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A group of scientists due to work together for months at a remote Antarctic research station has been rocked after a member of the team was accused of physical assault.

A team of nine researchers were due to spend the Antarctic winter at the South African-run base, which sits about 170km (about 105 miles) from the edge of the ice shelf and is difficult to reach.

But a spokesperson for the South African government told the BBC “there was an assault” at the station, following earlier allegations of inappropriate behaviour from inside the camp.

In a further message seen by the BBC, the South African environment ministry said it was responding to the concerns with “utmost urgency”.

South Africa’s Sunday Times, which was first to report the story, said members of the team had pleaded to be rescued.

The ministry said that those in the team had been subject to “a number of evaluations that include background checks, reference checks, medical assessment as well as a psychometric evaluation by qualified professionals”, which all members had cleared.

In a subsequent statement, the ministry added that it was “not uncommon” for individuals to have an initial adjustment when they arrive at extremely remote areas even if assessments showed no areas of concern.

It said when the vessel departed for Antarctica on 1 February “all was in order”, and the incident was first reported to the ministry on 27 February.

The statement added the department “immediately activated the response plan in order to mediate and restore relations at the base”.

“This process has been ongoing on an almost daily basis in order to ensure that those on the base know that the Department is supportive and willing to do whatever is needed to restore the interpersonal relationships, but also firm in dealing with issues of discipline,” it said.

The department said allegations of sexual harassment were also being investigated, but that reports of sexual assault were incorrect.

The department added that a government minister was personally handling the incident, and the alleged perpetrator had “willingly participated in further psychological evaluation, has shown remorse and is willingly cooperative to follow any interventions that are recommended”.

The alleged perpetrator has also written a formal apology to the victim, it said.

The Sanae IV research base is located more than 4,000km from mainland South Africa and harsh weather conditions mean scientists can be cut off there for much of the year.

The base typically houses staff who stay through the Antarctic winter for approximately 13 months.

South African research expeditions have been taking place since 1959. The team to the Sanae IV base typically comprises a doctor, two mechanics, three engineers, a meteorological technician and a couple of physicists.

These expeditions, with harsh weather conditions mandating a lot of time spent in a confined indoor space, normally run without incident.

But on Sunday, South Africa’s Sunday Times reported that one member of the team had sent an email warning of “deeply disturbing behaviour” by a colleague and an “environment of fear”.

A South African government spokesperson told the BBC that the alleged assault was triggered by “a dispute over a task the team leader wanted the team to do – a weather dependant task that required a schedule change”.

Incidents in Antarctica are rare, but not unprecedented. In 2018 there were reports of a stabbing at the Russian-operated Bellingshausen research station.

Psychologists point to the effect that isolation can have on human behaviour.

“One thing we know from these rare occurrences, when something bad happens in enforced isolation or capsule working, is that it’s often the small things, tiny things that can blow up into conflict,” said Craig Jackson, professor of workplace health psychology at Birmingham City University, and a chartered member of the British Psychological Society.

“So issues about hierarchy, about workload allocation, even small things about leisure time or rations or food portions can rapidly flare up to become something much larger than they typically are,” he told the BBC.

Gabrielle Walker, a scientist and author who has been on expeditions to Antarctica, said working in such close proximity to a small group of colleagues had risks.

“You know exactly how they put their coffee cup down and what direction the handle points in; you know that they scratch their nose three times before they sit down; you know everything about them.

“And in the bad circumstances, it can start to irritate you… because there’s nothing else – there’s no other stimulus and you’re with people 24/7,” she said.

Sources within the Antarctic research community have told the BBC that South Africa has access to an ice-capable ship and aircraft if needed.

But any rescue operation would have to contend with the harsh climate, with temperatures well below freezing and the possibility of strong winds.

Additional reporting by Ed Habershon and Miho Tanaka

Chinese state media has welcomed Donald Trump’s move to cut public funding for news outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which have long reported on authoritarian regimes.

The decison affects thousands of employees – some 1,300 staff have been put on paid leave at Voice Of America (VOA) alone since Friday’s executive order.

Critics have called the move a setback for democracy but Beijing’s state newspaper Global Times denounced VOA for its “appalling track record” in reporting on China and said it has “now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag”.

The White House defended the move, saying it will “ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”.

Trump’s cuts target the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which is supported by Congress and funds the affected news outlets, such as VOA, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe.

They have won acclaim and international recognition for their reporting in places where press freedom is severely curtailed or non-existent, from China and Cambodia to Russia and North Korea.

Although authorities in some of these countries block the broadcasts – VOA, for instance, is banned in China – people can listen to them on shortwave radio, or get around the restrictions via VPNs.

RFA has often reported on the crackdown on human rights in Cambodia, whose former authoritarian ruler Hun Sen has hailed the cuts as a “big contribution to eliminating fake news”.

It was also among the first news outlets to report on China’s network of detention centres in Xinjiang, where the authorities are accused of locking up hundreds of thousands of Uyghur Muslims without trial. Beijing denies the claims, saying people willingly attend “re-education camps” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. VOA’s reporting on North Korean defectors and the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged cover-up of Covid fatalities has won awards.

VOA, primarily a radio outlet, which also broadcasts in Mandarin, was recognised last year for its podcast on rare protests in 2022 in China against Covid lockdowns.

But China’s Global Times welcomed the cuts, calling VOA a “lie factory”.

“As more Americans begin to break through their information cocoons and see a real world and a multi-dimensional China, the demonising narratives propagated by VOA will ultimately become a laughing stock,” it said in an editorial published on Monday.

Hu Xijin, who was the Global Times’ former editor-in-chief, wrote: “Voice of America has been paralysed! And so has Radio Free Asia, which has been as vicious to China. This is such great news.”

Such responses “would have been easy to predict”, said Valdya Baraputri, a VOA journalist who lost her job over the weekend. She was previously employed by BBC World Service.

“Eliminating VOA, of course, allows channels that are the opposite of accurate and balanced reporting to thrive,” she told the BBC.

The National Press Club, a leading representative group for US journalists, said the order “undermines America’s long-standing commitment to a free and independent press”.

Founded during World War Two in part to counter Nazi propaganda, VOA reaches some 360 million people a week in nearly 50 languages. Over the years it has broadcast in China, North Korea, communist Cuba and the former Soviet Union. It’s also been a helpful tool for many Chinese people to learn English.

VOA’s director Michael Abramowitz said Trump’s order has hobbled VOA while “America’s adversaries, like Iran, China, and Russia, are sinking billions of dollars into creating false narratives to discredit the United States”.

Ms Baraputri, who is from Indonesia but based in Washington DC, first joined VOA in 2018, but her visa was terminated at the end of Trump’s first administration.

She rejoined in 2023 because she wanted to be part of an organisation that “upholds unbiased, factual reporting that is free from government influence”.

The recent cuts have left her “feeling betrayed by the idea I had about press freedom [in the US]”.

She is also concerned for colleagues who may now be forced to return to hostile home countries, where they could be persecuted for their journalism.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has appealed to the European Union to intervene so it can keep Radio Free Europe going. It reports in 27 languages from 23 countries, reaching more than 47 million people every week.

RFA chief executive Bay Fang said in a statement that the organisation plans to challenge the order. Cutting funding to these outlets is a “reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked in the information space”, he said.

RFA started in 1996 and reaches nearly 60 million people weekly in China, Myanmar, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. In China, it also broadcasts in minority languages like Tibetan and Uyghur, apart from English and Mandarin.

“[Trump’s order] not only disenfranchises the nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA’s reporting on a weekly basis to learn the truth, but it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense,” Mr Fang noted.

While Chinese state media has celebrated the cuts, it’s hard to know how Chinese people feel about it given their internet is heavily censored.

Outside China, those who have listened to VOA and RFA over the years appear disappointed and worried.

“Looking back at history, countless exiles, rebels, intellectuals, and ordinary people have persisted in the darkness because of the voices of VOA and RFA, and have seen hope in fear because of their reports,” Du Wen, a Chinese dissident living in Belgium, wrote on X.

“If the free world chooses to remain silent, then the voice of the dictator will become the only echo in the world.”

The last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, John “Paddy” Hemingway, has died at the age of 105.

Mr Hemingway, who was originally from Dublin, joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a teenager before World War Two.

At 21, he was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, a three-month period when air force personnel defended the skies against a large-scale assault by the German air force, the Luftwaffe.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Mr Hemingway, saying his courage and those of all RAF pilots had “helped end WWII and secure our freedom”.

The Prince of Wales also paid tribute, saying that “we owe so much to Paddy and his generation for our freedoms today”.

Prince William added that “their bravery and sacrifice will always be remembered”.

The Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Emma Little-Pengelly described Mr Hemingway as “an absolute hero”.

Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly she said: “My goodness when you read his obituary, the things that he experienced.”

She added that the sacrifices of Mr Hemingway’s generation were “absolutely incredible”.

Those who fought in the three-and-a-half-month battle came to be known as “The Few” after a speech by the then Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” he said of their sacrifices in battle.

In a statement, the RAF said that Mr Hemingway had “passed away peacefully” on Monday.

The pilot’s squadron shot down 90 enemy aircraft during an 11-day period in May 1940, and provided fighter cover during the Battle of France.

During the war, Gp Capt Hemingway was shot down four times.

