Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has called the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi "heinous" and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, in his first public address since the death.

The prince spoke at the Future Investment Initiative conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to a packed auditorium, which had waited patiently to hear whether he would comment on one of the kingdom’s worst scandals in recent history.

Prince Mohammed called the death of the Washington Post columnist “painful for both the Saudi people and the world”, but claimed it was being exploited by some to drive a wedge between Saudi and Turkey.

“I want to send them a message: They will not be able to do that as long as there is a king called King Salman bin Abdulaziz and a crown prince called Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and a president in Turkey called Erdogan,” said the prince, who was part of a panel discussing economic reforms in the region.

The heir-apparent said the two countries would work together to bring the perpetrators to court, without addressing accusations he ordered the killing of one of his most prominent critics.

To add to the oddity of the event, Prince Mohammed appeared on stage alongside Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad Hariri, whom he is accused of kidnapping and forcing to resign live on air from Riyadh last year in an apparent disagreement over growing Iranian influence in Lebanon.

He joked that Mr Hariri would only be staying in the kingdom for two days this time. 

The Saudis have tried to portray business as usual at the forum – viewed as the jewel in the crown prince’s Vision 2030 plan for the country.

Prince Mohammed claimed during his address that the country’s growth would be much better in 2019 than this year, as kingdom begins to see through his plans to diversify away from oil.

To a standing ovation, MBS, as he is nicknamed, said economic transformation in Saudi would "restore the Middle East to its past glory".

But missing from the audience were Western politicians, top world bankers and company executives, who declined to attend in an attempt to distance themselves from the saga.

Saudi has tried to reassure foreign banks who have chosen to boycott the forum that they would not be penalised.

Beyond the conference, the drip-drip of revelations in the case has tested ties between Saudi and its traditional Western allies.

While US President Donald Trump has offered a degree of protection to the 33-year-old crown prince, it appeared today that this would not be unconditional.

President Trump said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published late on Tuesday that Prince Mohammed bore ultimate responsibility for the operation that led to Khashoggi’s killing. 

In his toughest comments yet, Mr Trump she he wanted to believe the prince when he said that lower level officials were to blame for the killing at the Saudi mission.

But he suggested responsibility lay higher up: "Well, the prince is running things over there more so at this stage. He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him."

An adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Prince Mohammed had "blood on his hands" over Khashoggi, the bluntest language yet from someone linked to Turkey’s president.

Mr Erdogan himself kept up his pressure on Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

"We are determined not to allow the murder to be covered up and for those responsible – from the person who gave the order to those who executed it – not to escape justice," he said.

On Wednesday, Saudi officials finally granted permission to Turkish police to search a well in the garden of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of their investigation.

The well was at centre of speculation yesterday that it may contain body parts belonging to the journalist.

Donald Trump is expected to wield the axe in the wake of Tuesday’s midterm elections, with figures close to the president predicting that cabinet members will be forced out. 

The US president did not push back on suggestions he would reshuffle his administration when talking to reporters earlier this week, saying pointedly: “For the most part, I love my cabinet.”

Another shake-up would likely further consolidate power under Mr Trump, removing moderating forces who at times have urged caution over policy, much to the president’s frustration.

It would also once again push up the turnover figures for Mr Trump’s White House, already one of the highest for a modern-day president. 

More than 38 million Americans voted early in the elections – a huge rise on the 27 million who did so in the 2014 midterms.

In Texas, Arizona and Nevada early ballots alone exceeded the entire 2014 voting totals, showing a country energised by this year’s congressional and state-wide elections. 

The results offer an insight into the mood of the electorate two years after Mr Trump’s shock victory, which put a man with no government or military experience into the White House. 

With the election now over, Mr Trump is predicted to make widespread personnel changes. Sebastian Gorka, Mr Trump’s former deputy assistant, predicted one or two cabinet members could go. 

"Every White House has some changes in year three. This one will be no exception,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

Speaking to reporters on Monday before a final day of campaigning, Mr Trump made little effort to downplay the possibility of a shake-up. 

"Administrations make changes usually after midterms and probably we’ll be right in that category. I think it’s very customary,” he said. 

