Row after row of thin barred cages hold brilliantly coloured birds whose screeches fill the air with a deafening noise. Faiz Ahmed sits at a desk, oblivious, as he turns to a team of undercover BBC News journalists. He’s busy with his business of importing and selling birds. It’s a popular line of trade in Bangladesh, where he’s based, particularly among people with connections and money to invest. The conversation had started over the purchase of legal captive-bred parrots, but turned to a particular species, the African grey. “Wild grey parrots are good. Many people are breeding from wild ones,”

Climate change is causing the highest glacier on Mount Everest to melt at a rapid pace, a new study has found. Researchers led by the University of Maine found that the South Col Glacier has lost more than 180ft (54m) of thickness in the last 25 years. The glacier, which sits around 7,906m (25,938 ft) above sea-level, is thinning 80 times faster than it first took the ice to form on the surface. The rate of decline has been blamed on warming temperatures and strong winds. Scientists leading the study found that since the 1990s, ice that took around 2,000 years

Lata Mangeshkar, one of India’s most beloved singers who provided the soundtrack to hundreds of Bollywood films, has died aged 92. Mangeshkar was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai in January after testing positive for Covid-19. Her extraordinary career spanned more than half a century and she recorded thousands of songs in 36 languages. She will receive a state funeral in Mumbai on Sunday and there will be two days of national mourning. During this period, the national flag will be flown at half-mast throughout the country. A the news broke, tributes began pouring in for Mangeshkar who was often