During dogfights – or one-on-one aerial combats – in August 1940, Mr Hemingway was forced to bail out of his Hurricane single-seat fighter on two occasions, landing in the sea off the coast of Essex and in marshland.

The wreckage of his Hurricane was recovered in 2019 with the control column and the gun-button still set to “fire”.

In July 1941, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross – awarded to RAF personnel for an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty while flying on active operations.

On the way to receive his medal from the King, he was forced to escape from a Blenheim aircraft, which crashed during take-off.

While serving with the 85 Squadron in RAF Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, Mr Hemingway was forced to bail out of his Havoc night fighter at 600ft (183m) due to instrument failure in bad weather.

He broke his hand on the tail section and his parachute failed to open, with the chute catching on the branches of a tree.

He was forced to bail out a fourth time while fighting near Ravenna, Italy, when his Spitfire was hit multiple times. He landed in enemy territory, and made contact with Italian citizens, who helped him back to the Allies.

Speaking to BBC News NI in 2023, Gp Capt Hemingway said he had never looked for fame for being part of “The Few”.

“I don’t think we ever assumed greatness of any form,” he said.

“We were just fighting a war which we were trained to fight.”

Mr Hemingway said that his biggest regret was the loss of friends, in particular that of Richard “Dickie” Lee in August 1940.

The RAF said that Mr Hemingway’s passing marked “the end of an era and a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought for freedom during World War II”.

“His courage in the face of overwhelming odds demonstrated his sense of duty and the importance of British resilience.”

Mr Hemingway “always had a twinkle in his eyes as he recalled the fun times with colleagues in France and London”, the statement said.

“This quiet, composed, thoughtful and mischievous individual may not have wanted to be the last of ‘The Few’, but he embodied the spirit of all those who flew sorties over this green and pleasant land,” it added.

Chief of RAF Air Staff Sir Rich Knighton said he had spent time with Mr Hemingway in Dublin earlier this year.

“Paddy was an amazing character whose life story embodies all that was and remains great about the Royal Air Force.”

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Russia’s Kursk region have described scenes “like a horror movie” as they retreated from the front lines.

The BBC has received extensive accounts from Ukrainian troops, who recount a “catastrophic” withdrawal in the face of heavy fire, and columns of military equipment destroyed and constant attacks from swarms of Russian drones.

The soldiers, who spoke over social media, were given aliases to protect their identity. Some gave accounts of a “collapse” as Ukraine lost Sudzha, the largest town it held.

Ukrainian restrictions on travel to the front have meant it is not possible to get a full picture of the situation. But this is how five Ukrainian soldiers described to us what had happened.

On 9 March, “Volodymyr” sent a Telegram post to the BBC saying he was still in Sudzha, where there was “panic and collapse of the front”.

Ukrainian troops “are trying to leave – columns of troops and equipment. Some of them are burned by Russian drones on the road. It is impossible to leave during the day.”

Movement of men, logistics and equipment had been reliant on one major route between Sudzha and Ukraine’s Sumy region.

Volodymyr said it was possible to travel on that road relatively safely a month ago. By 9 March it was “all under the fire control of the enemy – drones around the clock. In one minute you can see two to three drones. That’s a lot,” he said.

“We have all the logistics here on one Sudzha-Sumy highway. And everyone knew that the [Russians] would try to cut it. But this again came as a surprise to our command.”

At the time of writing, just before Russia retook Sudzha, Volodymyr said Ukrainian forces were being pressed from three sides.

By 11 March, Ukrainian forces were battling to prevent the road being cut, according to Telegram messages from “Maksym”.

“A few days ago, we received an order to leave the defence lines in an organised retreat,” he said, adding that Russia had amassed a significant force to retake the town, “including large numbers of North Korean soldiers”.

Military experts estimate Russia had amassed a force of up to 70,000 troops to retake Kursk – including about 12,000 North Koreans.

Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and was using kamikaze and first-person-view (FPV) variants to “take fire control of the main logistics routes”.

They included drones linked to operators by fibre-optic wires – which are impossible to jam with electronic counter-measures.

Maksym said as a result “the enemy managed to destroy dozens of units of equipment”, and that wrecks had “created congestion on supply routes”.

The situation on that day, 11 March, was described as “catastrophic” by “Anton”.

The third soldier spoken to by the BBC was serving in the headquarters for the Kursk front.

He too highlighted the damage caused by Russian FPV drones. “We used to have an advantage in drones, now we do not,” he said. He added that Russia had an advantage with more accurate air strikes and a greater number of troops.

Anton said supply routes had been cut. “Logistics no longer work – organised deliveries of weapons, ammunition, food and water are no longer possible.”

Anton said he managed to leave Sudzha by foot, at night – “We almost died several times. Drones are in the sky all the time.”

The soldier predicted Ukraine’s entire foothold in Kursk would be lost but that “from a military point of view, the Kursk direction has exhausted itself. There is no point in keeping it any more”.

Western officials estimate that Ukraine’s Kursk offensive involved about 12,000 troops. They were some of their best-trained soldiers, equipped with Western-supplied weapons including tanks and armoured vehicles.

Russian bloggers published videos showing some of that equipment being destroyed or captured. On 13 March, Russia said the situation in Kursk was “fully under our control” and that Ukraine had “abandoned” much of its material.

In social media posts on 11-12 March, a fourth soldier, “Dmytro” likened the retreat from the front to “a scene from a horror movie”.

“The roads are littered with hundreds of destroyed cars, armoured vehicles and ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). There are a lot of wounded and dead.”

Vehicles were often hunted by multiple drones, he said.

He described his own narrow escape when the car he was travelling in got bogged down. He and his fellow soldiers were trying to push the vehicle free when they were targeted by another FPV drone.

It missed the vehicle, but injured one of his comrades. He said they had to hide in a forest for two hours before they were rescued.

Dmytro said many Ukrainians retreated on foot with “guys walking 15km to 20km”. The situation, he said, had turned from “difficult and critical to catastrophic”.

In a message on 14 March, Dmytro added: “Everything is finished in the Kursk region… the operation was not successful.”

He estimated that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had died since the first crossing into Russia in August.

A fifth soldier sounded less gloomy about the situation. On 13 March, “Artem” sent a Telegram message from a military hospital, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds suffered in a drone attack.

Artem said he had been fighting further west – near the village of Loknya, where Ukrainian forces were putting up a stiff resistance and “fighting like lions”.

He believed the operation had achieved some success.

“It’s important that so far the Armed Forces of Ukraine have created this buffer zone, thanks to which the Russians cannot enter Sumy,” he said.

Ukraine’s top general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, insists that Ukrainian forces have pulled back to “more favourable positions”, remain in Kursk, and would do so “for as long as it is expedient and necessary”.

He said Russia had suffered more than 50,000 losses during the operation – including those killed, injured or captured.

However, the situation now is very different to last August. Military analysts estimate two-thirds of the 1,000 sq km gained at the outset have since been lost.

Any hopes that Ukraine would be able to trade Kursk territory for some of its own have significantly diminished.

Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed the Kursk operation had “accomplished its task” by forcing Russia to pull troops from the east and relieve pressure on Pokrovsk.

But it is not yet clear at what cost.

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Russia’s Kursk region have described scenes “like a horror movie” as they retreated from the front lines.

The BBC has received extensive accounts from Ukrainian troops, who recount a “catastrophic” withdrawal in the face of heavy fire, and columns of military equipment destroyed and constant attacks from swarms of Russian drones.

The soldiers, who spoke over social media, were given aliases to protect their identity. Some gave accounts of a “collapse” as Ukraine lost Sudzha, the largest town it held.

Ukrainian restrictions on travel to the front have meant it is not possible to get a full picture of the situation. But this is how five Ukrainian soldiers described to us what had happened.

On 9 March, “Volodymyr” sent a Telegram post to the BBC saying he was still in Sudzha, where there was “panic and collapse of the front”.

Ukrainian troops “are trying to leave – columns of troops and equipment. Some of them are burned by Russian drones on the road. It is impossible to leave during the day.”

Movement of men, logistics and equipment had been reliant on one major route between Sudzha and Ukraine’s Sumy region.

Volodymyr said it was possible to travel on that road relatively safely a month ago. By 9 March it was “all under the fire control of the enemy – drones around the clock. In one minute you can see two to three drones. That’s a lot,” he said.

“We have all the logistics here on one Sudzha-Sumy highway. And everyone knew that the [Russians] would try to cut it. But this again came as a surprise to our command.”

At the time of writing, just before Russia retook Sudzha, Volodymyr said Ukrainian forces were being pressed from three sides.

By 11 March, Ukrainian forces were battling to prevent the road being cut, according to Telegram messages from “Maksym”.

“A few days ago, we received an order to leave the defence lines in an organised retreat,” he said, adding that Russia had amassed a significant force to retake the town, “including large numbers of North Korean soldiers”.

Military experts estimate Russia had amassed a force of up to 70,000 troops to retake Kursk – including about 12,000 North Koreans.

Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and was using kamikaze and first-person-view (FPV) variants to “take fire control of the main logistics routes”.

They included drones linked to operators by fibre-optic wires – which are impossible to jam with electronic counter-measures.

Maksym said as a result “the enemy managed to destroy dozens of units of equipment”, and that wrecks had “created congestion on supply routes”.

The situation on that day, 11 March, was described as “catastrophic” by “Anton”.

The third soldier spoken to by the BBC was serving in the headquarters for the Kursk front.

