I'm in one of the world's volcanic hotspots, northeast Iceland, near the Krafla volcano.
A short distance away I can see the rim of the volcano's crater lake, while to the south steam vents and mud pools bubble away.
Krafla has erupted around 30 times in the last 1,000 years, and most recently in the mid-1980s.
Bjorn Por Guðmundsson leads me to a grassy hillside. He is running a team of international scientists who plan to drill into Krafla's magma.
“We’re standing on the spot where we are going to drill,” he says.
The Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) intends to advance the understanding of how magma, or molten rock, behaves underground.
That knowledge could help scientists forecast the risk of eruptions and push geothermal energy to new frontiers, by tapping into an extremely hot and potentially limitless source of volcano power.Starting in 2026 the KMT team will begin drilling the first of two boreholes to create a unique underground magma observatory, around 2.1km (1.3 miles) under the ground.
“It's like our moonshot. It's going to transform a lot of things,” says Yan Lavelle, a professor of vulcanology at the Ludvigs-Maximllian University in Munich, and who heads KMT’s science committee.
Volcanic activity is usually monitored by tools like seismometers. But unlike lava on the surface, we don’t know very much about the magma below ground, explains Prof Lavelle.
“We'd like to instrument the magma so we can really listen to the pulse of the earth,” he adds.
Pressure and temperature sensors will be placed into the molten rock. “These are the two key parameters we need to probe, to be able to tell ahead of time what's happening to the magma," he says.
Around the world an estimated 800 million people live within 100km of hazardous active volcanoes. The researchers hope their work can help save lives and money.
Iceland has 33 active volcano systems, and sits on the rift where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates pull apart.
Most recently, a wave of eight eruptions in the Reykanes peninsula has damaged infrastructure and upended lives in the community of Grindavik.
Mr Guðmundsson also points to Eyjafjallajökull, which caused havoc in 2010 when an ash cloud caused over 100,000 flight cancellations, costing £3bn ($3.95bn).
“If we’d been better able to predict that eruption, it could have saved a lot of money,” he says.KMT’s second borehole will develop a test-bed for a new generation of geothermal power stations, which exploit magma's extreme temperature.
“Magma are extremely energetic. They are the heat source that power the hydrothermal systems that leads to geothermal energy. Why not go to the source?” asks Prof Lavelle.
Some 65% of Iceland’s electricity and 85% of household heating, comes from geothermal, which taps hot fluids deep underground, as a source of heat to drive turbines and generate electricity.
In the valley below, the Krafla power plant supplies hot water and electricity to about 30,000 homes.
“The plan is to drill just short of the magma itself, possibly poke it a little bit,” says Bjarni Pálsson with a wry smile.
"The geothermal resource is located just above the magma body, and we believe that is around 500-600C,” says Mr Pálsson, the executive director of geothermal development at national power provider, Landsvirkjun.
Magma is very hard to locate underground, but in 2009 Icelandic engineers made a chance discovery.
They had planned to make a 4.5km deep borehole and extract extremely hot fluids, but the drill abruptly stopped as it intercepted surprisingly shallow magma.
“We were absolutely not expecting to hit magma at only 2.1km depth,” says Mr Pálsson.
Encountering magma is rare and has only happened here, Kenya and Hawaii.
Superheated steam measuring a recording-breaking 452°C shot up, while the chamber was an estimated 900°C.
Dramatic video shows billowing smoke and steam. Acute heat and corrosion eventually destroyed the well.
“This well produced about 10 times more [energy] than the average well in this location,” says Mr Pálsson.
Just two of these could supply the same energy as the power plant’s 22 wells, he notes. “There is an obvious game changer.”More than 600 geothermal power plants are found worldwide, and hundreds more are planned, amid growing demand for round-the-clock low carbon energy. These wells are typically around 2.5km deep, and handle temperatures below 350°C.
Private companies and research teams in several countries are also working towards more advanced and ultra-deep geothermal, called super-hot rock, where temperatures exceed 400°C at depths of 5 to 15km.
