Meta will get rid of factcheckers, “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship” and recommend more political content on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads, founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced.

In a video message, Zuckerberg vowed to prioritise free speech after the return of Donald Trump to the White House and said that, starting in the US, he would “get rid of factcheckers and replace them with community notes similar to X”.

X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, relies on other users to add caveats and context to contentious posts.

Zuckerberg said Meta’s “factcheckers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created”. The tech firm’s content moderation teams will be moved from California to Texas “where there is less concern about the bias of our teams”, he said. He admitted that changes to the way Meta filters content would mean “we’re going to catch less bad stuff”.

Meta has more than 3 billion users globally. In a wide-ranging statement, Zuckerberg said Meta would also “get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse” and “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”.

He cited Europe as a place with “an ever increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative” and said: “Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down.”

Zuckerberg framed the decision to get rid of factcheckers as a return to an argument in favour of freedom of expression that he made at Georgetown University in October 2019. He said November’s US presidential election felt like “a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising speech”.

The announcement comes days after Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister, announced he was stepping down as Meta’s president of global affairs to be replaced by the prominent Republican Joel Kaplan.

Meta’s oversight board, co-chaired by figures including the former prime minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, responded to the announcement of what is effectively a crowd-sourced approach to factchecking with a statement that said: “We look forward to working with Meta in the coming weeks to understand the changes in greater detail, ensuring its new approach can be as effective and speech-friendly as possible.”

It welcomed the announcement that Meta would revise its approach to factchecking, but said: “It is essential that decisions on content are taken with maximum input from voices outside of Meta, including of the people who use its platforms every day.”

It concluded: “We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Nick Clegg who, as president of global affairs at Meta, was instrumental in overseeing the creation of the oversight board and has been a strong advocate for freedom of speech on Meta’s platforms. We look forward to Joel Kaplan’s leadership in continuing this important work.”

In his five-minute statement, Zuckerberg said: “Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there’s also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there, drugs, terrorism, child exploitation. These are things that we take very seriously, and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly.

“So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes, even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that’s millions of people, and we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising speech.”

He said that removing some restrictions on content on topics such as gender and immigration would “make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms” and he said the focus of filters that scan posts for policy violations would be shifted to only tackling illegal and high severity violations with Meta, relying on users to report lower severity violations before it takes action.

“By dialling them back, we’re going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms,” he said. “We’re also going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content. The reality is that this is a tradeoff. It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

Meta has appointed three new members to its board of directors, including Dana White, the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a familiar figure in the orbit of the incoming president, Donald Trump.

The social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is also adding the auto tycoon John Elkann and the tech investor Charlie Songhurst, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a Facebook post late on Monday.

Tapping White to join the board is Zuckerberg’s latest maneuver to improve ties with Trump, who was once banned from Facebook. After Trump won re-election in November, Zuckerberg dined at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, gifting him a pair of Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses, and Meta donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. Other big tech companies such as Amazon have donated similar amounts. Meta has also promoted its most prominent conservative, Joel Kaplan, to the company’s top policy job in another move meant to strengthen connections to conservatives.

The president-elect is a longtime UFC fan and frequently attends major fights. His ties with White date back to 2001, when White hosted a UFC at the Republican’s former casino-hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Trump Taj Mahal. Trump has also appeared with White at UFC matches over the years, especially in his 2024 campaign as part of efforts to appeal to younger male voters.

White, in turn, has had speaking roles at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Republican conventions and appeared on stage at Trump’s election victory party in November, even speaking briefly to the crowd.

The pair attended a UFC pay-per-view card after the election at Madison Square Garden, where fans applauded as organizers showed video highlights of Trump’s road to reclaiming the White House.

White has built UFC “into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world”, Zuckerberg said. “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”

Zuckerberg is also active in mixed martial arts. Zuckerberg and his fellow billionaire Elon Musk seemingly agreed to fight in a “cage match” in 2023, but it never happened.

Elkann, another person joining Meta’s board, is the CEO of Exor, a Netherlands-based investment company, and chair of its two auto companies, Stellantis and Ferrari. Zuckerberg said the executive had “deep experience running large global businesses and he brings an international perspective to our board”. Songhurst previously worked at Microsoft and began advising Meta last year on artificial intelligence.

