As some hijabs come off in Iran, restrictions still in place

If there was a recipe for success in the entertainment industry, the BRIT School in London should maybe get a standing ovation for hitting all the right notes.

Singers Amy Winehouse, Adele and Raye, as well as actor Tom Holland -- better known as Spiderman -- are among the alumni of the state‑funded school, which prides itself on being free.

2026 started strong, with former pupils Olivia Dean and Lola Young both honoured at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Dean was named best new artist of the year, while Young won Best Pop Solo Performance with her soaraway hit "Messy".

Both artists also triumphed at the Brit Awards, the UK's flagship music ceremony.

"It's incredibly humbling," said Chris McInnes, their former teacher and deputy head of music at the BRIT School, which specialises in performing and creative arts.

"We would never take credit for any of their success ... we want to make the best place for those students who are going to be that successful," he told AFP.

About 1,500 students, aged between 14 and 19, attend the BRIT School, where they study for and sit the regular UK curriculum exams, including GCSEs and A‑levels.

Teenagers arrive for their day smiling, greeting teachers and the headmaster as they make their way through the corridors. 

Some sing snatches of songs. Others work quietly in recording studios.

Behind one door, a group was rehearsing a number from the musical "Six".

- Cultural diversity -

Keyboardist Luke Crown, 18, and singer Naomi Simon, 19, were practising for a May concert.

"It's a very unique place. There's nowhere else that really you can study popular music to this intensity," said Crown.

Naomi Simon has already had "a really big opportunity" thanks to the school -- singing in the choir that backed chart-topper Raye on her latest album.

None of it would have been possible if the school charged fees, she said.

"My family doesn't come from a place which has lots of money ... so to come to a place where finances isn't an issue for me is amazing," she said.

The school is funded about 80 percent by the state. The rest comes from supporters, including companies, said headmaster Stuart Worden.

"The world needs diverse voices ... and so, every background should be able to talk about how they feel about the world using the arts," he added.

"Why should only people who can afford ballet lessons and ballet shoes be our dancers?"

Worden has worked at the school for 32 years, after it opened in the early 1990s in a low-income part of Croydon, a culturally diverse south London district.

In the reception, photos of former pupils are displayed: one is a stunt coordinator for movies, another a lighting technician at Eurovision.

- 'Be nice' -

McInnes recently organised a reunion for former students who left the school a decade ago.

"Whether they were making huge amounts of money or whether they were household names ... 10 years after they left they were still working in the industry," he said.

Artists such as Adele, Raye and Dean regularly speak about the BRIT School. Raye still tests new songs with Worden.

"I had the time of my life there. It's not a stage-stage school, but of course there's kids doing pirouettes and going 'Aaaaaahhhhh!' in the hallways," Adele told BBC 4 radio in 2022.

"It was such a melting pot of every single type of teenager ... It was absolute heaven."

During lockdown in 2020, "Tom Holland was one of the first students online giving actor classes from his bedroom," Worden recalled.

One piece of advice McInnes gives his students is simple: "Be nice to each other."

"There's so many people with amazing talent, but if you're not an easy person to work with, if you're not reliable, if you're not kind and empathetic, no one is going to want to work with you."

The pupils are also encouraged to step outside their comfort zones. Even if it is their passion, they cannot spend two years just writing R&B songs or playing heavy metal.

Teachers still remember Adele performing on stage at the end‑of‑year show.

"I remember everybody came out of that show going, right, that was something else that we just saw there," said McInnes.

ctx/jkb/jj/yad/tc

Tadej Pogacar won a fourth Liege-Bastogne-Liege Monument race after fending off a spirited challenge from teenage French sensation Paul Seixas.

But he fully expects the 19-year-old to keep improving and one day blitz everyone in the field in much the same way as Pogacar has in recent years.

Seixas was the only rider able to stay with world champion Pogacar when he launched hs customary attack on the Cote de la Redoute some 35km from the finish of the gruelling 260km race through the Ardennes.

