BP reports huge profit rise in first quarter 

Australian film star Rebel Wilson dismissed as "nonsense" claims she had bullied women on the set of her directorial debut film "The Deb", as she gave evidence in a Sydney court on Tuesday.

Wilson -- star of Hollywood hits including "Bridesmaids" and "Pitch Perfect" -- is accused of defamation by actress Charlotte MacInnes.

The claims centre around Instagram posts and comments by Wilson suggesting MacInnes changed an account of having been victim of sexual harassment in order to advance her career.

The federal court case focuses on an incident where MacInnes and Amanda Ghost, a producer of "The Deb", shared a bath in an apartment after swimming at Bondi Beach.

"It felt like she was making a sexual harassment complaint to me," Wilson told the court on Tuesday according to Australian national broadcaster ABC, referring to communication she had with MacInnes.

An affidavit from Ghost tendered in court on Tuesday described how she and MacInnes had swum at the beach in the early evening of September 2023, returning to her apartment feeling cold.

The pair got into a hot bath while wearing swimming costumes to warm up, it said.

"It was an oversized bath, with plenty of room for two people to sit without touching (and we didn't touch)," Ghost said in the statement tendered to court.

Two days later, Wilson phoned Ghost to say MacInnes had felt uncomfortable about the bath.

MacInnes has denied telling Wilson that and has told the court Wilson had shamed her to 11 million followers on Instagram.

Wilson on Tuesday denied she mistreated women while making "The Deb", saying this was "nonsense".

She told the court she had made truthful statements about MacInnes and Ghost.

kln/oho/jm

British energy giant BP on Tuesday reported a sharp increase in profits in the first quarter as crude oil prices soared amid the Middle East war.

Oil prices have risen since the start of the US-Iran conflict on February 28, often swinging violently in response to the war's ever changing headlines. 

BP's profit after tax jumped to $3.8 billion for the January-March period from $687 million in the same period a year earlier, London-listed BP said in an earnings statement.

The closely followed underlying profit figure more than doubled to $3.2 billion from $1.4 billion the previous year, a figure that "reflects exceptional oil trading contribution", the statement said.

"Overall, our business continues to run well. This was another quarter of strong operational and financial delivery, and we made further progress towards our 2027 targets," said CEO Meg O'Neill, who was appointed at the end of last year to replace Murray Auchincloss.

The group had announced in mid-April that it expected to benefit from rising oil prices, noting that the price of Brent North Sea crude, the international benchmark, averaged $81.13 a barrel in the first quarter, up from $63.73 in the fourth quarter of last year.

Oil prices have been volatile due to the war, coming close to $120 a barrel in March, which BP traders were able to profit from.

The company said in mid-April that each one dollar variation in the price of a barrel has a $340 million on its annual operating profit before tax.

BP "has been working relentlessly to keep our assets producing safely, reliably and efficiently," while working "in an environment of conflict and complexity," O'Neill said.

The American CEO took up her post in early April with a mission of implementing a recovery plan for the struggling group, whose profit after tax in 2025 plunged 86 percent year-on-year to $55 million.

- 'Simpler, stronger' -

BP's performance has generally fallen behind that of its rivals in recent years, and last year the company mounted a boardroom shakeup after slashing clean energy investment and pivoting back to its more profitable oil and gas business.

O'Neill plans to reorganise the company, clearly separating its upstream and downstream activities.

Her aim is to make BP "a simpler, stronger, more valuable company," she said Tuesday.

"Now, we have to capitalise on the opportunity that exists across our portfolio, simplifying how we work, unlocking growth and driving improved returns," she added.

The new CEO faced a stinging rebuke from shareholders last week at the annual general meeting where they largely rejected two board proposals as a step backwards on transparency, particularly concerning climate strategy.

One proposal aimed to revoke two resolutions adopted at previous general meetings, which required BP to publish certain climate-related information. 

The other was intended to authorise holding shareholder meetings exclusively online.

BP chairman Albert Manifold, who took office on October 1, faced a personal rebuke, with around 18 percent of shareholders voting against his election.

zap-am/jkb/gv

When is a Chinese AI startup not a Chinese AI startup? When it's based in Singapore, or elsewhere, to distance itself legally and politically from Beijing.

The practice known as "Singapore-washing" is under scrutiny after China blocked a major US acquisition on national security grounds.