He too highlighted the damage caused by Russian FPV drones. “We used to have an advantage in drones, now we do not,” he said. He added that Russia had an advantage with more accurate air strikes and a greater number of troops.

Anton said supply routes had been cut. “Logistics no longer work – organised deliveries of weapons, ammunition, food and water are no longer possible.”

Anton said he managed to leave Sudzha by foot, at night – “We almost died several times. Drones are in the sky all the time.”

The soldier predicted Ukraine’s entire foothold in Kursk would be lost but that “from a military point of view, the Kursk direction has exhausted itself. There is no point in keeping it any more”.

Western officials estimate that Ukraine’s Kursk offensive involved about 12,000 troops. They were some of their best-trained soldiers, equipped with Western-supplied weapons including tanks and armoured vehicles.

Russian bloggers published videos showing some of that equipment being destroyed or captured. On 13 March, Russia said the situation in Kursk was “fully under our control” and that Ukraine had “abandoned” much of its material.

In social media posts on 11-12 March, a fourth soldier, “Dmytro” likened the retreat from the front to “a scene from a horror movie”.

“The roads are littered with hundreds of destroyed cars, armoured vehicles and ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). There are a lot of wounded and dead.”

Vehicles were often hunted by multiple drones, he said.

He described his own narrow escape when the car he was travelling in got bogged down. He and his fellow soldiers were trying to push the vehicle free when they were targeted by another FPV drone.

It missed the vehicle, but injured one of his comrades. He said they had to hide in a forest for two hours before they were rescued.

Dmytro said many Ukrainians retreated on foot with “guys walking 15km to 20km”. The situation, he said, had turned from “difficult and critical to catastrophic”.

In a message on 14 March, Dmytro added: “Everything is finished in the Kursk region… the operation was not successful.”

He estimated that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had died since the first crossing into Russia in August.

A fifth soldier sounded less gloomy about the situation. On 13 March, “Artem” sent a Telegram message from a military hospital, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds suffered in a drone attack.

Artem said he had been fighting further west – near the village of Loknya, where Ukrainian forces were putting up a stiff resistance and “fighting like lions”.

He believed the operation had achieved some success.

“It’s important that so far the Armed Forces of Ukraine have created this buffer zone, thanks to which the Russians cannot enter Sumy,” he said.

Ukraine’s top general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, insists that Ukrainian forces have pulled back to “more favourable positions”, remain in Kursk, and would do so “for as long as it is expedient and necessary”.

He said Russia had suffered more than 50,000 losses during the operation – including those killed, injured or captured.

However, the situation now is very different to last August. Military analysts estimate two-thirds of the 1,000 sq km gained at the outset have since been lost.

Any hopes that Ukraine would be able to trade Kursk territory for some of its own have significantly diminished.

Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed the Kursk operation had “accomplished its task” by forcing Russia to pull troops from the east and relieve pressure on Pokrovsk.

But it is not yet clear at what cost.

UN experts have accused Israel of increasingly using sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians and carrying out “genocidal acts” through the systematic destruction of maternal and reproductive healthcare facilities.

A report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council documents alleged violations, including rape, in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

It also says the destruction of maternity wards in Gaza and embryos at a fertility clinic could indicate a strategy to prevent births among a particular group – one of the legal definitions of genocide.

Israel said it “categorically rejects the unfounded allegations”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded angrily, calling the Human Rights Council “an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body”.

Instead of focusing on war crimes committed by Hamas, he said, it was attacking Israel with “false accusations”.

Warning: This article contains distressing content

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The three-member commission said its new report was based on testimony from victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence, some of whom spoke during two days of public hearings held in Geneva earlier this week, as well as verified photos and video footage, and information from civil society and women’s rights organisations.

The commission’s chair Navi Pillay, a South African former UN human rights chief, said the evidence collected “reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence” that she claimed was being employed by Israel against Palestinians “to terrorise them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination”.

The report says specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence – such as forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault – “comprise part of the Israeli Security Forces’ standard operating procedures toward Palestinians”.

Other forms of such violence, including rape and violence to the genitals, were “committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership”, it alleges.

The report does not provide examples of explicit orders from commanders or senior officials. But it does cite statements from Israeli ministers who defended soldiers who were accused of severely mistreating a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman military base last year.

Commission member Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer, told the BBC: “Sexual violence is now so widespread that it can only be considered systematic. It’s got beyond the level of random acts by rogue individuals.”

Israel has rejected accusations of widespread ill-treatment and torture of Gaza detainees, and insisted it is fully committed to international legal standards.

The report says the commission also found that Israeli forces had systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza during the 17-month war there.

It concludes that women and girls have died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth due to conditions imposed by the Israeli authorities which have denied access to reproductive health care, and says they amount to the crime against humanity of extermination.

The commission also alleges that Israeli authorities have “destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group” through the “systematic destruction” of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, including maternity hospitals and maternity wards of hospitals and Gaza’s main in-vitro fertility clinic, Al-Basma IVF Centre in Gaza City.

This amounts to “two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births”, it concludes.

According to the report, the embryology laboratory at Al-Basma was hit in early December 2023, reportedly destroying around 4,000 embryos as well as 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilised eggs.

It says the commission determined through visual analysis of pictures that the damage was caused by a large calibre projectile, most probably an Israeli tank shell, and that it was intentionally attacked by Israeli forces. However, the Israeli military told ABC News at the time that it was not aware of a strike on the clinic. The BBC has contacted the IDF for comment.

“The deliberate destruction of a health facility is one serious issue for international humanitarian law and human rights law. But it does appear from our analysis of the attack on this clinic, that it was knowingly and intentionally directed towards the destruction of reproductive services,” Mr Sidoti said. “The consequence of this is the prevention of births.”

In a statement, Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva said the report was “a shameless attempt to incriminate the [Israel Defense Forces] and manufacture the illusion of ‘systemic’ use of [sexual and gender-based violence]”.

It criticised what it called the commission’s decision to use “information from second-hand single uncorroborated sources”, which it said was inconsistent with established UN standards and methodologies.

The statement also stressed that the IDF had “concrete directives, procedures, orders, and policies, which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct”, as well as mechanisms to investigate any incidents of alleged sexual violence.

Israel’s prime minister also rejected the report’s findings and called the Human Rights Council an “anti-Israel circus”.

“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and the war crimes that were perpetrated by the Hamas terrorist organisation in the worst massacre carried out against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN has again chosen to attack the State of Israel with false accusations, including baseless accusations of sexual violence,” Netanyahu said.

The International Court of Justice is hearing a case bought by South Africa that accuses Israeli forces of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel has vehemently denied the allegation.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 48,520 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s 2.1 million population has also been displaced multiple times. Almost 70% of buildings are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House is a “major blow to global climate action”. So said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief, after he was elected in November.

Since taking office Trump has withdrawn the US from what is considered the most important global climate pact, the Paris Climate Agreement. He has also reportedly prevented US scientists from participating in international climate research and removed national electric vehicle targets.

Plus he derided his predecessor’s attempts to develop new green technology a “green new scam”.

And yet despite his history on the issue of climate, Trump has been eager to make a deal with the Ukrainian president on critical minerals. He has also taken a strong interest in Greenland and Canada – both nations rich in critical minerals.

Critical mineral procurement has been a major focus for Trump since he took office. These minerals are crucial in industries including aerospace and defence, but intriguingly, they have another major use too – to manufacture green technology.

So, could Trump’s focus on obtaining these minerals have a knock-on effect and help unlock the US’s potential in the green technology sector?

Trump’s right-hand man understands more than most the importance of critical minerals in the green transition. Space X and Tesla – the companies Elon Musk leads – rely heavily on critical minerals like graphite (in electric vehicles), lithium (in batteries) and nickel (in rockets).

Dr Elizabeth Holley, associate professor of mining engineering at Colorado School of Mines, explains that each nation has its own list of critical minerals, but they are generally made up of rare earths and other metals like lithium.

She says demand is booming – in 2023, demand for lithium grew by 30%. This is being driven mostly by the rapid growth in the clean energy and electric vehicle sectors.

Within two decades they will make up almost 90% of the demand for lithium, 70% of the demand for cobalt, and 40% for rare earths, according to the International Energy Agency.

Such has been Musk’s concern with getting hold of some of these minerals that three years ago he tweeted: “Price of lithium has gone to insane levels! Tesla might actually have to get into the mining & refining directly at scale, unless costs improve.”

He went on to write that there is no shortage of the element but pace of extraction is slow.

The weakness of the US position in rare earths and critical minerals (such as cobalt and nickel) was addressed in a report published by a US Government Select Committee in December 2023. It said: “The United States must rethink its policy approach to critical mineral and rare earth element supply chains because of the risks posed by our current dependence on the People’s Republic of China.”

Failure to do so, it warned, could cause “defense production to grind to a halt and choke off manufacturing of other advanced technologies”.

China’s dominance in the market has come from its early recognition of the economic opportunities that green technology offers.

“China made a decision about 10 years ago about where the trend was going and has strategically pursued the development of not just renewables but also electric vehicles and now dominates the market,” says Bob Ward, policy director at The London School of Economics (LSE) Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Daisy Jennings-Gray, head of prices at price reporting agency Benchmark Mineral Intelligence explains that they are critical minerals because they are geologically restricted. “You cannot guarantee you will have economically recoverable reserves in every country.”