That was the ninth of 11 punchy climbs and while the rest of the field -- including Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel -- fell by the wayside, Seixas stayed with Pogacar until the final climb.

But halfway up the steep Cote de Roche-aux-Faucons, with 14km left, Seixas cracked and victory was Pogacar's.

"Having Paul entering such a big field at such a good level already at 19, it brings motivation to everybody else now to keep trying to improve," said Pogacar.

"Because, again, he's 19 now and normally your body physically is the best at 26 to 30 years old.

"So, we'll see. We keep working hard to still try to fight for the next years to win as much as we can until he destroys everybody!"

Seixas's rise over the last 12 months has been remarkable.

Although still competing as a junior last year, he achieved some impressive results in his debut senior season.

He was eighth in the Criterium du Dauphine stage race, 13th at the World Championships, seventh at the Tour of Lombardy Monument race, and won bronze behind Pogacar and Evenepoel at the European Championships.

This year he has been one of the star performers, winning the Tour of the Basque Country stage race and the Fleche Wallonne and Ardeche Classic one-day races.

He was also a narrow second to talented Spaniard Juan Ayuso at the Tour of the Algarve and has now twice finished second to Pogacar in one-day races, Strade Bianche and in Liege.

He has, in many ways, proved himself to be the second best rider in hilly one-day classics behind Pogacar.

And there is one thing he needs to finally beat the world champion.

"Power! That seems obvious," said Seixas.

"I just have to improve but we can see his level, it's extremely difficult to follow him.

"He's the greatest rider of all time."

Seixas added: "There's more work to do but that's normal. You can't skip the steps so we'll just be satisfied with that today."

- 'It's a matter of time' -

After winning the Tour de France four times, the World Championships twice and 13 Monuments, Pogacar will now look to take on new challenges.

Already this year he won Milan-San Remo for the first time and as of Tuesday he will make his debut on the six-day Tour of Romandie.

In June, he will make his first appearance at the Tour of Switzerland.

Anything other than victory in both of those would be a big surprise.

If he is successful, there would be only two major races he is yet to win: Paris-Roubaix, where he has finished twice in his two participations, and the Vuelta a Espana, where he was third in his only appearance as a 20-year-old in 2019.

But with Seixas in the mix, he knows things are going to get tougher.

"For me, I definitely know that it will be more hard and hard every year," he said.

"So, it's just a matter of time when we lose to him."

Before the race, Evenepoel had questioned whether Seixas could maintain his fine form over such a long course.

He had never won a race longer than 200km and there were an extra 60km to cover in Liege.

But Seixas proved he has the engine and stamina for a six-hour race.

"He showed again today that he is one of the best climbers in the world and he has a very good punch as well," said Evenepoel.

"The whole world can only be saying chapeau to him."

bc/lp

An extra week of negotiations to complete the crucial missing piece of an international agreement on handling future pandemics kicks off Monday at the WHO, with sharp divisions holding up an accord.

Wealthy countries and developing nations are at loggerheads in the World Health Organization talks over how the pandemic treaty, adopted last year, will work in practice.

The agreement's Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system deals with sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential, then sharing the benefits derived from them: vaccines, tests and treatments.

"Developing countries are voicing their mistrust, fearing they will share their viruses without any guarantees of equitable access to vaccines in the event of a crisis," WHO chief scientist Sylvie Briand told AFP.

Meanwhile other countries are asking whether the pharmaceutical industry would have the capacity and motivation to contribute to a global pandemic agreement "without a guarantee of return on investment", she said.

Another challenge, she said, was "to integrate the sharing of genetic data, now as crucial as that of physical viruses for developing vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics". 

- 'Very hard' -

In May 2025, WHO member states adopted a landmark pandemic agreement on tackling future health crises, after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the shock of Covid-19.

The accord aims to prevent future pandemics from the disjointed responses and international disarray that surrounded the coronavirus crisis, by improving global coordination, surveillance and access to vaccines.

But PABS, the heartbeat of the treaty, was left on the side in order to get the bulk of the deal over the line.