China's top economic planning body said Monday it prohibited the deal between Facebook owner Meta and the Chinese-developed, Singapore-based artificial intelligence agent tool Manus.

That came after a report said two Manus co-founders were prevented from leaving China during a review of the deal.

Here, AFP examines what that means:

- What is Singapore-washing? -

Firms move abroad "who seek a combination of funding overseas, a laxer regulatory environment, or to appeal to a global customer base without an explicitly Chinese image", said Wendy Chang at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).

"Beijing has heretofore tolerated this practice, but the Manus case marks a major turning point" as the US-China AI race heats up, she told AFP.

The move signals "to its own tech leaders, more than to anybody else, that attempts to bypass national regulation will not be tolerated".

Other Chinese tech companies in the Southeast Asian city-state include e-commerce giant Shein, and TikTok -- a subsidiary of ByteDance, which is still based in China.

Manus shifted operations to Singapore last year, but "it's unclear whether it has moved the official registration as well, which may give Beijing more leverage", Chang said.

AFP has approached Singaporean authorities for comment.

- Can the deal be undone? -

Meta and Manus announced the acquisition, reportedly worth around US$2 billion, in December.

Meta said Monday that "the transaction complied fully with applicable law", and "we anticipate an appropriate resolution".

The Wall Street Journal later reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the US giant was preparing to backtrack on its acquisition after the Chinese edict.

"It may be challenging or even impossible to ultimately reverse this transaction," said Nicholas Cook, a partner at law firm Nixon Peabody CWL.

But for Chinese regulators, "no matter the exact deal structure, sensitive AI technology seen as vital to China's national interests... has found its way into the hands of a major US tech actor".

"How much the Manus deal can actually be unwound is, in my view, a secondary issue," Angela Zhang, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told AFP.

She said China's objective "is to set a precedent and to remind entrepreneurs that they should not transfer critical and sensitive technical know-how overseas without government approval".

- What's at stake? -

China wants to prevent leakage of "talent, tech data, capital", said Dylan Loh at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

The country's AI engineers are a key asset, added Chang at MERICS.

"The Meta deal was an 'acquihire', as much about absorbing the talent behind the startup as its technology," she explained.

Other analysts said the matter could be a bargaining chip between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Donald Trump at upcoming talks.

The deal may also have woken Beijing up to the possibility that other companies -- including top AI startup DeepSeek -- could also one day set up shop overseas.

- What next for other firms? -

Cook warned that Chinese AI founders "would be well advised to think twice before following in Manus' footsteps".

The Financial Times last month said Beijing had restricted two Manus co-founders from leaving China while the review was underway.

For Chinese companies using other countries to reach international markets, "this case shows Beijing is not accepting your corporate identity at face value", said Lizzi Lee at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

"So if your tech, founders, or talent base are Chinese, then the company is still strategically Chinese, regardless of where it's incorporated," she told AFP.

Founders now have a fundamental choice, she said: stay within China and scale domestically, or genuinely relocate even sooner.

burs-kaf/dan

North Korea dramatically increased executions during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly for consuming South Korean dramas, K-pop and other foreign culture and political offences, a report published Tuesday showed.

Pyongyang closed its borders in January 2020 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, with research and media reports indicating that the diplomatically isolated nation spent subsequent years bolstering security along its frontiers.

Campaigners have said the shutdown worsened longstanding human rights abuses in North Korea, whose government is widely seen as one of the world's most repressive.

The report by the Transitional Justice Working Group, an advocacy NGO, found that the number of executions and death sentencings more than doubled in the nearly five years after the border closure, compared to the same period before it.

The number of condemned people also more than tripled over the same time frame, according to the findings.

The group drew data from hundreds of North Korean escapees and several media outlets that maintain networks of sources inside the secretive nation, where there is no independent media and little international presence.

It analysed 144 known cases of executions and death sentencings, involving hundreds of people in total.

Since the pandemic, authorities have ramped up the use of capital punishment for offences such as consuming South Korean movies, dramas and music, it said.

Death penalty cases related to foreign culture, religion and "superstition" jumped by 250 percent after the border closure.

Another major spike in executions for political crimes, such as criticising leader Kim Jong Un, may suggest the government is "responding to growing internal dissatisfaction or intensifying state violence to suppress political discontent", the report said. 

Nearly three-quarters of the executions were carried out in public, with most people shot to death, it said.

