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A North Korean defector is filing civil and criminal charges against the country's leader Kim Jong Un for abuses she faced while detained in the country, BBC reported.

Choi Min-kyung fled the North to China in 1997 but was forcibly repatriated in 2008. She said she was sexually abused and tortured after her return. 

When she files the case in Seoul on Friday, it will be the first time a North Korean-born defector takes legal action against the regime, said a South-based rights group assisting Ms Choi.

South Korean courts have in the past ruled against North Korea on similar claims by South Koreans but such verdicts are largely symbolic and ignored by Pyongyang, according to BBC.

The UK will begin returning migrants arriving in small boats to France within weeks under a new pilot scheme, Sir Keir Starmer has said, BBC reported.

Under the "one in, one out" deal, some arrivals would be returned to France and in exchange the UK would accept an equivalent number of asylum seekers, subject to security checks.

Speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at the end of a three-day state visit, the prime minister said the plan would show that attempts to cross the Channel in small boats would "be in vain".

It had been reported that the scheme would see up to 50 people a week being returned, but Sir Keir did not confirm any figures, according to BBC

US President Donald Trump has said he will slap a 35% tariff on Canadian goods starting 1 August, even as the two countries are days away from a self-imposed deadline to reach a new deal on trade, BBC reported.

The missive came as Trump also threatened blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most trade partners, and said he would soon notify the European Union of a new tariff rate on its goods.

Trump announced the latest levies on Canada on Thursday in a letter posted to social media and addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

The US has already imposed a blanket 25% tariff on some Canadian goods, and the country is feeling the pain of the Trump administration's global steel, aluminium and auto tariffs, according to BBC.

Members of the Madhes Provincial Assembly have accused the government of allowing middlemen to dominate the fiscal year 2025/26 budget. Lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties claim the budget was influenced by external forces and is not people-oriented, with excessive manipulation by intermediaries.

The assembly has not held proper discussions on the budget, as six opposition parties have continued to protest, demanding a rewrite. On Monday, lawmakers obstructed the session, forcing its adjournment to Tuesday. In June, a budget meeting was abruptly announced just an hour before it was to be held. After an 11-day break, a session was held on Sunday but again adjourned due to joint protests by Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal (JSPN), CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Nepal Sanghiya Samajbadi Party, Nagarik Unmukti Party, and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP).

“Looking at the budget book, it’s evident that the plans were prepared by middlemen,” said Ram Ashish Yadav, chief whip of JSPN. “This year’s budget is deliberately skewed, impractical, and guided by intermediaries. It offers no direction for the province. One example is a 20-year-old project listed in the red book under the name of the Chief Minister’s father, for which Rs 18m has been allocated.”

The red book for 2025/26 shows that Chief Minister Satish Singh has allocated Rs 18m for an unfinished girls’ hostel initially funded by the Indian Embassy. The project, located at Mahendra Bindeshwari Multiple Campus in Rajbiraj, Saptari, was launched in 2005 under the chairmanship of Singh’s father, Shekhar Kumar Singh. Despite receiving Rs 19.6m from the Indian Embassy, the hostel remains incomplete two decades later.

“This budget lacks priorities, principles, and is entirely unprecedented,” said Ram Saroj Yadav, a Nepali Congress leader in the provincial government. “The Chief Minister publicly promised to exclude projects below Rs 10m, and the Finance Minister pledged not to include those below Rs 5m. Yet, the red book is full of such projects. It contradicts the very commitments made by our leadership. There’s no doubt the budget is influenced by middlemen.”

The provincial government has presented a budget of Rs 46.58bn for 2025/26. Notably, the Ministry of Sports and Social Welfare has allocated Rs 3m across two schemes named after Indian godman Asaram Bapu, who is serving a life sentence in India for raping a minor.

“There are serious disparities in project allocations,” said Sunita Yadav, a CPN (Maoist Center) lawmaker. “If this is truly a provincial budget, all MPs should have ownership. But here, middlemen override the MPs’ recommendations. We demand a complete rewrite of the budget—otherwise, we will not allow the Assembly to function.”

This is not the first controversy surrounding the budget in Madhes. In July last year, the 2024/25 budget was mired in scandal after allegations surfaced that outsiders had obtained a secret Finance Ministry password and inserted unauthorized projects into the red book—ignoring MPs’ recommendations. A parliamentary committee was formed with a pledge to investigate the breach. However, no investigation has taken place, and the individual behind the password leak remains unidentified.

Chief Minister Singh has acknowledged some errors in the budget but denied the involvement of middlemen. “We’ve repeatedly invited opposition parties for dialogue,” he said. “I want to assure the public that this budget is transparent.”