Countries have been given one final week, through Friday, to negotiate PABS, with an eye on getting it approved during the World Health Assembly of WHO member states, which opens on May 18.

Jean Karydakis, a diplomat at Brazil's mission in Geneva, said he thought a deal was possible even if the differences were "by no means negligible."

"Progress has been slow" and finding compromise "will be very hard", though the European Union was now "making an effort to demonstrate some flexibility", he said.

PABS is considered crucial by developing states, particularly in Africa, where many countries felt cut adrift in the scramble for Covid-19 vaccines.

However, there are nuances between their positions. Some emerging economies like South Africa want technology transfers, while the poorest countries are focusing primarily on access to healthcare products.

Adeel Mumtaz Khokhar, from Pakistan's mission, said the negotiations had been "quite challenging" but "we remain hopeful".

"Licensing, technology transfer and broader capacity building of your health system -- that remains a big point of contention," he said.

- Anonymous access? -

The treaty already says participating pharmaceutical companies should make available 20 percent of their real-time production of vaccines, tests and treatments to the WHO for redistribution -- with at least half as a donation and the rest "at affordable prices".

However, the details remain to be defined in the PABS annex, as do the terms of access to health data and tools outside pandemics.

NGOs and developing countries want to impose mandatory rules for laboratories to ensure poor countries receive vaccines.

"During the Ebola outbreaks, samples from African patients led to treatments developed without such obligations," said Olena Zarytska of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The result, she said, was limited supplies in Africa and stockpiles in the United States, which under President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the WHO.

Developing countries also want a user registration and tracking system for the PABS database, while developed countries, "basically Germany, Norway and Switzerland, advocate for maintaining anonymous access", said K. M. Gopakumar, senior researcher with the Third World Network.

Anonymous access would make it "impossible" to track who is using pathogen information, what for, and whether they are sharing the derived benefits, 100 non-governmental organisations including Oxfam said in a joint letter to the WHO.

"In practice, this means that genetic resources originating in developing countries can be accessed, commercialised, and exploited with complete impunity," the letter said.

apo/rjm/nl/gv/tc

Oil prices rose Monday while stocks were mixed with the United States and Iran no closer to ending their eight-week-old war after Donald Trump cancelled his envoys' trip for peace talks at the weekend.

Hopes that the two sides could make progress during negotiations in Pakistan were dashed Saturday by the US president, who said there was no point "sitting around talking about nothing".

He said on Fox News that he told his team: "We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you're not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing."

However, he told reporters a revised proposal from Iran had followed within minutes of his decision.

"They gave us a paper that should have been better and -- interestingly -- immediately, when I cancelled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better," he said, without elaborating.

Asked separately whether the cancellation meant a return to hostilities, Trump said: "No, it doesn't mean that. We haven't thought about it yet."

But even before Trump's move, prospects for talks were uncertain, with Iranian state television saying Araghchi had no plans to meet US officials and that Islamabad would act as a conduit for proposals.

Axios on Sunday cited unnamed sources including a US official as saying Tehran had provided a new offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz -- through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes -- with nuclear talks pushed back to a later date.

Talks between the rivals have reached an impasse, with Iran hitting out at a US blockade of its ports and the White House demanding the Islamic republic allow ships to transit the crucial waterway.

Iranian state media said Monday that the country's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had arrived in Saint Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The trip comes after visits to Islamabad and Oman in a flurry of regional diplomacy.

Oil prices rose more than one percent Monday, though lingering hopes that a deal can eventually be reached has tempered the gains.

However, Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com, warned they could surge again at any time.

"If tensions were to escalate further, particularly into open conflict, there's a clear risk of a sharper spike," he wrote.

"For now though, as long as shipping through the Strait remains constrained, that premium is unlikely to fade. Until there's a credible breakthrough, the path of least resistance still looks higher, with a move beyond $110 appearing increasingly plausible."

Stocks fluctuated through the morning, with Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei sharply up on the back of healthy AI-fuelled tech gains following US giant Intel's healthy revenue forecasts.

There were also gains in Shanghai and Jakarta, while Sydney, Singapore and Manila fell and Hong Kong was flat.

