A four-hour drive south of the smog-filled capital New Delhi, among fields bristling with brickyard smokestacks, the small town of Barsana welcomes pilgrims who come to honour the Hindu goddess Radha. But Sardana is also proud because his methanisation plant that opened in March is the "most technologically advanced and the largest biogas facility" in India.

It was built in Barsana to be as close as possible to its raw fuel -- cattle dung and harvest stubble

Cows have been blamed for contributing to global warming because they produce methane -- a powerful greenhouse gas -- in their manure or when they belch. But in this case, the region is finding a creative use for the waste produced by the cattle, which are used for their milk. Eating them is taboo for many Hindus.

Long lines of tractors dump dung and straw in the factory's tanks, from which 10 tonnes of gas and 92 tonnes of fertiliser are produced each day.

Biogas is considered a clean energy because the waste used to produce it is completely natural, said Suneel Pandey of The Energy and Resources Institute.

But the contribution of biogas to India's transition away from heavily polluting coal -- currently fuelling nearly 70 percent of electricity

will be relatively small. India plans to more than double the share of gas in its energy mix -- from six to 15 percent by 2030.

Burning gas to produce electricity also releases damaging emissions, although less than coal and oil.

the investments required are vast. The Barsana plant cost $25 million, while the price of biogas remains uncompetitive: $14 per cubic metre, compared to $6 for LNG.

LNG : liquefied natural gas

The 2.2 metre (7.5 feet) portrait "A.I. God" by "Ai-Da", the world's first ultra-realistic robot artist, smashed pre-sale expectations of $180,000 when it went under the hammer at London auction house Sotheby's Digital Art Sale.

Ai-Da Robot, which uses AI to speak, said: "The key value of my work is its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies." Ai-Da added that a "portrait of pioneer Alan Turing invites viewers to reflect on the god-like nature of AI and computing while considering the ethical and societal implications of these advancements."

The ultra-realistic robot, one of the most advanced in the world, is designed to resemble a human woman with a face, large eyes and a brown wig. Ai-Da is named after Ada Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer and was devised by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art.

Ai-Da generates ideas through conversations with members of the studio, and suggested creating an image of Turing during a discussion about "A.I. for good". The robot was then asked what style, colour, content, tone and texture to use, before using cameras in its eyes to look at a picture of Turing and create the painting.

Fierce seasonal winds had cast embers up to three miles (five kilometers) from the seat of the fire around Camarillo, with new spots burning on hillsides, farmland and in residential areas.

The Mountain Fire grew rapidly from a standing start early Wednesday, and by the following day had consumed 20,485 acres (8,290 hectares), with towering flames leaping unpredictably and sending residents scrambling. The fire was only five percent contained as of Thursday evening, authorities said, although wind patterns were expected to favor firefighters through the night.

Authorities said that based on initial inspections, at least 132 homes had been completely destroyed, with 88 more damaged by the fires.

Ventura County Fire Department officials said they were throwing resources at the blaze in an area that is home to 30,000 people, but that changing wind patterns meant there was hope the fire could die down in the coming days.

At least 400 homes had been evacuated, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said, adding that 250 residents had chosen to stay behind.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but meteorologists had raised a Red Flag Warning and a rare Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) warning in the area, indicating dangerous fire conditions.

The Sanctuary of the Eleona sits in a Jerusalem compound owned by France, and along with three other sites in Israel makes up the French national domain in the Holy Land. The sites have been the focus of diplomatic incidents in the past.

The national domain was attributed to France before Israel's creation and is administered as a private property by the French consulate in Jerusalem.

The AFP journalist saw Israeli police surround the two French gendarmes before pushing one of them to the ground. The gendarme identified himself and shouted "Don't touch me" several times, according to the journalist. Both gendarmes were then led into police cars. They were later released.

"The Eleona Domain... has not only belonged to France for more than 150 years, but France also ensures its security, maintains it," Barrot said.