Some minerals like lithium are abundant on Earth but often they are located in difficult to reach places, so the logistics of a mining project can be very expensive. In other cases, there is dependency on one country that produces a large share of global supply – like cobalt from the The Democratic Republic of Congo. This means that if there is a natural disaster or political unrest it has an impact on the price, says Ms Jennings-Gray.

China has managed to shore up supply by investing heavily in Africa and South America, but where it really has a stronghold on the market is in processing (or the separation of the mineral from other elements in the rock).

“China accounts for 60 percent of global rare earth production but processes nearly 90 percent – [it] is dominant on this stage,” says Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

She says the country understands how important this is in economic trade – a few days after Trump introduced tariffs on China its government hit back by imposing export controls on more than 20 critical minerals including graphite and tungsten.

What is motivating Trump is a fear of being at a disadvantage, argues Christopher Knittel, professor of applied economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“I think what is driving this is because China is the dominant player on the processing side,” he says. “It is that processing stage, which is the high margin stage of the business, so China is making a lot of money.”

As he puts it, it is a “happy coincidence” that this could end up supporting green technology.

The key question though is whether the US is too late to fully capitalise on the sector?

In the early days, the green transition was “framed as a burden” for countries, according to LSE’s Bob Ward.

The Biden administration was highly supportive of green technology industries through its introduction of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, which offers tax credits, loans and other incentives to technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, from battery technologies for electric vehicles to solar panels.

By August 2024 it was estimated to have brought $493bn (£382bn) of investment to US green industry, according to the think tank Clean Investment Monitor.

And yet little work was done to support upstream processes like obtaining critical minerals, says Ms Gray from Benchmark Intelligence. Instead, the Biden administration focused heavily on downstream manufacturing – the process of getting products from the manufacturer to the end consumer.

But Trump’s recent moves to procure these critical minerals suggest a focus on the upstream process may now be happening.

“The IRA put a lot of legislation in places to limit trade and supply only from friendly nations.

“Trump is changing tact and looking at securing critical minerals agreements that owes something to the US,” explains Ms Gray.

There could be further moves from Trump coming down the line. Those working in the sector say whispers in the corridors of the White House suggest that he may be about to pass a “Critical Minerals Executive Order,” which could funnel further investment into this objective.

The exact details that may be included in the executive order remain unclear, but experts knowledgeable with the issue have said it may include measures to accelerate mining in the US, including fast tracking permits and investment to construct processing plants.

Although work may now be under way to secure these minerals, Prof Willy Shih of Harvard Business School thinks that the US administration lacks understanding of the technical complexity of establishing mineral supply chains, and emphasises the time commitment required. “If you want to build a new mine and processing facility it might take you 10 years.”

As a policy of his predecessor and one that is so obviously pro-climate action, Trump has been vocally opposed to maintaining the IRA. But its success in red states mean that many Republican senators have been trying to convince him to keep it in some form in his proposed “big, beautiful bill” – the plan to pile all of Trump’s main policy goals into one mega-bill – due to be revealed later this month.

Analysis by the Clean Investment Monitor shows in the last 18 months Republican-held states had received 77% of the investment.

MIT’s Dr Knittel says for states like Georgia, which has become part of what is now known as the “battery belt” following a boom in battery production following IRA support, these tax credits are crucial for these industries to survive.

He adds that failure to do so poses a real political threat for US representatives who are up for re-election in less than two years.

If Trump loses even just one seat to the Democrats in the 2026 mid-terms, then he loses the house majority – limiting his ability to pass key pieces of legislation.

Carl Fleming was an advisor to former President Biden’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee and is a partner at law firm McDermott, Will & Emery advising clients in the clean tech and energy space. He says that despite the uncertainty investors remain confident. “In the last month my practice has been busier than ever, and this is since quadrupling last year following the IRA.”

He also believes that there is a recognition of the need to maintain parts of the IRA – although this may be alongside expansion of some fossil fuels. “If you are really trying to be America first and energy secure you want to pull on all your levers. Keep solar and keep battery storage going and add more natural gas to release America’s energy prowess.”

But the uncertainty of the US position is little consolation for its absence on the international climate stage, says LSE’s Bob Ward. “When the Americans are on the ball it helps to move people in the right direction and that’s how we got the Paris Climate Agreement.”

For those in the climate space Trump is certainly not an environmentalist. What’s clear is he is not concerned with making his legacy an environmental one but an economic one – though he could achieve the former if he can be convinced it will boost the economy.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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Russia is ready for a halt in fighting, says Vladimir Putin, but “there are nuances”. Those nuances that he laid out ahead of talks with US envoys at the Kremlin are so key to his thinking they could scupper any hope of a 30-day ceasefire.

They are demands that he has had throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, and before. And for Ukraine and its Western partners, many of them are going to prove unacceptable or impossible to fulfil.

“We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities,” he started positively, only to add: “This cessation must be such that it would lead to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis.”

Nobody would disagree with the need for long-term peace, but Putin’s idea of the root causes of the war revolve around Ukraine’s desire to exist as a sovereign state, beyond Russia’s orbit.

Ukraine wants to be part of Nato and the European Union – so much so, it is enshrined in the constitution.

President Trump has already cast doubt on Nato membership, but Putin has repeatedly dismissed the idea of Ukraine as a state at all.

And that underpins many of the nuances he sketched out.

He wants to stop Ukraine from reinforcing its army and replenishing its weapons supply – so there would be no more deliveries from the West. He wants to know who would ensure that was verified.

From the start of this war, Putin has demanded the “demilitarisation” of Ukraine, which is anathema to Kyiv and its allies.

In essence, Putin is looking for security guarantees in reverse.

Would Russia agree to halt rearming or mobilising its forces? That seems implausible and there was no hint of any concession on his part, as he addressed reporters in the Kremlin.

Putin has just come back in bullish mood from a visit seemingly close to the front line in Kursk, a Russian border region that has been partially occupied since last August by Ukraine.

Russia has the upper hand in Kursk. Putin clearly feels he is negotiating from a position of strength and doesn’t want to lose it.

“If we stop military actions for 30 days, what does that mean? Will everyone who is there leave the battle?”

Russia’s defence ministry announced on Thursday that its forces had now taken full control of the biggest city the Ukrainians had managed to seize, Sudzha. Putin says all the Ukrainians have left is a wedge, so why would Russia stop now?

“If a physical blockade occurs in the coming days, no-one will be able to leave at all. There will be only two options – to surrender or die.”

The same applied to the whole of the 1,000km (620-mile) front line, where he claimed the situation on the ground was changing rapidly, with Russian troops “advancing in practically all areas”.

That is not the case, as most of the front is at a stalemate, even if Russia has had some recent success in the east.

Putin believes a 30-day ceasefire would deprive Russia of its advantage and enable the Ukrainians to regroup and rearm.

“What are our guarantees that nothing like that will be allowed to happen,” he asked rhetorically.

As yet, no mechanism has been offered to ensure that the terms of any ceasefire would hold.

Although 15 Western countries have tentatively offered peacekeeping troops, they would only come in the event of a final peace deal, not a ceasefire.

Not that Russia would allow that arrangement anyway.

Given all these “nuances”, Putin appeared to be sceptical of how a ceasefire could benefit Russia, especially when his troops were on the front foot. His entire outlook was “based on how the situation on the ground develops”.

Putin was meeting Trump’s envoys on Moscow late on Thursday, notably Steve Witkoff.

Whatever happens in those talks, Putin knows that ultimately, his most important conversation will be with the president.

“I think we need to talk to our American colleagues… maybe have a phone call with President Trump and discuss this with him,” he said.

But Putin was setting out his stall ahead of those conversations, with a message that the road to a ceasefire was littered with conditions that would be almost impossible to meet.

US President Donald Trump has threatened a 200% tariff on any alcohol coming to the US from the European Union (EU) in the latest twist of an escalating trade war.

The threat is a response to the EU’s plans for a 50% tax on imports of US-produced whiskey as part of its retaliation to Trump’s tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports to the US.

The US president called for the immediate removal of the EU’s “nasty” tariff on US whiskey, calling the bloc “hostile and abusive” and “formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States”.

A European Commission spokesperson said that “calls are being prepared” between between the US and the EU to discuss the situation.

It confirmed that its trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, had “reached out to his American counterparts” after Trump’s latest threat.

The stand-off marked another escalation of a trade war which has rattled financial markets and raised concerns over the impact on the economies and consumers in many countries around the world, including the US.

Europe sends more than €4.5bn ($4.89bn; £3.78bn) worth of wine each year to the US, which is its largest export market, according to the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins, which represents the European wine industry.

Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, secretary-general of the group, said if Trump carried through on his threats, it would destroy the market, costing thousands of jobs.

“There is no alternative to sell all this wine,” he said, pleading with the two sides to “keep wine out of this fight”.

The latest clash came after new US tariffs on steel and aluminium came into effect on Wednesday, hitting imports of the metals with a blanket duty of 25% and ending exemptions from the duties that the US had previously granted for shipments from some countries, including from the EU and Canada.

Canada and Europe – which are among America’s biggest trade partners – called the new taxes unjustified and struck back with their own tariffs on a range of US products. The EU’s measures are due to go into force 1 April.

The clash reprises a battle that played out during Trump’s first term, when he first announced tariffs on steel and aluminium.