Meta has appointed three new members to its board of directors, including Dana White, the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a familiar figure in the orbit of the incoming president, Donald Trump.

The social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is also adding the auto tycoon John Elkann and the tech investor Charlie Songhurst, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a Facebook post late on Monday.

Tapping White to join the board is Zuckerberg’s latest maneuver to improve ties with Trump, who was once banned from Facebook. After Trump won re-election in November, Zuckerberg dined at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, gifting him a pair of Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses, and Meta donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. Other big tech companies such as Amazon have donated similar amounts. Meta has also promoted its most prominent conservative, Joel Kaplan, to the company’s top policy job in another move meant to strengthen connections to conservatives.

The president-elect is a longtime UFC fan and frequently attends major fights. His ties with White date back to 2001, when White hosted a UFC at the Republican’s former casino-hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Trump Taj Mahal. Trump has also appeared with White at UFC matches over the years, especially in his 2024 campaign as part of efforts to appeal to younger male voters.

White, in turn, has had speaking roles at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Republican conventions and appeared on stage at Trump’s election victory party in November, even speaking briefly to the crowd.

The pair attended a UFC pay-per-view card after the election at Madison Square Garden, where fans applauded as organizers showed video highlights of Trump’s road to reclaiming the White House.

White has built UFC “into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world”, Zuckerberg said. “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”

Zuckerberg is also active in mixed martial arts. Zuckerberg and his fellow billionaire Elon Musk seemingly agreed to fight in a “cage match” in 2023, but it never happened.

Elkann, another person joining Meta’s board, is the CEO of Exor, a Netherlands-based investment company, and chair of its two auto companies, Stellantis and Ferrari. Zuckerberg said the executive had “deep experience running large global businesses and he brings an international perspective to our board”. Songhurst previously worked at Microsoft and began advising Meta last year on artificial intelligence.

The former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, a climate-focused economist who became the first non-Briton to run the Bank, is considering entering the race to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister.

Trudeau announced on Monday he would step down after nearly 10 years in power once his ruling Liberal party chose a new leader, throwing open the doors to a fierce party race before a general election later this year.

Carney, 59, in a statement quoted by Bloomberg, where he is a chair of the board of directors, said he would be “considering this decision closely with my family over the coming days”. A longtime and prominent member of the Liberal party, Carney said he was “encouraged” by the support of Liberal lawmakers and people “who want us to move forward with positive change and a winning economic plan”.

Speculation that Carney, who ran the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, could be seeking high office has grown over the past few months as Trudeau’s popularity plummeted amid record inflation, an acute housing crisis, high food prices and voter fatigue.

Trudeau’s decision to resign came amid fears that tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, the incoming US president, could devastate Canada’s economy.

Joe Biden expressed his appreciation for Trudeau in a phone call on Monday.

“Over the last decade, prime minister Trudeau has led with commitment, optimism, and strategic vision. The US-Canada alliance is stronger because of him. The American and Canadian people are safer because of him. And the world is better off because of him,” Biden wrote.

Carney’s supporters see him as having the experience to guide the country through a period of instability. The former banker has a diverse, internationalist résumé, including as chair of Brookfield Asset Management, a large Canadian alternative asset manager, and as UN special envoy for climate action and finance.

He holds Canadian and Irish citizenship, and gained British citizenship in 2018. In September, the Liberal party announced Carney would lead a taskforce on economic growth.

However, the Liberal party is in a tough position, with the opposition Conservatives expected to win a majority government under current polling. The Conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre, has dismissed the former central banker as Carbon Tax Carney, a reference to a levy on consumer fuel Trudeau brought in.

A poll by the Angus Reid Institute on Friday, before Trudeau’s announcement, found Carney was in second place among candidates likely to replace Trudeau as Liberal leader. The former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, whose resignation last month increased calls for Trudeau to go, was top.