Jeff Sessions, the US attorney general who Mr Trump has repeatedly chastised for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, is among those in the most precarious position. 

Mr Sessions has become a frequent target for Mr Trump’s tweeted criticism and key Republican senators who had been publicly backing him now seem resigned to his departure. 

Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the Russia probe, could also be at risk. He appeared on the eve of leaving in September before a decision was delayed. 

Mr Rosenstein faced embarrassing reports that he proposed wearing a wire when meeting the president at the height of the fallout over FBI director James Comey’s sacking.

He said the comment was a joke.  However his departure would complicate Robert Mueller’s probe on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which has dogged the Trump presidency, as a new overseer would need to be picked. 

Mr Mueller has made few public moves in recent weeks as the election came to a head, but his probe is expected to reenter the spotlight before Christmas.

He continues to push for an interview with Mr Trump, a row that has played out behind the scenes all year. 

Other question marks hang over Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary whose failure to drive down immigration has angered Mr Trump, and Jim Mattis, the defence secretary seen as a moderating force who the president publicly suggested could leave last month. 

A new US ambassador to the United Nations is also due to be announced this week after Nikki Haley decided to leave.

Heather Nauert, the top State Department spokesman and former Fox News reporter, is the front-runner for the job. 

Speaking before the polls opened, Mr Trump suggested he could soften his tone after an election campaign where he deployed heated warnings over the threat posed by illegal immigration. 

Asked about regrets from his time in office during an ABC7 interview, Mr Trump said: "I would like to have a much softer tone. 

"I feel to a certain extent I have no choice, but maybe I do. Maybe I could have been softer from that standpoint."

Indian government minister MJ Akbar filed a defamation suit against one of at least 10 women accusing him of sexual harassment on Monday, calling her allegations false and malicious.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, names journalist Priya Ramani as the sole accused and says that she "intentionally put forward malicious, fabricated and salacious" allegations to harm his reputation.

Ramani was not immediately reachable for comment.

The lawsuit comes amid widespread calls on social media for Akbar’s resignation from his post as the minister of state for external affairs.

Akbar, 67, a veteran editor who founded several publications, has been accused of a range of inappropriate behaviour by female journalists who previously worked as his subordinates.

Many journalists have called for Akbar to be sacked and have threatened to boycott events he is attending until he resigns.

More than 200 protesters from the youth wing of the opposition Congress party waved placards and chanted slogans outside Akbar’s Delhi home on Monday. Some jumped barricades and clashed with police and dozens were detained, a Reuters witness said.

Akbar is one of the highest-profile figures so far to face accusations in India’s burgeoning #MeToo movement. Several powerful men from the worlds of media, entertainment and the arts have been snared in sexual harassment and assault allegations, which have led to a string of ousters.

In a one-page statement on Sunday, Akbar described allegations against him as "wild and baseless" and questioned if they were politically motivated.

"Why has this storm risen a few months before a general election? Is there an agenda? You be the judge," he said in the statement.

Shutapa Paul, one of the women who has accused Akbar of sexual misconduct, told Reuters on Sunday that she was dismayed by Akbar’s response.

"Akbar’s brazen shaming of all of us is evidence of his sense of entitlement and power. I feel let down by the powers that be," Paul said. "Truth and justice will prevail."

It is safe to say that the work of William Shakespeare is performed and celebrated somewhere in the English speaking world and beyond on a daily basis.

Few, however, would expect to find his plays staged throughout the year in a former industrial mill town, in the southern US state of Virginia.

All the more surprising is the fact the plays are performed in the world’s only authentic recreation of Shakespeare’s long lost Blackfriars Playhouse.

Three hours drive south of Washington DC lies the small town of Staunton (pop. 24,363), where you will find Blackfriars Playhouse, home of the American Shakespeare Center.

The company celebrated its 30th anniversary in September and boasts a reputation as one of the most accomplished Shakespeare companies in the United States.

Its theatre has even attracted the attention of Dame Judi Dench, who on visiting Blackfriars Playhouse declared:  "Crikey! Why isn’t this in England?"