The EU responded with its own tariffs, including a 25% tax on American whiskey.

In the aftermath, whiskey sales to the EU dropped 20%, falling from roughly $552m in 2018 to $440m in 2021, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the US. Trump in turn

The tariffs were lifted after Trump left office, after the two sides reached an agreement that exempted a certain amount of European metals from the duties.

But Trump has indicated little appetite for deal-making so far, at least when it comes to steel and aluminium.

“If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the US will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all wines, champagnes & alcoholic products coming out of France and other EU represented countries,” he wrote on social media, using all capital letters for some of the message.

The targeting of wine and whiskey is symbolic – there are few consumer goods more iconic than French Bordeaux or Tennessee whiskey. From a value standpoint, drinks trade is worth less than some of the other items facing tariffs.

But Mary Taylor, a US-based importer of European wines, said the measures would be catastrophic for her business and industry, with an impact that would ripple out to restaurants, bars and distributors across the US.

“It just looks like a big, giant threat to our livelihoods,” she said.

Ms Taylor, who brings in 2 million bottles a year, weathered the 25% tariff Trump put on certain EU bottles during his first term by expanding her distribution in Europe, but she said, “200% is a whole different ball game”.

Shares in the US fell again on Thursday.

The S&P 500 dropped nearly 1.4%, taking it down roughly 10% from its most recent peak – a milestone known as a correction. The Dow slumped 1.3%, while the Nasdaq dropped almost 2%.

In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 was flat, while Germany’s Dax ended about 0.5% lower.

In Paris, the Cac 40 fell 0.6%, as shares of major spirit-makers were hit, with Pernod Ricard down 4% and Hennessy cognac maker LVMH falling 1.1%.

In interviews with US business media on Thursday, White House officials blamed the EU for escalating the dispute.

“Why are Europeans picking on Kentucky bourbon or Harley-Davidson motorcycles? It’s disrespectful,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Television, describing the back-and-forth as “off the topic”.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that a trade war was likely to inflict more economic pain on the EU than on the US, dismissing concerns that the clash could spiral.

“One or two items, with one trading bloc – I’m not sure why that’s a big deal for the markets,” he said.

In an interview with the BBC’s HardTalk, European central bank president Christine Lagarde, said that the EU had “no choice” but to retaliate.

“At the moment, everybody is positioning,” she said, adding that she expected the two sides to sit down and negotiate.

“Everybody will suffer” if the dispute were to develop into a full blown trade war, she warned.

So far, Trump has shown little tolerance for retaliation from countries over the tariffs he has introduced.

Earlier this week, he blasted Canada with the threat of a 50% tariff on its steel and aluminium after the Canadian province of Ontario responded to new tariffs with a surcharge on electricity exports to the US.

He rescinded that threat after Ontario agreed to suspend the charges.

Former Trump adviser Stephen Moore, now an economist with the Heritage Foundation, said he thought the EU would have to make a concession to defuse the situation, noting that Trump had consistently voiced concerns about rules on agricultural products.

“Absolutely this is going to end up with a deal,” he said. “It’s only a question if it ends up in a deal in a day, a week, a month or six months, but there will eventually be a negotiated settlement.”

The full HARDtalk will be available from 14 March on the BBC News Channel, iPlayer, the World Service and as a podcast.

The president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, has repeated his call for the US to base nuclear weapons on Polish soil.

In the presidential palace in Warsaw, he told me that it would make Poland stronger and safer, as it faces Russia.

Viewed from Poland, President Putin’s Russia is a clear and a present danger.

President Duda, who is also commander-in-chief of the rapidly expanding Polish armed forces, said today’s Russia is at least as aggressive as the former Soviet Union.

He condemned what he called Moscow’s imperial greed.

Positioning US nuclear weapons in Poland would be viewed by President Putin as a provocation.

But President Duda views the proposal as a defensive measure to strengthen deterrence.

He said it would be a response to President Putin’s 2023 decision to deploy Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which has a border with Poland and Ukraine.

“It’s the same Russia that’s attacking Ukraine today, who is an aggressor, who is murdering civilians, who is bombing down civilian settlements,” he told me.

“And it’s moving its nuclear weapons from the depths of Russia to Belarus.”

“This defensive tactic is a vital response to Russia’s behaviour, relocating nuclear weapons in the NATO area. Poland is ready to host this nuclear weapon.”

President Duda also welcomed proposals made by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, to extend the French nuclear weapons umbrella to other Nato states.

The US already rotates about 10,000 troops at a time through Poland.

When asked how the presence of nuclear weapons would make Poland safer, Mr Duda said it would deepen America’s commitment to Polish security.

“Every strategic kind of infrastructure, American and Nato infrastructure, which we have on our soil is strengthening the inclination of the US and the North Atlantic Alliance to defend this territory.”

Poland spends almost 5% of its national income on defence. That is more than any other member of Nato, including the United States.

Last week, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, made a speech in parliament warning that a “profound change in American geopolitics” was putting both Poland and Ukraine into an “objectively more difficult situation”.

Prime Minister Tusk called for further increases in Polish defence spending and proposed that Poland should consider reaching for “opportunities related to nuclear weapons.”

Mr Tusk is on the centre left, unlike President Duda who is on the right and considers himself a friend of Donald Trump.

Referring to President Putin’s refusal on Thursday to agree immediately to the 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, Mr Duda said he was confident that the US president had a plan, as he put it, to “to encourage the Russian side to act reasonably”.

Mr Duda will not criticise Mr Trump nor accept that his actions and words have cast a doubt on the US commitment to Article 5, the mutual defence clause of the North Atlantic Treaty.

But he has much harsher words for Putin’s Russia than Donald Trump ever uses.

And he backs calls for the EU to seize Russian assets worth around 200 billion euros that have been frozen in European banks.

“I believe it is obvious that Russian assets collected and locked in banks in Western Europe should be used to support Ukraine, and it should be a double support,” he says.

“First of all, Ukraine should be supported in defending itself against the Russian aggression. And secondly, this should be used to support the rebuilding of Ukraine.”

“I cannot imagine that after the destruction of Ukraine, Russia can simply take this money away without paying war reparations and compensation.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agreed with the idea of a ceasefire in Ukraine, but that “questions” remained about the nature of a truce as he set out a number of tough conditions.

The Russian president was responding to a plan for a 30-day ceasefire, which Ukraine agreed to earlier this week after talks with the US.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described Putin’s response to the plan as “manipulative” and called for more sanctions on Russia.

Meanwhile, the US placed further sanctions on Russian oil, gas and banking sectors.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday, Putin said of the ceasefire proposal: “The idea is right – and we support it – but there are questions that we need to discuss.”

A ceasefire should lead to “an enduring peace and remove the root causes of this crisis”, Putin said.

“We need to negotiate with our American colleagues and partners,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have a call with Donald Trump.”

Putin added: “It will be good for the Ukrainian side to achieve a 30-day ceasefire.

“We are in favour of it, but there are nuances.”

One of the areas of contention is Russia’s Kursk region, Putin said, where Ukraine launched a military incursion last year and captured some territory.

He claimed Russia was fully back in control of Kursk, and said Ukrainian troops there “have been isolated”.

“They are trying to leave, but we are in control. Their equipment has been abandoned.”

“There are two options for Ukrainians in Kursk – surrender or die.”

Outlining some of his questions over how a ceasefire would work, Putin asked: “How will those 30 days be used? For Ukraine to mobilise? Rearm? Train people? Or none of that? Then a question – how will that be controlled?”

“Who will give the order to end the fighting? At what cost? Who decides who has broken any possible ceasefire, over 2,000km? All those questions need meticulous work from both sides. Who polices it?”

Putin “doesn’t say no directly”, Zelensky said in his nightly video address, but “in practice, he’s preparing a rejection”.

“Putin, of course, is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war, wants to kill Ukrainians.”

The Russian leader had set so many pre-conditions “that nothing will work out at all”, Zelensky said.

After Putin’s remarks and Zelensky’s response, there is now a clear divide between both sides’ positions.

Ukraine wants a two-stage process: a quick ceasefire and then talks about a longer-term settlement.

Russia believes you cannot separate the two processes and all the issues should be decided in a single deal. Both sides seem content to argue their differences.

Ukraine believes it can put pressure on Russia, painting it as a reluctant peacemaker, playing for time. Russia, equally, believes it has a chance now to raise its fundamental concerns, about Nato expansion and Ukraine’s sovereignty.

But this presents a problem for Donald Trump. He has made it clear he wants a quick result, ending the fighting in days.

And right now, Putin does not appear to want to play ball.

Speaking at the White House following Putin’s remarks, Trump said he would “love” to meet the Russian leader and that he hoped Russia would “do the right thing” and agree to the proposed 30-day truce.

“We’d like to see a ceasefire from Russia,” he said.

Speaking earlier at a meeting in the Oval Office with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump told reporters he had already discussed specifics with Ukraine.

“We’ve been discussing with Ukraine land and pieces of land that would be kept and lost, and all of the other elements of a final agreement,” Trump said.

“A lot of the details of a final agreement have actually been discussed.”

On the subject of Ukraine joining the Nato military alliance, Trump said “everybody knows what the answer to that is”.

The fresh sanctions on Russian oil and gas came as the Trump administration further restricted access to US payment systems, making it harder for other countries to buy Russian oil.