That came after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended Friday at fresh record highs.

Investors were also looking ahead to earnings this week from US tech titans Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, while the Federal Reserve will hold a closely watched policy meeting at which it is expected to stand pat on interest rates.

- Key figures at 0230 GMT -

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.1 percent at $95.44 a barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.3 percent at $106.66 a barrel

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.5 percent at 60,584.37 (break)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: FLAT at 25,982.57

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 4,087.55

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1725 from $1.1717 on Friday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3534 from $1.3530

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 159.32 yen from 159.42 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 86.64 pence from 86.60 pence

New York - Dow Jones: DOWN 0.2 percent at 49,230.71 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.8 percent at 10,379.08 (close)

dan/abs

The US military said Sunday that three men were killed when it struck a boat "engaged in narco-trafficking operations" in the Eastern Pacific ocean.

This latest strike -- which follows dozens of similar attacks in recent months -- brings the US campaign's death toll to at least 185, according to a tally compiled by AFP.

As with many previous attacks, the US military's Southern Command said on X that the boat hit was "operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations" and that "intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes."

The Trump administration has not provided definitive evidence that the vessels it has been striking since September are involved in drug trafficking, prompting debate about the legality of the operations.

Legal experts and rights groups suggest the strikes could amount to extrajudicial killings because they have apparently targeted civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States.

In its X post on Sunday, SOUTHCOM said that no US military forces were injured in the operation.

pnb/ksb

© Agence France-Presse

Victor Wembanyama and De'Aaron Fox led the way as the San Antonio Spurs erased a 19-point deficit to beat the Portland Trail Blazers 114-93 and take a commanding 3-1 lead in their NBA playoff series on Sunday.

Wembanyama, back after missing game three because of a concussion he sustained in game two, scored 27 points with 11 rebounds, three assists, four steals and seven blocked shots.

"I had lots of emotions in me before the game, obviously," said Wembanyama, named the 2026 NBA Defensive Player of the Year and in the running for Most Valuable Player.

"Excitement, frustration, so I let it all out tonight," added the 22-year-old Frenchman.

He praised the doctors who oversaw his path through the NBA concussion protocol, but voiced dissatisfaction with the process that requires a gradual return to physical activity under medical supervision.

"The way the situation was handled was very disappointing," Wembanyama said, declining to elaborate.

Fox led all scorers with 28 points, and the Spurs out-scored the Trail Blazers 73-35 in the second half to move within one win of advancing to the Western Conference semi-finals.

They'll try to clinch the best-of-seven series when they host game five on Tuesday.

Wembanyama said they need to get off to a better start in the next game.

"We need to find the answers before having our backs against the wall," he said. "But that also shows the strength of our team. In adversity, we stick together. We get closer to each other. We feed off each other's energy."

Deni Avdija scored 26 points and Jrue Holiday added 20 for the Trail Blazers, but they were the only Portland starters who scored in the second half.

- Celtics rout Sixers -

The Boston Celtics crushed the 76ers 128-96 in Philadelphia to take a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference series and a chance to close it out at home on Tuesday.

Payton Pritchard scored 32 points off the bench and Jayson Tatum scored 30 points with seven rebounds and 11 assists for the Celtics, who led by 16 points after one quarter and by double digits the rest of the way.

Joel Embiid led the 76ers with 26 points and 10 rebounds in his first game since an emergency appendectomy on April 9. Tyrese Maxey added 22 points but the 76ers couldn't counter the Celtics' rain of 24 three-pointers.

In Toronto, Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram scored 23 points apiece as the Raptors held off the Cleveland Cavaliers 93-89 to knot their Eastern Conference series at 2-2.

The Raptors trailed by five with 2:10 left to play but powered to the lead with a 9-0 scoring burst and held on.

Both teams struggled offensively, the Raptors making a dismal four of 30 from three-point range.