It added that killings had taken place in dozens of cities and counties since Kim rose to power in the early 2010s.

They included several sites in the capital Pyongyang, as well as public grounds such as defunct airfields, riverbanks, farmland and open-storage yards for mine waste.

The North Korean government is accused of rights abuses including torture, forced labour and severe restrictions on freedom of expression and movement.

It is said to operate four political prison camps where up to 65,000 people are subjected to hard labour, according to a 2025 report by the Korea Institute for National Unification.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said last year that the overall human rights situation in North Korea over the past decade had shown no improvement and in many cases had worsened.

North Korea has consistently rejected allegations of abuses, accusing the United Nations of politicising human rights to undermine the regime.

mjw/cdl/mtp

Ryanair, Transavia, Volotea and other low-cost airlines are feeling the financial pain from high jet fuel prices as a result of the Middle East war and are cutting flights.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken a huge chunk of oil supplies off the market, sending the price of jet fuel soaring and triggering fears of shortages that could force airlines to cancel flights.

Airlines aren't waiting for a lack of supplies to react.

"Travel alert: airlines are cutting thousands of flights right now," Travel Therapy TV host Karen Schaler said in an Instagram reel this past weekend. "Book early."

That advice would win the approval of Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary, who expressed concern earlier this month that fears of fuel shortages were making people put off booking flights.

Low-cost carriers -- which control a little more than a third of the global market, according to various estimates -- are feeling the pinch first due to the nature of their business model.

With cheaper tickets, they have less capacity to absorb the rise in fuel costs.

Some of the cancellations may be the normal adjustments airlines tend to make when demand doesn't meet expectations on certain routes.

"It is not unusual for carriers to adjust their schedules at this time of the year," financial analyst Dudley Shanley at investment bank Goodbody told AFP.

But "if jet fuel prices remain at this level, there will have to be a little bit more trimming for low-cost airlines", he added.

If before the war airlines were able to maintain marginally profitable routes or even unprofitable routes, the surge in jet fuel prices will force them to make difficult choices.

That will start with many during the peak summer travel season.

"Unfortunately, it's very likely that many people's holidays will be affected, either by flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets," the EU's energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen told Sky News last week.

- 'Faster than the bear' -

The speed with which airlines are reacting depends in part upon the extent to which they secured fuel supplies in advance at fixed prices.

European airlines tend to do this to a greater extent than their rivals in other parts of the world.

Air Transat, a low-cost Canadian airline, has cut six percent of its May-October flight schedule.

Southeast Asia's largest low-cost carrier, AirAsia X, announced on Friday announced it was cutting more flights and even some connections, without providing an overall figure. 

Earlier this month the Malaysia-based no-frills airline said it was raising fares by up to 40 percent and about 10 percent of its overall flights had been cut so far. 

Hungary's low-cost airline Wizz Air has so far resisted cutting flights.

"We are not taking capacity out, because I think the other guys will take capacity out," its chief executive Jozsef Varadi was quoted as saying recently by trade magazine Aviation Week.

"You don't have to run faster than the bear, but faster than the guy next to you," he added.

He may have been thinking of the most spectacular cuts made in the industry by German group Lufthansa, which had just announced it was chopping 20,000 flights from its schedule through October, along with halting its regional feeder airline CityLine.

Its European rival Air France-KLM has trimmed two percent of flights in May and June at its low-cost Transavia subsidiary. 

KLM has kept cancellations down to one percent of its European flights.

Ryanair didn't cite fuel prices but high costs and taxes when announcing last week it would reduce flights to and from Berlin starting in October.

It is also cutting 10 percent of flights from Dublin, criticising limited capacity at the airport.

Since the beginning of the month, Spain's Volotea has trimmed nearly one percent of flights from its summer schedule.

hh/im/uh/rl/sbk

Atletico Madrid and Diego Simeone have regularly tasted the sting of disappointment, even in what is the club's golden age.

They host Arsenal on Wednesday in the Champions League semi-finals chasing redemption after their crushing Copa del Rey final defeat little over a week ago.

Tens of thousands of Atletico fans travelled down to Seville only to go home empty-handed, just as they did in the 2014 and 2016 Champions League finals against bitter rivals Real Madrid.

Atletico have never won Europe's premier competition, also beaten in their other final appearance in 1974.