Meanwhile, Putin met US special envoy Steve Witkoff behind closed doors in Moscow.

Earlier in the day, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov rejected the ceasefire proposal put forward by the US.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin released a video it said showed Putin visiting Russia’s Kursk region, symbolically dressed in military fatigues. Russia later said it recaptured the key town of Sudzha.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, and now controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

More than 95,000 people fighting for Russia’s military have died in the war.

Ukraine last updated its casualty figures in December 2024, when President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged 43,000 Ukrainian deaths among soldiers and officers. Western analysts believe this figure to be underestimated.

Parents who are worried about their children being on Roblox should not let them use it, the chief executive of the gigantic gaming platform has said.

The site, which is the most popular in the UK among young gamers aged eight to 12, has been dogged by claims of some children being exposed to explicit or harmful content through its games, alongside multiple reported allegations of bullying and grooming.

But its co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki insisted that the company is vigilant in protecting its users and pointed out that “tens of millions” of people have “amazing experiences” on the site.

When asked what his message is to parents who don’t want their children on the platform, Mr Baszucki said: “My first message would be, if you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox.”

“That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions,” he told BBC News in an exclusive interview.

Responding to the interview, Mumsnet boss Justine Roberts said parents on the forum had spoken of how they struggled to manage their children’s use of Roblox.

“There are parental controls, and our users would urge constant parental supervision,” she told the BBC.

“But we all know that with the best will in the world life sometimes gets in the way.

“If you’ve got multiple children you’re looking after and things happen, and you probably can’t 24/7 watch everything they’re doing, even if you’ve got all your parental controls set.”

Ellie Gibson – from the Scummy Mummies podcast – said Mr Baszucki’s message risked sounding “a bit of a get out”.

“It’s much easier said than done, especially when all their friends are playing it,” she told the BBC.

US-based Roblox is one of the world’s largest games platforms, with more monthly users than Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation combined. In 2024 it averaged more than 80 million players per day – roughly 40% of them below the age of 13. Its vast empire includes some 40 million user-generated games and experiences.

In the UK the Online Safety Act, which comes in to force in April, has strict laws for all tech firms specifically aimed at protecting children from online harms.

But Mr Baszucki says he remains confident in Roblox’s safety tools and insists the firm goes above and beyond to keep its users safe.

“We do in the company take the attitude that any bad, even one bad incident, is one too many,” he says.

“We watch for bullying, we watch for harassment, we filter all of those kinds of things, and I would say behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if necessary, reaching out to law enforcement.”

Players who choose not to display what he calls “civility” can face temporary time-outs and longer bans, and Roblox claims to analyse all communications that pass between members on the platform, increasingly using more advanced AI systems and other tech to do so — and anything flagged is sent for further investigation.

In November last year, under 13s were banned from sending direct messages, and also from playing in “hangout experiences” which features chat between players.

However, the BBC was able to create two fake accounts, one aged 15 and one aged 27, on unlinked devices and exchange messages between the two.

While the filters caught our attempts to overtly move the conversation onto a different platform, we found easy ways to re-word requests to chat elsewhere and make suggestions about playing more adult games.

When we showed the Roblox boss these findings, he argued that our example highlighted the comparative safety of Roblox: that people felt they had to take content which might breach Roblox’s rules to other platforms.

“We don’t condone any type of image-sharing on our own platform, and you’ll see us getting more and more, I think, way beyond where the law is on this type of behaviour,” Mr Baszucki says.

He admits there is a delicate balance between encouraging friendships between young people, and blocking opportunities for them come to harm, but says he is confident Roblox can manage both.

We also put to him some Roblox game titles that the BBC has discovered were recommended by the platform to an 11 year-old recently, including:

• ‘Late Night Boys And Girls Club RP’
• ‘Special Forces Simulator”
• ‘Squid Game’
• ‘Shoot down planes…because why not?’

When we asked whether he thought they were appropriate, he said he puts his faith in the platform’s age rating systems.

“One thing that’s really important for the way we do things here, is it’s not just on the title of the experience, it’s literally on the content of the experience as well,” he says.

He insists that when Roblox rates experience, they go through rigorous guidelines and that the company has a “consistent policy” on that.

Mr Baszucki founded the platform with Eric Cassel in 2004 and released it to the public in 2006 – a year before the first Apple iPhone appeared, heralding the start of the smartphone era.

Mr Baszucki describes his younger self as “less of a gamer, and more of an engineer”, and the pair’s first company was an education software provider called Knowledge Revolution. But they soon noticed that kids weren’t only using the product to do their homework.

“They wanted to play and build stuff. They were making houses or ships or scenery, and they wanted to jump in, and all of that learning was the germination of Roblox,” he says.

The name Roblox was a mash-up of the words “robot” and blocks” – and it stuck. The platform grew quickly in popularity – and there were also early warning signs of its future issues.

Mr Cassel noticed some players “starting to act out” and not always behaving in a “civilised” way a couple of months after it launched, recalls Mr Baszucki.

He says the roots of building a “trust and safety system” therefore began “very, very early” and that in those earlier days there were four people acting as safety moderators.

“It kind of is what launched this safety civility foundation,” he adds.

But despite attracting decent numbers, it was a year later, when the firm launched its digital currency Robux, that it really started to make money.

Players buy Robux and use it to purchase accessories and unlock content. Content creators now get 70% of the fee, and the store operates on dynamic pricing, meaning popular items cost more.

Mr Baszucki says there was some initial resistance among the leadership team about Roblox becoming more than a hobby for its players, with the introduction of a digital economy.

Robux stayed, and the firm is now worth $41bn (£31bn).

Its share price has fluctuated since it went public in 2021, but overall Roblox shares are worth about one third more than they were six months ago, at the time of writing. Like many big tech firms its value peaked during Covid, when lockdowns meant millions of people were indoors.

Mr Baszucki compares his experience of building Roblox with how Walt Disney may have felt about his creations.

He describes his job as “a little like having the opportunity he had a long time ago when he was designing the Magic Kingdom”, and is focused on Roblox’s ongoing evolution into a Metaverse-style experience where people go about their daily lives in a virtual world, in avatar form.

They have also been public in their ambitions to eventually attract 10% of the world’s gamers.

Asked to describe Roblox in three words, he replies: “The future of communication.”

We finish our time together playing a couple of his favourite games: Natural Disaster Survival and Dress to Impress.

We use his account and he’s constantly recognised by other players — but we still get smashed to pieces by a blizzard outside the Natural Disasters mansion.

Additional reporting by Ammie Sekhon

Parents who are worried about their children being on Roblox should not let them use it, the chief executive of the gigantic gaming platform has said.

The site, which is the most popular in the UK among young gamers aged eight to 12, has been dogged by claims of some children being exposed to explicit or harmful content through its games, alongside multiple reported allegations of bullying and grooming.

But its co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki insisted that the company is vigilant in protecting its users and pointed out that “tens of millions” of people have “amazing experiences” on the site.

When asked what his message is to parents who don’t want their children on the platform, Mr Baszucki said: “My first message would be, if you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox.”

“That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions,” he told BBC News in an exclusive interview.

Responding to the interview, Mumsnet boss Justine Roberts said parents on the forum had spoken of how they struggled to manage their children’s use of Roblox.

“There are parental controls, and our users would urge constant parental supervision,” she told the BBC.

“But we all know that with the best will in the world life sometimes gets in the way.

“If you’ve got multiple children you’re looking after and things happen, and you probably can’t 24/7 watch everything they’re doing, even if you’ve got all your parental controls set.”

Ellie Gibson – from the Scummy Mummies podcast – said Mr Baszucki’s message risked sounding “a bit of a get out”.

“It’s much easier said than done, especially when all their friends are playing it,” she told the BBC.

US-based Roblox is one of the world’s largest games platforms, with more monthly users than Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation combined. In 2024 it averaged more than 80 million players per day – roughly 40% of them below the age of 13. Its vast empire includes some 40 million user-generated games and experiences.

In the UK the Online Safety Act, which comes in to force in April, has strict laws for all tech firms specifically aimed at protecting children from online harms.

But Mr Baszucki says he remains confident in Roblox’s safety tools and insists the firm goes above and beyond to keep its users safe.

“We do in the company take the attitude that any bad, even one bad incident, is one too many,” he says.

“We watch for bullying, we watch for harassment, we filter all of those kinds of things, and I would say behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if necessary, reaching out to law enforcement.”

Players who choose not to display what he calls “civility” can face temporary time-outs and longer bans, and Roblox claims to analyse all communications that pass between members on the platform, increasingly using more advanced AI systems and other tech to do so — and anything flagged is sent for further investigation.

In November last year, under 13s were banned from sending direct messages, and also from playing in “hangout experiences” which features chat between players.

However, the BBC was able to create two fake accounts, one aged 15 and one aged 27, on unlinked devices and exchange messages between the two.

While the filters caught our attempts to overtly move the conversation onto a different platform, we found easy ways to re-word requests to chat elsewhere and make suggestions about playing more adult games.

When we showed the Roblox boss these findings, he argued that our example highlighted the comparative safety of Roblox: that people felt they had to take content which might breach Roblox’s rules to other platforms.

“We don’t condone any type of image-sharing on our own platform, and you’ll see us getting more and more, I think, way beyond where the law is on this type of behaviour,” Mr Baszucki says.

