforms were harmfully addictive.

Khamenei's flag-covered coffin was carried aloft into the shrine of Imam Reza in his home city of Mashhad in eastern Iran as a sea of people waited outside and listened to prayers, with no sign of a public appearance by his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei.

The "body of the martyred leader of the Islamic Revolution was buried in the memorial hall of the shrine of Imam Reza," state broadcaster IRIB reported.

The burial came after a second day of tit-for-tat attacks by Washington and Tehran's forces, with Iranian officials reporting that US strikes killed 17 people and state media saying one targeted a railway line between Tehran and Mashhad.

The Islamic republic said it had resumed attacks targeting US assets in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, while sirens blared in Jordan -- another American ally -- where the military said it had intercepted eight missiles launched from Iran.

Khamenei was killed alongside close family members on the first day of the US-Israeli war against Iran on February 28.

The last of a marathon six days of funeral ceremonies, Khamenei's burial in Mashhad was closely watched for signs of Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public since being appointed.

Parliament speaker and chief negotiator in talks with the United States, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, powerful chief justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and Khamenei's eldest son Mostafa Khamenei were all present at the shrine, with some senior figures weeping over Khamenei's coffin, state TV images showed.

But as on other days of the funeral process, there was no sign of Mojtaba Khamenei, who since being named has only communicated through written statements and is said to have been wounded in the February 28 strikes.

- 'We will kill you' -

Crowds of men and women clad in black, many urging vengeance against US President Donald Trump, had massed in Mashhad against the backdrop of slogans including: "Hey Trump we will kill you," written in English, AFP correspondents said.

The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reported Thursday, based on anonymous sources, that Israel told the United States that their intelligence had detected a new Iranian plot to kill Trump.

The United States on Thursday targeted the perimeter of Iran's only civilian nuclear plant with a strike, Iranian state media reported, citing the deputy governor of Bushehr province.

State media also reported Thursday that a projectile hit a military headquarters on the outskirts of Bushehr, but a US defence official said the US military was not currently carrying out strikes on Iran.

State media said the United States targeted a section of the Tehran-Mashhad railway 55 kilometres (34 miles) from Mashhad, forcing the closure of the line. Passengers were transferred to buses.

Iran's army said it had targeted a Patriot missile system in Kuwait, an early warning system in Qatar and fuel tanks in Bahrain with drones, as part of its attacks on US bases in the region.

But a US defence official said the dozens of missiles and drones fired by Iran were either intercepted or caused no significant damage, with no injuries to American personnel.

In a sign of the tense environment, at least one fighter jet escorted the plane carrying Khamenei's coffin to its final burial in Mashhad, footage from the supreme leader's website showed.

- 'Third' attack on Iran? -

Following Israel's June 2025 war against Iran and this year's conflict, Defence Minister Israel Katz warned at a military ceremony on Thursday that Israel was prepared to attack Iran for a "third time" if needed, vowing to do so "with even greater force".

"We are preparing for every scenario," added Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office said he spoke with Trump on Thursday, with the US president providing an update on "American moves in the Gulf."

The Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and gas corridor, remains a key point of contention between the two sides, with Tehran insisting on control of the waterway despite it being open to free passage before the war began.

The Iranian military hit at least three ships in recent days, prompting extensive US strikes against Iranian targets from Tuesday.

Traffic through the strait has fallen sharply since Wednesday, especially through the UN-backed Omani route, according to data from maritime tracking firm Kpler, after vessels were attacked earlier this week.

That was an excess mortality rate of 47 percent, it said. Although Belgium did not officially break its temperature records for June, readings hit 35C in Brussels for several consecutive days, and climbed locally to between 38C and 40C. The peak in excess mortality was reached on June 27 and 28. A new heatwave is expected in Belgium in the coming days, with highs potentially exceeding 30C for five consecutive days starting Saturday.

Residents of Choghadak, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the plant, reported hearing the blasts, but "official news about the exact location of the explosions has not yet been released", Fars said. Strikes have previously landed near the power station during the Middle East war.

Two other people have died in neighbouring Uganda, where 17 patients have recovered out of 20 total confirmed cases. "The outbreak continues to expand, and its true scale has not yet been fully established," Anne Ancia, the WHO's representative in the DRC, said Tuesday.

The WHO's figures for the DRC, which come from the health authorities in the vast country, show that the outbreak there has a case fatality rate of 34 percent. A total of 285 patients in the DRC have recovered, while 304 suspected cases of the viral haemorrhagic fever are under investigation. The outbreak in northeastern DRC has hit four provinces but is focused on Ituri province.

The outbreak is being driven by the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments. The trial of two potential treatments for Bundibugyo began in the DRC on July 2. The trial is evaluating the effectiveness of the monoclonal antibody MBP134 and the antiviral drug remdesivir, alone and in combination. Ebola spreads through close contact and infected bodily fluids.

- Outbreak in 'expansion phase' -

The DRC's 17th Ebola outbreak was declared on May 15 after several deaths in mineral-rich Ituri province, which is plagued by armed groups. "It is still in the expansion phase, unfortunately. We would like to say it is stabilising, but frankly we cannot say it yet," Ancia told a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday. "Transmission is still ongoing." Speaking from Bunia, the capital of Ituri, she said the fight against the outbreak was facing major challenges.

"Population movements, persistent insecurity, and the fragility of the health system continue to complicate efforts to bring the outbreak under control," she said. "Humanitarian needs remain substantial, particularly regarding civilian protection, access to food, and essential health services, while other diseases such as malaria and measles continue to spread." She said there were now around 700 beds across 22 treatment centres, with efforts under way to add 300 more beds.

The centres are operating at around 90 percent capacity, "placing significant pressure on the response," said Ancia. More than 10,000 contacts of infected people are being monitored, at a follow-up rate of 82 percent. The WHO believes a rate of 95 percent is needed to get on top of the outbreak. Laboratory capacity has increased from 30 tests per day in the capital Kinshasa to more than 2,000 tests daily in decentralised labs in the affected provinces.

The WHO wants $115 million to strengthen its Ebola response, of which 32 precent has been received to date. One of the affected provinces is South Kivu, which has seen clashes between the Congolese armed forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group. UN rights chief Volker Turk on Thursday called for an immediate end to the fighting, deploring its impact on civilians and saying there were growing fears that the increased clashes could force further displacement, including into other countries.

Nearly 300 million people, including 100 million children and elderly people, faced higher-than-recommended levels of the toxic pollutant during the punishing heat in late June, according to the report from the NGO Global Witness.

The fighting came with Iran preparing to bury Khamenei, who was killed alongside close family members on the first day of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic on February 28. The last of a marathon six days of funeral ceremonies, the burial on Thursday of Khamenei in his hometown, the eastern city of Mashhad, will be closely watched for signs of his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public since being appointed.

- 'Psychopathic' - The Iranian foreign ministry said the US attacks targeted civilian infrastructure, including railway bridges, and described the strikes as a "gross war crime". It called the US administration "evil and psychopathic" and accused it of "obscenity, lies, and military aggression". The latest strikes killed three people and wounded several others on the outskirts of Ahvaz in Iran's southwest, the country's official news agency IRNA reported, quoting an official.

US military officials said Thursday's strikes hit approximately 90 Iranian military targets, including air defence systems, missile and drone storage sites. Iran's army said it had targeted a Patriot missile interceptor system in Kuwait, an early warning system in Qatar and fuel tanks in Bahrain with drones, as part of its attacks on US bases in the region. Earlier, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

An AFP correspondent in the Bahraini capital Manama heard explosions late Thursday morning as air-raid sirens were activated for a third time, hours after Iranian attacks in the night. - Fighter escort - Iran's Guards accused the United States of an "effort to overshadow" Khamenei's funeral with its attacks on the railway bridges, which led to the suspension of rail services. After five days of funeral ceremonies in Tehran, the clerical hub of Qom and Iraq's holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, a plane carrying the coffin of Khamenei landed in Mashhad on Thursday morning.

The farewells to Khamenei, who ruled Iran for over three-and-a-half decades, have offered some insights into the shape of the new leadership who have sought to put on a united front between political and military figures. But there has so far been no sign of Mojtaba Khamenei who has communicated only through written statements since being named and, according to officials, was wounded in the February 28 air strikes. In a sign of the security tensions, at least one fighter jet escorted the plane carrying Khamenei's coffin to its final burial in Mashhad, footage from the supreme leader's website showed.

- 'Incredibly fragile' - After the foes traded attacks on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran was "over", but left the door open to more talks and added any strikes would end quickly. The Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and gas corridor, remains a key point of contention with Tehran insisting on control of the strait despite it being open to free passage before US-Israeli attacks sparked the conflict in February.

Late on Wednesday, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said the Iranian side had "called a little while ago," and that they wanted "to make a deal so badly" while describing them as "sort of crazy". Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz would be opened only under "Iranian arrangements". "The United States still has not learned that bullying and breaking its promises no longer come without consequences," said on X. "Let me be clear: If you strike, you will be struck."

The Iranian military struck at least three ships in recent days, prompting extensive US strikes against Iranian targets on Tuesday. Maritime traffic had tentatively resumed after Washington and Tehran signed the deal to end hostilities last month. The Memorandum of Understanding signed by Tehran and the US last month to end the war "looks incredibly fragile" in the face of the "biggest shoot out" between the two sides since the April ceasefire, said Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). But "neither Tehran nor Washington have better options ahead besides the diplomatic track paved by the MoU", she added.

"Following the repetition of false and baseless accusations by British officials against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the country's ambassador in Tehran was summoned to the ministry, and the Islamic Republic of Iran's protest against the British government's inappropriate approach towards the Iranian nation was conveyed to him," the official IRNA news agency said on Thursday.

Two Romanians, convicted of a 2024 knife attack on an Iranian journalist outside his London home "on behalf of" Iran, were sentenced last week to 12 and eight years in prison respectively.

At the sentencing, the judge said the evidence "overwhelmingly points" to the attack on Pouria Zeraati, a news presenter for Persian-language outlet Iran International, having been carried out on behalf of the Iranian government.

British security minister Angela Eagle said following the sentencing that the "abhorrent attack" was "carried out on behalf of Iran" and "we will continue to hold the regime to account".

IRNA said Tehran told the British ambassador that the country's "continued hosting of terrorist channels that are financed and directed by the apartheid and fake Israeli regime, and whose main role is to encourage violence and terrorism, violates the British government's international legal obligations to refrain from supporting terrorism and must be stopped as soon as possible".

Iran International, a private broadcaster based in a heavily secured building in west London, was labelled a terrorist organisation by Tehran in 2022 along with the BBC's Persian-language channel.

The blasts near the hotel where Macron had spent the night came after his departure, and moments before Syrian state media announced his arrival at the presidential palace to meet with his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa. Macron became the first head of state from the European Union to visit Syria since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024.

Iranian state media reported numerous explosions around the strait, including six on the island of Qeshm, seven in the city of Sirik and more in the major port city of Bandar Abbas. Iran's foreign ministry accused the United States of repeatedly violating the memorandum of understanding agreed between the two sides and threatened retaliation.

"Iran is issuing a serious warning about the consequences of America's breach of the treaty, and will take decisive measures to protect its interests and national security," the ministry said in a statement carried by official media. The strikes came shortly after Washington revoked a temporary sanctions waiver for Iranian oil, raising pressure on Tehran as it negotiates with the US over a final settlement to the conflict.

The US Treasury Department canceled a license announced in June that had allowed Iran to produce, sell and deliver crude oil and related products through August 21. "Iran's actions in the Strait were wholly unacceptable to the United States and will be met with consequences," a US official told AFP. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US-Iran memorandum of understanding was "entirely performance-based," warning that Tehran would see benefits only if it showed "good behavior."

But US negotiators were continuing to work "in good faith towards a final deal," the official said. British maritime security agency UKMTO said an "unknown projectile" hit a tanker overnight, causing a fire, before two more vessels were struck, at least one by a drone. All three vessels were struck close to Oman, which had proposed a temporary transit corridor hugging its coastline -- an initiative opposed by Iran as it seeks to impose fees on ships using the narrow waterway.

Qatar said one of the vessels was its LNG tanker Al-Rekayyat and blamed Iran, denouncing an "unacceptable" attack on international maritime navigation. Doha later summoned Iran's deputy ambassador to lodge a complaint, demanding an explanation and urging Tehran to "immediately cease any practices undermining regional security." "We hold Iran fully legally responsible for this attack and for any resulting damages or repercussions," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari wrote on X.

Iran voiced "dismay" over Qatar's accusations in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA, calling the claims "unacceptable." The attacks, which ended more than a week of relative calm, revived concerns over freedom of navigation after Iran lifted its blockade of the vital waterway following a fragile ceasefire with the US. Oil prices rose by more than two percent as the renewed attacks reignited worries over global energy supplies and cast doubt on the durability of the US-Iran agreement.

"We are now in a sensitive period where potential alternatives to an Iranian toll or fee system are being explored," Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, told AFP. "Iran is sending a clear signal that no alternative will be accepted." Krieg said tankers trying to diverge through the Omani maritime corridor without registering with Iran would be punished, and called the attacks a "clear violation" of the ceasefire agreement and international law.

Maritime traffic had tentatively resumed after Washington and Tehran signed the memorandum last month, but Iran has insisted there will be no return to pre-war arrangements, under which vessels could pass freely through the strait. Under the 14-point US-Iran memorandum, Iran and Oman, which border Hormuz, must hold talks "to define the future administration and maritime services" in the waterway with other Gulf states.

Qatar had previously refused to mediate under Iranian fire as Tehran launched an unprecedented aerial bombardment against Gulf states in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes. But Doha has since taken a more active role, hosting indirect talks between Iran and the US last week.

NATO chief Mark Rutte insists European countries are "delivering" on their promise by bolstering military budgets and moving to take more responsibility for the defence of their continent in the face of Russia. "Just one year later, we already see transformational progress," Rutte told journalists in Ankara on the eve of the summit.

In a bid to impress Trump, NATO has lined up a series of headline-grabbing figures. "This is showtime," a senior European diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. At an industry forum on Tuesday ahead of the main summit, leaders are set to unveil new arms deals worth tens of billions to show Trump they're delivering on their words.

Underscoring that push, Canada announced on Monday that it had selected Germany's Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems to build its new fleet of submarines, a multi-billion-dollar programme Ottawa framed as part of a broader effort to deepen defence ties with European NATO allies. But Trump -- still smarting after European countries imposed restrictions on US forces using bases to attack Iran -- has spent the run-up to the summit slamming allies for not moving fast enough for his liking.

"Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one-sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. European leaders are aiming at least to avoid a bust-up with the mercurial US leader that could deal a further blow to NATO's credibility after Trump repeatedly cast doubt on the US commitment to protecting its allies.

Diplomats are banking on Trump's good relationship with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and an unstinting charm offensive by NATO chief Rutte, to keep his mood in check. But with Trump having had fallings out with a string of other leaders -- most recently Italy's Giorgia Meloni -- there are plenty irritants that could ignite his anger. Seeking to show willingness on Iran, European allies spearheaded by France and Britain have put together a potential naval mission to help in the Strait of Hormuz and countries have shifted vessels closer to the region to be ready.

But the situation remains volatile and the Europeans want clarity on how a fragile US deal with Iran is panning out before sending in their navies. While they'll be hoping that Trump strikes a conciliatory tone, European leaders have begun to come to terms with the reality that the US is inexorably pulling back from their alliance.

Washington has been clear it wants its allies to take the lead on the conventional defence of the continent and recently announced it was cutting back the assets it makes available to NATO commanders. European nations will look to prove they're ready to play a greater role while also trying to keep Trump, and the vast might of the US military, as engaged as possible. "All of this is evidence of a real shift in mindset," Rutte said. "This is NATO 3.0. A stronger Europe in a stronger NATO."

Beyond taking greater responsibility for their own defence, European countries have also taken over the support of Ukraine almost entirely as Trump has wound back US aid. President Volodymyr Zelensky -- who will attend the leaders dinner on Tuesday -- will score a commitment from his European backers at NATO to keep at least 70 billion euros ($80 billion) of military aid flowing to Kyiv each year in both 2026 and 2027.

Zelensky -- who is set to hold talks with Trump at the Ankara summit -- urged the alliance to take "strong decisions" on boosting Ukraine's air defences after a devastating Russian blitz killed nearly 30 people. The Ukrainian leader will look to convince Trump -- who held a phone call with Russia's Vladimir Putin ahead of the gathering -- that Kyiv is turning the tide in the war and that he should pressure Moscow back into serious peace negotiations.

The move marks a significant political shift by Hamas, which has run Gaza since its fighters seized control from rival Palestinian movement Fatah in 2007 after winning legislative elections the previous year.

Since a ceasefire took effect in Gaza last October between Hamas and Israel, the group has repeatedly said it is prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance, but the thorny issue of its disarmament remains unresolved.

Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Hamas's media office in Gaza said the head of the government's emergency committee had "decided to dissolve the committee to facilitate the administrative and governmental transition to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG)".

The NCAG, currently based in Cairo, was created by the Board of Peace that US President Donald Trump established when he brokered the ceasefire in October 2025.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP that the group took the decision to relinquish charge "in order to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination".

- 'Symbolic gesture' -

Ali Shaath, head of NCAG, said his committee was "fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available".

"The fundamental requirements for the committee's success are a single authority, a single law with a clear mandate, and a single armed force under the authority of this single entity," Shaath said on X.

The Board of Peace, meanwhile, insisted on X on the "the consolidation of all weapons under the control of the NCAG as provided for in the Comprehensive Gaza Peace Plan and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803".

Israel again called for the full disarmament of Hamas.

"Israel insists on the full implementation of the Trump plan, with its core principles being the disarmament of Hamas and all other terrorist organisations, and the complete demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip," Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote on X.

The NCAG has been based in Cairo for months, reportedly due to Israeli objections to its entry into the war-devastated territory of over two million people.

UN chief's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that the secretary-general welcomed Hamas's move as long as it contributes to advancing "relevant Security Council resolutions, including the full implementation of the ceasefire, the protection of civilians, and the unhindered provision of humanitarian aid" into Gaza.

Mkhaimar Abusada, a political expert from Gaza, told AFP that Hamas's move was a "symbolic gesture".

"Hamas has not agreed to disarming itself and that is still the sticking point," he said.

Gaza City resident Hussam Majed, 34, told AFP that Hamas's announcement was "empty words".

"Hamas remains in its place in Gaza and controls everything: the crossings, the ministries, the security. They only change faces, but they insist on remaining in power at any cost, even if the entire population dies," he said.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions have held talks in Cairo with mediators to narrow differences, particularly over the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

"From Hamas's perspective, this checks a few boxes," said a diplomatic source, referring to Monday's announcement.

"It shows they are moving the process forward, puts the spotlight on what they portray as Israel's failure to follow through on its commitments," added the source, who attended some of the talks in Cairo.

- Ceasefire violations -

The second phase of Gaza ceasefire, which was to involve Hamas's disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, has been stalled for months.

Israeli forces have actually expanded their presence in Gaza in recent months, taking control of nearly 70 percent of territory.

Meanwhile, violence continues in Gaza despite the ceasefire.

At least 1,072 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the truce took effect, according to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli military says it has lost five soldiers in Gaza over the same period, as well as one civilian contractor.

The two navies established a joint command and took part in "command and tactical coordination" exercises, the statement said. They will later conduct joint reconnaissance, air and missile defence and live-fire training, it added. Following the drills, the two navies will participate in a joint patrol in the Pacific Ocean, the Chinese defence ministry said on Sunday, without specifying where.

The drills began the same day China launched a "strategic missile carrying a training simulation warhead" into the Pacific Ocean, according to a separate statement from a Chinese navy spokesperson. It was not immediately clear if the missile launch was part of the drills. Beijing and Moscow have held their "Joint Sea" exercises since 2012, with last year's edition near the eastern Russian port of Vladivostok also followed by joint patrols in the Pacific.

This year's drills come about two months after Russia's President Vladimir Putin visited China. Putin said at the time relations had reached an "unprecedentedly high level", while Chinese leader Xi Jinping hailed an "unyielding" partnership.

The European Union also said that Ukraine needs air defence reinforcements. The morning strike punched a crater into a multi-storey apartment block in the Ukrainian capital, ripping its top floors into two. AFP reporters heard more than 10 explosions during a ballistic missile alert during the night, with flashes in the sky as the blasts rang out.

It was the second attack in a week in which Russia deployed the hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles -- triggering Zelensky's desperate new appeal for allies to send advanced missiles for the US-made Patriot air defence systems. He is to discuss the war with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, which begins Tuesday.

"It is critically important that the world -- first and foremost the United States and our European partners -- come out of the NATO Summit in Ankara with strong decisions in support of our air defense, and thus the protection of ordinary people's lives," he said on social media. At least 14 people were killed in Kyiv and the surrounding region, with around 60 more wounded, he said.

Russia fired 68 missiles and 351 attack drones, he added. Officials in the Kyiv suburb of Vyshneve said they were evacuating residents due to the possibility of unexploded munitions in the debris. Locals in the northern Podilsky district of the capital said their area had been targeted heavily in recent Russian strikes. "At 1:30 am, a powerful hit occurred. A blast wave, all the windows blew out. And then it hit three more times," Oleksandr Bakhlukov, who lives in a nearby building, told AFP.

"Glass was falling down. There wasn't a single pane of glass left in the apartment," the 68-year-old added. Russia's defence ministry said it had carried out a "massive strike" using missiles and drones against what it described as "military-industrial enterprises," fuel and energy complex facilities in several Ukrainian regions.

Around 30 residential buildings in Kyiv were hit, with rescuers still sifting through the rubble hours after the attack, officials said. Zelensky said Ukraine's army had shot down the Russian drones and cruise missiles, but had "insufficient supply of interceptor missiles" to stop the ballistic missiles. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the attack showed that Ukraine "urgently" needs more air defence and that this would be discussed at the NATO meeting.

Russia's army said its forces also shot down more than 500 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on state-backed Max that several waves of the drones were bound for the Russian capital. Kyiv has increasingly targeted energy facilities inside Russia in recent weeks in an effort to weaken the Kremlin's war effort, triggering fuel shortages across the country.

Both sides had vowed fresh attacks after Russia struck apartment buildings in Kyiv last week, killing more than 30 people, including entire families. US-led attempts to broker an end to the more than four-year war have gone nowhere. The White House said Trump would meet Zelensky on Wednesday during the NATO summit in a big to invigorate diplomacy.

"The president's obviously getting together with him to talk about how we can end the war. That's been a priority of his for a long time," a senior US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said Trump would then "follow up" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin chief has refused to back down on hardline territorial and political demands that Ukraine and its allies say amount to capitulation. On the front, Moscow's army said last week it had captured the strategic eastern town of Kostyantynivka, though Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were still fighting for the stronghold.

Since a ceasefire took effect in Gaza last October between Hamas and Israel, the group has repeatedly said it is prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance, but the thorny issue of its disarmament remains unresolved. "The movement has decided to dissolve the Gaza government committee and to appoint a nationally accepted figure to oversee the committee's work until the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza formally assumes its responsibilities," a Hamas official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk publicly on the matter.

Hamas's media office in Gaza said it would hold "an important press conference" later on Monday, without providing details. A second Hamas official said the group had already informed other Palestinian factions of the move at a recent meeting in Cairo. "The factions welcomed Hamas's decision, describing it as a serious step towards enabling the National Committee to take up its governing role," the official said.

The dissolution of the Hamas body paves the way for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), headed by Palestinian official Ali Shaath, to assume administrative responsibilities. The NCAG was established by the Board of Peace, which was in turn set up by US President Donald Trump when he brokered the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel last October. But it has remained based outside Gaza for months, reportedly due to Israeli objections to its entry into the war-devastated territory.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions have held several rounds of talks in Cairo with mediators to narrow differences, particularly over the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire. The first phase involved the release of the last Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel. The transition to the second phase, which was to involve Hamas's disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, has been stalled for months.

Israeli forces have actually expanded their presence in the territory in recent months, taking control of nearly 70 percent. Meanwhile, Hamas is demanding the establishment of a Palestinian administration before it will consider handing over any part of its arsenal. The question of Gaza's post-war governance remains one of the main sticking points in negotiations on implementing phase two. Israel rejects any return of Hamas to power, but also rejects a direct takeover by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority at this stage. 

"There are some victims with gunshot injuries," Gamlath told AFP by telephone. Fighting began on Sunday evening at Negombo prison, which houses nearly 10,000 inmates, officials said. Police commandos have been called in, but were not deployed inside the prison. Large crowds of relatives of the inmates gathered outside the prison on Monday. Local residents said they heard gunshots, while authorities deployed drones to monitor the situation.

"Four guards were killed when they tried to break up the rioting," a police official told AFP. "The situation got out of hand this morning." In December 2020, rioting at another prison in Sri Lanka killed 11 inmates and wounded 117 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading the government to release hundreds of inmates from overcrowded jails. Official data showed that prisons across Sri Lanka held 41,250 inmates as of Sunday, about four times their capacity.

The ceremonies offer Iran an opportunity to project resilience after five weeks of war with the United States and Israel, while attention remains focused on Khamenei's successor, his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since taking power.

After lying in state for two days at Tehran's Grand Mosalla religious complex, the body of Khamenei -- who was killed on the first day of the Middle East war on February 28 -- began its journey through the capital accompanied by massive crowds of mourners, state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Mourners gathered in Imam Hussein Square in eastern Tehran and hanged an effigy of US President Donald Trump, according to state media.

Authorities are hoping to avoid a repeat of the chaos that marred the 1989 funeral of Khamenei's predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which drew an estimated 10 million people, according to state news agency IRNA.

Crowd surges in Khomeini's funeral killed more than 10 people and injured over 10,000.

Thousands had filled the Grand Mosalla on Sunday to pay their respects to Khamenei and his four family members, all killed on February 28 in Israeli airstrikes based on US intelligence.

Massive concrete walls separated the public from the coffin to prevent stampedes.

It is unclear what level of access and proximity the public will have during the procession, but authorities are mindful that in 1989 they were forced to use a helicopter to transport Khomeini for burial after mourners stormed his vehicle, causing his burial shroud to tear and his body to fall to the ground.

As well as laying Khamenei -- who ruled the Islamic republic for more than three-and-a-half decades -- to rest, the funerals are a chance for Iran's authorities to burnish their resilience after five weeks at war with Israel and the United States.

- Mojtaba absent -

Parliament speaker and chief negotiator with the US, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, hailed on X the way the "proud and invincible nation of Islamic Iran unanimously" paid tribute to its "martyr".

Monday's procession will be followed by similar events in the clerical hub of Qom on Tuesday and in Iraq's holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday, culminating in Khamenei's burial in his hometown of Mashhad in northeastern Iran on Thursday.

Three of Ali Khamenei's sons made a rare public appearance at the funeral on Sunday, further highlighting the absence of Mojtaba Khamenei, who was named supreme leader shortly after his father's killing but has yet to appear in public.

Officials have said he was wounded in the airstrikes but the severity of his injuries remains unclear.

The new commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, whose predecessor was killed on February 28, appeared at the funerals for a second time on Sunday, this time in the open air, after he went unseen throughout the war.

Esmail Qaani, the shadowy head of the Guards' Quds Force -- responsible for its foreign operations -- also made a rare appearance.

While Iranian authorities have been keen to present a united front, none of President Masoud Pezeshkian's surviving predecessors, who had tensions in their relationship with Khamenei, have so far been seen at the ceremonies.

- 'Demand revenge' -

The government is also eager to tout the mass mobilisation in support of the authorities after mass protests in January that rights groups say were quelled by a crackdown that killed thousands of people.

The Middle East war is on hold following a ceasefire and an initial accord struck with the US. Both Washington and Tehran have warned they are ready to resume military action, and vengeance has been a major theme at the funerals.

"The killers (of Khamenei) must face punishment," a 38-year-old man who gave his surname as Miremadi told AFP at the prayers on Sunday.

"We back our revolution and our leader, and we demand revenge for the blood of our loved ones," said a woman, 39, with the surname Bakand.

Khamenei long pursued a course of confrontation with the West, and Tehran for years has provided support to anti-US and anti-Israel armed groups around the Middle East, including Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, who both sent delegations to the ceremonies.

And temperatures are on the rise again, predicted to reach 40C in parts of a region still suffering the aftermath of a recent record-breaking heatwave. In southwestern France near the city of Perpignan, 700 hundred firefighters backed by special aircraft battled to control a "gigantic" blaze spreading in a hard-to-reach remote area, with more than 10,000 local residents evacuated.

Fanned by wind, intense heat and exceptionally dry air, the fire has nearly tripled in size since early Sunday, devouring 4,600 hectares and leaving a firefighter and a resident injured, local authorities said. "The fire came within 300 metres of the houses. We were taken aback by how fast it spread, it was staggering -- bordering on panic," said Patrice, a 53-year-old resident of the village of Trevillach, who did not wish to give his surname.

"We started seeing smoke around 10:30 pm, then it kept coming closer and closer. Someone from the town hall knocked on our door around 1:00 am to tell us to leave," said Charlotte Pignol, 30, who was among the first to be evacuated from her home early on Sunday. The blazes come shortly after a heatwave in June, one of Europe's worst, during which thousands of excess deaths were registered and which would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.

With the mercury set to rise again in the coming days, authorities expressed alarm that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early. "Climate change is here, we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July," said French fire service Colonel Eric Belgioino as he appealed to people near the Pyrenees inferno to take precautions to avoid starting fires. "The season is going to be long for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us," he pleaded.

In France, officials announced that Monday's third stage of the Tour de France cycling race through the Pyrenees would take place without spectators who normally line the routes of the storied competition. The stage, which on Monday will see cyclists ride from Spain into France, "will be limited to the passage of the riders only and the vehicles essential to organizing the race" on French territory, the regional prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe told reporters.

"The public is asked not to go near the route or to the finish area," he said. "In other words, and I regret having to say this, it will be, in France at least, a stage of the Tour de France without spectators." In Greece, flames set off by a forest fire tore through two factories in Thessaloniki in the north of the country over the weekend, forcing authorities to evacuate the surrounding area and to warn households to keep their windows closed.

In Spain, a fire near the northeastern Costa Brava coast burned more than 2,200 hectares in two days and firefighters said their efforts would be "complicated" by rising temperatures and the many "smoking hotspots" within the fire's perimeter. In Portugal, emergency services said they had controlled "80 percent" of a wildfire that has devastated some 13,000 hectares of forest and scrub land in the north of the country.

Elsewhere, major fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, vineyards and scrub land on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, authorities said. Regions across Portugal, Spain and southern France have stepped up heat alerts for the coming days. On Monday the latest heatwave was expected to move north, with forecasters saying it could last until next weekend.

Israel says it uncovered a tunnel network beneath the castle, saying it was built to give fighters of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah a fortified strike hub just kilometres from Israeli territory. Israel previously overran the fortress during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, after a prolonged battle with the Palestinian fighters hidden in the castle's maze of historic underground tunnels. The castle was damaged by violent bombardment in the process.

Israel then used it as one of its main observation posts until its troops withdrew from the country in 2000. "Our troops' activities at the Beaufort Ridge and throughout southern Lebanon are being carried out in accordance with the framework of the agreement and the mechanisms established under it," Zamir said on Sunday, referring to the recent US-brokered agreement between Israel and Lebanon intended to permanently halt hostilities.

But Zamir said that "any threat directed at our troops or the Israeli civilians will be struck immediately and eliminated". "The Lebanese Armed Forces are required to fulfil their commitments under the historic agreement that was signed and act to clear the area of Hezbollah terrorists and terrorist infrastructure," he added. Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes days earlier. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, where its troops now occupy swathes of territory near the border.

It said he would be accompanied by a delegation "including investors and representatives of French companies" as part of efforts to strengthen economic cooperation. Discussions would also address "regional and international" developments, it added. The last French president to visit was Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, before Assad's government brutally crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011, sparking a prolonged conflict that killed more than half a million people and devastated Syria's infrastructure and industry.

Early last year, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani became the first foreign head of state to visit Damascus after the new authorities led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa took power. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen visited in January this year, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky followed in April. But Macron is the first head of an EU state and prominent Western leader to head to the Syrian capital, after hosting Sharaa in Paris last year. The announcement came after a bombing on Thursday at a Damascus cafe killed 10 people, the latest challenge to Syria's new authorities as they seek to reunify the country after more than 13 years of civil war.

Israel's foreign ministry announced that Ruth Cohen?Dar -- until now non-resident ambassador to Slovenia and Malta -- will become the country's first permanent envoy in Ljubljana. The move follows Israel's decision last month to open an embassy in Slovenia. "The decision to establish the embassy was made after many years of a downturn in relations between Israel and Slovenia, and following the formation of a new government in Slovenia headed by Janez Jansa, a friend of Israel," the ministry said.

Slovenia's new conservative-led government lifted an arms embargo on Israel, scrapped entry bans on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and two of his ministers, and reversed a ban on imports from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Jansa's government has also removed a Palestinian flag symbolically displayed on the government building since Slovenia recognised Palestinian statehood in 2024.

His body was very swollen, suggesting he had been in the water for several days. The dead man had no identity papers on him, said the police source, who asked not to be named. An investigation is now in progress into the cause of death. Prosecutors said that the man appeared to be aged 25-35. Swimming in the Canal Saint-Martin was authorised in mid-June by Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire in the face of the record heatwave that ended a week ago. Since then, swimming has remained permitted in a section of the Canal Saint- Martin -- but only on Sundays.

There have been concerns over the safety of swimming in a canal in the heart of urban Paris while authorities have sternly warned against jumping off its bridges. It has also been notorious as a dumping ground for urban detritus including e-scooters, bikes and shopping trolleys. The discovery of the body comes as Paris on Saturday launched a new season of permitted swimming in the River Seine, which connects with the Canal Saint- Martin, at three spots along its banks. The swimming, a legacy of the 2024 Olympics, is now taking place for the second year and is free and supervised.

But Mojtaba has not appeared in public since his appointment in early March. He is said to have been wounded in the attack that killed his father. The late supreme leader's other three sons, Masoud, Mostafa and Meysam, all attended the service. It was held at Tehran's Grand Mosalla religious complex and led by prominent Shia cleric Ja'far Sobhani, a 97-year-old scholar who teaches at seminaries in the holy city of Qom.

Sunday was declared a public holiday across Iran. Later in the day, Khamenei's body will be moved out of the Grand Mosalla, where it is lying in state, as part of preparations for processions through the capital on Monday. The vast complex and surrounding streets were packed with mourners on Sunday morning, AFP journalists saw. With temperatures forecast to exceed 35C, many were handed refreshments as they made their way to the Grand Mosalla, some carrying Iranian flags or portraits of the late Khamenei.

Authorities have said they expect more than 10 million people to take part in the ceremonies in the capital. Strict security measures have been imposed and official media have warned of a risk of crowd crushes. "More than 4,000 people visited medical centres located in and near Tehran's Mosalla," Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday, but no deaths had been recorded. Footage from state television showed Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and its chief negotiator in talks with the United States, attending the prayers.

Also seen was Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei's coffin, draped in the Iranian flag and topped with his black turban, was placed alongside those of four relatives also killed in the February strikes, including an infant granddaughter. After five weeks of intense fighting, the Middle East war is on hold following a ceasefire and an initial accord struck with the US. But both Washington and Tehran have warned they are ready to resume military action.

"The killers (of Khamenei) must face punishment," a 38-year-old man surnamed Miremadi told AFP as he attended the prayers. "If our leaders are about to proceed with negotiations in this manner, our people will not agree with it," he said. People were seeking revenge, not peace and negotiations, he added.

Khamenei's funeral is being viewed outside Iran as a test of support for the government following mass protests in January that rights groups say were quelled by a crackdown that left thousands dead. "We're here to show the world that we back our revolution and our leader, and we demand revenge for the blood of our loved ones," said one woman surnamed Bakand, a 39-year-old homemaker attending Sunday's prayers.

Khamenei long pursued a course of confrontation with the West, and Tehran for years has provided support to anti-US and anti-Israel armed groups around the Middle East, including Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Delegations from both those groups met with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday, Iranian state media reported, while representatives of Yemen's Houthi rebels and Hamas ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad also attended the funeral ceremonies. After the processions through Tehran on Monday, Khamenei's coffin will be moved on Tuesday to Qom, then on Wednesday to neighbouring Iraq, before the burial on Thursday in his northeastern hometown of Mashhad.

But ties have warmed significantly since conservative Prime Minister Janez Jansa took office. Israel's foreign ministry announced that Ruth Cohen?Dar -- until now non- resident ambassador to Slovenia and Malta -- will become the country's first permanent envoy in Ljubljana. The move follows Israel's decision last month to open an embassy in Slovenia.

"The decision to establish the embassy was made after many years of a downturn in relations between Israel and Slovenia, and following the formation of a new government in Slovenia headed by Janez Jansa, a friend of Israel," the ministry said. Slovenia's new conservative-led government lifted an arms embargo on Israel, scrapped entry bans on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and two of his ministers, and reversed a ban on imports from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Jansa's government has also removed a Palestinian flag symbolically displayed on the government building since Slovenia recognised Palestinian statehood in 2024.

Khamenei, who had ruled Iran since 1989 and pursued a course of confrontation with the West while crushing dissent at home, was killed aged 86 along with several members of his family and top officials in an Israeli strike on the first day of the war on February 28. There was still no sign of Khamenei's son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei, who has been unseen in public since being named. Other top Iranian officials who survived the war welcomed foreign dignitaries who paid their respects at the coffin on Friday before the complex opened to the public.

Sprayed with mists of water to keep cool in temperatures that may nudge 40C in Tehran over the next days, thousands of women and men -- strictly segregated by gender -- filled the vast complex. AFP photographs showed the coffins of Khamenei and four other family members at the front on a dais. Chants of "death to America" and "revenge, revenge" echoed at the venue. "The leader was a father to us all. With his passing, we have all been left orphaned... There was no one like him. He was truly unique and peerless," said Mohammad Mirsalehi, 38, a cleric.

Hamidreza Shabani, a student, 18, added: "We must rise up and, God willing, avenge the blood of our leader". Authorities believe the ceremonies will mobilise more than 10 million people in the capital alone. But before they began, Tehran was quieter than usual, with many normally busy streets free of the capital's notorious traffic and some residents telling AFP in Paris that they had decided to leave the city for the duration of the ceremonies.

- Marathon funerals –

After five weeks of war, the conflict is on hold after a ceasefire and an initial accord with the US. But both the US and Iran have warned they are ready to resume fighting at any time. The killing of Khamenei after over three-and-a-half decades in power created a new era in the Islamic republic shadowed by uncertainty. His funeral is being viewed outside Iran as a test of support for the government, with authorities already shaken by mass protests in January that rights groups say were put down in a crackdown that left thousands dead.

The funeral ceremonies will see the coffin remain three days in Tehran, before moving Tuesday to the clerical city of Qom, then Wednesday to neighbouring Iraq, before burial on Thursday in Khamenei's northeastern home city of Mashhad. He will be buried with his infant granddaughter, son-in-law, daughter and Mojtaba Khamenei's wife Zahra Haddad Adel, who were all killed in the February 28 strikes.

The tiny coffin of his granddaughter Zahra Mohammadi Golpaygani, who according to state media was just 14 months old, was prominently displayed.

- 'Call for vengeance' -

Surviving officials showed their grief and displayed a united front on Friday. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and top negotiator in peace talks with the US, appeared tearful while Ahmad Vahidi, named chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guards after his predecessor was killed in the strikes, made his first public appearance in that post.

"The nation's call for vengeance must ring in the ears of the whole world," said Ghalibaf, who urged Iranians to turn out en masse. The coming days will be closely watched for signs of Mojtaba Khamenei, who has communicated only by written statements and is said to have been wounded in the same strikes, though the extent of his injuries was never made clear.

Significant security measures have been imposed, with roads blocked and airspace expected to be closed for what is set to be the largest-scale public event in Iran since the burial of Khamenei's predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Authorities will also want the event to go smoothly, deeply aware of the risk of crowd crushes that have marred similar events in the past, with TV broadcasting guidelines on how to stay safe.

So far, former Manchester mayor Burnham is the only candidate to take over the centre-left party. He could be in office by mid-July. "Whoever's my successor is going to face the same global conflict. We keep saying, and it's true, we're in a more dangerous and volatile world than we've been in for probably most of my lifetime. That's not just a phrase, that's reality," Starmer told the BBC.

Burnham's supporters have said he should put more focus on domestic issues, such as the cost of living, and Burnham said this week that decentralisation of government would be a priority. But in a social media question-and-answer session Friday, he discussed international topics and said he would "100 percent" give the same support to Ukraine as Starmer. Asked by the BBC, Starmer said his successor would not be able to spend less time on diplomacy.

"There's often this discussion -- what's the right balance between dealing with international affairs and dealing with domestic affairs? They're one and the same thing," Starmer said. "If you're prime minister and you care what bills are going to be like in any household around the country, you have to care about finding a lasting solution to the situation in Ukraine, you have to care about what happens in the Strait of Hormuz." Starmer said he had "never had any personal animosity" towards Burnham and that he would "do everything I possibly can to make sure" that the next government succeeds.

Starmer, who led Labour to a spectacular win in the 2024 general election, has said he will remain in parliament at least until the next nationwide vote, but told the BBC he would be "keeping my mouth shut, rather than giving constant advice to my successor about what they should be doing". Starmer had vowed to fight any challenge to his leadership, but gave in to intense pressure from his party. "In the end it became an intensely personal decision," he said, one taken with his wife and children at the British prime minister's country retreat. "We went to Chequers and just spent two days together as a family. And that's when I came to my final decision," he said.

Leo's visit also comes just two weeks after the European Union's approval of new migrant rules allowing much broader detention powers and the creation of deportation centres outside the bloc. After praying at the unmarked graves of shipwreck victims, the 70-year-old stood alone on the island's rocky shoreline, buffeted by the wind as he looked out to sea, where countless migrant boats have been lost to the waves.

He spoke to a migrant family, before taking the children by the hand and standing along with their pregnant mother at the "Door of Europe", a monument dedicated to people who risk everything in search of a better life. The Chicago-born pontiff has made the defence of migrants a pillar of his papacy, like his predecessor, Francis, praising those who help the needy and decrying mass deportations in the United States. He was expected to use the half-day trip to the Mediterranean island, a frontier between Africa and Europe, to call for safe and legal pathways for immigration.

Leo's presence "sends a clear message at a time when the global political debate on migration is often framed around borders and deterrence rather than protection and shared responsibility", Filippo Ungaro, spokesman for the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, told AFP. Lampedusa sits 90 miles (145 kilometres) off the coast of Tunisia, and is famous for showing compassion to thousands of migrants -- and taking in their dead.

In 2013, more than 360 people died in the island's worst shipwreck, and dozens more have drowned in the years since. Leo has previously praised the generosity of the islanders, a fishing and tourism community of 6,000. He was later due to go to the pier where people rescued at sea by the coastguard or charity ships are brought to safety.

There, he will bless a plaque dedicated to Pope Francis -- who chose Lampedusa for his very first trip following his election in 2013 -- before celebrating mass in a sports field. Lampedusa "is a place of particular significance... We are here to testify to its commitment to welcome those seeking a better place (to live)," said Vanda Mainardi, 65, who had travelled from northern Italy to see the pope.

Known for its white-sand beaches, the semi-arid island of 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) is the second of Europe's migration hotspots to be visited by Leo, who used a trip to the Canary Islands last month to criticise human traffickers. He has previously spoken out against measures to clamp down on undocumented migration, and called the US administration's treatment of immigrants "inhuman". In a speech on Friday to mark America's 250th birthday, Leo called for "moderation" in US public discourse, and spoke of how "successive waves of immigrants" had shaped the future of the country.

- World's deadliest route -

The Central Mediterranean crossing from north Africa is the deadliest migration route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration. Around 1,330 people died or went missing while attempting it last year, the IOM says. The route is patrolled by a handful of rescue ships operated by charities that have repeatedly accused EU authorities of not doing enough to help prevent deaths.

More than 14,000 people landed in Italy during the first six months of the year, most of whom set off from Libya, according to UNHCR. Nearly 60 percent of them arrived in Lampedusa, it said. The numbers are far from the peaks reached in 2011, when tens of thousands arrived in months as maritime border controls disintegrated during the Arab Spring revolts.

The attacks were reported in Gao, Anefis and Sevare as well as a prison in Kenieroba. The fighting, that started around 4:00 am (0400 GMT), came more than two months after the same groups staged attacks against the ruling junta in which the country's defence minister was killed.

"The strike hit the area of an oil terminal in the Kirovsk district of the city. The technical consequences have been resolved. There were no casualties," Saint Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov said on social media. "Air defence forces shot down 72 UAVs, one of which crashed in Peterhof. There were no casualties or damage," he added. The Peterhof palace is a giant estate of gardens and a palace built in the 18th century under Russian Tsar Peter I.

Drone debris also fell around the port of Vysotsk, north of Saint Petersburg and near the border with Finland, the Leningrad region governor Alexander Drozdenko said. "Debris has been reported in the area of the port of Vysotsk. Details are being confirmed," Drozdenko said on social media.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the Kronstadt naval base in Saint Petersburg was hit in the strikes. "Ukraine's defence forces struck port oil infrastructure that generates revenue for Russia's war, and there were also successful strikes on Kronstadt -- an important military target," he said on social media. Kyiv has upped its attacks inside Russia, hitting targets as far as the Urals, with Putin admitting that Moscow needed to improve its air defences as part of the offensive, which has become Europe's worst conflict since World War II.

"Current forecast tracks continue to indicate a grim outlook for the Marianas," the US National Weather Service warned. "All residents across Guam and the (Northern Mariana Islands) should plan for and anticipate at least tropical storm conditions." The islands' roughly 200,000 inhabitants queued at gas stations in recent days and thronged hardware stores to buy plywood and supermarkets for food, bottled water and other essentials.

Jeff Garcia, 48, who lives in Kagman Village in the Northern Marianas, told AFP that safety was the top priority, adding that they had "weathered super typhoons before." "We bought basic needs like water, candles, batteries, and canned goods... As a community, our greatest defense is our unity, our preparation, and our discipline," he said. Plans for celebrating the United States's 250th anniversary on Saturday have been quickly overtaken by storm preparations, with both Guam and the Northern Marianas declaring a state of emergency.

Workers at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan resort were boarding up windows, securing outdoor furniture and equipment, checking alarm systems and stocking first aid kits on Friday. "We're all working together to reduce damage and make sure we're ready to respond once the storm passes," the resort's sports, entertainment and activities manager Reymark Castro, 35, told AFP.

The Northern Marianas archipelago is home to around 40,000 people, and nearby Guam -- a separate US territory -- around 170,000. Major battles were fought in the area in World War II. Super Typhoon Sinlaku, which hit in mid-April, knocked out power for tens of thousands of people, uprooted trees, overturned cars and ripped metal roofs off buildings. A cargo ship, the MV Mariana, suffered engine failure and overturned in the storm. The body of one crew member was recovered and five others were missing, presumed dead.

The American Red Cross warned that some locals were still in temporary shelters or under makeshift roofs, even as it deployed disaster teams and supplies ahead of Bavi's arrival. Em Marilla, 42, who lives in As Lito village, told AFP the thought of "going through it all again without electricity and water is really sad." "Furthermore, the application process for assistance takes far too long, and having to keep spending out of pocket for our daily needs is truly draining," she said.

Lherie Galvan, 50, an accountant in San Antonio village, said: "I'm tired of preparing, planning, and fixing our roof." "It's another anxiety to recover from. We need more psychiatrists on the island and financial assistance. "Children already have trauma but at a young age they know how to prepare -- pack their things for emergencies."

- Warming oceans -

The world's oceans experienced their hottest June on record and could set fresh highs in the months ahead, the European Union's Copernicus Marine Service said on Wednesday. Warmer oceans help tropical storms to intensify and add more moisture, which can fall as heavy rain. The World Meteorological Organization warned on Friday that El Nino, which typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts nine to 12 months, has already begun in the tropical Pacific and is likely to be strong. The natural climate phenomenon warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.

