A  Beijing divorce court has ordered a man to compensate his wife for the housework she did during their marriage, in a landmark ruling.

The woman will receive 50,000 yuan ($7,700; £5,460) for five years of unpaid labour.

The case has generated a huge debate online over the value of domestic work, with some saying the compensation amount was too little.

The ruling comes after China’s introduction of a new civil code.

According to court records, the man identified by his surname Chen had filed for divorce last year from his wife, surnamed Wang, after getting married in 2015.

She was reluctant to divorce at first, but later requested financial compensation, arguing that Chen had not shouldered any housework or childcare responsibilities for their son.

Beijing’s Fangshan District Court ruled in her favour, ordering him to pay her monthly alimony of 2,000 yuan, as well as the one-off payment of 50,000 yuan for the housework she has done.

The presiding judge told reporters on Monday that the division of a couple’s joint property after marriage usually entails splitting tangible property. “But housework constitutes intangible property value,” said the judge.

The ruling was made according to the new civil code in the country, which came into effect this year. Under the new law, a spouse is entitled to seek compensation in a divorce if he or she bears more responsibility in child raising, caring for elderly relatives, and assisting partners in their work.

Previously, divorcing spouses could only request for such compensation if a prenuptial agreement had been signed – an uncommon practice in China.

On social media, the case sparked heated debate, with a related hashtag on microblogging platform Weibo viewed more than 570 million times.

Some social media users pointed out that 50,000 yuan for five years’ of work was too little. “I’m a bit speechless, the work of a full-time housewife is being underestimated. In Beijing, hiring a nanny for a year costs more than 50,000 yuan,” said one commenter.

Others pointed out that men should assume more household duties in the first place.

Some also called on women to continue pursuing their careers after marriage. “Ladies, remember to always be independent. Don’t give up work after marriage, give yourself your own way out,” wrote one social media user.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Chinese women spend nearly four hours a day on unpaid work – roughly 2.5 times that of men.

It is higher than the average in OECD countries, where women spend twice the amount of time as men on unpaid work.

The wife of jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been arrested in the US on suspicion of drug trafficking, US authorities say.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, was detained at Dulles International Airport outside Washington DC.

She is charged with participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana.

Guzmán is currently serving a life sentence in New York for drug trafficking and money laundering.

The 63-year-old is a former head of the Sinaloa cartel, which officials say was the biggest supplier of drugs to the US.

His trial in 2019 heard shocking revelations about his life, from drugging and raping girls as young as 13 to carrying out the cold-blooded murders of former cartel members and rivals.

Ms Coronel Aispuro is due to appear in a federal court in DC via video conference, the US justice department said.

As well as facing drug trafficking charges, she is also accused of conspiring with others to help her husband escape from prison in Mexico in 2015.

He was sprung from Mexico’s maximum-security Altiplano prison after his sons bought a property near the prison and a GPS watch smuggled into the prison gave diggers his exact location. He escaped by riding a specially adapted small motorcycle through the tunnel.

Court documents said Ms Coronel Aispuro was allegedly involved in planning another prison escape for her husband before he was extradited to the US in January 2017.

She has not commented on the charges.

Ms Coronel Aispuro is a dual US-Mexico citizen, a former beauty pageant winner and journalism student, and the mother of twins with Guzman. According to previous interviews she’s given to US media, she first met Guzman at a dance when she was 17 and he was 49.

She attended nearly every day of her husband’s three-month trial in New York, during which she heard not only grim accounts of murder and rape, but also claims he spied on her and other mistresses.

She came under the media spotlight during that trial. In one instance, she appeared to laugh during the tearful testimony of one of Guzman’s mistresses. On another day she and Guzman wore similar velvet jackets, which many people interpreted as a show of solidarity.

She remained supportive of Guzman throughout, saying at the end of the trial: “I don’t know my husband as the person they are trying to show him as, but rather I admire him as the human being that I met, and the one that I married.”

Guzmán came from a poor family in Sinaloa state, north-west Mexico. His organised crime business grew so big that he entered Forbes’ 2009 list of the world’s richest men at number 701, with an estimated worth of $1bn (£709m).

The boyfriend of a South African woman, whose murder galvanised protests against violence against women in the country, has been charged with her murder at a court in Johannesburg.

Ntuthuko Ntokozo Shoba is accused of planning Tshegofatso Pule’s murder and paying the killer.

The body of the pregnant 28-year-old was found hanging from a tree two years ago, with multiple stab wounds.

Mr Shoba was not asked to enter a plea during his court appearance.

Last week, a Johannesburg court sentenced another man, Mzikayise Malephane, to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Pule.