Kyiv is scrambling to up the pressure on its allies for more support in its fight against Moscow following the victory of Donald Trump in this week's US presidential election. Trump has boasted he could end the conflict within hours and repeatedly criticised American aid to Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukraine cede swathes more territory in its east and south as a precondition to peace talks, while Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out ceding any land to Moscow in exchange for peace. Ukraine and many in the West fear any settlement that rewards Putin would only embolden the Kremlin leader and lead to more aggression.

"There has been much talk about the need to yield to Putin, to back down, to make some concessions," Zelensky said, according to a copy of the address provided to AFP by the Ukrainian presidency. "It's unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe," he added.

He also blasted some European leaders, without specifying who, of "strongly" pushing Ukraine to compromise. "We need sufficient weapons, not support in talks. Hugs with Putin won't help. Some of you have been hugging him for 20 years, and things are only getting worse," Zelensky said.

The head of Russia's Security Council Sergei Shoigu said the West faced a choice between opening direct talks with Moscow or the continuing "destruction" of Ukraine's population. "Now, when the situation in the theatre of combat is not in Kyiv's favour, the West is faced with a choice," Shoigu said at a meeting with defence officials of other former Soviet states.

Zelensky has previously said that without US aid, Ukraine would lose the war.

Ukrainian media reported that Donetsk region authorities were preparing to announce mandatory evacuations from seven more villages in the region that the Kremlin claimed in 2022 was part of Russia. Moscow's overnight drone attack on Ukraine damaged buildings in the southern Black Sea city of Odesa where AFP journalists saw residents inspecting destroyed cars and residential buildings as dawn broke.

Deforestation fell by 30.6 percent in the year-to-year period beginning in August 2023, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). During that time, 6,288 square kilometers (2,427 square miles) of forest were destroyed, which INPE Director Gilvan Oliveira said was "the lowest result in the last nine years."

Over the last century, the Amazon rainforest -- which covers nearly 40 percent of South America -- has lost about 20 percent of its area to deforestation, due to the spread of agriculture and cattle ranching, logging and mining, and urban sprawl. Scientists warn that continued deforestation will put the Amazon on track to reach a point where it will emit more carbon than it absorbs, accelerating climate change.

In addition to the Amazon, destruction of the Cerrado, the most species-rich savanna in the world, which is located in central Brazil, was reduced by 25.7 percent or 8,174 square kilometers, INPE reported.

Deforestation dramatically worsened under Lula's far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration saw Amazon deforestation shoot up 75 percent compared to the average of the previous decade.

Ethiopia, an East African country with a population of around 120 million, is the continent's largest producer of honey. Nectar is particularly important in Ethiopian culture, with yellow honey used to produce tej, a popular local mead.

Goshu Welealeabzgi, a specialist for the Tigray authorities' Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources, says 40 to 60 percent of hives were destroyed by the war.

War in Tigray between federal government troops and Tigrayan rebels that raged from 2020 to 2022

Before the conflict, he estimates there were 500,000 colonies in Tigray, with 200,000 people directly dependent on beekeeping, in a region of around six million inhabitants.

Bees were also victim to the environmental damage caused by the conflict, especially as desperate locals were forced to cut down trees, particularly the acacias that covered the hills, to sell or use for firewood.

"The conflict harmed everybody," he (Beekeeper Amanuel Hiluf) adds. "The sound of bullets has stopped, but there is still the sound of misery."

The tech giants would be held responsible for enforcing the age limit and face hefty fines if regulators notice young users slipping through the cracks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. Australia is among the vanguard of nations trying to clean up social media, and the proposed age limit would be among the world's strictest measures aimed at children.

The new laws would be presented to state and territory leaders this week, before being introduced to parliament in late November. Once passed, the tech platforms would be given a one-year grace period to figure out how to implement and enforce the ban.

Once celebrated as a means of staying connected and informed, social media platforms have been tarnished by cyberbullying, the spread of illegal content, and election-meddling claims.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said social media companies were repeatedly "falling short" in their obligations. [...] Rowland said companies like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Elon Musk's X would face financial penalties if they flouted the laws. While Rowland did not detail how big these would be, she suggested fines of US$600,000 (Aus $1 million) were well below the mark for companies boasting yearly revenues in the tens of billions of dollars.