Reaching deeper and much hotter, heat reserves is the "Holy Grail", says Rosalind Archer, the dean of Griffith University, and former director of the Geothermal Institute in New Zealand.
It’s the higher energy density that’s so promising, she explains, as each borehole can produce five to 10 times more power than standard geothermal wells.
“You've got New Zealand, Japan and Mexico all looking, but KMT is the closest one to getting drill bit in the ground,” she says. “It's not easy and it's not necessarily cheap to get started.”Drilling into this extreme environment will be technically challenging, and requires special materials.
Prof Lavelle is confident it’s possible. Extreme temperatures are also found in jet engines, metallurgy and the nuclear industry, he says.
“We have to explore new materials and more corrosion resistant alloys,” says Sigrun Nanna Karlsdottir, a professor of industrial and mechanical engineering at the University of Iceland.
Inside a lab, her team of researchers are testing materials to withstand extreme heat, pressure and corrosive gases. Geothermal wells are usually constructed with carbon steel, she explains, but that quickly loses strength when temperatures exceed 200°C.
“We’re focusing on high grade nickel alloys and also titanium alloys,” she says.
Drilling into volcanic magma sounds potentially risky, but Mr Guðmundsson thinks otherwise.
“We don’t believe that sticking a needle into a huge magma chamber is going to create an explosive effect,” he asserts.
“This happened in 2009, and they found out that they’d probably done this before without even knowing it. We believe it’s safe.”
Other risks also need to be considered when drilling into the earth like toxic gases and causing earthquakes, says Prof Archer. “But the geological environment in Iceland makes that very unlikely.”
The work will take years, but could bring advanced forecasting and supercharged volcano power.
“I think the whole geothermal world are watching the KMT project,” says Prof Archer. “It is potentially quite transformative.”
Winston Churchill's aristocratic daughter-in-law and confidante Pamela Harriman is considered "the greatest courtesan of her era". Decades after her death, she still divides opinion – was she a smart power player, or "shameless" and "repellent"?
You could call her by her six names: Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman – a British aristocrat who ended up a Washington power player and the US ambassador to France, having touched many famous lives in 20th-Century politics and culture. When she was just 20, her father-in-law Winston Churchill engaged her as "his most willing and committed secret weapon" (as a new biography puts it) and during World War Two she wined, dined and seduced important Americans, winning them over to the British cause against the Nazis. And later, her impact extended further, as she interacted with public figures including the Kennedys, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Truman Capote – who eventually satirised her in his fiction, alongside his other "swans". More than 27 years have passed since Pamela Harriman suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage while swimming in the pool at Paris's Ritz Hotel, yet she remains a divisive character, as evidenced by the varied reactions to Sonia Purnell's new biography, Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue. To some, the book reads as an appreciation of an influential life lived boldly, cannily and ambitiously in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, and the US. Others find it unduly praising of a woman who used sex to advance herself and whose political impact, they say, is overstated.
Born to a cash-strapped baron in 1920, and bred to "marry well", Pamela failed to find a husband during her first London "season" in 1938. Nancy Mitford, the most sharp-tongued of the famous Mitford sisters, described the teenage Pam as a "red-headed bouncing little thing". The following year, Randolph Churchill, only son of the famous Winston, telephoned her to ask for a date. Convinced he'd be killed in the war which had just been declared, Randolph was anxious to have a son. Over dinner with Pamela, he came quickly to the point. Purnell writes: "He didn't love her... but she looked healthy enough to bear his child." Pamela, eager to escape a deathly-dull life with her parents in deepest Dorset, took the deal.Her gamble paid off, although not in conjugal bliss. Randolph, a drunk and a troublemaker, treated her contemptuously before and after she gave birth to baby Winston. But once her father-in-law became prime minister in May 1940, Pamela landed in the room where everything happened. "Nobody ever had a chance to see politics as much from the inside as I did," she said later.