Donovan Mitchell scored 20 points to lead the Cavs and James Harden added 19, but Mitchell missed two attempts in the final 30 seconds as Barnes made six free throws down the stretch to seal it.

bb/pst

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reaffirmed Pyongyang's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, vowing to help Moscow achieve victory in its "sacred" war, state media reported on Monday.

Pyongyang has sent missiles, munitions and thousands of troops to assist Russia in Ukraine, and analysts say Moscow is sending financial aid, military technology, food and energy to the diplomatically isolated country in return.

A string of high-level Russian officials have visited North Korea in recent days, with Defence Minister Andrey Belousov meeting Kim on Sunday, according to official statements.

North Korea "will as ever fully support the policy of the Russian Federation to defend the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests", Kim told Belousov, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim expressed "belief that the Russian army and people would surely win a victory in the just sacred war", KCNA reported.

Both sides said their delegations had discussed deeper military ties, with Belousov saying Moscow was ready to sign a cooperation plan covering the period from 2027 to 2031.

Kim, Belousov and Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin also attended the opening ceremony of a memorial complex honouring North Korean soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The ceremony included a concert, a fireworks display and an air force flyover, KCNA reported.

The audience were moved by portrayals of "life-and-death bloody battles" and "death-defying hand-to-hand fights and heroic suicidal explosions the young soldiers chose without hesitation", it said.

North Korea and Russia signed a military treaty in 2024, obligating both states to provide military assistance "without delay" in the event of an attack on the other.

The opening of the memorial coincides with what Moscow describes as the first anniversary of its recovery of parts of Kursk, a region in Russia where Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive starting in mid-2024.

North Korean soldiers were deployed in the area to help beat back the Ukrainian advance.

In his meeting with Belousov, Kim hailed the "brilliant war results in liberating Kursk", according to KCNA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the "extraordinary bravery and genuine devotion" of North Korean troops in a letter to Kim that was published by KCNA.

Seoul estimates about 2,000 North Koreans have been killed in the Ukraine war.

North Korean soldiers are said to have been instructed to kill themselves rather than be captured in battle.

Only two North Korean troops have been taken alive and are currently in custody of Ukrainian authorities.

sjh/mjw/abs

Images of bareheaded women sipping coffee in cafes in Tehran, in apparent defiance of the Islamic republic's strict dress rule, have stirred interest outside Iran -- but for Elnaz, 32, it is no breakthrough.

"It is not at all a sign of any change in the government in my opinion. Because no achievement has been made regarding women's rights," said Elnaz, a painter in Tehran, who like other women in the capital and elsewhere contacted by AFP in Paris asked that her full name not be published.

"Under the surface, in reality, no real change has taken place in people's freedom, especially when it comes to women's basic rights," she said.

Wearing the headscarf in public has been mandatory for women since shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in what was long seen as an ideological pillar of the clerical leadership.

But enforcement of the rule appears to have slackened, at least in parts of Tehran and other cities.

The trend began following the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested in Tehran for allegedly ignoring the dress code.

It continued through the June 2025 war with Israel, January protests sparked by the cost of living and now the war against the US and Israel that is on hold with a ceasefire.

There is little sign of the dreaded white patrol vans of the so-called morality police that used to lurk in squares and on street corners to haul in women deemed to have violated the rules.

But the picture remains mixed and the situation evolving, with wearing hijab still a matter of choice for some women. It is not uncommon even in more liberal areas of Tehran to see women with and without the headscarf walking together.

- Years ago 'only a dream' -

In some areas the change has been startling, with scenes of women casually strolling without a headscarf that would have been unthinkable half a decade ago.

"I'm happy for all of them, because until just three years ago this was only a dream," said Zahra, 57, a housewife from Isfahan in central Iran.

"My youth has passed and I didn't get to have this experience; now I don't wear it anymore, but I wish I could have experienced these days when I was young."

But women can still be summoned by authorities for not wearing hijab, and cafes shut down for failing to enforce the rule, while often women must wear the garment to enter banks, educational establishments and official buildings.

Moreover, the rights of women are still restricted and they live under a system that arrested tens of thousands of people following the January protests and thousands more, including women, in the current war, according to rights groups.