Faqir Mahbub Anam, also Minister of Science and Technology Ministry was addressing a roadside meeting at Jadunathpur in Dhanbari upazila, said a ministry press release. The minister said people of Dhanbari-Madhupur have given him the opportunity to serve them by giving vote in February 12, 2026 election. The minister said the government had started development works within a short time after assuming office. Infrastructure development, improvement of the communication system, and development of educational and religious institutions in the area would be ensured in phases.

He further said contractors must maintain the highest standard in implementing development projects. “No irregularity or substandard work in any project will be accepted,” he said, urging local people to inform the authorities concerned if they notice any irregularities anywhere. Referring to the law and order situation, the minister said Dhanbari and Madhupur would not be a come places for extortion, land grabbing, drugs or gambling.

Criminal activities will be dealt with strong hand, he said, asking law enforcement agencies to remain vigilant in this regard. The minister said a society should be built in away where women, children and ordinary people can move safely and live in a peaceful environment. He also said the promises made to the people before the election would be implemented gradually.

For this, he said, cooperation and active participation of the people are necessary. Public representatives, administration and people must work together to ensure development and good governance. Earlier, the minister inaugurated the earth-filling work at Dhanbari Nawab Eidgah and Playground in his constituency. Government officials, political leaders, and distinguished persons and a large number of local people were present on the occasion.

Sharif, whose country has been mediating US-Iran talks to permanently end their conflict, was accompanied by army chief Asim Munir and a delegation as they visited the coffin.

It typically takes place every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months. Conditions oscillate between El Nino and its opposite La Nina, with neutral conditions in between. The WMO's monthly Global Seasonal Climate Update points towards "a rapid development into a strong El Nino event during July-September". The UN agency classifies El Nino events as weak, moderate, strong or very strong, meaning it is set to reach the third-highest level out of four.

"El Nino conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific and are forecast to strengthen rapidly over the coming months, increasing the likelihood of... extreme weather events in many parts of the world," the WMO said. - Heatwave risks - WMO climate scientist Alvaro Silva told a press conference that since last month, "we have much more confidence that strong El Nino conditions are developing in the equatorial Pacific". He said the WMO may issue an update in the coming months, "for example, if we have forecasts suggesting this will be a really strong El Nino".

The Geneva-based agency said forecasts produced by global climate centres, using different models, indicate a consistent and significant warming of ocean temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. "Seasonal-average sea-surface temperature anomalies expected to exceed 2C in key monitoring regions," it said. "El Nino is expected to continue strengthening during the Northern Hemisphere autumn, with its influence extending across many regions of the globe."

The last El Nino contributed to making 2023 the second-hottest year on record and 2024 the all-time high at around 1.55C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. While El Nino usually peaks between November and February, the resulting spike in temperatures typically comes later. "The impacts of El Nino will be felt in different regions until the end of the year and beyond, also during 2027," underlined Silva. The WMO said it was stepping up early warning support to help guide preparedness, especially in climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and health.

Such moves "are vital to save lives and cushion the impact on our economies and our communities", said WMO chief Celeste Saulo. "El Nino conditions are already under way and are forecast to strengthen rapidly into a strong event," she said. "This will intensify the chances of drought and heavy rainfall and the risk of heatwaves on land and marine heatwaves in many regions." - Temperature impact - The update predicts an overwhelming likelihood of above-average temperatures across most land areas between 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north -- covering nearly all populated areas outside the polar regions.

And the July to September rainfall outlook is consistent with a strengthening El Nino, with above-normal rainfall forecast in areas including the southwestern United States, and below normal forecast across the Indian subcontinent and much of Australia. The WMO says there is no evidence that climate change increases the frequency or intensity of El Nino events. However, the agency believes it can amplify the associated effects, because a warmer ocean and atmosphere increase the availability of energy and moisture for extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall.

During the northern hemisphere summer, warm waters associated with El Nino can fuel hurricanes in the central and eastern Pacific, while hindering their development in the Atlantic Ocean. On Thursday, Peru declared a 60-day state of emergency in 800 of its 1,800 municipalities, due to the "imminent danger" of heavy rains linked to El Nino. More than 9.3 million people in Peru were warned of a very high risk from flooding and landslides.

AFP made the calculations using daily maximum temperature data from the European Drought Observatory and population figures from the Joint Research Centre. Almost the entire population of mainland France and more than three-quarters of the combined populations of Spain and Italy experienced temperatures exceeding 35oC at some point during the June heatwave, which stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to Ukraine, passing through the Balkans and Germany.

Temperatures exceeded 35oC in an area surrounding the Spanish city of Lleida, Catalonia, for at least 16 consecutive days, according to an AFP analysis of data from the European observatory. More broadly, daily maximum temperatures rose above 35oC for nearly 50 million people across Europe on at least 10 occasions during the heatwave.

These included 18 million people in central and southern France, over 15 million in northeastern and southwestern Spain, and 12 million in northern Italy, mainly in the Po Valley. All-time temperature records were broken in Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, as well as June records in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Average temperatures in France hit record highs, notably including the hottest nights ever recorded in the country.

Photos showed mourners carrying Khamenei's coffin, emblazoned with Iran's tricolour flag, into the Grand Mosalla, one of the Islamic republic's most important ceremonial venues. Others show crowds at a pre-funeral ceremony clad in black, as the coffin was set down against a backdrop of red flowers and white butterflies hanging in the air. Ahmad Vahidi, head of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the military, made his first appearance since the start of the war in February, paying his respects at the coffin, Iranian media footage showed.

Preparations for Khamenei's public funeral, initially delayed at the height of the war, are taking place as Iran and the United States observe a fragile ceasefire after signing a preliminary deal to halt the conflict. Pakistan, a key mediator in the US-Iran talks, said its Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif would attend the ceremony. China, Afghanistan and Iran's neighbours in the Caucasus region said they would also be sending representatives.

Workers were readying the Grand Mosalla on Thursday, while security teams stopped passing cars and curious bystanders looked on. "We are planting flowers and watering the shrubs for the farewell ceremony of our martyred guide," said worker Hossein Moghadassi, clad in a hat and a scarf to cover his face as the temperature soared. "People will come from all over Iran. There will be huge crowds."

Tehran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had called on Thursday for "all the Iranian people... to write a glorious page in the history of Islamic Iran through your presence". "The nation's call for vengeance must ring in the ears of the whole world," Ghalibaf, who is Iran's speaker of parliament, added in a statement. Khamenei, a spiritual figure for many Shias, was killed at the age of 86 in strikes on his compound in the centre of the Iranian capital.

He will lie in state for three days at the colossal Grand Mosalla, which has been draped in banners featuring images and quotes of Khamenei. The bodies of his slain relatives will also be present. The ceremonies are expected to draw between 15 and 20 million mourners, according to officials, which would make it the biggest state funeral in the country's history.

Ghalibaf called it "one of the most significant moments" in Iran's history. Tehran, as well as the holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, which will host later stages of the funeral and the burial ceremonies, will observe public holidays while the events are underway. Authorities have ordered public and private offices in Tehran to close from Saturday through Monday, while traffic restrictions will make much of the city centre inaccessible to private vehicles.

The airspace over Tehran will be partially closed from Friday and fully closed on Monday. Following the ceremonies in Tehran, Khamenei's body will be taken to the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala before his burial on July 9 at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, his birthplace.

It remains unknown if Khamenei's son and successor Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public since becoming supreme leader, will be present at the main ceremony in Tehran. Representatives from around 30 countries are expected to attend the funeral, with people pouring in from neighbouring Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Civilians have been subjected to siege-like conditions for 18 months, battered by relentless drone strikes as the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces battle for control over areas surrounding the city. "This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world. "Their phones should be running hot in the coming days and weeks, with ideas on how to prevent atrocity crimes in El-Obeid and in other places in Kordofan."

The UN's top rights body was holding a rare urgent debate on the human rights situation around El-Obeid, following a request by Britain on behalf of a group of countries. Sudan's conflict erupted in April 2023 between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Kordofan -- home to oil deposits and the RSF's most powerful paramilitary allies -- remains a key battleground.

El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, sits on a key route linking RSF-held areas in the western Darfur region to army-controlled regions in the east. A city of half a million people that hosts nearly 100,000 refugees displaced by the civil war, El-Obeid has, in recent weeks, faced its most intense RSF attacks yet. After breaking a prolonged siege in February last year, the army has struggled to stop the RSF from reimposing a blockade through drone strikes targeting the city and the main highway out. Recent attacks have hit the main power station and fuel depots, plunged neighbourhoods into darkness and shut down water pumps. The European countries behibnd the debate plan to present a draft resolution to the 47-country rights council.

Karannagoda was the navy commander when Sri Lanka's decades-long Tamil separatist war ended in 2009. He was elevated to the rank of admiral of the fleet in 2019, and currently has no active role in the navy. Yoshitha Rajapaksa, 38, is out on bail following his arrest last month in a related case in which he is accused of using public funds for training at Britain's prestigious naval college in Dartmouth.

"The Admiral of the Fleet has committed the offence of corruption in the recruitment and training of Yoshitha Rajapaksa," the Bribery Commission said in a statement. Karannagoda also faces allegations of war crimes and was sanctioned by Britain in March 2025 after being accused of serious human rights violations and extrajudicial killings. He faces additional conspiracy to murder charges over the killing of 11 young men between 2008 and 2009.

Those charges were initially dropped in October 2021, when Mahinda Rajapaksa's younger brother Gotabaya was president, but they were later revived under the administration of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who came to power in September 2024 on a pledge to crack down on corruption and unsolved high-profile crimes. Cases against the Rajapaksa family and their associates have gained renewed impetus since Dissanayake's election.

Several Rajapaksa family members and close associates have been charged with a range of offences over the years, all of which remain pending before the courts. Yoshitha Rajapaksa is also facing criminal prosecution after failing to explain the sources of income used to purchase a house while his father was in power from 2005 to 2015.

He told investigators that he raised money by selling gems given to him by his grandaunt, who could not recall how she had obtained the precious stones. His uncle Gotabaya Rajapaksa was handed a foreign travel ban last month over his alleged links to the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people.

Sherani said the injured passengers had been taken to hospital, three of them in critical condition. "The bus fell approximately 70 to 80 feet (21 to 24 metres) into the ravine," Sherani added. "As the accident occurred in a rugged mountainous area, rescue teams faced significant difficulties during the initial phase of the operation," he said.

Shahid Rind, the spokesperson for the southwestern province of Balochistan's chief minister, also said the bus had been travelling from the provincial capital Quetta to the city of Peshawar in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Rescue teams from both provinces were at the scene, he added. Road accidents are common in Pakistan due to weak enforcement of traffic laws, speeding, poor road safety standards and reckless driving.

The number of deaths increased by 62 percent in the Paris region during the week starting 22 June, the report said. A similar spike has been reported in the Pays de la Loire region. Some French politicians have denounced what they call the authorities' inadequate measures to help France face rising temperatures. The Greens on Thursday filed a no-confidence motion against the government of Sebastien Lecornu.

In June, France experienced a record-breaking heatwave which lasted around 11 days and saw temperatures climb above 40C in many places. Around 15,000 people died in France during a severe heatwave in 2003, with many elderly people dying in nursing homes. The June heatwave is considered more intense, but authorities say its consequences have been less severe.

"It will probably not be comparable," Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Friday. Nicolas Revel, director general of the Paris public hospital system, has said he expected the death toll from the June heatwave to be lower than that of 2003, but "probably" higher than an episode last year that claimed 5,700 lives.

"We are deeply and profoundly sorry to the mothers who were told they were unfit, who were prevented from caring for the children they desperately wanted ... and who have carried this loss for decades," Starmer told parliament.

But the 14-point deal also set a timeline for talks to permanently end the war and settle issues like arrangements for Hormuz, reconstruction funding for Iran and the future of the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. Here is what we know about the latest round of discussions:

- What was agreed -

Following the foes' indirect discussions in Doha on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump as well as mediators Qatar and Pakistan offered signs that diplomacy was holding. "Qatari and Pakistani mediators concluded separate meetings with the US and Iranian negotiators in Doha (Wednesday), with positive progress made," the two mediating nations said in a statement on Thursday. At the talks' conclusion, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who led Tehran's delegation, said an agreement had been reached to establish a communications channel by Thursday to report and record alleged violations of the memorandum.

Gharibabadi said discussions also covered frozen Iranian assets, whose release Tehran has demanded as part of any settlement. He said officials reviewed the use of part of an initial $6 billion and agreed that goods needed by Iran would be purchased and made available. Trump told reporters Wednesday before boarding Air Force One: "As far as things are going, the denuclearisation of Iran is moving along well."

A source familiar with the matter told AFP on condition of anonymity that indirect negotiations in Doha had focused more specifically on arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz, with the nuclear issue slated for deeper discussion in later rounds of talks.

- What comes next -

The next indirect US-Iran talks will come after the late Iranian supreme leader's funeral. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed aged 86 at his compound in the centre of the Iranian capital on February 28, the first day of the war. Power was swiftly passed to his son Mojtaba. Ali Khamenei's public funeral will begin on Saturday, with his body lying in state at the colossal complex in central Tehran that hosts major Friday prayers, official ceremonies and religious gatherings.

Qatar and Pakistan said in statements that the sides agreed to keep talking, "with the next meeting to be set at the earliest possible time following the funeral processions". His burial will take place on July 9 at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad, his birthplace.

- Movements on the ground -

Since the signing of the US-Iran deal in June, both sides have traded sporadic fire in the Gulf. Tehran's enforcement of its claim to the Strait of Hormuz has sparked repeated flare-ups. The latest came when US Central Command said over the weekend that it had attacked 10 Iranian military targets over "continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping".

Iran said it retaliated with strikes against US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, which both condemned Tehran. However, the exchanges of fire appear to have calmed in the days leading up to the talks in Qatar. On the Lebanon front, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been relatively quiet, though the National News Agency reported a strike in the country's southern city of Nabatieh on Wednesday evening, without mentioning any victims.

Lebanon is still waiting for Israel to start withdrawing from "pilot zones" where the Lebanese army would deploy, as per a framework agreement between the two countries. Tehran has insisted any deal should include an end to the parallel conflict and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, part of which they have occupied.

"As of now, 13 deaths have been recorded," Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media, after Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga called on allies to "not delay decisions on air defense for Ukraine."

It came as a campaign against illegal immigrants -- accused by locals of taking work and resources -- set an unofficial June 30 deadline for undocumented migrants to leave the country.

"We were hiding inside our homes because we feared for our lives," Assani told AFP in M'namba, a village of mud-brick houses with uneven floors and weathered walls.

Then a group stormed his compound in the city of Pietermaritzburg, breaking down doors and assaulting residents.

Assani escaped but said two Malawians were killed and two hurt.

South African police have only confirmed the death of one Malawian during the weeks of unrest, as well as two Mozambicans and an Ethiopian.

"It was one of the most painful and traumatic experiences I have ever witnessed," the 33-year-old said.

"We came back with nothing," said Assani, among some 15 people who have returned to the village in Salima district, 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the capital Lilongwe.

- 'Never going back' -

Authorities say more than 15,000 Malawians left South Africa ahead of the "deadline", as well as thousands of citizens of countries including Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

Many were assisted by their governments in what appears to be the first multi-country official repatriation during periodic waves of anti-foreigner violence in South Africa.

Assani had been away for more than a year, driven by the same dream that has pushed thousands of Malawians across borders for decades: jobs, income, a better future for their families.

He found work at a shop owned by an Ethiopian national. The modest salary transformed his life.

"I was able to pay rent, support relatives back home and pay school fees for my children," he said.

But after his recent experience, he would never go back.

"I would rather die here in poverty than going back to South Africa," he said.

- No longer wanted -

Hawa Troko, 32, made the journey home to Salima with her eight-month-old baby strapped to her back and only the items she could carry.

"I heard that some people were being attacked, their property was being looted and some were even being killed," said Troko, whose husband stayed behind.

She spent five days in a makeshift camp before securing a seat on a government bus that returned her to the problems she had hoped South Africa would solve: hunger, unemployment and poverty.

For Twaibu Hussein, 31, returning to Malawi ended a decade in Durban where he had worked as a tailor and furniture maker.

This year, he said, the mood changed.

"Xenophobia has become a big challenge," Hussein told AFP. "Even police officers were coming to workplaces and taking people to the camps. It showed that foreigners were no longer wanted."

More than 10,000 people were at the Durban camp where he waited for transport home.

"It was a miracle when you finally got a ticket," he said, describing disputes among desperate returnees competing for space.

"We went without food. We stayed without bathing. Some people collapsed."

- 'Afraid for my life' -

In Zimbabwe, Takesure Nyawo has spent most afternoons since he returned two weeks ago sitting in the winter sun in Chitungwiza, outside Harare, with other unemployed men.

"I don't sleep," the 45-year-old father of three told AFP.

A group of young men arrived at his home in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province on June 13, demanding that he leave.

"They started to take my property. They took the fridge, they took the TV, then they went to my tools," said the carpenter.

"When they wanted to come back for the bed, I locked the door because they were holding big knives," he said. "I was afraid of my life and for my kids."

The next day, he and his wife and children fled with a bag of clothes and a few small items, leaving behind furniture, woodworking machinery and debts from his customers.

Nyawo said he had lived in South Africa for nine years and had a valid permit.

"It's not the police that are coming to check the documents. It's the locals and some of them can't even read," he said.

The vigilante campaign against foreign nationals has been widely criticised as scapegoating migrants for South Africa's economic woes ahead of November local elections.

"After all of us leave South Africa, they will see that the problem does not lie with us," Nyawo said.

US ambassador Mike Huckabee said during a signing ceremony at Israel's foreign ministry that Washington "recognises Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous, and forever capital of the Jewish people". "We are going to plant our flag, our American flag, on the soil of Jerusalem for a permanent and a brand new embassy compound that will serve as our mothership of diplomatic activities here in Israel," he added. "I would say God made that decision 3,800 years ago, and we finally got around to acknowledging what had been determined long before the United States of America came along."

The embassy will be built at the Allenby compound in southern Jerusalem. Trump's 2017 decision broke with decades of US policy, under which Jerusalem's final status was expected to be determined through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Jerusalem has long been one of the most contested cities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After Israel captured east Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, it declared the city its undivided capital, a claim that has not been widely recognised internationally.

'Historical injustice' -

Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Because of these competing claims, most countries established their embassies in Tel Aviv, maintaining that Jerusalem's status should be resolved through peace negotiations in accordance with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the agreement to build Washington's permanent embassy in Jerusalem underscored the "unbreakable alliance" between the two countries. "President Trump's historic decision in 2017 to move the embassy to Jerusalem set the record straight," he said at the signing ceremony.

"And today, with the agreement to begin building a permanent embassy complex, that decision becomes even deeper and more enduring." The Israeli rights group Adalah, however, denounced the construction of the embassy at the allocated site, saying it "enshrines a profound, historical injustice".

The site "is located on land confiscated by Israel from Palestinian landowners under the discriminatory 1950 Absentees' Property Law", it said in a statement, adding that it had previously filed an objection on behalf of the descendants of the original Palestinian owners, some of whom are US and Jordanian citizens.

By proceeding with its plans, "the US government directly endorses Israel's unlawful mechanisms of dispossession and displacement, violating the fundamental property rights of the original Palestinian owners and their descendants, in direct defiance of international law", the group said.

The embassy agreement comes after the United States and Israel fought alongside each other in their military campaign against Iran, and also follows reports of tensions between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over efforts to end the war.

"Qatari and Pakistani mediators concluded separate meetings with the US and Iranian negotiators in Doha (Wednesday), with positive progress made," Pakistan said Thursday. Islamabad added the sides agreed to keep talking, "with the next meeting to be set at the earliest possible time following the funeral processions of the former Iranian Supreme Leader." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed aged 86 at his compound in the centre of the Iranian capital on February 28, the first day of the war. Power was swiftly passed to his son Mojtaba.

Ali Khamenei's public funeral will begin on Saturday, with his body lying in state at the colossal complex in central Tehran that hosts major Friday prayers, official ceremonies and religious gatherings. His burial will take place on July 9 at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad, his birthplace. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who led Tehran's delegation, said Wednesday' talks had concluded with an agreement to establish a communications channel by Thursday to report and record alleged violations of the memorandum.

Iran had insisted there would be no direct negotiations with the United States in Doha. Trump told reporters Wednesday before boarding Air Force One: "As far as things are going, the denuclearization of Iran is moving along well." "We hit them very hard... but we're getting along very well," he added.

- Lines of contact -

The Qatar discussions, held at a lower level and focused on implementing the memorandum, were meant to "build on the progress made at the Lake Lucerne Summit", a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. Tehran rejected Trump's earlier suggestion that the talks would be direct, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei saying Iran had "no plans for negotiations with the American side at any level over the coming days".

Gharibabadi said discussions also covered frozen Iranian assets, whose release Tehran has demanded as part of any settlement. He said officials reviewed the use of part of an initial $6 billion and agreed that goods needed by Iran would be purchased and made available.

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were not taking part in the technical talks, the diplomat said, after meeting Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the office of Qatar's emir said Kushner and Witkoff had also met ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Since the US-Iran deal was signed last month, the sides have exchanged fire in the Gulf. Tehran targeted a commercial ship it said had strayed from its approved route through the Strait of Hormuz, and US Central Command (CENTCOM) responded by saying it had struck 10 Iranian military targets.

Iran then hit US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, drawing condemnation from both Gulf states. CENTCOM said Wednesday it led a regional security dialogue hosted by Bahrain, held with defence leaders from 12 nations, mostly from the Gulf. "Leaders underscored their shared commitment to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz," CENTCOM said on X.

Gharibabadi responded on Thursday, saying the strait "is defined under Iran's command, not CENTCOM". "A military summit in Bahrain cannot establish legal order and security for the Persian Gulf," is said. "The region's security will be ensured through the end of interventions and the U.S. withdrawal from the area, respect for countries' sovereignty, and acceptance of new geopolitical realities -- not under the military umbrella of America."

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tuesday that "when a war of this magnitude comes to an end... it is inevitable that there will be implementation challenges, incidents and differences of opinion, especially where parties such as the Israeli regime are concerned". On the Lebanon front, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has also been relatively quiet. Iran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the wider Middle East war in March with rocket fire at Israel, triggering Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion. Tehran has insisted any final deal should include an end to the Lebanon conflict and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the south, part of which they occupy.

Around 70,000 people were expected to attend, according to the Catholic Church in Vietnam, many arriving days early to watch the ceremony on big screens outside the church. "We were sleeping on a mat outside the church last night," said Tran Le Tap, a 65-year-old saleswoman who travelled from the southern province of An Giang. "It was a great honour for us to be here on this special occasion. We cannot miss it... It was honour for our Catholic followers and also for the Vietnamese. I feel so blessed." The presence of Tagle, an envoy of Pope Leo XIV, highlights the warming ties between Communist Vietnam and the Vatican, which have not had official diplomatic relations since the end of the civil war in 1975.

The two sides made a breakthrough in 2023 by agreeing to a "Resident Papal Representative" for Vietnam. Tagle called Thursday's ceremony a "moment of great joy for Vietnamese Catholics" and a "truly historic day in the life of the Church". Le Mai, 33, came all the way from Hanoi with her mother for the event -- a day-long journey by plane and car.

"It was a long way to go, all the way from the north here, but it's a privilege for me and my mother to be able to attend this ceremony," she said. Vietnam has more than 7.5 million Catholics, accounting for about 7.4 percent of the population, according to the Vatican's official news outlet.

Vietnam's constitution enshrines a right to religious freedom, but the government tightly regulates religious organisations. Rights groups often criticise restrictions on religious practice such as registration requirements and surveillance. Vietnam has had 117 people beatified and later canonised as saints, but the Church said this was the first time a beatification ceremony had been held in the country rather than at the Vatican.

Appointed priest of Vietnam's Tac Say parish in 1930, Diep was known for his devotion to the poor, sick, and those suffering because of war, according to the local Can Tho diocese. He was murdered by two Japanese defectors, a diocesan investigation concluded in 2017. 

On this late-May evening in Mindelo, a city on the archipelago nation's Sao Vicente island, passersby who recognise the singer stop in the street to join the concert. Ceuzany's voice ranges from crystalline highs to deep lows, as she performs everything from jazz to slam, commanding the stage with wavy blonde hair and earrings framing her radiant face. The day before she radiated infectious energy under the bright lights of a music video shoot, dancing with abandon in a silver rhinestone suit and Panama hat to the galvanising percussion of her latest and fourth album.

The record blends saxophone, percussion and the cavaquinho, a popular four-stringed instrument, although some songs are more stripped down, featuring Ceuzany's voice and an acoustic piano, or a swaying zouk rhythm set against the warm sound of the ukulele. "I started singing at age 12 in a competition in Cape Verde, and I haven't stopped since," Ceuzany Pires, 35, told AFP with a beaming smile.

"My grandmother had dreamed of becoming a renowned artist in Cape Verde, but her parents didn't want her to sing," said the mother of two. "She was always singing serenades at home and I was always listening. It is thanks to her that I have this taste for music and that I deeply love singing," she added.

- 'Soul coming through' -

Ceuzany is often compared to the legendary Cesaria Evora, the "barefoot diva" who introduced the world to two traditional genres of Cap Verdean music: morna, which is characterized by soft, nostalgic melodies and coladeira, which features a faster rhythm. "Ceuzany is one of Cesaria Evora's heirs, as she is a great morna singer," said her producer, Jose Da Silva, who has served as producer for both women. "Ceuzany is capable of injecting a bit of rap into coladeira. She is just as comfortable with urban music artists as she is with traditional ones," he said.

Warm and funny, Ceuzany is also "a true daughter of Mindelo, she possesses that same spontaneity that Cesaria had". The singer herself says that she is "immensely honoured" to be part of the Cesaria Evora Orchestra, which performs around the world to keep alive the music of the "barefoot diva" who died in 2011. For musician Hernani Almeida, who arranged Ceuzany's latest album and composed several of its songs, she is unique among the new generation. "When Ceuzany sings, you feel soul coming through," said the guitarist, adding that "it really touches people".

- 'Queens' -

Ceuzany's songs evoke Mindelo, the ups and downs of love, and difficult topics like the ravages of crack cocaine ("pedra") on the impoverished archipelago located off west Africa. She says her fourth album is very special to her "because it deals with domestic violence". "I've been through it," Ceuzany said, explaining that "I gathered the strength to leave a toxic relationship" that lasted nearly five years.

The title track and single "No tchal te li" ("We stop here") tells the story of a romance that sours into a cycle of physical and emotional abuse. Ceuzany, who has since received numerous messages and has engaged with women who are victims of domestic violence, has turned the song into an anthem of liberation and self-empowerment. "I believe women deserve to be treated like queens. That's the message I want to share with all women, in Cape Verde and across the world, because if I managed to leave a toxic relationship, you can do it too," she said, unable to hold back tears.

The artist is at a pivotal moment in her career, seeing the first signs of international recognition. Spotted in 2022 by French singer Christophe Mae, she recorded a single with him in Cape Verde titled "Le Pays des merveilles" ("Wonderland"), an uplifting tribute to her home country. In 2024, she joined him for a 40-date tour across France. In early June, Ceuzany also won the "Traditional Music of the Year" category at the Cape Verde Music Awards.

Following her concert in Mindelo, Ceuzany greeted fans and friends with hugs before people dispersed into the windy night. "I want to record more music, release more albums, take Cap Verde further, bringing myself along. And continue singing for my people", she said.

"As the experience of recent weeks has shown, Russia is deliberately striking sites connected to cultural heritage and cultural institutions," the museum's deputy general director, Olga Melnyk, told AFP. Most of the pieces being relocated to "safer locations" are family heirlooms from victims of the famine, passed down through generations -- often at personal risk during the Soviet era -- Melnyk explained. Ukraine says nearly 2,000 cultural heritage sites and 2,500 cultural institutions have been damaged since Russia invaded in 2022.

In June, Russian drones crashed into the Pechersk Lavra, a UNESCO-protected 11th-century monastery, setting the roof of its central Dormition Cathedral ablaze. The Kharkiv Art Museum -- home to one of Ukraine's oldest collections -- a major gallery in Dnipro and film studios in Kyiv were also hit in the strikes. Earlier this year, the historic centre of Lviv in the west of the country was hit by a brazen drone strike during the middle of the day.

When Russia invaded in 2022, there was a rush across Ukraine to board up and protect museums, famous artworks, monuments and statues. As troops advanced in the east and south, larger pieces were dismantled and shipped across the country. Ukraine's entry to the Venice Biennale this year was an "Origami Deer" statue rescued from Pokrovsk, a city destroyed and now occupied by Russia.

Recent attacks have spurred a new wave of evacuations. "Many museums currently no longer display their permanent exhibitions and instead present temporary exhibitions," Deputy Culture Minister Ivan Verbytsky told AFP. His department has been working to audit potential storage facilities across the country. Russia denies specifically targeting cultural sites. It called the hit on the Kyiv cathedral the result of a misfiring US-made air defence missile operated by Ukraine's army.

But for Verbytsky, years of statements from Russian officials repeatedly denying or questioning Ukraine's right to exist as an independent state are proof that the attacks are "deliberate". "Their purpose is to destroy our heritage and eliminate the material evidence of Ukraine's thousand-year history and of our distinct, authentic culture." Speaking to AFP from the Holodomor museum's hilltop concourse, overlooking the Dnipro river and much of Kyiv below, Melnyk also pointed to Russia's stated position as grounds for extra precaution.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin vehemently rejects that the famine was a genocide against the Ukrainian people. "Given that the Holodomor is a particularly sensitive issue for Russia, and that Russia has built many of its narratives around denying the Holodomor as an act of genocide, we cannot rule out the possibility that our museum could become the target of a Russian attack in the near future," Melnyk said.

Behind her stood an iconic statue to the famine -- a little girl with braided hair clutching ears of grain, her face in pain. For now, she was staying in place.

"During the meetings with Qatari officials, including the Central Bank, a number of issues related to the expenditure of part of the initial six billion dollars were reviewed," Gharibabadi said, according to the IRNA state news agency. "It was agreed that, based on the needs communicated by our country, the required goods would be purchased and made available to Iran." The amount Gharibabadi mentioned refers to part of Iranian oil revenues transferred from South Korea to restricted accounts in Qatar since 2023.

Last month, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran alone would decide how to use the released assets, "in whatever way is most beneficial and favourable to the country". He also said the funds would "be available for Iran to freely use as it sees fit to supply the goods that the country needs". US Vice President JD Vance had said in June that the assets had not yet been unfrozen under the agreement, but if they were, the US and Qatar "have approval over that process". He also suggested the money would be used to purchase US goods, including agricultural products such as soybeans.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf rejected that characterisation on Tuesday, saying $12 billion of the country's $24 billion in frozen assets "are to be given" to Iran's Central Bank "so that it can purchase any goods it needs, at any price and in any currency worldwide".

The majority of collapsed buildings in the hardest-hit city of La Guaira, just north of Caracas, have been marked with the letter 'D' for 'deceased' -- a sign they had been searched with no signs of life found. "Time isn't wasted in a place where there is no expectation of recovering people alive," said Javier Rodes, the coordinator of a Spanish rescue team whose sniffer dog Nala searched in vain through the rubble for traces of life. There have been miracle survivors, such as a three-year-old boy found alive Tuesday, six days after Venezuela's most powerful quake in over a century.

But experts say trapped victims are unlikely to survive more than 72 hours. "No one is coming out of here, alive or dead," said Jose Rafael, standing among the ruins where his son is missing in the town of Caraballeda in La Guaira state. Elsewhere a group of residents was left frustrated after an American rescuer informed them there were "no signs of life" from another heap of rubble.

Many had believed they would find their relatives alive after hearing sounds from within the debris. Venezuela's National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said Wednesday that deaths had risen to 2,295, and more than 11,000 people were injured. He said almost 13,000 people had been left homeless.

A fight for food -

The United Nations estimates 50,000 people are missing. The two powerful quakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5, shattered entire neighborhoods in oil-rich Venezuela, which has suffered decades of economic crisis that devastated infrastructure and health services. The country is in a fragile transition six months after the United States ousted leader Nicolas Maduro, and lives under constant pressure from Washington for access to Venezuela's oil and other natural resources.

The US has around 2,000 personnel assisting in the response, General Francis Donovan, the head of US Southern Command, told journalists on Wednesday. International rescue teams arrived from around the globe to dig out survivors, while locals are furious at the absence of the state in the aftermath of the disaster.

With daily life in ruins, the focus is now shifting to survival. Many are homeless and food and water are becoming scarce. "They give out supplies here, but sometimes people nearly kill each other for food... It's like a cockfight," Daniela Armas, 18, a vendor in La Guaira, said after waiting to get food at an emergency shelter. There has been widespread theft and looting and on Wednesday four police officers were arrested after being caught by residents stealing valuables from the rubble.

"The situation is quite critical," said Lia Poggio, head of mission in Venezuela for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Queues for aid are growing longer by the day, with many surviving on the goodwill of volunteers and donations from fellow citizens.

"Here, we were receiving nothing until last night when they started bringing water," said 56-year-old Fatima Berroteran, who has been sleeping with her family in a parking lot since their home in a high-rise complex in La Guaira collapsed. "I feel guilty about eating, because every time I eat I think there's someone who has nothing to eat," said Aysmar Lopez, a young woman bringing home-cooked meals to several shelters.

The World Food Programme on Tuesday appealed for $50 million to feed some 500,000 people for three months in Venezuela.

Risk of disease -

Fears of disease outbreaks were also rising. World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said health services in Venezuela were under "extreme pressure." "There's an increased risk now of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases" such as measles and diphtheria, due to low pre-earthquake vaccination coverage, he said. The quakes likely damaged or destroyed 58,870 buildings, according to a preliminary assessment of satellite data published by NASA.

The attack came after Ukraine's air force warned that ballistic missiles were headed towards the capital and followed Zelensky cutting short a visit to Dublin Wednesday, citing intelligence reports of an impending Russian strike. AFP journalists in central and eastern Kyiv heard more than a dozen explosions and saw residents -- some with children and pets -- rushing to shelter in metro stations.

The strikes killed eight people and wounded at least 25, including children, the head of the city's military administration Tymur Tkachenko said, decrying the deliberate targeting of civilians and residential areas. Five districts of the wider Kyiv region were struck in the attack, according to regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk. "During the night, the enemy once again launched a massive attack on the Kyiv region using strike drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles," Kalashnyk said on Telegram.

He said emergency crews were battling fires at warehouses and a house in the Bucha district, while the attacks damaged homes, a student dormitory and vehicles elsewhere in the region. Hours earlier, an AFP reporter witnessed an explosion in central Kyiv during an air-raid alert, followed by a cloud of smoke and flames. Firefighters and ambulances were at the scene. A second blast erupted around 50 minutes later near the initial impact site, sending debris into the air.

Images released by Ukrainian emergency services after daybreak showed extensive damage to a residential block, with a chunk of a building missing. Some residents described the difficulties of spending the night in shelters. "It's hard. My child is used to sleeping in complete silence and darkness," 32-year-old doctor Kateryna Kucheryava told AFP. "I picked her up and carried her down. She woke up and now she's not sleeping anymore. We're trying to get her back to sleep, but she keeps getting distracted. It's bright here, dogs are barking, other children are around."

'Use shelters' -

Zelensky said earlier on Wednesday that he was rushing home from a visit to Dublin due to intelligence reports that Russia was about to launch a massive attack. "I urge our people to be especially careful, to protect themselves, their children, and, of course, their families; to use shelters and heed air raid alerts in Ukraine -- this is very important," he told a news conference. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin "has been preparing this massive strike against Ukraine for some time now".

Ukraine has also stepped up long-range drone attacks inside Russia in recent weeks, targeting energy infrastructure and military targets. Russian officials have reported repeated strikes in border regions, while Moscow has said its air defences had intercepted hundreds of drones from Ukraine in recent days. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused more than two million military casualties, with Moscow's forces bearing the brunt of the losses, according to a study published Wednesday by US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

US efforts to broker an end to the conflict have so far failed. "Russia's head is completely refusing to end the war," Zelensky said on Wednesday in a post on X. "And although through all possible official and unofficial channels -- including through people close to him -- we have conveyed that the war can and must be ended, and that we in Ukraine are ready for meetings and meaningful negotiations, he sees only further aggression against Ukraine and against other neighbors and Europe as a whole," he added.

The head of Kyiv's military administration Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram that "the death toll from the Russian attack has risen to 8" and slammed the deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilians.

Images released by the Ukrainian emergency services after the attacks showed extensive damage to a residential block, with a large portion of one building missing as firefighters attempted to douse flames.

Kast expressed hope that both Uruguay and Paraguay will soon join Chile in signing a crime-fighting agreement to tackle powerful drug trafficking cartels which send huge amounts of cocaine from South America to the United States and Europe. "Organized crime can be removed from one country but it needs the same rules in all nations to be able to do away with this scourge," Kast said in a joint statement with Orsi.

Backed by President Donald Trump, Kast won a landslide victory in Chile in December on a platform to crack down hard on crime and illegal immigration, which he blamed for bringing cartels and gangs into Chile, one of the most prosperous countries of Latin America. The homicide rate in Chile has doubled in the past decade to 5.4 per 100,000 inhabitants. Uruguay's is almost twice that.

"Qatar & Pakistan mediators concluded separate meetings with the US & Iranian negotiators in Doha today, with positive progress made on issues related to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, building on the outcomes of the Lake Lucerne Summit," foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said Wednesday on X.

"The parties agreed to continue discussions over the coming period, with the next meeting to be scheduled at the earliest possible time following the funeral processions of the former Iranian Supreme Leader."

Here are key milestones in his life and leadership:

Early life -

Khamenei was born on April 19, 1939, in the shrine city of Mashhad, where he later requested to be buried.

He studied at religious seminaries in Mashhad before continuing his education in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf and the religious centre of Qom.

Revolution -

According to his official website, Khamenei first met the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, decades before the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled US-backed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

He later joined the revolutionary movement and was repeatedly arrested by the authorities, spending periods in detention and exile in remote areas of southeastern Iran.

Presidency -

Khamenei served as Iran's third president from 1981 to 1989 during the Iran-Iraq war.

In June 1981, before becoming president, he survived a bombing claimed by the Mujahedin-e Khalq group, when an explosive device concealed in a tape recorder detonated during a speech.

Leadership -

Following Khomeini's death on June 3, 1989, the Assembly of Experts clerical body convened an emergency session and named Khamenei interim leader.

After constitutional amendments removed the requirement that the supreme leader be a "marja", or senior religious authority, the assembly formally elected him as the Islamic republic's second supreme leader in August that year.

Protests -

In 2009, nationwide protests posed the first major social challenge to Khamenei's leadership, when supporters of former prime minister and presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets, accusing election winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of vote rigging.

Dozens of people were reported killed during the unrest. Mousavi and his wife have remained under house arrest ever since.

A decade later, Iran faced another wave of demonstrations over a rise in fuel prices.

Hundreds of people were reported killed and authorities imposed a nationwide internet shutdown.

In 2022, another protest movement followed the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman arrested for allegedly violating the dress code.

The unrest became one of the largest challenges to the Islamic republic, lasting for months. Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, were reported killed.

In December 2025, another wave of protests over rising prices began and peaked in January. According to authorities, more than 3,000 people died.

Nuclear case -

In 2015, Iran agreed a landmark nuclear deal with six big powers that placed limits on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Western governments said the agreement was designed to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, an objective Iran has consistently denied pursuing.

But in 2018, Donald Trump walked away from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Tehran during his first term as US president.

Soleimani -

In January 2020, the US killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani -- who led the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations arm, the Quds Force -- in Baghdad.

Iran retaliated with missile strikes on bases in Iraq hosting American forces.

Khamenei was seen crying during Soleimani's funeral.

Wars -

Arch foes for decades, Iran and Israel exchanged direct fire for the first time in June 2025 after Israel struck military and nuclear targets in the Islamic republic.

Tehran responded with salvos of missiles and drones during the 12-day war, which also saw brief US involvement before a US-announced ceasefire halted the fighting.

More than 1,000 people in Iran, including senior commanders, and dozens in Israel were killed.

Khamenei vowed a "harsh response" against Israel.

Less than a year later, on February 28, the US and Israel launched a joint military campaign against Iran with a strike on a leadership compound.

The attack killed Khamenei along with several senior military officials, including Guards chief Mohammad Pakpour and security chief Ali Larijani.

The Assembly of Experts appointed Khamenei's son Mojtaba as his successor in March.

Meanwhile even after Ali Khamenei's death, his social media accounts on X and Telegram regularly churn out past statements, while his image stares down from billboards at Iranians, often in a triple portrait with his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini and his son Mojtaba. As his funeral begins on Saturday, he is now referred in state media as the Martyr Imam Khamenei, enshrining the spiritual status of a man who had been a key figure in the Islamic republic since shortly after its inception.

- Political survivor - Decades of experience as a political survivor could not protect him from the torrent of bombs that also killed his son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Khamenei, age 86, had seen off a succession of crises throughout his rule with a mixture of repression and political cunning since taking on the lifetime post of leader of the Islamic revolution following the death of Khomeini.

He overcame 1999 student demonstrations, 2009 mass protests sparked by a disputed presidential election, and 2019 demonstrations that were rapidly and brutally suppressed. The 2022-2023 "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women, was put down in a deadly crackdown. Khamenei was forced to go into hiding during the 12-day war against Israel in June 2025, according to US media reports, which exposed deep Israeli intelligence penetration of the Islamic republic that led to the killing of key security officials in air strikes.

Before the latest war erupted in 2026, his rule was challenged by two nights of mass street protests which were put down in a new crackdown by security forces, that according to rights groups, left thousands dead. Khamenei defiantly dismissed the protesters as "rioters" backed by Israel and US. There were also physical challenges, with his right arm partially paralysed following an assassination attempt in 1981 that authorities have always blamed on the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) group, one-time allies of the revolution now outlawed in the country.

He made no attempt to hide the disability with his inert right arm always prominent in pictures -- an apparent proud display of the scars of the revolution. - 'Eerily reminiscent' - Repeatedly arrested under the shah for his anti-imperialist activism, Khamenei became Tehran's Friday prayer leader shortly after the Islamic revolution and also served on the frontline during the Iran-Iraq war. He was elected president in 1981 following the assassination of Mohammad Ali Rajai, another attack blamed on the MEK. During the 1980s, Khomeini's most likely successor was seen as the senior cleric Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri but the revolutionary leader changed his mind shortly before his death after Montazeri objected to the mass executions of MEK members and other dissidents.

When Khomeini died and the Islamic republic's top clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, met, it was Khamenei who they chose as leader. Khamenei famously initially rejected the nomination, putting his head in his hands in a show of despair and declaring, "I am opposed". Over the course of his career Khamenei worked with six elected presidents, a far less powerful position than supreme leader, including more moderate figures like Mohammad Khatami who were allowed to make stabs at cautious reform and rapprochement with the West.

A complex network of factions competed for his favour and influence, including the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Iranian military. But Khamenei always came down on the side of hardliners and confrontation with the "Great Satan," the United States, and he refused to recognise the existence of Israel. "Ali Khamenei was the most influential actor in Iran, but he still had to manage several competing power centres in the system," said Thomas Juneau, professor at the University of Ottawa. He is believed to have had six children, although only Mojtaba gained public prominence. It remains to be seen how he will wield power but a statement where Mojtaba Khamenei said he backed talks with the US, despite having a "different view", appeared to conjure up Ali Khamenei's political ghost. The statement was "eerily reminiscent of his father's tradition," of staying above the fray in politics, said Arash Azizi, lecturer at Yale University.

"The United States not only recognises Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous, and forever capital of the Jewish people, but also that the United States says that we're going to do something about it," US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said during a signing ceremony at Israel's foreign ministry. "We are going to plant our flag, our American flag, on the soil of Jerusalem for a permanent and a brand new embassy compound that will serve as our mothership of diplomatic activities here in Israel.

"I would say God made that decision 3,800 years ago, and we finally got around to acknowledging what had been determined long before the United States of America came along," he added. The embassy will be built at the Allenby compound in southern Jerusalem. Trump's 2017 decision broke with decades of US policy, under which Jerusalem's final status was expected to be determined through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Jerusalem has long been one of the most contested cities in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. After Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, it declared the city its undivided capital, a claim that has not been widely recognised internationally. Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Because of these competing claims, most countries established their embassies in Tel Aviv, maintaining that Jerusalem's status should be resolved through peace negotiations in accordance with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions. Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the agreement to build Washington's permanent embassy in Jerusalem underscored the "unbreakable alliance" between the two countries.

"President Trump's historic decision in 2017 to move the embassy to Jerusalem set the record straight," he said at the signing ceremony. "And today, with the agreement to begin building a permanent embassy complex, that decision becomes even deeper and more enduring." In a separate post on X, Huckabee said: "Just as the US is vital and irreplaceable for Israel, Israel is vital for the US and its interests in the region." The embassy agreement comes after the United States and Israel fought alongside each other during a months-long military campaign against Iran. The move also follows a period of reported tensions between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid disagreements over efforts to end the war with Iran.

Grief engulfed the community in Pakistan's second-largest city, with some wiping away tears and embracing while others called for urgent action by authorities to prevent further disasters. "For our community, this is nothing less than a catastrophe," said 48-year- old resident Aas Muhammad, adding that some families had lost multiple children when the roof gave way during their lessons. Residents of the disadvantaged neighbourhood to the south of Lahore said they had suspicions that the building housing the tutoring centre was rundown.

However, there was a dearth of nearby options to give their children a chance at improving their education and forging a better future. "Everyone knew that the condition of the building was very poor," said Muhammad Farooq, 30, whose daughter was killed. "But we had no choice." Hundreds of mourners took part in funeral prayers at the local mosque on Wednesday before the dead children, mostly aged between four and 12, were carried to the graveyard for burial.

- 'Wake-up call' - The roof collapse has fuelled anger alongside grief, with the community questioning how an apparently unsafe building had been allowed to house a private tutoring centre. "I would like to appeal to all relevant government authorities to fulfil their responsibilities by carrying out thorough structural inspections of schools and other educational institutions," resident Aas Muhammad said, adding that the disaster should serve as a "wake-up call".

Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people. Authorities have promised an investigation and police said two people were taken into custody on Tuesday night. "No child should ever be placed at risk simply for seeking education," Muhammad said. Broken bricks, twisted steel beams and shattered concrete lay strewn across the ground at the collapse site as local residents looked on in disbelief. Remnants of children's belongings were still partially buried beneath the rubble. "This is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions," resident Muhammad Anwer, 53, told AFP. "It is not only the families who have lost their children who have been devastated; the entire community has been left in mourning."

"I don't get involved in my personal (finances), we have funds that run my money," Trump said. "I've made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don't talk to them." Trump also insisted that his wealth was due to his prior career, despite the fact that the earnings were related to crypto ventures launched during his first year back in the White House. "I don't know if I've had a better career in politics or business, but I had a great career in business, and you know, you saw the cash, and you report the different things," he said. "So we're all profiting.

I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash." According to financial disclosures released by the US Office of Government Ethics on Tuesday, Trump received nearly $550 million from his ties to the startup World Liberty Financial in 2025. World Liberty Financial (WLF) was co-founded in September 2024 by Trump's sons and the son of Trump's Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff. The 927-page filings also mention $635 million in royalties received under a licensing agreement related to the $TRUMP cryptocurrency, launched just hours before the president's inauguration in January 2025.

The president's crypto activities are the main reason for the near tripling of his personal fortune, which rose from $2.3 billion to $6.5 billion between 2024 and 2026, according to Forbes. While in power, Trump has enacted measures to deregulate the sector, causing asset prices to soar. The White House said he had "proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world."

"As far as things are going, the denuclearization of Iran is moving along well. They've had very good meetings, and we'll see," Trump told reporters as he prepared to board his new Qatar-gifted Air Force One plane for a trip to North Dakota.

"We hit them very hard... but we're getting along very well," he said of the talks, which are aimed at quelling tensions following exchanges of fire between the two sides.

The Doha talks are based "on the memorandum of understanding, building on the progress made at the Lake Lucerne Summit," the diplomat said, referring to recent talks in the Swiss resort town and the negotiating framework endorsed by the two sides in June. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are not taking part in the technical talks, the diplomat added, after they met with Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Tuesday.