Britain at that time stood alone against the Nazi war machine, and Churchill urgently needed transatlantic aid, which was not immediately forthcoming. After the fall of Paris, polling revealed that the US electorate was even less keen than before to join the Allied cause.Pamela knew the stakes. "If and when America came into the war, then the war would be safe. As long as they weren't in the war, it was precarious," she later recalled. Churchill doted on his cheerful, dewy-skinned daughter-in-law. He negotiated that a winsome portrait of Pamela with her infant son (taken by Cecil Beaton, the royals' favourite photographer) grace the cover of Life, then the US's largest-circulation magazine. He also had his ally Lord Beaverbrook fund a new wardrobe for her. She flattered the first envoy who Roosevelt sent to Britain, Harry Hopkins, who found her "delicious". And when wealthy Averell Harriman came to London in March 1941 to administer the aid program, the lifeline Churchill so desperately needed, Pamela made a point of getting to know him.
After Pamela, then 21, embarked on an affair with the married Harriman, 49, the Prime Minister, eager to learn what Harriman was saying and doing, would debrief Pamela over late-night two-handed card games. Reviewing Kingmaker for The Times, Roger Lewis dismisses the idea that Pamela fed her father-in-law vital intelligence, and describes her as a "a mercenary sex obsessive". Frank Costigliola, professor of history at the University of Connecticut and author of Roosevelt's Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War, tells the BBC: "Pamela was a tremendous asset to Churchill given the importance of information in wartime. To think otherwise is to be ignorant of the history, and smacks of misogyny."Purnell doesn't dispute Harriman's sexual exploits, recalling in Kingmaker how she became known as "the greatest courtesan of her era". Journalist Harrison Salisbury famously recalled that during World War Two in London, "sex hung in the air like a fog". So Pamela was hardly unusual in falling into bed with a new partner, though she was probably an outlier in the frequency with which it happened. The (partial) list of her lovers included Edward R Murrow, the CBS broadcaster ("This is London"), Major General Fred Anderson, commander of the American bombing force, Colonel Jock Whitney, intelligence officer with the OSS, and Murrow's CBS boss Bill Paley, who was on General Dwight D Eisenhower's staff.
What information Pamela passed on to Churchill – or what he requested she tell the powerful Americans with whom she was intimate – remains unknown, but, Purnell writes: "Her pillow talk was reaching the ears of leaders and influencing high-level policy on both sides of the Atlantic." In his review, Lewis brands this as "hyperbole", although it is notable that when Randolph Churchill eventually learned of his wife's adultery with Harriman, he berated his parents for their complicity.
American dream
Divorced after the war, Pamela decamped to Paris, and became part of a cosmopolitan set, having affairs with a roster of rich men, including Prince Aly Khan, Gianni Agnelli and Élie de Rothschild. These paramours financed her luxurious lifestyle, but none would put a ring on her finger. Approaching 40, she convinced Leland Hayward, a successful Broadway and Hollywood producer, to leave his glamorous wife Nancy – nicknamed "Slim" – for her.
Seriously rich, seriously beautiful, and seriously elegant, these society ladies loved Capote, and relied on him as an escort and confidant
Both Pamela Hayward, as she was then called, and Lady Slim Keith – now married to British banker and aristocrat Kenneth Keith – counted among "the intercontinental covey of swans" first described by writer Truman Capote in an October 1959 issue of Harper's Bazaar. Seriously rich, seriously beautiful, and seriously elegant, these society ladies loved Capote, and relied on him as an escort and confidant – until he went public with their secrets.Laurence Leamer, author of Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal and a Swan Song for an Era, upon which the FX TV show Feud: Capote vs the Swans is based, calls Pamela "a black swan", in part because she was a figure of suspicion in her crowd. "He knew she could be shameless, to get and keep a man," Leamer tells the BBC. "But she was also interesting, charming, and she turned out to be a terrific wife."
Hayward's career and health declined precipitously in the decade after he married Pamela, but she remained loyal. Even Brooke Hayward, Pamela's step-daughter, who in her best-selling memoir Haywire accused Pamela of absconding with some family jewellery (along with other misdemeanours) acknowledged this. "Pamela had a great gift: she understood the men she loved. That was where she began and ended; it was the only life she had," Hayward wrote.