They can take a first step towards a fourth final against Mikel Arteta's side this week, in which they are celebrating the club's 123rd anniversary.

In their first game back home after the Copa final disappointment, on Saturday against Athletic Bilbao, Atletico's fans gave the team a cold reception.

"The fans don't need messages (from me), what they need is to win," noted Simeone, Atletico's most decorated manager, in Seville.

However by the end of the team's 3-2 victory over Athletic, only their second in the last nine games across all competitions, the mood had lightened.

"We have to get up from that blow and give everything to get to the final," key striker Julian Alvarez said on Monday.

The Arsenal tie offers a route to immediate atonement, and by Wednesday the atmosphere will be frenzied, intoxicating, as it was for the quarter-final elimination of Barcelona.

Atletico are no longer at the Vicente Calderon but the Metropolitano stadium is just as intense, louder still, with the increased capacity.

Opened in 2017, it obviously does not have the history of its predecessor -- that will take time, and intense performances on nights like these, to build.

"Congratulations Atletico -- if you beat Arsenal, then the (anniversary) celebration will be perfect," wrote Madrid newspaper AS.

The Rojiblancos' support are the loudest in Spain and Simeone called on them to give his team the edge against the Premier League leaders.

"Atletico have struggled to reach the Champions League semi-finals and finals," explained the coach.

"We've built this success through hard work and the support of our fans.

"We need them now more than ever, and hopefully, we can give them what they want on the pitch."

- Courage and heart -

When the conditions are right, at the Metropolitano Atletico have proven they can dismantle any side.

They blitzed Barcelona 4-0 in the Copa del Rey semi-final first leg, a lead which proved unassailable, and romped to a 5-2 derby victory over Real Madrid there earlier this season.

Those matches, along with many others, should have put to bed the myth that Simeone's team play the same, dour, defensive football which was the bedrock of their success in the first half of his 14-year reign.

What is non-negotiable though, now, then and always for Simeone, is his team's intensity, work-rate and competitiveness, and capacity to suffer when they need to against superior opponents.

"We've reached this point by competing the way we have -- nothing has stopped us so far," said Simeone.

"Coraje y corazon" -- courage and heart -- is the team's motto and even when on the attack, Atletico look to cause damage with their power and speed.

The coach's son, Giuliano Simeone, Marcos Llorente and Alexander Sorloth are dynamic, hard-hitting attackers, while even talented talisman Antoine Griezmann works his socks off.

"If you don't run, you're coming off tomorrow," Simeone joked, while sitting next to Griezmann at a recent press conference.

Alvarez, who hit the woodwork twice in the 4-0 league phase defeat by Arsenal in October, said he is "100 percent" fit, but they will miss injured energetic midfielder Pablo Barrios.

"Both teams have evolved a lot since then," said Llorente.

Beating Athletic might be the morale boost the team needed to head into the Arsenal game with confidence and belief.

"It's good to win again after a negative run," said Atletico's all-time top goalscorer Griezmann, leaving the club in the summer for MLS side Orlando City.

"It will be a very important match (against Arsenal), we have to be calm, relaxed, knowing that we can do it...

"I'm enjoying these last few games here. I hope I can gift something incredible to the fans."

As Simeone observed, for all the sweat and grit his team have offered, the gift they need to give is silverware.

rbs/mw

South Korean police said on Tuesday they were investigating firms suspected of hoarding medical syringes, as the Middle East war hits supplies of an oil-derived component crucial for making many plastic goods.

The US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz have rattled deliveries of naphtha, a liquid essential for making a key ingredient in many medical supplies.

The disruption has particularly affected petrochemical sectors in Asia and forced governments to take action, with South Korea imposing a ban this month on hoarding syringes and needles to guard against shortages.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency told AFP on Tuesday that it "promptly began an investigation" into four medical device distributors suspected of violating the ban, following a complaint by the food and drug safety ministry.

The agency vowed to strengthen inspections across the supply chain to crack down on illicit behaviour.

Under the ban, companies must not hold more than 150 percent of last year's average monthly sales volume in syringes and needles for five days or longer, or refuse sales without a valid reason.

But some firms appear to be exploiting the supply crunch by stockpiling syringes and selling them at higher prices, according to the ministry.

One distributor was found to have held excess inventory of about 130,000 units for more than five days, it said.