Both the US and Iran had said they would send officials for meetings in Qatar. The US-Iran memorandum of understanding, brokered by Qatar and Pakistan, includes a 60-day ceasefire in the war that started with US-Israeli strikes on February 28, the reopening of the blockaded Strait of Hormuz and a timeframe for a final deal to end the war and reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear programme. Iranian officials were set to travel to Doha on Wednesday but Tehran denied an earlier claim by US President Donald Trump that there would be direct talks.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei confirmed the Iranian delegation would be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi but said the officials "have no plans for negotiations with the American side at any level over the coming days". Kushner and Witkoff instead met with the Qatari prime minister on Tuesday, the Gulf state's foreign ministry said. The trio discussed "the ongoing talks between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran within the framework of the memorandum of understanding," the ministry said in a statement, adding that they also discussed developments in Lebanon.

Between July 2024 and March 2026, over 124,400 people were infected and 3,500 killed during the last wave, according to government figures. Endemic to the northeast African country, cholera used to come "in a cyclic manner every three years", the WHO's Sudan chief Dr Shible Sahbani told reporters. But now the country faces near-continuous outbreaks "due to the conflict, constraints in access and limited supplies," he said.

Sudan's rainy season is set to surge in the coming weeks, during which cholera cases balloon as millions lack access to clean water and the rains further impede access. The Sudanese government declared the latest outbreak this week in the flashpoint West Kordofan state, the dividing line between army and paramilitary zones of control. Constant deadly drone strikes launched by both sides have made commercial and aid access to the Kordofan region increasingly dangerous, and brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.

The WHO said the outbreak appears to be spreading, following reports of close to 300 suspected cases and three deaths in neighbouring North Kordofan, where the United Nations has warned the RSF is preparing to mount a deadly ground assault on state capital El-Obeid. Drone strikes on the city's power stations are already "disrupting access to lifesaving drinking water and electricity", UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Tuesday, warning of the risk of mass atrocities.

Three years into the war, which aid groups estimate may have killed more than 200,000 people, nearly all of the country's hospitals have been forced entirely or partially out of service. "Forty percent of health facilities are non-functional at all, and the remaining almost 60 percent are only partially functioning, meaning they are providing only a few services, or not enough to patients in the area," Sahbani said.

Until now, paid maternity leave in France has been just under four months for a first child, while fathers have been entitled to 28 days of leave following a birth. Under the new rules, which came into force on Wednesday, mothers and fathers can now share an additional leave of one or two months on top of existing entitlements. Parents will receive 70 percent of their net salary during the first month and 60 percent during the second.

The new provisions apply to parents of children born on or after January 1, 2026. Adoptive parents are also eligible. Fertility rates are declining across the European Union. France last year -- for the first time since the end of World War II -- recorded fewer babies born than people dying in the country, according to the National Statistics Institute. Feminist groups say the reform falls short and is unlikely to improve gender equality. They note that the lower-earning partner -- typically the woman -- is more likely to take the additional leave.

Khamenei, a spiritual figure for many Shias, was killed aged 86 at his compound in the centre of the Iranian capital on February 28, the first day of the war. His public funeral will begin on Saturday, with his body lying in state at the colossal complex in central Tehran that hosts major Friday prayers, official ceremonies and religious gatherings. The bodies of his slain relatives will also be presented.

The ceremonies are expected to draw between 15 and 20 million mourners, according to officials, which would make it the biggest state funeral in the country's history. Workers applied fresh paint across the venue, while a heavy police presence could be seen around the site. Footage aired by state television showed workers welding metal structures as cranes lifted construction materials around the complex.

With huge crowds expected, state television has been urging mourners to use public transport to reach the venue and issued public safety messages urging people to stay hydrated, as temperatures are set to rise during the funeral period. An AFP journalist saw some lanes on major roads across the capital already closed, adding to Tehran's notoriously heavy traffic. State television has also devoted much of its programming in recent days to documentaries on Khamenei's life.

A separate event for foreign heads of state is scheduled for Friday, according to Ali-Akbar Pourjamshidian, secretary of the funeral ceremony headquarters. He estimated that representatives from around 30 countries are expected to attend the funeral with people pouring in from neighbouring countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, speaking on state television, said "we have not extended an official invitation to Europe".

He accused European nations of standing "on the wrong side of history" and called their position on the US-Israeli war "truly disgraceful". Iran has meanwhile maintained its close ties with its ally Russia throughout the war. Tehran, as well as the holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, which will host later stages of the funeral and burial ceremonies, will observe public holidays while the events are underway.

Authorities have ordered public and private offices in Tehran to close from Saturday through Monday, while major traffic restrictions will make much of the city centre inaccessible to private vehicles. The ceremony also comes six months after nationwide protests that began over the rising cost of living before evolving into anti-government demonstrations. Across Tehran, funeral posters promised Iran a "bright future", while others displayed the ceremony's slogan: "We Must Rise".

Following the ceremonies in Tehran, Khamenei's body will be taken to the holy Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala before his burial on July 9 at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad, his birthplace. But at the main ceremony in Tehran, it remains unknown if Khamenei's son and successor Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public since his appointment, will be present. "The issue of the Supreme Leader's attendance is not within my authority or knowledge," said Pourjamshidian. "If there is any programme, it will certainly be announced by the Office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution."

Baqaei was referring to Iranian funds blocked abroad due to US sanctions, a key issue under discussion as part of an agreement between Tehran and Washington to end the Middle East war. Iran is making any agreement with the United States conditional on the release of a portion of these assets in order to bring a lasting end to the conflict. Among elements agreed under a so-called memorandum of understanding already signed is a US commitment to eventually "terminate all types of sanctions against" Tehran, and to "make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets" of Iran.

Iran has been subject to asset freezes and sweeping sanctions by the United States and other Western countries since its 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. While there is no official figure for the total amount of frozen Iranian assets, media reports have estimated the sum at between $100 billion and $123 billion.

The WHO also said there were problems with adequately registering casualties and tracking missing persons following the 7.5- and 7.2-magnitude earthquakes on Wednesday. "There's an increased risk now of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases" such as measles and diphtheria, said Lindmeier, due to low pre-earthquake vaccination coverage, as well as yellow fever, and other vector- and water-borne diseases, including malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika. He said Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez had reported that 38 hospitals had been affected by the twin earthquakes.

As of Saturday, the WHO has gathered data from 21 health facilities across Caracas La Guaira, Miranda and Falcon. Of those, three are in critical condition; six have structural damage or are only partially functional, while the others remain operational but under "significant strain", said Lindmeier. "Preliminary findings reveal chaotic service delivery and patient flow, marked by overcrowding; growing surgical backlogs especially under mainly trauma, orthopedics, and neurosurgery; breakdown in biosafety measures; and severely stressed staff," he said.

"Critical gaps include the collapse of forensic and morgue services, and inadequate casualty registration and tracking of missing persons." UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, warned that community tensions were rising in quake-hit areas due to constrained aid access. UNHCR said it needs an estimated $14.85 million to scale up protection, and provide core relief items and temporary shelter support for 30,000 earthquake-affected people over the next six months.

And Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was planning assistance for thousands of people left homeless. "As the acute search-and-rescue phase comes to an end, both the number of people killed and the needs of survivors continue to rise." It said psychological support services were being scaled up, as the needs in this field were "extremely high".

"The number could increase because several people are still missing." Interior Minister Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak had said late on Monday that nine people had been killed. Nartey said the victims included a married couple as well as a mother and child. The fire service said it had rescued more than 400 people, with crews pumping water from homes and assisting stranded residents in flood-hit areas on Tuesday.

"We managed to rescue a lot of people," Greater Accra Regional Fire Commander Rashid Kwame Nisawu told AFP. The main opposition New Patriotic Party criticised the authorities' handling of the disaster, saying it exposed weak governance and poor coordination. Mubarak acknowledged on Monday that the government's response could have been better. "We are really very sorry for the loss of life," he said in a television interview.

President John Mahama has ordered the immediate release of 300 million cedis (about $29 million) in contingency funds for relief efforts and flood mitigation measures. He also ordered the deployment of the military and police to support rescue operations. Mahama said 140 millimetres (5.5 inches) of rain fell on Accra in a single day -- "the highest experienced in several years" and nearly triple last year's high.

"That aspect of the problem is beyond our control because it is driven by changing climatic conditions," he said on X. But he also pointed to "the issue of human behaviour", pledging a crackdown on illegal structures blocking waterways after visiting flooded communities on Monday. Accra, home to more than five million people, experiences flooding almost every rainy season, but residents and experts say rapid urbanisation, clogged drains and construction on wetlands have made the capital increasingly vulnerable to severe storms.

The Ghana Meteorological Agency said rainfall had eased but warned saturated ground meant even lighter showers could trigger fresh flooding in low-lying areas.

The plan, due to be published later on Tuesday, will see increased money for drones and autonomous systems as the nature of modern warfare changes. "This record investment puts the security of the British public first, transforming our armed forces and giving them the funding and equipment they need to fight and defend our nation," Starmer said. The plan follows months of wrangling within the Labour government over the resources required to modernise Britain's fighting capabilities to counter greater aggression from countries such as Russia, and a less reliable United States.

Two defence ministers quit earlier this month in a row over the defence plan, including defence secretary John Healey who said it risked making Britain "less safe". The resignations highlighted Starmer's weakening authority. He announced on June 22 he was stepping down after MPs from his ruling Labour party switched their support to veteran politician Andy Burnham.

Burnham, the 56-year-old former Greater Manchester mayor, will take over as prime minister in mid-July if he faces no challengers for the Labour leadership. Starmer has called the defence plan "game-changing investment". "I am absolutely certain that this is the platform on which whoever comes after me can build," he told reporters on Tuesday.

The plan includes more than £5.0 billion for drones and autonomous systems over the next four years, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a press release. The investment will see capabilities ranging from "highly complex autonomous mine-hunting drones to small 'quadcopter' tactical drones, and low-cost 'kamikaze' one-way attack drones", the MoD added. The wars in Ukraine and Iran have highlighted the increased use of war-fighting robots.

Ukraine uses roughly 200,000 drones a month to defend itself from Russia's invasion, while at the height of the US-Israel-Iran conflict 700 offensive drones were being launched per day, the MoD said. US President Donald Trump has demanded that NATO members spend five percent of economic growth on defence by 2035 and become less reliant on Washington for security. Starmer said the defence plan will take defence spending to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product.

The £15 billion uplift is well short of the £28 billion that military leaders previously said was needed. The opposition Conservatives' defence spokesperson, James Cartlidge, said the plan was "too little, too late". "The plan is now almost a year overdue and only being rushed through because Keir Starmer is desperate for a legacy," he added. On Monday, the government announced that from the early 2030s Britain will replace its six ageing destroyer warships with at least six "hybrid" vessels that will "mix crewed and uncrewed capabilities".

Others had already been detained in the run-up to that day. Fresh protests broke out in the Mathare informal settlement on Tuesday over the disappearances. Wanjira Wanjiru, of the Mathare Social Justice Centre, said activists had planned to peacefully gather to demand the release of Maxwell Kiarie and Abdulaziz Molu, who were "abducted under unclear circumstances" over the past two weeks.

"The action underscores growing concern over enforced disappearances," she said in a statement. Images on social media appeared to show small groups clashing with officers, with tear gas seen rising between buildings. A sprawling informal settlement on Nairobi's east, Mathare is home to several hundred thousand people.

Two in 5 people in Europe (excluding Turkey) are still expected to face temperatures above 30C Tuesday as the heatwave scorches east after smothering western Europe last week. This heatwave would have been "virtually impossible" in June without climate change, World Weather Attribution group scientists said. Tuesday's affected populations are mainly located in the eastern and southern parts of the continent.

In Hungary, almost the entire population is expected to see temperatures reach 35C. Slovakia, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Croatia are also expected to see the thermometer climb above that threshold. In Spain and Italy, millions of people are also set to be hit with these high temperatures. The projected figures, calculated by AFP using a similar methodology to Austrian NGO Klimadashboard, "probably underestimates the number of people affected in densely populated urban areas", the NGO says on its European Heat Tracker website.

This is because this analysis does not fully capture urban heat-island effects -- when cities are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas, David Jablonski of Klimadashboard told AFP. To produce these figures, AFP combined forecasts issued at 0300 GMT from the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Germany's national weather service, with population-density data from the Joint Research Centre. Residents of a given area are counted if the model forecasts temperatures above 30C or 35C at that location at any point during the day on Tuesday.

Keiko Fujimori, 51, won the June 7 presidential runoff by the slimmest of margins, outpolling leftist Roberto Sanchez by fewer than 50,000 votes out of the more than 18 million ballots cast, the final results showed. "Each time we draw closer to starting on the path of order and hope for all Peruvians," she wrote on X after being proclaimed the winner, securing the top office on her fourth attempt. The election was fought on rising crime and chronic political instability best exemplified by the revolving door presidency.

With extortion gangs and contract killings on the rise, Fujimori vowed a strong hand, like that of her autocratic father. "She will govern well because she has good proposals. She has good ideas for doing something for Peru," said Jenny Martinez, a 40-year-old vendor in Lima. Peru was in "urgent need" of "very short-term results," said Ricardo Valdes, director of the Observatory on Crime and Violence. "This is going to prove very complex because these measures take time," he told AFP.

Alberto Fujimori, who ruled from 1990 to 2000, won praise for crushing Maoist rebels and taming hyperinflation but was later disgraced, exiled and jailed for corruption and crimes against humanity committed in the name of fighting what he considered terrorism. Leftist candidate Sanchez has yet to react to the announcement of the results. At one point, he took the lead in the vote count but Fujimori soon surpassed him.

Sanchez had warned he would not recognize a government headed by his rival, alleging administrative irregularities in the handling of the overseas portion of the vote. Bolivia's center-right leader Rodrigo Paz congratulated Fujimori "for the trust granted by the Peruvian people at the ballot boxes and for this new chapter that opens for the sister country," he wrote on X. Fujimori will take office on July 28 for a five-year term.

She is the latest in a string of Latin American leaders to ride a wave of right-wing sentiment and anger over rising crime to their country's top office -- the others including Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile. Fujimori acknowledged Monday her country is deeply divided. "We have the responsibility of listening to both sides. The doors for dialogue are open," she said, alluding to Sanchez and others on the left. Long seen as confrontational, Fujimori worked hard on the campaign trail to soften her image.

Poised and polished, with a penchant for trouser suits and a practiced smile, she grew up around heads of state. She became first lady at 19 after her mother publicly broke with Alberto Fujimori, and trained in the United States as a business administrator. For decades, the Fujimori brand has been a help and a hindrance, giving her instant recognition, a loyal voter base and deep political networks -- but also plenty of critics.

Millions of Peruvians harbor dark memories of her father's rule and refuse to vote for anyone named Fujimori, blocking her path to the presidency three times. Critics also blame her and her party for much of Peru's political instability, citing Fuerza Popular party's heavy influence and deal-making in Congress.

Umesh Dahal, director general at the Department of Livestock Services, said that cases had been recorded in 11 districts, including three in the Kathmandu Valley where the outbreak has been the most severe. Dahal said authorities suspect the disease was being spread by crows. "We are concerned, because crows have been found dead from infections," Dahal said. "Controlling their movement is extremely difficult, since they live in the wild." Nepal's first outbreak of bird flu was in January 2009.

The H5 strain has caused severe disease and high death rates in poultry and wild birds worldwide. No human deaths from bird flu have been reported in Nepal. The zoo in the capital Kathmandu was closed earlier in June for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. "Several birds and animals have been infected," zoo spokesperson Ganesh Koirala told AFP, saying civet cats and birds such as owls, vultures and pigeons had died. "The zoo has been closed for an indefinite time, until the virus is under control."

"Approximately 58,870 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed across the affected region" based on satellite radar data gathered on June 25, the day after the earthquakes, according to researchers Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. The duo were citing data from the European Space Agency's high-resolution radar imagery satellite Sentinel-1.

"This is a preliminary, rapid assessment. It reflects abrupt surface change consistent with damage," the researchers wrote, adding that the figure should only be read as an indicator and was not verified on the ground. National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez reported on Monday that 855 buildings have been damaged, including 189 "total collapses." NASA said that its satellites were "providing critical support, capturing imagery and data to help teams on the ground assess impacts and guide response efforts."

"IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!" Trump posted Monday on his Truth Social platform, without specifying the participants. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt later told Fox News that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner "will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week". Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on Monday said a delegation of the country's own experts would travel to Doha this week, but staunchly denied any sit-down with the Americans.

"We have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement," he said, noting that "over the coming days, we will not have any negotiation meetings with the US side at any level". Iran's exercise of control over the highly strategic strait has sparked repeated flare-ups, the latest of which came early Sunday when US Central Command said it had attacked 10 Iranian military targets over "continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping". Iran said it retaliated with strikes against US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The blockade remains a key sticking point in the negotiations. Iran and Oman border the strait, through which a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passed prior to the conflict, and Iran said Monday they held their first talks since the deal was struck. "During a trip to Muscat, the first meeting of the Joint Hormuz Committee was held," said Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi on X.

The strait comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, but under international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls. Iran warned on Sunday that any attempt by ships to bypass its preferred route through Hormuz would "increase tensions" in the Middle East. Iran insists ships transiting the strait pass through a corridor near its own shores. How the memorandum is to be implemented remains unclear, with Iran especially sensitive about the issue of de-mining.

In a joint statement following a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, Paris and Muscat said they would conduct joint de-mining operations. In response, Gharibabadi insisted that under the agreement only Iran was to conduct de-mining efforts. "The situation is sensitive and complex. We strongly advise France not to complicate it further with its provocations," Gharibabadi wrote.

Traffic slowed over the weekend after a vessel was struck while transiting the waterway, with 29 commodity vessels crossing Saturday and 12 transiting Sunday, according to data from maritime tracking firm Kpler. No vessels used a southern corridor through Omani waters according to data from Kpler, while another tracker, AXSMarine, found that 44 vessels had stopped publicly transmitting their position. The published text of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, announced this month, says Iran will define the future administration of the strait in dialogue with Oman and the other Gulf States, but "in line" with international law.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they were taking measures to control traffic in the strait and that vessels violating those measures would be dealt with more firmly than before. Mohammad Mokhber, adviser to Iran's supreme leader, wrote on X that as long as Iran managed the strait, Washington's "hegemonic dreams in the region will not be realised". Experts said there would likely be more Hormuz incidents.

For Iran, "a drawn-out negotiation accompanied by controlled pressure in the strait can work to its advantage", said H.A. Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank. Oil prices, which last week fell to pre-war levels, rose modestly on Monday. Lebanese state media on Monday said an Israeli strike hit the country's south, the stronghold of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, despite a framework accord signed by the two countries last week aimed at securing a peace deal.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March with rocket fire at Israel, triggering Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion. As part of the Washington-brokered deal, Hezbollah is to be disarmed, with the onus for doing so on the Lebanese army. Israeli leaders have said their troops will continue to occupy the south until then. The Iran-backed militant group has fiercely opposed the agreement.

The analysis is based on forecasts from the German meteorological service and 2025 population projections from the Joint Research Centre. A vast area surrounding the Carpathian Mountains and across the Balkans -- including almost all of Hungary, as well as Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Austria, southern Poland, and western Ukraine -- is expected to see temperatures climb above 35C on Monday.

Around 30 million people in Italy, particularly in the densely populated Po Valley, are expected to experience similar temperatures, while the southwest of the Iberian peninsula, accustomed to intense heat, will also be affected. The heat is subsiding in mainland France but health alerts remain in place, with three million people still set for 35C temperatures.

AFP uses a method similar to that of the Austrian NGO Klimadashboard to calculate the figures, cross-referencing population density with the weather forecast model from the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) -- Germany's national meteorological service -- published at 0300 GMT. Residents are counted if the model forecasts temperatures above 30C or 35C at their location at any point during the day. As the model has a resolution of approximately 6.5 km it does not fully capture urban heat-island effects, when cities are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas, David Jablonski of NGO Klimadashboard told AFP. Consequently, the analysis "likely underestimates the number of people affected in densely populated urban areas", the organisation notes on its "European Heat Tracker" website.

The rescue offered a glimmer of hope in an ongoing tragedy that has shaken a country already mired in an economic crisis, but tens of thousands of people were still unaccounted for as the critical 72-hour window for rescuing trapped victims passed. Millions more people were feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs after one of Latin America's most devastating earthquake disasters.

Some 774 buildings were badly damaged in back-to-back quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck on Wednesday evening, including 189 buildings that have totally collapsed, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said on Sunday. In the coastal town of Tucacas, rescuers were digging for people trapped in the pancaked layers and rubble of a collapsed building complex.

Luis Salas, 27, who joined the rescue efforts, told AFP that "the hardest part was when we felt hope in the tunnels we went into -- crawling, clearing debris, working with all our heart, with great faith -- and when we reached our targets, we found them lifeless." Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters define the narrow window for rescuing the living. After that the search usually becomes one of recovering bodies.

In the capital's San Bernardino neighborhood, volunteers clambered over a collapsed building, using drills to break up concrete and forming lines to remove rubble by hand. In Chacao, another area of Caracas, large electronic screens on a building usually used for advertising were showing the faces of missing people.

On Sunday, Rodriguez said the death toll -- which was still expected to rise -- had reached 1,450 people, with at least 3,150 others injured. In one of the worst-hit areas, Hector Aguilera came to search for four family members buried in the rubble in the coastal city of La Guaira. "We don't have the support to get our family out -- we can't do it alone. They are buried there: we know they are dead, but here we are," he said.

Even as rescue efforts continued, public anger has mounted in some areas. Eduardo Cardozo, a volunteer in Tucacas, said it was "frustrating" to know that some victims could have been saved "if they'd been searched for in time." In La Guaira state's Tanaguarena area, one man urged soldiers to pick up picks and shovels: "The country needs you. Put down your weapon."

Outbreaks of looting have hit La Guaira city, much of which now lies in rubble. Pharmacies, supermarkets and other businesses were ransacked, said residents, some of whom complained of the slow and meager post-quake aid coming from authorities. Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, said on Sunday that temporary camps were being set up for people who had lost their homes.

"At the same time, work begins on planning projects that will allow new homes to be built in a very short time," she said. Rodriguez praised rescuers on Sunday, saying "we have rescued people who are still alive, and therefore these efforts will not be suspended." "We always hold onto hope."

Cardozo, the Tucacas volunteer, remained hopeful: "We're still here waiting. Let's see if we can get someone else out." Twenty-four nations have sent 521 tons of supplies, 86 units with dogs trained to locate people trapped beneath the rubble and more than 2,700 search-and-rescue personnel, according to Rodriguez. US helicopters ferried in aid, and 230 more US military personnel were arriving to help expand airport capacity and reopen a key seaport to boost relief efforts, the US Southern Command said.

The United States -- which captured Venezuela's former president Nicolas Maduro in a military raid on Caracas in January -- had already sent a 250-strong disaster response team. The UN migration agency said that based on population and damage data, up to 6.76 million people could be affected, and would require shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare and essential relief items. Venezuela's worst earthquakes in more than a century have come after the oil-rich country endured more than a decade of economic collapse.

The crisis has hollowed out hospitals and public services, driving millions to leave the country. The United Nations estimated $6.7 billion in physical damage -- equivalent to six percent of Venezuela's GDP. 

The supplies will be delivered "as soon as possible", while Beijing also provides Caracas with satellite images of affected areas to assist in rescue efforts, Guo said. "China stands ready to provide further support for Venezuela as the situation evolves," he said.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping sent a message of condolences to Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday, saying that China would provide disaster relief and reconstruction assistance. Eight Chinese nationals have been confirmed dead following the quakes, while one remains missing, Chinese state media reported on Monday.

"During a trip to Muscat, the first meeting of the Joint Hormuz Committee was held," said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi on X, without specifying the date. "While reviewing the current issues related to the strait, we exchanged views on the future management," he added.

Hormuz is a narrow stretch of water separating Iran and Oman that is only about 30 kilometres (18 miles) wide. The future of the strait has been a key sticking point during talks between Tehran and Washington to end their conflict.

Iran is considering imposing "services fees" that did not exist before the war, while the United States opposes any charges, arguing Hormuz is an international waterway. In recent days, Oman has indicated an ambiguous stance on the issue. Last Tuesday, following a visit by Iranian officials, Oman and Iran announced in a joint statement that they were examining the costs associated with the future management of the strait.

But later in the week Oman indicated that no "passage fees" were planned and announced the opening of a "temporary maritime corridor" close to its coast that it said was coordinated with the UN. Iran responded by saying the only authorised passage was a corridor skirting its own coastline. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Sunday that any attempt to use alternative routes risked "escalating tensions" in the region.

It followed a flare-up in hostilities in which Iran struck a commercial ship in the strait and the United States responded with strikes on Iranian coastal targets. The memorandum of understanding reached between Tehran and Washington stipulates that "Iran will engage in a dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in consultation with other Persian Gulf littoral states, in accordance with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of the coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz".

The text says passage through the strait was to be toll-free "for 60 days only" after the signing of the deal. It remains unclear what will happen after that period. 

"The attacks carried out last night resulted in the martyrdom of 36 civilians, including women and children, while 163 others sustained injuries," Hamdullah Fitrat posted on his X account.

The rescue offered a glimmer of hope in an ongoing tragedy that has shaken a country already mired in an economic crisis, but tens of thousands of people were still reported missing and the critical 72-hour window for rescuing trapped victims following a natural disaster has now passed. Millions more people were feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs after one of Latin America's most devastating earthquake disasters.

Rescue teams from the United States, Mexico and elsewhere scrambled to save people as desperate residents dug by hand for relatives trapped in the pancaked layers and rubble of collapsed apartments. Some 774 buildings were badly damaged in back-to-back quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck on Wednesday evening, including 189 buildings that have totally collapsed, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said Sunday.

In one of the worst-hit areas, the coastal city of La Guaira, Hector Aguilera came to search for four family members buried in the rubble. "We don't have the support to get our family out -- we can't do it alone. They are buried there: we know they are dead, but here we are," he said. "We have no hope left; all I have are memories." Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters define the narrow window for rescuing the living. After that the search usually becomes one of recovering bodies.

In the San Bernardino neighborhood of Caracas, volunteers clambered over a collapsed building, using drills to break up concrete and forming lines to remove rubble by hand. In Chacao, another area of the capital, large electronic screens on a building usually used for advertising were showing the faces of missing people in a bid to help find them. On Sunday, Rodriguez reported 1,450 dead -- a toll expected to rise -- with 3,150 people injured.

Even as rescue efforts continued apace, outbreaks of looting hit La Guaira, much of which now lies in rubble after Wednesday's disaster. Pharmacies, supermarkets and other businesses were ransacked, said residents, some of whom complained of the slow and meager post-quake aid coming from authorities. Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez on Sunday praised rescuers for still pulling survivors from the ruins.

"Today we have rescued people who are still alive, and therefore these efforts will not be suspended," she said. "We always hold onto hope." US helicopters ferried in aid, and 230 more US military personnel were arriving to help expand airport capacity and reopen a key seaport to boost relief efforts, the US Southern Command said Sunday. The United States -- which captured Venezuela's former president Nicolas Maduro in a military raid on Caracas in January -- had already sent a 250-strong disaster response team.

But the prospect for rescuing more survivors has dwindled. A Salvadoran rescue worker who declined to give his name put it this way: "At this point, they are probably dead bodies. Thanks to God maybe we can find people still alive." Exasperation has boiled over in some locales where residents claim that authorities have not done enough to rescue earthquake victims.

"The country needs you. Put down your weapon," one man shouted to soldiers in the Tanaguarena area of hard-hit La Guaira state, urging them to pick up picks and shovels instead. Facing public outrage at the response by local officials, Rodriguez thanked other countries for the outpouring of aid. Twenty-four nations have sent 521 tons of supplies, 86 units with dogs trained to locate people trapped beneath the rubble and more than 2,700 search-and-rescue personnel, she said. The UN migration agency said that based on population and damage data, up to 6.76 million people could be affected, and would require shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare and essential relief items.

Venezuela's worst earthquakes in more than a century have come after the oil-rich country endured more than a decade of economic collapse. The crisis has hollowed out hospitals and public services, driving millions to leave the country. The United Nations estimated $6.7 billion in physical damage -- equivalent to six percent of Venezuela's GDP. On Sunday Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado, currently in exile, announced she will return "very soon" to her homeland.

"The time has come," she told US broadcaster Fox News. "We need to be together, to embrace, to grieve and mourn together, but also to give each other strength at this difficult time."

The exchanges have underscored the fragility of a Pakistan-brokered agreement to end the conflict that has killed thousands and snarled the flow of oil shipments through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Although a ceasefire took effect in April, sporadic violence has flared up in the Gulf region, with traffic in the strait serving as a regular flashpoint.

"Technical talks are slated to continue on all areas of the MOU," a US official told AFP in an email late Sunday, referring to the memorandum of understanding struck between Washington and Tehran.

"Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely" in and around the Strait of Hormuz, the official added.

Iran has not immediately commented on the US statement, and the US official did not confirm a US media report that talks would resume Tuesday in Qatar.

Tehran has insisted on controlling passage through the vital strait, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas travel in peacetime. It did not have that control before the war.

Iran's top diplomat warned Sunday that any attempt by ships to bypass its preferred route through Hormuz would "increase tensions" in the Middle East.

The strait comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, but under customary international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls.

Nevertheless, Iran prevented most ships from using the narrow waterway during the war, granting it enormous economic leverage which it appears reluctant to give up.

Tehran's enforcement of its control has sparked repeated flare-ups with Washington, the latest of which came early Sunday, when US Central Command said it had attacked 10 Iranian military targets over "continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping".

Iran said it retaliated with strikes against US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. Both Kuwait and Bahrain denounced the Iranian attacks.

- 'Hegemonic dreams' -

Iran presently insists ships transiting the strait pass through a corridor near its own shores, though this week dozens of vessels have travelled along the opposite side of the waterway, hugging the Omani coast.

"Any attempt to adopt new or separate arrangements compared to what is underway by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will only lead to more complicated situations and delays in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and will increase the tensions," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

The published text of the memorandum says Iran will define the future administration of the strait in dialogue with Oman and the other Gulf States, but "in line" with international law.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they were taking measures to control traffic in the strait and that vessels violating those measures would be dealt with more firmly than before.

Mohammad Mokhber, adviser to Iran's supreme leader, wrote on X that as long as Iran managed the strait, Washington's "hegemonic dreams in the region will not be realised".

Experts said there would likely be more Hormuz incidents.

For Iran, "a drawn-out negotiation accompanied by controlled pressure in the strait can work to its advantage", said HA Hellyer of Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank.

While the tit-for-tat exchanges have largely been without reported casualties, Qatar's interior ministry said one of its citizens was killed aboard a boat by shrapnel from "military operations in the area".

- Israel strikes Lebanon -

The Israeli army destroyed an extensive tunnel in southern Lebanon on Sunday, with Lebanese state media reporting strikes in the area and Iran-backed Hezbollah saying it reserves the right to respond to those attacks.

"The tunnel, stretching more than 200 metres and reaching a depth of over 25 metres, contained hundreds of weapons as well as several launch shafts intended to target the State of Israel," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement.

In response to the attacks, Hezbollah said it "reiterates that what the enemy has done is a blatant violation of the ceasefire to which it has adhered until now, and that it is monitoring and tracking these violations, and reserves its right to defend its homeland and its people".

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war in early March, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in support of Iran, and Israel responded with heavy airstrikes and a ground invasion.

Tehran has insisted on Lebanon being part of the wider peace deal for the Middle East war.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, allowed Moscow to launch its 2022 Ukraine invasion through Belarus but has denied plans for direct involvement in the war. Belarus, which borders NATO's eastern flank, hosts Russia's latest nuclear-capable missile, the Oreshnik.

China meanwhile has presented itself as a neutral party throughout the conflict, although Kyiv's allies have long accused Beijing of secretly helping Moscow. Lukashenko last visited China in September 2025, when he attended a grand military parade in Beijing and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin.

But Trump warned that he would not let Washington, which he claimed to have made a "Safe and Prestigious Community" again with the deployment of National Guard troops, "be destroyed by a Communist adherent." Trump recently has ramped up his use of the word "communist" to describe political foes, including referring to three winners of Democratic primaries last week in New York City backed by leftist Mayor Zohran Mamdani as "godless communists."

Like Mamdani, Lewis George identifies as a democratic socialist, not a communist. In a lengthy second post, Trump bragged about steps he has taken to beautify Washington, including resurfacing the bottom of the Reflecting Pool with an "American flag blue" coating used in swimming pools. But since its installation, the coating has begun to peel off and algae has turned the water green -- a persistent problem over the years.

Repeating past claims, Trump accused "Criminal, Radical Left Vandals" of cutting the bottom and ripping up sections of coating. He has not provided evidence for his allegations, but the National Park Service told AFP last week that five individuals had been arrested for vandalism. Trump said the pool, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, would be drained and repaired after the July 4th holiday marking 250 years of American independence.

The president went on to say he planned to renovate a "dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous" golf course in Washington called East Potomac Golf Links, located on an island in the Potomac River. After touring the course Sunday, Trump said "it was determined that, on this fantastic site, with water and unparalleled views of D.C.'s Monuments, we will build one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World." When renovations are complete, East Potomac could host major tournaments including the US Open, the former real estate developer said.

The golf course plan is the latest example of Trump's attempts to impose his personal imprint on the capital's architecture. Since his second term began, Trump has torn down the White House's East Wing with plans to build an enormous ballroom and proposed a huge arch on the far side of the Potomac, near Arlington National Cemetery for fallen American soldiers.

"We are ready to continue negotiations and ready to continue negotiations and discuss all the details," he added. Putin was responding to a question on the state of Russian-US relations after the G7 summit in France, when US President Donald Trump said Russia should "make a deal with Ukraine". On Wednesday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was doing well in the war against Russia, having previously said he lacked the "cards" to win.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported several strikes Sunday, including on the southern city of Nabatieh, with the Lebanese health ministry saying two people were wounded by an Israeli stun grenade in the south. "The tunnel, stretching more than 200 metres and reaching a depth of over 25 metres, contained hundreds of weapons as well as several launch shafts intended to target the State of Israel and its civilians," Katz and Netanyahu said in a joint statement.

"Israel informed the United States and the US representative in Lebanon in advance of the destruction of the infrastructure." An AFP reporter in the coastal city of Tyre, situated about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the location of the detonation near the village of Majdal Zoun, saw smoke rising in the distance. He said residents in towns south of Tyre left after hearing reports in the Lebanese media that Israel might detonate nearby.

In response to the attacks on Sunday, Hezbollah said it "reiterates that what the enemy has done is a blatant violation of the ceasefire to which it has adhered until now, and that it is monitoring and tracking these violations, and reserves its right to defend its homeland and its people". The Israeli army said one of its soldiers "fell in combat" in southern Lebanon, and later said it killed a "Hezbollah terrorist" who had clashed with its forces.

Hezbollah drew the country into the Middle East war in March with rocket fire aimed at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground invasion. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told his US counterpart Donald Trump on Saturday that his country "would assume its responsibilities" in implementing the agreement. The deal makes any Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese land conditional on Beirut disarming Hezbollah by creating "pilot zones" that the Lebanese military will take over.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal historic for his country and a blow to Tehran. Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz has insisted troops will stay in Lebanon so long as Hezbollah remains armed. Hezbollah strongly opposed the talks with Israel from the start and rejects the agreement. Leader Naim Qassem said on Saturday that the group would treat the deal as "null and void" and described it as "a surrender of sovereignty".

On Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw signs reading "Lebanon first" being burned along Beirut's airport road, which borders the city's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, after previous billboards saying "thank you Iran" were removed. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said Sunday that what "the authorities have done amounts to sedition aimed at pushing the country into chaos and shifting the conflict from one with the enemy to an internal conflict".

Lebanese Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri said the deal would "not pass" in its current form, calling it a dictate that does not preserve "Lebanon's rights", vowing to confront it politically and warning against internal strife. "It is ten times worse than the May 17, 1983 agreement," he added, referring to the last time Lebanon and Israel signed a peace deal, which was then cancelled after pressure from Syria and its Lebanese allies. Hezbollah repeatedly asked Lebanese authorities to link themselves to Iran's negotiations to end its war with the US, while Tehran has insisted any ceasefire for the Middle East war should include Lebanon.

In a phone conversation with Berri, the Iranian parliament speaker and head of Tehran's negotiating delegation Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said "our goal is to end the war in Lebanon, return the refugees to their homes and remove the occupation and the withdrawal of the Zionist regime from the Lebanese territory".

"As for strikes against critical infrastructure in general, and energy infrastructure in particular, of course these attacks on our infrastructure facilities create problems, that's obvious," said Putin. "Right now we're observing a certain shortage, but it's not critical." The main task now, he said, was to increase Russian anti-aircraft defence capacity and to ensure fuel supplies, particularly to Crimea.

In the interview, Putin also said he was expecting a team of US negotiators to come to Moscow to discuss ending the Ukraine war, once Washington was no longer so preoccupied with Iran and the Middle East conflict. The authorities in Russian-annexed Crimea on Friday declared an "emergency situation" over fuel shortages and power cuts triggered by Ukrainian attacks on its logistics chains and oil facilities. Russia annexed the territory from Ukraine in 2014, a move not recognised by the vast majority of countries.

A few hours earlier, in a speech to the United Russia party congress, Putin had vowed to ensure security and overcome challenges as Ukraine steps up its retaliatory strikes inside Russia. "Yes, we see the problems, we are aware of them and are responding to them, but we will certainly ensure the security of both the country and our citizens, as well as the inviolability of Russia's borders," Putin told party members.

"We will undoubtedly overcome all the challenges facing us today, including terrorist attacks on our territory and infrastructure facilities," he added. Putin's speech came hours after a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person in Russia's southern Krasnodar region and sparked a fire in a refinery, according to regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the hit part of the "operations that weaken Russia's ability to wage this war".

"The Slavyansk oil refinery in the Krasnodar region was hit -- about 300 kilometres from the frontline. We also reached a refinery in the Yaroslavl region, approximately 700 kilometres from our border," Zelensky said on X Sunday. Last week, another Ukrainian attack caused a major fire at a refinery southeast of Moscow, shrouding the capital's suburbs in plumes of thick black smoke.

Turning to the possibility of talks to end the war with Ukraine, Putin said that "we expect that after all the events are over, after the active phase on the Iranian track has passed, we will see the arrival of those representatives of the US administration with whom we have already met in Moscow repeatedly." This part of his interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin was not published by the Kremlin but cited by Russian news agencies. Zarubin also published it on the Telegram platform.

"We are ready to continue negotiations and ready to continue negotiations and discuss all the details," he added. Putin was responding to a question on the state of Russian-US relations after the G7 summit in France, when US President Donald Trump said Russia should "make a deal with Ukraine". On Wednesday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was doing well in the war against Russia, having previously said he lacked the "cards" to win. Analysts say Ukraine is increasingly holding up well on the battlefield but its cities are still the target of deadly Russian attacks in a conflict that has now lasted longer than World War I.

"What this does do is to provide certainty for Australia that there will be no foreign military base," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters after signing the deal in Canberra with his Vanuatu counterpart, Jotham Napat.

Under that agreement, Tehran committed to allow safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz while Washington agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports. "We decided to stop all the kinetic activity," a senior US official told media outlet Axios on Sunday, using a military term for strikes.

A second American official told Axios both sides will stand down "for now" and that "vessels can move freely" as talks are set to continue. Both US officials and a third source with knowledge confirmed Tuesday's meeting in Qatar, Axios said. CNN reported similar comments from a Trump administration official, saying the two sides will "stand down for now" and that they have agreed to meet in Doha on Tuesday for further discussions.

US President Donald Trump has repeated past threats of military action if the Iranian strikes continue, saying on Saturday that Iran would "no longer exist" if the US is "forced" to resume the war. The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

"The assailants, after a blast at main gate of the camp, attempted to breach the perimeter security, however, their nefarious designs were decisively foiled by the vigilant and resolute response of Rangers troops," which left three attackers dead and another wounded. The statement added that three Rangers died and four more were wounded. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is a militant group often linked to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Attacks, many claimed by the TTP and its affiliates, have escalated in recent years in Pakistan.

Islamabad has accused Afghanistan of providing a safe haven to militants since the Afghan Taliban returned to governing the country in 2021, which Kabul has repeatedly denied. The armed forces statement said Pakistan will "continue at full pace to wipe out menace of foreign sponsored and supported terrorism from the country", and vowed retaliation.

AFP journalists heard heavy gunfire in Karachi on Saturday night, as armed service personnel cordoned off streets around the Mosamiat Chowrangi area of the city, the capital of Sindh province. Paramilitary forces were seen wrapped in ammunition as others moved through the streets in the back of pick-up trucks. The Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said he had called for a detailed report into the incident. Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said on X he express his "heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families of the martyrs, and prays for the speedy recovery of the injured personnel".

"A few minutes ago an 11-year-old boy was rescued alive in Caraballeda. At this moment, every life is a source of hope for Venezuela," she said in a post on X, accompanied by a video of the rescue.

AFP journalists heard explosions in the city and saw flashes in the sky. "As of now, the number of wounded in the overnight attack has risen to two," head of the local military administration, Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram. Several fires broke out in the Darnytsky district as a result of the attack, Tkachenko said earlier.

"There is a fire near a residential building, at another address a vehicle service station is on fire. A non-residential building is also on fire," he said. It is unclear if they have been extinguished. Russian strikes a day earlier in Dnipropetrovsk in central-eastern Ukraine and the northern Sumy region killed two people. The attack also comes after Ukraine launched attacks on Volgograd and Belgorod in Russia's southwest, and Horlivka, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which is controlled by Moscow.

Three people were killed in the attacks, regional authorities said. Ukraine has also stepped up its strikes in recent months, which it describes as retaliatory, against Russia and the territories occupied by Moscow.

Video footage shared on local Telegram channels showed security forces in heavy vehicles such as tanks in the Green Zone, including a clip of them inside a compound and, in one instance, inside a house. A security official told AFP, under the condition of anonymity, that a "raid targeted several politicians over financial corruption, per judicial orders," adding that the operation involved anti-terrorism forces and the military. No official statement has been released as yet.

The source did not provide further details or names of officials reportedly arrested. The large-scale raids were aimed at arresting senior Iraqi officials, with several names circulating in local media reports. Iraq's new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi vowed to fight corruption and mismanagement that has plagued Iraq for decades.

Outside the match at the Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood, 35-year-old physical therapist Ian Bjerke wore overalls adorned with the Stars and Stripes. "That just shows my commitment to this team," he joked of his sartorial choice. "I'm usually more into baseball, and I have to say, it's been fun to watch! The game is exciting, it's a lot more fast-paced." Bjerke, a relative newcomer to football fandom, said there were still improvements to be made for Americans to fully embrace soccer.

"We could do some better singing, though. I feel like so many countries have better songs," he said. Nearby, business consultant Matt Movahhed described the US team as more exciting than past iterations. "They play a more offensive style, and I think that makes me want to pay attention more -- and it probably has the same effect on other Americans," added Movahhed, 40. Off the pitch, feel-good viral moments have also increased engagement with the tournament.

Legions of "Tartan Army" fans from Scotland roaming around Boston and Miami in kilts while adorning statues with orange traffic cones and drinking entire bars dry won over many locals. Thousands of Norwegian fans took over Citi Field stadium, the New York home of the Mets baseball franchise, performing their noisy trademark Viking rowing for the locals who included the team's mascots Mr and Mrs Met who joined in. And in Kansas City, an army of Netherlands fans flocked to downtown for an "Oranje Fanwalk", creating a sea of orange captured on timelapse.

- 'More than a sporting event' -

"The cultural aspects that make it more than a sporting event appeal to people everywhere," said Amy Bass, a professor of sports studies at Manhattanville University. "People are obsessing about the matches, sure, but they're also following 'Freddy' the German fan as he shares his experiences across the American South, eating at gas stations and discovering country music." US fan Dante Drishti, 25, who played football throughout school, said it was "great for Americans to immerse themselves in all those cultures and for visitors to immerse themselves in the American culture."

"That's what the Word Cup is all about! It's also an opportunity for Americans to discover soccer culture," Drishti said as he made his way to the Ecuador-Germany game at the MetLife stadium on Thursday. But fellow game-goer Bryan Flaherty, 32, from Philadelphia suggested the hype would not last, insisting "it's kind of typical American behavior to jump on the World Cup bandwagon."

"In three weeks, 75 percent will have forgotten all about it," he said. The commercial impact of the tournament may not be so quickly forgotten by big business. The US opening match against Paraguay was watched by almost 25 million people according to NBC Sports, more than the average 19.6 million people who watched the first four games of basketball's NBA Finals.

US cultural icons including Coca-Cola and McDonald's meal deals have adopted FIFA World Cup branding that will be seen in towns and cities nationwide. "The commercial aspects matter. FIFA ensures that it is a sporting event but also a commercial spectacle," said Bass, the sports professor. "Now we need to see how deeply embedded it is in American life."

He said that a "fire also broke out at an oil refinery in the city, and a power line and gas pipe were damaged". The Slavyansk-on-Kuban oil refinery, one of the largest in southern Russia and part of the Slavyansk EKO group, is located near the Crimean peninsula, which is occupied by Russia and has already been attacked several times by Ukraine. A total of 213 Ukrainian drones were intercepted in more than a dozen regions of Russia, including Moscow, the Ministry of Defence said.

Ukraine has targeted Russian energy infrastructure throughout the war in retaliation for Russian strikes on its civilians and energy infrastructure and has stepped up efforts in recent months to hinder Moscow's financial capabilities in its war effort. Russia has targeted Ukraine with near-daily strikes since the launch of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

"The endless media attacks I've endured have led me to ask him to stand by me this time so that I can bring this chapter to a close, in order to protect myself and my family," said Adorni, who denies the allegations against him. Earlier this month, Adorni told LN+ channel in an interview that for years, as Argentina suffered chronically high inflation, he and his wife had saved "under the table, like all Argentines."

Over years of spiralling prices, Argentines traded their battered local pesos for dollars, which they often hoarded at home, in cash. The president has maintained unwavering support for his political ally.

The Argentine leader's sister Karina Milei -- another of his close confidantes -- thanked Adorni for his work following his resignation. "We know about the difficult -- and undeserved -- moment that you and your family have been going through for months, and we support your decision with respect, regretting that the circumstances have been this way," she said on X. Adorni had already stepped down from his informal role as presidential spokesperson last week.

Both countries chipped in to build it in less than a year in the southern state of Chiapas. The plant is designed to yield 10 million sterile flies per week once it is running at full capacity. A similar plant is operating in Panama.

Mexico detected its first case of the fly in 2024 in Chiapas. The United States had eradicated the parasite in 1966 but Florida had an outbreak in 2016 that mainly hit deer. The United States killed off the pest largely with this same technique of releasing millions of sterile flies to mate with wild females. Early this month the US Agriculture Department said a case was detected in Texas.

Last summer the United States banned livestock trade with Mexico over reports that cattle there tested positive for the pest. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes of warm-blooded animals, where they hatch into larvae and feed on flesh. Left untreated, the infestation can be deadly and the parasites can quickly spread.

Lyons, Noem and Gregory Bovino, the former head of Customs and Border Control, were the face of Trump's mass deportation campaign when it was at its most visible and controversial point some months ago. The proposed new head of ICE has been helping wage that campaign, Noem's successor Markwayne Mullin wrote in a post on X.

"Lance is coming straight from the operational field where he ran large scale operations and worked alongside state and federal partners to remove illegal aliens from Oklahoma," Mullin said. Individuals nominated to head federal agencies are supposed to be confirmed by the Senate, but that has not happened with ICE since 2017. Since then, its leaders have served in that capacity as interim directors. "It has been 11 years since @DHSgov has had a Senate-confirmed @ICEgov Director. The Senate must quickly confirm Lance Schroyer," Mullin wrote.

Many Americans view the Trump administration's anti-immigration drive as excessive. The controversy soared when federal agents killed two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as they protested enforcement raids in the northern city of Minneapolis. Deportations continue, with Americans who disagree with them now often focusing their ire on sprawling detention facilities where detainees are held.

