Penulis: Agus S

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has won a vote of confidence in his pro-EU government after his political camp narrowly lost the recent presidential election.

Some 243 parliamentarians voted in favour of the coalition government, with 210 voting against and no abstentions.

This vote has been seen by some as a piece of political theatre on the part of Tusk – a way of showing his broad coalition still has a mandate despite the presidential election defeat.

Wednesday’s vote was also a formality. Tusk’s coalition has a 12-seat majority in the lower house, the Sejm, and only a simple majority in the presence of half the 460 parliamentarians was required to win.

Ahead of the vote, Tusk told the house that they could not “close their eyes” to the reality that his government faces “greater challenges” thanks to the election of Karol Nawrocki, who is supported by the Law and Justice (PiS) opposition.

Poland’s president can veto legislation and Nawrocki – a socially conservative supporter of US President Donald Trump who opposes a federal Europe and Ukraine’s entry to Nato and the EU – is expected to continue to use this power as the conservative incumbent, Andrzej Duda, has done during the first 18 months of Tusk’s term in office.

Tusk’s coalition lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn a presidential veto. Nothing can be done about that, but a reconfirmation by parliament puts Tusk’s government on the front foot again, at least for now.

He has also announced a cabinet reshuffle would take place in July.

“I’m asking you for a vote of confidence because I have the conviction, faith and certainty that we have a mandate to govern, to take full responsibility for what is happening in Poland,” Tusk said.

“We are facing two and a half years, in difficult conditions, of full mobilisation and full responsibility.”

He referred to Polish tennis star Iga Swiatek’s recent unsuccessful attempt to win a fourth straight French Open title at Roland Garros, quoting the Frenchman’s famous quote: “Victory belongs to the most tenacious.”

The opposition in parliament would likely say that Tusk will ultimately be as unsuccessful as Iga Swiatek was at retaining his title. A promise as empty, indeed, as the PiS benches were during Tusk’s speech.

Tusk said his government had been more effective on issues that PiS prides itself on – increased defence spending and tougher on migration.

He argued Poland had returned to Europe’s top table, citing a recently signed bilateral treaty with France in which both countries declared they would come to each other’s mutual aid in the event of an attack.

At the end, he received a standing ovation from his own benches.

Issues close to the government’s small left-wing coalition partner were largely absent from the speech.

There was no mention of his campaign promise to give Polish women legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

That promise has got nowhere in the face of opposition from conservatives within the coalition and the knowledge that Duda would veto it.

His government has also made little headway, thanks to Duda’s vetoes, on another campaign promise – removing political influence from Polish courts – which caused the European Commission to take legal action against Poland and withhold EU funds.

Brussels released the funds after Tusk’s government promised to undo PiS’s judicial reform, causing PiS to accuse the Commission of double standards.

Tusk said that no-one was as keen as he was to end Poland’s legal chaos, but he knows that President-elect Nawrocki will likely continue to use the veto.

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Right-wing historian Karol Nawrocki is Poland’s new president, official results show.

Karol Nawrocki’s new role is largely ceremonial, but he could still have a profound impact on Poland, including an early election.

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Two French antiques experts have been convicted of forging historic chairs that they claimed had once belonged to French royals such as Marie Antoinette.

Georges “Bill” Pallot and Bruno Desnoues were given four months behind bars as well as longer suspended sentences for selling a number of fake 18th Century chairs to collectors including the Palace of Versailles and a member of the Qatari royal family.

As both have already served four months in pre-trial detention, they will not return to prison.

Another defendant, Laurent Kraemer, who – along with his gallery – was accused of failing to adequately check the chairs’ authenticity before selling them on, were acquitted of deception by gross negligence.

Wednesday’s judgement was the culmination of a nine-year investigation that rocked the French antiques world.

At a court in Pontoise, north of Paris, the judge also handed out hefty fines to Pallot and Desnoues of €200,000 (£169,500) and €100,000 respectively.

Reacting to his sentence, Pallot said it was “a little harsh financially”, but he was glad that his Paris apartment would not be seized, according to AFP news agency.

During the trial, the prosecution had argued that Laurent Kraemer and his gallery in Paris were at fault for failing to sufficiently check the authenticity of the items they bought, before selling them on to buyers such as Qatari prince Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, who bought two chairs said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette for €2m.

But on Wednesday, Mr Kraemer and the gallery were acquitted. They always denied knowing about the forgeries.