Analysts have expressed doubt it would be technically feasible to enforce a strict age ban. "We already know that present age verification methods are unreliable, too easy to circumvent, or risk user privacy," University of Melbourne researcher Toby Murray said earlier this year.

Australia has in recent years ramped up efforts to regulate the tech giants, with mixed success. A "combating misinformation" bill was introduced earlier this year, outlining sweeping powers to fine tech companies for breaching online safety obligations.

The accused had faced charges including treason and inciting a military coup, and had been arraigned in batches of 76 and 43 last Friday. One of the charges carried the death penalty. "The case has been struck out and the 119 protesters have been released," according to Deji Adeyanju, counsel to the protesters.

Information Minister Mohammed Idriss said that President Tinubu had directed the police chief to free the 40 minors remanded in custody after their trials began this month.

The minors were arrested by the police and charged with treasonable offenses of intending to destabilise the country and inciting mutiny following their participation in nationwide End Bad Governance protests this August. Amnesty International said at least 22 people died during the demonstrations in clashes with security forces.

Scenes of young Nigerians fainting while in court over their involvement in widespread anti-government protests have sparked controversy over detention conditions and police violence. Social media was awash with videos showing several youths, likely underage, sitting or lying on the courtroom floor, holding their stomachs while half-faint.

The clips generated backlash from both politicians and civil society.

Lebanese Labour Minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack an "egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work", saying his country had filed the complaint with the International Labour Organization in Geneva.

The move comes after Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley on September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire, and a week later sent ground troops into southern Lebanon.

The escalation kicked off with sabotage attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, which killed dozens of people and injured thousands more across Lebanon. Israel has not officially taken responsibility for those attacks, but Bayram said it was "widely accepted internationally... that Israel was behind this heinous act". "In a few minutes, more than 4,000 civilians fell, between martyrs and injured and maimed," he said, speaking through a translator. Among the victims not killed, he said many people had "lost their fingers; some have totally lost their eyesight".

"We are in a situation where ordinary objects, objects you use in daily life, become dangerous and lethal," he said. "If left unchecked, this crime could become normalised," he said, adding that filing the complaint was meant "to prevent such crimes from happening in the future".

He added that Lebanese authorities could still file complaints over the pager attacks in other international forums, including the World Trade Organization.

BASF is one of the US’s largest public gun ranges. Under a tin roof, a line of concrete shooting tables stretches into the distance. Behind them, the shooters, some with their families (children are admitted from the age of five)

Ben Avery Shooting Facility (BASF)

‘I bought my first gun in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected,’ said Colette Jennings, an African American in her 30s living in Tucson. ‘Like many Black people, I was worried by his attacks on African Americans, and the hate speech his supporters posted on social media.’ She has carried a gun ever since. After the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 triggered a wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the country, Jennings campaigned in defence of the second amendment to the US constitution, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Jennings belongs to the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA), whose membership rose by more than 25% (mostly women) in 2020. The association was founded in 2015 and today has nearly 50,000 members, even though gun ownership is problematic for Black people in the US. Jennings’s brother was once arrested for carrying one in his bag; few whites have a similar experience.

In 1967 Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, signed into law the Mulford Act, which prohibited open carrying of loaded firearms without a permit. It was mainly intended to disarm members of the Black Panther organisation who were quite legally patrolling the city of Oakland (California), ‘policing the police’. Angela Stroud, a sociologist at Northland College in Wisconsin, believes gun control legislation has always been used to oppress African Americans (3), for instance to prevent slave rebellions on plantations and to deny equal opportunity, through the ‘Jim Crow’ laws that enforced racial segregation between 1877 and 1964.