He admits there is a delicate balance between encouraging friendships between young people, and blocking opportunities for them come to harm, but says he is confident Roblox can manage both.

We also put to him some Roblox game titles that the BBC has discovered were recommended by the platform to an 11 year-old recently, including:

• ‘Late Night Boys And Girls Club RP’
• ‘Special Forces Simulator”
• ‘Squid Game’
• ‘Shoot down planes…because why not?’

When we asked whether he thought they were appropriate, he said he puts his faith in the platform’s age rating systems.

“One thing that’s really important for the way we do things here, is it’s not just on the title of the experience, it’s literally on the content of the experience as well,” he says.

He insists that when Roblox rates experience, they go through rigorous guidelines and that the company has a “consistent policy” on that.

Mr Baszucki founded the platform with Eric Cassel in 2004 and released it to the public in 2006 – a year before the first Apple iPhone appeared, heralding the start of the smartphone era.

Mr Baszucki describes his younger self as “less of a gamer, and more of an engineer”, and the pair’s first company was an education software provider called Knowledge Revolution. But they soon noticed that kids weren’t only using the product to do their homework.

“They wanted to play and build stuff. They were making houses or ships or scenery, and they wanted to jump in, and all of that learning was the germination of Roblox,” he says.

The name Roblox was a mash-up of the words “robot” and blocks” – and it stuck. The platform grew quickly in popularity – and there were also early warning signs of its future issues.

Mr Cassel noticed some players “starting to act out” and not always behaving in a “civilised” way a couple of months after it launched, recalls Mr Baszucki.

He says the roots of building a “trust and safety system” therefore began “very, very early” and that in those earlier days there were four people acting as safety moderators.

“It kind of is what launched this safety civility foundation,” he adds.

But despite attracting decent numbers, it was a year later, when the firm launched its digital currency Robux, that it really started to make money.

Players buy Robux and use it to purchase accessories and unlock content. Content creators now get 70% of the fee, and the store operates on dynamic pricing, meaning popular items cost more.

Mr Baszucki says there was some initial resistance among the leadership team about Roblox becoming more than a hobby for its players, with the introduction of a digital economy.

Robux stayed, and the firm is now worth $41bn (£31bn).

Its share price has fluctuated since it went public in 2021, but overall Roblox shares are worth about one third more than they were six months ago, at the time of writing. Like many big tech firms its value peaked during Covid, when lockdowns meant millions of people were indoors.

Mr Baszucki compares his experience of building Roblox with how Walt Disney may have felt about his creations.

He describes his job as “a little like having the opportunity he had a long time ago when he was designing the Magic Kingdom”, and is focused on Roblox’s ongoing evolution into a Metaverse-style experience where people go about their daily lives in a virtual world, in avatar form.

They have also been public in their ambitions to eventually attract 10% of the world’s gamers.

Asked to describe Roblox in three words, he replies: “The future of communication.”

We finish our time together playing a couple of his favourite games: Natural Disaster Survival and Dress to Impress.

We use his account and he’s constantly recognised by other players — but we still get smashed to pieces by a blizzard outside the Natural Disasters mansion.

Additional reporting by Ammie Sekhon

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault

“He was on top of me – we were kissing and having sex, then suddenly he put his forearm on my neck and pressed hard with his full weight. I just froze.”

Rachel* had never slept with the man before. Speaking to the BBC, she says while the sex was consensual, the man began choking her without warning and without her consent – and that was deeply frightening.

“He just did it like it was normal and it caught me by surprise, so I just went with it,” the 26-year-old says. “I didn’t lose consciousness, but this numbness came over me and I just waited for it to stop.”

It happened again a fortnight later, Rachel says, with another man whom she had met on a dating site. Like the previous occasion, there was no discussion about choking beforehand.

“The actual strangling is a blank in my memory,” she says. “His hands were round my neck, and then I disassociated with it until it ended.

“You go from feeling safe to losing control of the situation. I didn’t have sex for a year afterwards because of how it made me feel alienated from my body.”

Both incidents were distressing for Rachel, who assumes the men who choked her must have seen it in pornography.

“It felt like it was – in their minds – just a normal part of sex.”

A recent government review found porn involving non-fatal strangulation (NFS) was “rife” and that its prevalence online was contributing to choking filtering into some people’s sex lives – particularly among young people. The BBC has spoken to women who’ve experienced choking during sex – both willingly and not – and to experts who say, while it may be more common, it is illegal and highly dangerous.

When someone is strangled, pressure on the neck cuts off the blood supply to the brain, which can lead to feeling dizzy and light-headed. The level of oxygen in the body suddenly drops, while the build-up of carbon dioxide significantly increases. This can cause brain damage or even death.

Other risks include loss of consciousness, strokes, seizures, and speech disorders. Choking can also lead to psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and contribute to depression.

Despite the health risks, a recent survey by the government-funded charity the Institute For Addressing Strangulation (IFAS), suggests strangling is most common in the 16-34 age group, with 35% of respondents reporting they had been choked by a partner during consensual sex.

Some 16% of all UK-based respondents (385 out of 2,344) have been strangled once or more during consensual sex, and the data shows a slightly higher proportion of women have experienced it compared with men.

Half of the sample who had experienced it said they had agreed to it, while 17% said they hadn’t.

Some people who engage in sexual asphyxiation say it intensifies pleasure – like Amanda*, who told the BBC she is regularly strangled by her boyfriend during what she calls rough sex.

“It gets us both off,” the 28-year-old says. “I find the idea of turning him on a turn on, and I trust that he won’t go too far and put lots of pressure on.

“It’s an intimate thing with the person you trust the most, so you feel safe.”

A quick search on a mainstream adult website, and it takes just seconds to find a series of porn films featuring long sequences of non-fatal strangulation (NFS).

The influence of pornography has resulted in strangulation becoming “standard behaviour” according to Prof Hannah Bows, from Durham University’s Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse.

“What we’ve seen in the last 10 to 15 years is that it’s become a glamorised, fantasised and celebrated form of ‘normal’ sexual encounters,” she says.

Her conclusions are reinforced by the findings of the porn industry review commissioned by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It found content involving NFS was “rife on mainstream platforms”, and recommended making, possessing or publishing porn showing women being strangled during sex, a crime. It isn’t currently illegal to depict online.

The government also said further action is needed to address the findings that graphic strangulation is becoming normalised in real life.

Details of help and support with sexual abuse or violence are available in the UK at BBC Action Line

NFS was made a specific offence in England and Wales in 2022, with a maximum prison sentence of five years. About 700 offenders were sentenced for non-fatal strangulation or suffocation offences between July 2022 and June 2023, crime statistics shared with the BBC show.

There are no statistics on the number of people who have died from strangulation while having sex. The latest femicide census shows of the 2,000 women aged 14 or above who had been killed in the UK since 2014, strangulation was used in 550 (27%). Some 372 were strangled by an intimate partner.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) warns NFS can be used to control and coerce a partner by using physical strength to create fear – and studies suggest victims are seven times more likely to be murdered by their partner if there had been non-fatal strangulation beforehand.

Amanda didn’t know choking could be an offence in England and Wales, even if done consensually and for pleasure. “I had no idea,” she says, “but it’s our business and it’s our sex life – and it’s not like we both haven’t talked about it.”

Her boyfriend agrees: “It’s hot. We watch it on porn and so you think, ‘if they do it and it works, why not us?’ I might be more careful now though.”

However, Harriet Smailes, from the IFAS, says there is “no safe way to strangle”.

“We also know that consent for these acts is not always sought in advance, and an individual’s ability to provide ongoing consent can be impeded by being strangled.”

Kama Melly KC, who specialises in prosecuting sexual offence cases, says NFS often occurs as an act of domestic violence, and can be difficult to prove due to a lack of visible injuries, eye witnesses, CCTV or forensic findings.

“The fact that there can be a loss of consciousness after just a few seconds – that means the victim doesn’t have a very clear narrative of events,” she adds.

Ms Melly says defendants can claim strangulation during sex was consensual, although such a defence is not possible if the victim suffers serious harm.

Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, the NPCC’s lead for domestic abuse, wants people to think twice before engaging in sexual asphyxiation.

“I would say get yourself informed and really understand, because you’re not a medical expert,” she says. “You may feel that you’re doing something that’s safe, but all the research and evidence would suggest it’s not.

“It’s incredibly dangerous, so think through the consequences.”

*Names have been changed

Abercrombie & Fitch must pay for the legal fees of former CEO Mike Jeffries as he defends criminal charges of sex trafficking, a US court has ruled.

The fashion brand, which has previously said it was “appalled and disgusted” by Mr Jeffries’ alleged conduct, had signed an agreement in 2014 when the ex-CEO resigned, covering him for the costs of any criminal proceedings which arose from his position.

The company had argued in court that the charges, which allege Mr Jeffries ran an international prostitution and sex trafficking business, related to his personal life and not his work.

But a judge found that the “horrific” charges, filed last year, were tied to his corporate role.

The court’s ruling could have significant financial and legal ramifications for Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) – a billion-dollar public company with more than 750 stores worldwide, including the Hollister brand. Legal experts told the BBC the bill for the company is likely to run into millions of dollars.

The decision also raises questions about why the company made the far-reaching indemnity agreement when Mr Jeffries stepped down more than a decade ago. The BBC has previously asked A&F about the circumstances surrounding this agreement, and if it had been aware of any allegations against Mr Jeffries at the time, but it declined to comment.