In a comment sent to the BBC, his lawyers said the verdict “demonstrated the innocence that the Kraemer gallery has been claiming since day one of this case”.

“The gallery was the victim of counterfeiters; it didn’t know the furniture was fake, and it couldn’t have detected it, as the judgment indicates,” Martin Reynaud and Mauricia Courrégé said.

“For almost 10 years, our clients have been wrongly accused. They have waited patiently for the truth to appear. It is now done, and it is a great relief for them to see their innocence recognized today,” they added.

At the height of his career, Pallot was considered the top scholar on French 18th-Century chairs, having written the authoritative book on the subject.

He was also a lecturer at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris, with access to Versailles Palace’s historical records, including inventories of royal furniture which had existed at the palace in the 18th Century.

Pallot was able to pinpoint which chairs were unaccounted for in collections and then make replicas with the help of Desnoues, an award-winning sculptor and cabinetmaker who was employed as the main furniture restorer for Versailles.

“I was the head and Desnoues was the hands,” Pallot told the court during the trial in March.

“It went like a breeze,” he added. “Everything was fake but the money.”

Prosecutor Pascal Rayer said in his closing arguments at the trial that the case shone a “rare and remarkable spotlight on the market for historical furniture, bringing to light a world that has been stamped with confidentiality and discretion.”

He said it revealed the flaws of the market and “the conflicts of interest inherent in its structure, particularly where experts such as Bill Pallot, and his accomplice woodcarver Desnoues, are also merchants, undisclosed to the buyer”.

Mr Rayer said the case had “resulted in the disruption of an entire marketplace, thereby highlighting the need for more robust regulation of the art market to achieve transparency and fairness of transactions”.

Other cases that have emerged from the murky world of antiques dealings in France in the past decade include that of the late Jean Lupu, who was also accused of selling fake royal furniture of the 17th and 18th Centuries to galleries around the world. He died in 2023 before he was due to appear in court.

The Earl of Devon says the money will go towards restoring parts of the castle.

Bill Pallot and Bruno Desnoues falsified 18th-century furniture they said belonged to French royalty.

The collection, tested in York, was owned by Flog It! expert Michael Baggott, who died in January.

The red vase and yellow wine pitcher had been at the family home for more than a century.

Two years after being fired from The Apprentice, Gregory Ebbs has a seat on Shropshire Council.

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Talks aimed at cooling tensions between the US and China have ended in a “deal”, according to US President Donald Trump.

He said China had agreed to supply US companies with magnets and rare earth metals, while the US would walk back its threats to revoke visas of Chinese students.

“Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval from President Xi and me,” Trump wrote on his media platform Truth Social.

It followed two days of intense talks in London to resolve conflicts that had emerged since the two sides agreed a truce in May, after a rapid escalation of tariffs had nearly paralysed trade between the world’s two largest economies.

But the limited nature of the announcement underscored questions the White House is facing about whether its tariff strategy can quickly yield solid trade deals.

Speaking on Thursday, President Trump said he will set unilateral tariff rates with trading partners in the next one or two weeks.

The US president said he would send out letters specifying the terms of the new deals ahead of a 9 July deadline to reimpose higher tariffs on countries around the world.

Separately, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected the US would extend the existing pause on some of its most aggressive tariffs to allow trade talks with other countries to continue.

Details about the new agreement with China were limited. Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping spoke over the phone last week to kickstart the negotiations, which involved top officials from both countries.

Officials said it would not alter the broad outlines of the May truce, which lowered – but did not eliminate – new tariffs announced by the two countries since Trump launched a new trade war earlier this year.

“The two sides have, in principle, reached a framework for implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state during the phone call on 5 June and the consensus reached at the Geneva meeting,” China’s Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang said.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters the two sides had “reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus”.

“Once the presidents approve it, we will then seek to implement it,” he added.

Speaking to broadcaster CNBC on Wednesday, he said the talks had “cleaned up” the Geneva agreement.

“We’re totally on the right track,” he said. “Things feel really good.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was currently reviewing the details of the deal. “But what the president heard, he liked,” she added.

The negotiations in London were triggered in part by US concerns that China was being too slow to release exports of its magnets and rare earth minerals, which are essential for manufacturing everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Beijing in turn has criticised controls the US has put in place to limit the country’s access to semiconductors and other related technologies linked to artificial intelligence (AI) and the Trump administration’s plans to limit visas for Chinese students.