She later added: “I was instantly captivated by its atmosphere and by the amazing work that goes on there. It is a center of excellence and should be protected and cherished.”

The company began life as a travelling repertory group in 1988, when Jim Warren and Ralph Alan Cohen founded the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express to perform the playwright’s work in towns along Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

In 1996 the company travelled to Britain to stage work in primary and secondary schools, returning in 2009 to take part in events at Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s South Bank, which its founders still regard as “our big brother”.

Ten years after the touring company was founded it decided to create a permanent base in Staunton, where the liberal arts students of Mary Baldwin University provided a regular and appreciative audience.

In 2001 Shenandoah Shakespeare began work on recreating as a base for the company Shakespeare’s original Blackfriars Playhouse, which was sited until its demolition in 1655 near what is now the edge of the City of London.

The original building was a Tudor renovation of a 13th Century hall and was the fourth largest meeting space in the City, capable of holding 500 people. Parliament even met there on occasion.

But with no reliable records of what Blackfriars Playhouse looked like, or even its basic dimensions, architect Tom McLaughlin had to rely on plans for other 17th century theatres, surviving halls from the period, Shakespeare’s own stage directions and the work of scholars and historians.

The Blackfriars Playhouse cost $3.7 million to complete and the result is a breathtaking evocation of a 16th century London theatre in the most unlikely of locations.

The town of Staunton sits beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, close to some of the most bitterly contested sites of the American Civil War, including Lexington, Fredericksburg and Appomattox, the scene of the Confederacy’s eventual surrender on April 9, 1865.

Indeed local legend has it that the only reason Staunton escaped the destruction that befell so many other towns as the warring armies crisscrossed Virginia, was that it was home to dozens of prostitutes who entertained the soldiers of both sides.

Though Shakespeare himself might well have made something of that paradox, today’s bawdy entertainment is more likely to be found in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor or As You Like it.

A unique feature of performances at the Blackfriars Playhouse is the decision to stage each production under the bright lights of a dozen candelabras, recreating the lighting conditions seen in the time of Shakespeare and his contemporaries Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe.

“Shakespeare’s actors could see their audience; our actors can see you,” states the playhouse’s 2018/2019 season programme. “Leaving you in the dark can literally obscure a vital part of the drama.”

In keeping with what is known of performances of the period there are no special effects or elaborate set designs to detract from the actors and their material. Stools and benches placed on the stage for members of the audience emphasise a sense of interactions between performers and observers.

The rest of the 300-strong audience sit directly in front of the stage and in two wooden galleries around the edge of the auditorium, just as they would have at the original Blackfriars Playhouse, 400 years ago and nearly 4,000 miles away across the sea.

Mr Cohen, now Director of Mission at the American Shakespeare Center, said: “The American Shakespeare scene is vigorous and growing, and it’s almost a grassroots movement.  

“As to the likelihood of Staunton being a center for that movement, it’s fair to point out that the two largest Shakespeare companies in North America are Stratford, Ontario, and Ashland, Oregon, both with populations smaller than Staunton’s.

He added: “Staunton, which from the 19th century has had a rich and deep history in the performing arts, is a beautiful small city the Shenandoah Valley, a city celebrated for its architecture and setting. In short, the perfect place for a Shakespeare getaway.”

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum – two legally dubious proposals that mark his latest election-season barrage against illegal immigration.

Mr Trump also said he had told the US military mobilising at the southwest border that if US troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were "rifles."

"This is an invasion," Mr Trump declared, as he has previously on a subject that has been shown to resonate strongly with his base of Republican supporters.

He made his comments at the White House in a rambling, campaign-style speech that was billed as a response to caravans of migrants traveling slowly by foot toward the US border.

But Mr Trump offered few details on how exactly he planned to overhaul an asylum system he claimed was plagued by "endemic abuse" that he said "makes a mockery of our immigration system."

US immigration laws make clear that migrants seeking asylum may do so either at or between border crossings. But Mr Trump said he would limit that to official crossing points.

The US does not have the space at the border to manage the large-scale detention of migrants, with most facilities at capacity. Mr Trump said the government would erect "massive tents" instead.