If he were to win the leadership race, Carney would be in the unusual situation of becoming prime minister without holding a seat in the House of Commons. Party leaders are not required to be members of parliament when they win, but convention requires they run for a seat as quickly as possible. It took Jagmeet Singh 16 months to become an MP after winning the leadership of the New Democratic party.

With a spring election widely expected, the new Liberal leader will only hold the post of prime minister for a handful of months before the country votes.

Donald Trump Jr touched down in Greenland on Tuesday, hours after his father reiterated his interest in taking control of the Arctic autonomous territory, pledging to “make Greenland great again”.

After arriving in the Greenlandic capital in a Trump-branded plane, he told a waiting crowd in the Nuuk airport arrivals hall – some wearing red Make America Great Again caps – that he was “very excited to be here”. It was, he said, “a little colder here than it is in Florida”, adding that the US president-elect “says hello to everyone in Greenland”.

Asked about his plans, he said he was visiting as a tourist, had no plans to meet politicians and declined to talk about US interest in Greenland, saying he was merely there to “see a lot of the sights, talk to some people and have a good time”.

He was later pictured outside a controversial statue of Hans Egede, a Danish-Norwegian missionary who is seen as a symbol of Danish colonialism.

Trump Jr said in a podcast that aired on Monday that he was “not buying Greenland” but that he was going on a “very long, personal day trip”. He added: “I’m hopping on Trump Force One and landing in Greenland tomorrow morning.”

Nevertheless, his arrival in the capital, Nuuk, prompted the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, to break her silence to say the autonomous territory was “not for sale”. “Seen through the eyes of the Danish government, Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders,” the Social Democrat told TV2.

Describing the US as “our absolute closest ally”, she said “we always want to work more closely with the Americans”. But she called on “everyone to respect that Greenlanders are a people, a population,” adding: “Only they can define their future.”

The visit is taking place against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Greenland and Denmark as the Trump administration prepares to take office.

Greenland is a former Danish colony and remains part of the kingdom of Denmark, which continues to control its foreign and security policy.

As well as its supply of multiple in-demand raw materials for green technology – including 25 of the 34 that the EU needs – amid melting Arctic ice and strategically positioned between the US and Russia, Greenland is viewed as increasingly important for defence and emerging as an international geopolitical battleground.

The Danish King Frederik shocked some historians with a new year move to change the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which was also seen as a rebuke to Trump’s advances.

A meeting between the Greenlandic prime minister, Múte Egede, and the king, scheduled to take place on Wednesday in Denmark, was cancelled on Monday without explanation. The royal house has since put it down to “calendar gymnastics”.

Trump Jr has said he is visiting the vast island in a private capacity and as a tourist. Others in his group include the political activist Charlie Kirk, who cofounded the pro-Trump conservative organisation Turning Point USA.

“We want to meet people,” the president-elect’s son said in his podcast, Triggered. “They seem like a great bunch of people.”

The Greenlandic government said no meetings had been scheduled with government representatives. The Danish and Greenlandic governments have both said it is a private visit.

“We have not been briefed on the nature of his programme, and therefore this is a private visit,” Mininnguaq Kleist, Greenland’s minister of independence and foreign affairs, told Reuters. He added that Trump Jr was expected to land at about 1300 GMT and stay for about four to five hours.

In a statement, Greenland’s ministry of foreign affairs said: “Greenland is open and those who wish to visit us are welcome.”

Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark with a population of just 57,000, boasts mineral, oil and natural gas wealth. But development has been slow, leaving its economy reliant on fishing and annual subsidies from Denmark.

The capital, Nuuk, is closer to New York than to the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

Trump, who takes office on 20 January, said his son and various representatives were going to visit “some of the most magnificent areas and sights”.

On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump praised the island and promised to “MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”

“Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation,” he wrote.

Trump expressed interest in buying Greenland during his 2017-2021 term but was publicly rebuffed by Greenlandic and Danish authorities before any conversations could take place.

Over recent months, tensions have escalated significantly between Greenland and Denmark. There is intense anger in Greenland over investigations into the forced contraceptive scandal of the 1960s and 70s, prompting the Greenlandic prime minister to accuse Denmark of genocide. There are also continuing protests in Copenhagen and Nuuk over the separation of Greenlandic children from their parents.