Speaking to CNBC, Lutnick said the US had agreed to remove some “counter-measures” without being specific about the response.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was testifying before Congress on Wednesday, said the recent talks had been narrowly focused and a more comprehensive deal would take time.

“It will be a much longer process,” he said.

In the same hearing, he acknowledged that trade talks with other countries might extend beyond the administration’s self-declared 90-day deadline.

“It is highly likely that for those countries that are negotiating – or trading blocs, in the case of the EU – who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good-faith negotiation. If someone is not negotiating, then we will not,” he said.

When Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from a number of countries earlier this year, China was the hardest hit.

China responded with its own higher rates on US imports, triggering further tit-for-tat increases.

In May, talks held in Switzerland led to a temporary truce that Trump called a “total reset”.

It brought Trump’s new US tariffs on Chinese products down from 145% to 30%, while Beijing slashed levies on US imports to 10% and promised to lift barriers on critical mineral exports. It gave both sides a 90-day deadline to try to reach a trade deal.

But the US and China subsequently claimed breaches on non-tariff pledges.

In his social media post, Trump said the US would have tariffs on Chinese goods of 55%, but officials said the figure included tariffs put in place during his first term.

Markets showed little response to the deal, which Terry Haines, founder of the Washington-based consultancy Pangaea Policy, described as having both “very limited scope and unfinished status”.

“Setting the Geneva ‘pause’ back on track is the smallest of accomplishments, and doesn’t suggest that a broad US-China trade deal or geopolitical rapprochement is any closer in the foreseeable future,” he wrote.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

The US defense secretary appeared to acknowledge incidental plans also exist for Panama, but avoided giving direct confirmation.

US Senator Alex Padilla was put in handcuffs after interrupting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news update on the Los Angeles ICE raids.

The appointees have “committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data”, the vaccine sceptic said.

US President Donald Trump will oversee a huge military parade in Washington DC on the same day as nationwide protests are planned.

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, one of the world’s most active, erupted for the 25th time since 23 December 2024.

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A UK soldier accused of raping a woman near a controversial British army base in Kenya allegedly attacked a British national, not a Kenyan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.

In a statement the military said the man had been arrested and sent back to the UK following the alleged incident last month near the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk).

The allegation is being investigated by the UK military, which has jurisdiction over the matter, and does not involve Kenyan police.

The alleged rape is the latest allegation of misconduct made against British soldiers at Batuk, which is near the town of Nanyuki around 200km (125 miles) north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

A MoD spokesperson said: “We can confirm the arrest of a British service person in Kenya in relation to a report of a sexual offence. The service person has been repatriated to the UK and the victim is a British adult, not a Kenyan.

“The matter is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the UK Defence Serious Crime Command, in accordance with the Defence Co-operation Agreement between the UK and Kenya and we will not comment further.”

A UK soldier has previously been accused of murdering a local woman, Agnes Wanjiru, whose body was found dumped in a septic tank in 2012.

The UK has said it is co-operating with a Kenyan investigation into her death.

The Batuk base was established in 1964 shortly after the East African nation gained independence from the UK.

The UK military has an agreement with Kenya under which it can deploy up to six army battalions a year for periods of training at the site.

But the British army has faced a string of allegations about the conduct of some UK personnel at the camp.

A public inquiry set up by Kenyan MPs last year heard details of alleged mistreatment of local people by British soldiers.

The allegations included a reported hit-and-run incident, as well as claims that some British soldiers had got local women pregnant before abandoning them and their children when they returned to the UK.

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

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Salisbury MP John Glen asked the chancellor for an update, only to be told it was the Health Secretary’s decision.

Burundi is set to have a one-party parliament following a poll that the opposition says was rigged.

Edgar Lungu’s family says he left instructions that President Hichilema should not come near his body.

The move comes as the continent’s exports face the possibility of high tariffs from the US.

At least 49 people have been killed in the floods, including several children who were on a bus.

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Abandoned plans for a bomb attack have been found at the home of the suspected gunman in a school shooting in Austria, police have said.

Police in the south-eastern city of Graz also found a non-functional pipe bomb, and a “farewell” letter and video during the search, they said in a statement.

Ten people were killed in the attack at the secondary school on Tuesday – the deadliest in the country’s recent history.

The suspect, a 21-year-old former student at the school, took his own life in a school bathroom shortly after the attack, according to police. Authorities have not yet drawn any conclusions on the gunman’s possible motive.

