In Pictures

Security forces and hundreds of men armed with whips and clubs clashed with protesters in Kenya, with a police officer’s shooting of an unarmed bystander triggering widespread anger.

Tensions were already high in the East African country as it marked a year since massive Gen Z-led protests over the state of the economy, and the latest demonstrations were sparked by the death of a man in police custody earlier this month.

In Nairobi’s business district, the epicentre of last year’s demonstrations, small groups of protesters gathered on Tuesday, initially peacefully, to call for an end to police brutality.

But they were quickly attacked by hundreds of men on motorbikes, known in Kenya as “goons”, armed with makeshift weapons.

As shop owners hastily closed their businesses, police actively protected the armed men and fired tear gas at protesters, who responded by throwing stones and burning at least two of their motorbikes.

There was outrage after videos circulated of a police officer shooting a bystander at point-blank range in the head.

The man, who had been selling face masks, was still alive despite the severe injury.

“We handed him over to Kenyatta National Hospital, and he was taken to the ICU. He was very critical. He was still breathing,” said Vincent Ochieng, a disaster recovery officer for the Kenya Red Cross.

While the police did not directly deny any cooperation with the armed “goons”, it said in a statement it “does not condone such unlawful groupings”.

It also said the officer who shot the man in the head “using an anti-riot shotgun” had been arrested.

The government had been eager to avoid unrest this year, with its latest finance bill avoiding the tax rises that led to weeks of protests in June and July 2024.

But people have taken to the streets over the death of 31-year-old teacher Albert Ojwang in police custody earlier this month.

Protesters are demanding the resignation of a senior officer they blame for the death.

Last year’s protests peaked when thousands stormed Parliament on 25 June, where MPs were debating the unpopular finance bill.

Rights groups say at least 60 people were killed during the protests in June and July 2024, and dozens more were illegally detained by security forces in the aftermath.

Israel has unleashed air attacks across Iran for a third day and threatened even greater attacks, while some Iranian missiles have evaded Israeli air defences to strike buildings in the heart of the country.

The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel’s surprise bombardment of Iran’s nuclear and military sites on Friday killed top generals and nuclear scientists, and neither side has showed any sign of backing down since.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that if the Israeli strikes on Iran stop, then “our responses will also stop”.

Araghchi said Israel had targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in the country’s Bushehr province on the Gulf. He said Iran’s retaliatory strikes also targeted “economic” sites in Israel, without elaborating.

The conflict has raised prospects of a broader assault on Iran’s heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets.

United States President Donald Trump has expressed full support for Israel’s actions while warning Iran that it can avoid further destruction only by agreeing to a new nuclear deal. But talks scheduled on Sunday in Oman were called off, with Tehran calling the dialogue “meaningless”.

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks have killed at least 80 people and wounded 800 others in Iran over the past two days, including 20 children. In Israel, at least 10 people were killed in overnight strikes by Iran, bringing the country’s total death toll to 13.

Israel’s main international airport and airspace remained closed for a third day.

Iran has struck Israel with barrages of missiles, a day after an Israeli onslaught against its nuclear and military facilities killed top generals and scientists.

Iranian missiles have targeted sites across Israel, killing at least three people and injuring dozens, in retaliation for continuing Israeli attacks on Iran.

Iran called on its citizens to unite in defence of the country as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged them to rise up against their government.

Air raid sirens and explosions rang out across Israel through the night, with many residents holed up in bomb shelters until home defence commanders stood down alerts.

Israel said dozens of missiles – some intercepted – had been fired in the latest salvoes from Iran, with images of the city of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv showing blown-out buildings, destroyed vehicles and streets strewn with debris.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said they attacked dozens of targets in Israel.

Iran’s missile barrages came in response to intense Israeli strikes on Friday that killed several top Iranian generals and most of the senior leadership of the Revolutionary Guards’ air arm.

An Air India passenger plane bound for London with more than 240 people on board has crashed in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad, the airline says.

Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff on Thursday, and an adjacent multistorey building.

The airline said the Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Of those, Air India said, there were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.

Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, told The Associated Press news agency that Air India Flight 171 crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38pm (08:08 GMT). He said 244 people were on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the discrepancy with Air India’s numbers.

All efforts were being made to ensure medical aid and relief support at the site, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu posted on X.

The 787 Dreamliner is a wide-body, twin-engine plane. This is the first crash ever of the aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

Boeing said it was aware of the reports of the crash and was “working to gather more information”.

The last major passenger plane crash in India was in 2020 when an Air India Express Boeing 737 skidded off a hilltop runway in southern India, killing 21 people.

The deadliest air disaster in India was on November 12, 1996, when a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight collided midair with a Kazakhstan Airlines flight near Charki Dadri in Haryana state, killing all 349 people on board the two planes.

An additional 2,000 National Guard soldiers, along with 700 Marines, have headed to Los Angeles on orders from United States President Donald Trump, escalating a military presence local officials and California Governor Gavin Newsom do not want, and which the city’s police chief says creates logistical challenges for safely handling protests.

An initial deployment of 2,000 National Guard personnel ordered by Trump started arriving on Sunday, as violence erupted during protests driven by an accelerated enforcement of immigration laws that critics say are breaking apart families.

Monday’s demonstrations were less raucous. Thousands peacefully attended a rally at City Hall, hundreds protested outside a federal complex that includes a detention centre where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids across the city.

Los Angeles Police Department chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement he was confident in LAPD’s ability to handle large-scale demonstrations, and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with police would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge” for them.

Newsom called the deployments reckless and “disrespectful to our troops” in a post on the social media platform X.

“This isn’t about public safety. It’s about stroking a dangerous President’s ego.”

The protests began on Friday in downtown Los Angeles after federal immigration authorities arrested more than 40 people across the city.

In a directive on Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority” of the US government.

The smell of smoke hung in the air on Monday, one day after crowds blocked a major motorway and set self-driving cars on fire, and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs.

Additional protests against immigration raids continued into the evening on Monday in several other cities, including San Francisco and Santa Ana in California and Dallas and Austin in Texas.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a post on X that more than a dozen protesters were arrested, while in Santa Ana, a police spokesperson said the National Guard had arrived in the city to secure federal buildings.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit over the use of National Guard troops following the first deployment, telling reporters in his announcement on Monday that Trump had “trampled” the state’s sovereignty.

Trump said Los Angeles would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the National Guard.

US officials said the Marines were being deployed to protect federal property and personnel, including immigration agents.

Several dozen protesters were arrested over the weekend. Authorities say one person was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police and another for ramming a motorbike into a line of officers.

The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice.

As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat – the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century.

The painstaking work of “footing turf”, as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell.

But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland’s biggest sources of planet-warming gas emissions.

As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc’s environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Smyth and others criticise as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality.

“The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf … They don’t know what it’s like to live in rural Ireland,” Smyth said.

He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people who, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland.

“That’s what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them.”

When the peat has dried, Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home.

Turf, Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels “extravagant fuels”, such as gas or electricity.

The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland’s utility regulator, the 800 euros ($906) Smyth pays for turf for a year.

Smyth, nevertheless, acknowledges that digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive.

“They don’t want to go to the bog. I don’t blame them,” Smyth said.

Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs.

In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses.

In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel.

By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands.

Ireland has lost more than 70 percent of its blanket bog and over 80 percent of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively.

Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats.

As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy.

In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned.

An exception was made, however, for “turbary rights”, allowing people to dig turf for their personal use.

Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country.

The agency also said 350,000 tonnes of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published.

The European Commission, which lists more than 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites.

The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland’s fiscal watchdog and climate groups.

Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland’s transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tonnes in 2023, government statistics show.

The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80 percent of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011.

It has tasked Bord na Mona with “rewetting” the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks.

So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored approximately 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) of its 80,000-hectare target.

Thousands of protesters have clashed with authorities as they took to the streets of Los Angeles for a third night in response to United States President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard.

