Queen Camilla has granted her first royal warrants to seven companies, including Shane Connolly, the designer behind the floral arrangements at last year’s Coronation and the King and Queen’s 2005 wedding, as well as the upmarket central London department store Fortnum & Mason.

The seven companies chosen by Camilla are among 145 previously selected by King Charles III when he was Prince of Wales, which have now had their warrants renewed following his ascent to the throne.

Royal warrants act as a stamp of approval to indicate the preferred goods and services used by the royal household and senior members of the royal family.

So, if you want to know where Charles and Camilla go hat shopping or buy their wine or organic meat from, it’s worth checking out which companies made the cut.

The use of royal warrants can be traced back to medieval times when Henry II first granted a Royal Charter to the Weavers’ Company, according to the Royal Warrants Holders Association. In the 15th century, the first official royal warrants were granted, including to the King’s printer, William Caxton.

Selected companies are given permission to use the royal coat of arms on their packaging, vehicles and advertising for five years. Today, the act of officially endorsing particular brands remains one of the last remaining powers of the British monarchy not influenced by Parliament.

Brand finance expert David Haigh says that customers are willing to pay between 12% and 24% extra for brands that have a royal warrant, according to research carried out by his consultancy last year.

They can also benefit British companies on the international stage, Haigh added. “There are plenty of situations where British brands are forging ahead in places like America, the Middle East, China, and having a royal warrant definitely helps.”

Royal warrants are given to a wide range of individuals and companies in various sectors, from agriculture and conservation to office supplies and clothing.

Other companies on the King and Queen’s latest list include Wartski, a London-based jewelry business, Corgi Hosiery Ltd, a Welsh independent sock manufacturer, and Camel Valley, a vineyard in Cornwall trusted to make sparkling wines for the royals.

“Her Majesty has taken a keen interest in the development of English wines,” said Bob Lindo, managing director of Camel Valley, adding that she has been “a terrific source of encouragement and enthusiasm.”

“To now have been appointed as one of her first warrant holders is very special,” he said.

Getting the royal seal of approval takes several years and involves a tough application process. “If you have been offering your goods to one of the royal palaces that grant these things for more than five years continuously, you are eligible to apply,” Haigh says.

This year there was a “rigorous focus on acting for a sustainable future,” according to Tom Athron, CEO of Fortnum & Mason, the luxury London-based food and drinks store which was granted one of Camilla’s first royal warrants.

Haigh has also noticed this shift towards good environmental practice. “It seems quite clear that if there are any [Environmental, Social and Governance] problems with the company, they will not get a royal warrant,” he said.

“Now that actually creates a bit of a double whammy of benefit to those companies. If someone in the royal family uses your product, they like it and they think it’s good, that’s one thing. If on the other hand they are endorsing the fact that you have high standards of ESG, in the current world, that is worth its weight in gold.”

As a general election inches closer into view, the embittered debates circulating inside British politics have entered a new arena: the classroom.

New guidance unveiled by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government on Thursday seeks to overhaul the way sex education and gender identity is taught in England’s schools, a significant intervention into a delicate topic that appeared suddenly on the front pages of Britain’s newspapers a day before the announcement.

The government says the revised guidance, which came amid pressure from a handful of its lawmakers, provides clarity on a complex topic, emphasizing facts over what it calls “contested views” about gender identity.

But critics of the plans – among them a swath of teachers and teaching union leaders – say the move is a politicized attempt to appeal to a narrow cohort of voters the government is in danger of losing, months before a general election.

And they arrived amid what most see as the death throes of Sunak’s flailing government, which has for months seized upon and discarded a number of divisive topics in the hopes of reversing a stubborn polling deficit.

“When the first time you hear about those is in a headline on a tabloid newspaper, then that doesn’t reassure you that the right research is taking place, and that the right level of integrity is behind the decision-making,” Di’lasio said.

“What we’re seeing is young people, and their health and wellbeing, and their care and guidance, being used as a political football.”

‘Utterly disgraceful’

The new draft guidance from the government, published Thursday, takes aim at the way sex and relationships are taught to English children in both primary and secondary schools.

Those lessons have been compulsory at schools in England since 2020, but the government says it reviewed how they are taught after “reports of pupils being taught inappropriate content” in some schools.

Under the new approach, children can’t be taught sex education before the age of nine, while “explicit discussion of sexual activity” will be delayed until children are 13.

Gender identity, or the fact that people can change gender, is meanwhile “highly contested and should not be taught” at all, according to the Department of Education.

The government said that teaching what it calls the “theory” of gender identity “could prompt some children to start to question their gender when they may not have done so otherwise” – a suggestion that has been angrily contested by LGBTQ+ rights groups.

“It is hard to see how rigid limits on what can be discussed and when would be in the best interests of young people – and this may even risk them seeking information from less reliable sources,” Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said in a statement.

Sam Freedman, a senior adviser to the Ark education charity and a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, added on X: “Isn’t something being highly contested a good reason to talk about it in schools – acknowledging that it is highly contested and explaining why?”

The plans will be subject to a nine-week consultation period, which will conclude before the start of Britain’s next school year.

But the uncertain timing of a general election – due by January, and expected in the second half of the year – muddies the waters further as to when, or if, the guidance will ever be implemented.