It also comes after Ukraine launched attacks on Volgograd and Belgorod in Russia's southwest, and Horlivka, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which is controlled by Moscow. Three people were killed in the attacks, regional authorities said. Russia has targeted Ukraine with near-daily strikes since the launch of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Ukraine has also stepped up its strikes in recent months, which it describes as retaliatory, against Russia and the territories occupied by Moscow.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they were taking measures to control traffic in the vital Strait of Hormuz and that violating vessels would be dealt with more firmly than before. The only authorised passage by Tehran passes through a corridor running along Iran's coast. The Guards said they had also carried out retaliatory strikes in Kuwait and Bahrain. In a statement, they said the strikes "destroyed eight important US military facilities at the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait and at the Fifth Fleet naval base in Port Salman in Bahrain".

"Any enemy aggression, whatever the pretext, even against insignificant targets... will have a crushing response," the Guards said. Air raid sirens rang out twice in Bahrain on Sunday, according to the Gulf nation's interior ministry. A memorandum of understanding was reached in mid-June under Pakistan's mediation, aimed at putting a lasting end to the war. The text signed by the United States and Iran said both countries, and their respective allies, were "not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other".

- Iran would 'no longer exist' -

US President Donald Trump said Saturday that Iran would "no longer exist" if the United States is "forced" to resume the war. The threat came after US forces said they struck "multiple" Iranian targets Saturday in another tit-for-tat response to attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. "United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!" Trump wrote.

- Shipping lanes under fire -

US Central Command said Saturday's strikes were in response to an Iranian drone attack on the Panama-flagged oil tanker "Kiku," which was carrying some two million barrels of crude. The US military said its operation targeted "surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities". Iranian media reported several explosions in the Sirik and Qeshm areas of southern Iran.

Washington had carried out similar strikes on Friday, saying they were a response to an earlier Iranian attack on another vessel, the "Ever Lovely". Israel, meanwhile, launched strikes in Lebanon as Hezbollah's leader Naim Qassem rejected a deal to end that conflict, which has also threatened to derail the wider US-Iran peace effort. Iran called "these brutal attacks... a blatant violation" of the interim truce deal.

Iran has warned vessels not to enter or leave the Gulf through the strait without permission, but ships have continued to move, some using a route not authorised by Tehran. In the memorandum of understanding Iran had previously agreed "safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa" in the strait. H.A. Hellyer, of London think tank the Royal United Services Institute, said "Iran is likely to continue calibrated, low-level coercive activity in and around the Strait of Hormuz... to create persistent pressure on international shipping without triggering a wider conflict."

He said November's US midterm elections for Congress give Washington "incentives for a quicker agreement" while, for Iran, "a drawn-out negotiation accompanied by controlled pressure in the strait can work to its advantage".

- Lebanon threats -

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war in early March, when militant group Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in support of Iran. That provoked an Israeli invasion and fighting that has also undermined the US-Iran ceasefire. Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement on Friday supported by the US aimed at securing long-term peace between the two countries. Hezbollah's chief Qassem rejected the deal a day later, calling it "humiliating, shameful and a surrender of sovereignty."

He instead called for the full implementation of Washington's deal with Tehran, which includes an end to the fighting in Lebanon. Hezbollah has repeatedly called for a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, but the Washington deal does not appear to provide for that.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israeli troops will remain in the so-called security zone they occupy in southern Lebanon, with civilians prevented from returning until Hezbollah is disarmed. The Israeli premier called the deal historic on Saturday and "a blow to Iran and Hezbollah." But Netanyahu's far-right security minister Itamar Ben Gvir denounced it as "a big mistake" and insisted that only Israeli forces were capable of disarming Hezbollah.

"Kuwaiti air defenses are currently engaging hostile missile and drone attacks. Everyone is urged to adhere to the safety and security instructions issued by the relevant authorities," the army wrote on X.

In Bahrain, which hosts a major US naval base, air raid sirens went off the interior ministry said, calling on residents to "remain calm and head to the nearest safe place".

The Guards "destroyed eight important US military facilities at the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait and at the Fifth Fleet naval base in Port Salman in Bahrain," they said in a statement. "Any enemy aggression, whatever the pretext, even against insignificant targets... will have a crushing response," the Guards added.

A memorandum of understanding was reached in mid-June under Pakistan's mediation, aimed at putting a lasting end to the war. The text signed by the United States and Iran said both countries, and their respective allies, were "not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other".

The US military bombed Iran for a second consecutive day on Saturday, in what it said was retaliation for an Iranian attack on a tanker in the vital Strait of Hormuz. In the memorandum of understanding Iran agreed "safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa" in the strait. The Guards said on Sunday measures had been taken to control traffic through the strait and that violating ships would be dealt with more firmly than before.

They had also warned on Thursday against any passage through the strait without their permission. It came after Oman, which shares the opposite shore with Iran, flagged an alternative route. The only passage authorized by Iran is through a corridor running along its coast at this time.

Authorities in the capital's Chaoyang District said in a statement shared on WeChat that "a single-engine, two-seat light aircraft crashed into a high-rise building" at 5:55 pm (0955 GMT) on Friday. "The only person on board was the pilot, who died, and 13 people were injured at the scene," said the statement, the first official comment about the incident. It said authorities were "conducting further investigation into the incident".

Video footage taken by a witness from a nearby building showed fire trucks blasting water at small flames on the ground, as well as what appeared to be part of the plane beside the building. Police and ambulances swarmed the area, with officers blocking people from taking photos. The CITIC Tower, which has 108 floors above ground and seven below, is able to accommodate 12,000 office workers. China imposes strict restrictions over its airspace, particularly around Beijing's urban area, citing public security.

Twenty-four protesters were arrested, Fatkul Khoir, a coordinator at rights group KontraS Surabaya, told AFP on Saturday. Police questioned them until 3:30 am on Saturday but did not charge them, he said. Surabaya police chief Luthfie Sulistiawan told reporters late Friday that officers had taken "firm actions" to push back protesters after some threw projectiles.

He said there had been "dozens" of arrests but did not specify the number. Protests erupted in several Indonesian cities this month after Prabowo's administration raised prices of non-subsidised gasoline by around 30 percent, seeking to ease budgetary pressures as the Middle East war weighs on global oil supplies.

Thousands of students took to the streets in the capital Jakarta to oppose both the fuel price hikes and to demand a halt to the multi-billion-dollar free meals scheme. The initiative has been a cornerstone of Prabowo's political agenda but has received widespread criticism for being wasteful and linked to mass food poisonings. It has since been partly suspended. Indonesia's biggest unrest since Prabowo took office in 2024 came in August and September, when nationwide protests took place initially over lavish perks for lawmakers.

However, they spiralled into an outburst of anger against security forces after a police vehicle ran over a delivery driver and killed him. Rights groups said those protests resulted in 10 deaths and thousands of arrests, though most people have since been released.

The Chinese and Russian aircraft did not violate South Korean airspace, it said. An air defence identification zone is not sovereign airspace but a buffer area where countries identify approaching aircraft for security purposes. Military aircraft are generally expected to notify the relevant country before entering its air defence zone, although such notification is not legally required.

China and Russia did not comment immediately about the incident. South Korea and Japan reacted furiously when nine Chinese and Russian military aircraft entered the KADIZ in December 2025, the previous such incident. South Korea's defence ministry lodged protests with Beijing and Moscow over that incident, while Japan expressed its "serious concern" over national security. China and Russia said the flights were part of a joint patrol over the East Sea and the western Pacific.

"Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence," Vance posted on X, referring to the memorandum of understanding meant to stop nearly four months of conflict.

All further melting between now and October will see the size of glaciers in the Swiss Alps shrink. In data going back to 2000, the only time that the tipping point arrived even earlier was in 2022, when it came on June 26. The grim scenario is driven by the current heatwave, as well as the one in May -- both coming on the back of another winter with poor snowfall. "We're just seeing enormous ablation, ice melt rates and snow melt rates all over the Alps," GLAMOS network chief Matthias Huss told AFP on Friday, as multiple Swiss weather stations registered new all-time records.

"We are three months too early compared to a healthy state." This century, the tipping point, on average, has been reached in mid-August -- itself already bad news for the nation's glaciers, which are shrinking at a staggering rate. Much of the water that flows into the Rhine and the Rhone, two of Europe's major rivers, comes from the Alpine glaciers.

Huss said he had just returned from the Rhone Glacier, and in the 10 days since his previous visit, "there was one metre of ice melted in the vertical direction -- one metre of melting within just the last 10 days". "It's very impressive to see, and this is just the effect of the heatwave." But, said Huss, "one heatwave alone is not a big problem for glaciers".

"The problem is rather that we have very high temperatures that last for a very long time. "The more days that are added that are very high temperatures, not even mattering whether it's 35C or 40C, this is just very bad for the glaciers." Huss said the "very bad state of the glaciers at the moment" was down to a "combination of bad circumstances", including less snowfall, and the arrival of dust from the Sahara Desert in March.

He said 2026 was "surprisingly similar" to 2022, which for glaciers was "by far the most extreme year ever recorded in the Alps, with melt rates shattering everything we had seen before". He said this year had seen 25 percent less snow replenishing the surface of the glaciers compared to the 2010-2020 figures.

Meanwhile May was warm, causing the snowpack to disappear earlier. Once the reflective white snow coverage from winter is gone from the top of the glacier, the darker, more absorbent grey surface of the bare ice is exposed. This absorbs radiation more quickly, meaning extreme melting produces an accelerating feedback effect, worsening the situation even further.

While the full scale of this year's damage will be measured in September, "it is clear already now that we will have very strong ice loss also this year". Glaciers in the Swiss Alps began to retreat about 170 years ago. The retreat was initially modest but in recent decades, melting has accelerated significantly as the climate warms. The volume of Swiss glaciers shrank by 38 percent between 2000 and 2024.

Huss said Switzerland had already lost 1,200 glaciers in the past 50 years, and there now only 1,300 left. "Those lost were small glaciers, but they were still relevant in peripheral regions of the Alps," the glaciologist said. "If warming continues as it did over the last decades, by 2100 we will only be left with some little remnants of ice."

Here is what we know about the identities of the overseas victims:

- 15 Portuguese or descendants -

Portugal's foreign ministry reported 15 victims of Portuguese nationality or descent in the earthquake. It had previously reported nine dead and 56 missing.

- Seven Chinese -

Seven Chinese nationals were among the victims, Beijing's state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, citing incomplete figures from the embassy in Caracas.

The embassy posted a statement on its official WeChat account, urging Chinese citizens in Venezuela to take precautions against aftershocks and other "secondary disasters".

- Five Spaniards -

Spain announced in a new update that at least five citizens had died and 119 were missing.

"Fourteen have been located under the rubble," it said.

As of January 1, Spain, which has announced one million euros in aid, had 147,000 nationals living in Venezuela, according to official figures.

- Two Brazilians -

The foreign ministry of Brazil, which shares a border with Venezuela, said on Thursday that two of its citizens -- a man and a woman -- had died in the disaster.

The government was providing their relatives with consular assistance, the ministry said.

- One Italian-Venezuelan -

A man in his mid-50s, born in Caracas and holding both Italian and Venezuelan citizenship, was killed when a building collapsed in the hardest-hit region of La Guaira, Rome's foreign ministry said.

Italy estimates there are about 170,000 Italian passport-holders in Venezuela.

The military regime led by Captain Ibrahim Traore, in power since a coup in September 2022, is pursuing a policy repressive toward critical voices and hostile to Westerners, particularly France.

"The government of Burkina Faso hereby informs the national and international community that it has decided to sever diplomatic relations with France with effect from today, June 26, 2026," it announced in a statement read out on the west African nation's national television.

The junta also accused France of harbouring "neo-colonial ambitions, made evident by its active support for subversive networks and the terrorists who are plunging our country and the Sahel into mourning".

France called it a "hostile and baseless decision" that "illustrated the troubling drift of the Burkinabe authorities", adding that "the necessary reciprocal measures are under review".

Burkina Faso, like several of its neighbours, has for a decade been hit by deadly violence by jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

According to the statement, this decision "concerns exclusively the institutional framework of relations between the two states at the diplomatic level".

It "in no way calls into question the historical, human, cultural and social ties that unite the Burkinabe and French peoples", the government said.

Anti?French sentiment runs high in some former African colonies as the continent becomes a renewed diplomatic battleground, with Russian and Chinese influence growing.

Once master of vast expanses of northern, central and western Africa, France has played a crucial role in the continent's post?colonial history, repeatedly intervening militarily since the early 1960s.

France has vowed to abandon the so?called "Francafrique" strategy, under which Paris sought to keep francophone Africa under its thumb through political collusion, exclusive access for French businesses and oblique financial deals including graft.

Only Paraguay have already played all three of their group matches -- the other four countries still have a group game to play but are already assured of playing in the knockout round of this 48-team World Cup.

In this expanded tournament, the eight best third-placed teams qualify for the last 32.

England, Portugal, Ghana, Egypt and Paraguay are guaranteed to at least secure one of those spots, even in a worst-case scenario.

Each has four points, a tally that can no longer be surpassed by the third-placed teams in Group A (South Korea, with three points), Group C (Scotland, three points), Group H (Uruguay 2 pts/Cape Verde 3 pts), and Group I (Senegal, 3 pts), all of which have already concluded.

The following are highlights of the 14-point agreement signed in the US capital:

- 'Lasting peace' -

Israel and Lebanon, with US support, "affirm their shared goal of achieving lasting peace and security," the agreement begins.

The neighboring states "declare their intent to conclusively end the conflict, address its underlying causes, and to therewith formally conclude any state of war between them."

- 'Verified disarmament' -

The framework determines to make "irreversible progress" towards resolving all issues between Israel and Lebanon, while doing so is to be achieved through "direct bilateral talks, with the mediation and support of the United States."

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) "will restore effective sovereignty over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure."

This will enable the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to "progressively redeploy out of the Lebanese territory." The framework will set out the steps and verification mechanisms to advance this process.

- Pilot zones -

The LAF will "gradually assume full and effective security responsibility in pilot zones, which will serve as the mechanism for phased and verified redeployments of the IDF and the deployments of the LAF."

Two initial zones have been agreed to by both sides, and future pilot zones will be agreed by mutual consent.

Upon confirmation of the disarmament of non-state armed groups, notably the Iran-backed Hezbollah, the LAF will assume full security responsibility in these zones.

"Internationally supported reconstruction efforts will begin, and Lebanese civilians will be able to safely return to these areas under the exclusive control of Lebanese state authorities," the agreement states. "The United States intends to work closely with both countries to verify and support this process."

- Working groups -

Lebanon's government under the deal reaffirms its commitment to restoring full sovereignty over its territory. It will "rebuild the State's monopoly on the use of force, achieve the complete and verified disarmament of all non-state armed groups, and ensure that such groups will have no military or security role and no armed capabilities anywhere in Lebanon."

Lebanon asks for the support of international and particularly Arab partners, under the leadership of the United States, to do this.

Israel and Lebanon also are to establish "working groups to draft the full comprehensive peace and security agreement" between them, the framework says, and "immediately establish complementary tracks of ongoing direct engagement, facilitated by the United States."

- 'No territorial ambitions' -

Israel for its part states that its military actions in Lebanon "are solely a consequence of the attacks, threat posed by, and hostile intent of non-state armed groups, particularly Hezbollah."

"Termination of this threat," notably through disarmament of such non-state groups and "additional security arrangements to be agreed upon between the two countries," will eliminate any future necessity for IDF military action or presence in Lebanon, it said.

It also stressed that "the Government of Israel declares that it has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon."

The coastal area of La Guaira, near the capital Caracas, was the worst hit, with one building after another crumpled by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes. Access to the disaster zone would be restricted from 8:00 pm local time (0000 GMT) on Friday, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced in a televised address. A rescue team from Chile arrived at one residential complex in La Guaira, made up of four tall buildings housing hundreds of apartments that had largely been reduced to rubble.

"Unfortunately, the collapse is total, and there is little chance of finding survivors. Efforts are now focused on recovering the bodies of the deceased," rescue team leader Nadiomar Polanco said at the site, which resembles many others in the city. Elsewhere, family members, neighbors and volunteers used their bare hands to try to dig out survivors, bemoaning the lack of heavy machinery or official help to save those trapped alive. "I am looking for my little Gael... he was only five months old," said an anguished Marjosly Salazar, 40, whose 16-year-old daughter died in the quake. The baby and Salazar's cousin are both missing.

"Please, we need support here. We need machinery to start lifting the columns," she said. "We haven't seen any government officials here, none at all." In an upscale Caracas neighborhood, Rodriguez was greeted with angry chants from a crowd of people whose loved ones were trapped under the debris. "The government isn't doing anything for the people," they yelled from behind cordons next to a pulverized building.

AFP saw workers using sledgehammers to break through detritus, calling for "absolute silence" to detect cries from survivors. "It's a very, very complex emergency response," the UN's Fletcher told AFP, warning the death toll could rise significantly. Aftershocks and destroyed buildings still posed significant dangers. Oil-rich Venezuela is facing its worst earthquake in more than a century after more than a decade of economic collapse hollowed out hospitals and public services, driving millions to leave the country.

The country is still in a fragile transition six months after the United States ousted leader Nicolas Maduro. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said search and rescue teams from at least 17 countries were being mobilized to help find survivors. Spanish, Salvadoran, Swiss, Colombian, and Mexican rescue teams were already on the ground. A senior US military official landed in Caracas to oversee Washington's relief efforts.

The United States said Friday it was sending a disaster response team of more than 250 personnel, including three special search-and-rescue units with dogs trained to locate people trapped beneath the rubble. "Even before the earthquakes, millions of people across Venezuela were facing food insecurity, collapsing health services, protection risks, and limited access to basic services," the UN and other aid agencies said in a statement Friday.

"The international community must not allow this emergency to deepen into a larger human tragedy." Earthquakes of similar magnitude claimed more than 200,000 lives in Haiti in January 2010 and 73,000 lives in Kashmir in October 2005. Those killed included nine Portuguese nationals, five Spaniards, two Brazilians, two Chinese nationals and one Italian-Venezuelan.

Fifty-six Portuguese citizens and 133 Spaniards were missing or otherwise unaccounted for, according to their respective governments. The quakes were the most powerful to hit Venezuela since a 7.7-magnitude tremor struck offshore in 1900. Venezuela's northern coast sits on a boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, but has not experienced a major quake since 1997. Minutes of silence preceded Friday's World Cup 2026 matches to honor the victims of the tragedy.

"At this time, we have received reports of 32 deaths" and "more than 700 injured," Rodriguez said in an address to the nation, adding she did not yet have data on the "hardest-hit region" of La Guaira, located near the capital.

"Iran has informed the U.S. that... there are 'NO TOLLS, NO INSURANCE COSTS, & NO OTHER CHARGES OF ANY KIND BEING SOUGHT OR RECEIVED BY IRAN ON SHIPS TRAVELING THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ'," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, without specifying whether those assurances would remain in place after the 60-day negotiating period.

Tehran has repeatedly said it plans to charge what it calls maritime service fees for crossing the strait, as opposed to tolls, a plan fiercely opposed by the United States.

Iran and Oman said Tuesday they will study the costs to be charged for services provided in administering the Strait of Hormuz, insisting they held sovereignty over the waterway.

Discovered in 1997, the asteroid is estimated to be between 750 and 1,650 metres wide, according to calculations based on how much sunlight it reflects. However other estimates suggest it could be smaller, the ESA said in a statement. "A close approach to Earth by an object this size only occurs every few years, although this time the bright nearby Moon might impede its observability at closest approach," Juan Luis Cano of the ESA's Planetary Defence Office said in a statement.

For stargazers with telescopes or binoculars, the asteroid will be visible in parts of the Northern Hemisphere as it approaches, almost everywhere as it speeds past Earth, and only from the Southern Hemisphere as it departs. But this depends if people are in areas of the world where the sky is dark enough as it passes.

"They discussed President Trump's memorandum of understanding with Iran, efforts to secure full and safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz, and the importance of peace and stability in the region," said his spokesperson Tommy Pigott, adding that Rubio "reaffirmed the US commitment to the security of the Emirates".

The trip is seen as a gesture of solidarity with the three countries, targeted by thousands of Iranian drones and missiles during the war. Speaking on Tuesday, Rubio said he intended to discuss the US-Iran memorandum of understanding with Gulf leaders, which does not address Iran's missile programme and proxies -- two long-standing Gulf concerns.

Rubio insisted that no country is allowed to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz after Oman and Iran, which border the waterway, said they were considering charging "costs" for navigating the key exit route for Gulf oil and gas. "It's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law," he said as he arrived in the United Arab Emirates capital.

This marks the first visit by a senior US official to the Middle East since the agreement was signed last week. The United States has sought to reassure its wealthy Gulf allies about the deal, which experts say fell short of their expectations. The energy-rich Gulf, home to several American military bases, bore the brunt of Iran's attacks in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes that sparked the war on February 28.

The UAE was targeted by more than 2,800 missiles and drones -- more than any other country in the region -- while Kuwait and Bahrain were also badly hit relative to their small size. During the war, the UAE doubled down on its alliance with the US and repeatedly said Iran's missile programme and proxies should be dealt with. Regional leaders have long maintained close ties with President Donald Trump and have pledged to invest billions of dollars in the US economy. But experts say that they have grown wary of an unreliable US partner that left them badly exposed during Iran's attacks.

The incident took place around 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Tuesday in the commune of Ergue-Gaberic near the city of Quimper in Brittany, the prefecture added. While teams from French grid operators RTE and Enedis had worked through the night to fix the issue, power is not expected to be restored in full until the end of the day at the earliest. Up to 106,000 clients of the French power network were left without power by late Tuesday, as the continent's sweltering heatwave pushed the country into its hottest day ever.

"For technical reasons, RTE will not be able to re-connect the affected households during the course of the day; connections will be made, at the earliest, by the end of Wednesday," the operator said. Finistere is one of 58 French departments under the highest red alert for extreme heat on Wednesday, with temperatures of 39C to 41C expected on Wednesday from Brittany to the Paris region. The extreme weather is being driven by atmospheric and circulation patterns that keep hot air trapped in place for days, with these factors worsened by global warming, experts say.

"The trial will evaluate whether two antivirals, MBPC-134 and Remdesivir, can help to reduce mortality in patients" infected with the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind the current outbreak, whether used "alone, or in combination", WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

The figures broadly align with projections from the Austrian NGO Klimadashboard. They show that more than 90 million people are set to be affected by temperatures exceeding 35°C in the European Union, including 50 million in France and 20 million in Spain. Almost all residents of mainland France and around 38 million people in Spain are expected to experience temperatures above 30°C on Wednesday.

Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Hungary are also expected to be significantly affected. AFP used a method similar to the one used by Klimadashboard, cross-referencing the DWD weather forecast model (calculated at 0000 GMT) with population density.

Residents are counted if the model predicts temperatures exceeding 30°C or 35°C at their location at any point during the day. As the model has a resolution of approximately 6.5 km, it cannot fully capture urban heat islands, David Jablonski of the NGO Klimadashboard told AFP. Consequently, "we likely underestimate affected people in dense urban areas", the organisation noted on its "European Heat Tracker" website.

"The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being 'gouged'," he added. Gasoline prices are a political issue in the United States, where fossil fuel-powered vehicles are many Americans primary means of transport.

Trump has faced criticism for launching the war and its impact on the fuel costs paid be millions of Americans as November's congressional elections draw closer. The president repeatedly predicted that fuel prices would "come down like a rock" after the conflict ended. But economists dispute that claim, expecting oil prices to take months to return to pre-war levels.

Tehran and Washington have struck an initial deal that includes the resumption of oil tanker traffic through Hormuz, though issues like Iran's nuclear programme are still in dispute. Gasoline prices are still above their pre-war levels, but have come down since the initial deal was announced. The average price of a gallon (3.8 litres) of regular gasoline logged in at $3.93 on Tuesday, according to the AAA motor club.

Trump has faced backlash from Americans who accuse him of pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into the Middle East war while oil prices and inflation skyrocket in the United States.

The PM, in office for almost two years, told his senior ministerial team during their weekly meeting that he wanted an "orderly" handover and whoever replaces him "to succeed". "The prime minister said he would seek to make the transition as easy as possible, giving his full support to whoever followed in his footsteps," a government readout of the meeting said.

Labour veteran Burnham, 56, is the overwhelming favourite to replace Starmer, despite only becoming eligible for the top job after winning a parliamentary by-election last Thursday. The ex-Manchester mayor was clapped and cheered as some 200 Labour MPs welcomed him back to parliament after a nine-year absence for his swearing in on Monday, hours after Starmer tendered his resignation. Starmer's official spokesman told reporters that meetings between Burnham's team and senior civil servants could begin before nominations to become Labour leader open on July 9.

Nominations close on July 16 and Burnham could be in 10 Downing Street by the following day if he is unchallenged. Former armed forces minister Al Carns told an event Tuesday that he wanted to hear Burnham's "vision" for the country before deciding whether or not to stand. "We'll see where we go from there," he added.

UK media reported that government minister Darren Jones was being encouraged to run by some MPs. A person close to Jones told AFP that he was keeping his options open until Burnham lays out more detailed plans for government, particularly on the economy, but that he considered a run "very unlikely". Burnham is due to begin setting out his policy platform next week with a speech on his economic plans.

Government minister Nick Thomas-Symonds echoed the views of many Labour lawmakers on Tuesday when he told Sky News that a "swift transition" was in "the best interests of the country". A contest would last for several weeks and could be bitterly divisive, but some MPs insist forcing Burnham to win a contest would add legitimacy to his premiership since he would have become prime minister without winning a general election.

The Labour party won a landslide victory at the July 2024 general election and is the biggest party in parliament, meaning its leader automatically has the right to be prime minister. Labour MP John Slinger told BBC radio that the public would think "we'd slightly lost our minds if we didn't go through a process where we subject people who aspire to the highest office in the land to completely normal scrutiny".

Fellow backbencher Nadia Whittome also called for a contest, telling the BBC that "candidates setting out their stall transparently" would make Labour and the government "stronger". Burnham's path to Number 10 looks clear after his nearest rival for the top job, Wes Streeting, announced on Monday he would not compete for the top job.

Any challenger would likely find it difficult to secure the support of the 81 of Labour's 403 MPs needed to join a race. "Andy has such a head of steam it would be quixotic," one Labour MP, who asked not to be named, told AFP, adding that a contest would be "hugely expensive and time-consuming". "We need unity now," he said.

Public health inspectors said on Tuesday they had started to implement guidelines issued by the education ministry this week prohibiting schools from providing food containing high levels of sugar, salt and fat. The ban means hot dogs, burgers, pizzas, doughnuts, ice cream, biscuits, flavoured milk, energy drinks, pastries, deep-fried snacks and even condiments such as tomato sauce are off the menu for the country's four million students.

"Poor eating habits among children directly contribute to the increase in nutritional problems and, later, to the rising incidence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer," the ministry said in a statement dated Monday. There is no reliable data on juvenile diabetes, cancer or heart problems in Sri Lanka, but authorities say they know anecdotally that the numbers are rising. Twelve percent of schoolchildren between the ages of 13 and 17 were overweight, and another 3 percent were obese, as of 2024, according to government figures.

The ministry asked school managers to encourage students to eat rice, fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, natural fruit juice, fresh milk and tea or coffee with only small quantities of sugar. It provided recipes for "healthy and highly nutritious" menus prepared with locally available ingredients. Schools also may not permit advertisers of "unhealthy food" to sponsor events, according to a 122-page ministry guide seen by AFP. According to UNICEF, around 17 percent of Sri Lankan children under the age of five experience stunting due to malnutrition. About a quarter of the country's 22 million people lived below the poverty line in 2024, but the proportion will likely fall to about one-fifth this year, according to the World Bank.

They "agreed to maintain their dialogue on this issue through a joint working group between the two foreign ministries", the statement said. The working group was aimed at reaching "agreement on the future administration of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the services that will be provided in this regard and the costs associated with them in accordance with international standards", they said. The statement followed meetings in Muscat between top officials from the two nations.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf met Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq and Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi. Last week, Iran's foreign ministry said the country would impose what it called maritime service fees for crossing the strait. Ghalibaf has said the fees will come into effect after a 60-day period without charges that is stipulated in a memorandum of understanding signed with the United States.

The MOU states that Iran and Oman, which border the strait, will discuss its "future administration and maritime services" alongside other Gulf countries. The strait, through which roughly 20 percent of the world's crude oil and liquified natural gas normally transits, was closed by Iran after it came under fire from the United States and Israel. But Iran has since lifted its blockade as part of the deal signed with the US last week.

Prior to the memorandum of understanding, Oman had come under fire from US officials over reports it planned to charge joint tolls with Iran. US President Donald Trump has threatened that if Oman tries to control the waterway alongside Iran he will "blow them up". US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also said he will sanction Muscat if it helps impose a tolling system. On Tuesday, Omani Foreign Minister Albusaidi said on X following his meeting with Araghchi and Ghalibaf that "we affirmed commitment to international law and toll-free safe passage".

Of those arrested so far, 185 are suspected of belonging to several far-left organisations, including the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which has staged attacks in the past and has been branded a terror group by Ankara. The detainees also included Yildiz Tar, editor-in-chief of LGBTQ journal Kaos GL, the MLSA rights group said on X, while the Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD) said two of its lawyers were detained in Ankara and a third in Istanbul.

Newspaper Gazete Oksijen said an academic from Ankara University's economics department and a union official were also arrested. Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced Tar's arrest as "unacceptable" and demanded his release, saying the summit was no justification for his "arbitrary" detention on security grounds. Authorities said the operations targeted multiple groups as part of broader security measures. In a post late on Monday, the Ankara governor's office announced a ban on all demonstrations from June 28 until the end of the summit in order "to ensure summit security and maintain public order". The summit is expected to bring together leaders from the military alliance's 32 member states.

The operator of the Eiffel Tower, a monument made of latticed steel girders, said the site would "exceptionally close" early on Tuesday at 4 pm (1400 GMT). During the high season, starting in mid-June, the tower is open from 9 am to 12:45 am. "Due to the high temperatures forecast, the Eiffel Tower will be adjusting its operations," said the operator.

It is "very likely" that the monument will close again early on Wednesday, the operator said, adding that visitors would be refunded for their tickets. Seven million tourists pay to visit the 324-metre (1,063-foot) tower each year. Unveiled in 1889 for the World Fair in Paris by engineer Gustave Eiffel, the "Iron Lady" has since become the French capital's symbol. Shortly after the Eiffel Tower announcement, the Louvre management said the world's most visited museum would from Wednesday to Saturday close two hours early at 4 pm due to the heatwave.

Soaring temperatures in Paris have made "visiting and working conditions difficult during the hottest hours of the day", the management said, noting that "it is at the end of the day that heat builds up most, exacerbated by high visitor numbers". Home to iconic pieces of art including Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", the Louvre receives around nine million visitors a year.

It is housed in a vast palace in central Paris on the banks of the Seine River, built over centuries by various French monarchs and presidents. The management said on Tuesday the historic building is "vulnerable and is not sufficiently adapted to climate change". Its director Christophe Leribault warned last week the museum was "running out of steam" as it struggles to find funding to upgrade its ageing facilities.

The museum has faced a litany of problems that recently included a brazen $100-million jewellery heist, a water leak and other maintenance issues. Other tourist sites have also announced early closures or warnings as more than half of mainland France remains under the weather services' highest alert level. The most visited tourist attraction outside of the capital region, Mont Saint Michel island in Normandy, on Tuesday warned visitors to "put off your visit during the red alert".

At the G7 summit in France earlier this month, leaders -- including Trump -- agreed to increase pressure on the Russian "war economy" by strengthening sanctions, including on energy. Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump -- who had pledged he would end the Ukraine war within a day of taking office -- has been pushing both sides to engage in negotiations. There has been little progress in the US-brokered shuttle diplomacy, with Kyiv refusing to give in to Moscow's demands to cede territory, limit the size of its army and renounce Western support. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions in Ukraine forced from their homes since Russia launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022.

In recent months Moscow has grown increasingly critical of Europe's role in supporting Ukraine and trying to stop Trump pushing Kyiv to accept a Russia- friendly peace. Speaking separately on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Europe was "openly" preparing for war through its massive rearmament programme -- which is being urged on by Trump. "Now in the West they openly say that they are preparing for war with us, and are increasing their military, offensive budgets," the Kremlin chief told a ceremony of newly-qualified military and law enforcement officials. In hawkish remarks he repeated Russia's call for Ukraine to fully withdraw from the eastern Donbas region and said his troops were on the brink of capturing the key fortified town of Kostiantynivka.

Putin also said an escalating wave of Ukrainian retaliatory hits on Russian infrastructure was designed to "shake-up society" and was being done with Western support -- his first such comments since a massive attack on Moscow set an oil refinery ablaze last week, pouring black smoke over the Russian capital.

"Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future (Infinity!!!). This will insure 'Nuclear Honesty,'" Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, adding that bilateral negotiations are "going well."

"Based on this and other major concessions being made by Iran, I have agreed to allow the Hormuz Strait to remain OPEN, with no further Naval Blockade," he added.

He said, “We are moving toward economic liberalization through the signing of free trade agreements and pursuing deregulation policies. The main objective is to attract investment from different parts of the world. From our perspective, Malaysia is one of the key targets.” Mahdi, also prime minister's expatriates' welfare and overseas employment adviser, said, senior executives of five major Malaysian companies in the meeting with the Prime Minister and they discussed investment opportunities in Bangladesh.” 

He said, “Bangladesh has a large market base, and naturally there is significant consumer demand that the companies can help to meet.” Mahdi further stated that there are tremendous opportunities for employment generation in Bangladesh.  “On the one hand, our market demand is very high, and on the other, we have the capacity to provide a strong workforce. By combining the two strengths, we have assured potential investors that if they invest in Bangladesh, our government will provide policy support as much as possible and create a pro-business, pro-investment framework through deregulation.”

Before departing Malaysia for China, the Prime Minister met with top executives of the Malaysian business groups- Petronas Group, Axiata, AirAsia, Perodua, and MMC Group. Mahadi Amin highlighted the significance of the Bangladeshi Prime Minister’s visit to Malaysia. He said this visit has opened a new chapter in bilateral friendship.  In the meeting the Malaysian prime minister highlighted the unique historical, fraternal, and friendly relationship between Bangladesh and Malaysia. 

The leaders of the two countries held extensive discussions on how to further strengthen and deepen economic cooperation by expanding trade and investment based on mutual interests. Prime Minister’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Humaiun Kobir, Additional Press Secretary Atikur Rahman Ruman, Deputy Press Secretary Jahidul Islam Rony and Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner in Malaysia Mosammat Shahanara Monica were present during the press conference. 

They were supposed to stay only briefly before returning to an independent country, as part of negotiations at the time between the Dutch government and Indonesia. However, the Dutch reneged on their promise to repatriate them and they were housed in dire conditions, with little attempt to find them jobs or integrate them into broader Dutch society. Unveiling a monument to commemorate that dark period of Dutch history, a visibly moved Jetten told hundreds of Moluccans gathered in Rotterdam that it was "high time" to apologise. "For the inadequate reception and housing. For being unseen and abandoned. For the unfulfilled longing for home. And for the grief and pain in so many families.

For this, I offer my apologies today on behalf of the Dutch government," said Jetten. The Ulu Kora monument was unveiled on the Lloydkade in Rotterdam, where the first ships transporting Moluccans arrived in the Dutch port. Those who were in the army were immediately discharged and many were sent to former concentration camps used to gather Jews in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. The 1970s saw a number of violent actions by second-generation Moluccans, who felt betrayed by the Dutch for failing to secure their independent homeland. "I realise the injustice cannot be suddenly removed with apologies. We cannot change the course of history and the reality of today with a few sentences," said Jetten. "But I do hope that the words I just spoke are perceived as a form of recognition and an act of historical justice for you," he told members of the community, many of them clutching family photos of first-generation Moluccans now dead.

The Swiss talks are the first since the United States and Iran signed a preliminary agreement last week to end their war and are expected to open a 60-day negotiation period to address long-running disputes, including Iran's nuclear programme and sanctions.

In a joint statement, the ministers called for a "swift and successful conclusion" to negotiations aimed at reaching a solution to outstanding issues that is "lasting, verifiable and mutually acceptable", while taking into account regional concerns, particularly the security and stability of Gulf states.

Saudi Arabia, which was hit by Iranian attacks during the conflict, joined mediator Pakistan alongside Turkey and Egypt in facilitating negotiations weeks into the Middle East war.

Washington announced a renewed ceasefire there later Friday -- a condition of its agreement with Iran -- but Israeli troops clashed again with Hezbollah fighters on Saturday, with each side accusing the other of breaking the truce. Citing a US "breach of contract" and "the Zionist regime's continuous and relentless violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon", Iran's central military command said "the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to vessel traffic."

The Revolutionary Guards' naval force warned vessels not to approach the waterway, saying "their security will be jeopardised". Hormuz, a key conduit for oil and gas shipments, was blockaded by Iran for much of the war, sending shockwaves through global energy markets. Tehran had agreed to reopen it under the preliminary accord signed this week by President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, and shipping traffic had begun to recover.

US Central Command said after Iran's announcement that safe passage through the international waterway had "remained intact" and that US forces were "present and vigilant." Trump later warned that Washington could impose its own tolls on Hormuz if negotiators failed to complete the deal. There would be no tolls "unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

An Iranian delegation left for Switzerland on Saturday afternoon, state media reported, with the official broadcaster saying it included parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the delegation would "demand implementation of the other party's commitments" under the deal. "Otherwise, the entire understanding will be in trouble," he said, according to official news agency IRNA.

US Vice President JD Vance departed Washington on an afternoon flight for Switzerland to join the talks. "I can only be there for a day or two. I think we're going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we're to be focused on. I'm sure the Iranians are going to have issues they'd like to discuss as well," he told reporters before boarding.

US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were already there handling "some of the technical elements" and had reported that "things are going well," Vance said in an interview with Fox News earlier Saturday. Mediator Pakistan -- whose interior minister was reportedly in Iran on Saturday for meetings with officials -- said "technical-level talks" were scheduled for Sunday in Burgenstock, Switzerland, with Pakistani and Qatari mediators joining US and Iranian representatives.

The talks are meant to open a two-month negotiation period on issues left unresolved by the initial accord, notably Iran's nuclear programme. Switzerland's foreign ministry confirmed unnamed foreign envoys there were "continuing their efforts to maintain the dialogue", but declined to give details. Israel and Hezbollah continued trading accusations Saturday as fighting persisted in the south. The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in combat, the fifth such fatality since the US-Iran deal was reached.

An Israeli army official later said the military had received orders from the country's political leadership to cease fire, adding that troops were "not conducting proactive strikes" but operating defensively inside a security zone. Earlier, an Israeli military official said fresh attacks were under way after Hezbollah "launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon" overnight. Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out "under the cover of the ceasefire...an infiltration attempt towards the Ali Taher hills", a strategic feature overlooking Nabatieh, and said its fighters had responded "with appropriate weapons".

Lebanese state media reported Israeli air raids on around 20 location, with the country's civil defence agency saying 16 people were killed in the Nabatieh area. Lebanon's health ministry said seven more people were killed and 13 wounded in a strike near Sidon, and reported that the overall death toll from the fighting had surpassed 4,000. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said his group retained "the full right to confront this enemy when it attacks us". Israel's US ambassador Yechiel Leiter maintained it was Hezbollah that broke the truce, saying Israel was "defending itself against terrorist attacks".

Negotiations had been planned in Switzerland on Friday, but were postponed at the last minute as Israel carried out a wave of deadly strikes in Lebanon after four of its soldiers were killed in combat. Following more clashes, both Israel and Hezbollah have accused the other of violating the new truce that was part of the preliminary accord signed by the US and Iran this week. Vance said the situation in Lebanon was "actually getting better."

"It's going to be something we're just going to have to continuously manage to ensure that... Israel and Lebanon are both safe and secure," he said. "The big problem is that you have somebody will shoot and then somebody will respond, and you kind of have a chicken and egg problem where you've just got to stop the shooting for long enough to get the ceasefire to keep hold." US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were already in Switzerland handling technical elements of the talks, Vance said earlier.

Security issues have dominated a campaign marred by bomb attacks and the murder of a leading conservative presidential candidate in broad daylight in Bogota. De la Espriella, a dual US-Colombian national who calls himself "The Tiger," won May's first-round vote by promising to wage war on drug-running guerrilla groups who refused to sign a 2016 peace accord.

De la Espriella has won President Donald Trump's "complete and total endorsement" and hopes to ride a right-wing wave that has swept rightist candidates to power in Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Honduras. Cepeda is a 63-year-old philosopher-turned-senator and human rights defender and has been a key figure behind the current government's policy of negotiating "total peace" with armed groups. Cepeda is the son of a communist senator killed by right-wing paramilitaries and is the political heir to outgoing President Gustavo Petro -- who is constitutionally barred from running.

"Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir will participate in the High-Level Talks on the implementation of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding," the Prime Minister's Office wrote on X, referring to the US-Iran deal to end the war.

Follow-up talks had been planned in Switzerland on Friday but were postponed at the last minute after Israel launched deadly strikes in Lebanon following the deaths of four of its soldiers in combat. Washington announced a renewed ceasefire there later Friday -- a condition of its preliminary agreement with Iran -- but Israeli troops clashed again with Hezbollah fighters on Saturday, with each side accusing the other of breaking the truce.

Citing a US "breach of contract" and "the Zionist regime's continuous and relentless violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon", Iran's central military command said "the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to vessel traffic". Hormuz, a key conduit for oil and gas shipments, was blockaded by Iran for much of the war, sending shockwaves through global energy markets. Tehran had agreed to reopen it under the preliminary accord signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, and shipping traffic had begun to recover.

US Central Command said after Iran's announcement that safe passage through the international waterway had "remained intact" and that US forces were "present and vigilant". Trump later warned that Washington could impose its own tolls on Hormuz if negotiators failed to complete the deal. There would be no tolls "unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

An Iranian delegation arrived in Switzerland late Saturday, state media and the Swiss foreign ministry said. Iran's official broadcaster said it included parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the delegation would "demand implementation of the other party's commitments" under the deal.

"Otherwise, the entire understanding will be in trouble," he said, according to official news agency IRNA. Vance arrived at the Emmen Air Base in Switzerland on Sunday morning, having earlier said he could only stay "a day or two". US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were already there handling "some of the technical elements" and had reported that "things are going well", Vance said in an interview with Fox News earlier Saturday.

Pakistan, which has been helping to mediate, said Sunday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Asim Munir had left for Switzerland to take part in high-level talks involving US and Iranian representatives and other mediators from Qatar. The talks are meant to open a two-month negotiation period on issues left unresolved by the initial accord, notably Iran's nuclear programme. Israel and Hezbollah continued trading accusations Saturday as fighting persisted in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in combat, the fifth such fatality since the US-Iran deal was reached. An Israeli army official later said the military had received orders from the country's political leadership to cease fire, adding that troops were "not conducting proactive strikes" but operating defensively inside a security zone. Earlier, an Israeli military official said fresh attacks were under way after Hezbollah "launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon" overnight.

Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out "under the cover of the ceasefire... an infiltration attempt towards the Ali Taher hills", a strategic feature overlooking Nabatieh, and said its fighters had responded "with appropriate weapons". Lebanese state media reported Israeli air raids on around 20 locations, with authorities counting more than 30 dead. The overall death toll from the fighting in Lebanon had surpassed 4,000, the health ministry said. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said his group retained "the full right to confront this enemy when it attacks us".

Israel's US ambassador Yechiel Leiter maintained it was Hezbollah that broke the truce, saying Israel was "defending itself against terrorist attacks". But Hezbollah said Israel bore "full responsibility". Fadi Zayat, who fled the southern Lebanon town of Tayr Debba, told AFP that "fear dominates" the south. "We returned to the village a few days ago, but our bags are ready to flee again," the 53-year-old said. Hezbollah pulled Lebanon into the wider Middle East conflict in early March when it fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. A previous ceasefire meant to take effect in Lebanon in April was never honoured, with each side justifying its attacks by citing alleged violations by the other.

Mediators in the conflict -- including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- were due to gather for talks in the Egyptian city of Alamein on Sunday to discuss the deal, Cairo and Islamabad said. Preparations had been made to host Iranian and US delegations at the Swiss resort of Burgenstock, overlooking Lake Lucerne, to begin negotiations on implementing the deal signed this week by President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that Tehran would deliver a "decisive response" in the event of "breach of contract" or "excessive demands". "They were once slapped during the war; if they wish to head on that path again, they will get an even harder slap," he wrote on X. The signing of the accord was intended to end the US-Israeli campaign against Iran -- which saw five weeks of all-out war until a ceasefire was struck in April -- and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping bottleneck whose closure caused global energy prices to rise.

The agreement also kicks off a 60-day period for talks on wider issues, including Tehran's nuclear programme. Ghalibaf and US Vice President JD Vance had been expected in Burgenstock along with Pakistani and Qatari mediators on Friday to commence the process. "The planned talks between the US, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan have been postponed," the Swiss foreign ministry said in a message to AFP.

"Switzerland remains ready to facilitate these talks. The relevant preparatory work at Burgenstock is continuing," it added, without providing a new date for the talks. It followed the announcement late Thursday from the White House that Vance's trip was cancelled, with a spokesperson saying the "logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable".

"We look forward to beginning technical talks as soon as possible." The deal was also meant to halt the fighting in Lebanon, but Israel's military announced on Friday new strikes against Hezbollah targets, with 18 people killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Israel also said that four of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, the first since the deal was signed.

The soldiers' deaths prompted a furious reaction from far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who demanded that "all of Lebanon must burn". Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Thursday that he had approved the accord, despite holding a "different view". "But I issued my permission due to the commitment" made by officials including Pezheshkian to "protect the rights of the Iranian nation".

Khamenei -- who has yet to be seen in public since succeeding his father, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes -- said Trump had "used all kinds of levers" to secure the deal "out of desperation". American forces on Thursday lifted their naval blockade of Iranian ports that had prevented ships from sailing to or from the Islamic republic, the US military said, noting that American warships "will remain in the general area".

But activity was still muted in the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic bottleneck for energy shipments that Iran blockaded during the conflict. Iranian state TV, citing a statement from the country's Supreme National Security Council, said that ships "seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz must submit their request" to a new government body tasked with overseeing the waterway. Under the text of the deal, Washington commits to immediately waive oil sanctions crippling Iran's economy.

And once a final agreement is reached on Iran's nuclear programme, the United States will facilitate the release of a $300 billion reconstruction fund supported by regional nations, the deal says. Trump's decision to end the war, in which 13 US service members were killed and a vast proportion of US ammunition stockpiles was used, has unsettled some of his allies at home. But Trump argued that using military force to wring more concessions out of Tehran would have been counterproductive.

"The only way I can get tougher is if I go in there for another two or three weeks and continue to bomb the hell out of 'em. Right? But what does that get us? The Strait of Hormuz will not be open," he told Axios.

"If the enemy seeks to be excessive, we have proven that our fingers are on the trigger and we have no hesitation in giving a crushing response to the enemy." Tehran and Washington signed a memorandum of understanding this week ending a regional war that erupted on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Ghalibaf's remarks came after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said he had approved the US-Iran deal despite having a "different view" on the matter, without elaborating.

In a message read out on state television, Khamenei said that direct talks with the United States "will not mean accepting the enemy's point of view". In response to Khamenei's message, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the country's foreign policy apparatus "will be used to secure the sublime interests of Iran" and "protect the rights of the noble Iranian nation". President Masoud Pezeshkian, who signed the deal on behalf of his country, issued a similar statement promising to adhere to Iran's red lines and defend its "dignity, honour and authority".

The US-Iran deal, which US President Donald Trump also signed, lays the groundwork for detailed 60-day negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and sanctions relief. It remains unclear when talks for a final settlement would start after a first meeting in Switzerland slated for Friday was postponed. The agreement provides for an end to the Middle East war on all fronts, including Lebanon, the lifting of the two-month US naval blockade on Iranian ports, and Tehran's reopening of the Strait of Hormuz "with no charge for 60 days only".