Sunday’s protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of 4 million people, were centred in several blocks of the city centre. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of about 300 National Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents.

The troops were deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the Metropolitan Detention Center where protesters concentrated.

The crowds blocked a major highway and set fire to self-driving cars. The authorities used tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs.

Governor Gavin Newsom requested Trump remove the National Guard in a letter, calling their deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty”.

It was the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.

The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests, which began on Friday in central Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city to the south, and neighbouring Compton.

Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA’s fashion district, in a Home Depot car park and at several other locations on Friday.

The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.

The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested whilst protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement.

The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have marched through the streets of the Italian capital, Rome, against the war in Gaza in a protest called by Italy’s main opposition parties, who accuse the right-wing government of being too silent.

At the start of Saturday’s march, protesters held a banner, reading: “Stop the massacre, stop complicity!”

The protest attracted a diverse crowd from across the country, including many families with children.

According to organisers, up to 300,000 people participated in the rally organised by the left-wing opposition to ask the government for a clear position on the conflict in Gaza.

“This is an enormous popular response to say enough to the massacre of Palestinians and the crimes of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government,” the leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, told reporters at the march.

“There is another Italy that doesn’t remain silent as the Meloni government does,” she said, referring to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Meloni was recently pushed by the opposition to publicly condemn Netanyahu’s offensive in Gaza, but many observers considered her criticism too timid.

Earlier this week, the Italian leader urged Israel to immediately halt its military campaign in Gaza, saying its attacks had grown disproportionately and should be brought to an end to protect civilians.

Israel faces mounting international criticism for its offensive and pressure to let aid into Gaza during a humanitarian crisis.

Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, with experts warning that many of its two million residents are at high risk of famine.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 54,772 Palestinians and wounded 125,834, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Mastering control of the ever rising and falling rattan chinlone ball instils patience, a veteran of Myanmar’s traditional sport says.

“Once you get into playing the game, you forget everything,” 74-year-old Win Tint says.

“You concentrate only on your touch, and you concentrate only on your style.”

Chinlone, Myanmar’s national game, traces its roots back centuries. Described as a fusion of sport and art, it is often accompanied by music and typically sees men and women playing in distinct ways.

Teams of men form a circle, passing the ball among themselves using stylised movements of their feet, knees and heads in a game of “keepy-uppy” with a scoring system that remains inscrutable to outsiders.

Women, meanwhile, play solo in a fashion reminiscent of circus acts – kicking the ball tens of thousands of times per session while walking tightropes, spinning umbrellas and balancing on chairs placed atop beer bottles.

Participation has declined in recent years with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the 2021 military coup and subsequent civil conflict.

Poverty is on the rise, and artisans face mounting challenges in sourcing materials to craft the balls.

Variants of the hands-free sport, colloquially known as caneball, are played widely across Southeast Asia.

In Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, participants use their feet and heads to send the ball over a net in the volleyball-style game “sepak takraw”.

In Laos, it is known as “kataw” while Filipinos play “sipa”, meaning kick.

In China, it is common to see people kicking weighted shuttlecocks in parks.

Myanmar’s version is believed to date back 1,500 years.

Evidence for its longevity is seen in a French archaeologist’s discovery of a replica silver chinlone ball at a pagoda built during the Pyu era, which stretched from 200 BC to 900 AD.

Originally, the sport was played as a casual pastime, a form of exercise and for royal amusement.

In 1953, however, the game was codified with formal rules and a scoring system, part of efforts to define Myanmar’s national culture after independence from Britain.

“No one else will preserve Myanmar’s traditional heritage unless the Myanmar people do it,” player Min Naing, 42, says.

Despite ongoing conflict, players continue to congregate beneath motorway flyovers, around street lamps dimmed by wartime blackouts and on purpose-made chinlone courts – often open-sided metal sheds with concrete floors.

“I worry about this sport disappearing,” master chinlone ball maker Pe Thein says while labouring in a sweltering workshop in Hinthada, 110km (68 miles) northwest of Yangon.

“That’s the reason we are passing it on through our handiwork.”