And, as with many of the government’s recent announcements, its unveiling was accompanied by a string of combative language that played into the “culture war” topics the Conservatives have increasingly sought to thrust into the national discourse.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan wrote in The Sun newspaper that “teachers are there to teach children facts, not push the agendas of ­campaign groups.”

“Never again will young girls be taught they might be that ­little bit happier if they were a boy,” she added.

Transgender rights have been the target of heavy-handed rhetoric from the government for several months, as Sunak looks to goad his opponent, Labour leader Keir Starmer, away from debates about the economy and healthcare, and toward issues surrounding identity.

Those efforts ultimately sparked huge controversy when Sunak made a transgender jibe toward Starmer in Parliament in February, while the mother of Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old transgender girl who was murdered last year, watched from the public gallery.

“One does wonder whether (the guidance) is connected to the fact that we’re moving into a general election, and it is purely being used to gain votes of a particular section of society,” Di’lasio said.

“It is utterly disgraceful that once again this government has decided to engage in private briefings and media leaks simply to grab headlines,” Whiteman, the head teachers’ union boss, added. “The children and young people of this country deserve better.”

Asked by the BBC on Thursday how widespread “inappropriate” teaching on gender identity was, Keegan admitted: “I don’t think it’s widespread – I mean, I don’t know, because it’s not something that we’ve gone and done a particular survey of.”

Sunak will hope this week’s headlines can add ammunition to his effort to portray himself as a defender of “common sense,” a catch-all term that the prime minister frequently uses as he scrambles to maintain the support of socially conservative voters.

But education specialists worry that school pupils have become the latest victim of that push.

“But when a political ideology comes into it, it becomes more difficult for the whole of the education world to move behind it,” he added. “My worry is that if we’re not careful, there will be young people that are not cared for and not educated in the way we want them to be.”

Egypt’s Great Pyramid and other ancient monuments at Giza exist on an isolated strip of land at the edge of the Sahara Desert.

The inhospitable location has long puzzled archaeologists, some of whom had found evidence that the Nile River once flowed near these pyramids in some capacity, facilitating the landmarks’ construction starting 4,700 years ago.

Using satellite imaging and analysis of cores of sediment, a new study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment has mapped a 64-kilometer (40-mile) long, dried-up, branch of the Nile, long buried beneath farmland and desert.

“Even though many efforts to reconstruct the early Nile waterways have been conducted, they have largely been confined to soil sample collections from small sites, which has led to the mapping of only fragmented sections of the ancient Nile channel systems,” said lead study author Eman Ghoneim, a professor and director of the Space and Drone Remote Sensing Lab at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s department of Earth and ocean sciences.

“This is the first study to provide the first map of the long-lost ancient branch of the Nile River.”

Ghoneim and her colleagues refer to this extinct branch of the Nile river as Ahramat, which is Arabic for pyramids.

The ancient waterway would have been about 0.5 kilometers wide (about one-third of a mile) with a depth of at least 25 meters (82 feet) — similar to the contemporary Nile, Ghoneim said.

“The large size and extended length of the Ahramat Branch and its proximity to the 31 pyramids in the study area strongly suggests a functional waterway of great importance,” Ghoneim said.

She said the river would have played a key role in ancient Egyptians’ transportation of the enormous amount of building materials and laborers needed for the pyramids’ construction.

“Also, our research shows that many of the pyramids in the study area have (a) causeway, a ceremonial raised walkway, that runs perpendicular to the course of the Ahramat Branch and terminates directly on its riverbank.”

Hidden traces of a lost waterway

Traces of the river aren’t visible in aerial photos or in imagery from optical satellites, Ghoneim said. In fact, she only spotted something unexpected while studying radar satellite data of the wider area for ancient rivers and lakes that might reveal a new source of groundwater.

“I am a geomorphologist, a paleohydrologist looking into landforms. I have this kind of trained eye,” she said.

“While working with this data, I noticed this really obvious branch or a kind of riverbank, and it didn’t make any sense because it is really far from the Nile,” she added.

Born and raised in Egypt, Ghoneim was familiar with the cluster of pyramids in this area and had always wondered why they were built there. She applied to the National Science Foundation to investigate further, and geophysical data taken at ground level with the use of ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic tomography confirmed it was an ancient arm of the Nile. Two long cores of earth the team extracted using drilling equipment revealed sandy sediment consistent with a river channel at a depth of about 25 meters (82 feet).

It’s possible that “countless” temples might still be buried beneath the agricultural fields and desert sands along the riverbank of the Ahramat Branch, according to the study.

Why this branch of the river dried up or disappeared is still unclear. Most likely, a period of drought and desertification swept sand into the region, silting up the river, Ghoneim said.

The study demonstrated that when the pyramids were built, the geography and riverscapes of the Nile differed significantly from those of today, said Nick Marriner, a geographer at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. He was not involved in the study but has conducted research on the fluvial history of Giza.

“The study completes an important part of the past landscape puzzle,” Marriner said. “By putting together these pieces we can gain a clearer picture of what the Nile floodplain looked like at the time of the pyramid builders and how the ancient Egyptians harnessed their environments to transport building materials for their monumental construction endeavors.”

In a recurring nightmare, horrors usually repeat themselves. For the Ukrainian border town of Vovchansk, they’re getting worse.