It also includes an Iranian commitment not to procure or develop nuclear weapons -- an ambition Tehran has consistently denied pursuing. Conservatives in Iran appeared deeply sceptical of the deal and US intentions, with some expressing concern that Tehran could be giving up key sources of leverage before securing compensation and sanctions relief. "The Americans do not honour to any commitments, they have not been loyal to any agreements, and they will not be," said Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the ultraconservative Kayhan newspaper, in an interview with state television on Thursday.

He added: "the Strait of Hormuz is the way to get compensation." Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for parliament's national security commission, took issue with reports of possible inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by a UN watchdog. "I hope the government denies this, but if this claim is true... the parliament will stand up to lawlessness and disobedience," he said in a post on X.

When the Sun burns through all of the hydrogen in its core, it will go through two immense expansion phases: first becoming a red giant, then, when its helium is spent, an "AGB" star. This fiery death will bring about some significant changes back here on Earth. As the Sun grows, increasing gravitational forces will pull the Earth towards it. For the Earth and the Moon, this force creates the push and pull of the tides in our oceans. The energy from these tides, which dissipates at the bottom of the ocean, slows Earth's rotation and gradually pushes the Moon away from us. As the Sun expands and its blistering surface approaches Earth, intense tidal waves will stir within the star. When they dissipate, it will pull Earth into its doomed embrace.

However, the growing Sun will also lose a lot of its mass due to stellar wind, which pushes our planet further away. "Earth's fate depends on a delicate balance between these two effects," explained Mats Esseldeurs, the lead author of a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on Friday. "If tidal interactions predominate, Earth is engulfed by the Sun. If the Sun's mass loss predominates, Earth escapes into an orbit larger than the radius of its star," the astrophysicist at Belgium's University of Leuven said in a statement.

Until now, scientists had favoured the first hypothesis. However their calculations relied on relatively simple descriptions of tidal dissipation within giant stars. Advances made in modelling these tides over the last 15 years have enabled the study's authors to show that "the dissipation is lower than previously expected", Stephane Mathis, an astrophysicist at the CEA Paris-Saclay centre in France, told AFP.

To estimate how much mass the Sun could lose, the team focused in particular on a nearby star called L2 Puppis that is like the Sun's "old cousin", the study's co-author said. "A better understanding of tidal physics and the most advanced constraints we have on mass loss allow us to say that -- in the current state of knowledge -- Earth could move away from the Sun, contrary to what was predicted before," Mathis said.

According to the new modelling, Mars also escapes a death spiral into the Sun. But the two planets closest to the Sun, Mercury and Venus, are not so lucky. They will be inexorably swallowed by the expanding fireball. After all this, the Sun will eventually become an extremely dense star called a white dwarf. No longer capable of fusion reactions, it will slowly become dimmer and cooler over time.

He sought to make a virtue of his more measured approach, contrasting what he saw as his pragmatic managerialism with the ideological bombast of previous Tory prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. "There's no such thing as Starmerism and there never will be," the man himself is said to have told colleagues, according to "Get In", a book about his leadership of the Labour party written by journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

But soon after entering Downing Street, he struggled to be the safe pair of hands he had portrayed, while his lack of ideology and charisma has left him struggling to sell a story of where he is taking the country. He insisted on Friday that "there's more to do and that's what I'm focusing on" as he faced further calls from some of Labour's approximately 400 MPs to step down to avoid a bitter leadership challenge from Burnham and possibly other contenders. - Successful career - Starmer, born on September 2, 1962, was raised in a small semi-detached house on the outskirts of London by a seriously ill mother and an emotionally distant father who loved animals and rescued donkeys. After university, he enjoyed a successful career as a human rights lawyer and chief state prosecutor which led to him being knighted by then Queen Elizabeth II. A keen flautist and Arsenal fan, Starmer became an MP in 2015, succeeding left-winger Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader five years later, following the party's worst general election defeat since 1935. He showed his ruthless side by purging Corbyn, targeting antisemitism and moving the party back to the more electable centre ground, delivering Labour's biggest election victory in over two decades. On becoming UK leader, Starmer pledged to "fix" Britain after years of sluggish growth, a cost-of-living crisis and public services hollowed out by Tory austerity measures.But he cautioned the road to recovery would be "long and difficult". - Troubles - His premiership got off to a bad start when his government announced a hugely unpopular policy to remove winter fuel payments from millions of elderly people, which had not been in Labour's election manifesto. He later backtracked.

Starmer was also forced into a humiliating climbdown on reforming welfare benefits, backed down in a row with farmers over inheritance tax and angered businesses for increasing a payroll tax and the minimum wage. The early months were also dominated by anger over a free gifts row, while in September 2025, Angela Rayner resigned as deputy prime minister for underpaying a property tax. That same month, Starmer sacked Peter Mandelson as his ambassador to Washington over the depth of the envoy's friendship with late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The appointment, for which Starmer has apologised, led to the departure of two of his closest aides and the most senior civil servant in the foreign ministry. Starmer himself has refused to quit but the scandal haunts him, contributing to a series of humiliating local election results for Labour in May that renewed calls for his departure. - Burnham challenge - While Starmer has been praised for standing up to US President Donald Trump over the Iran war and maintaining European support for Ukraine, he has struggled to fend off support at home for both the left-wing Greens and the populist, hard-right Reform UK party, led by firebrand Nigel Farage.

A key by-election victory on Friday paved the way for an expected leadership challenge from popular Labour veteran Burnham, who decisively beat a Reform candidate on his home soil in the north of England. Starmer has one of the lowest popularity ratings ever among prime ministers at just 19 percent, according to a YouGov poll. On Friday, Starmer vowed not to "walk away" as leader, saying he would run in any leadership contest but warning that this would plunge the country "into chaos".

There were no further deaths during the outbreak -- and all 12 confirmed hantavirus cases were passengers on the ship. With the last remaining passengers soon to leave quarantine, AFP answers key questions about an episode that again highlighted the risk viruses in animals pose to humans. Almost all the passengers of the Dutch-flagged ship quarantined in the Netherlands have been allowed to return home, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. In France, four people quarantined in hospital are set to be released on Sunday. A fifth passenger who became seriously ill will stay in intensive care, however her condition has improved, according to French health authorities.

In other countries, people are also set to leave quarantine -- in Australia, six passengers are scheduled to be set free on Tuesday. There have been no new cases reported in the outbreak for more than three weeks. Given the incubation period for the virus has passed, "the episode can likely be considered over," Nicole Tischler, president of the International Society of Hantaviruses, told AFP. The 12 confirmed cases -- and another considered likely -- pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of hantavirus infections recorded worldwide every year.

However, most of those cases involve humans getting infected while in close contact with a rodent. The concerning factor about the cruise ship outbreak was that the virus was transmitted between humans. The Andes strain that spread on the ship is the only form of hantavirus known to do this, however documented outbreaks have been very rare.

This raised the spectre that the nearly 150 people on the ship could spread the disease in their home countries. This did not happen. The only instances of human-to-human transmission were in the tight confines of the ship -- and even then appear to have been limited. "The conditions were really an accelerator for virus particles," French infectious disease specialist Xavier Lescure told a press briefing on Thursday.

This was evidence that the risk of transmitting hantavirus between humans remains "low," he added. The cases also did not show any "particular novelty" compared to the infections regularly recorded in parts of the Americas, Lescure said. The sudden global spotlight on hantavirus has however spurred some progress in understanding the virus, for which there is no treatment.

"The event highlighted how little is known about the precise timing of infectiousness; specifically whether transmission occurs only after symptom onset or may begin in the days beforehand," Tischler said. She hoped more would be revealed about how the infected people came in contact on the ship. Perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle still missing is how the first person became infected.

It had been thought that a passenger on the ship caught the virus while travelling in regions of Argentina where it is endemic. However the country's health ministry announced last week that an investigation in a second Argentine province had failed to find any virus-carrying rodents. With memories lingering of the Covid-19 pandemic, some countries swiftly enforced a strict six-week quarantine for the ship's passengers and contact cases.

Other nations, such as the UK, allowed passengers to isolate at home. Some of those placed in mandatory quarantine have spoken out. In the United States, passenger Angela Perryman told CNN this week she felt like a "hostage" after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy overruled an expert's recommendation to release her. Experts have observed that this episode has again illustrated the risks of zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted from animals to humans. Some other examples include Covid and mpox, as well as mosquito-borne scourges such as malaria, chikungunya and dengue.

He also suggested that Meloni might be "happy that I talked to her, I didn't have to talk to her". Meloni called what Trump said "made up", adding: "Neither I nor Italy ever beg." "I don't know why the president of the United States behaves this way with his own allies," the far-right leader wrote on X. "I can only say that it's a pity he doesn't show the same determination with enemies of the West, with enemies of the United States, with leaders with whom, instead, he is far more accommodating," she said.

At the end of the G7 summit in Evian on Wednesday, Meloni had spoken of a "very positive climate" and "no friction" between Trump and other world leaders present. Meloni has positioned herself as a bridge between Europe and the Trump administration, but the relationship came under strain during the Middle East war. Trump turned on Meloni in April after she defended Pope Leo XIV from the US president's harsh criticism of the pontiff's anti-war views.

Meloni condemned Trump's remarks as "unacceptable" -- prompting the president to turn his fire on her. "I'm shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong," the US president said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera at the time. He accused Meloni of failing to help the United States with NATO. Trump has threatened to pull US troops from Italy, saying Rome "has not been of any help to us" in the Iran war.  

The heatwave prompted 784 primary and secondary schools out of the country's 60,000 teaching establishments to adjust their hours, including 150 that closed completely, said Education Minister Edouard Geffray. France's national weather agency has warned the heatwave would be "widespread, prolonged, and intense". Temperatures were expected to peak at around 40C in some regions between Sunday and Tuesday.

Although astronomical summer does not begin until Sunday, this is already France's second heatwave this year, following an unusually hot spell in May that shattered records across half the country. France experienced its hottest spring this year since records began in 1900, with the average nationwide temperature over March to May around 1.7C above the norm. Scientists warn that heatwaves in Europe are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change.

"However, I have seen a response that is growing stronger every day," she told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Bunia, the capital of the DRC's Ituri province. The outbreak was declared on May 15, though transmission had been going undetected for some time. It is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no vaccine.

There have been 896 confirmed cases so far in the DRC, including 232 confirmed deaths, with 21 new cases in the last 24 hours, according to the latest WHO update. More than 90 percent of known cases in the DRC have been in Ituri, a province racked by conflict. The outbreak has also spread to North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. Belizaire said the epidemic was evolving so quickly that the response was racing to keep pace with the virus, which spreads by close contact and infected bodily fluids.

The number of treatment beds available for Ebola patients had gone from zero to more than 500, she said. And surveillance teams were now investigating nearly 400 alerts, and were capable of administering more than 2,000 tests a day, she added. Belizaire also highlighted that efforts to trace contacts of known Ebola cases had ramped up, with 75 percent of all contacts now being reached.

The WHO has said 95 percent of contacts must be traced to get on top of the outbreak. In neighbouring Uganda, the only other country hit, there have been 19 confirmed cases including two deaths, and 10 recovered patients. Uganda has reported no new cases for 12 days.

"Intensive" strikes across Lebanon's south killed 18 people and wounded 33, the country's health ministry said, while in the eastern Baalbek area another three people were killed, with six wounded. Video from AFPTV showed hundreds of cars packing roads in the city of Saida as people attempted to flee southern areas. Israel's military said it hit scores of targets overnight and into the morning.

"The IDF (military) struck more than 80 command centres, terrorists, launch positions, and additional terrorist infrastructure sites in the area of Nabatieh and additional areas in southern Lebanon," an army statement said. "During the strikes, dozens of Hezbollah terrorists operating in the command centres were eliminated." Iran-backed Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it was attacking Israeli forces around the southern town of Nabatieh.

It vowed to defend Lebanon's territory and people, accusing Israel of violating a ceasefire and denying it had itself broken the truce. The group said "the enemy has never complied with any ceasefire agreement". A truce meant to have taken effect in April did little to stop attacks from either side. Israeli strikes also targeted the Baalbek region in the east of Lebanon, which had been largely spared since the start of the conflict on March 2. Israel said its strikes in Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley were in response to "repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah". Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned Israel's latest attacks, saying they "constitute a dangerous escalation" and undermined "ongoing efforts to consolidate the ceasefire and end the war".

Earlier the Israeli military had announced that Lieutenant Colonel Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon had "fallen in combat" along with three other soldiers whom it did not immediately identify. Israeli military correspondents reported the four were killed when a tank was hit by "a suspected drone or anti-tank missile". In a separate statement the military also reported that a reserve officer was severely wounded by a drone attack, with four other soldiers lightly injured. The soldiers' deaths prompted a strong response from Israeli politicians.

"With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not up for bargaining. All of Lebanon must burn," Ben Gvir said in a statement. "For every tear shed by an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep," he added. In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israel of wanting "permanent war".

"This is not a rant by a random genocidal lunatic. It's a public post by the national security minister of the Israeli regime," he said in a post on X. US officials including President Donald Trump have expressed frustration at Israel's campaign in Lebanon, which it has pursued in spite of Washington's negotiations with Tehran. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israeli troops will stay in Lebanon "as long as necessary", vowing to make Hezbollah pay a "heavy price" for its attacks.

Hassan Tarhini, 57, forced to flee his home in the Nabatieh area with his wife and children after the latest fighting, told AFP that "we have no problem being displaced once, twice, or even 10 times, so long as we return with our heads held high". "Even if Israel were to keep bombing from now until Judgement Day, we would remain committed to the same conviction and would not back down, even if thousands of martyrs fall."

Hezbollah said early Friday that it had targeted Israeli troops "with a barrage of rockets and mortar shells" near the Ali al-Taher hills, a strategic feature overlooking Nabatieh. It also reported attacking Israeli tanks, saying forces "consisting of an armoured platoon and an infantry platoon (tried) to infiltrate towards the northern side of the Ali al-Taher hills". "The clashes are still ongoing," it said.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in early March by attacking Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader at the start of the US-Israeli military campaign. Israel retaliated with broad strikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south, which borders Israel and has long been under Hezbollah's sway.

- Permanent end to hostilities -

The United States, Iran and their respective allies "declare an immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon".

They undertake "not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon".

- Final agreement within 60 days -

Iran and the United States commit to "negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days, extendable with mutual consent".

- Lifting US blockade -

The United States will "immediately" begin the removal of its blockade of Iranian ports, which it imposed on April 13, and will bring it to an end within 30 days.

The United States also undertakes to "remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal".

- Reopening the Strait of Hormuz -

Iran will make best efforts to ensure the "safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start" and be fully restored within 30 days, once the Hormuz Strait has been cleared of mines.

- $300 billion plan -

The United States and its regional partners will draw up a plan with "at least" $300 billion "for the reconstruction and economic development" of Iran.

- Lifting sanctions -

The United States undertakes to "terminate all types of sanctions against" Iran, and to "make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU".

The US Treasury will "issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, (and) transportation" with immediate effect, until the sanctions are lifted.

- Nuclear -

Iran reaffirms that "it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons".

The disposition of Tehran's enriched uranium will be resolved by "a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon... with the minimum methodology to be down-blending on site under the supervision of the IAEA".

Pending the final deal, Iran will "maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program", and the United States "will not impose any new sanctions, and will not deploy additional forces in the region".

- Signing -

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who was involved in the mediation, said the memorandum was electronically signed on Thursday, Islamabad time, by US President Donald Trump and Iran's leader Masoud Pezeshkian.

A ceremony will be held in Switzerland on Friday to "commemorate this landmark event and commence with the technical level talks", according to Sharif.

- UN resolution -

The final agreement will be endorsed by a binding resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

The United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday meant to end the Middle East war, with fighting halted on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Lebanon was drawn into the conflict when Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2 in support of Iran.

Lebanon earlier said Israel's massive campaign of airstrikes and ground invasion has so far killed more than 3,800 people. Israel's side saw 31 soldiers and one civilian contractor killed since March 2.

Pollsters expect Burnham to win the historic contest to represent the Makerfield constituency in northwest England, but he faces a tough fight from the hard-right Reform UK party. "Almost undoubtedly it's in the hands of the voters of Makerfield as to whether or not Burnham becomes prime minister," political scientist John Curtice.

"If Burnham does win, his path to 10 Downing Street looks to be relatively assured. If they deny him the opportunity, it may be that Starmer will survive, at least for the time being," he told AFP. Starmer, in power since July 2024, has been clinging to power by his fingernails since Labour suffered a drubbing in local and regional elections last month. He has been rocked by several policy U-turns and a scandal over his appointment of ex-Jeffrey Epstein associate Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to Washington.

The 63-year-old prime minister has endured several ministerial resignations and rock-bottom personal poll ratings, with Reform leading national surveys for over a year. But Starmer, an ex-lawyer who has refused to quit, insists his landslide election victory over the Conservatives 21 months ago gives him a five-year mandate to govern. Impatience within the centre-left Labour party ramped up in May when Labour MP Josh Simons announced he would stand down so Burnham could try to return to parliament and run for leader.

While Makerfield's 76,000 electorate typically votes Labour, Simons won a majority of only around 5,300 at the 2024 general election. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, also won every council ward in the predominantly white, working-class area during last month's council polls. But the personal popularity of Burnham -- a three-term mayor of Greater Manchester nicknamed the "King of the North" -- is likely to see him triumph over Reform candidate Robert Kenyon, polls predict.

Local plumber Kenyon has also been dogged by offensive remarks he previously made about women, while the fringe Restore Britain party is expected to split the hard-right vote. The polls open at 7:00 am (0600GMT) and close at 10:00 pm, with counting to begin straight away. In Ashton-in-Makerfield, 61-year-old Hazel Ellis told AFP she planned to vote for Reform.

"I'm willing to give them a go because this is the last hope for Britain now," she said. In nearby Bryn, twenty-three-year-old Finn Knowles told AFP Burnham was "a better option" than Starmer. "He doesn't really know what he wants to do," the pub worker said of the prime minister. Burnham, who polls show is Labour's most popular politician, hails from the party's so-called soft-left wing and has been an outspoken critic of Starmer's more-centrist rule.

Under Labour party rules, leadership candidates must be an MP, which Burnham was between 2001 and 2017. He would easily muster the support of 81 of Labour's 400-plus MPs needed to launch a contest, which Starmer has vowed to fight. Burnham allies are hopeful Starmer's top ministerial team could persuade him to lay out a timetable for his departure instead, avoiding a bitter contest.

On Wednesday, the prime minister tried to ward off the expected challenge by insisting he wants Burnham to play "a big role" in his government. If Burnham wins in Makerfield, it is unclear when he would make his move against Starmer, particularly when a tricky defence of his vacated mayoral seat would loom for Labour. Ex-health minister Wes Streeting, also manoeuvring for the top job, said Tuesday the prime minister should be given "space over the weekend" to consider his future.

Streeting, from Labour's right wing, has vowed to challenge Starmer if Burnham loses. That could see a left-wing figure like Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband joining any race, Labour's former policy director Andrew Fisher told a think-tank event this week. The outcome of a "three-way contest is far less predictable," he said.

Kyiv has stepped up its drone strikes on Russia in recent months, hitting oil refineries that fund Moscow's war chest, as diplomatic talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remain stalled. "Air defence forces are continuing to repel a large-scale attack. Several drones managed to reach the MNPZ (Moscow Oil Refinery)," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram, with authorities closing traffic on streets near the refinery.

He did not specify damage to the facility, but several Russian media outlets reported that it was on fire. Russia's busiest airport -- Moscow's Sheremetyevo -- announced it had evacuated passengers to "safe locations" during the barrage and was restricting flights. Another drone crashed into an apartment building in the Moscow region district of Zhukovsky, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping centre near the capital's suburbs, Moscow region governor Andrey Vorobyov said.

Russian air defences shot down 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the Russian defence ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones overnight. The attack was the largest on Moscow in at least two years, Russia's state TASS news agency reported. Since the war began in 2022, Russia has pummelled Ukraine with near-daily aerial barrages of drones and missiles.

The attack came just hours before Putin was set to host Southeast Asian leaders at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the central city of Kazan. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore sent their prime ministers, while the Philippines sent President Ferdinand Marcos. Putin has long sought to project stability in Russia, despite the economic and social effects of his four-year offensive on Ukraine.

Russia's economy -- on a war footing throughout the conflict -- is struggling with high inflation, a labour shortage and high borrowing costs. The advance of forces on the Ukrainian battlefield has slowed this year, while Kyiv has multiplied attacks on Russian soil. At a summit of the G7 in France earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said Moscow should "make a deal" to end the Ukraine war.

Putin has repeatedly refused offers for face-to-face talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying that Moscow intends to capture Ukraine's eastern Donbas region by force. Russia's 2022 offensive on Ukraine has become Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed and large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine ravaged by fighting.

But Trump's return to the United States on Thursday is set to bring him back to reality, with a barrage of criticism expected from both opponents and supporters of the conflict. Even Fox News, the usually Trump-friendly news channel, cited critics who said the agreement gave Iran "huge financial benefits" without requiring the dismantlement of its nuclear program.

The deal is only a temporary arrangement meant to give time for starting detailed negotiations on the far more complex issue of long-term control over the nuclear power ambitions of Iran, which Washington has long suspected of harboring a secret bomb-making program. Once a final agreement is reached on the Islamic republic's nuclear program, the United States will facilitate the release of a $300 billion reconstruction fund supported by regional nations, according to the deal.

Messaging from Trump's inner circle looks unlikely to sway Fox News in giving significant airtime to criticism of the deal. "Despite the administration portraying the agreement as a breakthrough, critics have argued that the concessions offered to Iran far outweigh the commitments secured in return," Fox said. Left-leaning US TV network MS NOW put it this way: "The White House agreed to this ceasefire extension that met none of its prewar objectives while providing enormous financial concessions to Tehran."

"Now, the administration is desperately trying to argue otherwise. Quite simply, Trump got played by the Iranians, and no one is buying his spin job." The agreement is "widely seen as the biggest foreign-policy bet of the president's second term," according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted Trump "will face resistance from Iran policy hawks who say the president is giving up far more than he is getting."

Even the signing of the deal appeared to fall into disarray, with the business daily reporting that Trump inked the agreement for a second time on Wednesday night, surprising some of his aides and derailing plans for a signing ceremony later this week. The New York Times, meanwhile, said Iran could emerge from the conflict with "much to celebrate," noting that the agreement "read nothing like a surrender document."

The Islamic republic "proved they can use economic chaos as a weapon," the Times said. At the start of the conflict, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on February 28, Trump spoke of the possibility that the Iranian regime could collapse. "If anything, Mr. Trump has propped up the new leadership," the newspaper said. Worse still, Tehran could be closer than ever before to pushing for a nuclear weapon, it added.

"For more than two decades Iran walked right up to the edge of building a nuclear bomb, but never stepped over the line," the Times said. "When Iran's leaders begin to clear the rubble left by 40 days of bombing, and think about how to spend the billions in oil revenue that will soon resume, they may well question whether they had the right nuclear strategy." National Public Radio (NPR) -- whose funding Trump tried to cut before a judge blocked his order -- stressed the human toll of the war, which "pitted the world's most powerful military against a far weaker, yet strategically adept, adversary."

"The resolution sets the minimum age for social media use at 15 years," the official WAM news agency said, citing the cabinet resolution. "Children below this age are prohibited from creating, using, or operating personal accounts on social media platforms." They are also barred from "accessing the full features of such platforms, including social interaction, publishing, commenting, sharing, joining public groups, open channels, or any large-scale interactive spaces", it said.

After Australia began a world-first social media bar for under-16s in December, a number of countries have followed suit including Britain, which announced a ban this week. The UAE's bodies controlling media and telecommunications have "authority to take all necessary measures (against social media platforms in the event of non-compliance", WAM said. These include "warning or partial or full blocking of platforms or the imposition of applicable administrative penalties".

The announcement lifted a veil of uncertainty that had hung over the meeting at the Burgenstock luxury hotel complex near Lucerne in central Switzerland, initially announced on Tuesday. At the time, it had been billed as a signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding agreed by the United States and Iran to end the regional war that erupted on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes.

But the signing was unexpectedly moved forward, with US President Donald Trump laying down his signature on Wednesday at a candlelit dinner outside Paris, as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed remotely. Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and US Vice President JD Vance were expected to take part in the discussions to flesh out the details of the deal, but the Swiss said they could provide no further information on the agenda.

In a sudden development after uncertainty over when the deal agreed earlier this week would be formally signed, Trump put his name to it in thick black ink at a candlelit dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris on Wednesday. Macron -- for whom the signing at the palace, which hosted the signing of the treaty that ended World War I, was an immense coup following his hosting of the G7 summit -- shouted "bravo" as Trump signed.

"These fools, who think I haven't been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are 'tumbling' down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid," Trump posted on social media hours after signing the deal. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also signed the agreement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, adding that "now it is time to test the implementation of the agreement".

Crude fell more than three percent Thursday, extending the losses sustained since news of the deal broke at the weekend. The deal should bring an end to the current US-Israeli conflict with the Islamic republic, which saw five weeks of all-out war until a ceasefire early April and led to shipping being greatly restricted in the Strait of Hormuz, causing a spike in energy prices.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, which helped mediate the agreement, said it "shall enter into force with immediate effect" and Iran "will instantly reopen the Strait of Hormuz". He also signed the accord. A two-month negotiating period now begins with all eyes on the reopening of Hormuz and if progress can be made in talks over Iran's nuclear programme, which Washington has long suspected of concealing secret bomb-making ambitions.

Macron hailed the deal "which allows for peace, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz without tolls, and 60 days to conclude an agreement on nuclear, ballistic, and regional activities". There remained confusion over the next steps, with the accord originally supposed to have been signed at an exclusive mountain-top resort in Switzerland on Friday by Iran's chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and US Vice President JD Vance.

Baqaei said an in-person ceremony was no longer needed. But Sharif said an official ceremony will take place on Friday in Switzerland and technical talks will commence. Under the text, Washington commits to immediately waive oil sanctions crippling Iran's economy. And, once a final agreement is reached on Iran's nuclear programme, the United States will also facilitate the release of a $300 billion reconstruction fund supported by regional nations, the deal says.

UN atomic agency chief Rafael Grossi told reporters in Geneva it was ready to begin defining the "concrete steps" that will need to be taken to implement a US-Iran deal. US officials also said Iran will dilute its enriched uranium stocks, possibly by "down-blending on site" under the supervision of the UN watchdog.

Iran's ballistic missile programme was not mentioned in the agreement, despite Israel's longstanding push for its dismantling. "Iranian missiles are only for firing, not for negotiations. Iran's defence capability will not be discussed in any way, in any process or with any party," Baqaei said. There has been some criticism from hardliners within Iran, where the conflict was described as an "imposed war" and compared to the 1980-1988 conflict with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

But Ghalibaf insisted the deal represented a US "failure", while Pezeshkian called it "historic". And Trump's decision to end the war, in which 13 US service members were killed and a vast proportion of US ammunition stockpiles was used, has unsettled some of his allies at home. Apparently anticipating such criticism, Trump said at the G7 that he was prepared to "bomb the hell" out of Iran if they violated the agreement.

But US Senator Bill Cassidy from Trump's Republican Party described it as the "worst foreign policy blunder in decades". "Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works," he said. Even Fox News, the usually Trump-friendly news channel, cited critics who said the agreement gave Iran "huge financial benefits" without requiring the dismantlement of its nuclear programme.

And while the deal specifies that Lebanon should be part of the equation, it is unclear whether the war on that front will be discussed in the next 60 days. Lebanon was drawn into the conflict when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2 in support of Iran. Israel responded by launching a massive campaign of strikes and a ground invasion. While violence has declined in Lebanon following the announcement of the deal, an Israeli drone strike in south Lebanon killed one person on Thursday, according to Lebanese state media.

The Gulf state's foreign ministry said in a statement that the deal "represents a solid foundation for advancing to the next stage of negotiations between the American and Iranian parties", ahead of technical talks expected in Switzerland on Friday.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, quoted by the state news agency IRNA, said the document "was finalized with the signatures of the presidents." Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, which mediated the agreement, said on X that it "shall enter into force with immediate effect." The deal aims to draw a line under the war launched February 28 by the United States and Israel, prompting Iran to counterattack with missile and drone salvos across the region -- and effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world economy. The US responded by blocking shipping to and from Iranian ports.

"As a first step, Islamic Republic of Iran will instantly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the United States of America will immediately lift the naval blockade," Sharif wrote. Under the text, Washington also commits to immediately waive oil sanctions crippling Iran's economy. And once a final agreement is reached on the Islamic republic's nuclear program, the United States will also facilitate the release of a $300 billion reconstruction fund supported by regional nations, the deal says.

The agreement had earlier been slated for signatures by Iran's chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and US Vice President JD Vance. Iran said an in-person ceremony was no longer needed. But Sharif said an official ceremony will take place Friday in Switzerland and technical talks will commence. Iran insisted the deal represented a US "failure."

"People will see it and judge," Ghalibaf said on state television late Wednesday, after the text was released by both sides. Highlighting the global impact of any deal, China said Wednesday that its top diplomat had impressed on Tehran that it was "key" for all sides to "genuinely implement" their commitments. But Trump's decision to pull the plug on the war, in which 13 US service members were killed and vast amounts of US ammunition stockpiles were used up, has unsettled some of his own allies at home.

The agreement is only a temporary arrangement meant to give time for starting detailed negotiations on the far more complex issue of long-term control over Iran's nuclear power ambitions, which Washington has long suspected of harboring a secret bomb-making program. Trump said earlier Wednesday that he was prepared to "bomb the hell" out of Iran if they violated the agreement.

But US Senator Bill Cassidy from Trump's own Republican Party was scathing. "Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works," he said. "Sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades."

The head of the pro-Tehran Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, on Wednesday described the deal as a "great victory" for Iran. He thanked Tehran for insisting that the truce cover Lebanon, which was drawn into the conflict when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2 in support of Iran. A two-month negotiating period now begins, with the much-anticipated reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as the first step.

Under the terms of the deal released by US officials, Iran will dilute its enriched uranium stocks, possibly by "down-blending on site under the supervision of the IAEA" -- the UN's nuclear watchdog. This would lead to more far-reaching economic assistance for Iran. But a US official said Washington would not be required to contribute financially. Oil prices have tumbled in recent days as optimism grew of a lasting Middle East peace agreement, but reversed course on Wednesday.

Prices briefly jumped five percent as uncertainty spread about the signing, before stabilizing later in the day. While violence declined in Lebanon following the announcement of the deal, Israeli strikes on the south have killed at least five people since then, according to state media, which also reported Israeli raids on south Lebanon on Wednesday. Israel's army said five soldiers were wounded on Wednesday, one of them severely, "as a result of an explosive drone impact in southern Lebanon", the first such announcement since the US-Iran deal.

The Israeli military also said its air force intercepted "several rockets" launched toward soldiers operating in south Lebanon, without reporting casualties.

The Canadian premier said he noted a US "change in tone with respect to Ukraine" as Kyiv seeks to end more than four years of conflict following Russia's invasion. This included "a more realistic -- in our view -- expectation of where this war was going to go, and the position against Russia, the tightening of sanctions against Russia, the ability to provide additional defensive support for Ukraine". The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States also held a "very detailed discussion about Lebanon", he added.

The talks on a final US-Iran settlement to end the conflict, triggered by the February 28 US-Israeli strikes on Tehran, are set to begin Friday immediately after the signing of the accord in Switzerland and continue over a 60-day window to flesh out its details. But fresh Israeli strikes on alleged Iran-backed Hezbollah sites in south Lebanon have dented the optimism surrounding the deal. "Yes, there are risks. Yes, the accord has to be put into place," said Carney.

"But the very fact of it -- and the fact that so many countries were involved in its development and are vested in its development -- does create knock-on effects, positive knock-on effects," he said. In a joint statement late on Tuesday, the G7 hailed "the breakthrough and the opportunity that currently exist in the Middle East". They said the memorandum of understanding "provides an historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon and tackling the threats related to its regional and ballistic activities".

Ukraine has in recent months stepped up drone strikes on Russia in retaliation for Moscow's almost daily air raids since the beginning of the four-year war. "The Armed Forces of Ukraine, using airplane-type drones, attacked the bus of the Gomel children's football team, which was going on holiday to Gelendzhik (on Russia's Black Sea coast)," Kovalchuk said on social media.

He added that all wounded were taken to a local hospital and the rest of the passengers would return home soon. Gomel lies in the south-east corner of Moscow-allied Belarus, near the Russian and Ukrainian borders. Russia's Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, opened a terrorism probe and said the total number of wounded was to be confirmed. The bus carried 44 passengers, 28 of them children, it added.

Both Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians in the conflict that spiralled into Europe's deadliest since World War II. On Monday, a massive Russian drone and missile barrage killed 11 people across Ukraine and damaged a UNESCO-listed monastery in Kyiv. Talks on ending the war remain deadlocked, while fighting at the front was effectively at a standstill.

The operation's success comes after a tough time in the spotlight for the wife of Norway's heir to the throne, and just days after her son from a previous relationship was sentenced to prison for rape in a case that has rocked the country's monarchy. "In accordance with standard practice... the Crown Princess will remain admitted to Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet for several weeks to come," Are Holm, lung specialist at the hospital, said in a palace statement.

Her condition had deteriorated significantly over the past six months and her doctors announced on June 5 that she had been placed on the waiting list for a lung transplant. Doctors said the procedure was a last resort when a patient is believed to have less than two years to live without new lungs. Wednesday's palace statement did not specify when the procedure was done. Scarring of the lungs occurs when the tiny air sacs called alveoli and the tissue between them become damaged and thickened, stiffening the lung and thereby hindering the passage of oxygen into the blood.

Her doctors had previously said that to be placed on the list for a transplant, one must be sick enough to qualify but still in sufficiently good condition to handle such a major procedure and recovery. The crown princess had recently appeared in public with a breathing tube connected to an oxygen device carried by a palace employee. Crown Prince Haakon, who is set to one day succeed his 89-year-old father as king, will cut back his public engagements going forward in order to spend time with his wife, the palace said.

The couple's 22-year-old daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, has also interrupted her social sciences studies at the University of Sydney to be with her mother and plans to continue her studies in Oslo throughout the autumn. The crown prince couple's silver wedding anniversary celebration, which was to take place in August 2026, has been postponed. A single mother when she married Haakon in 2001, Mette-Marit's health woes have coincided with the high-profile trial of her 29-year-old son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Hoiby, which has damaged the monarchy's standing in the public eye.

On Monday, an Oslo court sentenced Hoiby to four years in prison for two counts of rape and 32 other offences, after a six-week trial in February and March. Hoiby has denied the most serious charges, and his lawyers have said they will appeal. He has been held in custody since February and has repeatedly asked to be released to be at his mother's bedside, requests denied by the courts.

Mette-Marit has also been plagued by revelations about her friendship with convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In January, documents were released revealing her frequent contacts with Epstein between 2011 and 2014 -- after he was convicted of soliciting a minor -- which shocked Norwegians. Shortly afterwards, several opinion polls showed that a majority of Norwegians felt Mette-Marit was no longer suitable to be queen one day.

"I think time will do its work, that Norwegians will forgive (her), and that the sympathy generated by the crown princess's health problems will help turn the tide," Caroline Vagle, royal reporter for celebrity magazine Se og Hor, told AFP. "But even if she has new lungs, her condition is serious and she won't be at 100 percent. It remains to be seen what level of official activity she'll be able to maintain," she said.

The scandals have shaken the monarchy and contributed to declining support, though it remains broadly popular. An opinion poll published in May by public broadcaster NRK showed 64 percent of Norwegians are in favour of maintaining the monarchy. "This has of course been a turbulent period," royal expert Ole-Jorgen Schulsrud-Hansen said, "but overall, the royal family has retained the public's sympathy given the crown princess's condition."

"We are seeing a growing US footprint in Australia, that is important in terms of building our own military capability, but also it's very important for Australia's national security," Marles told reporters in Western Australia. "An American logistics footprint is part of its overall force posture on the continent," he said. "Bandiana is a place which supports logistics, support for the Australian Defence Force, and it makes sense that as America seeks to do that, it would do it at the same place," Marles added.

Australia does not permit foreign military bases on its soil, but hosts US Marines for exercises for six months of the year in the northern city of Darwin. A rotating force of US-commanded submarines will arrive in Western Australia next year. Marles said the "hugely significant American presence" in the Asia Pacific was a balance to China's "very significant military build up".

The US Army left trucks at Bandiana in 2023 after war games with Australia, held every two years, as a trial of prepositioning US military equipment. AFP reported a separate US Marines store in Australia is expected to reach full capacity by 2028, with a global defence contractor employing around 110 engineers and specialists.

A US Marine Corps Forces Pacific spokesperson said the Australian facility will support equipment and supplies for marines operations and exercises across the Indo Pacific. The US Navy has allocated $30 million to build warehouses and offices in Victoria state next year.

Clashes with US President Donald Trump and virulent criticism of Israel have made Sanchez a global progressive star, but the scandals have eroded the domestic standing of one of Europe's few remaining Socialist leaders. Zapatero, who governed Spain from 2004 to 2011, was placed under formal investigation last month for alleged influence peddling in connection with the bailout of small airline Plus Ultra in 2021.

Plus Ultra received 53 million euros ($61.5 million) of public money after the Covid-19 pandemic paralysed global travel. Investigating judge Jose Luis Calama has said Zapatero allegedly headed a "stable and hierarchical" structure that used "opaque financial channels" to conceal the movement of money and obtain bribes for his illicit manoeuvring. Zapatero has denied the allegations, while Sanchez has expressed "full support" for his mentor.

A police search of Zapatero's office found jewellery and luxury watches valued at 1.3 million euros, leading Calama to probe additional alleged offences of tax fraud and smuggling. Zapatero's entourage attributes the hoard to a family inheritance. Zapatero began his hearing at the Audiencia Nacional court in Madrid -- becoming the first former or serving Spanish prime minister to be declared as a suspect in a corruption probe. "What is at stake is the reputation of someone who has become... the moral beacon of Pedro Sanchez and the current Socialist party," Astrid Barrio, a political science professor at the University of Valencia, told AFP. 

Sanchez vowed to clean up Spanish politics when he took power in 2018 after the main conservative Popular Party (PP) was convicted in its own graft affair. But a two-year-long investigation into his wife Begona Gomez for alleged influence peddling had already shaken the government, with a decision to send her to trial potentially coming in days. Verdicts are also due in separate corruption trials of Sanchez's former right-hand man Jose Luis Abalos and his brother David Sanchez.

Recent revelations about an ongoing police probe into a former Socialist activist suspected of leading a plot to sabotage investigations into Sanchez's entourage have piled further pressure on the government. Amid the relentless stream of negative headlines, the Socialists have suffered four regional election drubbings since late 2025, in a possible precursor to next year's national vote. The conservative and far-right opposition have demanded Sanchez's resignation and early elections, saying the scandals have exposed systemic Socialist corruption.

Sanchez insists he will see out his term until 2027, highlighting his government's achievements and declining to directly answer a question about corruption from the PP in parliament on Wednesday. But researcher Barrio said "two very serious issues" could yet bring him down: being placed under investigation himself or a charge of illegal financing against the Socialists.

"Good, thank you," replied Trump, a tycoon before becoming president who famously hosted the TV show "The Apprentice" with its catchphrase "You're fired!", as he finally took his seat. Fresh from clinching an accord to end the war with Iran and celebrating his 80th birthday, Trump's presence has dominated the summit in the spa town of Evian on Lake Geneva. French officials will be satisfied that the mercurial US president has stayed for the entire event and signed on to the G7 communique -- in contrast to the previous gathering in Canada, where he left early.

In an unusual gesture, Macron has invited Trump to dinner at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris after the summit winds down on Wednesday afternoon. Macron, under pressure to show he is not fawning over Trump, has already said the evening at Versailles will not be a "gala" dinner.

In April alone, the gap stood at 31.9 billion euros ($37 billion), according to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office. "Our trading relationship with China has reached a point that requires a reset. Not confrontation, but rebalancing," said European Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic on Monday. China's ambassador to the EU, Cai Run, said last month that Beijing was "fully aware" of the bloc's concerns, adding that it had "never deliberately pursued a trade surplus" and was "willing to... address this issue".

He pointed to measures China had already taken, such as increased market access for European agricultural products, the removal of tax rebates for Chinese solar products exporters, and export restrictions for Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). Beijing rejects the claim that the overseas success of Chinese firms is built on massive state subsidies, arguing it is due to innovation, economies of scale and its industrial base.

EU-China ties have worsened this year as Brussels seeks to strengthen its legislative arsenal to counter Beijing. The EU fears that the dominance of Chinese companies in certain sectors, particularly EVs, chemicals and green technologies, could crush its own industries. The bloc is also demanding more access to the Chinese market, arguing that Beijing does not give reciprocal freedoms to European firms. China, meanwhile, has promised "countermeasures" if the EU pushes through a draft "industrial acceleration" bill that would exclude certain products manufactured outside the bloc from public procurement, and restrict the takeover of European companies.

The European Commission has reviewed its cybersecurity rules, aiming to exclude suppliers deemed high-risk -- such as Chinese firm Huawei -- from telecom networks. And since 2024, Chinese EVs exported to Europe have faced extra customs duties. "Emotions are high and unstable. The risk of a trade war between EU and China is real," said Xu Dingbo, a professor at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai. Elvire Fabry, a trade geopolitics specialist at the Jacques Delors Institute, an EU-focused think tank, said it was "essential today for Europeans to show their determination and establish a balance of power".

However, both sides have an interest in reconciling, according to Zhu Tian, an economist at CEIBS. "Neither side benefits from escalation: Europe would face higher costs and slower green transition, while China would lose access to a key market," he said. Beijing has a wide range of tools at its disposal if the EU further ratchets up measures to protect its firms. "China could respond with anti-dumping investigations, regulatory scrutiny, restrictions in selected sectors, or pressure on politically sensitive European products," Zhu said.

Beijing has previously imposed anti-dumping duties on European cognac and conducted anti-dumping investigations into pork and dairy products from the bloc. This time, the EU is particularly concerned that China might restrict exports of rare earths essential for high-tech industries. Whatever form it takes, "China is likely to respond in a calibrated way," Zhu said. "Enough to signal that EU measures have costs, but not so much that the whole relationship breaks down." The European Union is China's second-largest trading partner.

China "needs access to the European market as the US market closes", said Fabry, of the Jacques Delors Institute. Zhu noted more Chinese investment into Europe as a way to create jobs and reassure European decision-makers that "China takes European concerns seriously". "China can help by further opening its market and encouraging more imports and investment, but Europe also needs to strengthen its own competitiveness," he added.

Beijing can still avoid a trade war, said Joerg Wuttke, an expert at the DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group and former president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. But would require China "being really open and not just pretending", he said, because "China has been talking about opening up (for) about 20 or 30 years".

The name change "honors the command's deep historical roots, fostering a sense of pride and collective spirit among all who serve in the Pacific," the department said, without giving additional details. The US Pacific Command was established by former President Harry Truman after World War II.

It operated under that name for over 70 years before being renamed as the US Indo-Pacific Command in 2018, in a nod to the growing importance of the Indian Ocean in US strategic thinking. The 2018 name change also came as part of broader efforts by Washington to counter China's growing influence across the Asia-Pacific domain.

"If they (the Iranian side) don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head," Trump said at the G7 summit alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

This envisages a strengthening of "operational capacity" at the border, including the reinforcing of a new Europol-run centre to fight criminal networks illegally smuggling migrants. A "UK-French joint intelligence cell" in the French city of Calais, on the Channel, would be also beefed up, while EU border agency Frontex would deploy staff and equipment, such as "surveillance assets", the European Commission said. The 27-nation bloc said it will also step up "its migration diplomacy", strengthening cooperation with countries of origin and transit to curb flows -- and promote "EU and UK information campaigns" aimed at dissuading would-be migrants from coming.

More than 41,000 migrants landed on England's southern coast last year -- the second-highest annual number since records were started in 2018. France has long been a launchpad for migrants hoping to cross the Channel and start a better life in Britain. Paying smugglers thousands of dollars, people often board overloaded rubber dinghies to make the dangerous and sometimes deadly journey across one of the world's busiest shipping routes. Across the border from France, Belgian authorities are also concerned about a new, still limited phenomenon of migrant departures towards England, with more than 400 people intercepted attempting to cross the Channel so far this year.

The European Commission said the measures set out in the plan would now be put in place together with member states, cautioning it might take some time for all to be implemented. The EU, which is pressing a broader crackdown on irregular migration, says illegal crossings out of the bloc via the Channel are down 44 percent so far this year.

Both William, formally known as the Prince of Wales, and his younger brother Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, attended the exclusive school in Berkshire, west of London. It has also famously educated 20 past prime ministers, including Boris Johnson and David Cameron, as well as a roll call of other well known people, from actor Tom Hiddleston to James Bond creator Ian Fleming. George's grandfather, King Charles III, went to Gordonstoun, a school in the Scottish Highlands attended by the king's father, the late Duke of Edinburgh.

It is not known if George will board at Eton, with the college only a few kilometres (miles) from his family's Forest Lodge home in Windsor. However, the young prince -- who is second in line to the throne, after his father -- has been boarding at the Lambrook School, the private preparatory school in Berkshire where he has studied since 2022. He has attended there alongside his siblings Princess Charlotte, 11, and eight-year-old Prince Louis. Eton, long a byword for elitism and the class divide in Britain, was founded by King Henry VI in 1440. It educates boys aged 13 to 18, and has preserved many of its traditions, including a distinct uniform comprising a black tailcoat, black waist coat, white shirt and bow tie, and striped trousers. It welcomes nearly 1,350 pupils each year, according to its website.

Earlier this year, however, he was arrested by US immigration authorities, though it was over "the status of his current stay", his lawyers said at the time, rather than his legal woes back home. The former minister was declared a fugitive by Ghana's Office of the Special Prosecutor in February 2025. Interpol issued a "red notice" for him in June that year, and Ghanaian authorities formally charged him with corruption in November.

He was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in January 2026 while applying to extend his stay in the country. "Ken Ofori-Atta's Green card I-485 petition has been granted by US Immigration Court," his attorney Justice Kusi-Minkah Premo said in a statement. "The Court finds the criminal charges in Ghana not credible," he said, though he added the decision "was focused on whether Mr Ofori-Atta met the legal requirements for adjustment of status".

Ghana's Office of the Special Prosecutor said it was not involved in immigration hearings and that its extradition request was being handled separately. "The credibility or otherwise of the criminal charges against Mr. Ofori-Atta would be determined by the courts in Ghana, who have jurisdiction to determine his guilt or innocence," it said in a statement. Ofori-Atta served as finance minister from 2017 to 2024 under former president Nana Akufo-Addo and oversaw contentious tax reforms and negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

He faces a sprawling, 78-charge corruption case back home. Current President John Mahama has pursued a crackdown on corruption, though critics say he has unfairly targeted political enemies.

The summit of the G7 group of world powers notably brought Zelensky face-to-face with Trump, who has sought to reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin but also showed signs of losing patience with Moscow. "Leaders decided today to increase the pressure on Russia through sanctions on gas and oil," a French diplomatic source said after the talks.

The leaders also agreed there "is a dynamic on the ground that benefits Ukraine", added the source, who asked not to be named. Host President Emmanuel Macron has invited Zelensky to stay until the end of the three-day summit on Wednesday so that he can meet Trump and the other G7 leaders. European leaders will be keen to remind Trump of the importance of pushing Russia to accept peace on Ukraine's terms, and not pressure Kyiv into making concessions to Moscow.

"Russia should make a deal" to end the war against Ukraine, Trump said after meeting Zelensky. He pointed to the high casualties on both sides in the conflict, the deadliest on European soil since World War II. "The whole thing is ridiculous. So, yeah, I'm going to do whatever I can," Trump added. Zelensky said in a post on X after meeting G7 leaders that Ukraine's priorities were "clear", including increasing the number of air defence missiles, a winter support package and strengthening pressure on Russia.