Seated cross-legged, men shave cane into strips, curve them with a hand crank and deftly weave them into melon-sized balls with pentagonal holes before boiling them in vats of water to enhance their durability.

“We check our chinlone’s quality as if we’re checking diamonds or gemstones,” the 64-year-old Pe Thein says.

“As we respect the chinlone, it respects us back.”

Each ball takes about two hours to produce and brings business-owner Maung Kaw $2.40.

But supplies of the premium rattan he seeks from Rakhine state in western Myanmar are becoming scarce.

Fierce fighting between military forces and opposition groups that now control nearly all of the state has made supplies precarious.

Farmers are too frightened to venture into the jungle battlegrounds to cut cane, Maung Kaw says, which jeopardises his livelihood.

Hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is a religious obligation involving rituals and acts of worship that every Muslim must fulfil if they have the financial means and are physically able to do so.

More than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims have arrived in Saudi Arabia for this year’s Hajj, according to a government spokesperson on Wednesday. Hajj Ministry spokesperson Ghassan al-Nuwaimi provided an approximate number for foreigners at this year’s pilgrimage, though he did not specify how many domestic pilgrims were participating. Last year, there were 1,611,310 pilgrims from outside the country.

On Wednesday, worshippers streamed into Arafat, with some undertaking the journey on foot and carrying their luggage in temperatures nudging 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

According to traditional sayings of the prophet, the Day of Arafat is the most sacred day of the year, when God draws near to the faithful and forgives their sins.

Mount Arafat, a rocky hill southeast of Mecca, holds immense significance in Islam. Arafat is mentioned in the Quran and it is where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have given his last sermon on his final Hajj.

Pilgrims remain in Arafat, in prayer and reflection, from after midnight until after sunset.

After sunset, they will head to Muzdalifah, halfway between Arafat and the sprawling tent city of Mina, where they will gather pebbles so they can perform the symbolic “stoning of the devil”.

Saudi Arabia has spent millions of dollars on crowd control and safety measures, but the sheer volume of participants continues to pose challenges. In recent years, one of the greatest difficulties has been the high temperatures.

Earlier this week, Health Minister Fahad bin Abdulrahman Al-Jalajel stated, “10,000 trees have been planted to provide more shade, there is increased hospital bed capacity, and the number of paramedics has tripled.”

Authorities have urged pilgrims to remain inside their tents between 10am (07:00 GMT) and 4pm (13:00 GMT) on Thursday when the desert sun is at its harshest. To combat the heat, fans spraying mist and providing cool air have been placed at the foot of the mount.

Iraqi authorities have opened an investigation into a mass die-off of fish in the country’s central and southern marshlands, the latest in a series of such incidents in recent years.

One possible cause for the devastation is a shortage of oxygen, triggered by low water flow, increased evaporation and rising temperatures driven by climate change, according to officials and environmental activists. Another is the use of chemicals by fishermen.

“We have received several citizens’ complaints,” said Jamal Abd Zeid, chief environmental officer for the Najaf governorate, which stretches from central to southern Iraq, adding that a technical inspection team had been set up.

He explained that the team would look into water shortages, electrical fishing, and the use by fishermen of “poisons”.

For at least five years, Iraq has endured successive droughts linked to climate change. Authorities further attribute the severe decline in river flow to the construction of dams by neighbouring Iran and Turkiye.

The destruction of Iraq’s natural environment adds another layer of suffering to a country that has already faced decades of war and political oppression.

“We need lab tests to determine the exact cause” of the fish die-off, said environmental activist Jassim al-Assadi, who suggested that agricultural pesticides could also be responsible.

Investigations into similar incidents have shown that the use of poison in fishing can lead to mass deaths.

“It is dangerous for public health, as well as for the food chain,” al-Assadi said. “Using poison today, then again in a month or two … It’s going to accumulate.”

In the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, escaping the war with Russia is nearly impossible.

On certain days, when the wind shifts, residents of this historic city can hear the distant rumble of artillery fire from the front line, some 30km (18.5 miles) away.