Every street seems aflame. The shelling is constant. Torn up tanks and Humvees litter its streets. Small arms fire can be heard as Russian forces inch forwards.

Locals in the town lived through occupation and liberation for seven grueling months in 2022. But now they bear the brunt of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s race to grab as much land as he can before Ukraine eventually feels the benefit of US weapons arriving.

Moscow on Friday launched its most surprising operation since the initial invasion, crossing Ukraine’s northern border, in a repeat attempt to push south towards the country’s second most-populous city.

The devastating weight of the offensive has torn Vovchansk up.

The Russian military claims the action has left close to a dozen villages under its control. Most consequentially, Kyiv is now scrambling to send forces from other over-stretched frontlines where Russia is also seeing progress, to stop Moscow’s guns getting in range of Kharkiv city proper.

In Vovchansk, the onslaught means that one local man Mykola, his wife, and his 85-year-old mother are for the first time leaving behind the house they built and lived in for 40 years. They were one of 35 groups of residents who called the Ukrainian authorities Thursday and asked to be rescued before Russian troops – now just a few hundred meters to the north – reach their door front.

The sounds of artillery shells echoes off the cinderblock walls as a young police officer pulls up outside their house.

Mykola walks out, trips on rubble in his yard, and curses.

“Hop in!” says the police officer, Maksim, as he hustles the family and their few possessions toward the car.

He’s been driving into the town continuously since Russia’s advance, shuttling people out. He moves fast. The smell of burning homes hangs in the air, and smoke clogs out the sunlight – the remnants of the artillery shells that rain down on houses day and night.

Mykola and his wife grab plastic bags of eggs, and shuffle across their vegetable patch. The airstrikes last night were just too much, they admit. Less than five minutes later, they’re away, dodging the potholes and rubble that litter the street.

At a roundabout on the edge of town, an aging Soviet-era fighter jet, once a proud display of military prowess past, has been knocked off its pedestal. They swerve between the charred body and turret of a Ukrainian tank that’s been blown apart – recently enough that its ammunition spills out onto the street, untouched.

Fifteen minutes down the road, they pull into a gas station. With a wide smile, 85-year-old Maria walks haltingly to an awaiting police van.

“It’s not scary,” she says of the shelling. “I just don’t want it.” Her family admits she is hard of hearing, and so the intensity of the bombardment may not have impacted her as much. Yet she still had reached her limit.

She sits next to her former neighbor, Inna.

“At night, they dropped so many aerial bombs,” she says. “Horrible.”

Friends of theirs, who now volunteer to extract residents, tried to reach them the previous day but had to turn back.

“They were shooting close to us. Firing at everything,” said Inna.

Harrowing memories of Russian control

They recall their months under Russian occupation in 2022 – living under the military control of a country they had for decades lived amicably with, mere kilometers away from them across the border.

Mykola’s wife said of the occupation: “It was alright. They didn’t touch us. They did touch other residents.”

Yet Inna recalls how the Russians sought out Ukrainian soldiers who had fought against Russian forces and their proxies in the first phase of the war in 2014. “They mostly tortured the boys who served. We have a factory there, where they had a prison. The Russians held our boys there.”  There has been widespread reporting of mistreatment of Ukrainian civilians under Russian occupation, allegations the Kremlin has typically dismissed as fake.

As soon as they’ve dropped the residents off, the police set off again for Vovchansk. Just past the town entrance, they pull off into a line of trees. Sitting at a picnic table, they examine a map and assess which of the three rescue calls they can answer. Only one group of people requesting their help is accessible, they assess.

Yet their debate is interrupted by a low whining noise. Is it a drone? They peer from beneath the tree cover upwards.  The noise comes and goes. But then a drone is spotted – one of three. A larger one that hovers, and two other smaller devices that race around.

The two policemen point their weapons at the sky. “Over us!  Look!” one says. “Should I f*** it up?” he asks a colleague. “What if it is ours?” he replies. If the police open fire, they may actually draw the attention of the drone on them.

It does appear fixated on something else nearby. But then the noise grows louder. It is time to leave.

For millions of Indians, it’s the city where dreams come true – just look around.

From the gleaming home of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, towering over “Billionaires’ Row,” to the waterfront mansions of Bollywood stars, Mumbai is the place where ambitions are realized.

But as India’s financial capital prepares to vote in the country’s massive general election, many residents say they want a fairer share of its wealth – with better education the key to opportunity.

In the densely packed Dadar neighborhood, hustlers and dreamers alike spill out of train stations and shopping complexes, a whirl of humanity weaving through congested streets where market traders tout for business.

Next to piles of potatoes and onions, 34-year-old grocer Sachin Chaudhary cites rising prices and a tough job market as his biggest concerns ahead of the city’s first voting phase later in May.

“The change I want to see is, things should become less costly,” he says. “And children are getting good educations, so there should also be better opportunities in the employment sector.”

As India’s wealthiest city, Mumbai is often likened to New York – a place of opportunity where everyone is from somewhere else, hoping to make it big and support their families, often in poorer rural hometowns.

But amid the glitz and glam, India’s other half is just as evident. Near tourist hotspots like the iconic Gateway of India, day laborers toil in the stifling heat, carrying heavy loads on their shoulders or selling knickknacks on the side of dusty roads.