After Leland's death, in spring 1971, Pamela's journalist neighbour Lally Weymouth saw that she was "miserable". Her mother, Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, was throwing a party, and Weymouth urged Pamela to attend in her place. There, Pamela encountered Averell Harriman again. He had been widowed the year before, and the two former lovers promptly rekindled their relationship, marrying a few months later. "It became Washington folklore that Pamela had lobbied for the invitation as a ruse to meet Averell," Purnell writes. "As so often, the rumours about Pamela were salacious enough for many not to worry whether they were true."The new Mrs Harriman endured something of a humiliation when Capote's short story La Côte Basque 1965 appeared in Esquire magazine in 1975, with the heartless Lady Ina Coolbirth – a composite figure, elements of whom resembled Harriman – at its centre. But during the final two decades of her life, Pamela became a power player in Washington. Backed by the Harriman millions, she began funding and championing candidates of the Democratic party after Republican Ronald Reagan won a landslide presidential election in 1980. Among her favourites: two future presidents, Joe Biden, then a senator from Delaware, and Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas.
This robust third act culminated in her appointment as ambassador to France by a grateful Clinton. And while a faithful and attentive wife to the ageing Harriman, Pamela was still labelled by Ben Bradlee, longtime editor of The Washington Post, as someone whose politics were "between her legs", writes Purnell in her book. Thomas Mallon, a historical novelist and essayist, reviewing Kingmaker for The Washington Post, wrote that the book did not "cope with the peculiar deadness inside such an apparently vital subject, one whose remorseless, mechanical nature still renders her, even at this long remove, more repellent than fascinating".
Purnell feels her book's sometimes hostile reception has meant her experiencing "a tiny fraction of what Pamela went through", she tells the . And after reading her papers and letters, now kept at the Library of Congress, Purnell came to like her subject more and more.Perhaps Pamela's life is a kind of Rorschach test. How does the enduring double standard strike you? As Leamer points out: "It's still true: If you sleep with a lot of people and you're a woman you're a 'slut', but if you're a man you're a 'stud'." And on what terms should you judge a woman from another era? Pamela was clearly attracted to power from an early age and, meagerly educated as she was, there was little opportunity then to pursue it on her own.
Pamela's own self-assessment is revealing. Speaking to Michael Gross in New York Magazine in 1992, and later quoted in The New York Times, she said: "Basically, I'm a backroom girl. I've always said this and I've always believed it. I prefer to push and shove other people. I don't really like to be put forward myself. I was very happy to be the wife of the two husbands I loved."
Children as young as 10 can soon be jailed once again in Australia's Northern Territory (NT), after the government there lowered the age of criminal responsibility.
Australian states and territories have been under pressure to raise it, from 10 to 14, in line with other developed countries and UN advice.
Last year the NT became the first jurisdiction to lift the threshold to 12 years old, but the new Country Liberal Party (CLP) government elected in August has said a reversal is necessary to reduce youth crime rates.
It has argued that returning the age to 10 will ultimately protect children - despite doctors, human rights organisations and Indigenous groups disputing that logic.
They cite evidence that the laws will not reduce crime and will disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
The NT already jails children at a rate 11 times higher than any other jurisdiction in the country, and almost all of them are Aboriginal.
Many places across Australia have declared they are in the grips of a youth crime crisis, and a string of violent incidents this year have prompted a series of youth curfews in the NT city of Alice Springs.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said her government had been given a mandate after their landslide election victory, and that the change would allow courts to put young offenders through programmes designed to address the root causes of their crimes - which, according to statistics, are most commonly break-in and assault offences.
"We have this obligation to the child who has been let down in a number of ways, over a long period of time," she told the parliament on Thursday.
"And we have [an obligation to] the people who just want to be safe, people who don't want to live in fear anymore."
The NT government has also tightened bail rules, and introduced penalties for "posting and boasting" about crime on social media.
"We make no apologies for delivering on our commitments to reduce crime for all Territorians," Finocchiaro added.
However, research both globally and in Australia has shown that incarcerating children makes them more likely to reoffend and often has dire impacts on their health, education, and employment.