The announcement marked Mr Trump’s latest attempt to keep the issue of immigration front and centre in the final stretch before next Tuesday’s elections. 

The president has spent the waning days of the campaign hammering the issue at every occasion as he tries to energise Republican voters using the same playbook that helped him to power in 2016.

He brought up immigration issues several times during a political rally Thursday night in Columbia, Missouri. He railed against "birth tourism," where mothers from abroad travel to America to have babies so they will automatically be U.S. citizens. And he denounced "chain migration," where these new citizens then bring in their extended families into the country.

"You come into the country – you’re like two months old … and you’re gonna bring ’em all – your aunts and uncles and grandfathers and lots of people," he said.

The president announced Wednesday that he was considering deploying up to 15,000 troops to the US-Mexican border in response to the caravans – roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans for a mission that has been criticised as unnecessary, considering the caravans remain hundreds of miles away.

He said on Thursday that he was "not going to put up with" any sort of violence directed at those US forces, warning the military would fight back. "When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say consider it a rifle," he said.

The exact rules for the use of force by military police and other soldiers who will be operating near the border have not been disclosed, but in all cases troops have the right of self-defense.

Still, Mark Hertling, a retired Army general, wrote on Twitter after Mr Trump’s speech that no military officer would allow a soldier to shoot an individual throwing a rock. "It would be an unlawful order," he wrote, citing the Law of Land Warfare.

Mr Trump said Thursday that, under his order, any migrants who do enter the country would be housed in "massive tent cities" he plans to build while their cases are processed.

"We’re going to catch, we’re not going to release," he said.

Under current protocol, many asylum seekers are released while their cases make their way through backlogged courts – a process that can take years.

Critics said the speech seemed mostly designed to scare, with no specifics on what mechanisms Mr Trump intended to use to push through his desired changes.

Administration officials told The AP that Mr Trump intends to invoke the same authority he used to push through his controversial travel ban.

"He’s really trying to scare the American public into thinking these are thousands of dangerous thugs," said Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It’s a classic strategy that goes back to 19th century nativist thinking."

Mr Trump and other administration officials have long said those seeking asylum should come through legal ports of entry. But many migrants are unaware of that guidance, and official border crossings have grown increasingly clogged.

Immigration officials have turned away asylum-seekers at border crossings because of overcrowding, telling them to return at a later date.

Backlogs have become especially bad in recent months at crossings in California, Arizona and Texas, with people generally waiting five weeks to try to claim asylum at San Diego’s main crossing and sleeping out in the open for days at a time.

Migrants who cross illegally are generally arrested and often seek asylum or some other form of protection. Claims have spiked in recent years, and there is currently a backlog of more than 800,000 cases pending in immigration court.
Administration officials have railed against what they say are loopholes designed to encourage people, especially from Central America, to come to the US and claim asylum.

The US fielded more than 330,000 asylum claims in 2017, nearly double the number two years earlier and surpassing Germany as highest in the world. Generally, only about 20 percent of applicants are approved.

But it remains unclear how many people currently en route to the US will even make it to the border.

There are currently four caravans. The main group of about 4,000 migrants – down from its estimated peak of more than 7,000 – remains in southern Mexico, hundreds of miles from the border. A second, smaller group of 1,000 or so is more than 200 miles behind the first.

A third band of about 500 from El Salvador has made it to Guatemala, and a fourth group of about 700 set out from the Salvadoran capital on Wednesday.

Similar caravans have gathered regularly over the years and have generally dwindled by the time they reach the southern border. And most have passed largely unnoticed.

Mr Trump has nonetheless mounted an enormous show of force in response to their movement – coinciding with elections that will determine which party controls Congress.

The first 100 active duty troops arrived at the border in McAllen, Texas, on Thursday – part of the "more than 7,000" troops the Pentagon said the military were sending to support Customs and Border Protection agents.

"These illegal caravans will not be allowed into the United States and they should turn back now because they’re wasting their time," Mr Trump said on Thursday.

Notably, he said his executive order would come next week, which means it could be after Election Day.