A total of 19,613 homicides involving firearms were recorded in the US in 2020 (5), an unprecedented year-on-year increase of 25%. The number of homicides topped 20,000 in both 2021 (21,068) and 2022 (20,390), and with mass shootings (involving four deaths or more) also on the increase, African Americans are not the only ones buying guns. Philip Gomez, a Mexican American studying law at the University of California, Berkeley, founded the Latino Rifle Association (LRA) after a gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in a specifically anti-Latino attack. Gomez says the LRA allows people to learn how to defend themselves without having to join gun clubs that fly the Confederate flag and whose members have ‘Build the Wall’ stickers on their weapons (referring to Trump’s barrier on the US-Mexico border).

The LGBTQ community are organising too, says Jason D, president of the Phoenix chapter of the Pink Pistols, a gun club for sexual and gender minority people. We met him after a practice session at the Shooter’s World gun range, in a poor industrial suburb of Phoenix: ‘I don’t like guns and I don’t like shooting, but this is one of the few places where we don’t get harassed and members of my community are accepted. We come here once a week.’ He reeled off a list of homophobic and transphobic shootings in recent years, the deadliest of which claimed 49 lives at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016: ‘I have no choice but to carry a weapon at all times.’

Sociologist David Yamane of Wake Forest University, author of the Gun Culture 2.0 blog, explains that while the typical gun owner in the US is white, elderly, male, politically conservative, rural and from the Southern states, gun culture has always had a wider following. ‘Out of 50 million gun owners, around 20 million are traditional conservatives, then there’s the same number of moderates, and the rest identify as liberals [in the US sense of progressives]. This group includes a large proportion of first-time owners. It’s very diverse: besides socialists and anarchists, there are libertarians and some more conservative democrats. There are also people who distrust government in general, especially African Americans and Latinos.’

What exactly does the second amendment say? ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ In recent decades, the NRA has promoted a broad interpretation of that right – as the right to defend one’s individual or political freedom oneself. The NRA’s influence comes from the fact that it has five million members across the US and a network of 14,000 affiliated clubs, associations and businesses.

When the NRA was founded in 1871, it was mainly concerned with improving its members’ hunting and target-shooting skills; it only became a political lobby in the 1960s.

In the 18th century the right to bear arms as guaranteed by the constitution was ‘neither cultural nor individualistic, but political and emancipatory’. Its appropriation by Republican conservatives significantly changed interpretations of the second amendment, on which there are now two competing schools of thought. The first takes ‘a well regulated militia’ as meaning militias belonging to individual states, which need protecting against the Federal government. The second interprets the amendment as guaranteeing an inalienable individual right, recognised by law – especially the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act (signed into law by Reagan, whose 1980 election campaign the NRA had supported) and the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling on District of Columbia vs Heller.

The view that the purpose of bearing arms is to protect oneself against criminal threats or possible government abuses – and in fact against any attempt at collective regulation (11) – became predominant at the time of the ‘conservative revolution’ within the Republican Party, based on state withdrawal and a return to traditional values. This political interpretation of the second amendment not only reduces the bearing of arms to an individual right of self-defence, but makes it a God-given right that cannot and must not be regulated.

Chanting slogans against the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the demonstrators carrying Israeli flags gathered in the commercial hub shortly after Gallant's dismissal was announced. Protesters also blocked traffic and lit fires on the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv, with some wearing "Bring them home now!" t-shirts referring to the hostages. They held up signs with slogans such as "We deserve better leaders" and "Leaving no one behind!" and one protester wore handcuffs and a face mask with Netanyahu's likeness.

"Bibi traitor! You're guilty" chanted some, referring to Netanyahu and blaming for failing to prevent the Hamas attack on October 7 last year.

"He's doing nothing to safeguard our peace, the peace of the Palestinians, the peace of everybody in this region," (54-year-old teacher Samuel) Miller told AFP.

Einav Tzangauker, whose son Matan is among the hostages, was among those protesting against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. "If it is possible to replace a defence minister in the middle of a war, then it is surely possible to replace a prime minister who is unqualified to bring back the hostages," she told Israel's Channel 12.