"It's great that everybody understands that Russia is not winning, and we have to push Putin to end this war," the Ukrainian leader said at a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Zelensky had Monday urged a "decisive and substantive" response from the G7 leaders after the latest wave of Russian strikes, which killed at least 11 people and sparked a fire at a landmark Kyiv cathedral. He revealed Putin had rejected an offer of a meeting at the G7 but said he had also suggested to Trump that he could meet Putin in the United States.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom is imposing a raft of new sanctions against Russia, including on tankers that transport LNG, in a bid to pressure Moscow into halting the war against Ukraine. "Working with our G7 allies, we will continue to increase the pressure on Putin and his circle of collaborators until Russia's war machine is brought to a halt and peace returns to our continent," said Starmer.

Carney meanwhile said Canada was announcing new sanctions against 160 entities linked to Russia's so-called shadow fleet, used to dodge Western sanctions on Russian fossil fuels and other goods. Iran remains a key topic at the summit, with allies eager to question Trump over his deal with the Islamic republic to end the Middle East war.

Trump said the United States was under "no obligation" to invest in Iran after the deal, adding that its main focus was that Iran would not acquire a nuclear weapon and that "all hell" would "rain down" on the country if it did. After former supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war on February 28, Trump described the new leadership in Tehran as "very rational people" who were "nice to deal with" and "not radicalised".

Trump also said he had suggested to Israel that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa should deal with Lebanon's Tehran-backed Hezbollah militia as the Israeli campaign was causing too many casualties. Sharaa "is very good with Hezbollah, does not like them", Trump said, adding that the Syrian leader -- an ex-jihadist -- is "no boy scout".

"Likely on Friday, at a location to be determined... a new round of negotiations between Iran and the United States to reach a final agreement will begin," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. "In the final agreement, decisions will be made on the nuclear issues and the lifting of sanctions." According to Iran's deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi, the Islamic republic's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf will attend the signing in Switzerland, which Bern said would take place at the luxury Burgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne.

The mountainside venue "was proposed by Pakistani and Qatari mediators, as well as by the US and Iran," the Swiss foreign ministry told AFP. The US side will be represented by Vice President JD Vance, who said Trump might also attend. The developments came after Trump said an Iranian blockade on the crucial Hormuz strait oil and gas route would be fully lifted by Friday, which would be a major boost to the global economy. "Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz," Trump said Monday. Optimism over the reopening of Hormuz has sent the price of the international benchmark Brent North Sea crude tumbling below $80 a barrel, a three-month low.

The US had, in retaliation, imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports. Iranian state television said Iranian oil tankers and other vessels had resumed shipping following the deal, with Takht-Ravanchi saying ths US blockade "has been lifted prior to the formal signing". Sporadic episodes of violence since an April ceasefire had threatened a deal, but weeks of indirect negotiations mediated by Pakistan and Qatar built momentum for an interim agreement. Yet a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear ambitions and Western sanctions remains elusive. Washington and close ally Israel are pressing to strip Iran of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, said to have been buried by US strikes last year, while Iran has insisted on its right to enrichment.

The agreed framework has however paved the way for talks on those key disputes. Asked at the G7 in France when the text would be released, Trump said: "It's a very powerful document, and I want it to be released. So probably pretty soon." Iran's ultraconservative newspaper Vatan-e Emrooz praised the agreement as a "Trump surrender document".

But Araghchi struck a more cautious note. "We have a history of broken commitments... we have a history of agreements being torn up. All of this is present in our minds," he said. A senior US administration official, however, said Trump, Vance and negotiator Ghalibaf had already signed the text electronically. In a flurry of interviews to talk up the deal, Vance said no US taxpayer money would go to Iran under the deal, as Iranian media reported $12 billion of frozen assets would be released.

Vance told NBC that nuclear inspectors would also be allowed to enter Iran. Analysts have warned that the parallel conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah presents the biggest threat to the diplomatic thaw. Lebanon was pulled into the war in March when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel after the killing of Iran's supreme leader, prompting Israeli strikes and a ground invasion.

That theatre of the conflict could be "the biggest ultimate spoiler" of the coming negotiations, said Ross Harrison, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Lebanon's president and prime minister on Tuesday discussed preparations for a new round of direct talks with Israel scheduled to begin next week, seeking a permanent truce and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the country's south, according to a presidency statement.

But Israeli figures quickly condemned the US-Iran deal that included Lebanon, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that the country's forces would remain in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria "for as long as necessary". Araghchi however said ending the war on all fronts including Lebanon was "the most important" issue in the peace deal. "Ending the war in Lebanon is an inseparable part of the complete end of the war".

"Both measures have been taken in the interest of public order, in response to the organised use of the platform by cheating rackets to defraud candidates," India's National Testing Agency (NTA) said in a statement. The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) is one of the country's most competitive exams, attracting more than two million aspiring doctors.

The NEET exam was scrapped in May following allegations that the question paper was leaked in advance, including reports that it had been circulated through Telegram channels. Responding to the electronics ministry's decision, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov said the week-long ban "hasn't stopped anything" but "punishes" 150 million ordinary users of the messaging app in India and "not the insiders who leaked the exam materials". "The leaks just moved to other apps," Durov said in a post on X.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights group, said the ban "is a disproportionate answer to exam fraud". The intense pressure to succeed in the national exams has fuelled a lucrative industry, with tens of thousands of coaching centres across the country. Fierce competition means that success often comes at a significant personal and financial cost -- creating opportunities for criminal networks seeking to sell leaked examination papers to the highest bidder.

India's Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested the "kingpin" alleged to be behind the leak, naming him as a chemistry lecturer involved in the examination process for the NTA. The education ministry launched on Monday a website where the public can report "suspicious claims, unauthorised content, or fraudulent activities" related to the NEET exam. Indian air force helicopters on Tuesday were seen readying for the delivery of the test papers, to "prevent any possibility of leak", the Press Trust of India news agency reported, broadcasting images of preparations in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Despite rapid economic growth, millions of people in the world's most populous nation still struggle to find stable and well-paying jobs, fuelling discontent. Students spend years preparing for exams in the hope of securing a professional career, with the pressure intensified by limited opportunities and intense competition. Indian media reported suicides of teenagers following the fiasco over the NEET exam. The NEET scandal came on top of another controversy, related to the online marking system used for tests taken by nearly two million high school students.

Many students said the system had assigned incorrect grades or issued results to the wrong candidates. Anger at the exam mishandling has been channelled by the satirical "Cockroach People's Party", which has won millions of followers on social media since its launch in May. The movement emerged after India's Chief Justice Surya Kant reportedly likened young people who criticised the government to "cockroaches" and "parasites" during a court hearing, sparking outrage among the youth. Kant later said his comments were taken out of context.

In a phone conversation ahead of the planned signing on Friday of a US-Iran memorandum of understanding to end their war, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Pakistan's Ishaq Dar that "it is foreseeable that, compared with the first stage, the second stage of negotiations will be more difficult".

Wang added that the United Nations Security Council "should also play a greater role" in supporting these talks, according to a statement from Beijing's foreign ministry.

"The current consensus is far from the final destination, rather it is a new starting point," Wang said.

"Achieving lasting peace in the Middle East and Gulf region still requires unremitting efforts from all parties," Wang said, adding that China was willing to work with Pakistan to promote peace.

"You have transformed the only effective glimmer of hope in ending the Israeli-American aggression on Lebanon into a reality that has proved to the world that Iran is the champion of truth and the resistance," he said, according to the message published by Hezbollah. "We have always said that Iran has given Hezbollah, the resistance and the Lebanese people everything, and has taken nothing in return. It has supported us in our choices and strengthened us to liberate our land," he added.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. Israel responded with a massive campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion that Lebanese authorities say has killed more than 3,800 people. Qassem is due to make a televised address on Wednesday.

The US and Iran said they reached a deal to end the war on all fronts including Lebanon, and to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz, though they offered little indication on the thorny question of Tehran's nuclear programme.

"Egypt welcomes the agreement reached between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, considering it a highly significant development that will restore security and stability at both the regional and international levels," Cairo's foreign ministry said.

Egypt, it said, "hopes that this agreement will constitute a major turning point toward strengthening mutual trust, laying new foundations for cooperation, creating a supportive environment for peace and advancing diplomatic efforts aimed at addressing remaining regional issues".

"Today, the world has seen a historic step towards peace. After the darkness of war, the sun of peace has risen," Sharif told Pakistani lawmakers after earlier announcing the deal would be signed in Geneva on June 19.

"China welcomes the agreement... and expresses appreciation for the mediation efforts made by Pakistan," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a news briefing, adding that Beijing hopes the deal would be signed as scheduled. China "hopes that safe and free passage through the strait will be restored as soon as possible", Lin added.

The air force said Moscow had launched 70 missiles and 611 drones, mainly targeting the capital, adding that Ukrainian air defence units had downed 50 missiles and 582 drones.

Trump then took his place on the South Lawn, beside the mesh-fenced cage called the Octagon where 14 fighters will beat each other bloody in the first professional sporting event ever held at the White House. He was cageside as the first fighter, Brazil's Diego Lopes, won by a knockout. The icing on the cake for the birthday festivities of the oldest US president ever to take office had come earlier as he said a peace deal with Iran was now "complete." But there could still be rain on Trump's parade, with thunderstorms over Washington causing at least a one delay to the $60 million mixed martial arts tournament.

The "UFC Freedom 250" event is linked to this year's festivities for the 250th anniversary of US independence -- but it also happens to fall not only on the US public holiday of Flag Day, but on the same day that Trump enters his ninth decade. Critics have derided the cage fight, saying it is a tacky debasement of the White House by a president who has repeatedly shattered norms during his time in power.

Billionaire Trump has also faced criticism for staging the event amid a war with Iran that has sent global energy prices soaring and caused a major knock-on effect for US consumers. But fans gathered to watch the violent extravaganza on a giant screen on the Ellipse outside the White House defended the event. "I do think maybe it's like a little bit of selfishness, but he is the leader, so he has a say," Nyles Rife, a 35-year-old sports performance coach from Virginia, told AFP. "If I was a president, if I were to have a UFC event on my birthday, and it fell on the 250th anniversary/Flag day, I'd do the same. Why not?"

Mark Toone, a 50-year-old US Marine Corps veteran, said the fight was "totally emblematic and representative of American culture." "I think that it's unfortunate that the opposition is spreading lots of lies and untruths about this event," he said. The billionaire president -- who has deep ties with a sport whose young male fans reflect his own political base -- has defended the UFC event as a unique spectacle.

"This is going to be an event you're really gonna like," Trump said as he hosted some of the muscle-bound fighters in the Oval Office in May. The White House says the UFC is bearing the entire cost. But there has also been criticism of the commercialization of the event in the home of American democracy, with sponsors including Bud Light beer and betting market Polymarket having their logos emblazoned on the Octagon.

The fight is also being broadcast exclusively by Paramount, the US broadcaster run by Trump ally David Ellison. The macho spectacle has meanwhile distracted from questions about Trump's health as he ages. Trump loves to compare his virility to Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, who also turned 80 in office, but was forced to drop his bid for a second term after a disastrous debate with the Republican. But from bruised hands to a vein condition in his legs and apparent sleepiness in meetings, Trump has also had a number of issues, even though his doctor says he's in excellent health.

Trump admitted that he was "not happy about that birthday that I'm having," in a video posted by one of his officials this week. "It's not a number I like, but I'm here nevertheless." For his last birthday, Trump oversaw an unprecedented military parade in Washington, marking the 250th anniversary of the US army.

"In the ensuing chaos, the officer involved mistakenly assessed that the suspects were attempting to flee in the victims' vehicle and discharged his weapon," said the Punjab Police's Crime Control Department in a statement on Sunday. "This erroneous decision resulted in the tragic death of 10-year-old Hania and injuries to her father and brother," it added.

Punjab police said they had registered a criminal complaint from the victim's father and had arrested the officer involved, who appeared before a court and was remanded in custody. Australian media reported the family, from the western city of Perth, were visiting relatives in Pakistan when the incident took place.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese -- who said the child killed was nine years old -- told journalists that his government "expects there to be transparency and a proper investigation of these circumstances." "My understanding is that not only has a young girl lost her life but there have been other members of the family injured as well in circumstances which are dire indeed," he said.

Australia's foreign affairs ministry said it was providing assistance to the family of an Australian citizen who been killed and two others injured. Punjab Police said it was conducting "a thorough, impartial investigation to ensure that justice is served." "We are deeply saddened by this tragedy. While our personnel operate in high-risk environments, there is no justification for a departure from our protocols," it added.

The kingdom welcomed "the agreement reached between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran to end military operations and initiate detailed negotiations within 60 days to reach a permanent agreement," the ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement on social media.

It also insisted that a lasting peace deal would be one "that takes into consideration the security interests of regional states, sticking to the principle of non-interference in the interior affairs of other countries".

France is keen to expand the reach of the G7 beyond its membership of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. President Volodymyr Zelensky will arrive Tuesday for a session on Ukraine, while Arab leaders including Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be there to discuss Iran. The leaders of Brazil, Egypt, India, Kenya and South Korea are also attending.

After the announcement on the eve of the summit of the US-Iran agreement to end the war, Macron said G7 leaders would on Monday discuss its hoped-for "consequences", including the long-term reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Beyond politics, Sam Altman, the head of artificial intelligence giant OpenAI, Anthropic chief Dario Amodei and Arthur Mensch of their European rival Mistral AI, will attend a lunch on Wednesday on protecting minors in the digital sphere.

A vast security lockdown is in place, mobilising thousands of police and troops, an operation that extends to neighbouring Switzerland on the other side of the lake. On Sunday, police and people protesting the G7 summit clashed in the Swiss city of Geneva. Protesters threw bottles, stones, pieces of cement and firecrackers near the United Nations headquarters at the police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Trump arrives Monday fresh from his 80th birthday the day before, which included mixed martial arts fights on the White House lawn -- an event that forced France to shift the dates of the entire summit. Against the backdrop of the placid sheen of Lake Geneva in the hometown of the Evian water brand, the other G7 leaders will seek to find common ground with Trump after a sometimes stormy year for Transatlantic ties. The G7 leaders are impatient to see the Strait of Hormuz reopened and an easing in the global pricing pressure.

"The aim will be to see the consequences of this agreement, support for Lebanon, the lasting reopening of Hormuz and of course the concluding of an accord on nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran," Macron said. "We will also look at the ways and means of diversifying energy routes from the region, to get away from our dependence," he added. The European leaders and Canada will also be keen to remind Trump of the importance of pushing Russia to accept a peace on Ukraine's terms, more than four years after the invasion of its neighbour.

Zelensky said on Sunday he would be meeting with Trump to discuss "good ideas that could help advance peace and protect lives". Trump's G7 stay will begin with talks with Macron on Monday from 1500 GMT, followed by a working dinner with all the participants. Unusually, he is to extend his stay in France by dining with Macron at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris on Wednesday after the G7 finishes. For Macron, the summit will be one of his last chances to burnish his international standing and promote his cherished idea of European strategic autonomy before he leaves office next year.

In contrast, Britain's beleaguered leader Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be attending days after his hitherto loyal defence minister resigned over military spending. He also faces the possible return to parliament of a rival who may seek to oust him. China, as so often at G7 meetings, will be conspicuous by its absence. But leaders will discuss issues including Beijing's dominance and control in the market for rare earth minerals used in everyday electronic appliances.

Few of the details were made public, but US President Donald Trump said the Strait of Hormuz -- a key conduit for global oil supplies -- would reopen after the planned signing of the deal on Friday. "The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete," US President Donald Trump posted Sunday on social media as he marked his 80th birthday. "Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!"

Soon after, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in televised comments that the deal put an "immediate end" to the countries' war and that they would hold talks within two months to seek a "final agreement." Just hours earlier, Tehran had vowed to retaliate against a strike by Israel against Iranian ally Hezbollah in the suburbs of Beirut which threatened to push back an agreement. But later in the day, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the announcement: "Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon."

He added thanks to leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey for their support in the mediation effort. The content of the agreement, which follows weeks of fraught negotiations and periodic threats from Trump of fresh hostilities unless Iran reached a deal, remained unclear. Iran's Mehr news agency reported that the US would release $12 billion in frozen assets to Iran before the start of negotiations.

It quoted a 14-point "memorandum of understanding" between the two nations, which it said stipulated "the release of 24 billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets during the 60?day negotiation period" that begins after the MoU is signed. The Trump administration didn't immediately comment on the details of the agreement, which may prove contentious as the US presses its effort to end Tehran's nuclear ambitions and deal with its stockpile of highly enriched uranium -- believed to have been buried by US strikes last year.

In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday, Trump said Washington was still negotiating whether Iran would suspend its enrichment for 20 years. The US leader hinted that he might settle for a 15-year suspension, but said he did not want to negotiate via the press. The announcement of the deal was greeted with international relief and hope for an enduring end to the conflict. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was a "critical step" toward resolving the war in the Middle East. The United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy said they were prepared to lift sanctions imposed on Iran and will work "with the US, Iran and regional partners to seize this moment, maintain momentum and achieve a long-term diplomatic settlement."

The announcement also brought relief at market opening on Monday. Oil prices plunged more than four percent in Tokyo, and Japan's Nikkei stock index jumped three percent. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has had a worldwide economic impact, from inflated gas prices that have fueled inflation in the US and many other countries and congested supply chains for goods like fertiliser key to food production in areas far beyond the Middle East.

"What we're going to be able to do is drive down the cost of energy, not just now but for the long term, and create a real engine of prosperity in the Middle East," US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News. He said that he planned to attend the signing of the peace deal, which was slated to take place in Geneva, and that it was possible Trump could also go. It was a rollercoaster Sunday, with Trump in the morning angrily blaming Israel for delaying its signing with the airstrike on Beirut, which he said had delayed the agreement.

In an expletive-laden phone interview with US news outlet Axios, Trump had fumed about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: "I was so pissed off. I let him know." The last time Israel hit the Beirut suburbs, it sparked one of the strongest jolts yet to a ceasefire that has largely held since April, with Iran firing off a retaliatory missile barrage and Israel responding with strikes. Tehran has long demanded that any agreement to halt the war must include the parallel conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has been pursuing a campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The North's statement came after a trilateral meeting between South Korea, Japan and the United States in Tokyo on Friday, at which the allies reaffirmed their commitment to the "complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula", according to Seoul's foreign ministry. "The US and its vassal forces' meaningless rhetoric against the DPRK... can never affect the irreversible position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state," the unnamed spokesperson said in a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency on Sunday, using the acronym for the North's official name. "The 'denuclearisation' is an irreversibly finalised matter," the official added.

The spokesperson also cited Washington's sales of weapons systems to Seoul and Tokyo as justification for Pyongyang's pursuit of its nuclear programme, describing it as " a strong security guarantee for regional stability and peace". "No matter how hard the US, Japan and the ROK may quibble, they will never change the present position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state," the official said, referring to the South by the acronym of its official name.

North Korea has accelerated its nuclear weapons programme since talks with Washington broke down in 2019, when a summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi ended without agreement. In a possible reference to the failed negotiations, the spokesperson said "no one can recover the 'denuclearisation' permanently missed in the trend of the times".

Kim recently hosted China's President Xi Jinping in Pyongyang, after the Chinese leader held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Putin. Neither side made any mention of denuclearisation, according to their official media reports.

Geneva -- about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of the French spa town of Evian -- is on edge. The authorities there are anxious to avoid any repeat of the mayhem of 2003, when anti-G7 rioters caused millions of dollars worth of damage in the Swiss city. The violence, looting and clashes live long in the memory and shops, supermarkets, theatres and university buildings, some of them far from the protest route, are taking no chances and have boarded up their facades.

Several other events in the city have been scrapped, and the main hospital has set up tents in case there is an influx of casualties. The Swiss authorities have permitted a march around a lengthy loop on the north side of the city -- well away from the city centre and its luxury boutiques. They are deploying a significant number of police and security equipment. Due to conditions imposed by the French authorities, the No-G7 coalition abandoned plans for a counter-summit and demonstration Sunday in the French border town of Annemasse.

"What we fundamentally regret is that France did not create the conditions conducive to a kind of summit, counter-summit, village, forum or discussion" on its side of the border, Geneva's Security Minister Carole-Anne Kast told reporters during the week. "We hope to have a wonderful weekend with some lovely moments," Alice Lefrancois, spokesperson for the coalition, told reporters.

"There will be security personnel, particularly to protect demonstrators from any form of external aggression, and there will also be a family area. "We think it's going to be a rather pleasant experience," she added. Geneva is almost entirely surrounded by France: nowhere in the Geneva canton is more than 5.5 kilometres (3.5 miles) from the French border.

Around 115,000 people work in Geneva but live in France, where the cost of living is cheaper. Nonetheless, the Swiss authorities began closing 25 of the 35 road crossings on Thursday ahead of the protest and the summit, causing traffic jams in both directions. The G7 summit will be one of the first major international gatherings since the United States and its ally Israel began a war against Iran in late February, upending the Middle East and widening transatlantic tensions.

The Group of Seven brings together the heads of government of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, along with invited leaders from several other countries. Nearly 16,000 French police, gendarmes, troops, firefighters and border guards will be deployed, using boats, motorcycles and drones, alongside mounted police and dog-handling units, France's Haute-Savoie regional prefecture said.

Most of the leaders will be arriving at Geneva Airport, before making the journey to Evian. Switzerland has approved the deployment of 2,000-5,000 military personnel to "support" the cantonal police. Around 4,000 Swiss troops will be on duty on land, on Lake Geneva and in the air, coordinating with the French military.

The protest comes as the peace deal touted by US President Donald Trump and mediator Pakistan faces opposition from hardline Iranian figures. They argue that it does not serve Iran's interests and would deprive Tehran of leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. They also accuse Iranian negotiators of having made too many concessions to secure the deal. In an interview with state television Friday, Araghchi had said the deal on the table called for the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, imposed in response to Iran's own blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

"The administration of Strait of Hormuz will no longer be the same as before," he added, calling the waterway one of Iran's "main instruments of deterrence". Other videos on social media that AFP could not independently verify showed people in front of the foreign ministry building in Tehran chanting "Araghchi, resign" and "Ghalibaf, resign", in reference to parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Trump and Pakistan on Saturday said the deal to end the war could be signed as early as Sunday, though Tehran was more circumspect regarding the timing.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli airstrikes had hit several areas, particularly around the southern city of Nabatieh. An AFP photojournalist in the Nabatieh area heard blasts around Kfar Remman, which has been repeatedly targeted, and saw a plume of smoke rising from Kfar Tebnit, which was not included in the evacuation warnings.

The Lebanese army later said one of its soldiers had been severely wounded after being hit by an Israeli drone on the road between Kfar Remman and Nabatieh. That had followed an initial attempt to target him as he was moving near a hospital close to the city. NNA also said an Israeli strike killed a local official in Rihan, the southern region of Jezzine. An AFP correspondent in Nabatieh said the city was almost deserted, reporting artillery shelling there and in nearby areas overnight and on Saturday.

The Israeli military had issued two warnings to residents of 24 locations -- both in and around Nabatieh, and nearer to the coast -- to "evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Zahrani River", around 45 kilometres (28 miles) from the southern border with Israel. Last month Israel declared all areas south of the river "combat zones", and has since been heavily striking the area.

Hezbollah, which has kept up attacks on invading Israeli troops, said its fighters launched drone attacks on Israeli military vehicles in the south. It said it had thwarted an overnight "infiltration" attempt by Israeli forces in the Kfar Tebrnit area near Nabaiteh after ambushing them and engaging in a "firefight with medium weapons".

The group also reported clashes with Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of Majdal Zoun, closer to the border with Israel. Israel's military also said it "intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory". It later announced that "over the past 24 hours, more than 70 Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites were struck".

Fresh strikes hit two areas in Lebanon's eastern Baalbek area later Saturday, NNA reported. Iran insists that Lebanon must be part of any agreement to end the wider Middle East war, and a senior US official said Friday that a draft peace deal "includes Lebanon". Neither Israel nor Hezbollah have respected a ceasefire meant to take effect in April, and a conditional truce deal announced this month after Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Washington also failed to halt the fighting.

Hezbollah rejected both the direct talks and the conditional agreement, which requires it to cease attacks but makes no mention of Israel doing so or withdrawing troops from Lebanon. Lebanon says Israel's massive campaign of airstrikes and ground invasion have so far killed 3,756 people. Lebanon's leaders, meanwhile, have accused Tehran of treating their country as a "bargaining chip". Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said on Saturday Lebanon should make do with any US-Iran deal that included the country.

"We want the Lebanese state to negotiate for itself, and nobody is suggesting forfeiting this role," Fayyad said. "However, the state must abandon the policy of being crushed in the face of the Israelis and submission to the Americans." The prime minister of Pakistan, which has mediated between Tehran and Washington, insisted Saturday that a deal was closer "than ever before".

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement that Lebanon faced "a fateful test. "Either its people unite around a sovereign state that monopolises weapons, upholds the law and protects citizens irrespective of their affiliation or position, or it remains hostage to the logic of militias," he said. Further Israel-Lebanon talks are scheduled for later this month.

"In Oaxaca, we will not allow violence to prevail over the law or over the will of our communities," state Governor Salomon Jara said in a post on X, condemning the killing. Prosecutors said the police presence in the area had been stepped up and a tactical team deployed, in cooperation with federal forces, in order to track down the assailants. The Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Sinaloa cartels are both active in Oaxaca, which borders the Pacific Ocean. Nearly 100 mayors have been assassinated in Mexico since 2006, when drug violence exploded in the country.

At the time of the accident, there were 118 passengers and seven crew members on the passenger vessel, while eight people were on the sailboat, three of whom were killed, the statement added. One person was still missing while the remaining four were rescued from the sea. The nationality of the victims and circumstances that led to the collision were not yet known. The regional Slobodna Dalmacija daily reported, quoting unofficial sources, that the victims were Czech nationals. Local media published pictures of the the several dozen metre (feet) long catamaran and the sinking sailboat.

After weeks of stalled negotiations on the terms for an initial memorandum of understanding, both Washington and Tehran have signalled in recent days they were nearing an agreement. Tensions, however, persisted as the United States said it downed multiple Iranian drones targeting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz early Saturday. Iran's state broadcaster IRIB also quoted Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying that until a complete agreement was reached on all issues, "it cannot be said with certainty that an understanding has been achieved with the United States".

Pakistan has been pushing both nations to come to an agreement after a fragile ceasefire was struck in April and Islamabad hosted talks between the warring sides which ended with no deal to resolve the conflict that erupted in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Sharif said in his post on Saturday that he was "confident that this historic peace deal will form a strong foundation for lasting peace", thanking both Washington and Tehran "for their ongoing commitment".

"In the first UK-led operation of its kind, the vessel SMYRTOS was boarded by Royal Marine Commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency, despite Russia's best efforts to evade sanctions and continue fuelling its barbaric war with Ukraine," the ministry statement said.

The vessel will now be moved to an anchorage off the south coast of England and monitored, it added.

In the wake of the strikes, two far-right Israeli ministers called for retaliatory strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh. "The shooting at northern communities is a test of the Dahiyeh Doctrine that the prime minister declared. I call on him to implement it decisively and firmly, and to bring down buildings in Dahiyeh," Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on X.

"For every drone -- a missile; for every violation -- fire; for every UAV -- Dahiyeh must tremble," wrote National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on X. Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have previously warned that Israel would strike Dahiyeh should the Iran-backed Hezbollah group target northern Israeli communities, a position they say has the backing of Washington.

"Mr. Eugen Tomac withdrew his candidacy this morning, and under these circumstances, I am appointing Mr. Adrian Vestea as prime minister," Dan said in a statement. Vestea, 52, a leader of the Liberal party, has been tasked with forming a new pro-Western parliamentary majority after a technocratic solution proposed by EU deputy Tomac did not find the necessary support. "Neither Mr. Tomac nor I have been playing at governing," Dan said. "At this point, however, it is clear that a political solution is the appropriate one."

Dan praised Vestea's experience as a mayor, county council president and development minister in a previous government. "I want a political government that will undertake real reforms and keep Romania on a pro-Western course," Vestea said. "I am taking on this responsibility at a time of political crisis," he added, saying he will negotiate with "the pro-Western democratic political parties in the Romanian Parliament".

Liberal party leader Bolojan said on Sunday that he had not been informed in advance of the move and accused the president of "a hostile act and a clear attempt to split" the party.

Iran's ISNA news agency reported that an adviser to Qatar's foreign minister had been dispatched to the Islamic republic, while another Iranian news agency Tasnim said the purpose of the visit was to "go over the latest developments regarding the diplomatic process".

"Our position has always been that the only way to deal with the stockpile of enriched material is to dilute it inside Iran," said Araghchi in an interview with state television.

He added that at least three people were wounded, according to first reports, and that 96 people had been drafted to fight the blaze. The Russian army said it had shot down a total of 177 Ukrainian drones overnight. Ukraine has stepped up its campaign of attacks within Russia in recent months, claiming fair retaliation for Moscow's own massive bombardments across the more than four-year-long conflict. Kyiv insists that the Ukrainian army first and foremost targets military installations and energy infrastructure, in a bid to deprive the Kremlin's war chest of vital fossil fuel revenues.

US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the region, posted on X that Iran had "launched multiple one-way attack drones in an attempt to strike commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz". "US forces have downed all of them in recent hours as traffic flow through the strait continues unimpeded," it said.

CENTCOM added that the Strait of Hormuz -- a key maritime trade route for oil and gas from the Gulf -- "remains open for transit", despite an Iranian-enforced blockade since the start of the war. Disagreements between the two sides have persisted, with Iranian state media publishing a breakdown of what was purportedly on the table that was at odds with Washington's account. "The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has never been closer," Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, wrote in a social media post, referring to the Pakistani capital that hosted previous US-Iran talks.

Trump -- who on Friday morning accused the Iranians of negotiating in bad faith and misrepresenting the terms that had been agreed -- posted a screenshot of Araghchi's message on his own feed just hours later. But state broadcaster IRIB reported Araghchi as saying that until a complete agreement was reached on all issues, "it cannot be said with certainty that an understanding has been achieved with the United States". Araghchi provided some details on the agreement in an interview with state television, saying it calls for the lifting of the US naval blockade of Iran's ports and unspecified changes to the administration of the Strait of Hormuz.

He also said the only way to deal with the country's enriched uranium -- which Washington alleges is part of a nuclear weapons programme -- "is to dilute it inside Iran". Disputing Trump's "bad faith" accusation, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said an agreement had now been reached with Washington "on most points". Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has been a key mediator since the initial talks, confirmed that "a final, agreed-upon text of the peace deal has been reached".

"Peace has never been as close as it is now," Sharif said, while acknowledging "incessant misinformation" surrounding the deal. A senior US official also voiced optimism that the parties would be "signing this agreement over the next few days". "If I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be signing this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 percent this morning, it's probably more like 80-85 percent now, but it's not 100 percent," the official told reporters in a call.

The Swiss foreign ministry on Friday said it had been in contact with both the United States and Iran, and had "proposed Switzerland as the venue for a possible signing, should the parties agree to it". But Araghchi said that upon finalisation, a draft deal with the United States would be signed "remotely", adding that this could happen "in the coming days". US ally Israel has said that Trump had promised it that any agreement would see Iran stripped of its enriched nuclear material, but Tehran's official IRNA news agency said this was not even on the table. 

According to IRNA's account, after an initial agreement is signed, Iran and the United States would hold 60 more days of talks and "Iran's right to enrich uranium and the retention of enriched material... will be emphasised with a view to their inclusion in the final agreement". Beyond this, according to IRNA, Iran would insist on managing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has blockaded since the outbreak of the war, causing major disruptions to the global economy. On Friday, Iran's Mehr news agency, quoting a source close to the country's negotiating team, said the deal would also see the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

But those details clashed with a summary offered by a senior White House official, who told AFP Iran had agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme, destroy its enriched uranium stockpile and reopen the strait -- and that Tehran would not see any of its frozen funds returned until it had honoured these commitments. US Vice President JD Vance likewise said Iran was "not receiving any cash, and no funds are being released for simply signing a deal or attending a meeting". But, he added, if "Iran meets its obligations, then economic benefits will flow to them and to the entire region".

"An IAF An-32 aircraft met with an accident today while landing at Jorhat. A court of inquiry is being constituted, to ascertain the cause of the accident," the statement said, without giving any details about causalities.

News channel NDTV broadcast images of the crash site, showing a thick black plume of smoke and the aircraft apparently broken into pieces.

Almost all of them were Congolese nationals who had crossed the border from their home country, where more than 676 cases have been confirmed and 136 people have died since May 15. "Today, the Ugandan Health Ministry, together with the Civil Aviation Authority, Ambassadors, and airline operators serving Uganda, discussed the unfair travel restrictions imposed on Uganda due to the current Ebola situation," Diana Atwine, permanent secretary for the health ministry, said on X on Friday.

"While we appreciate the need for vigilance, blanket restrictions undermine confidence in countries that report outbreaks openly, and are not commensurate with the actual risk." Besides the United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries to have imposed entry bans on travellers from Uganda, the DRC and neighbouring South Sudan as a result of the outbreak.

While the World Health Organization's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised Kampala's strategy on a visit to Uganda on Monday, the United Nations health agency warned on Friday that the outbreak was spreading to new areas in the neighbouring DRC. No vaccine nor specific treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola responsible for the latest outbreak, the 17th to hit the vast central African country. Spread by close contact and infected bodily fluids, the disease has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.

The US State Department advisory for the impoverished, violence-wracked CAR reads: "Do not travel to Central African Republic for any reason." Trump has described Iran, with whom Washington is currently at war, as a "terrorist regime" but is nonetheless deporting nationals who have fled the country, including at least two Iranian women slated for the flight, their lawyer said. The Iranians had been granted "withholding of removal" -- a status that carries weaker rights than asylum but has been considered a "win" in immigration court under previous administrations.

"We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled," as has repeatedly happened with other deportees sent across Africa, their attorney, Emily Trostle, told AFP. The flight took off from Alexandria, Louisiana, on Thursday evening, according to the ICE Flight Monitor, affiliated with non-profit Human Rights First. It then made a scheduled stopover in Ghana -- which is itself a hub for third-country deportations -- Friday afternoon and landed in Central African capital Bangui around 2100 GMT.

It was unclear if some people were to be taken off the plane in Ghana or if they were all sent to the Central African Republic, said Alma David, a US immigration lawyer familiar with the case. Ghanaian immigration authorities did not respond to a request for comment. She said those headed to the Central African Republic "are mainly withholding grantees from a variety of countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Georgia".

In recent years, a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Rwandan troops and Russian mercenaries from the notorious Wagner group have helped to improve the Central African Republic's security situation. But anti-government fighters and armed groups are still present throughout the unstable, mineral-rich country. - Previous allegations of abuse - As part of its crackdown, the Trump administration has expanded who is targeted for deportation and where they can be sent.

Washington has argued it is only barred from sending people with "withholding of removal" to their country of origin -- and thus can send them anywhere else, even if those countries then send them home. Deportees and lawyers have described unsanitary holding conditions in Ghana and indefinite detention in Eswatini, among other alleged abuses. From Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, another African hub, some people have been sent back home to countries in which US judges ruled they faced danger.

It was not clear what would happen to the deportees upon arrival in the Central African Republic. It appears to be Bangui's first accord with Washington, which has made a slew of opaque deportation deals in Africa and elsewhere. "We don't know if these migrants who are coming to and will be received on Central African soil are in transit or if they are entitled to apply for asylum," Paul Crescent Beninga, a political scientist and civil society leader, told AFP.

"The government doesn't want to provide any answers, the government isn't communicating." A State Department spokesman said "we remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration" but did not answer questions about the terms of the deal. Central African authorities did not respond to a request for comment.

"These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection and no support network," Trostle said. Last week, a lawsuit was filed with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights -- the continent's top human rights body -- to halt US deportations to Equatorial Guinea, a small, authoritarian petro-state that has served as a waystation for African deportees. The lawsuit also seeks to stop Equatorial Guinea's onward expulsion of the deportees to their home countries.

Celebrations for the golden jubilee were held on June 13 to avoid coinciding with Sweden's Midsummer's Eve holiday, which falls this year on June 19. The king and queen, aged 80 and 82 respectively, kicked off the day with a morning thanksgiving service, called a Te Deum, in the palace chapel. After a palace lunch, they boarded the royal barge Vasaorden, with the queen dressed in a coral-red suit and a pillbox hat.

Under sunny skies, they were rowed across the water before transferring to a horse-drawn carriage for a procession through the capital. Thousands of Swedes gathered along the route, waving and cheering as the couple made their way to a love-themed concert in central Kungstradgarden park. A special jubilee concert was also scheduled at the Royal Opera, before a private dinner at the palace for friends and family.

In an interview with newspaper Dagens Nyheter at their royal residence ahead of the jubilee, the couple spoke candidly about their relationship. The queen praised the king's "humour", "sense of duty" and "honesty", while he described her as "unbelievably considerate". Asked what irritates them about each other, the queen joked: "There are so many things!" The king, in turn, teased her habit of shutting herself away in rooms "all the time".

"Yes, so no one can find you. We have quite a few rooms out here so there are lots of possibilities," he said. Reflecting more seriously, the king said successful relationships for couples just starting out take work. "You have to be prepared that it may not be as rosy as you imagined. You have to be humble and accept that there may be uphill struggles." Sweden has marked several royal milestones recently, including an 80th birthday bash for the king in April and his 50th anniversary on the throne in September 2023.

A keen hunter and sportsman, the king is the longest-reigning Swedish monarch and also the European monarch with the longest reign, 52 years. The royal couple have three children: Crown Princess Victoria, 48, Prince Carl Philip, 47, and Princess Madeleine, 44. Despite occasional scandals -- notably claims in a 2010 book alleging he frequented sex clubs and had numerous affairs -- the king remains broadly popular. A recent poll by the Novus institute found that 69 percent of Swedes believe he represents the country well.

July 4, the start date of the national funeral, will coincide with the United States' Independence Day, which this year celebrates its 250th anniversary. Ali Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, succeeded him as supreme leader in early March, the third since the establishment of the Islamic republic in 1979. Mojtaba Khamenei, wounded in the strikes that killed his father and numerous other officials, has not appeared in public since his appointment and communicates only through statements attributed to him.

"We have to wait and see about the exact time of signing; although it will not be tomorrow," ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, according to the IRNA news agency.

"The possibility of this happening in the coming days cannot be ruled out," he added, after mediator Pakistan said Iran and the United States could finalise the deal within 24 hours.

The reduction to KFOR comes at a time when Washington is pushing to cut its military presence in Europe. European diplomats said prior to the announcement that the United States had signalled it wanted to reduce its forces in KFOR. NATO did not give any further details on which troops will be withdrawn.

The United States has just under 600 troops in the mission, according to figures from April. NATO deployed an additional 1,000 troops to KFOR in 2023 following a rise in violence. The US-led defence alliance said that deployment was already halted earlier this year after the situation stabilised. While tensions persist in the majority-Serb north, the last major incident was in September 2023 when a Kosovo police officer was killed during a gun battle with Serb separatists.

The Southeast Asian nation has been diplomatically isolated since a 2021 military coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Myanmar's armed forces have been battling an array of opposition factions since the coup. Fearing political collapse in Myanmar -- with which it shares a porous, 2,100-kilometre (1,300-mile) border -- China has sought to rein in rebel groups fighting the military.

Beijing also enthusiastically backed elections that delivered a walkover win this year for the military's allies in civilian politics. After five years ruling as armed forces chief, Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as civilian president in April, in a transition democracy monitors dismissed as a rebranding of military rule. His government has revived discussions with China of long-stalled energy and transport infrastructure projects.

Surging energy prices triggered by the war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, have reignited inflationary pressures and threatened to derail growth. "Before the conflict in the Middle East, growth was higher than expected and inflation was falling," finance minister Rachel Reeves said in response to the figures. "This is not a war we wanted or joined, but one that will have an impact at home," she said. The weak economic showing dealt a fresh blow to Starmer, who is facing calls to step down.

Britain's defence and armed forces ministers quit Thursday in a row over military spending, further weakening Starmer's authority just a week before a by-election that could prompt a bid to replace him. Defence Secretary John Healey resigned warning that Starmer's long-awaited Defence Investment Plan for funding over the next decade -- which the leader has yet to publish -- risked making Britain "less safe". "The effects of the conflict in the Middle East are now well and truly showing up in the economic data, and it isn't pretty reading for the UK," said Stuart Clark, portfolio manager at Quilter. "We expect the economy to continue to fade as the year goes on, and particularly for as long as there is no lasting peace deal in the Middle East," he added.

Suresh Patni, a driver, came to the site where the plane exploded in a ball of flame, engulfing his teenage son Akash at his family's tea stall. "We are here today only to remember him on his first death anniversary," Patni told AFP. "He was a good student and could have done really well for himself." Patni commemorated Akash with a framed photograph and a life-size cutout, decorated with flowers and surrounded by scattered rose petals and lit lamps.

The crash killed 241 people on board the plane and 19 people on the ground. Fragments of bags, clothes, and a melted shoe lie half-buried in the charred earth at the site, alongside dead trees with burned trunks. "It pains us when we hear an aeroplane flying overhead," Patni said, adding that their home was near the flight path of the airport in Ahmedabad, the main city in the state of Gujarat. "Our house is still at the same location," he said. "But we don't feel like staying here... we are reminded of the same faces and memories." Nearby, a woman wept as she embraced a framed picture of her deceased relatives, while another family scattered rose petals at the ruins of the hostel in honour of their son.

Relatives of the victims had expected a final report by Friday to explain why the disaster happened. But with investigations continuing, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is expected to issue only an interim report. As required by international law, the AAIB published a preliminary report a month after the disaster.

That 15-page document said the fuel supply to the jet's engines was cut off moments before impact, raising questions about possible pilot error. It also published a conversation between the captain and his co-pilot about the fuel supply being cut off -- two brief sentences that sparked theories of pilot suicide.

The report was met with strong criticism. It did not say why the fuel switches were turned off -- whether it was the fault of a pilot, or a result of a malfunction. Relatives of the victims are meeting at a conference organised by lawyers, along with aviation and air safety experts in Ahmedabad. They are due to hold a candlelight vigil after sunset. "Why are authorities taking so much time to assess the crash?" asked Nilesh Joshi, whose wife Kaminiben Nilesh Joshi was killed, while returning home to Britain after attending a wedding in India.

"The release of the report is important for closure, for people like me who have lost their loved ones," Joshi, who had come from London to attend the conference, told AFP. Only one passenger survived, Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who has said he has "significant psychological scars" following the crash -- in which his brother died -- and "constant unanswered questions" about why it took place. Vijay Sengal still remembers the deafening sound when the plane came down. Sengal, a sanitation inspector at a nearby hospital, was one of the first to try to rescue the injured.

"When we tried to pick up bodies, the body wouldn't come... instead, it was someone's hand, someone's leg," he said. He said that he, like many others, avoids the area after dark, fearing it is haunted. "We believe in gods and also in souls," he said. "Those passengers sitting in the plane, maybe they still have some work stuck, their last wish still unfulfilled."

The Falcon 9 has now completed more than 600 flights, making it the workhorse of the commercial and military satellite launch industry. The rocket and tech company is set for an initial public offering raising $75 billion on a total valuation of $1.77 trillion. The company will put more than 555 million shares up for sale at a price of $135 each, according to US Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Iran, which has only allowed a trickle of ships to pass through the strait, has insisted that vessels obtain permission from its armed forces before transiting. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump said he had called off planned strikes on Iran and claimed a deal to end the war could be signed in the coming days.

But Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the country has "not reached a final conclusion" on an agreement. On Friday, Iran's Mehr news agency, quoting a source close to Iran's negotiating team, published what it said was the text of a draft deal being finalised. The draft, it said, would end the war on all fronts including Lebanon, see the release of $24 billion in Iran's frozen assets, and set a 60-day period for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme.

It also includes the "suspension of sanctions on the sale" of Iran's oil and petrochemical products, and "the complete lifting of the US naval blockade" on Iranian ports, which has been in place since April 13. Mehr said the draft underscores the necessity for the US and its allies to pay Iran reparations for damage caused by the war and "to present reconstruction plans for Iran amounting to at least $300 billion". "Final negotiations will not begin before the release of half of Iran's blocked funds, suspension of Iran's oil sanctions, and lifting of the naval blockade," it added.

Iran's nuclear programme has been a contentious issue for Washington, which has long insisted Tehran should give up its enrichment capabilities and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium abroad. The official IRNA news agency in a separate report said Iran would "negotiate only the nuclear programme solely within the framework of the Islamic republic's fundamental principles". "Issues such as Iran's right to enrich uranium and the retention of enriched material by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be emphasised with a view to their inclusion in the final agreement," it said.

"As long as I am prime minister of Israel, Iran will not have nuclear weapons. There is full agreement between me and President Trump on this issue," Netanyahu said in a statement.

Iran and the United States have engaged in weeks of indirect negotiations seeking to bring to an end the war sparked by US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic on February 28. A ceasefire took effect in April, but sporadic episodes of violence have occurred, each time sparking new fears of a return to all-out war, despite Trump repeatedly stating a deal was within reach.

After inking an initial memorandum of understanding, IRNA said, Iran the US would hold 60 days of talks and that "Iran's right to enrich uranium and the retention of enriched material... will be emphasised with a view to their inclusion in the final agreement". Beyond this, according to IRNA, Iran would insist on managing traffic though the Strait of Hormuz, the key maritime trade route carrying oil and gas from the Gulf. Tehran has blockaded the international waterway since the outbreak of war with the US and Israel.

Iran, which has only allowed a trickle of ships to pass through the strait, has insisted that vessels obtain permission from its armed forces before transiting. In Tehran, some ordinary Iranians feared a deal with the United States would entrench the authorities' rule. "I am not sure how I feel," a 29-year-old who works at a cafe in the Iranian capital told AFP on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

"I don't know if it will be good or bad for us. The main purpose of this war was for the US to remove the system and this did not happen. So what does a deal do?" "Iran makes no commitment in this text to cede the management of the strait or the restoration of conditions that existed prior to the American and Israeli military aggression," IRNA said, confirming that "the broad outlines of the current text" was being finalised.

Iran's demands could further delay the signing of an accord, despite Trump's optimism spurring a stock market rally and a sharp drop in oil prices. Claiming that a draft deal had been "brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved," Trump cancelled on Thursday a threatened wave of bombings against targets in Iran, adding: "Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly."

Trump said the finer points of the arrangement had been approved by the US and its allies in the region, including Israel. On Friday, Iran's Mehr news agency, quoting a source close to Iran's negotiating team, published what it said was the text of a draft deal being finalised. The draft, it said, would end the war on all fronts including Lebanon, see the release of $24 billion in Iran's frozen assets, and set a 60-day period for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme.

It also includes the suspension of sanctions on the sale of Iran's oil and petrochemical products, and the complete lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, in place since April 13. Mehr said the draft says the US and its allies should pay Iran reparations for damage caused by the war and would "present reconstruction plans for Iran amounting to at least $300 billion". "Final negotiations will not begin before the release of half of Iran's blocked funds, suspension of Iran's oil sanctions, and lifting of the naval blockade," the report added.

Asked about Iran's apparent reluctance to sign up to the deal, Trump doubled down. When asked if Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had approved the deal, he replied: "I understand the answer is yes." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the Israeli leader had spoken to Trump, who vowed any agreement would include the removal of Tehran's enriched nuclear material as well as the dismantling of its missile infrastructure. "As long as I am the Prime Minister of Israel, Iran will not have nuclear weapons," Netanyahu reiterated on Friday.

In Ukraine, a 44-year-old woman working as a rail station operator died on her way to a shelter during a drone attack in the border region of Sumy, the head of Ukrainian Railways said. Another woman, a station attendant, was wounded in the attack, Oleksandr Pertsovkyi said.

Three people were wounded in separate strikes on Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region. In recent months, Kyiv has carried out an increasing number of attacks on Russian territory, in response to nearly daily bombardments by Moscow since it sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

"Soaring costs affect many individuals and families, as more and more people cannot afford their homes and risk becoming homeless," said FRA director Sirpa Rautio in the report. "Young people and vulnerable groups face hardships that undermine their access to the basic right to adequate housing and many remain unprotected against eviction."

There are indications that homelessness is on the rise, the report said, with the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (Feantsa) estimating nearly 1.3 million people were homeless in the EU in 2025. The EU is also "increasingly tested in upholding rules-based governance and fundamental rights" given "intense geopolitical instability and security threats", Rautio noted.