The incident, which left a further 11 people injured, took place at Dreierschützengasse secondary school in the north-west of the city.

Six females and three males were killed in the attack, and a seventh female later died in hospital.

The victims were a teacher and nine students aged between 14 and 17, police said. All were Austrian citizens, except for one who was Polish.

The 11 injured – aged between 15 and 26 – are not in a critical condition, police said.

Police said the suspect was born in Styria – the region in which Graz sits – and lived with his single mother, who was also Austrian, in the Graz-Umgebung District.

They added that his father, of Armenian origin, had not lived with them since his parents’ separation.

Current information suggests the shooter legally owned the two guns used in the attack – a pistol and a shotgun – and had a firearms licence, police said. They added that the guns would be forensically examined.

The gunman, who has not yet been named, did not graduate from the school, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told a news conference earlier. He was not known to the authorities prior to the attack, police also confirmed.

Analysis of evidence and data storage devices will continue over the coming weeks and hundreds of people will be interviewed, they said.

The incident would be reconstructed to shed light on how events unfolded, police added.

They said police first arrived at the school six minutes after the first emergency call was made at 10:00 on Tuesday, with a rapid response unit and specialist Cobra tactical unit – which handles attacks and hostage situations – arriving by 10:17.

Styrian police said this quick reaction “appears to have saved several lives”.

Police have increased security measures around schools in the city since the attack.

Speaking in Graz, President Alexander van der Bellen suggested Austria’s gun laws could be changed in the wake of the attack: “If we come to the conclusion that the gun law needs to be changed, then we will do so.”

Local media reports that relatives of the victims and school pupils are being cared for at a crisis intervention centre set up across the road from the school.

A teacher there told news agency AFP that he narrowly escaped after finding himself in a corridor with the shooter.

Paul Nitsche, who teaches religion, said that he was working by himself with the door open on the upper floor of the school when he heard gunshots.

The 51-year-old said he then ran out of the room and saw the gunman when he was in the corridor on the floor below.

“He was trying to shoot the door [of a classroom] open with his rifle,” he said. “He was busy […] and I didn’t look around much either […] I didn’t hang around.”

Astrid, who lives with her husband Franz in a residential building next to the school, told the BBC she had just finished hanging out the washing when she heard 30 to 40 gunshots.

“We saw one pupil at the window – it looked like he was getting ready to jump out… but then he went back inside,” Franz said.

The couple later saw students exiting the school and gathered on the street.

Three days of mourning were declared in Austria following the attack, and a nationwide minute’s silence was held on Wednesday at 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT) in memory of the victims. The Austrian flag has been lowered to half-mast on all public buildings.

After the minute’s silence in Graz’s main square, one woman, Tores, told BBC News that she knew one of the boys who had died. He was 17.

“I’ve know this family for a long time, including the son of the family, and knew that he attended that school. I rang immediately, to ask if everything is OK. Then they let me know at midday, that the boy was one of those slaughtered,” she said.

The incident is the deadliest mass shooting in Austria’s recent history.

In 2020, jihadist gunman Kujtim Fejzulai shot four people dead and wounded 23 others on a rampage through Vienna’s busy nightlife district.

Meanwhile, in 2016, a gunman opened fire at a concert in the town of Nenzing, killing two people before shooting himself dead. Eleven other people were injured in the attack.

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The bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers have been returned from Russia, Kyiv says, as part of a prisoner exchange agreement between the warring countries.

In return Russia received 27 bodies, Moscow’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said.

The prisoner exchange deal was the only tangible result of peace talks in Turkey last week, with both sides agreeing to hand over as many as 6,000 dead bodies each, as well as sick and heavily wounded prisoners of war, and those aged under 25.

Medinsky announced that Russia would begin exchanging “severely wounded prisoners” on Thursday.

The dead soldiers were from various regions of Ukraine, including Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s co-ordination centre for the treatment of prisoners of war said on Telegram.

The centre added it would “establish the identities of the deceased as soon as possible”.

This is not the first time that dead bodies have been repatriated in this conflict – thousands have already been exchanged in more than 70 separate repatriations.

This exchange follows several days of accusations from Moscow that Ukraine was failing to collect the bodies, which Medinsky said had been sitting in refrigerated trucks at an exchange point since Saturday.