More than half of South Korea's naphtha imports last year came via the Strait of Hormuz, according to the presidential office.

President Lee Jae Myung pledged in a social media post on Saturday to take the "strongest possible" action against "antisocial behaviour that exploits community crises to worsen them and profit from them".

Lee's chief of staff announced this month that South Korea had secured an additional 2.1 million tonnes of naphtha from countries including Saudi Arabia and Oman via routes that do not pass through the strait.

sjh/mjw/jm

Desmond Bane scored 22 points to lead the upstart Orlando Magic over top seed Detroit 94-88 on Monday, pushing the Pistons to the brink of NBA playoff elimination.

Franz Wagner scored 19 points for Orlando before being benched with a sore right calf while Paolo Banchero added 18 and grabbed eight rebounds.

The Magic seized a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference first-round series and can eliminate the Pistons on Wednesday in Detroit.

The Pistons, whose 60-22 record topped the East, must win three in a row to avoid an epic upset defeat at the hands of Orlando, which was eighth this season at 45-37.

Cade Cunningham led Detroit with 25 points while Tobias Harris added 20 for the Pistons, who committed 20 turnovers, twice as many as Orlando.

The Magic have not reached the second round of the playoffs since 2010, dropping six series in the first round and missing the post-season nine times.

The Pistons have not reached the second round since 2008, dropping four first-round matchups and missing the playoffs 13 times.

Orlando seized a 19-7 edge but then missed 13 shots in a row as Detroit closed the first quarter on a 20-7 run for a 27-26 lead.

The Magic closed the second quarter on a 17-6 run for a 54-52 halftime edge but Detroit stayed close into the fourth quarter.

Bane banked in a three-point shot with 1:16 remaining to give the Magic a 92-86 lead and Orlando added late free throws to seal Detroit's fate, the Pistons going more than five minutes without a basket from the floor.

In later games, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves will try to become the first teams to advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

The top-seeded Thunder, who boast the top scoring attack and defensive statistics in the NBA playoffs, have a 3-0 Western Conference series lead over Phoenix and hope to complete a sweep with a road victory.

The T-Wolves visit Denver with a 3-1 edge in their West matchup but will be without two top guards.

Anthony Edwards will miss at least a week with a bone bruise and hyper-extended left knee while Donte DiVincenzo will miss the remainder of the playoffs with a ruptured right Achilles tendon.

js/jgc

Australia unveiled draft laws on Tuesday that would tax tech giants Meta, Google and TikTok unless they voluntarily strike deals to pay local outlets for news.

Traditional media companies around the world are in a battle for survival as readers increasingly consume their news on social media.

Australia wants big tech companies to compensate local publishers for sharing articles that drive traffic on their platforms.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said tech giants Meta, Google and TikTok would be given a chance to strike content deals with local news publishers. 

If they refused, they faced a compulsory levy that amounted to 2.25 percent of their Australian revenue, he said.

"Large digital platforms cannot avoid their obligations under the news media bargaining code," Albanese told reporters.

"At this point the three organisations are Meta, Google and TikTok."

The three firms were singled out based on a combination of their Australian revenues and large numbers of domestic users. 

Meta, Google and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The draft laws have been designed to stop the tech giants from simply stripping news from their platforms -- something Meta and Google have done in the past.

"What we are encouraging is for them to sit down with news organisations and get these deals done," Albanese said. 

When Canberra mooted similar laws in 2024, Facebook parent Meta announced that Australian users would no longer be able to access the "news" tab. 

Meta had previously announced it would not renew content deals with news publishers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

- 'Only fair' -

Google has similarly threatened to restrict its search engine in Australia if forced to compensate news outlets. 

Journalism needed to have a "monetary value attached to it", Albanese said. 

"It shouldn't be able to be taken by a large multinational corporation and used to generate profits with no compensation."

Supporters of such laws argue that social media companies attract users with news stories and hoover up online advertising dollars that would otherwise go to struggling newsrooms.

Australia's University of Canberra has found that more than half the country uses social media as a source of news.

"People are increasingly getting their news directly from Facebook, from TikTok and Google," Communications Minister Anika Wells said.

"We believe it's only fair that large digital platforms contribute to the hard work that enriches their feeds and that drives their revenue."

The draft laws were presented for public consultation on Tuesday, which will close in May. 