"Beautiful photos of cafes and girls are being shared everywhere, but as cafe owners, we've been paying a lot for that," said Negin, 34, who owns a cafe in Tehran.

"We've been treated very harshly over these years, continuing until this day. We've been shut down multiple times, fined and had to pay bribes... What makes me even angrier is when they call this 'freedom' and they say women are being freer," she added.

- 'More widespread' -

Amnesty International said this month that "widespread resistance" to the obligatory hijab "forced authorities to retreat from the violent mass arrests and assaults of previous years".

"However, authorities continued to use existing laws and regulations to enforce compulsory veiling in workplaces, universities and other public sector institutions, leaving women and girls who resisted facing harassment, assault, arbitrary arrest, fines and expulsion from employment and education," it added.

One noticeable change has been state television broadcasting images of Iranian women not wearing hijab -- but only so long as they back the Islamic republic and denounce Iran's enemies in what critics see as a cynical ploy.

"More women are putting their fear aside each day and trying out what it's like to go out without hijab, and it's gradually becoming more widespread," said Shahrzad, 39, a Tehran housewife.

"But I don't see any change in the government system. It's the same as before, aside from those videos of girls going in front of state news cameras without hijab and saying 'my leader, my leader, I will sacrifice myself for him'."

- 'Don't see any significant change' -

The situation is far from uniform across Iran.

Mahsa, a 32-year-old student, said rules and observance are tighter in the major eastern city of Mashhad, home to one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam.

"Before the 12-day war (against Israel in June), in Mashhad they wouldn't let us in anywhere without hijab," she said.

"Now they do let people in, but unfortunately, we haven't had the same level of change that people in Tehran have seen over the past three years."

Farnaz, 41 from Isfahan, which is generally seen as one of Iran's more conservative big cities, said she had been summoned to appear in court over hijab observance later this month.

"In Isfahan, for the past few days they've started sealing cafes again over hijab issues. They didn't even wait for the situation with the war to be clarified.

"Here, you're dealing both with the government and with people. Like before in some neighbourhoods, religious people sometimes warn you and harass you. It's not just about the morality police."

"I don't see any significant change," she added.

Maryam, 35, also from Isfahan, said women without hijab would not be served in some banks and shopworkers have to wear it.

"If you are involved in social or economic activity, you are expected to observe hijab."

Zahra, the housewife from Isfahan, said "we paid a very high price to get here", after the crackdown on the Mahsa Amini protests killed hundreds of people according to rights groups.

"Right now, they (the authorities) are just distracted by the war. But after that, who knows what they will do about it," she said.

bur-sjw/amj/tc

A Sumatran orangutan has been filmed for the first time crossing a man-made canopy bridge constructed to help the endangered animals bypass a tarred road on the Indonesian island, an NGO said Sunday.

Conservation group Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, in partnership with the UK-based charity Sumatra Orangutan Society (SOS) and local authorities, built five canopy bridges in the North Sumatra province in 2024, after a road that serves as a lifeline for remote communities had been expanded, cutting through the rainforest.

The first Sumatran orangutan has now been caught on camera using one of the hanging bridges, SOS said in a statement sent to AFP Sunday.

While other species including gibbons and long-tailed macaques have also been spotted crossing there, "this is a world first for Sumatran orangutans," it added.

The bridge's use by the orangutan was a "huge milestone for conservation", SOS chief executive Helen Buckland said.

"These canopy bridges demonstrate that human development and wildlife don't have to be at odds. Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective," Buckland added.

The road is an important social and economic link for communities in Sumatra's Pakpak Bharat district.

But it has also split a population of some 350 orangutans, SOS said.

Erwin Alamsyah Siregar, executive director at Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, said habitat fragmentation was "one of the greatest challenges in contemporary conservation".

He said he hoped canopy bridges would become a "standard feature" of infrastructure planning across the region.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies Sumatran orangutans, endemic to the island of Sumatra, as critically endangered, with just over 13,587 individuals at the last count.

