Azerbaijan held a day of mourning on Thursday for the dozens of victims of an airliner crash in Kazakhstan, as questions were being asked over the cause of the disaster.

The flight was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s south, when it diverted and attempted an emergency landing in Kazakhstan.

Taiwan's Presidential Office conducted its first ever tabletop exercise simulating a military escalation with China, several officials briefed on the matter said, at a time when the island is facing renewed Chinese military threats.