Medinsky also said on Saturday that Ukraine had “unexpectedly postponed” the prisoner swaps. In response, Ukraine said that Russia was playing “dirty tricks” and manipulating the facts.

The first round of exchanges took place on Monday. There were emotional scenes as the families of missing Ukrainian soldiers gathered near the border with Belarus to press the returning prisoners for information about their loved ones.

Soldiers on both sides were exchanged that day, but neither Russia nor Ukraine gave an exact number of how many people were swapped.

The service hears how Chris Garrett, who was killed in May, meant a great deal to the Ukrainian people.

Russia launched 315 drones across the country, including “one of the largest strikes on Kyiv,” Zelensky said.

Authorities say nearly 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are still being held in Russian prisons.

Russia hits Kharkiv with a wave of air strikes, killing four people and injuring nearly 60, officials say.

Five people are killed in a drone and missile attack on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, officials say.

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Syria’s Islamist-led interim government has decreed that women must wear burkinis – a swimsuit that covers the body except for the face, hands and feet – or other “decent” clothes at public beaches and swimming pools.

The regulations, issued by the tourism ministry, were “aimed at enhancing public safety standards and preserving public decency”, Syrian state news channel Al-Ikhbariyah al-Suriyah reported.

Private beaches, clubs and pools, as well as hotels with more than four stars, are exempt, the directive said.

Women often dress modestly on public beaches in Syria, but some women do opt for more Western styles of swimwear. The new government previously pledged to govern inclusively.

Under the new directive, beachgoers and visitors to public pools must wear “more modest swimwear”, specifying “the burkini or swimming clothes that cover more of the body”.

The decree added that women should wear a cover-up or loose clothing over their swimwear when they move between swimming areas.

“Travelling in swimwear outside the beach without appropriate cover is prohibited,” it said.

Men should also wear a shirt when they are not swimming, and are not allowed to be bare-chested outside swimming areas.

The statement said “normal Western swimwear” was generally allowed in exempted places “within the limits of public taste”.

More generally, people should wear loose clothing that covers the shoulders and knees and “avoid transparent and tight clothing”, the decree added.

The directive did not say whether those who fail to follow the rules would be penalised or how the rules would be enforced. But it did say lifeguards and supervisors would be appointed to monitor compliance on beaches.

It also included other safety regulations around pools and beaches.

Reacting to the new rule, one woman from Idlib in the north-west of the country told the BBC’s World Service OS programme that, while she could see both sides of the argument, “I do think there is a positive to this, from a moral and respectful point of view.”

Celine said: “Some people and families don’t feel comfortable seeing or wearing too much exposed skin and I believe that is a valid perspective.”

But another woman, Rita, who lives in the capital, Damascus, said she was “not comfortable” with the new rule, “especially as we are not used to such laws”.

“In the coastal area, different ladies from different religions all have been going there and until now, we wore what we wanted,” she said. “Religious people could avoid those in bikinis. But this law makes us scared of where to go.”

She added: “We have no problem with the burkini itself, but it’s a problem with the concept that the government are controlling this.”

In December last year, Islamist rebel forces led by Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, bringing years of civil war to an end.

Since then, al-Sharaa, now the country’s interim president, has promised to run the country in an inclusive way.

In an interview with the BBC shortly after he took power, he said he believed in education for women and denied that he wanted to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan – which has severely curtailed women’s rights.

In March, Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration covering a five-year transitional period.

The document said Islam was the religion of the president, as the previous constitution did, and Islamic jurisprudence was “the main source of legislation”, rather than “a main source”.

The declaration also guaranteed women’s rights, freedom of expression, and media freedom.

Additional reporting by Rachel Hagan

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The Hidden Mothers exhibition features powerful portraits by photographer Clare Hughes.

The 17-year-old’s murder has sparked a debate about women on social media in Pakistan.

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Israeli security forces operating in Gaza have recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.

He named one of them as Yair (Yaya) Yaakov, a 59-year-old father of three who was killed inside his home at Kibbutz Nir Oz by Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

His teenage sons, Or and Yagil, and partner, Meirav Tal, were abducted alive and released in November 2023, as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Netanyahu said the name of the other male hostage had not yet been released, but that his family had been informed.

There are now 53 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

News of the recovery of Yair Yaakov’s body initially came from his sons.

“Dad, I love you,” Yagil wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday evening, according to the newspaper Haaretz. “I don’t know how to respond yet. I’m sad to say this. I’m waiting for your funeral, I love you and knew this day would come.”