Their decline is blamed on habitat loss and fragmentation as well as illegal hunting.

In the wild, orangutans are found only on Sumatra and the nearby island of Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

mrc/mlr/ami

North Korea is taking advantage of the Middle East war to speed up its weapons development and cement its nuclear status in a world where international norms have broken down, analysts say.

Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February, North Korea has conducted five missile launches, including four so far in April -- the most in a single month since January 2024, according to an AFP tally.

They follow a pledge by leader Kim Jong Un to bolster nuclear forces, as Pyongyang reaps the benefits of deeper ties with Russia and sharpens its invective against US ally South Korea.

The launches "appear to be part of a sophisticated strategy" to balance military upgrades against shifting dynamics between the United States, Russia and China, said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at the South's Kyungnam University.

"The current global security landscape has transformed into a 'lawless zone' where existing international norms no longer function," he said.

"North Korea is exploiting this vacuum... to complete its nuclear arsenal."

Pyongyang has condemned US attacks on Iran as "gangster-like", but is not thought to have supplied arms to Tehran and has notably refrained from directly criticising President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit China for a summit next month.

There has been speculation that Trump may meet Kim around that time.

"With the summit likely to draw attention to the North Korea agenda, Pyongyang may have seized the moment to reinforce its message that it is an irreversible nuclear state," Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

However, it also wants to send "a continuous signal that it possesses a fundamentally different deterrent posture from Iran's".

- Nuclear options -

The flurry of missile launches began soon after the Workers' Party congress in February, a once-in-five-years event that directs state efforts.

The timing suggests that North Korea wants to "front-load visible achievements" in its weapons capabilities, Hong said.

At that congress, Kim said North Korea's "position as a nuclear weapons state has been consolidated to be irreversible and permanent".

The launches have involved sanctioned ballistic missiles, anti-warship cruise missiles and cluster munitions.

Analysts told AFP the manoeuvres displayed certain technical advancements and growing proficiency with dual-use weapons, designed for both nuclear and conventional roles.

They included evidence of North Korea's ability to mount miniaturised nuclear warheads and conduct "saturation attacks" that overwhelm enemy interception networks with sheer quantity, Lim said.

Pyongyang is likely to pursue "continuous" ballistic missile testing as it pivots from simple weapons development towards the "normalisation of nuclear operations", he said.

"The regime judges that while the US is tied down in the Middle East, it is the optimal time to accelerate offensive deterrence and the parallel development of nuclear and conventional forces."

- More bangs, more bucks -

The launches also show North Korea's willingness to flaunt its backing from Russia, which has given Pyongyang valuable economic and technical assistance in return for thousands of North Korean troops sent to help its invasion of Ukraine.

"This is an attempt to demonstrate that they have a powerful ally in Russia despite pressure from the US and China, effectively rendering sanctions obsolete," Lim said.

In recent high-level exchanges, Pyongyang and Moscow have celebrated the connection of their first road bridge, the start of construction of a "friendship hospital", and the inauguration of a North Korean military memorial complex.

Russia's defence, interior, natural resources and health ministers, as well as its parliamentary speaker, the head of its trade union federation and the chief of the TASS news agency, have all visited the diplomatically isolated nation.

Pyongyang's ambassador to Moscow reportedly even discussed agricultural cooperation with the Russian-installed leader of Kherson, in occupied Ukraine.

"North Korea is one of the few countries that would not be afraid to operate in occupied Ukraine, and both sides are making use of this," said Fyodor Tertitskiy, a Russian-born scholar at Seoul's Korea University who studies the North.

Cultural bonds have deepened too, with Russia hosting an exhibition of North Korean art glorifying the Ukraine war, and a North Korean restaurant operating in Moscow.

"There is no 'boom' or sharp increase, but there are always clients interested in this country," said Olga, the administrator of a Moscow travel agency that offers tours to North Korea for around $1,500.

But Tertitskiy said he doubted that the friendship would live long beyond the Ukraine war, saying it was "driven almost exclusively by the ongoing invasion".

"Putin needs ammunition; everything else is secondary."

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