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BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been expelled from North Korea after being detained over their reporting.

The correspondent, producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard were stopped by officials on Friday as they were about to leave North Korea.

Wingfield-Hayes was questioned for eight hours by North Korean officials and made to sign a statement. All three remained in Pyongyang before flying to Beijing on Monday.

After arriving in Beijing, Byrne tweeted that they were «very happy» to be back but were not doing any interviews.

The BBC team was in North Korea ahead of the Workers’ Party Congress, accompanying a delegation of Nobel prize laureates conducting a research trip. The North Korean leadership was displeased with their reports highlighting aspects of life in the capital.

At a news conference on Monday, a North Korean government spokesperson said Wingfield-Hayes and his colleagues had been «speaking very ill of the system».

A BBC spokesman said: «We are very disappointed that our reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been deported from North Korea after the government took offence at material he had filed. «Four BBC staff, who were invited to cover the Workers Party Congress, remain in North Korea and we expect them to be allowed to continue their reporting.»

An air strike on a Syrian refugee camp that reportedly killed at least 28 people could amount to a war crime.

Stephen O’Brien, the UN humanitarian affairs chief, called for an inquiry into the attack on the Kamouna camp in the northern Idlib province. Syrian or Russian forces are suspected. Syria’s military denied involvement in the strike on a rebel-held area.

Thursday’s attack came a day after the extension of a truce was confirmed. The Syrian military and non-jihadist rebel forces had agreed to a temporary truce around the city of Aleppo, following pressure from the US and Russia. But the UK-based monitoring group, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), reported an upsurge in fighting between Syrian forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists close to Aleppo, killing more than 70 fighters from both sides.

The insurgents, including the al-Nusra Front, seized the strategically important village of Khan Tuman back from government forces, which had captured it in December, according to rebel sources and the SOHR. The Syrian army denied the reports, Reuters news agency said.

A nationwide partial cessation of hostilities has been in place since February, but it has come under severe pressure recently, particularly around Aleppo, where some 300 people have died in clashes over the past two weeks. The UN has warned that a collapse of the truce would be «catastrophic» and could send 400,000 more people towards the Turkish border.

Smouldering Ground

«The suspicion will fall initially on the Syrian government and we will want to make sure that they, or whoever it is, are fully held to account for this absolutely abominable act,» Mr O’Brien stated. The perpetrators will held to account, he added.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has opened a rare party congress by praising his country’s nuclear achievements.

Appearing before thousands of delegates, he said: «Unprecedented results have been accomplished.»

This year saw the country announce its fourth nuclear weapon test and that it sent a rocket into space. The showpiece congress, the first in 36 years, is a chance for the North Korean leader to cement his power.

More than 100 foreign journalists were invited into the country to cover the event but were barred from the April 25 House of Culture, where the party congress is being held.
They were instead taken on a tour round a wire-making factory. News of Mr Kim’s comments came via state television, which showed him on stage speaking to a packed venue.  «This year… our military and people accomplished great success in the first hydrogen bomb test and (the launch of) the Earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4,» Mr Kim said. «(These events) will be recorded as remarkable achievements.»

This is the seventh meeting of the North Korea’s Worker’s Party and it is being closely scrutinised for any signs of political or economic change.
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An Australian man considered a senior recruiter for so-called Islamic State (IS) has been killed in a US air strike in Iraq, Australia’s government says.

Attorney-General George Brandis said US officials had confirmed Neil Prakash was killed in Mosul on Friday.Prakash, also known as Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, was linked to attack plots in Australia and had appeared in propaganda videos and magazines.

Some 110 Australians are estimated to be fighting for IS in the Middle East.

Using the acronym of the previous name of IS, Mr Brandis said that Prakash was a «prominent Isil member and a senior terrorist recruiter and attack facilitator». «Prakash has been linked to several Australia-based attack plans and calls for lone-wolf attacks against the United States. «He has appeared in Isil propaganda videos and magazines and has actively recruited Australian men, women and children, and encouraged acts of terrorism. «His death disrupts and degrades Isil’s ability to recruit vulnerable people in our community to conduct terrorist acts,» Mr Brandis added.

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A lawyer with dual Russian-Polish citizenship has been charged with espionage in Poland, Polish media say. The man, named only as Stanislaw Sz, is the son of a Russian national goalkeeper who moved to Poland in 1991.

Mr Sz was arrested in October 2014 but released after three months. He could face up to 10 years in jail.

Russian-Polish relations have worsened since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and its alleged involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Prosecutors told Polish media that a criminal case had been opened against Mr Sz, whose full name has not been revealed under Polish privacy laws. He is accused of «participation in the activities of foreign intelligence against the Republic of Poland».

Mr Sz’s work as a lawyer in a Warsaw-based consulting company included overseeing the building of a liquefied natural gas terminal in the north-western port city of Swinoujscie, according to the reports. He has also taken part in committee sessions in the Polish parliament about the energy sector.

His arrest in 2014 coincided with that of a Polish army colonel suspected of receiving money in return for supplying information, possibly on the mood within the Polish military. The incident led to a diplomatic row, with a Russian diplomat expelled for contact with the colonel and four Polish diplomats expelled from Moscow in response.

Both men were said to have been recruited by Russian military intelligence.