"The unpredictable international environment and ongoing wars are having an impact here at home -- not least on people's sense of safety and wellbeing," she said. Online hate is spreading, FRA said, finding more than one in three people in the EU had come across content online that they found to be harmful. Enforcing EU laws to regulate the internet "has faced challenges including holding tech platforms to account", according to Rautio.

The report also identified "serious employment-related challenges affecting third-country workers in the EU", including "overqualification, discrimination and labour exploitation". Yet the EU is facing major labour shortages, FRA noted. The report covers all 27 EU member states, as well as Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.

An exchange of fire that took place overnight into Wednesday morning -- despite a ceasefire that went into effect on April 8 -- saw US strikes hit two water reservoirs in the town of Sirik, cutting off nearly 20,000 people from access to drinking water. "The water distribution network of the affected areas has been restored," said Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, general manager of the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company, according to state television on Thursday.

He said the repair process took "less than 12 hours" and "the intermittent supply problems for subscribers in the city of Kouhestak and the villages of the Bemani district were fully resolved". Washington had said the strikes were carried out in response to Iran's downing of a US Army Apache helicopter over Gulf waters. Tehran dismissed the justification as a "false pretext" and responded with missile and drone attacks targeting US bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.

The strikes on the reservoirs prompted Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on Wednesday to describe the attack as "a calculated war crime and flagrant violation of human rights". "The US must be held accountable for committing such systematic brutal attacks on civilian life-sustaining infrastructure," he said in a post on X. The head of Hormozgan province's judiciary, Mojtaba Ghahremani, was also quoted by state television as saying the attack "constituted a war crime".

On March 7, at the height of the war, Iran said US strikes hit a desalination plant on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz. The following day, Bahrain reported an Iranian strike on a water facility, in what appeared to be retaliation for the US attack on Qeshm.

"I don't have much trust," said Charanvir Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), which has more than 5,000 members. "I will be very honest; they are not transparent at all," Randhawa told AFP. His organisation has criticised the composition of the initial investigation team, and its decision to question the family of one of the deceased pilots.

On Friday, relatives of the victims will meet in Ahmedabad at a conference organised by lawyers, along with aviation and air safety experts, to "discuss the path toward answers and safer skies". It also plans to hold a candlelight vigil in memory of those who died -- 241 of the 242 people on board, and 19 on the ground. Among the dead were 200 Indians, 52 British citizens, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. Only one passenger survived, Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who told the Press Association news agency that he continued to "live with the significant psychological scars" following the crash, in which his brother died, and "the constant unanswered questions" about why it took place.

"Those questions are not just on my mind -- they are on the minds of every affected family," he said. "Nothing will ever change what happened, but families deserve clarity." As required by international law, the AAIB published a preliminary report on July 12, 2025, a month after the disaster. That 15-page document said the fuel supply to the jet's engines was cut off moments before impact, raising questions about possible pilot error.

- 'Flawed' report

It also published a conversation between the captain and his co-pilot about the fuel supply being cut off -- two brief sentences that sparked theories of pilot suicide. The report was met with strong criticism. It did not say why the fuel switches were turned off -- whether that was the fault of a pilot or a result of a malfunction. Pushkaraj Sabharwal, 91, father of pilot Sumeet Sabharwal, called that report "profoundly flawed" and filed a petition at India's Supreme Court. He argued it focused on the dead pilots "while failing to examine or eliminate other more plausible technical and procedural causes of the crash".

Randhawa worries another inconclusive finding could result in "far more speculations" rather than understanding the disaster. "You have to give an indication. Why did the crash occur?" In May, the FIP pilot group submitted a letter to the aviation ministry calling for further investigation to rule out electrical failure. "Even if they are going to take more than one year, they should say: 'We are still investigating'," he said. "They should publish the full investigation report."

"We call on all parties in this conflict to exercise restraint and return to the negotiating table," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when asked by AFP about fresh attacks. He added that the escalation risks more "negative consequences for the situation in the region and the global economy."

An exchange of fire that took place overnight into Wednesday morning -- despite a ceasefire that went into effect on April 8 -- saw US strikes hit two water reservoirs in the town of Sirik, cutting off nearly 20,000 people from access to drinking water. "The water distribution network of the affected areas has been restored," said Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, general manager of the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company, according to state television on Thursday.

He said the repair process took "less than 12 hours" and "the intermittent supply problems for subscribers in the city of Kouhestak and the villages of the Bemani district were fully resolved". Washington had said the strikes were carried out in response to Iran's downing of a US Army Apache helicopter over Gulf waters.

Tehran dismissed the justification as a "false pretext" and responded with missile and drone attacks targeting US bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. The strikes on the reservoirs prompted Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on Wednesday to describe the attack as "a calculated war crime and flagrant violation of human rights".

"The US must be held accountable for committing such systematic brutal attacks on civilian life-sustaining infrastructure," he said in a post on X. The head of Hormozgan province's judiciary, Mojtaba Ghahremani, was also quoted by state television as saying the attack "constituted a war crime". On March 7, at the height of the war, Iran said US strikes hit a desalination plant on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz. The following day, Bahrain reported an Iranian strike on a water facility, in what appeared to be retaliation for the US attack on Qeshm.

"Pakistan remains deeply concerned at the situation in the region marked by recent escalation... we are of the view that diplomacy and dialogue should be the guiding principles for achieving a negotiated settlement of all contentious issues," foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi told journalists.

"You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats," he wrote in a resignation letter to Starmer.

The government has delayed a long-awaited Defence Investment Plan that sets out funding over the next decade, amid reports that funding would fall far short of what had been requested.

"A few minutes ago, an explosion was heard in the Sirik area at sea," a state television reporter said from the area, without providing further information.

"The pilots are fine, yeah. Nobody injured," said Trump, speaking to reporters before departing New York after attending an NBA finals game. "We are going to issue a report on that tomorrow," he added, without commenting on what may have caused the incident. Trump also said Tuesday that negotiators were in the "final throes" of talks for a peace deal in the Middle East, after Iran and Israel halted fresh hostilities that threatened to reignite the months-long war.

Dozens gathered near the air base, some wearing protective equipment and carrying a coffin with "Ebola" written on it. AFP journalists saw several people arrested by police, who also fired tear gas to disperse the small crowds. "We don't have that disease in this country... they are bringing a virus into our country," said Zipporah Wachira, 30.

The centre is due to have 50 isolation beds and be managed by US staff, and was nearing completion late last week. It had already sparked protests on June 1. Rights groups said two people died, though the circumstances of their deaths remain unclear.

Construction of the facility was under a temporary pause order from Kenya's High Court and has been opposed by local politicians in Laikipia. But the government of President William Ruto has vowed to press ahead, saying it owes Washington for years of aid support. "The American people and government have been partners with us on matters of health for close to 25-30 years," Ruto said last week.

"It would be most unfortunate if on one request by the Americans to set up a facility at their cost, we would refuse. We would look very inhuman." Kenya's health minister has insisted the facility will be for Kenyans as well as Americans. Washington has pledged $13.5 million to Kenya's Ebola preparedness efforts.

It follows a controversial health deal between the two countries last year, in which Kenya agreed to hand over vast amounts of health data to the US in exchange for billions of dollars in aid. The World Health Organization has declared an international health emergency over the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has seen 515 confirmed infections, including 91 deaths. Despite fears of spread to neighbouring countries, only Uganda has recorded cases. It has confirmed 19 so far, almost all Congolese nationals who crossed the border.

"Urgent warning to the residents of the city of Tyre, including the Christian quarter, and the camps and surrounding neighbourhoods," read a message posted on X by the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee.

"For your safety, we ask you to immediately evacuate your homes... and move north of the Zahrani River."

GSK said it could complete the deal this year, which may allow it to launch the two late-stage drugs, zidesamtinib and neladalkib, before the end of 2026 subject to approvals. "GSK's proven track record, infrastructure, and expertise will support the successful commercialisation of zidesamtinib and neladalkib, as well as accelerate advancement of our broader discovery pipeline," Nuvalent CEO James Porter said in the statement.

The pharmaceutical industry has faced turbulence from US President Donald Trump's tariff threats last year, aimed at encouraging investment in the United States and reducing drug prices. GSK, along with other non-US pharmaceutical giants, agreed in December to lower the cost of its prescription medicines for American patients, in exchange for tariff exemptions for three years. Miels took the helm at GSK in January, replacing Emma Walmley after almost nine years as CEO. Miels was previously the group's chief commercial officer.

The two military commanders discussed "matters of mutual interest, (the) evolving regional security environment, defence cooperation and prospects for enhancing bilateral military relations", a statement from the media wing of the Pakistani military said on Tuesday. Munir "underscored (the) Pakistan Army's commitment to expanding defence collaboration with the Lebanese Armed Forces," it said, after Haykal received a guard of honour ahead of the meeting in the city of Rawalpindi.

Conflict in Lebanon has become a centrepiece of weeks of stop-start efforts to bring a formal end to the war. Armed hostilities flared further during Haykal's visit, though both Iran and Israel indicated on Monday that they had halted the fighting. US President Donald Trump, who has expressed frustration at the slow progress of peace talks, said on Tuesday that negotiators were in the "final throes" of reaching a deal.

Lebanon was drawn into the war when Hezbollah militants fired rockets at Israel on March 2 to avenge the US-Israeli killing of Iran's supreme leader. Israel responded with an extensive campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion that have killed nearly 3,600 people. Exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have not stopped despite an ongoing truce. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said a US-Iranian agreement to end the war was "about to be achieved" when fresh fighting between Iran and Israel erupted on Sunday.

Even after an April 17 ceasefire agreement began, the Israeli military announced a so-called Yellow Line inside Lebanese territory about a dozen kilometres from its northern border where its ground troops are fighting with Hezbollah, who have fired rockets at Israel.

Multiple US media outlets, including CNN and NBC News, projected Raman had secured enough votes to advance to the runoff despite the primary ballot count remaining ongoing. The second-place candidate will go head-to-head in November with incumbent Bass, a Democratic former congresswoman first elected to lead the second-largest US city in 2022, who has come under fire during her time in office.

"I'm incredibly honored that voters have given us the opportunity to advance to the general election for Mayor of Los Angeles," Raman said in a statement posted on X. "Now our fight for a healthier, safer, more affordable, and more joyful Los Angeles continues," she added. Bass announced her win in a post on X, saying that "LA rejected Spencer Pratt and the MAGA agenda."

Pratt, a onetime reality TV villain whose house burned down in the devastating 2025 fires that hit the Los Angeles area, centered his campaign on widespread anger over the city's slow rebuild process, LA's potholed roads, its drug-addled homeless and a city hall seen as inefficient and in thrall to special interests. His candidacy sat in second place after polls closed last Tuesday, but it has since slipped in the standings as mail-in votes have been counted. Ballots in California are mailed out to all registered voters and are valid if they are postmarked by Election Day, meaning some do not even arrive at the counting center until several days after polls close.

The process -- and the sheer size of the state of 40 million residents -- means California is always slow to finalize results, a fact that frustrates voters of all stripes. A US federal prosecutor appointed by Trump, Bill Essayli, said he was investigating alleged fraud in the state's primary election, announcing his office would "follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent." The LA mayoral runoff vote will take place with the rest of the US midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3.

In the Gaza Strip, "ordinary Palestinians find themselves trapped between the structural violence and mass atrocities of Israeli forces and the predatory, fear-based rule of Hamas", the report said. And in the West Bank, which has seen soaring violence since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, it described how Palestinian civilians were increasingly targeted by Israeli settler attacks. "Violence by settlers is the direct outcome of Israeli policies that support, enable and protect their actions," commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said in a statement. Hamas-affiliated forces, he added, had meanwhile "exploited the vacuum created by relentless Israeli attacks and widespread destruction of Gaza".

"What is alarmingly similar is the deliberate infliction of suffering on Palestinian civilians. While their origins and motivations differ, both operate within environments engineered by Israel," said Muralidhar, an Indian judge. The three-person commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Tuesday's report focused heavily on the situation in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967. In the territory, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,080 Palestinians since October 2023, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data. Official Israeli figures show that at least 46 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.

The inquiry found that at least 26 Palestinians were killed and at least 1,570 were injured by settlers between January 2023 and December 2025. "This trend continues in 2026 with attacks carried out on a daily basis," the investigators said. The report, which will be presented to the rights council on Monday, concluded that Israel was responsible for enabling the settlers' action.

Settler violence "functions as a means of implementing Israeli state policy", it charged, with both focused on "entrenchment of Israeli settlements, annexation of Palestinian territory and displacement of Palestinians from their land". The report called on Israel, which has long accused the commission of "systematic anti-Israel discrimination", to stop the violence.

Israel, it said, must "immediately end the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory", stop all new settlement activities and remove all settlers and settlements. The commission also determined that Hamas-affiliated forces were responsible for serious rights abuses, including the "war crimes of murder and torture" in Gaza.

It identified 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence in 2024-2025, resulting in at least 108 deaths and 384 people injured. The commission found that Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 such incidents. The investigators found among other things that Hamas members had "tortured Palestinian civilians in the Nasser Medical Complex" in Gaza.

It stressed though that such conduct "does not result in the loss of special protection of the hospital against attacks under international humanitarian law". The commission recommended "that the de facto authorities in Gaza immediately stop all extrajudicial punishments of civilians, including executions, torture, and mental, physical and sexual violence". They should also "refrain from using civilian objects, including hospitals, for any purpose incompatible with their humanitarian and civilian functions", it added.

Sri Lanka is waging an anti-graft campaign targeting political figures, particularly allies of the Rajapaksa family that dominated the South Asian island country's politics for years. Mass protests in 2022 toppled then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was accused of mismanagement and corruption. Sarana Gunawardena was charged with financial misconduct for pocketing kickbacks from vendors after overpaying them 11.5 million rupees ($115,000 at the time) for renting vehicles and buildings nearly two decades ago. The High Court rejected appeals by Gunawardena's lawyers for leniency and said that a jail sentence was necessary to deter public sector corruption.

It also fined him 1.8 million rupees. Gunawardena is the latest member of the Rajapaksa administration to be jailed in the past year, following the imprisonment of former ministers Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Nalin Fernando, who received lengthy prison terms ranging from 20 to 25 years. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's leftist government, which came to power after Sri Lanka's crippling financial meltdown, has strengthened the powers of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.

Anti-Rajapaksa protesters blamed entrenched corruption within state institutions for contributing to the 2022 economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund's $2.9 billion bailout programme requires governance reforms and stronger action against financial misconduct. Authorities have also stepped up investigations into several high-profile criminal cases allegedly involving former political leaders.

A court imposed a foreign travel ban last week on toppled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa over allegations linked to the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people. Gotabaya's intelligence chief Suresh Sallay is already in custody, accused of masterminding the attacks to create chaos and pave the way for Gotabaya's return to power, an allegation Sallay has denied.

"Six personnel of the Federal Constabulary (FC) were martyred and four others wounded in an attack carried out by armed militants," said a second security official, referring to Pakistan's paramilitary force which contributes to much of the frontline security in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan. "The militants abducted eight FC personnel and took them to an undisclosed location," the second source said.

Pakistan's military did not immediately respond to request for comment. The TTP posted an image of the men it had abducted on its social media channel and claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan has been fighting growing insurgencies in its western regions that border Afghanistan, which Islamabad accuses of harbouring militants -- an assertion the Afghan Taliban government in Kabul has repeatedly denied. Last month, militants killed 26 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in several attacks.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have deteriorated sharply in recent months over the militancy allegations, with diplomatic tensions escalating into deadly cross-border clashes including Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan.

That triggered another round of Iranian missiles, before Tehran announced it would cease fire. Iran has sought to tie its truce with the United States -- in place since April 8 despite repeated attacks by both sides -- to Israel's war against Hezbollah, warning that attacks on Lebanon would force it to act.

Tehran said on Monday it would attack again if Israel persisted with its strikes in Lebanon, while Netanyahu warned in turn that should Iran "make the mistake of resuming attacks against us, we will respond with full force". Earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz insisted that the campaign in Lebanon would carry on regardless and said Israel would strike the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut in retaliation for each attack on northern Israel by the militant group.

Trump, who has reportedly grown increasingly exasperated with Netanyahu, had earlier urged both sides to stop "shooting" and said that "final negotiations" towards peace would proceed "subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way". The Israeli premier, though, said in a televised statement he had told Trump that "Israel has a full right to self-defence, and we are exercising it as required". Iran fired nearly 30 missiles at Israel overnight, according to the Israeli military, and Israel targeted military sites in the Islamic republic.

No casualties have been reported in either Israel or Iran after the exchange of fire. But violence continued in southern Lebanon on Monday, with an Israeli strike killing five people in the city of Tyre while another in the Nabatieh district left seven dead and a third in Marwanieh killed two, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israeli military said it had identified projectiles launched towards its soldiers operating in southern Lebanon, some of which were intercepted while one landed near troops without causing casualties.

It later said that a "suspicious aerial target" from Yemen had been intercepted without any reported injuries. On Monday in Tehran, there was little sign of any return to war, with cafe terraces packed. Traffic seemed lighter than usual for a weekday, suggesting that some people had stayed home and there were also many more people queueing at petrol stations.

Maryam, 41, an accountant in Tehran, described "a sense of uncertainty and confusion." "You don't know if there's going to be a war, nor do you know if the peace agreement will last. Nothing is clear. People are frustrated," she said. Residents of Tel Aviv meanwhile went to shelters as sirens went off. "I hope it will be short, but you can never know. Last time we thought it will be short and then it was a month, so I don't know," said Jonathan Ariel, 30.

Iranian news agencies reported early Tuesday that the capital's international airport -- shut down over the renewed missile launches -- had reopened, allowing flights carrying hajj pilgrims from Saudi Arabia to land. The world's main crude contracts, Brent North Sea and West Texas Intermediate, surged by more than five percent in Asian trading hours on worries that the war would resume but eased later in the day, logging gains of 1.3 percent and 0.8 percent respectively.

The conflict has seen Tehran all but halt shipments of the Gulf's oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz while Washington has imposed a blockade on Iran's ports. The US military said it struck and disabled an unladen oil tanker Monday that violated the ports blockade. The exchange of fire between Iran and Israel came at a critical moment for diplomatic efforts to end the conflict involving mediator Pakistan.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei warned at a press conference in Tehran on Monday that diplomacy was continuing but could be affected by the fighting. As he was speaking at the foreign ministry, a huge explosion shook the building, followed by repeated explosions believed to be from air defence systems, an AFP reporter said. Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited Tehran to deliver what he said was a "special letter" to Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Iranian state television.

He has since returned to Pakistan, an official Pakistani source said on Monday. Iranian President Masoud Pezehskian posted on X that Tehran was still "at the negotiating table". 

An AFP journalist in Jerusalem witnessed at least one interception as residents hurried to shelters in the city. Israel's emergency service provider Magen David Adom said there were no reports of any casualties. Iran has launched multiple waves of missiles towards Israel since Sunday evening, rattling a fragile truce between the two countries engulfed in the Middle East war.

"No passengers were reported" on board, its statement said. "The aircraft declared an emergency while approximately 16 nautical miles (30 kilometers) southwest of La Romana" and crashed as it was attempting to land there, it added. The authority said an investigation has been opened to determine the cause of the crash of the Gulfstream G200 jet, which can seat up to 18 passengers.

Molina -- a former catcher for Major League Baseball's St. Louis Cardinals -- said the plane had been bound for Texas to pick up him and his family and fly them to his native Puerto Rico. "My condolences to the pilots and their families," he wrote in a post on Instagram, accompanied by a video of a plane crash-landing at the airport and bursting into flames. Molina is considered one of the best defensive catchers in MLB history. He won two World Series titles with the Cardinals over his 2004-2022 career.

The airport serves the tourist city of La Romana. Tourism is key to the economy of the Dominican Republic, a country of 11.6 million people located in the Caribbean. In 2021, nine people died in a private plane crash after departing from Las Americas International Airport in the capital, Santo Domingo.

"We declare a complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea," said a statement from the Houthis' armed forces. "We consider all enemy movements to be legitimate military targets for our armed forces from the moment this statement is issued." The Houthis, who joined the Middle East war in support of Iran in March, had not announced a missile attack on Israel since a fragile ceasefire began on April 8.

They said they "launched a missile barrage targeting sensitive Israeli enemy targets", claiming the strikes "achieved their objectives with precision". The Israeli military earlier wrote on Telegram that it "has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defense systems are operating to intercept the threat". The Houthis' attack came as Israel and Iran traded fire on Monday, putting the ceasefire under renewed strain and threatening hopes for a peace deal.

The Houthis and Lebanon-based Hezbollah form part of the "Axis of Resistance" grouping of pro-Iran forces opposed to Israel and the United States. The rebels from Yemen's rugged north have controlled much of the country for more than a decade after they seized the capital and forced out the government in September 2014. A Saudi-led international military intervention from March 2015 triggered a brutal civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead from direct and indirect causes.

"We have vehicles out to areas where a bear was seen to make people aware and to urge people to stay indoors or in vehicles," a city official told AFP, adding that dozens of hunters, police and local officials have been looking for the animal. It was not clear whether there is one bear or more, he said, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity.

In recent years, Japan has seen an increasing number of bear sightings and attacks, especially in urban areas. A record 13 people were killed by bears in Japan last year, and there has been a jump in encounters as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation. In the last year to March, bear sightings nationwide topped 50,000 -- more than double the previous record set two years earlier, according to official data.

In Utsunomiya, a regional capital and home to 510,000 residents, there were just two unconfirmed bear sightings in the previous year. The bear now being hunted was first spotted Saturday morning, north of the city centre, and was described as being around one metre (three feet) long. A series of sightings followed, including in a residential neighbourhood that day, at a shopping arcade on Sunday, and at a park, a high school and a junior school. Early Monday, residents spotted a bear close to a wholesale market, the city official said.

"Resuming hostilities is not in any party's interest," foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news briefing, adding: "It is hoped all relevant parties will fulfil their commitment to a ceasefire."

No casualties have been reported so far in either Israel or Iran. The attacks included a strike on an Iranian petrochemical complex and a missile attack on Israel by Yemen's Houthi rebels. The Israeli military said it struck and dismantled Iranian defence systems deployed across several areas in the country. AFP journalists in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah heard a series of explosions and the Israeli army said it worked to intercept a new wave of Iranian missiles.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had struck Israel's Nevatim and Tel Nof air bases "in response to a missile attack launched by the Zionist regime". Tehran blamed Washington for the resumption of fighting and said the flare-up would affect peace talks. "No one believes that the Zionist regime would carry out any action without prior coordination and cooperation with the United States," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said at a press conference in Tehran attended by AFP.

"It is perfectly natural that the diplomatic process initiated to put an end to this imposed war would be affected." Nonetheless, "diplomatic consultations are naturally continuing in all circumstances", Baqaei added. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels meanwhile announced a missile attack on Israel on Monday, the first since early April, and declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, raising the spectre of a return to major disruption on the key route.

"We declare a complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea," said a statement from the Houthis' armed forces. Trump called for calm from both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Iranians, but Israel accused Tehran of making a "grave mistake". "I call the shots. I call all the shots. He doesn't call the shots," Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, referring to Netanyahu.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump said: "What I would suggest to Iran: You've shot your missiles, that's enough, get back to the table and make a deal." "The European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas urged calm Monday and called on both sides to "sit down to a negotiation table and agree". China also called on the two sides to refrain from fighting, with foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying that "resuming hostilities is not in any party's interest".

Tehran has insisted any deal to permanently end the war must also halt the parallel conflict in Lebanon, where Israel was pursuing a campaign against Hezbollah. Iran's Revolutionary Guards called the attack a "warning" after Israel struck Beirut's southern suburbs earlier in the day, threatening wider strikes in the event of repeated aggression. On Sunday, Netanyahu's office announced the army had "struck a militant command centre in Beirut's Dahiyeh district, in response to Hezbollah's fire towards Israeli territory".

The raid killed two people and wounded 20 more, Lebanon's health ministry said. Israel had warned it would hit the area should Hezbollah attack northern Israel, with the Iran-backed group later confirming having launched missiles and drones at a pair of Israeli army barracks early Sunday. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and its chief negotiator in talks with Washington, accused the United States of having given a "green light" for the Beirut attack, saying US and Israeli assets were now "legitimate targets".

The head of Iran's military central command said Israel had "crossed all red lines" with the Beirut strike. The attacks sent crude prices surging more than five percent as hopes dimmed on any imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway for oil and gas transit which Iran has blockaded.

Iranians were also already feeling the strain of weeks of uncertainty. "I really have gone numb," fitness trainer Elaheh from Ahvaz told AFP. "Daily life? It's a joke. Everything is horrible. We only try to survive," the 32-year-old added, pointing to rising prices. There were some weekend signs of ongoing diplomatic efforts, with Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visiting Tehran to deliver what he said was a "special letter" to Iran's supreme leader, according to Iranian state television.

He has since travelled back to Pakistan, an official Pakistani source said on Monday. Iran said that "diplomatic consultations are naturally continuing" with Pakistan to end the war with the US, even after fighting resumed with Israel. 

According to the source, mediators were due to meet a Hamas delegation before midday on Monday, followed by a wider meeting including all participating factions. Egypt's state-linked Al-Qahera News channel said Sunday's talks focused on "the proposed roadmap for completing the implementation of the agreement". "It was held in a positive atmosphere," the channel reported, adding that there was agreement on the need to continue implementing US President Donald Trump's plan.

The talks come amid rising regional tensions, after Israel and Iran traded fire on Monday, in a serious test of another fragile truce and a potential threat to hopes for a deal to end the wider Middle East war. Despite the Gaza truce technically in effect since October, daily violence has rocked the territory, over half of which is under Israeli military control in defiance of the ceasefire's terms. Israel has killed at least 936 people since the ceasefire began, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

Both Hamas and Israel accuse each other of violating the truce. The first phase of the ceasefire involved the release of the last Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel. A transition to the second phase, which was supposed to involve Hamas's disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli military, has been stalled for months. The question of Gaza's post-war governance also remains one of the main sticking points in negotiations on implementing the provisions of phase two.

Israel rejects any return of Hamas to power, but also rejects a direct takeover by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority at this stage. Hamas, meanwhile, demands the establishment of a Palestinian administration before considering handing over part of its arsenal -- a key stipulation for the second phase, along with Israel's withdrawal.

Israel's military said earlier Monday it had struck several targets at a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr in southwestern Iran in retaliation. "In this complex, chemical materials are produced and used for ballistic missiles that are fired towards here, towards the state of Israel," the official said. "The strikes and the damage to the complex disrupts their ability to manufacture various types of weapons."

The Israeli military said it also struck Iranian air defence systems. The official said the Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir had spoken twice to the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) over the past day. "Over the past day, the IDF chief of the general staff has spoken twice to the commander of CENTCOM and they are discussing the situation," the official said, without elaborating.

Air raid sirens sounded across large areas of northern and central Israel, with explosions heard over Jerusalem earlier on Monday, AFP journalists reported. The exchange of fire between the two countries is the first such since a truce was announced on April 8 in the Middle East War.

A series of powerful aftershocks rocked the area from about two hours after the first quake, according to the United States Geological Survey, with the largest measuring 6.5 magnitude. In General Santos, an AFP journalist watched Monday afternoon as rescue workers dug through the rubble of a popular grocery store chain in a desperate bid to reach the bodies of two employees buried beneath.

Rene Punzalan, disaster chief for hard-hit Sarangani province, told AFP 14 people had died in Glan municipality alone when a landslide buried their homes at the foot of a mountain. "The landslide happened immediately after the earthquake, so many lives were lost," he said, adding that some areas had yet to report if they had sustained casualties. "The greatest challenge is communication. The power was cut, so it's hard to get updates," Punzalan said.

"We're worried about aftershocks," he added. "We can feel the fear of the residents." Videos posted to social media and verified by AFP showed a shopping centre with a Jollibee fast food restaurant reduced to rubble in General Santos City, while a school building that officials said was unoccupied crumpled in another. "Lord, it has really collapsed! ... The building has really collapsed!" someone can be heard shouting as the abandoned school structure topples.

In another video verified by AFP, young schoolchildren could be seen screaming in the arms of their teachers as the quake violently swayed them back and forth on the ground. A flimsy metal structure in the background collapsed as the video uploaded to the school's official Facebook page came to an end. An accompanying caption said no one was under the structure when it fell. Punzalan, the Sarangani disaster chief, told AFP that more than 2,000 people evacuated due to a morning tsunami warning were now awaiting a green light to return to their homes.

"(Authorities) are still assessing the situation now if it will be OK to send them home," he said. A notice from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had said tsunami waves were possible along the coasts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Palau, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea. But by mid-afternoon, the Philippines and other countries had cancelled their warnings.

Waves that did reach the Pacific coast of Japan, where authorities had issued a tsunami advisory, were reported to be no higher than 20 centimetres (about eight inches). Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who suspended classes across Mindanao island on what was to have been the first day of school, had called on residents in coastal areas to evacuate immediately. "Move to higher ground now. Do not wait," he said. "Your life is more important than anything left behind."

The airport in General Santos, meanwhile, has been closed until further notice, officials said. A video verified by AFP showed what appeared to be chunks of ceiling that had collapsed onto the baggage claim area. Earthquakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Eastern Mindanao was rocked by a pair of earthquakes of 7.4 and 6.7 magnitude in October that killed at least eight people. These followed a magnitude 6.9 quake days earlier that killed 76 people and destroyed or damaged 72,000 buildings in Cebu province in central Philippines, according to government figures.

The 27-nation bloc said it was blacklisting Mohammad Akbarzadeh, spokesperson for the Guards' naval wing, and the organisation's Hormozgan Provincial Command. It also said it was placing Hamid Hosseini, a representative of Iran's oil exporters union, under an asset freeze and visa ban.

European nations, spearheaded by France and Britain, are working on plans to send a naval mission to Hormuz once the fighting stops. EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas has said the bloc's naval mission, currently in the Red Sea, could take part in the operation.

With Israel's response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently defied calls by his ally Trump for restraint, against the background of reports of an increasingly testy relationship between the two men. "Israel and Iran must immediately stop 'shooting.' President DONALD J. TRUMP," the US leader wrote on his Truth Social network. Minutes later, he added in a new post that "final negotiations" towards peace were proceeding "subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way."

Tehran's strikes followed attacks by Israel against targets of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Iran had repeatedly warned it would strike Israel if the Lebanese capital was targeted. Oil prices surged more than five percent on worries that war could break out again, with hopes now punctured of a rapid end to the standoff that has seen shipping limited through the key Strait of Hormuz trade bottleneck amid fears of global energy and goods shortages.

The strikes also came at a critical moment with diplomatic efforts to end the conflict involving mediator Pakistan on a knife-edge. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei warned at a press conference in Tehran attended by AFP that is was "perfectly natural that the diplomatic process initiated to put an end to this imposed war would be affected." But he added: "Diplomatic consultations are naturally continuing in all circumstances."

As he was speaking at the foreign ministry, a huge explosion shook the building, followed by repeated explosions believed to be from air defence systems, the AFP reporter said. Local media in Iran that a "hostile drone" was shot down over Tehran by air defences. Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited Tehran to deliver what he said was a "special letter" to Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Iranian state television. He has since travelled back to Pakistan, an official Pakistani source said on Monday.

Tehran has insisted any deal to permanently end the war must also halt the parallel conflict in Lebanon, where Israel was pursuing a campaign against Hezbollah. No casualties have been reported in either Israel or Iran. The Israeli military said it struck and dismantled Iranian defence systems deployed across several areas in the country. Iran fired nearly 30 missiles towards Israel since Sunday night, an Israeli military official said.

AFP journalists in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah heard a series of explosions and the Israeli army said it worked to intercept a new wave of Iranian missiles. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had struck Israel's Nevatim and Tel Nof air bases and had also targeted a petrochemical facility in Israel in retaliation for an attack on a similar site in southwestern Iran. The Guards warned that Israel "has initiated a dangerous game, the scope of which will encompass all energy-related targets in the region".

A military source told the Tasnim news agency that "Iran is prepared for a long-term war with the Zionist regime and for strikes against US interests" in the region. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels meanwhile announced a missile attack on Israel on Monday, the first since early April, and declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. The European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas called on both sides to "sit down to a negotiation table and agree", adding that "the region does not need an escalation."

It also remains unclear who is leading decision-making in Tehran with Mojtaba Khamenei, said to have been wounded in a US-Israeli strike, yet to appear in public after taking over from his father Ali Khamenei who was killed on the first day of the war on February 28. On Monday in Tehran, there was little sign of any return to war. Under sunny skies, cafe terraces were packed, while motorcycles weaved at high speed through the lunchtime traffic, an AFP correspondent in the capital said. But the traffic seemed lighter than usual for a weekday, suggesting that some people had stayed home and there were also many more people queueing at gas stations.

In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, referring to Netanyahu, Trump insisted he held sway in their relationship. "I call the shots. I call all the shots. He doesn't call the shots," he said.

Iran had delivered a "painful response" to Israel and "accordingly, the cessation of armed forces operations is hereby announced", the Khatam al-Anbiya command said in a statement carried by state television.

"However, it is emphasised that should acts of aggression and hostility continue, including in southern Lebanon, much more severe and crushing measures than before will follow," it added.

National Election Commission (NEC) chairperson Rho Tae-ak resigned on Friday after public outrage over ballot paper shortages that the commission said affected 50 polling stations nationwide, including more than 30 in the capital. On Saturday evening in Seoul, about 10,000 people gathered at the SK Olympic Handball Stadium, where ballots from the elections had been counted, Yonhap reported, citing an unofficial police estimate. By 2:00 am Sunday, at least 1,000 protesters, many in their 20s and 30s, still remained at the site, waving large national flags and chanting, "Re-election, re-election," an AFP journalist saw.

Young volunteers handed out water, coffee and chocolates. Some demonstrators were accompanied by their pets; others sat on picnic mats, holding national flags and keeping watch through the night. "Regardless of political affiliation, not being able to vote is an infringement on our rights in a free democracy," Seo Jin-hee, 31, told AFP, looking visibly emotional. The NEC said ballot papers were printed for only 50 percent of eligible voters because there were large numbers of unused ballots in recent elections due to increased early voting.

Some voters are believed to have left without casting their ballots. The commission's explanation "simply defies common sense to any ordinary citizen", said another demonstrator, Park Soun-wok, 29. "It does not matter whether my preferred candidate wins or not. Regardless of all that, I believe this election must be rerun," he told AFP. Wednesday's election problems had triggered a 35-hour blockade of a polling station in Seoul, with protesters preventing authorities from removing two ballot boxes for counting.

Riot police dispersed the protesters on Friday morning, with videos on social media showing officers dragging an elderly man across the floor and clashing with demonstrators. Despite NEC chairperson Rho's resignation later that day, protesters regrouped at the SK Olympic Handball Stadium, demanding a new election and a thorough investigation. Claims from former president Yoon -- now jailed and on trial for insurrection -- that the NEC had ignored warnings about North Korean threats to voter data resonated with right-wing YouTubers and supporters, who spread unverified election fraud theories online and questioned the commission's credibility.

But Choi In-jae, 29, a volunteer sketching national flags at the demonstration, told AFP: "I believe (right-wing figures) make up only a very small part of the crowd here today." "I myself came out simply because I wanted to help when people are standing up for their fundamental rights." Analysts say the NEC, a constitutional body with limited external oversight, has long faced gaps in internal discipline and review mechanisms.

"This mishap by NEC was unacceptable by any standard," political commentator Park Sang-byung told AFP. "When the integrity of elections is compromised, the foundation of democracy itself is at risk. Strict accountability and stronger checks and balances are desperately needed."

"It's very hot, much hotter than I imagined," the mother of four, who is performing the hajj for the first time, told AFP. "I can't adapt," she added while adjusting her sunglasses to protect her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun. "I had planned to perform all my prayers at the Grand Mosque, but I couldn't go down for the prayers held during the day."

Pilgrims perform most of the hajj's rites outdoors where more than a million devotees gather in stifling conditions, with many attendees succumbing to heatstroke, fainting spells and even cardiac arrest triggered by the heat. Saudi Arabia's National Center for Meteorology predicted daytime temperatures this week would hover between 42 and 47 degrees Celsius in Makkah during the hajj, which officially begins on Monday.

For pilgrims travelling from outside the region, the harsh desert climate can be brutal. "I make sure to drink large amounts of water and beverages rich in salts and minerals, because we sweat constantly and are always on the move," said Imad Ahmed, visiting from Britain. To protect worshippers from the extreme heat, authorities rely on one of the most powerful air conditioning systems in the world to cool the Grand Mosque's courtyards, according to Saudi state television. Other areas have huge fans, mist sprayers and cooled flooring systems to mitigate the searing heat.

Trucks are also continuously distributing free bottles of ice-cold water to pilgrims. But even with these measures, the unrelenting sun continues to bake the white marble surrounding the grounds of the Grand Mosque where most pilgrims have congregated in recent days. "It's really hot," said Mohamed Nabil, who hails from the Algerian coastal city of Oran, where temperatures are currently around 25 degrees Celsius.

The 43-year-old professor said he regularly pours water on his face to stay cool, while racking up 30,000 steps a day as he explores Makkah. Ice cream stands are often mobbed by pilgrims, while others seek shelter in the shade of buildings near the mosque or in indoor galleries, where they lie on carpets beneath enormous fans while waiting to perform their prayers. When the hajj begins, pilgrims will be forced to beat the heat for many of the rites, including the pilgrimage's climax at Mount Arafat on Tuesday where there is little if any shade to be found on the rocky hill.

More than 50,000 healthcare staff and 3,000 ambulances are on hand to help pilgrims in need, the Saudi health ministry said. On Saturday, the ministry said its medical teams had already treated 144 people suffering from heatstroke. In 2024, more than 1,300 pilgrims died as temperatures crossed 50 degrees Celsius, according to authorities.

Speaking from a hospital room in the Mina camp, where authorities treat pilgrims for heat exhaustion, the health ministry's Jameel Abualenain said he was mainly concerned "about rising temperatures" affecting pilgrims. To protect against heatstroke, he said people must "drink enough water, use umbrellas and avoid prolonged exposure to the sun".

Ebola is a deadly viral disease that spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. It can cause severe bleeding and organ failure. The country declared an outbreak on May 15 caused by the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccine or treatments. In a previous update released on Saturday, the DR Congo health ministry said 204 deaths had been recorded in three provinces of the vast central African country, from 867 suspected cases. Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people across Africa in the past half-century.

Federal regulators dispatched a team of experts to advise on possible outcomes, with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Lee Zeldin telling CNN on Sunday that the "most catastrophic scenario" would be if one tank exploded and caused other tanks nearby to explode with it. "That's the reason why you see such a big evacuation." However, Zeldin said "the most likely scenario is one of a low-volume release, where the local authorities are going to be able to monitor, neutralize and contain the threat."

On Saturday night, firefighters approached the tank to gather information and saw a "potential crack in the tank, which could potentially be relieving some of the pressure in there," TJ McGovern, interim fire chief for the Orange County Fire Authority, said in a video post on X. "This operation that we did gave us positive intel to make educated decisions today in the positive light," he said, adding that experts are carefully studying the information collected. "We're not there yet, but this was a step in a right direction."

There was no indication as to what caused the leak, which was initially reported on Thursday, and McGovern did not comment on whether the crack was linked to the leak. The tank contains 7,000 gallons (26,000 liters) of methyl methacrylate, a volatile and flammable liquid used to make plastics. Firefighters had warned Saturday that the tank was heating up, adding to fears of a catastrophic blast, and have been spraying water to cool the tank.

The tank is owned by GKN Aerospace, which operates 32 manufacturing locations in 12 countries -- including China, India, Mexico, Turkey, Sweden and Germany -- and has 16,000 employees, per its website. The Birmingham, UK-headquartered company develops airplane technology and said in a statement Sunday that it is "working around the clock to mitigate the risk of a leak." "We are acutely aware of the uncertainty this incident is causing and sincerely apologise for the ongoing disruption to the local community," the statement said.

As of Sunday, evacuees were still not allowed to return home, and more shelters were opened to accommodate them. Disneyland officials said the "resort remains open to guests," and they were keeping a close tab on the matter. The EPA says methyl methacrylate is irritating to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes in humans. It can also cause respiratory and neurological reactions in cases of acute or prolonged exposure. Responders were working to put containment barriers in place to prevent any spilled material from reaching storm drains or river channels that funnel into the ocean.

Officers armed with shields surrounded the Barinas Judicial Detention Center, located about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Caracas. Dozens of family members waited anxiously nearby. Yelitza Arrollo told AFP that she has not heard from her son, an inmate at the detention center, since May 8. "They are suffering because they are beating them terribly, torturing them, pouring cold water on them, electrocuting them, setting them on fire, mistreating them terribly," she said outside the prison. "We want the director removed."

Relatives said several of the inmates were injured. Some "1,200 men and more than 100 women incarcerated at the Barinas Judicial Detention Center have gone on strike," the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, a humanitarian group also known by its acronym OVP, said in a social media post. The government ministry that runs the prisons "is ignoring the inmates, who have been denouncing mistreatment for over a week. They are not being listened to; on the contrary, they are being shot at and tear-gassed," OVP said.

For years, activists have criticized overcrowding, limited food and a lack of medical care in Venezuelan prisons, alongside what they claim are systematic human rights violations. In April, the government confirmed the deaths of five people during a riot at the high-security Yare III prison, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) from Caracas. In 2023, then-president Nicolas Maduro ordered a military operation to intervene in the country's major prisons, which had been controlled by gangs for years. In January, Maduro was dramatically ousted in a lightning US operation that took him and his wife to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges. 

"I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side," Trump said in a social media post Sunday. "The Blockade will remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified and signed," he added. Earlier Trump had posted that the deal "has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the various other Countries." Iran's Tasnim news agency said Sunday its information was that key clauses of a possible agreement remained "unresolved at this time," including the issue of frozen Iranian assets.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, told The New York Times that an agreement with Iran had garnered regional support but a nuclear deal couldn't be achieved "in 72 hours on the back of a napkin." "Right now, we have seven or eight countries in the region that are endorsing this approach, and we're prepared to move forward on this approach," he said. Earlier Rubio had said a bargain could be struck to end the regional war as early as Sunday. But Trump again reined in expectations, posting on social media that "If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one" and adding: "It isn't even fully negotiated yet."

Staunch Trump ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he and the president had agreed that "any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear threat entirely." Iranian officials confirmed the existence of a draft agreement but stressed that -- despite the long-standing US demand for an end to its uranium enrichment -- talks on the issue of Iran's contested nuclear program have been deferred for 60 days after any deal. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told state television that Tehran was "still prepared to assure the world that we are not seeking nuclear weapons," but it was unclear if this promise would be enshrined in the text of the deal.

According to Iran's Fars news agency, "sanctions on oil, gas, petrochemicals and their derivatives would be temporarily lifted during the negotiation period so that Iran can freely sell its products." Leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, as well as representatives from Turkey and Pakistan, joined a call with Trump to discuss the deal on Saturday. Pakistan, which mediated historic face-to-face negotiations between US and Iranian delegations in April, hopes to host another round of talks "very soon," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.

He said Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir, who visited Tehran on Friday and Saturday, also joined the call, which "provided a useful opportunity... to move the ongoing peace efforts forward to bring lasting peace in the region." Israel's military, meanwhile, continued to pound what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon despite an April 17 ceasefire that has been broken by both sides. Iran-backed Hezbollah pulled Lebanon into the war by attacking Israel, starting on March 2, after US-Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader.

Rubio on Sunday accused Hezbollah of trying to plunge Lebanon "back into chaos" and condemned the group's "reckless call to overthrow Lebanon's democratically elected government." He appeared to be responding to comments from Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's leader, who said that "the people have the right to go down onto the streets and to bring down the government" given the Israeli strikes and US sanctions on Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a financial institution that provides interest-free loans to Shia Muslims.

"We're not kicking it till later. Nuclear talks are highly technical matters. You can't do a nuclear thing in 72 hours on the back of a napkin," Rubio told the Times in a brief interview. "So right now, we have seven or eight countries in the region that are endorsing this approach, and we're prepared to move forward on this approach," he said.

Suzuki is known for opening the first 7-Eleven store in Japan in 1974 and growing the business into the world's largest convenience store chain, including through turning the struggling US headquarters into a subsidiary of the Japanese company and rebuilding it. He is known as the "father of the convenience store" in Japan.

A day earlier 11 people including six women and a child were killed in a single strike in the south's Sir al-Gharbiyeh, the ministry said Sunday, decrying a "massacre". Israel's military has continued to hit what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire in the country that began on April 17 and that was recently extended for several weeks. The Iran-backed group has also maintained attacks on Israeli troops who have invaded southern Lebanon, as well as targets across the border, claiming more than 20 such attacks on Sunday including with rockets, attack drones and artillery.

Iran has indicated that an understanding with Washington to halt the regional war would include Lebanon, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday US President Donald Trump had reaffirmed his support for Israel's right "to defend itself against threats on all fronts, including in Lebanon". Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said that "we continue to strike Hezbollah across all dimensions... the security of civilians and the safety of our forces remain paramount", a statement said. Lebanon's official National News Agency reported Israeli airstrikes on more than 30 locations in south and east Lebanon on Sunday, some causing casualties.

AFP correspondents saw large clouds of smoke after strikes in several places. Israel's military issued evacuation warnings for more than a dozen villages in Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa valley. Lebanon's civil defence agency said its regional facility in Nabatieh had been destroyed by an overnight Israeli strike.

An AFP photographer saw civil defence personnel recovering equipment from the rubble. Israel's military did not provide any comment on the strike in response to an inquiry from AFP's Jerusalem bureau. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said that "God willing, this agreement (between the US and Iran) will be finalised... and accordingly that we too will be among those included in this agreement" on a full cessation of hostilities.

He again repeated his group's rejection of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. Lebanese authorities recently began landmark direct talks with Israel under US auspices, and are preparing for a fourth round in early June, preceded by a meeting between military delegations at the Pentagon on May 29. "Abandon the direct negotiations... Don't be with them and stab us in the back," Qassem said.

He also said that "disarmament is annihilation and we cannot accept it", adding that "we and our people face an existential threat." "We will not bow, even if the whole world turns against us." After Qassem's speech, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Hezbollah of trying to plunge Lebanon "back into chaos". Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.

Under the terms of the ceasefire published by Washington, Israel reserves the right to act against "planned, imminent or ongoing attacks". Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon are also operating inside an Israeli-announced "yellow line" running around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep along Lebanon's southern border.

What do we know about the possible agreement? Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the nuclear issue was not part of an initial framework. It will rather be "subject to separate discussions" later. But the New York Times, citing two unnamed American officials, said a key element of the proposed agreement was an apparent commitment by Tehran to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The question of how Iran would do so would be discussed in a "later round of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program", the paper said.

But Iran's Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported that Iran made no commitments regarding its nuclear programme. "Iran has made no commitment in this agreement to hand over nuclear stockpiles, remove equipment, shut down facilities or even commit not to build a nuclear bomb," Fars said. Both agencies said nuclear-related issues would be negotiated within 60 days of the understanding being signed.

Netanyahu said that in a conversation on Saturday, "President Trump and I agreed that any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear threat entirely". "This means dismantling Iran's uranium enrichment facilities and removing enriched nuclear material from its territory," he added. A key sticking point in the talks is traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the vital global conduit for oil shipments that has come under Iranian control since the outbreak of the war. Iran has insisted that vessels must obtain permission from its armed forces.

Trump said Saturday that "in addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened", a development that would bring relief to global energy markets. But, Fars news agency said that, if finalised, the potential agreement would preserve Iran's management over the strategic waterway. Tasnim reported that "the status of the Strait of Hormuz would not revert to its pre-war situation". It added that the "the naval blockade, according to the reported framework, would also need to be fully lifted within 30 days", referring to the US blockading Iranian ports. Iran has long demanded the release of its frozen assets held under longstanding US sanctions.