Yagil also thanked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet internal security service, and expressed hope that the remaining hostages “will be brought [back] in a deal that doesn’t risk soldiers”.

Netanyahu later issued a statement saying: “Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our deepest condolences to the families who have lost their most beloved.

“I thank the soldiers and commanders for another successful execution of the sacred mission to return our hostages.”

The IDF said the hostages’ bodies were recovered in the Khan Younis area, in southern Gaza.

The operation was made possible by “precise intelligence” from its Hostage Task Force and Intelligence Directorate, as well as the Shin Bet, it added.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents many hostages’ families, said in a statement that it “bows its head in sorrow over the murder of Yaya and shares in the profound grief of the Yaakov family”.

“There are no words to express the depth of this pain,” it added. “The hostages have no time. We must bring them all home, Now!”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said there had been “significant progress” in efforts to secure the release of the remaining hostages, adding: “We are working tirelessly right now, and all the time. I hope we will be able to move forward.”

However, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi rejected the prime minister’s remarks on Wednesday, saying they were “illusive and misleading” and intended to “abort any real deal to return the captives”, according to the Shehab news agency.

Israeli forces have retrieved the bodies of three other hostages who were taken from Nir Oz in southern Gaza over the past week.

On Friday, they found the body of Nattapong Pinta, a Thai national, in the Rafah area.

The 35-year-old had been working as an agricultural labourer at the kibbutz when he was kidnapped by the Mujahideen Brigades group on 7 October. An Israeli military official said he was likely to have been killed during his first months of captivity.

And on Wednesday night, Israeli forces in Khan Younis found the bodies of two Israeli-American residents of Nir Oz.

Judi Weinstein Haggai, 70, who was also a Canadian citizen, and her husband Gadi Haggai, 72, were killed by Mujahideen Brigades gunmen on 7 October.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unpresented attack, in which about a total of 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

Another four people, two of whom were dead, were already being held captive in Gaza before the conflict.

So far, 202 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive, mostly through two temporary ceasefire deals with Hamas.

At least 55,104 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Asif William Rahman used top security clearance to print and circulate documents over several months.

At least 39 reportedly die in three incidents near lorries transporting flour and aid distribution sites.

The BBC travels in an ambulance from the Gaza border to Amman with Siwar and her family

Five countries place travel bans on Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel also told the BBC a two-state solution was “an aspirational goal”.

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A woman obsessed with K-pop group BTS has been caught trying to break into band member Jungkook’s home just hours after he completed military service.

The Chinese woman in her 30s was seen punching random numbers on a combination lock outside Jungkook’s apartment in the South Korean capital Seoul at about 23:20 local time (15:20 BST) on Wednesday, police said.

She had confessed to flying into the country to see the singer, but ended up getting arrested for trespassing.

Jungkook, along with three other bandmates, were discharged from mandatory military service this week, prompting fan frenzy and increasing anticipation for a possible comeback.

All seven BTS members are set to be discharged from the military by the end of this month and their agency Hybe has hinted at a reunion.

They went on hiatus in 2022 at the height of their global fame.

Hundreds of fans, some of whom flew in from overseas, had gathered in front of Hybe’s headquarters to celebrate their idols’ return.

Many of them were dressed in purple, BTS’s signature colour, and carried large banners and photographs of the band.

Jungkook thanked fans for travelling to see him, adding that he was “a bit embarrassed” after not being in front of cameras for a while.

“I didn’t even put on makeup,” he said.

South Korea requires all able-bodied men aged 18 to 28 to serve for about two years in the military.

Exceptions are sometimes made for Olympic medallists and classical musicians.

Before BTS enlisted, South Korea saw furious debate over whether or not they should be allowed to skip the service, with some arguing that they had already served their country by earning it billions of dollars, and that it would be more beneficial to allow them to carry on doing so.

The band had previously won a deferral in 2020, when the nation’s parliament passed a bill allowing them to delay their duties until the age of 30.

In 2022, the oldest member of BTS, Jin, enlisted, and the others followed suit.

It comes a week after the country elected a new president, who vowed to improve Korean relations.

RM and V were discharged on Tuesday and all seven BTS members would have finished the requirement by the end of June.

The woman has also been ordered to complete eight hours of sexual violence prevention education.

The beloved musical won six awards at the top US honours for threatre.