The disparity concerns Rajani Bhat, a 42-year-old Mumbai resident with short, spiky hair and an assertive voice.

“I’m worried about the protection of women, especially small girls,” she says from a street dotted with jewelry and clothes stores.

“They are selling dustbin bags, they are doing multiple (jobs), but what about their education? They have parents, but the thing is they (don’t have the right) financial conditions,” she said.

“Somebody should do something for them.”

Many poor children in the city are not even 10 years old when they start helping their parents to earn a living. It’s especially common in Mumbai’s infamous slums, which were depicted in the 2008 Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Kalpita Shinde, a 43-year-old government worker, also highlights the need for India’s next government to provide its people with greater upward mobility.

“All should have employment, and the jobs should be on par with the better education opportunities we have,” she says. “If people have good jobs, then it’s not just the individual who grows. The whole family also grows and leads a better life.”

Banker Helen D’Souza, 60, agreed with that sentiment.

“I think there’s a lot to be done in this country, as regards (to) the middle class,” she said over the thrum of Dadar’s traffic. “A lot of people are unhappy … When you don’t get something, you lose trust.”

‘I want Narendra Modi’

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are widely expected to win a third straight five-year term this election, extending his popular but controversial rule into a second decade.

That dominance is reflected in the sheer amount of BJP campaign material displayed across the city, with scant signs of India’s opposition. Modi’s face beams from billboards and hangs off bridges, posters listing his achievements and election promises.

For Bhat, the answer to India’s poverty-stricken girls and women lies in Modi, who has been credited with boosting the country’s economy, infrastructure and global standing.

“I want Narendra Modi – that’s it. He’s a true leader,” she says.

“Before Narendra Modi, nobody was aware about who’s the president, who’s the prime minister.

“But now everybody’s aware of that because he’s going out, keeping relationships (with other countries), so that our country can cope with upcoming problems.”

“I will vote for the BJP as they are the perfect party,” he says. “For me in this election, we need a party that focuses not only on global issues but on issues that matter to individuals in the country.”

But not every BJP voter is so enthusiastic.

“There is no strong opposition, so I will vote for the BJP, as there are no other (significant) political parties. The BJP is ruling everywhere,” says Chaudhary, the vegetable seller.

“If there was a strong opposition, I would have more choice – but sadly, we don’t.”

Religious tensions

Education and employment aside, several other issues loom in the minds of Mumbai’s voters – especially longstanding religious tensions that have spiraled under Modi’s tenure.

Modi and his BJP have been accused of driving religious polarization with Hindu-nationalist policies, giving rise to a wave of Islamophobia and deadly communal clashes. Many of the country’s 230 million Muslims say they are being sidelined and marginalized in the world’s largest democracy.

One major point of contention is the BJP’s attempt to pass a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), a set of common laws for personal matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance – replacing religious laws followed by different groups.

Some critics fear the government’s Hindu-nationalist policies could unduly influence the legislation, further threatening the rights and freedoms of minorities. Others, however, say the reform of religious laws represents progress.

Sanjay Sardesai, a 60-year-old retired airline worker, wouldn’t indicate who he’s voting for but says the civil code is the most important election issue.

“That should be implemented so we are given the same rights all across India.”

Slovakian police have charged a man in connection with the attempted assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico, the country’s interior minister said Thursday.

Fico is in a stable but serious condition after being shot five times from a close range and undergoing surgery, his deputy said Thursday. The assassination attempt rocked the central European country and sparked global condemnation.

The 59-year-old populist leader, who returned to power last year and whose controversial reforms have sparked protests in recent weeks, was attacked on Wednesday after an off-site government meeting in the town of Handlova.

The prime minister had approached a small crowd of people waiting to meet him, when the suspected gunman in the crowd lunged forward and shot him five times from across a security barrier. Footage from the scene showed the injured prime minister being bundled into a vehicle by his staff, before it speeds away with him inside.

Fico was first rushed into a local hospital and then airlifted to a major trauma center in the nearby city of Banská Bystrica, where he spent more than five hours in surgery, according to hospital officials.

Hospital director Miriam Lapuníková is said Thursday Fico was “stabilized but in a very serious condition” and that he would remain in the hospital’s intensive care unit. She added that the hospital had two surgical teams operating on the prime minister.

On Thursday morning, the country’s Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kaliňák said Fico’s condition “has been stabilized overnight, more steps are being taken to better his health. The situation is really serious.”

Kaliňák and the Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok delivered an emotional news conference outside the hospital on Wednesday night, saying the leader was “fighting for his life.”

Visibly shaken and sometimes struggling for words, the two ministers appeared in deep shock over the attack. Later in the news conference, both men struck a more combative tone, blaming the attack on the “hatred” being spread by “some people” and the media.

The alleged shooter has been identified by multiple local media outlets as a 71-year-old man from southern Slovakia.

There has been no official confirmation of the identity of the shooter, but his face was clearly visible in some of the video footage of the attack and his subsequent arrest.

Slovakian media reported the shooter was a writer and a poet. The Slovak Writers’ Association said Wednesday that the name identified in the local media was a member of the group.

Nobody else was injured in the attack. The suspected gunman was detained by police, and the country’s president Zuzana Čaputová said authorities would release more information when they can.

Both the defense and interior ministers called the shooting “politically motivated,” with Šutaj Eštok saying that “the suspect made the decision to do it shortly after the presidential election.”

Fico is the most powerful lawmaker in Slovakia. Unlike the president, whose role is more ceremonial and has limited scope, the prime minister holds rank as the decision-making head of government.

Divisive figure in divided country

Slovaks have been deeply divided over the country’s direction and position in the world since Fico’s return to power last year. Supporters see Fico as a caring leader who has their interests at heart; critics say he is a populist whose pro-Russian leanings pose major risks for the country.

Slovakia’s defense and interior ministers blamed rising hate speech and division for the political atmosphere in the country, which they said led to the assassination attempt.

As prime minister, Fico made a major U-turn in Slovakia’s foreign policy and its previously staunch support for Ukraine, pledging to end the country’s military support for Kyiv and promising to block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.

His domestic policies have also been divisive – especially attempts to overhaul the criminal justice system, with his government trying to reduce punishments for corruption, and dismantling the special prosecutor’s office that investigated serious corruption cases.

The government is also trying to shut down the public service broadcaster and replace it with a new national broadcaster that would be under tighter state control.

These policies have seen weeks of largely peaceful protests – with people also taking to the streets in February and March, according to Reuters.

Fico previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to deepen their strategic partnership in Beijing on Thursday, in a stark show of their growing alignment as Moscow’s troops advance in Ukraine.

Putin — whose delegation includes top defense and security officials — was welcomed by Xi to Beijing’s Great Hall of the People earlier with full military pageantry, heralding the start of the Russian president’s two-day state visit.

A sweeping joint statement released by the two leaders laid out their countries’ alignment on a host of issues including energy, trade, security, and geopolitics with specific references to Ukraine, Taiwan and conflict in the Middle East.

The visit — Putin’s symbolic first overseas foray since starting a new term as Russia’s president last week — is the latest sign of tightening relations as the two bind their countries closer in the face of heavy friction with the West.

The statement proclaimed that China-Russian relations have stood “the test of rapid changes in the world, demonstrating strength and stability, and are experiencing the best period in their history,” the two leaders calling each other “priority partners.”

Putin, whose country’s economy has become increasingly reliant on China since his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, hailed the countries’ “practical cooperation” in meetings with Xi, noting their record bilateral trade last year, while stressing the importance of bolstering energy, industrial, and agriculture cooperation, according to Russian state media Tass.

Their meeting is Putin and Xi’s fourth time speaking face-to-face since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine — weeks after the two declared a “no limits” partnership on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

This week’s state visit comes amid mounting international concern about the direction of the war in Ukraine amid delays to aid for Kyiv and as Russia’s economy and defense complex appears unbowed by Western sanctions — a situation that United States officials have alleged is linked to Chinese support, which Beijing denies.

Putin says he and Xi will discuss the war in Ukraine in informal talks later Thursday evening, which are expected to include Russia’s newly appointed Defense Minister Andrey Belousov and his predecessor Sergei Shoigu, now secretary of Russia’s Security Council.

Mounting international pressure over Ukraine

Putin’s red-carpet welcome to Beijing comes a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced via his office that he would halt all upcoming international visits, as his troops defend against a surprise Russian offensive in his country’s northeastern Kharkiv region.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Kyiv earlier this week to reaffirm the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine after months of Congressional delay in approving American military aid to the embattled country. Blinken pledged $2 billion in foreign military financing and said much-needed ammunition and weapons are being rushed to the front lines.

Pressure has also been mounting on Xi from both the US and Europe to ensure soaring exports from China to Russia since the start of the war aren’t propping up the Kremlin’s war effort.

White House officials in recent weeks have confronted Beijing on what they believe is substantial support for Russia’s defense industrial base — in the form of goods like machine tools, drone and turbojet engines and microelectronics exported from China. Beijing has slammed the US as making “groundless accusations” over “normal trade and economic exchanges” between China and Russia.

Beijing has never condemned Russia’s invasion, rather it claims neutrality in the conflict and has released a vaguely articulated 12-point position on its resolution. Ahead of an expected peace conference in Switzerland next month, Xi has called for peace talks that take both sides’ positions into account.

On Ukraine, Russia said in Thursday’s joint statement that it welcomed the readiness of China “to play a constructive role” in the political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict and that “it is necessary to eliminate its root causes and adhere to the principle of the indivisibility of security,” in an apparent allusion to their shared view that NATO is responsible for the conflict in Ukraine.

“China hopes for peace and stability in Europe soon, and continues to play a constructive role,” Xi said.

Alignment on shared frictions

This week’s visit marks the leaders’ 43rd meeting in the more than one decade that Xi has been in power. Xi and Putin, known for their close personal chemistry, have steadily expanded their countries’ diplomatic coordination and economic and security cooperation in that time — as both faced mounting frictions with the US and its allies.

Even as Xi seeks to repair frayed relations with Europe and stabilize his country’s ties with the US, he is widely seen as unwilling to sacrifice his partnership with Putin, who the Chinese leader sees as an indispensable partner in reshaping a world order both believe is unfairly dominated by the US and seeking to contain them.

This shared worldview was also on show Thursday as Xi, speaking alongside Putin, decried a lingering “Cold War mentality,” and said “unilateral hegemony, camp confrontations and power politics threaten world peace and security of every country” — using language typical of Beijing and Moscow’s criticisms of the US and its allies.

The two leaders said in the joint statement they will “deepen trust and cooperation” in the military field by expanding the scope of joint exercises and combat training, regularly conducting joint sea and air patrols and improving the “capabilities and level of joint response to challenges and threats.”

Putin nodded to Xi’s concerns about rising engagement between NATO and like-minded countries in Asia, calling for a “reliable and adequate architecture of security in the Asia-Pacific region, in which there will be no place for closed military-political alliances.”

“We think the creation of such alliances to be counterproductive and harmful,” Putin said following meetings Thursday.

In the statement, the two countries also expressed “very deep concern” over what they described as US military activity with allies “that have a clear anti-Russian and anti-Chinese orientation,” calling the actions “extremely destabilizing.”

The two leaders “reaffirmed there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be fought,” and called for revisions to global security arrangements to prevent military confrontation.

Besides engagements in Beijing, which are expected to include a “gala” marking the two countries’ 75 years of diplomatic ties, Putin is also expected to attend trade and cooperation forums in Harbin, the capital of China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province bordering Russia’s Far East.

The region is historically a site of long-simmering border tensions between the two neighbors, which erupted in conflict between China and the Soviet Union in 1969. It has seen increasing connectivity with parts of Russia’s Far East in recent years.

Putin is also expected to meet with the students and faculty of the Harbin Institute of Technology, a university sanctioned by the US government in 2020 for its alleged role in procuring items for China’s military.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was hospitalized on Wednesday after he was shot five times in an assassination attempt that shocked the country.

The attack took place after an off-site government meeting in the central Slovak town of Handlova. The suspected gunman was among a small crowd of people waiting to greet the prime minister on the street outside the cultural center, where the meeting took place, local media reported.

Footage from the scene shows the injured prime minister being bundled into a vehicle by his staff, before it speeds away with him inside. Fico was taken to a local hospital and then transferred by helicopter to a major trauma center about 20 miles (30 kilometers) away in Banska Bystrica. No one else was injured in the attack, officials said.

Both the country’s Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák and Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok called the shooting “politically motivated,” with Šutaj Eštok saying that “the suspect made the decision to do it shortly after the presidential election.”

Slovakian deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba said he believed the prime minister would survive following surgery that “went well” and was “not in a life-threatening situation at this moment.”

“I was very shocked and tried to contact people to figure out how serious his condition was,” Taraba said in an interview with BBC’s Newshour program on Wednesday, recalling the moment he heard about Fico’s shooting.

“Fortunately, as far as I know the operation went well and I guess in the end he will survive,” he said.

Taraba told the BBC that Fico “was heavily injured” and a bullet “went through the stomach and the second one hit the joints.”

Fico is the most powerful lawmaker in Slovakia. Unlike the president, whose role has limited scope, the prime minister holds rank as the decision-making head of government.

The official statement posted on Fico’s official Facebook said the PM was taken to Banska Bystrica instead of the capital city of Bratislava because “an acute intervention” was necessary. Handlova is about two hours’ drive from the capital Bratislava.

Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová said the suspected gunman was detained by the police. She said law enforcement agencies will release more information when they can and asked the public not to spread unconfirmed rumors.

Čaputová condemned what she called a “brutal and reckless” attack on the 59-year-old politician. Speaking at a news conference later in the afternoon, she said the shooting was “an attack on democracy as well.”

Slovakia’s defense and interior ministers blamed rising hate speech and division for the political atmosphere in the country, which they said led to the assassination attempt.

Speaking to reporters in front of the hospital where Fico is being treated, Defense Minister Kaliňák said: “Hate is not an answer to hate.” Visibly shaken and struggling for words at multiple moments during the news conference, Kaliňák said it was “time for some people to have a hard look into the mirror.”

“There is no question that this was politically motivated. The inability to accept the choice of people, which some may not like … it leads to this,” he said.

Interior Minister Šutaj-Eštok called for calm, saying “those who are endorsing this attack as well as those who are calling for some sort of a revenge. And I am asking you, the media too, please, use your power, your influence. Because until now, it was some of you who sow the hate,” he said.

Following the shooting, Šutaj-Eštok said the country is “experiencing the worst day of its democracy.”

“For the first time in the 31 years of our democratic sovereign republic, someone has decided to express a political opinion not in an election but with a gun on the street,” he wrote on Facebook.

Slovaks have been deeply divided over the country’s direction and position in the world since Fico’s return to power last year. Supporters see Fico as a caring leader who has their interests at heart; critics say he is a populist whose pro-Russian leanings pose major risks for the country.

The country has seen weeks of largely peaceful protests over his coalition government’s controversial domestic reforms. The government is also trying to shut down public service broadcaster RTVS and plans to replace it with a new national broadcaster, which would be under tighter control of the government.

Felt like a ‘nightmare’

Social media footage appeared to show the moment Fico was attacked. As he approaches a crowd of people, a man is seen lunging towards Fico with what appears to be a gun pointed at him. Five shots are heard and Fico falls to the ground.

An eyewitness who was at the scene where Fico was shot said the attack felt like a “nightmare” after hearing three “quick” shots, fired one after the other as if you were to “throw a firecracker on the ground.”

“I heard three shots, it was quick one by one like if you throw a firecracker on the ground,” eyewitness Lubica Valkova told Reuters, adding that “he (Fico) fell next to the barrier.”

“I think it is a nightmare, I’ll tell you I think I will not wake up from this,” the 66-year-old said. “That this is not possible to happen in Slovakia.”

Valkova said she had been waiting a long time to shake Fico’s hand and was taking pictures of him when he walked out of the building in Handlova.

“At this moment we heard something like a bang, we thought someone made a joke and threw a firecracker on the ground, that was my first reaction,” Valkova recalled.

The Slovak resident told Reuters she had been waiting from 10 a.m. local time. She claimed police did not search people who were waiting at the event, adding that “we could have shown our empty hands.”

Ally of Moscow

In what was a stunning comeback for the controversial politician, Fico won a third term as Slovakian prime minister last October after running a campaign that criticized western support for Ukraine. As prime minister, he made a major U-turn in Slovakia’s foreign policy and its previously staunch support for Ukraine: Fico had pledged an immediate end to Slovak military support for Ukraine and promised to block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.

Ahead of the election, Fico made no secret of his sympathies towards the Kremlin and blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Russia’s president has used to justify his invasion.

While in opposition, Fico became a close ally of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, especially when it came to criticism of the European Union.

Domestically, his coalition government is also pushing controversial reforms that have prompted weeks of large-scale peaceful protests. Attempts to overhaul the criminal justice system have been particularly controversial, as the government seeks to reduce penalties for corruption and has already abolished Slovakia’s special prosecutor’s office, which was tasked with investigating serious and politically sensitive corruption cases, including some that involved people connected to Fico and his party SMER (“Direction – Social Democracy”).

Fico previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018. He was forced to resign in March 2018 after weeks of mass protests over the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová. Kuciak reported on corruption among the country’s elite, including people directly connected to Fico and his party SMER.

World leaders immediately condemned the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a telegram to Slovakia’s president that “there can be no justification for this monstrous crime” and wished Fico a speedy and complete recovery.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted: “I strongly condemn the vile attack on Prime Minister Robert Fico. Such acts of violence have no place in our society and undermine democracy, our most precious common good.”

And Hungarian Prime Minister Orban added: “I was deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico. We pray for his health and quick recovery!”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed “solidarity with the people of Slovakia” following the “appalling” assault on Fico.

US President Joe Biden said he was “alarmed” by the attempted assassination of Fico, calling it a “horrific act of violence.”

“Jill and I are praying for a swift recovery, and our thoughts are with his family and the people of Slovakia,” he said in a statement.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he “strongly condemns the shocking attack.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Whitaker would go on to earn the nickname “Snakeman of India,” and spend more than six decades dedicated to reptile research and conservation. He’s written several books on snakes, spearheaded a lifesaving anti-venom program, and launched wildlife research stations throughout the country.

His field work with snakes and crocodiles ultimately led his conservation efforts to help save India’s rainforests.

Today, Whitaker’s focus is on educating Indians on how to protect themselves from snakes — part of a national campaign to reduce the snakebite mortality rate.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Whitaker: I started out as a very young lad in northern New York state, turning over rocks and finding bugs and stuff, until I found a snake, and it was love at first sight.

It really started then. But I must blame or thank my mother for when I first brought a snake home. She said, ‘wow, how beautiful.’ And now, which mother would do that? Not very many.

Then, when my mother married Rama Chattopadhyay and we moved to India, that was something that opened up the world to me. Can you imagine an eight-year-old arriving in Bombay and being able to go out into the jungles of India? These are dreams that I had when I was a little kid, which came alive.

Whitaker: A herpetologist is a strange person who studies reptiles. I’ve concentrated most of my work on snakes and crocodiles, but I am very interested in all the others … the turtles, the lizards, and of course the amphibians, the frogs and toads.

I’ve been doing this forever, ever since I was four years old when I picked up my first snake. [In 1960] I was going to college in America, but I flunked out. Then I got a job at the Miami Serpentarium and worked for this gentleman [Bill Haast] who handled king cobras with the greatest of ease and extracted their venom.

That was part of the love affair that I generated for king cobras. But I had always yearned to come back to India and get out to Western Ghats, where I knew king cobras still lived, and start studying them.

In 1969, I set up India’s first snake park, the Madras Snake Park. And we’ve learned more about king cobra behavior and about their wonderful lifestyle than had ever been known by anybody before.

Whitaker: I don’t think I’ve ever been scared of a snake. I’ve been scared of myself sometimes doing stupid things. I saw a black-tailed [snake] disappearing into the bushes, and I thought, ‘ah, big rat snake.’ And I dove on it, typical football tackle, grabbed it by the tail and suddenly this hooded snake rises up over me and I looked up and said, ‘oh no, I think I’ve caught the wrong tail.’ And I let it go. It was a king cobra, the first one I had ever found. It was scary. Okay, I am scared sometimes.

Whitaker: The Irulas are an aboriginal tribe here in South India. Their expertise is finding and catching snakes and their specialty [was] catching snakes for their skins. But they had run out of a way to make a living because the snakeskin industry had been banned [in 1972]. So we hatched an idea together to set up a venom cooperative, the Irula Snake Catchers Cooperative, wherein they would catch snakes from the wild, extract the venom, and then release the snakes back to the wild. And the venom, it was used to make anti-venom to save millions of lives.

Whitaker: Up until recently, we really didn’t know how many people are getting killed and injured by snakes. The Centre for Global Health Research and the University of Toronto started doing this Million Deaths Study. And I’m a coauthor of two of the major papers produced out of this study, and it turns out that close to 50,000 people are actually killed by snake bite every year in India.

Now that we know the figure, we are working very hard right now on an educational program, which is nationwide, trying to teach people how to avoid snakes and avoid getting bitten. It’s fairly simple: at night when you walk around, use a light. When you sleep, use a mosquito net. We tell people when they’re working in the field, when they’re doing agriculture, use a stick. Don’t use your bare hand because a snake could be there. So it’s just educating people. These are simple methods.

Whitaker: My early, formative years were not very conservation-oriented. I was the kid with a gun, and I would go out there and instead of being a bird watcher, I was a bird shooter.

The transition from being from a hunter to a conservationist happened [in the 1970s] when I realized that things were really out of hand here, and crocodiles were almost extinct by that time. And we really had to do something about it.

I realized that unless I got into conservation, there’s not going to be anything left. I set up field stations along with my colleagues and they are magnets for people who want to get into working with reptiles. And we’ve had dozens and dozens of people who have now turned out to be some of the greatest conservationists in India we can call graduates of these stations.

Whitaker: People will remember me, like it or not, as a snake freak. But it’s wonderful to think [of] the influence that I have had or that our organizations have had to engender this incredible deep interest in something which people sneered at or ran away from all their lives, but now suddenly, hey, they’re interesting, they’re hip, they’re in. Snakes rule!

And it’s wonderful to realize that dozens, if not hundreds, of young people have continued to do wonderful work with reptiles. It’s just wonderful.

Pro-Palestinian protesters occupying a building at the University of Melbourne have been told to leave by university officials, who say they’ve “crossed a line” by entering the building and disrupting class for thousands of students.

“Students have a right to protest but that is not a blank check,” said the university’s Deputy Vice Chancellor Michael Wesley in a video message distributed to media on Thursday.

“They have crossed a line when they have occupied the Arts West building … the university’s patience is now at an end.”

On Wednesday, students at the university were among thousands who rallied across the country to remember the 1948 al-Nakba or “catastrophe,” when around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes by armed Jewish groups seeking to establish the state of Israel.

Dana Alshaer, from UniMelb for Palestine, said after the rally a smaller group of students “independently” decided to occupy the Arts West building, and others supported them.

Several banners have since been hung around the room, including one renaming the building “Mahmoud’s Hall” after Mahmoud Alnaouq, a Palestinian student who had won a scholarship to study in Australia but was killed in Gaza last October.

Around 1:30pm on Wednesday, Deputy Vice Chancellor Pip Nicholson addressed the group inside the building on a loudspeaker, telling them their choices that afternoon would have “serious consequences.”

According to a video posted online, she said: “In the event that you are not out of here within an hour … the university will make decisions that will regrettably and unavoidably escalate the tension.”

On the video, protesters said they wouldn’t leave until the university responded to their demands, which include divesting from weapons companies and condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“We come in peace,” a protester said off-camera. “We came here to learn, to study, to make an impact on the world, and the fees that we’re paying are going towards companies committing an act of genocide right now. Speak to us about that.”

By Thursday, more than 150 classes had been cancelled, affecting 6,000 students and staff, the university said. Victoria Police said it was monitoring the protest activity and hadn’t been asked to intervene.

Alshaer denied reports students had blocked the building’s doors and said the university had disabled them.

“The people here are opening the doors for anyone, students and uni staff to come in and out whenever they want. It’s not closed. It’s not barricaded,” she said.

Tension building after weeks of protest

Since the first tents appeared at universities in Australia over three weeks ago, more students have joined the protest action, demanding the institutions cut ties with weapons companies linked to Israel’s attacks.

More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a war against Hamas after its October 7 attack in southern Israel, according to health officials. The Hamas attack killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage. Around 100 are still in captivity and Hamas’ top leadership is still at large despite the Israeli onslaught.

Protests in support of both sides have flared around the world, with a widespread pro-Palestinian movement launching demonstrations at university colleges.

So far, protest sites in Australia have remained relatively peaceful, unlike sister sites in the United States, where police violently evicted some students amid clashes with counter-protesters.

Other universities in Melbourne and Canberra have put students on notice to leave.

“We refuse to obey the directives of a university which is profiting from weapons research during a genocide,” she said.

Meanwhile, at least seven student protesters at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra have received letters from the university telling them to leave the site by the end of Friday.

In a statement, ANU said it supports students’ right to protest but said “these activities must be safe and not cause unnecessary harm or damage to our campus or community.”

One of the letter’s recipients, Nick Reich, said he and others are weighing their options.

“We have to make the decision about how much and to what extent we participate in the protests against the university’s investments in arms companies supplying Israel, but we can be certain that the encampment itself is going to remain set up and will continue to fight this fight,” he said.

In his video message distributed by the University of Melbourne, Wesley called on protesters to “peacefully end the occupation.”

“Red lines have been crossed,” he said. “The occupation is now seriously disruptive and seriously intimidating for the vast majority of our staff and students who have nothing to do with the protests and are not interested in the protests.”