They would then be introduced into parliament later this year. 

sft/oho/jm

Tigers are so feared in Bangladesh's vast Sundarban mangroves that locals invoke spirits to protect against them. But experts say it is the big cats themselves that need defending.

Abdul Goni Gazi was among the first to raise the alarm for the creatures struggling to grow their numbers under pressure from habitat loss, poaching and climate change.

Known locally as "Goni Tiger", the 45-year-old devoted his life to promoting coexistence between the big cats and the people living on the forest's edge.

Despite the danger, this activist claims to have saved 36 Bengal tigers from guns or traps -- and 106 local residents from the animals' jaws.

He has pulled furious villagers back from the brink of killing tigers -- and, in some cases, dragged home the dismembered bodies of others.

"If we want the Sundarbans and the thousands of people dependent on it to survive, we need the Bengal tigers," he said.

Stretching 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles) across sprawling mangrove forests and tidal rivers, the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site straddles both Bangladesh and India.

Tigers eat grazing animals in the forest, which has the knock-on effect of allowing mangroves to grow and thus help protect coastlines from erosion and storms.

"If a tiger is killed in the Sundarbans, it creates a turmoil in the ecosystem," said Mohammad Abdul Aziz, a zoology expert at Bangladesh's Jahangirnagar University.

The creatures' power is also deeply embedded in people's culture, prompting them to seek the blessings of dozens of spirits before entering the forest.

"If someone chants the name of Mother Bonbibi, she will save his life from tigers, snakes, and crocodiles," said villager Ashutosh Mandal, 63, referring to a deity whose idol is worshipped at temples.

A blend of Islamic and Hindu beliefs has long served as a conservation code, with supernatural guardians believed to punish anyone who plunders the forest for greed.

- 'Safeguard the ecosystem' -

"If the Sundarbans had 400-500 tigers, they themselves would safeguard the ecosystem -- without the need for human intervention," Goni told AFP.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people pledged in 2010 to double its tiger population, then placed at 414.

But a more rigorous camera-trap census in 2015 revised the population down to 106, followed by counts of 114 in 2018, and 125 in 2024 -- a rise of roughly two tigers per year.

The slow growth has drawn scrutiny over the effectiveness of the nation's conservation efforts, including the latest $4.2 million tiger project.

Chief Conservator of Forests Amir Hossain Chowdhury said habitat loss remains the core challenge.

Rising sea levels and surging tides from increasingly powerful storms -- resulting in an increase in soil salinity -- have degraded agricultural lands, pushing people into tiger territory.

"Human encroachment has pushed (the Sundarbans tigers) into a corner, creating conditions that are not suitable for most species, let alone tigers," Chowdhury said.

Storms, rising tides, and shifting water systems have widened some rivers beyond what tigers can swim, limiting their range.

Chowdhury said earth mounds have been built to provide refuge for tigers and other animals during highwater.

- 'Kill tigers on demand' -

Tigers also face other, more direct threats.

Poachers and villagers still kill tigers, undeterred by penalties of a 12-year jail term or $15,000 fine.

"Sometimes they kill tigers on demand -- from home and abroad," said wildlife trafficking expert Nasir Uddin. 

"And sometimes they do it for their own safety, so that tigers cannot attack them, when they anchor their boats near forest canals."

Some of the armed bandits who prowl the forests have even used freshwater ponds dug to help the tigers as a trap.

"Poachers sometimes lure thirsty animals there by placing poisoned bait," Chowdhury said.

Several people are arrested every year selling or buying tiger hides, teeth, claws and bones, prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

Tiger parts are smuggled to India, Myanmar, China, Malaysia, and even further to buyers in Australia, Britain and Germany, Uddin said.

The hunting of their favourite prey also threatens the future of the tigers -- especially that of deer, which make up 80 percent of their diet. 

A 2013 study estimated that 11,000 deer are killed illegally every year for meat.

"Killing spotted deer indiscriminately creates food insecurity... and can push tigers into human settlements, leading to attacks on villagers," Aziz, the zoology professor, said.

But despite the challenges, Abishek Harihar from wild cat conservation organisation Panthera said there is "hope for the species" globally.

"Conservation efforts since the 1970s have prevented a tremendous collapse of tiger numbers," he said, saying that had "possibly placed the species on a trajectory of recovery and long-term survival."

sa-abh/pjm/sjc/jm/abs