Earlier this year a report by the Australian Human Rights Commission - an independent federal agency - found policy across the nation was being driven “by populist ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric” and that governments should instead reinvest the money spent on jailing children into support services.
Opposition Leader Selena Uibo - the first and only Aboriginal woman to head a major party in Australia - said it was a "dark day" for the territory.
"We know - because all of the evidence tells us this - that the earlier a child comes into contact with the criminal justice system, the more prolonged their involvement is likely to be," she said.
"We want to see children held accountable for bad behaviour but then supported to get on a better path."
The change will come into effect at a later date that is yet to be confirmed.As the NT parliament debated the bill this week, around 100 people gathered outside to protest, some carrying placards. One read, "10-year-olds still have baby teeth". Another said, "What if it was your child?".
Independent MP Yingiya Guyula, a Yolŋu man from northeastern Arnhem Land, told the BBC it was a “racist” bill.
"It's [targeted] at Indigenous people."
"It is just colonisation - somebody else is making decisions for us in the community when they should be listening to our people."
The NT's children's commissioner Shahleena Musk, a Larrakia woman from Darwin, told the BBC Aboriginal children were less likely to be cautioned, more likely to be charged and pursued through the courts, and more likely to be remanded in custody than non-Aboriginal offenders.
“I accept that people are fearful in our communities, and crime has been quite prominent in the media and social media,” she said.
“[But] we shouldn't be seeing these kids going into a youth justice system which is harmful, ineffective, and only compounds the very issues we're trying to change.”
Defending the bill, CLP politician and former youth worker Clinton Howe told the parliament the prospect of jail was the only punishment youth offenders cared about.
“I believe government is a blunt instrument, and I don’t like it as a tool for social intervention, but for some of these children, it is the only thing left.
"We must intervene early for the sake of the child... in the environment they live in, no-one else cares."
Critics of the bill fear the laws could arrest momentum for raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility in other states and territories.
Only the Australian Capital Territory has raised the age of criminal responsibility above 10, but Victoria has passed legislation to do so, which will come into effect next year. The Tasmanian government has said it will raise the age to 14 by 2029.
China's economy expanded in the third quarter at the slowest pace since early last year, as the country struggles to boost flagging growth.
On an annual basis, gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 4.6% in the three months to the end of September, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics. That is less than the previous quarter and below the government's "around 5%" target for this year.
But it was slightly better than analysts expected, while other official figures released on Friday, including retail sales and factory output, also beat forecasts.
In recent weeks, Beijing has announced a number of measures aimed at supporting growth.
This is the second quarter in a row that China's official measure of economic growth has fallen below the 5% target, which will add to government concerns.
"The government’s growth target for this year now appears in serious jeopardy," the former head of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) China division, Eswar Prasad told BBC News.
"It will take a substantial stimulus-fuelled boost to growth in the fourth quarter to hit the target."
But Moody's Analytics' economist, Harry Murphy Cruise, was more optimistic. The stimulus measures are "likely to propel the economy to its around 5% target for the year", he said.
"But more is required if officials are to address the structural challenges in the economy."
Official figures also showed new home prices fell in September at the fastest pace in almost a decade, indicating that the downturn in the property sector is worsening."The property market unsurprisingly remains the biggest drag on China's growth," said Lynn Song, chief economist for greater China at banking giant ING.
"New investment is unlikely to see a substantive recovery until prices stabilise and housing inventories decline... until then property will remain a notable headwind to growth."
Earlier on Friday, China's central bank said it had held a meeting to call on banks and other financial institutions to boost lending to help support growth.
Last month, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced the country's biggest stimulus package since the pandemic, including large cuts to interest and mortgage rates.
The plans also included help for the flagging stock market and measures to encourage banks to lend more to businesses and individuals.
Since then, the Ministry of Finance and other government bodies have unveiled further plans aimed at boosting economic growth.