Experts say he faces a challenging task, as division and discontentment continue to rack South Korea.

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Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of sexual assault in New York, after his sex crimes conviction in the state was overturned last year.

A panel of seven female and five male jurors deliberated for five days in the six-week trial before unanimously voting to convict the disgraced film mogul on one of three counts.

The jury found him not guilty of an additional sexual assault charge, and has yet to return a verdict on a charge of rape.

The conviction is in addition to a 16-year sentence that Weinstein has yet to serve after being convicted of sex crimes in Los Angeles.

The trial was based on the testimony of three women – former television production assistant Miriam Haley, actress Jessica Mann, and model Kaja Sokola. All three accused Weinstein of using his power in the entertainment industry to sexually abuse them.

On Wednesday, jurors found Weinstein guilty of assaulting Ms Haley, but found him not guilty of assaulting Ms Sokola. They have yet to return a verdict on a rape charge involving Ms Mann, and plan to resume deliberations on Thursday.

Ms Haley said the verdict gave her “hope that there is new awareness around sexual violence and that the myth of the perfect victim is fading”.

An appeals court overturned Weinstein’s previous conviction for sex crimes in New York last April, finding the 73-year-old did not receive a fair trial in 2020 because a judge allowed testimony from women who made allegations against him beyond the charges at hand.

Weinstein was then indicted on new sexual assault charges in the state in September.

In a statement Wednesday, Weinstein’s spokesperson said the trial was “fair until we got to the jury deliberations”.

“More than one juror had complained that other jurors had preconceived notions and are using their beliefs of Harvey’s life as evidence of guilt,” the spokesperson said. “We believe there are serious appellate issues and they will be explored.”

Jury deliberations have been tense over the past week. This week, the foreperson accused some jurors of “attacking” others and trying to change their minds. He said jurors were considering Weinstein’s past and other allegations outside the realm of the case in making decisions. There were also allegations that one juror had threatened to fight another juror.

In the end, the judge said he would give the jury an instruction about only considering the allegations in the case, and nothing else.

Weinstein – who has cancer and diabetes – stayed at Bellevue Hospital rather than Riker’s Island jail during the trial. He sat in a wheelchair for the proceedings.

The retrial in New York centred on two women who brought allegations against Weinstein during his 2020 trial, Ms Mann and Ms Haley.

It also included new allegations from Ms Sokola, a Polish former model and actress, who accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting her when she was 19. The jury on Wednesday found him not guilty in that assault.

Reacting to the verdict, Ms Sokola said she was “relieved that Harvey Weinstein will be held accountable for some of his crimes”.

“Coming forward was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I owed it to myself, and to the other women who survived him, to make sure that the world knows what kind of man Harvey Weinstein is.

“Speaking out was an act of power and it allowed me to reclaim the pride and confidence he tried to take from me,” she added in a statement.

The three women testified for days about the sexual abuse they alleged they endured at the hands of Weinstein.

All three said they met Weinstein when they were young and looking for work opportunities in the entertainment industry. He then forced himself on them during private meetings at hotels and his homes, the women alleged.

His legal team argued that his sexual encounters with the women were all consensual and a sort of “friends with benefits” arrangement.

Weinstein’s attorneys attempted to chip away at the credibility of the women, showing warm messages some of the women exchanged with the film mogul after the alleged assaults.

In total, Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct, assault and rape by more than 100 women. While not all reports resulted in criminal charges, the California conviction means he is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The decision by his accusers to come forward, and his subsequent conviction in New York, galvanised the #MeToo movement against sex abuse by powerful men.

Before the allegations against him emerged, Weinstein and his brother Bob were among Hollywood’s ultimate power players.

Weinstein co-founded Miramax film studio, whose hits included Shakespeare in Love, which won best picture at the Academy Awards, and Pulp Fiction.

Weinstein has also faced a number of civil lawsuits, including from a group of women who accused him of sexual harassment and rape. The case resulted in a $19m (£14.2) settlement in 2020.

Miriam Haley says she risked her own privacy for the sake of other female victims of sexual abuse.

Production assistant Miriam Haley is the first accuser to testify at the disgraced Hollywood mogul’s retrial.

Weinstein, who has pleaded not guilty to sex crimes, returns to court after a conviction was overturned.

The disgraced Hollywood producer told the judge he could no longer endure conditions in jail.

The fresh charge relates to the alleged sexual assault of a woman in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.

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