Most nights, Russian kamikaze drones packed with explosives buzz overhead as parents put their children to bed.

Three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the unrelenting war exerts a heavy psychological burden on many in Kharkiv. Yet, there is a place in the city where, for a few fleeting hours, the war seems to vanish.

Beneath the Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, in a dim, brick-walled basement, a dance company has established a refuge from drones and bombs – a space where audiences can lose themselves in performances of classic ballets.

In April, this underground venue hosted performances of Chopiniana, an early 20th-century ballet set to the music of Frederic Chopin. Despite the improvised setting, the ballet was staged with full classical grandeur, complete with corps de ballet and orchestra.

It marked a significant milestone for Kharkiv’s cultural life: the first complete classical ballet performance in the city since February 2022, when Russian troops launched their invasion of Ukraine.

“In spite of everything – the fact that bombs are flying, drones, and everything else – we can give a gift of something wonderful to people,” said Antonina Radiievska, artistic director of Opera East, the ballet company behind the production.

“They can come and, even if it’s just for an hour or two, completely immerse themselves in a different world.”

Despite Ukraine’s rich tradition in classical ballet, the art form now seems far removed from the everyday existence of Ukrainians living through war. Daily routines revolve around monitoring apps for drone alerts, sleeping on metro station floors to escape air raids, or seeking news of loved ones on the front line. Pirouettes, pas de deux and chiffon tutus feel worlds away.

Nevertheless, the journey of Kharkiv’s ballet through wartime reflects the ways in which Ukrainian society has adapted and evolved.

On February 23, 2022, the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre staged a performance of the ballet Giselle. The next day, Russia launched its full-scale invasion. As Moscow’s forces advanced towards Kharkiv and threatened to seize the city, the theatre closed its doors and much of the ballet troupe departed.

Some regrouped in Slovakia and Lithuania, mounting ballet productions abroad with assistance from European sponsors.

By 2023, although the conflict ground on, the situation in Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, had stabilised after Russian ground troops withdrew. A new realisation took hold – this was a long-term reality. Locals began referring to the city, and themselves, with the Ukrainian word “nezlamniy”, meaning invincible.

That year, work began on transforming the theatre’s basement into a performance venue. By October 2023, it was being used for rehearsals. The following spring, authorities permitted the theatre to admit audiences, and small-scale ballet performances, including children’s concerts, resumed.

The revival of Chopiniana marked the next chapter in Kharkiv’s wartime cultural journey.

Staging a classical opera again signals that Ukraine endures, says Igor Tuluzov, director-general of Opera East. “We are demonstrating to the world that we really are a self-sufficient state, independent, in all its aspects, including cultural independence,” he said.

The auditorium now seats 400 people on stackable chairs, compared with the 1,750 seats in the main theatre above, where the plush mustard seats remain empty.

The stage is a quarter the size of the main one. Grey-painted bricks, concrete floors, and exposed pipes and wiring form a stark contrast to the varnished hardwood and marble of the theatre above. The basement’s acoustics, performers say, fall short of the cavernous main auditorium.

For artistic director Radiievska, however, the most important thing is that, after a long pause, she and her troupe can once again perform for a live audience.

“It means, you know, life,” she said. “An artist cannot exist without the stage, without creativity, without dance or song. It’s like a rebirth.”

Thousands of right-wing Israelis have marched through occupied East Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 following the Six-Day War.

They made their way through Palestinian neighbourhoods, chanting “death to Arabs” and anti-Islamic slogans.

Police forces were dispatched in advance, as the settlers regularly assault and harass Palestinians in the Muslim quarter.

Right-wing Israelis also stormed the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.

Last year’s procession, held during the first year of the Gaza war, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians. Four years ago, the march contributed to the outbreak of an 11-day war in Gaza.

Claude fears he may soon die – either from starvation or violence – as he waits at a food distribution tent in a refugee camp in Burundi.

He is among thousands of Congolese refugees trapped between a brutal conflict across the border and severe reductions in international food assistance.

A former bouncer from Uvira, a town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Claude fled after violence erupted in the east, sparked by the rapid advance of the Rwanda-backed M23 group.