According to Tasnim, "Iran has insisted that any initial understanding must be conditional on at least partial access to the assets". It quoted an informed source as saying that Iran "has stressed that there will be no agreement unless a specified portion of Iran's frozen assets is released at the very first stage". A clear mechanism must also be "established to guarantee the continued release of all blocked funds". Tasnim's source warned that "disagreements over this matter are among the reasons why no final understanding has yet been reached".

According to Fars, a potential understanding would also see the US temporarily lifting sanctions on oil, gas and petrochemicals during the negotiation period. Israel has been carrying out daily strikes in Lebanon despite a US-brokered ceasefire, saying it is targeting Hezbollah. Iran has previously said that any ceasefire must apply to all fronts of the regional war, including Lebanon, and Hezbollah has said it is confident that its ally will not abandon it. Tasnim reported that "a memorandum of understanding (MOU) would first be announced, stressing an end to fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon".

"Under the arrangement, Israel, as a US ally, would also be expected to halt the war in Lebanon," it added. Baqaei told state television that "at this stage, we will not discuss the details of the nuclear issue... we have decided to prioritise an urgent issue for all of us: ending the war on all fronts including Lebanon".

Ukraine regularly targets Russia in retaliation for the daily bombardments it has been subjected to since the start of the large-scale Russian offensive in February 2022. At least four people were killed and more than one hundred injured in Ukraine overnight Saturday to Sunday in intense Russian bombardments that particularly targeted the capital, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Kyiv and Moscow reported that Russia used its Orechnik nuclear-capable ballistic missile during these strikes, which followed a Ukrainian drone attack on educational buildings in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk that left 21 dead and more than 40 injured. US-mediated negotiations to end this conflict, the worst in Europe since the Second World War, have been at a standstill since the outbreak of war in the Middle East.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier threatened retaliation for Ukrainian strikes in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine that killed 21 people in a vocational school. In Kyiv, Sofia Melnychenko, 21, thought she was safe in the subway, "but then there were three loud explosions, and after the fourth one the ceiling in the metro started crumbling," she told AFP. "There was complete chaos. Children started screaming, people were panicking," she added.

"It was a very frightening night." The Ukrainian air force said the raid involved 600 drones and 90 missiles, of which 549 drones and 55 missiles were intercepted. Kyiv has been grappling with an acute air defence missile deficit since the US-Israeli air campaign against Iran drove up demand for US-made Patriot rounds. European leaders reacted by saying the salvo showed Russia's desperation. "Terror against civilians is not strength. It's despair," EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on X. French President Emmanuel Macron said the strikes signalled "the dead end of Russia's war of aggression", while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the use of Oreshnik a "reckless escalation".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged more action from allies. "I am grateful to everyone now expressing words of support. But concrete steps to bolster air defence are also needed -- missile deliveries must not stop for a single day," he said on social media. He earlier said the Russians hit dozens of residential buildings, schools, a water supply facility and a market in a "genuinely deranged" attack. Russia's army confirmed it had launched the Oreshnik at Ukraine for the third time in the war, saying it was "in response to Ukraine's terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure on Russian territory". The missile was used without a nuclear warhead.

Moscow denied targeting civilians, saying it had struck command posts of the Ukrainian army and intelligence. Four people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in Kyiv and the surrounding region, local officials said. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said damage had been recorded in every district of the capital.

The residence of the Albanian ambassador was also hit and the Balkan country summoned the Russian envoy in protest. Buildings housing a studio of German broadcaster ARD and an office for German outlet DW were damaged as well, the companies said in statements. Both premises were empty of people at the time. Projectiles also hit other Ukrainian regions, with dozens of wounded reported in the Kharkiv, Cherkasy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Attacks continued during the day, with a shelling killing two and wounding 17 in the frontline city of Kherson. Ukraine had been expecting a major strike after its own forces launched a drone barrage on Starobilsk, in the Russian-occupied east of the country, which Moscow said hit a college dormitory and killed 21 people, most of them young female students. Launched overnight on Thursday to Friday, the drone salvo -- one of Ukraine's deadliest such strikes in months -- also wounded dozens in the city, located in the occupied Lugansk region.

Ukraine denied targeting civilians, saying it had hit a Russian drone unit stationed in the area. Ukraine regularly targets Russian-controlled areas of the country with drones, arguing that the strikes are retaliation for Russian attacks. Kyiv has recently expanded its drone capabilities and stepped up strikes on internationally recognised Russian territory, including residential areas and oil export infrastructure.

Moscow has hit Ukraine almost daily with barrages of missiles and drones since launching its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, also hitting infrastructure and causing civilian deaths. It denies targeting civilians. US-led efforts to negotiate an end to more than four years of war have slowed in recent months, with Washington's attention diverted towards its conflict in the Middle East.

"It has a lot of support in the Gulf... every country that we've walked through it (with) understands it's not just very reasonable, but it's the right thing for the world to get done." Rubio also voiced confidence that Iran would "enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter". He addressed reporters ahead of the next leg of his India visit, which will see him travel to Agra, the northern city famous for the Taj Mahal. Rubio's remarks came after US President Donald Trump tempered expectations of a deal, saying on Sunday he had told his negotiators not to "rush".

"He's not in a hurry, he's not going to make a bad deal, and the president's not going to make a bad agreement," Rubio said of Trump. The war erupted after the United States and Israel attacked the Islamic republic on February 28, and Iran responded with missile and drone attacks across the region. Washington and Tehran have observed a ceasefire since April 8. Rubio told reporters that "Israel always has a right to protect itself". "If Hezbollah is going to launch missiles or launches missiles at them, Israel has every right to respond to that, or to prevent that from happening," he said. "That's always been understood. It's being understood during the ceasefire."

This year's rites, drawing Muslim worshippers from across the world, including Iran, follow waves of Iranian attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours. Saudi officials have been keen to keep conflict far from the minds of visitors, many whom have travelled long distances for one of the world's largest annual pilgrimages. Despite the uncertainty triggered by the conflict, Saudi officials noted over the weekend that more pilgrims had travelled from abroad to participate in this year's hajj than in 2025.

But, amid the spiritual euphoria experienced by the pilgrims in the days ahead of the hajj, authorities in the kingdom signalled their readiness. A video posted on social media by the Saudi defence ministry showed advanced air defence batteries positioned on the outskirts of Mecca. "The air defence forces are responsible for protecting the skies over the holy sites and dealing with all aerial threats, ensuring the safety and peace of mind of the guests," read the post.

Many pilgrims who spoke to AFP expressed their hope that peace would prevail soon. "The war in Iran has affected the entire world. Nobody wants wars or harm to countries and peoples," said Mohammed Chahada, an Egyptian in his 50s, as he walked through a crowd exiting the Grand Mosque. The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be performed at least once by all Muslims with the means. During the hajj, men wear a seamless shroud-like white garment that emphasises unity among believers regardless of their social status or nationality.

Women must wear loose dresses, exposing only their faces and hands. The first ritual of the Hajj requires walking seven times around the Kaaba, the large black cubic structure at the centre of Mecca's Grand Mosque. Pilgrims next walk seven times between the two hills of Safa and Marwa.

They then move on to Mina, around five kilometres (three miles) away, ahead of the main rite of the pilgrimage at Mount Arafat. On Tuesday, the climax of the hajj is the gathering on Mount Arafat, about 10 kilometres from Mina, where it is believed the Prophet Mohammed delivered his final sermon. The arduous, outdoor pilgrimage will be held against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions but also under punishing heat, with temperatures forecast to top 40C for much of the week.

Despite the heat and the uncertainty over the war, pilgrims in Mecca were ecstatic. "I have wanted to perform the pilgrimage my entire life, for 40 or 50 years," said Jreish Mohammed, a 68-year-old decked out in the traditional attire from his native Morocco. "And this year, my dream came true."

Sharif kicked off his four-day official visit to China in Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province on Saturday. Pakistan has emerged as a central mediator between the United States and Iran, hosting historic face-to-face talks last month that failed to yield a lasting agreement. China has played a quieter role, shepherding phone calls and meetings with officials of affected Gulf countries. Speaking to Chinese leaders in Beijing alongside Munir, Sharif said "the world is passing through a critical moment", Pakistan television showed.

"Pakistan has played a sincere role to mediate between US and Iran. Field marshal was in Tehran and did not want to miss this great visit," the images carried by Pakistan's state channel PTV showed. "Things are moving in the right direction. I would like to thank China's support to promote peace." Pakistan hosted in April the only direct negotiations between US and Iranian officials to take place since the war began. Munir was at the centre of the action during that round of talks, greeting both delegations on their arrival and displaying bonhomie with US Vice President JD Vance. But the talks ultimately failed, with Iran accusing the United States of making "excessive demands".

"At least 17 people have been killed and more than 10 injured," Bilal Ahmad Faizi, a rescue official told AFP, adding that three of the injured were in critical condition. Muhammad Ali, a doctor at a local hospital receiving the victims, also confirmed the death toll. Many of the passengers were travelling home ahead of Eid, one of the most important religious festivals in the Muslim calendar. Road accidents remain common in Pakistan due to weak enforcement of traffic laws, speeding, poor road safety standards, and reckless driving.

"It's very hot, much hotter than I imagined," the mother of four, who is performing the hajj for the first time, told AFP. "I can't adapt," she added while adjusting her sunglasses to protect her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun. "I had planned to perform all my prayers at the Grand Mosque, but I couldn't go down for the prayers held during the day."

Pilgrims perform most of the hajj's rites outdoors where more than a million devotees gather in stifling conditions, with many attendees succumbing to heatstroke, fainting spells and even cardiac arrest triggered by the heat. Saudi Arabia's National Center for Meteorology predicted daytime temperatures this week would hover between 42 and 47 degrees Celsius in Makkah during the hajj, which officially begins on Monday.

For pilgrims travelling from outside the region, the harsh desert climate can be brutal. "I make sure to drink large amounts of water and beverages rich in salts and minerals, because we sweat constantly and are always on the move," said Imad Ahmed, visiting from Britain. To protect worshippers from the extreme heat, authorities rely on one of the most powerful air conditioning systems in the world to cool the Grand Mosque's courtyards, according to Saudi state television.

Other areas have huge fans, mist sprayers and cooled flooring systems to mitigate the searing heat. Trucks are also continuously distributing free bottles of ice-cold water to pilgrims. But even with these measures, the unrelenting sun continues to bake the white marble surrounding the grounds of the Grand Mosque where most pilgrims have congregated in recent days. "It's really hot," said Mohamed Nabil, who hails from the Algerian coastal city of Oran, where temperatures are currently around 25 degrees Celsius.

The 43-year-old professor said he regularly pours water on his face to stay cool, while racking up 30,000 steps a day as he explores Makkah. Ice cream stands are often mobbed by pilgrims, while others seek shelter in the shade of buildings near the mosque or in indoor galleries, where they lie on carpets beneath enormous fans while waiting to perform their prayers.

When the hajj begins, pilgrims will be forced to beat the heat for many of the rites, including the pilgrimage's climax at Mount Arafat on Tuesday where there is little if any shade to be found on the rocky hill. More than 50,000 healthcare staff and 3,000 ambulances are on hand to help pilgrims in need, the Saudi health ministry said. On Saturday, the ministry said its medical teams had already treated 144 people suffering from heatstroke.

In 2024, more than 1,300 pilgrims died as temperatures crossed 50 degrees Celsius, according to authorities. Speaking from a hospital room in the Mina camp, where authorities treat pilgrims for heat exhaustion, the health ministry's Jameel Abualenain said he was mainly concerned "about rising temperatures" affecting pilgrims. To protect against heatstroke, he said people must "drink enough water, use umbrellas and avoid prolonged exposure to the sun".

"Pakistan will continue its peace efforts with utmost sincerity and we hope to host the next round of talks very soon," Sharif, whose country has played a key role in mediating between Washington and Tehran, posted on X.

City information officer Jay Pelayo told AFP that the building's walls and scaffolding had buckled, likely trapping people in a pile of debris. While there were no initial reports of casualties, "there are 19 personnel that usually report in the area, so they are the ones we are trying to locate now," Pelayo said. "There are big chunks of concrete, and we need equipment to lift them up. That is what's challenging for the rescue right now."

Initial reports suggested 24 people had been rescued from the rubble as well as two from an apartment-style hotel that was hit when the building came down, the city government said. "We hope the 19 people are part of that number" and therefore accounted for, Pelayo said. Interviews to determine the survivors' identities were ongoing, Pelayo added. Those rescued were in a "stable condition", he said. The cause of the collapse is not yet known.

The confrontation took place just after 6 pm (2200 GMT) when a man near the White House security perimeter "pulled a weapon from his bag and began firing." "Secret Service Police returned fire striking the suspect who was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced deceased. During the shooting one bystander was also struck by gunfire," Guglielmi said, without giving details on the bystander's condition.

No Secret Service officers were hurt. Police and security forces swarmed the scene, cordoning off access as National Guard troops blocked an AFP reporter from entering the area in downtown Washington. "We heard probably 20 to 25 what sounded like fireworks, but they're gunshots, and then everyone started running," Canadian tourist Reid Adrian told AFP. Journalists who were on the White House North Lawn at the time said they were ordered to run and shelter in the press briefing room.

ABC News correspondent Selina Wang had been recording a video for social media when the gunfire broke out, capturing the sounds of the shots as she dove to the ground. "It sounded like dozens of gunshots," she said on X. Trump, 79, has been the target of three alleged assassination attempts, the most recent of which took place on April 25 when an armed man stormed a security checkpoint in a hotel where Trump was attending a media gala. The man never got close to Trump or the other guests attending the event.

In July 2024, Trump was targeted during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A gunman killed an audience member and lightly wounding the then-candidate in the ear. A few months later, another armed man was arrested on a West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing a round. "Thank God President Trump is safe," House Republicans said on X after the Saturday evening shooting. "Endless gratitude to the Secret Service for their immediate, heroic response. Political violence has to stop."

Trump has cited security concerns as one of his reasons for building a ballroom at the White House, tearing down the East Wing after taking office again last year. The $400 million project currently under construction will feature, according to the New York real estate magnate, six floors below the highly secure "drone-proof" ballroom, including an underground military hospital.

It added there were no reports of casualties among its personnel, who had been moved to another location before the incident. The civil defence agency condemned "this attack on a centre dedicated to humanitarian and relief work", stressing that it was facing "growing risks and challenges" in carrying out its operations.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon have continued despite a truce that came into effect on April 17, with Israel saying it is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah. Lebanon's health ministry has recorded the deaths of 123 rescuers and health workers in Israeli strikes since the country was drawn into the wider regional war on March 2 when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in retaliation for the death of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.

A total of 247 workers were underground at the time of the blast, which occurred at 7:29 pm (1129 GMT) on Friday at the Liushenyu coal mine, according to state news agency Xinhua. "This is the first time such a big accident has happened here," Zhang, who only wanted to be known by her surname, told AFP. Many of these men were their families' main source of income, she said. "Think about it. He's at that age where he has both elderly parents and young children to support. Then he works in the coal mine, goes down the shaft and never comes back up," Zhang added. "How are they supposed to go on living?"

Police blocked AFP reporters from entering a road leading to the mine but a building bearing its name with the Chinese characters lit up by orange lights was visible in the distance. Security officers sat by the curb, strictly guarding the gantry of the roads, only allowing authorised vehicles in. Ambulances and police cars entered. A security guard at the entrance brushed off AFP's questions as to whether any progress in rescue efforts had been made, saying he didn't know anything.

But the guard said he hadn't slept at all Friday night because work was too busy with people coming in and out. At a gas station near the mine, workers shooed AFP journalists away when they were asked about the mining disaster. "We can't just casually comment on these things," one man told AFP, without giving his name. "We're not aware of the details -- we don't know the exact cause or the specific situation."

He said he hoped the number of deaths "isn't that high", before he hurried back inside the station. At another restaurant selling Sichuan cuisine, a worker with the surname Li told AFP he had noticed ambulances whizzing by his place, frequently patronised by coal mine workers. But he said he hadn't been too emotionally affected, despite initially being surprised by the death toll. "Working in a coal mine, this kind of accident is inevitable," he said, adding that he hoped the missing people would be found soon.

A total of 128 people were sent to hospital for treatment, CCTV said. One of the hospitals that took in people injured in the mine tragedy was cordoned off with tape. AFP spotted multiple police cars surrounding its perimeter. Qinyuan county is peppered with coal mines, and outside one an electronic sign reads: "Go to work happy, go home safely".

Zhang, grilling meat skewers on a stove, said she had that same wish: for the missing miners to be found safe and sound. Even if the pay was good, coal miners were "basically earning money with their lives at risk", she lamented. She expressed hope that authorities would do all they could to prevent accidents like this and increase mine safety.

Zhang said she feels for families who lost loved ones in the mine explosion. "He is also someone's son, someone's father, someone's husband," she said. 

AFP journalists saw police blocking the road leading to the mine late Saturday, allowing only authorised vehicles to enter. Helmeted rescuers took turns descending into the shaft overnight to look for the two missing workers, state media reported. "As long as there is hope, we will make every possible effort," one rescuer told state news agency Xinhua. Chinese authorities launched an investigation into the blast, the worst since 2009 when 108 people were killed in a mine explosion in northeastern Heilongjiang province.

Preliminary findings showed the company operating the mine had committed "serious illegal violations", authorities told a press conference broadcast by the state-run CCTV. "Those found responsible will be severely punished in accordance with laws and regulations," they added. A person "responsible for" the company involved had been "placed under control in accordance with the law", Xinhua said. The State Council, China's cabinet, ordered nationwide "tough crackdowns on illegal and unlawful activities", including the falsification of safety data, unclear headcounts of underground workers and illegal contracting.

Wounded survivor Wang Yong told CCTV he heard no sound but smelled sulphur when the explosion happened. "I didn't hear any sound at all, but then a cloud of smoke appeared," the miner said. "When I smelled it, it was the smell of sulphur like when people set off firecrackers. When the smoke came down, I shouted for people to run," he said. He recalled seeing people choked by the smoke before he fainted.

"After more than an hour, I came to on my own, and then I woke up the person next to me" and got out, he told CCTV. Shanxi, one of China's poorer provinces, is the centre of the country's coal-mining industry. Mine safety in China has improved in recent decades, but accidents still occur in an industry where safety protocols are often lax and regulations vague. In 2023, a collapse at an open-pit coal mine in the northern Inner Mongolia region killed 53 people. China is the world's top consumer of coal and the largest greenhouse gas emitter, despite installing renewable energy capacity at record speed.

This year's rites, drawing Muslim worshippers from across the world, follow waves of Iranian strikes on targets in Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours after the United States and Israel attacked the Islamic republic in late February. An uneasy ceasefire has largely held since April, even though negotiations between the United States and Iran have failed to reach agreement. On Saturday, both sides indicated that an agreement could come soon, but fears remained that fighting could resume at any moment.

Amid the uncertainty, the American embassy in Riyadh last month advised US citizens not to participate in the hajj. "Due to the ongoing security situation and intermittent travel disruptions, we advise reconsidering participation in Hajj this year," a statement released by the embassy read. On Friday, US media reported the White House was weighing the launch of new military strikes on Iran, with any new fighting likely to have a direct impact on the hajj, according to experts.

"If the conflict breaks out again, there is a strong possibility of real disruptions to pilgrim travel," said Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi Arabia at the University of Birmingham in Britain. "They could find themselves stranded, which could create additional logistical and hosting challenges." But for many, the chance to perform the sacrosanct Muslim rite has taken precedence over the fears of instability caused by the war.

Sayed, a 47-year-old Australian who will attend the hajj for the seventh time, said there were no "second thoughts about coming here", even as his own government issued an advisory urging citizens to reconsider travel to the region. "When you make the intention to come, you come with a reason and a purpose. And that's why you're here and put your faith in God that everything will be fine," he told AFP while standing outside Mecca's Grand Mosque dressed in white garments.

As more than a million pilgrims poured into the holy city ahead of the hajj, the breadth and diversity of the global Islamic community was on vivid display, with many carrying paraphernalia such as bags and umbrellas showing their country of origin. "This is an opportunity that comes once in a life and I decided not to miss it," said Ibrahim Diab, a 63-year-old German national, despite the "shaky situation in the Gulf".

But even amid the euphoric atmosphere in Mecca ahead of the hajj, some pilgrims said fears about the war had troubled them ahead of the journey. "I was very anxious about it," 36-year-old British accountant Imad Ahmad told AFP. Ahmad said his trip to Saudi Arabia was briefly interrupted in Jordan on Wednesday after the military there said it had shot down an unidentified drone in the country's airspace.

But he also said there was no doubt that he would continue on his journey to Mecca. "I will come, whichever way I can, inshallah," he added. 

The deaths were reported in the southern state of Telangana, with revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy calling for "statewide vigilance" to safeguard public health. "The intensity of the heat has reached unprecedented levels" and officials in Telangana should issue advance warnings about precautions to be taken during heatwaves, Reddy's office said in a statement. Health experts say that extreme heat can lead to dehydration that thickens the blood and, in particularly severe cases, causes organs to shut down.

The local government in Telangana advised the elderly, children and pregnant women not to venture out in daytime unless necessary. Earlier this week, the India Meteorological Department predicted above-normal temperatures and intense heatwave conditions in several parts of the country. Temperatures in the capital New Delhi and other nearby cities have stayed over 40C throughout this week, sending power usage soaring to record levels.

In addition to the burning midday heat, overnight minimum temperatures are also high, giving people little respite. India, the world's most populous nation, is the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and relies heavily on burning coal for power generation. It has committed to achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2070 -- two decades after most of the industrialised West. The country's highest officially recorded temperature is 51C, measured at Phalodi in Rajasthan in 2016.

The protesters have blockaded more than 50 points across the South American nation, including surrounding La Paz, causing shortages of food, fuel and medicine. "We don't know how long we're going to endure this... we don't have enough to eat sometimes," Marco Cuttila, a student in La Paz, told AFP.

Riot police began operations in the early hours of Saturday to remove debris blocking the roads at various points, firing tear gas to disperse protesters when they tried to defend the blockades. The confrontation went on for hours, and although some cargo vehicles were able to pass through, other areas were reclaimed by protesters by the end of the day.

In an interview with Argentine broadcaster TN on Saturday, Paz said he was going to "use all possible efforts" to achieve a dialogue with protesters. "But everything has a limit," he cautioned, unwilling to rule out measure such as a state of emergency if necessary.

The tank contains 7,000 gallons (26,000 liters) of methyl methacrylate, a volatile and flammable liquid used to make plastics, with firefighters warning the situation was serious. Orange County Fire Authority Incident Commander Craig Covey said Saturday morning that an emergency team had ventured into the area overnight, seeking to neutralize the "explosive potential" posed by an additional 15,000-gallon tank nearby should the 7,000-gallon tank blow up, and were then able to view the temperature gauge on the 7,000-gallon tank.

"Unfortunately, I do have to report that the temperature was 90 degrees (Fahrenheit; 32C). Yesterday morning, it was 77 degrees when we backed out. It's been averaging about a degree an hour increasing, so that's the bad news," he said in a short video posted on social media. He said firefighters are seeking ways to cool the tank. Aerial footage filmed by local TV stations on Friday showed jets of water being sprayed at the tank, which has a capacity of 34,000 gallons.

"The primary focus is the tanks," Covey said during a Saturday evening press conference. "We're continuing to keep them cool and monitor them." A blast zone map released by the Orange County Fire Authority showed areas within about 1,100 feet (335 meters) of the tank would sustain severe damage in the event of an explosion, and about the same distance from that radius could expereince light damage.

On Friday, authorities described the tank exploding or rupturing as the only possible outcomes, but on Saturday Covey said: "Letting this thing just fail and blow up is unacceptable." "Our goal is to find something and not allow that to happen, not to let it damage our community, not let it damage our environment."

He added that residents had followed directions to evacuate and the only people at risk now were the emergency responders. Orange County Health Officer Regina Chinsio-Kwong said Friday the large exclusion zone around the tank was a necessary precaution. "If it does explode and there is a vapor, you are all safe as long as you are out of the zone that was determined to be an evacuation zone," she said.

No injuries had been reported by Friday evening, and there was no immediate indication as to what caused the leak, which was initially reported on Thursday. Responders were working to put containment barriers in place to prevent any spilled material from reaching storm drains or river channels that funnel into the ocean.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says methyl methacrylate is irritating to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes in humans. "Respiratory effects have been reported in humans following acute (short-term) and chronic (long-term) inhalation exposures," a fact sheet on the agency's website says. "Neurological symptoms have also been reported in humans following acute exposure."

"Thank you to our great Secret Service and Law Enforcement for the swift and professional action taken this evening against a gunman near the White House, who had a violent history and possible obsession with our Country's most cherished structure," he said in a post on Truth Social.

"An Agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the various other Countries," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday. "In addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened," he said, a development that would bring relief to global energy markets after a months-long Iranian blockade of the crucial thoroughfare for oil shipments.

Leaders from Middle Eastern countries incuding Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, as well as representatives from Turkey and Pakistan, joined a call with Trump to discuss the deal on Saturday, the US president said. Pakistan, which mediated historic face-to-face negotiations between US and Iranian delegations in April, hoped to host another round of talks "very soon," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.

He said Pakistan's powerful army chief Asim Munir, who visited Tehran on Friday, also joined the call, which "provided a useful opportunity to exchange views on... how to move the ongoing peace efforts forward to bring lasting peace in the region." Trump said a separate call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "went very well." US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 sparked the war, with fighting persisting for weeks before a temporary ceasefire came into force in April.

"Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly," Trump said, without providing specifics. The New York Times, citing unnamed American officials, reported that the details of an "apparent commitment" by Tehran to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be discussed after the initial agreement was struck.

The report said the current proposal does not define how exactly Tehran would relinquish its stocks of the fuel crucial for building nuclear weapons, a scenario that Washington has long said it will not accept in Iran. Iranian officials have stressed that gaps between the sides persist and the dispute over the nuclear program would not be part of initial negotiations. Iran has not commented on Trump's announcement.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei earlier noted "a trend towards rapprochement" with Washington but said "it does not necessarily mean that we and the United States will reach an agreement on the important issues." "Our intention was first to draft a memorandum of understanding, a kind of framework agreement," he said on state television. Baqaei added that he hoped the details of a final agreement could be worked out "within a reasonable timeframe between 30 to 60 days" after the initial framework was complete.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had warned earlier that Washington would face a tough response if it resumed hostilities, after US media reports raised the prospect of new strikes. "Our armed forces have rebuilt themselves during the ceasefire period in such a way that if Trump commits another act of folly and restarts the war, it will certainly be more crushing and bitter for the United States than on the first day of the war," Ghalibaf said.

On the war's other main front in Lebanon, state media reported Israel struck the country's south on Saturday, where fighting has continued despite an April 17 ceasefire. Lebanon's military said a strike targeted a Lebanese army barracks in the south and wounded a soldier, while Israel said one of its soldiers was killed on Friday near the border. Iran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel after US-Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader. Hezbollah said Saturday its chief Naim Qassem had received a message from Iran's foreign minister indicating that Tehran "will not give up its support" for the Lebanese group.

The hospital said around 10 people were wounded. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the three deaths, though it said it had struck three Hamas weapons storage facilities in central Gaza over the preceding 24 hours. A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October, but Israel reserves the right to strike targets it deems a threat.

At least 890 Palestinians have been killed since the October 10 ceasefire, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN. The Israeli military says five of its soldiers have also been during the same period. Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.

People could be seen carrying blood-soaked victims on stretchers away from a derailed car, while armed security forces stood guard. The official told AFP that the train carrying army personnel and their family members was going from Quetta to Peshawar in Pakistan's northwest. The train was passing a signal at Chaman Pattak in Quetta "when an explosive-laden car hit one of the carriages that resulted in a big blast", the official said.

Windows were blown out and nearby vehicles were destroyed in the explosion. Another official told AFP that the army personnel were travelling to celebrate the Eid holiday, which is due to start on Tuesday. Balochistan is Pakistan's poorest province and largest by landmass. It lags behind the rest of the country in almost every index, including education, employment and economic development. Baloch separatists accuse Pakistan's government of exploiting the province's natural gas and abundant mineral resources without benefiting the local population.

The agreement would also start a "process that can ultimately leave us where the president wants us to be, and that is a world that no longer has to fear or worry about an Iranian nuclear weapon", he added. His remarks came after President Donald Trump said a proposal that included opening the Strait of Hormuz had been "largely negotiated". "An Agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the various other Countries," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.

Machado expressed confidence in US President Donald Trump's plans for the country, which she believes will lead to elections. "There is one objective here, and that is to free our country -- one purpose: the transition to democracy through free and fair presidential elections in which all Venezuelans can vote," Machado said. "We believe in, trust, and thank the government of the United States -- President Trump and Secretary (of State) Marco Rubio -- for the progress that has been achieved."

Panama is holding the tally sheets from the 2024 election, in which Machado ally Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is believed to have won -- despite former president Nicolas Maduro declaring himself the winner. International observers rejected the official results. Gonzalez Urrutia gave the tally sheets to the Panamanian government in January 2025. The ruling, far-left Chavista movement rejected the documents. On Monday, while still in Panama, Machado will visit Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino and the national assembly.

Trump suggested that new elections would be held after US forces captured Maduro on January 3, but no election has been scheduled. Since then, Venezuela has been governed by interim president Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's former vice president.

"In addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened." Among the Middle East countries whose leaders joined a call on Saturday to discuss the deal were Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, Trump said. He added that he had a separate call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it "likewise, went very well."

"Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly," Trump said. His optimistic post came after Iranian officials said gaps remained between the parties, and that the dispute over its nuclear program would not be part of the initial talks. Tehran said it was finalizing a 14-point framework for a deal. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei noted what he called "a trend towards rapprochement," but said "it does not necessarily mean that we and the United States will reach an agreement on the important issues."

"Our intention was first to draft a memorandum of understanding, a kind of framework agreement composed of 14 clauses," he said on state television. Baqaei added that he hoped the details of a final agreement could be worked out "within a reasonable timeframe between 30 to 60 days" after the framework is finalized. Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had warned earlier that Washington would face a tough response if it resumes hostilities, after US media reports raised the prospect of new strikes and Iranian officials accused the US side of making "excessive demands."

"Our armed forces have rebuilt themselves during the ceasefire period in such a way that if Trump commits another act of folly and restarts the war, it will certainly be more crushing and bitter for the United States than on the first day of the war," Ghalibaf said. He issued the warning after meeting in Tehran with Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, a leading figure in international efforts to negotiate an end to the war, which broke out after the United States and Israel attacked the Islamic republic on February 28.

Weeks of negotiations, including historic face-to-face talks hosted by Islamabad, have still not produced a permanent resolution or restored full access to the Strait of Hormuz, choking vast quantities of global oil supply. The impasse has left ordinary Iranians in limbo. "The state of 'neither war nor peace' is far filthier than war itself," 39-year-old Tehran resident Shahrzad told AFP.

"I'm about to start a new job, and I'm scared war might break out again -- that I'll end up leaving the job like before, running off to another city out of fear," she said. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Tehran was engaged despite "repeated betrayals of diplomacy and military aggression against Iran, along with contradictory positions and repeated excessive demands" by Washington.

Araghchi held a bevy of diplomatic calls, speaking with counterparts from Turkey, Iraq, Qatar and Oman, Iran's official IRNA news agency said. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also spoke with Trump on Saturday, as well as with the UAE president and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. An official Qatari statement said Sheikh Tamim and the Saudi prince discussed efforts "aimed at calming the situation and promoting political solutions."

On another front in the war, Lebanese state media said Israel struck the country's south on Saturday, as fighting has not stopped despite an April 17 ceasefire. Lebanon's military said one strike targeted a Lebanese army barracks in the south and wounded a soldier. Israel said one of its soldiers was killed Friday near the border with Lebanon. Iran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel after US-Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader. Hezbollah said Saturday its chief Naim Qassem had received a message from Araghchi indicating that Iran "will not give up its support" for the Lebanese group.

The disagreements between Iran and the United States remained "deep and extensive", he added, according to Iran's ISNA news agency. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had earlier voiced hope of progress toward ending the war, which began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. An April 8 ceasefire halted open fighting, but negotiations -- including historic face-to-face talks in Islamabad -- have yet to produce a lasting agreement.

President Donald Trump has described the stop-start negotiations as teetering on the "borderline" between a deal and renewed attacks. Pakistan's military said Field Marshal Asim Munir had "arrived in Tehran as part of ongoing mediation efforts". He was welcomed by Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and Pakistan's Mohsin Naqvi. Naqvi had visited Iran for the second time in a week on Wednesday, meeting President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Baqaei said a Qatari delegation also met Iran's foreign minister Friday. "In recent days, many countries -- both regional and non-regional -- have been trying to help bring the war to an end...However, Pakistan remains the official mediator," he added. Pakistan hosted in April the only direct US-Iran talks since the war began.

Munir played a central role in that round, greeting both delegations and showing public warmth with US Vice President JD Vance. But the talks failed, with Iran accusing Washington of making "excessive demands". Since then, the two sides have traded proposals under the constant threat of renewed war. Rubio, speaking on the margins of a NATO meeting in Sweden, said there had been "some progress" in the talks, but warned that Washington was "not there yet".

"It may not" change, Rubio said. "We're dealing with a very difficult group of people. And if it doesn't change, then the president's been clear he has other options." Rubio said Trump "prefers the negotiated option" but had expressed concern that a deal "maybe...is not possible". He also said Trump's "disappointment" with NATO allies over their lack of support in the Iran war would need to be "addressed". European countries may need a "Plan B", Rubio said, to help force open the Strait of Hormuz if the war drags on.

Tehran effectively closed the key shipping lane, which normally carries large volumes of oil and gas, in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes. The future of Hormuz remains a key sticking point, with fears growing that the global economy will suffer as pre-war oil stockpiles run down. Markets nevertheless took some comfort from the diplomacy, with Wall Street rising Friday and the Dow closing at a second straight record high as investors bet talks could eventually produce an off-ramp.

Oil prices also rose, however, underscoring fears that disruption in Hormuz will keep feeding inflation. US consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level since records began in 1952, with high prices still eroding household finances. European Union nations moved Friday towards sanctions on Iranian officials and others blamed for blocking the strait. Baqaei said Hormuz and the US blockade of Iranian ports were also under discussion.

"The issue of ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, is very important," he added. Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war with rocket fire at Israel after Iran's supreme leader was killed in US-Israeli strikes. Since an April 17 truce, Israel has continued strikes, demolitions and evacuation orders in south Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah, which has also kept up attacks. Late Friday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Israel carried out five airstrikes in the east of the country near the Syrian border, targeting the Nabi Sreij area outside the town of Brital.

The agency said the area had been spared from attacks since the ceasefire, and that the strikes came after Israel called for the evacuation of two areas in southern Lebanon. Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,111 people in Lebanon since March 2. The ministry said Israeli strikes on the south killed 10 people on Friday, including six rescuers and a child. The Israeli military announced a separate strike that killed two people in southern Lebanon.

The United States on Thursday sanctioned nine Hezbollah-linked individuals, including two officers, accused of "obstructing the peace process in Lebanon." They were the first Lebanese officers sanctioned by Washington.

But for Fatima, a 36-year-old German housewife travelling with her family, "there was no second thought" about coming to Mecca, Islam's holiest city. "We know we are at the safest place in the world," she told AFP. The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be performed at least once by all Muslims with the means. As of this week, more than 1.2 million pilgrims had arrived in Saudi Arabia for the multi-day pilgrimage starting Monday, officials said. The hajj has been a point of tension in the past between Riyadh and Tehran, with repeated outbreaks of violence and unrest involving Iranian visitors.

In the years following Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Saudi authorities accused Iranian pilgrims of triggering stampedes and other violence, while also chanting political slogans -- an act seen as taboo by the religious establishment in Mecca. A Saudi state broadcaster this week posted a warning from the interior ministry saying any chanting or raising political or sectarian flags were strictly prohibited during the hajj.

The last major dispute erupted in 2015, when 464 Iranians were among 2,300 pilgrims killed in a stampede -- one of the hajj's biggest tragedies -- prompting accusations between Riyadh and Tehran. Relations were severed a year later after protesters attacked Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran and consulate in the northwestern city of Mashhad, following Riyadh's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. No Iranian pilgrims were allowed that year, as the two sides were unable to organise a protocol for them to attend.

Experts, however, said authorities would do their utmost to prevent any unrest from rattling this year's pilgrimage. "Saudi Arabia and Iran have kept their political engagement open" despite the war, said Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi foreign policy. The two sides only re-established relations in a surprise 2023 deal brokered by China, which saw tensions ease and embassies reopen in their respective capitals. But the detente was upended following the US and Israeli attack on Iran in late February that set off Iran's wide-ranging retaliation against its Gulf neighbours.

Energy installations, airports, export terminals, ports and other civilian infrastructure were targeted by Tehran, as Iranian attacks on the Strait of Hormuz choked Gulf oil and gas exports to the outside world. Despite the fighting, Iranian pilgrims began arriving in the kingdom in late April, with tens of thousands estimated to take part in the hajj. As well as geopolitical tensions, the arduous, outdoor pilgrimage will again be held under punishing sun, with temperatures forecast to top 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for much of the week.

After more than 1,300 people died in 2024, when temperatures soared above 50 degrees Celsius, Saudi authorities introduced a range of heat-mitigation measures including more shaded areas and thousands of extra health workers. More than 50,000 healthcare staff and 3,000 ambulances are on hand to help pilgrims in need, the Saudi health ministry said. Despite the heat and war, pilgrims were overcome with emotion as they kickstarted the hajj festivities in Mecca, Islam's holiest city. "Hajj has been the dream of a lifetime for me," Ahmed Abo Seta, 47, told AFP. "And it is finally coming true."

"It's right on the borderline, believe me," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews near Washington when asked where the talks with Iran stood. "If we don't get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We're all ready to go. We have to get the right answers -- it would have to be a complete 100 percent good answers."

Trump said it would save "a lot of time, energy and lives" if Iran made a deal, saying it could happen "very quickly, or (in) a few days." The US leader said this week he had been an hour away from ordering the resumption of strikes on Iran but postponed the attack planned for Tuesday at the request of Gulf states.

"For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won't be anything left of them," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!" The war has led to an effective blockade of the critical Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of global oil exports pass in peacetime, and has drawn neighbors Israel and Lebanon into a deadly side conflict.

Iran's clerical state, Hezbollah's patron, has demanded a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon before any broader peace agreement with Trump, who has been frustrated by Tehran's refusal to an accord on his terms. An Israeli military official said Sunday that Hezbollah had fired around 200 projectiles at Israel and its troops over the weekend, despite Israel and Lebanon agreeing to extend a ceasefire. Washington and Tehran agreed to a truce on April 8, but peace negotiations have stalled and sporadic attacks have continued.

On Sunday, Iranian media said the United States had failed to make any concrete concessions in its latest response to Iran's proposed agenda for negotiations to end the war. The Fars news agency said Washington had presented a five-point list which included a demand for Iran to keep only one nuclear site in operation and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the United States. 

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 675 attack drones and 56 missiles, mainly at Kyiv, adding its air defence units had downed 652 of the drones and 41 missiles. "Everything was burning. People were screaming... people were shouting," Andriy, a Kyiv resident still wearing a nightgown and with blood stains on his shirt, told AFP near a collapsed Soviet-era residential building. President Volodymyr Zelensky said 20 sites in the capital were damaged, including homes, a school, a veterinary clinic and other civilian infrastructure.

"Work is still ongoing in Kyiv at the site of the strike on the building -- a Russian missile strike that literally levelled a residential block, from the first to the ninth floor," he said in an evening address. Twenty-one people including three children were killed in the attacks, Ukraine's emergency service said early Friday, updating a previously announced death toll of 16. Seven bodies were pulled from the rubble of a single destroyed residential building -- three men, three women and a young girl, police said.

Another 45 were wounded. Russian attacks also wounded people in the southern regions of Odesa and Kherson, and in the eastern region of Kharkiv. "These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end. It is important that partners do not remain silent about this strike," Zelensky said.

Ukraine said it shot down 94 percent of all drones and 73 percent of the missiles fired by Russia. "The most difficult challenge is defending against ballistic missiles," he said. A slew of Ukraine's allies, including the United Kingdom, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, the Netherlands, Moldova and Slovakia, condemned the fatal attacks. "By bombing civilians, Russia demonstrates less its strength than its weakness: it is running out of solutions on the military front and does not know how to end its war of aggression," French President Emmanuel Macron said.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the attacks on Kyiv showed that Russia "openly mocks" efforts to end the war. Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than four years ago, said the wave of missiles and drones had targeted military-linked sites and energy facilities that support the Ukrainian army. The conflict is the worst in Europe since World War II and has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more. At daybreak Thursday, AFP journalists witnessed chaotic scenes as rescue workers dug through mounds of debris from a collapsed residential building.

Emergency service workers were seen hauling from the site those wounded and killed in the strikes, and residents cried as they waited for news of loved ones and neighbours. The barrage is the latest setback for efforts to end the conflict after US President Donald Trump raised faint hopes for peace by brokering a three-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow last week. Russia's leader Vladimir Putin also suggested the war could be winding down.

But the brief truce was marred by allegations of violations and both sides resumed attacks straight after. Russia's army fired more than 1,500 drones at Ukraine over Wednesday and Thursday, Kyiv's air force said. The Kremlin has poured cold water on the idea that vague comments from Putin last Saturday that the war was "heading to an end" meant Moscow would soften its position. On Wednesday, it repeated its demand that Ukraine fully withdraw from the eastern Donbas region before a ceasefire and full-scale peace talks can take place.

Kyiv has rejected such a move as tantamount to capitulation. Kyiv has urged Trump to discuss ending the conflict during his meetings in Beijing this week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. "This barbaric attack during such an important summit shows that the Russian regime poses a global threat to international security. Instead of peace and development, Moscow pursues aggression and terror," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said. Russian drones on Thursday also struck a UN vehicle in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Zelensky said, accusing Moscow of having deliberately targeted it, but adding there were no casualties.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Caribbean, is ravaged by gang violence. The situation has steadily deteriorated over the past two years. Violence since the weekend has displaced some 5,300 people. Several families are still trapped in the affected neighborhoods, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, citing local humanitarian organizations. A hospital and a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) facility have been forced to suspend operations and evacuate their staff.

Before evacuating, Doctors Without Borders reported that 40 gunshot victims were treated at the hospital in less than 12 hours. The same two communes in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area saw outbreaks of violence in March and April that displaced nearly 8,000 people, the UN says. BINUH said Thursday that between March 5 and May 11 at least 305 people were killed and 277 wounded in Cite Soleil and Croix-des-Bouquets.

Of the fatalities, 63 were residents -- including 17 women and 13 children -- while the others killed were gang members. A new multinational anti-gang force is being deployed to Haiti to replace the under-equipped and underfunded Multinational Mission to Support the Haitian Police. But so far, only a contingent of 400 Chadian soldiers has arrived in Port-au-Prince. The new force announced on Thursday the arrival of its commander, Mongolian General Erdenebat Batsuuri.

Currently the job is only half done, turning the popular tourist attraction into a fenced-off work site. The 79-year-old Republican president is taking extraordinary interest in the project -- almost as much as in the enormous ballroom he has ordered built on the site of the White House East Wing, which he abruptly tore down after taking power last year. For opponents, the pool mirrors much of what is wrong in the administration.

They point to the rising cost and reported links between Trump and the contractor. And they question the use of blue paint at an iconic landmark, perhaps most famous as the setting for civil rights leader Martin Luther King's 1963 "I have a dream" speech. Coming on top of the ballroom, Trump putting his name on the side of the Kennedy arts center, and plans for building a giant triumphal arch, it has critics fuming. Trump's "putting his fingers in everything that he possibly can," Sammy, a young woman from Richmond, Virginia, said Wednesday, declining to give her last name. "He's so narcissistic," she said. "The city is going to bear the scars of this lunatic for a really long time."

Trump says it's high time to fix up the pool. "It was filthy, dirty and it leaked like a sieve for many years," he said in a White House video. Fans say they trust his experience as a real estate developer -- an image he has cultivated to leverage support for his call to remake not just public buildings, but the nation's economy and politics. "He knows what he's doing with all his buildings," said Elizabeth Miller from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, while visiting the Lincoln Memorial. "He makes America proud by cleaning everything up."

Trump backers also point out that the Reflecting Pool long had maintenance issues. Then president Barack Obama's administration spent $34 million trying to fix it up. Trump said he was rejecting a $300-million, three-year project to replace the stone in the basin, and would instead turn to a swimming pool contractor he knew who could resurfacing the place and coating it blue. This, he said, would cost a mere $1.5 million or so.

For Russ, who was visiting from Arizona and likewise did not want to give his last name, that seems like a deal. "If it's cheaper, quicker and just as effective, why should we waste tax money? I don't see any downside to it," Russ said. But according to reporting in The New York Times, that supposedly bargain price tag is already ballooning to $13 million. The Times also reported that the government gave a no-bid contract for the job to a construction company in Virginia that had done previous work for Trump, bypassing the requirements to seek competing bids.

According to the report, the government cited urgency to get the job done by July 4th, marking America's 250th birthday. Trump has since said he doesn't know the contractor and has not used the company before. But it troubles Margaret Herro, a tourist from Wisconsin. "I understood we had some sort of a process to clean up our national monuments, and I don't feel like he went through that process," she said. "It's a bit of a dictator approach." The non-profit group Cultural Landscape Foundation has sued to stop the makeover, calling the blue paint job "desecration."

That has not stopped work. But beyond the political and symbolic controversies, there are already doubts over whether the Reflecting Pool will be fixed. "It's not the right solution," said an engineer visiting from Maryland who only gave his name as Obe. "They needed to fix the drainage and not just paint it blue to make it look bright." Joining tourists at the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday, Gregory Scott from Atlanta echoed a question on the lips of supporters and opponents of Trump alike. "What is he going to do next?"

The visit comes during a deepening crisis in US-Cuba relations, with the island enduring constant power outages prompted by President Donald Trump's fuel blockade. Only one tanker from Russia -- a historic ally of the Cuban authorities -- has got through. And that oil has now "run out," Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told state television. "The impact of the blockade is indeed causing us significant harm...because we are still not receiving fuel."

Trump has repeatedly signalled that he wants to topple the communist government in Cuba. According to a report on CBS News, citing unidentified US officials, the Trump administration is also seeking to indict Raul Castro, the 94-year-old brother of the late Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro. But Cuba framed the Ratcliffe visit as a chance to calm tensions. The meeting with Ratcliffe took place "in a context marked by the complexity of bilateral relations, with the aim of contributing to the political dialogue between both nations," a government statement read.

The exchanges "made it possible to demonstrate categorically that Cuba does not constitute a threat to US national security, nor are there any legitimate reasons to include it on the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism," the Cuban statement added. Cuba "has never supported any hostile activity against the United States, nor will it permit actions against any other nation to be carried out from Cuba," it emphasized, referring to allegations of a Chinese presence.

One of Cuba's last economic lifelines was cut in January when US forces toppled the strongman leader of oil-rich Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and instituted a fuel blockade. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has renewed an offer of $100 million in aid on the condition that the assistance be distributed by the Catholic Church, bypassing the government. In a post on X, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel urged the United States to instead lift its blockade.

"The damage could be eased in a much simpler and faster way by lifting or relaxing the blockade, since it is known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced," he said. Despite tensions, intergovernmental talks are ongoing, with a high-level diplomatic meeting taking place in Havana on April 10 -- the first time a US government plane landed in the Cuban capital since 2016. Eastern Cuba was Thursday plunged into the latest outage affecting the whole country, with power returning to some areas later in the day.

The crisis prompted protests on the island. A resident of San Miguel del Padron, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, told AFP that people had protested by banging pots and pans on Wednesday evening. Several other similar small demonstrations were held in neighborhoods across the capital, according to accounts gathered by AFP. "Turn on the lights!" shouted residents in Playa, in the western part of the city.

Data compiled by AFP showed prolonged blackouts and record generation shortfalls in recent days. Some 65 percent of Cuban territory endured simultaneous blackouts on Tuesday. "It's a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it's impossible to change it. I wish it were different," Rubio told Fox News. "I don't think we're going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who alongside Trump ordered an attack on Iran starting February 28, said in a recent interview that the war was "not over" because the sensitive nuclear material "has to be taken out" of the country.