In a plea agreement read out in court by his lawyer, Malephane, 31, said he had been offered 7,000 rand (£340; $480) by Mr Shoba to carry out the killing but had declined. The offer went up to 70,000 rand before he accepted, he said.

Malephane told the court that Mr Shoba “did not want his wife to find out about the unborn baby”.

Prosecutors have charged Mr Shoba, who was arrested last week, with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and defeating the ends of justice.

The 32-year-old, whose legs were shackled, wore an all-black suit and shirt in his first court appearance on Monday, news site TimesLive reported.

Ms Pule’s uncle Tumisang Katake said that seeing Mr Shoba in court reopened “old wounds that were beginning to heal.”

He added that the family knew that Ms Pule was dating Mr Shoba, but did not know “what type of relationship they had”.

According to the family she had gone to see Mr Shoba in his house in Florida on the West Rand district, 16km (nine miles) west of Johannesburg, in June 2019, after he invited her to go shopping for the unborn baby, news24 reports.

They got into an argument and he later called a taxi whose driver turned out to be Malephane.

On 5 June Ms Pule’s body was found hanging from a tree in Roodepoort area in the West Rand district.

Her death was widely condemned and inspired the hashtag #JusticeForTshego on Twitter, the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani reports from Johannesburg.

In a country with one of the highest levels of violence in the world, including high cases of femicide, Ms Pule’s death distressed many, our reporter adds.

In response, President Cyril Ramaphosa released a statement denouncing gender-based violence, saying the pandemic had made it more dangerous for women because “violent men are taking advantage of the eased restrictions on movement to attack women and children”.

As many as 51% of women in South Africa had experienced violence at the hands of someone they were in a relationship with, the president’s statement said.

Following an outcry over a spate of femicides the year before, President Ramaphosa said South Africa was one of “the most unsafe places in the world to be a woman”.

Mr Shoba’s case has been postponed until 1 March when a formal bail application will be heard.

The daughters of assassinated US black civil rights leader Malcolm X have requested that the murder investigation be reopened in light of new evidence.

They cite a deathbed letter from a man who was a policeman at the time of the 1965 killing, alleging New York police and the FBI conspired in the murder.

Raymond Wood wrote his responsibility was to ensure Malcolm X’s security team were arrested days before he was shot dead in Manhattan, his family says.

Three men were convicted of the murder.

The men – all members of the Nation of Islam political and religious movement – were each sentenced to life in prison. One of them has since died, while the other two have been paroled.

By the time he was gunned down, Malcolm X – who was at one time seen as a public face of the Nation of Islam but then left the movement – had moderated his militant message of black separatism.

However, he remained a passionate advocate of black unity, self-respect and self-reliance.

In 2020, the Manhattan district attorney launched a review of the convictions after meeting representatives of the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal group campaigning for justice for individuals it says have been wrongly convicted.

What does Wood’s letter allege?

The letter says the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) covered up details of the assassination on 21 February 1965 in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom, Upper Manhattan, according to Wood’s family and their lawyer.

Wood alleges that he was tasked with making sure that Malcolm X would have no door security in the building where he was due to speak in public.

At a press briefing on Saturday, Wood’s family members provided no details about how and when Raymond Wood died.

But they said he did not want to make the letter public until after his death, fearing repercussions from the authorities.

“Any evidence that provides greater insight into the truth behind that terrible tragedy should be thoroughly investigated,” said Ilyasah Shabazz, one of Malcolm X’s daughters.

How have the NYPD and the FBI responded?

In a statement, the NYPD said: “Several months ago, the Manhattan district attorney initiated a review of the investigation and prosecution that resulted in two convictions for the murder of Malcolm X.

“The NYPD has provided all available records relevant to that case to the district attorney. The department remains committed to assist with that review in any way.”

The FBI has so far made no public comment on the issue

Russia has reported the first case of a bird flu strain, H5N8, being passed from poultry to humans.

Officials said seven workers at a poultry plant in the south of the country had been infected following an outbreak there in December.

“All seven people… are now feeling well,” said the head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog, Anna Popova.

She said that adequate measures had been quickly taken to stop the spread of infection.

There was no sign of transmission between humans, Ms Popova said, adding that the case had been reported to the World Health Organization.

She praised “the important scientific discovery” by Russia’s Vektor laboratory, which had isolated the strain’s genetic material from the infected workers.

“The discovery of these mutations when the virus has not still acquired an ability to transmit from human to human gives us all, the entire world, time to prepare for possible mutations and react in an adequate and timely fashion,” Ms Popova said.

She said Russian scientists could now start working on developing test systems.

Other strains of bird flu occasionally infect humans and have led to deaths – but this is the first report of the H5N8 strain being passed on.