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People living with long Covid after being admitted to hospital are more likely to show some damage to major organs, according to a new study. MRI scans revealed patients were three times more likely to have some abnormalities in multiple organs such as the lungs, brain and kidneys. Researchers believe there is a link with the severity of the illness. It is hoped the UK study will help in the development of more effective treatments for long Covid. The study, published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, looked at 259 patients who fell so ill with the virus that they were admitt

Hong Kong police are investigating allegations of fraud against cryptocurrency trading platform JPEX after investors complained of HK$1.3bn ($166m; £134m) in losses. Eleven people, including popular influencers, were arrested this week after complaints filed by 2,000 people. The case could be one of Hong Kong's biggest fraud cases, local media say. It also tests new financial regulations as Hong Kong positions itself as a global hub for virtual assets. Bitcoin to blockchain: What key crypto words mean Last week, Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) revea

India has urged its citizens travelling to or living in Canada to "exercise utmost caution". The advisory comes a day after tensions escalated between the countries with each expelling a diplomat from the other side. Canada said it was investigating "credible allegations" linking the Indian state with the killing of a Sikh separatist leader. India strongly denied this, calling the allegations "absurd". Analysts say relations between the countries, which have been strained for months, are now at an all-time low. How India-Canada ties descended into a public feud Wh

As Australia edged into spring in 2019, former fire brigade chief Greg Mullins warned the country was disastrously primed to burn. Over and over, he begged to be heard. In letters, phone calls, press conferences and countless interviews, he painted an apocalyptic picture of the summer ahead. But his pleas fell on deaf ears, and his premonitions would come true. Over the coming months, Mr Mullins watched on as 24 million hectares was torched - an area the size of the UK. Almost 2,500 homes burned down, and 480 people died in the flames and smoke. Now a worrying combination o

A prominent Sikh leader was brazenly murdered this summer outside a temple in British Columbia (BC), Canada. The death has outraged his supporters and intensified global tensions between Sikh separatists and the Indian government. On a mid-June evening in the busy parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in the city of Surrey, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in his truck by two masked gunmen. Months later, the unsolved killing continues to reverberate, in Canada and across borders. Hundreds of Sikh separatists took to the streets in Toronto, along with a handful others in citie

A Gold Coast man who filmed himself taking his pet snake for a surf has been fined by Australian wildlife authorities. Higor Fiuza and his bredli carpet python Shiva became local celebrities earlier this month after video of them catching waves went viral. But their short-lived fame also tipped off wildlife protection officers. They say the man endangered Shiva and breached his permit to keep the snake by taking her out in public. Queensland's Department of Environment and Science says it began investigating the surfing duo after Mr Fiuza appeared in local media, and this w

A Bangladesh court has sentenced two prominent human rights activists to two years in jail, in what critics say is part of a crackdown ahead of elections. Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan from rights group Odhikar always denied decade-old charges that they published a report with false information. But prosecutors said their report on security force killings in 2013 "undermined" the country's image. The two were convicted on Thursday in Dhaka after a 10-year judicial process. Dozens of international human rights groups have called for the two men's immediate release,

Taiwan has told billionaire Elon Musk it is "not for sale" after he said the island was a part of China. "Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC [People's Republic of China] & certainly not for sale!," foreign minister Joseph Wu said on Mr Musk's X. At a business summit this week, Mr Musk compared Taiwan to Hawaii, calling it an "integral part" of China. Beijing claims self-governed Taiwan and tensions between the two have ratcheted up over the past year. Just this week, China conducted air and naval drills around Taiwan, in what has become a routine show of military

An investigation is under way over a bodycam footage that appears to show a Seattle police officer laughing about a woman fatally struck by a patrol car. Officer Daniel Auderer was responding to an incident where Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, was killed near her university. In the video, the officer is heard suggesting the Indian student's life had "limited value" and the city should "just write a cheque". The officer has said his comments were taken out of context. Ms Kandula, a graduate student at the Northeastern University, was hit and killed by a police car while crossing the

Australia's highest court has rejected a bid by Qantas to overturn a ruling that it illegally outsourced 1,700 jobs during the pandemic. The court unanimously upheld that the carrier had unlawfully laid off staff at 10 airports in November 2020. The ruling found that Qantas breached Australia's Fair Work Act, which protects employee rights. Qantas apologised for the outsourcing, but maintained it was a necessary financial measure during Covid. The airline fired baggage handlers and cleaners at airports across Australia at a time when the nation had closed its borders and bu

In the tiny village of Algou, high in the Atlas Mountains, screams came from under the rubble in the terrifying moments after the earthquake. But as the hours passed and with no specialist rescue teams appearing to assist the desperate efforts of the villagers, the screams turned to silence. Three days on, the Spanish firefighters who were the first professional teams to reach the devastated community hoped time had not run out. As they briskly picked their way through caved-in streets and collapsed archways their experience told them there was, however, no hope. The grim r

US President Joe Biden has said that he raised issues of human rights and the importance of a free press with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. Mr Biden was in the Indian capital to attend the G20 summit. He also held a bilateral meeting with Mr Modi. The US president left India on Sunday before the summit ended to travel to Vietnam. He made the remarks at a press conference in Hanoi. The G20 summit had concluded with a joint declaration that mentioned the contentious topic of the war in Ukraine, but it was unanimously adopted. Several world leaders had on Sunda

For the first time, Julie Fujishima, the niece of the late Johnny Kitagawa, has acknowledged the sexual abuse committed by her uncle and stepped down as president of Japan's most powerful talent agency, the firm he founded. Is there a sense of shock here in Japan? No, there isn't. It's more of a sense that "everyone knew, but no one did anything about it and now it's finally all out in the open". For decades, these sexual assault allegations hovered over Kitagawa - those who tried to speak out were stopped. They were up against a giant of the entertainment industry and all the l

An Austrian couple on honeymoon is missing in Greece after torrential rains swept away the house they were staying in. Emergency services have told the BBC they are searching for the couple and several other missing people. People in central Greece were trapped on the roofs of their houses after floods set whole villages under water. More than a dozen people are now known to have died since Storm Daniel hit Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria this week. The Austrian couple decided to shelter inside the bungalow they had rented for their honeymoon as heavy rainfall swept central Gre

Scientists have grown an entity that closely resembles an early human embryo, without using sperm, eggs or a womb. The Weizmann Institute team say their "embryo model", made using stem cells, looks like a textbook example of a real 14-day-old embryo. It even released hormones that turned a pregnancy test positive in the lab. The ambition for embryo models is to provide an ethical way of understanding the earliest moments of our lives. The first weeks after a sperm fertilises an egg is a period of dramatic change - from a collection of indistinct cells to something that even