What happened
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) say they have seized control of el-Fasher, the final army-held city in Darfur, in what could mark a major shift in the civil war. The RSF announced on social media that it had taken the city “from the grip of mercenaries and militias allied with the terrorist army”. Videos verified by the BBC show RSF fighters inside the army’s 6th Division headquarters.

Who said what
Local pro-army militia the Popular Resistance dismissed the RSF’s claims as “media disinformation”, but the group has been steadily advancing on the city for weeks.

After 18 months under siege, el-Fasher “has become a famine-stricken, bomb-blasted city on the brink of extinction”, said news site NPR. The loss of the city “would be a huge blow” to the Sudanese army, said the BBC, “as el-Fasher is its last remaining foothold in the Darfur region” and losing control of it “reinforces a de facto split in the nation”.

What next?
The loss leaves the Sudanese army largely confined to the country’s north and east as fighting continues to drive famine, disease and mass displacement of the population across Sudan.

What happened
French police have arrested two men suspected of helping to steal royal jewels worth €88m (£77 million) from the Louvre Museum a week after one of France’s most audacious robberies in decades. One suspect was detained at Charles de Gaulle Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Algeria, while the other was caught near Paris in Seine-Saint-Denis, reportedly en route to Mali. The pair, both aged in their 30s and known to police for robbery, were identified through forensic evidence left at the scene, including gloves, power tools and a motorbike helmet.

Who said what
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed the arrests, but criticised premature media leaks that could “jeopardise the work of more than 100 investigators”.

The investigation into the “spectacular theft” at the Louvre has “taken a decisive turn”, said Le Monde. With it, there is hope of recovering the crown jewels that were stolen, which are most likely “still intact” and “still in France”, art crime detective Arthur Brand told France 24.

What next?
The suspects can be held for up to 96 hours before being charged. Investigators are still searching for two other men and the missing jewels.

Climate change doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our planet; it’s also ratcheting up security risks. With increasing food insecurity, resource scarcity and unstable borders, global warming could lead to a rise in political tensions around the world.

An unpredictable climate “leads to heightened risks of interpersonal and intergroup violence”, according to the World Economic Forum. A one-degree Celsius uptick in temperature can “increase interpersonal violence by approximately 2%, while intergroup conflict risk” can increase by “2.5% to 5%”.

This is largely attributed to resource loss. With a two-degree change, “not only will there be continual extreme weather events, but the average climate will have changed so that crops now grown can no longer survive; water shortages will become widespread; and food will be in short supply”, said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on Newsroom.

As a result we will see climate refugees deepen “regional conflicts that could explode to encompass many countries”, added Trenberth. Climate change “takes things that we were already worried about, like extremism or terrorism, and exacerbates the scale or nature of those threats,” Scott Moore, a practice professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, told Time magazine. “If you have these intensified climate change impacts, they place stress on things like food systems and worsen already existing tensions within countries.”