The world's second largest economy has been hit by a number of challenges, including a property crisis, as well as weak consumer and business confidence.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell privately criticised Donald Trump as "stupid", "ill-tempered", and "a despicable human being" after the 2020 election, according to excerpts from a new McConnell biography reported by the Associated Press (AP).
The Price of Power by Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of AP, is set to be released later this month and draws on personal oral histories made available to him by McConnell.
Despite the reported remarks, the Kentucky lawmaker, 82, has endorsed Trump for re-election.
There is no love lost between the two, who shared an uneasy relationship when the latter was in office.
McConnell harshly criticised Trump's denial of the 2020 election results and they did not speak after the US Capitol riot in January 2021. Trump went on to repeatedly savage McConnell online and his Taiwanese-born wife, Elaine Chao, who accused Trump of directing racist taunts at her.
But they appeared to mend ties this year, with McConnell - who is stepping down from his leadership post next month - saying he would support the Republican nominee. They shook hands in June at a meeting in the US Capitol.
Killing Yahya Sinwar is Israel's biggest victory so far in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
His death is a serious blow for Hamas, the organisation he turned into a fighting force that inflicted the biggest defeat on the state of Israel in its history.
He was not killed in a planned special forces operation, but in a chance encounter with Israeli forces in Rafah in southern Gaza.
A photo taken at the scene shows Sinwar, dressed in combat gear, lying dead in the rubble of a building that was hit by a tank shell.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, praised the soldiers and made clear that however big a victory, it was not the end of the war.
"Today we made clear once again what happens to those who harm us. Today we once again showed the world the victory of good over evil.
"But the war, my dear ones, is not over yet. It is difficult, and it is costing us dearly."
"Great challenges still lie ahead of us. We need endurance, unity, courage, and steadfastness. Together we will fight, and with God's help - together we will win."
Netanyahu and the overwhelming proportion of Israelis who support the war in Gaza needed a victory.The prime minister has repeated his war aims many times - destroying Hamas as a military and political force and bringing the hostages home.
Neither has been achieved, despite a year of war that has killed at least 42,000 Palestinians and left much of Gaza in ruins.
But the remaining hostages are not free and Hamas is fighting and sometimes killing Israeli troops.
Killing Sinwar was the victory Israel wanted. But until Netanyahu can claim that the other war aims have been accomplished, the war, as he says, will go on.
Yahya Sinwar was born in 1962 in a refugee camp in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. He was five years old when it was captured by Israel from Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war.
His family were among more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces in the 1948 war in which Israel won its independence.
His family came from the town now known as Ashkelon, which is close to the northern border of the Gaza Strip.
In his 20s, he was convicted by Israel of killing four Palestinian informers. During 22 years in jail he learnt Hebrew, studied his enemy and believed that he worked out how to fight them. His time in jail also meant Israel had his dental records and a sample of his DNA, which meant that they could identify his body.
Sinwar was released as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners who were swapped in 2011 for a single Israel soldier, Gilad Shalit.
On 7 October last year, in a meticulously planned series of attacks, Sinwar and his men inflicted Israel's worst-ever defeat - and a collective trauma that is still deeply felt.
The killing of around 1,200 Israelis, the hostage-taking and the celebrations of their enemies recalled for many Israelis the Nazi holocaust.
Sinwar's own experience in a prisoner swap must have convinced him of the value and power of taking hostages.
In Tel Aviv families of the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza - Israel says half of them might already be dead - gathered in the square in which they have been gathering for a year, urging the Israeli government to launch a new negotiation to get their people home.
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker appealed to the prime minister.
"Netanyahu, don't bury the hostages. Go out now to the mediators and to the public and lay out a new Israeli initiative."
"For my Matan and the rest of the hostages in the tunnels, time has run out. You have the victory pictures. Now bring a deal!"
"If Netanyahu doesn't use this moment and doesn't get up now to lay out a new Israeli initiative - even at the expense of ending the war - it means he has decided to abandon the hostages in an effort to prolong the war and fortify his rulership.
"We will not give up until everyone returns."Many Israelis believe that Netanyahu wants to prolong the war in Gaza to put off the day of reckoning for his share of the security failures that allowed Sinwar and his men to break into Israel, and to postpone perhaps indefinitely the resumption of his trial on serious corruption charges.