The president has rejected the idea he has been "fearmongering" and using the issue for political purposes, and instead on Thursday he blamed Democrats for the "incompetent, very, very stupid laws that we have." He noted at one point, "Women want security."

Mr Trump also tweeted a video Wednesday alleging, without evidence, that Democrats were responsible for allowing a homicidal immigrant into the US. Many pointed out that the video was reminiscent of the infamous "Willie Horton" ad used against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988 and condemned as racist.

An associate of Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned for running the troll factory targeting the 2016 US elections has been accused of attacks on anti-Kremlin bloggers.

Valery Amelchenko, 61, told independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta that he was paid by catering mogul Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s chef” after he prepared many state dinners for the president, to carry out brutal intimidation tactics against regime critics. 

He claimed to have helped assassinate one blogger with poison. 

Amelchenko, who agreed to talk after journalists identified him as part of an investigation, has since gone missing. 

Prigozhin was indicted by a federal grand jury and sanctioned in the United States this year for funding the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which impersonated US political organisations and ran fake ads on social media to interfere in the 2016 election. 

Andrei Mikhailov, a key troll factory figure named by Amelchenko as his immediate overseer, confirmed to Novaya Gazeta that he had hired Amelchenko while working for Prigozhin in 2012-14. 

On Friday, the US government charged a Russian woman with participating in a plot by Prigozhin to interfere in the midterm elections in November.

Amelchenko, a former convict, said he had been ordered to beat up a Sochi blogger who had “written bad things about Putin” in 2013, an incident confirmed by Mikhailov.

He also said he was part of a hit squad that poisoned a blogger in Pskov in 2016. Another member of the squad injected the man with an unknown substance as he was leaving his house, after which he fell and could not be revived by paramedics.

Amelchenko said he later photographed the man’s gravestone to prove to his “curator” that the hit was a success. 

Novaya Gazeta identified the blogger as Sergei Tikhonov through Amelchenko’s detailed description of the house. Relatives said he had died of a heart attack in 2016. 

Mr Putin’s spokesman said on Monday the accusations of attacks ordered by Prigozhin had not yet been “confirmed by competent organs”. 

According to Amelchenko, another Prigozhin employee was behind the attack on the husband of Lyubov Sobol, an ally of opposition leader Alexei Navalny who had investigated Prigozhin’s lucrative army ration contracts.

Sobol’s husband lost consciousness and was briefly hospitalised after an unknown man holding a bouquet injected him with an unknown substance in 2016. 

The perpetrator identified by Amelchenko died in mysterious circumstances in 2017, but his widow confirmed that he was the man with a bouquet seen in CCTV footage of the attack.

Amelchenko said he also was sent on operations to the Canary Islands as well as to Ukraine, where he spied on pro-Western protests and helped assassinate a separatist leader in Luhansk. 

In addition, he claimed to have been part of a group sent to test poisons on captured rebels in Syria. When no rebels could be found for the human experiments, he said Prigozhin’s men tried to test the poisons on fighters from the pro-Assad Isil Hunters, one of whom died.

Prigozhin previously employed Dmitry Utkin, who was sanctioned by the United States as the leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner in Syria. Dozens of Wagner operatives were killed by US airstrikes when they advanced on a Kurdish-held oil and gas field in February.

Fearful of his safety, Amelchenko refused to reveal many details of his work until he could go into hiding. 

He disappeared immediately after meeting with Novaya Gazeta in St Petersburg earlier this month. He had called a reporter to say he was being followed by two young men when the line went dead. His phone was later found on the street with a pair of shoes, and police have issued a missing person notice. 

A funeral wreath was sent last week to the home of the reporter, Denis Korotkov, and a severed goat’s head in a basket was left for him at the offices of Novaya Gazeta. More than half a dozen contributors to the paper, including investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, have been murdered in the past. 

Elena Khusyaynova, 44, was accused by US prosecutors on Friday of filing multi-million dollar budgets as chief accountant of the Prigozhin-funded Project Lakhta, which imitated Americans on social media to inflame tensions around issues like immigration and gun control before the November 6 congressional elections.

British authorities have previously accused Russian operatives of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal, spies who defected to the UK.