Russia's meat grinder soldiers - 50,000 confirmed dead
By Olga Ivshina, Becky Dale & Kirstie Brewer, BBC Russian
Russia's military death toll in Ukraine has now passed the 50,000 mark, the BBC can confirm.
In the second 12 months on the front line - as Moscow pushed its so-called meat grinder strategy - we found the body count was nearly 25% higher than in the first year.
BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022.
New graves in cemeteries helped provide the names of many soldiers.
Our teams also combed through open-source information from official reports, newspapers and social media.
Climate crisis: average world incomes to drop by nearly a fifth by 2050
The cost of environmental damage will be six times higher than the price of limiting global heating to 2C, study finds
Average incomes will fall by almost a fifth within the next 26 years as a result of the climate crisis, according to a new study that shows the costs of damage are six times higher than the price of limiting global heating to 2C.
Rising temperatures, heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense extreme weather are projected to cause $38tn (£30tn) of destruction each year by mid-century, shows the research published in the journal Nature, which is the most comprehensive analysis of its type ever undertaken.
The hefty toll – which is far higher than previous estimates – is already locked into the world economy over the coming decades as a result of the enormous emissions that have been pumped into the Earth’s atmosphere through the burning of gas, oil, coal and trees.
Germany busts people-smuggling ring for Chinese nationals
German police have arrested 10 people in an operation to combat people smuggling across eight states. The suspects are believed to have illegally procured clients residency permits in exchange for large sums of money.
Ten people, including two lawyers, were arrested in Germany on Wednesday amid a large-scale police operation targeting a people-smuggling ring suspected of fraudulently obtaining residency for some 350 mostly Chinese nationals, police said.
More than 1,000 officers from the German federal police and other law enforcement agencies searched a total of 101 residential and business premises during the operation, which spanned eight of Germany's 16 states.
The operation was overseen by the federal criminal police department in the western city of Cologne.
Russian athletes in limbo as Moscow weighs 'neutral' label at Paris Olympics
With 100 days to go until the Paris Olympics, it’s still not clear whether any athletes from Russia who are expected to qualify will actually go.
The question is whether Moscow will accept the conditions that the International Olympic Committee set for Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Ultimately, it could be up to individual athletes to decide whether to participate.
The IOC expects that 36 Russian athletes – and possibly as many as 54 – will do well enough at qualifying events to compete in Paris.
The IOC will let them compete as “neutral athletes,” meaning they can't use their country's flag or anthem or participate in team sports such as soccer and basketball. Athletes with links to the military or who have expressed support for the war will be banned.
Pakistan says it blocked social media platform X over ‘national security’
The platform remained inaccessible to users, but government officials refused to acknowledge any restrictions, until now.
Pakistan blocked access to social media platform X around the time of elections in February, the interior ministry said, citing national security concerns.
Users had reported problems using the platform, formerly known as Twitter, since mid-February, when jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party called for protests against a government official’s admission of vote manipulation.
At the time, both the government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the state regulatory body, refused to comment on the outages that were also widely reported by internet watchdog groups.
Snake on a bullet train causes rare railway delay in Japan
Almost nothing stops Japan’s famous high-speed bullet trains from running exactly on time – but a tiny snake slithering through a passenger carriage will do the trick, albeit for just 17 minutes.
On Tuesday, a commuter reported to station staff in Tokyo that a 40-centimeter (16-inch) snake had been spotted in the carriage of a train arriving from Nagoya, according to the Central Japan Railway Company.
The train had been scheduled to depart for the city of Osaka, but was instead put out of service as a precaution. Another train had to be assigned to the route, causing a delay that, while brief by many other national railway standards, was relatively significant for Japan’s relentlessly punctual service.
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