He denies those accusations, insisting that only what he calls 'total victory' in Gaza over Hamas will restore Israeli security.
Like other news organisations, Israel does not let the BBC cross into Gaza except on rare, supervised trips with the army.
In the ruins of Khan Yunis, the birthplace of Sinwar, Palestinians interviewed for the BBC by local trusted freelancers were defiant. They said the war would go on.
"This war is not dependent on Sinwar, Haniyeh, or Mishal, nor on any leader or official," said Dr Ramadan Faris.
"It's a war of extermination against the Palestinian people, as we all know and understand. The issue is much bigger than Sinwar or anyone else."
Adnan Ashour said some people were saddened, and others were indifferent about Sinwar.
"They're not just after us. They want the entire Middle East. They're fighting in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen... This is a war between us and the Jews since 1919, over 100 years."
He was asked whether the death of Sinwar would affect Hamas.
"I hope not, God willing. Let me explain: Hamas is not just Sinwar... It's the cause of a people."
The war goes on in Gaza. Twenty five Palestinians were killed in a raid on northern Gaza. Israel said it hit a Hamas command centre. Doctors at the local hospital said the scores of wounded that they treated were civilians.
Parachute drops of aid resumed after the Americans said Israel had to allow in more food and relief supplies.
Every leader of Hamas since the 1990s bar one has been killed by Israel, but there's always been a successor. As Israel celebrates killing Sinwar, Hamas still has its hostages and is still fighting.
Two Chinese nationals have been killed and at least 10 people injured in a suspected suicide attack near Karachi airport in Pakistan, according to a report by BBC.
A third body, not yet officially identified, is thought to be that of the attacker, the BBC understands.
The Chinese embassy in Pakistan said the explosion on Sunday night was a “terrorist attack” targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a power project in Sindh province.
The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which has in recent years carried out attacks on Chinese nationals involved in development projects in Pakistan, has said it carried out the attack.
In a statement released on Monday, the militant group said it had “targeted a high-level convoy of Chinese engineers and investors” arriving from Karachi airport.
A later statement from the group described it as a suicide attack, and named the perpetrator as Shah Fahad, part of a BLA suicide squad called Majeed Brigade.
The attack was carried out using a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device”, Reuters news agency quoted the BLA as saying.
The explosion happened around 23:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Sunday.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the attack a “heinous act” and offered his condolences to the Chinese people.
“Pakistan stands committed to safeguarding our Chinese friends,” he wrote on X.
The country’s foreign ministry said it is “in close contact” with Chinese authorities and will “bring to justice those responsible for this cowardly attack”.
“This act of terrorism is an attack not only on Pakistan, but also on the enduring friendship between Pakistan and China,” the ministry said.
“This barbaric act will not go unpunished,” it added.
The Chinese embassy said that the engineers were part of the Chinese-funded enterprise Port Qasim Power Generation Co Ltd, which aims to build two coal power plants at Port Qasim, near Karachi.
Thousands of Chinese workers are in Pakistan, many of them involved in creating an economic corridor between the two countries as part of Beijing’s multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative.
The Port Qasim plant is part of the corridor, along with a number of infrastructure and energy projects in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which has a rich supply of natural resources, including gas and minerals.
The BLA along with other ethnic Baloch groups has fought a long-running insurgency for a separate homeland.
It has regularly targeted Chinese nationals in the region, claiming ethnic Baloch residents were not receiving their share of wealth from foreign investment the province and natural resources extracted there.
The Chinese embassy on Monday reminded its citizens and Chinese enterprises in Pakistan to be vigilant and to “do their best to take safety precautions”. The embassy added that it hoped Pakistan would thoroughly investigate the attack and “severely punish the murderer”.
The blast was reportedly heard in various areas around the city, with footage from local media showing thick smoke and cars set alight.
Pictures online show security officials and firefighters investigating the explosion site, with several vehicles charred by the blast.