Armed groups “were shooting, killing each other, … raping women,” recalled the 25-year-old, who escaped across the border into Burundi in February.

In the overcrowded Musenyi camp, Claude now faces a different struggle as food rations dwindle.

Hunger has fuelled new tensions within the camp, prompting Claude to join volunteers who patrol the area to prevent theft of what supplies remain.

“When I arrived here, I was given 3.5kg [7.7lb] of rice per month. Now it’s a kilo [2.2lb]. The 3kg [6.6lb] of peas have dropped to 1.8kg [4lb]. What I get in tomato sauce lasts one day. Then it’s over,” said Claude, whose name has been changed for security reasons, as have the names of other refugees interviewed.

Some of the most desperate resort to slashing neighbours’ tents in search of food, he added, while gangs “spread terror”.

“The reduction of assistance will lead to many crimes,” he warned.

Oscar Niyibizi, the camp’s deputy administrator, described the cut in food rations as a “major challenge” that could “cause security disruption”.

He urges refugees to cultivate land nearby but said external support remains desperately needed.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump slashed its aid budget by 80 percent, and other Western nations have also reduced donations. As a result, many NGOs and United Nations agencies have been forced to close or significantly scale back their programmes.

These cutbacks have come at a “very bad time” as fighting escalates in the DRC, according to Geoffrey Kirenga, head of mission for Save the Children in Burundi.

Burundi, one of the world’s poorest countries, has received more than 71,000 Congolese refugees since January while still hosting thousands from previous conflicts.

Established last year to accommodate 10,000 people, the Musenyi camp’s population is now nearly twice that number.

In addition to food shortages, the reduction in aid has led NGOs to discontinue support services for survivors of sexual violence, who are numerous in the camp, Kirenga said.

His gravest concern is that “deaths from hunger” may become inevitable.

The World Food Programme has halved rations since March and warned that without renewed US funding, all assistance could end by November.

According to the UN, hundreds of Congolese refugees are compelled to risk returning across the border in search of food.

Bulls are yoked together by thick wooden frames in a sun-scorched field in rural Pakistan. Behind them, clutching nothing more than ropes – and his pride – stands a man perched on a plank.

Hundreds of spectators whoop and cheer as the animals thunder down a track, kicking up clouds of dust and a tangible sense of danger.

This is bull racing, Punjabi style.

The traditional sport encapsulates the raw vibrancy of village life and stands in stark contrast to the floodlit cricket and hockey stadiums of Pakistan’s cities.

In the Attock district of the eastern province of Punjab, bull racing runs deep. Here, it is more than a pastime. It forms part of the region’s living heritage.

In the village of Malal, a key hub for the sport, crowds gather annually to witness the spectacle. Jockeys crouch low behind the bulls on their wooden planks, gripping the reins and relying upon experience and instinct to claim victory.

Yet chaos is never far away. It is not uncommon for bulls to unseat the jockeys, sending them tumbling through the dust.

“This isn’t just entertainment. It’s tradition,” said Sardar Haseeb, whose family has organised races for generations. “We take pride in our animals. Farmers and landowners raise their bulls year-round just for this moment. People are willing to pay high prices for a winning bull. It becomes a symbol of pride.”

The event has a festive air with dancing and showers of banknotes tossed into the sky – a celebratory gesture more usually associated with weddings.

The aroma of freshly fried sweets wafts from sizzling pans, enticing the crowds. Stallholders serve roasted chickpeas and other delicacies. The bustling scene generates income for local vendors, who benefit from the celebration of culture.

At the most recent event put on by Haseeb, more than 100 bulls competed, and participants came from across Pakistan to take part.

Among the competitors was farmer Muhammad Ramzan.

“My bull came in fifth place, and I’m thrilled,” he said. “It left 95 others behind.”

A small town in western France has set a new world record for the largest gathering of people dressed as Smurfs, organisers say, with more than 3,000 participants counted over the weekend.

Landerneau, a town of 16,000 in Brittany’s far west, had twice previously attempted to claim the record from Lauchringen, a German town that brought together 2,762 Smurfs in 2019.

But on Saturday, the French enthusiasts finally broke through, assembling 3,076 people clad in blue outfits, faces painted, donning white hats and singing “smurfy songs”.

The Smurfs – created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo in 1958 and known as “Schtroumpfs” in French – are tiny, human-like beings who live in the forest.

The beloved characters have since become a global franchise, spawning films, television series, advertising, video games, theme parks and toys.

“A friend encouraged me to join and I thought: ‘Why not?’” said Simone Pronost, 82, dressed as a Smurfette.

Albane Delariviere, a 20-year-old student, made the journey from Rennes, more than 200km (125 miles) away, to join the festivities.

“We thought it was a cool idea to help Landerneau out,” she said.

Landerneau’s mayor, Patrick Leclerc, also in full Smurf attire, said the event “brings people together and gives them something else to think about than the times we’re living in”.

Pascal Soun, head of the association behind the gathering, said the event “allows people to have fun and enter an imaginary world for a few hours”.

Participants were relieved to have good weather, after last year’s attempt was hampered by heavy rain that deterred many from attending.

Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters have marched through The Hague to call on the Netherlands government to do more to halt Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.

Organisers said it was the country’s biggest demonstration in two decades as rally participants pressed the Dutch government on Sunday to take action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The crowd that gathered outside the government seat was estimated to number more than 100,000 people, according to the organisers. Police did not give an estimate.

“Sometimes I’m ashamed of the government because it doesn’t want to set any limits,” said 59-year-old teacher Jolanda Nio.

“We are calling on the Dutch government: stop political, economic and military support to Israel as long as it blocks access to aid supplies and while it is guilty of genocide, war crimes and structural human rights violations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories,” said Marjon Rozema of Amnesty International.

Israel’s army announced “extensive ground operations” on Sunday as part of its newly expanded campaign in the Gaza Strip. Rescuers reported dozens killed in a wave of Israeli attacks.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 53,339 people and wounded 121,034, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

The enclave’s Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and about 250 were taken captive.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague is hearing a case brought by South Africa, arguing that the Gaza war breached the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, an accusation Israel has strongly denied.

Tens of thousands of people have rallied across the world in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and to mark the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Jewish militias, remembered as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

The Nakba resulted in the permanent mass displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948. Activists say that history is repeating itself today in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

In Stockholm, thousands assembled at Odenplan Square, responding to calls from various civil society organisations to protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Participants waved Palestinian flags, displayed photographs of children killed, and carried banners stating: “Stop the Zionist regime’s genocide in Palestine”.

Many demonstrators bore placards listing the names of civilians killed in Gaza, seeking to highlight the ongoing massacre.

Meanwhile, in London, United Kingdom, hundreds of thousands marched towards Downing Street, demanding an end to what they described as Israel’s genocide in Gaza, 77 years on from the Nakba. Protesters, some dressed in keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags, chanted slogans such as “Stop the genocide in Gaza”, “Free Palestine”, and “Israel is a terror state”.

The demonstrators denounced the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, accusing it of deliberately starving more than two million Palestinians, and criticised the UK government for its political and military backing of Israel, alleging complicity in the humanitarian crisis.

In Berlin, Germany, people gathered at Potsdamer Platz to protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and held signs reading: “Your silence is complicity” and “You cannot kill us all”. Women in traditional dress carrying Nakba-themed visuals were also present.

The event took place amid heavy security measures, with at least three people reportedly detained.

A solidarity march was held in Athens, Greece, where protesters, adorned in keffiyehs and carrying Palestinian flags, marched first to the embassies of the United States and Israel.

Protests have erupted after hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the past few days as Israel intensified its attacks, with the announcement of a new ground offensive.

Globally, May 15 was observed as the 77th anniversary of the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes following the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The Israeli military has killed 53,272 Palestinians and injured 120,673 since it launched an offensive on October 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, noting that thousands still missing beneath the rubble are presumed dead.