Mr Jeffries, who ran the retailer for 22 years, is currently on bail after pleading not guilty to the charges along with his British life partner, Matthew Smith, and their middleman in the alleged trafficking operation, James Jacobson.

The arrests followed a BBC investigation in 2023 that revealed Mr Jeffries and his partner were at the centre of a sophisticated operation scouting young men for sex in the US and abroad.

Ruling that Mr Jeffries’ indemnification agreement does cover the criminal charges against him, Judge Paul Fioravanti said: “In my view, Jeffries’s conduct, as alleged in the indictment, as horrific as it is, has a causal connection to his official capacity and status as CEO of Abercrombie.”

The criminal legal costs come in addition to fees in Mr Jeffries’ civil cases, which A&F was ordered to pay last year on similar grounds.

Along with Mr Jeffries, A&F is defending multiple civil lawsuits from alleged victims, accusing the brand of having facilitated and funded his “criminal enterprise”.

“Jeffries’ legal fees will be millions of dollars when it’s all said and done,” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers.

A former federal prosecutor and partner at Shihata & Geddes, Elizabeth Geddes, added: “You’ll have high-paid lawyers charging by the hour, especially if this leads to both a civil and criminal trial which can be expensive and time-consuming.”

Companies can indemnify executives, even for criminal charges, she said, though this would typically be in cases of white-collar crime such as fraud and not sex trafficking.

Mr Rahmani said the Abercrombie & Fitch agreement was “unique” in its coverage of criminal conduct. “Generally, criminal conduct is not something that you can insure for because it falls outside the scope of any company’s business,” he said.

The criminal charges against Mr Jeffries date from 2008 to 2015. He stepped down as chief executive of A&F in December 2014 after two decades in charge.

US prosecutors allege he had used his wealth, power and status as CEO “to traffic men for his own sexual pleasure” and for the pleasure of his partner, Mr Smith.

A&F is not a defendant in the criminal case, but the latest ruling means it will now have to reimburse Mr Jeffries for legal fees dating back to 2023, as well as advance him funds for his ongoing defence.

On top of the legal fees of its former CEO, the company may also face further costs in civil cases it is defending if a court orders compensation to be paid out or both parties agree a settlement.

Despite the severity of the allegations, the company has been reporting record sales, amounting to $4.95bn (£3.84bn) in the past year.

“It doesn’t appear as though A&F are at a detriment financially [in sales or share price] due to the lawsuits surrounding Mike Jeffries,” said Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor.

She said it was interesting that the company appeared to have been able to “spin” or “stifle some of the information that’s out there”.

Following the BBC’s investigation, A&F opened an independent investigation and suspended $1m (£770,000) annual retirement payments to Mr Jeffries.

It added that new leadership has transformed the company, and it has “zero tolerance for abuse, harassment or discrimination of any kind”.

Mehboob Hussain was riding the train home on Tuesday when the tracks under the front car exploded.

In the depths of central Pakistan’s Bolan Pass, a pocket of wilderness so remote that there is no internet or mobile network coverage, the nine-coach Jaffar Express ground to a halt. Then the bullets started flying.

“I was a passenger on the train that was attacked,” Mr Hussain told BBC Urdu.

He, along with some 440 others, had been travelling from Quetta to Peshawar through the heart of the restive Balochistan province when a group of armed militants struck – they bombed the tracks, fired on the train and then stormed the carriages.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) quickly claimed responsibility for the siege, and threatened to kill many of those on board if Pakistani authorities did not release Baloch political prisoners within 48 hours.

The group, which many countries have designated a terrorist organisation, has waged a decades-long insurgency to gain independence for Balochistan, accusing Islamabad of exploiting the province’s rich mineral resources while also neglecting it.

BLA militants have a long history of attacking military camps, railway stations and trains in the region.

But this was the first time they had hijacked one.

The siege lasted over 30 hours. According to authorities, 300 passengers have now been freed, and 33 BLA militants, 21 civilian hostages and four military personnel were killed. But conflicting figures suggest many passengers remain unaccounted for.

Information relating to the attack and the subsequent rescue operation has been tightly controlled throughout.

But the BBC was able to speak to multiple eyewitnesseses who described the “doomsday scenes” on board the train as the attack unfolded.

As Ishaq Noor told BBC Urdu of those first few moments: “We held our breath throughout the firing, not knowing what would happen next.”

A railway police officer who was on board the train told BBC Urdu that, contrary to initial reports from Pakistani authorities, the train was “not in a tunnel but in an open area” when it was hit.

The BLA has also released an alleged video of the moment the train was struck by the blast. It shows an open section of track that runs along the base of a large rocky slope.

Atop that slope, according to the video, is a cluster of BLA fighters.

The officer described to the BBC how he initially “fought together with other police officers” to try and hold off the militants until “the ammunition ran out”.

“They [the BLA] were moving in front of us on the mountain and they were much more numerous than us, in the hundreds,” the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recalled. He noted that he was accompanied by four railway police and two members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC).

At least 100 of those on the train were members of the security forces, according to Pakistani officials.

“I told my companion to give me the G-3 rifle because it is a better weapon,” the officer explained. “When I got the rifle and the rounds, we also started firing back. I used to fire one shot at a time at them so that they could not come near us and the train… [But] in an hour-and-half, our rounds were over… We were helpless.”

When the gunfire from those on board the Jaffar Express ceased, the militants came down from the surrounding mountains and started taking passengers off the train, the officer said.

“They started checking cards and telling people to go this way, this way,” he said, explaining that the hostages were separated into groups alongside the train, according to their ethnicity.

The militants were speaking in the Balochi language, he added, and declared, “We have made demands to the government and if they are not met, we will not spare anyone; we will set the vehicle on fire”.

The officer claimed the militants were receiving orders: “They would get orders to kill, and they would pick up people from the group and kill them. They killed many people – both army personnel and civilians.”

Some passengers, however, were allowed to leave unharmed – including women, children, the elderly and those who lived in Balochistan, according to Mr Noor.

Among those released was Noor Muhammad. He said that when the initial volleys of gunfire stopped after an hour, armed men forced open the door to the train and entered, saying “get out or we will shoot you”.

Mr Muhammad said he was escorted off the train, and when he told the militants his wife was still in the back of the car, they brought her out too. Then they “told us to go straight and not look back”.

The couple walked through the wilderness, he said, and with “great difficulty” reached Panir Railway Station at about 1900, where they rested.

His wife recalled the moment the Pakistan military arrived to meet them.

“They told me, ‘ma’am, come inside with us, we will take you home safely,’” she said. The soldiers took the couple to the town of Machh, she added, “and then we reached Quetta to our children, who were waiting for us”.

Some passengers who managed to leave the train late on Tuesday evening said they walked for nearly four hours to reach the next railway station. They included Muhammad Ashraf, who had been riding the train to Lahore to visit his family.

“We reached the station with great difficulty,” he told BBC Urdu, “because we were tired and there were children and women with us.”

As night descended over the Jaffar Express, scores of BLA militants began to depart, according to the police official who did not wish to named.

“Many of them hugged each other and 70, 80 people left while 20, 25 stayed behind,” he said.

At about 10pm, he recalled, violence erupted again.

“Some people tried to run away, they [the BLA] saw them and opened fire, then everyone fell to the ground,” the official said.

Mr Mehboob similarly recalled gunfire throughout the night – and said that at one point, a person close to him, who had five daughters, was shot.

“When someone is killed in front of your eyes, you don’t know what to do,” he said.

Another passenger, Allahditta, said his cousin was killed in front of him by the BLA. He said his cousin was pleading to the militants to not kill him as he had young daughters but “his life was not spared”.

The BBC on Wednesday saw dozens of wooden coffins being loaded at Quetta railway station. A railway official said they were empty and being transported to collect casualties.

It was during the time of morning prayer on Wednesday that rescuers from the FC started firing on the BLA militants, Mr Allahditta said.

Amid the sudden chaos, he and others broke free.

“When the FC opened fire at the time of the Fajr call to prayer, we escaped from the militants,” Mr Allahdita said.

The police official similarly recalled the moment when the FC moved in, briefly diverting the BLA militants’ focus away from the hostages.

“When the FC arrived in the morning, the attention of these people turned to this direction,” the official said. “I told my companion, ‘Let’s try to run away.’”

Militants fired on the escapees as they fled, and the official said his companion was hit from behind.

“He told me to let go of him. I said no, I’ll carry you on my shoulder. Then another person also joined hands and we went down the hills and out of firing range.”

Mr Mehboob, Mr Allahdita, the police official and his companion all managed to escape the Jaffar Express alive as the FC attacked the militants.

Military and paramilitary troops and helicopters had surrounded the stranded train since Tuesday. On Wednesday, they killed the hostage-takers and cleared the site, according to a military spokesperson.

Authorities said there were 440 passengers on the train – and 300 of them have been freed. But it’s still unclear what happened to the remaining 140. Reuters and AFP quoted an unnamed security official who said some miliants had left, taking an unknown number of passengers with them.

The military says it is still working to find passengers who escaped and fled into the surrounding area, and insists that any others involved in the hijacking would be brought to justice.

Mr Noor, who is now distributing alms and charity in his hometown along with his wife, is just grateful to have escaped the situation with his life.

“Thank God,” Mr Noor said. “He saved us.”