A police surgeon, Dr Summaiya told Dawn news: “Ten injured persons, including one in critical condition, have been brought the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre [JPMC].”
She added the injured included a police constable and a woman.
A statement posted on X from Sindh’s Interior Minister’s office said that a “tanker truck” had exploded on Airport Road. Roads leading to Jinnah International Airport were sealed off following the attack, but the airport is functioning as usual on Monday.
There has also been heightened security in Pakistan as it prepares to host the leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
There have been multiple attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan in recent years. The BLA has claimed responsibility for several of them, including an attack in March on a Pakistani naval airbase near Gwadar port, another main feature of the China-Pakistan economic corridor.
In April 2022, the group killed three Chinese tutors and a Pakistani driver in a suicide bombing near Karachi University’s Confucius Institute.
In November 2018, gunmen killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi.
Two Chinese nationals have been killed and at least 10 people injured in a suspected suicide attack near Karachi airport in Pakistan, according to a report by BBC.
A third body, not yet officially identified, is thought to be that of the attacker, the BBC understands.
The Chinese embassy in Pakistan said the explosion on Sunday night was a “terrorist attack” targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a power project in Sindh province.
The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which has in recent years carried out attacks on Chinese nationals involved in development projects in Pakistan, has said it carried out the attack.
In a statement released on Monday, the militant group said it had “targeted a high-level convoy of Chinese engineers and investors” arriving from Karachi airport.
A later statement from the group described it as a suicide attack, and named the perpetrator as Shah Fahad, part of a BLA suicide squad called Majeed Brigade.
The attack was carried out using a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device”, Reuters news agency quoted the BLA as saying.
The explosion happened around 23:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Sunday.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the attack a “heinous act” and offered his condolences to the Chinese people.
“Pakistan stands committed to safeguarding our Chinese friends,” he wrote on X.
The country’s foreign ministry said it is “in close contact” with Chinese authorities and will “bring to justice those responsible for this cowardly attack”.
“This act of terrorism is an attack not only on Pakistan, but also on the enduring friendship between Pakistan and China,” the ministry said.
“This barbaric act will not go unpunished,” it added.
The Chinese embassy said that the engineers were part of the Chinese-funded enterprise Port Qasim Power Generation Co Ltd, which aims to build two coal power plants at Port Qasim, near Karachi.
Thousands of Chinese workers are in Pakistan, many of them involved in creating an economic corridor between the two countries as part of Beijing’s multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative.
The Port Qasim plant is part of the corridor, along with a number of infrastructure and energy projects in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which has a rich supply of natural resources, including gas and minerals.
The BLA along with other ethnic Baloch groups has fought a long-running insurgency for a separate homeland.
It has regularly targeted Chinese nationals in the region, claiming ethnic Baloch residents were not receiving their share of wealth from foreign investment the province and natural resources extracted there.
The Chinese embassy on Monday reminded its citizens and Chinese enterprises in Pakistan to be vigilant and to “do their best to take safety precautions”. The embassy added that it hoped Pakistan would thoroughly investigate the attack and “severely punish the murderer”.
The blast was reportedly heard in various areas around the city, with footage from local media showing thick smoke and cars set alight.
Pictures online show security officials and firefighters investigating the explosion site, with several vehicles charred by the blast.
A police surgeon, Dr Summaiya told Dawn news: “Ten injured persons, including one in critical condition, have been brought the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre [JPMC].”
She added the injured included a police constable and a woman.
A statement posted on X from Sindh’s Interior Minister’s office said that a “tanker truck” had exploded on Airport Road. Roads leading to Jinnah International Airport were sealed off following the attack, but the airport is functioning as usual on Monday.
There has also been heightened security in Pakistan as it prepares to host the leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
There have been multiple attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan in recent years. The BLA has claimed responsibility for several of them, including an attack in March on a Pakistani naval airbase near Gwadar port, another main feature of the China-Pakistan economic corridor.
In April 2022, the group killed three Chinese tutors and a Pakistani driver in a suicide bombing near Karachi University’s Confucius Institute.
In November 2018, gunmen killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi.