US gun control: ‘Not enough support to overcome division’

Hamas is willing to have a ceasefire but Israel is abstaining from accepting it, the secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative has said. Dr Mustafa Barghouti told BBC World News that a ceasefire meant both sides would not shoot, but if Israel continued to conduct airstrikes it could not expect the Palestinians to stop…

The advance of the Taliban across Afghanistan represents a betrayal and catastrophic failure by the US, UK and Nato, says Rory Stewart, a former UK International Development Secretary. He told BBC World News that Western involvement in Afghanistan had involved around 2,500 troops supporting Afghan forces and air support. That support had confined the Taliban…

The 2021 Oscar nominations are the most diverse Oscars ever, with nine of the 20 acting nominees from non-white backgrounds. And two women were nominated for best director – the first time more than one woman has been shortlisted for that prize in the awards’ 93-year history. Anna Smith, a film critic and host of…

Three astronauts took off for China’s new space station in the country’s longest crewed mission on Thursday. Astrophysicist Dr Megan Argo, told BBC World News the mission would involve checking out the systems on-board the core module and getting the space station ready for habitation and the next phases of construction.

Afghanistan has gone through a lot of transformation in the last 20 years and is a different country to the one the Taliban left in 2001, the author of The Kite Runner has said. Khaled Hosseini told BBC World News that his one sliver of hope was that the Taliban would realise the country had…

They were supposed to be the face of Afghanistan’s future – female cabin crew working for the national carrier, Ariana Airlines. Now, they have been told not to come back to work for the time being by their new bosses, the Taliban. Eleven of the women have come together to hide in an abandoned house,…