Last week, Egede stepped up a push for independence from Denmark in his new year speech, saying he wanted it to break free from “the shackles of colonialism” to shape its own future, although he did not mention the US.

Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, said the idea of a US takeover should be firmly rejected. “I don’t want to be a pawn in Trump’s hot dreams of expanding his empire to include our country,” she said.

Two weeks ago, Trump said on Truth Social that “the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity”.

Reuters contributed to this report

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front party, who sent shock waves through the country when he made it to the second round of the presidential election in 2002, has died aged 96.

The former paratrooper, who led the party from 1972 to 2011, was repeatedly convicted over comments about the Holocaust, which he once dismissed as “merely a detail of history”.

His daughter Marine Le Pen took the party’s leadership in 2011 and expelled him four years later, seeking to distance the movement from his extremist reputation. The party has since been renamed the National Rally (RN).

Le Pen’s family said in a statement that he had been in a care facility for several weeks and he died at midday on Tuesday “surrounded by his loved ones”.

However, it emerged that Marine Le Pen only learned of his death from reporters while flying back from a visit to the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, where she had been visiting victims of Cyclone Chido.

Sophie Dupont, a journalist with BFMTV who was on the plane with Marine Le Pen, said the politician was told when the flight made a technical stop in Nairobi. “Marine Le Pen’s press officer didn’t know. He went to tell her,” Dupont said.

Marine Le Pen’s entourage said she would not make any immediate comment.

The Elysée, in a statement, trod a diplomatic line, summarising Le Pen’s political career: an MP three times, a presidential candidate five times, an MEP seven times, a town councillor and regional councillor. “A historic figure of the far right, he played a role in the public life of our country for nearly 70 years, which is now a matter for history to judge,” it said.

RN said Le Pen had defended “the idea of French greatness with all his soul and at the risk of his own life”.

Last year Le Pen faced charges, along with Marine Le Pen, over allegations they and other party figures had embezzled money from the European parliament with fake jobs. Jean-Marie Le Pen was excused from attending court for health reasons.

Twenty-three years ago he had put the far right at the heart of French politics with his surprise, second-place finish in the first round of the 2002 presidential election. In the run-off he was defeated by Jacques Chirac in a landslide.

Controversies over his statements about race and the Holocaust put him at odds with his daughter’s attempts to sanitise the party and move away from its jackbooted, antisemitic image.

He was convicted and fined several times for contesting crimes against humanity, and in 2014 suggested the Ebola virus could be a solution to the global population explosion. Two years later, he was convicted of “provoking hatred and ethnic discrimination” for telling a public meeting three years earlier that Roma in the city were “rash-inducing” and smelly.

Le Pen was made lifetime honorary president of the FN when his daughter took over as party leader in 2011. She threw him out in 2015 after he refused to temper his incendiary language as she attempted to clean up the FN’s reputation, but only finally succeeded in ejecting him in 2018 after several legal battles.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was born on 20 June 1928, the only child of a Breton fisherer and his wife, a seamstress. In his autobiography, Mémoires: fils de la nation (Son of the Nation), he described his childhood as “modest” in a home with “a dirt floor”. His father died in 1942 when Jean, as he was then, was 14, after a mine caught up in his fishing net exploded.

At 16, Le Pen sought to join the military – specifically the French Interior Forces (FFI) – but was refused as he was too young. Col Henri de la Vaissière reportedly told him: “Think of your mother.” In 1946, he was expelled from his secondary school and moved to the Paris region, where he passed his baccalauréat and began studying law.

He later joined the French Foreign Legion’s parachute regiment and took part in the war in Indochina and in the Algerian war of independence, during which he was accused of torturing detainees.

In 1962, Le Pen told the newspaper Combat: “I’ve nothing to hide. We tortured because it had to be done.” Later, Le Pen denied further accusations of torture in Algeria, claiming they were part of a leftwing “government plot” to discredit him.

He had three daughters with his first wife, Pierrette, of whom Marine was the youngest. He was reported to have been closest to his granddaughter, Marion Maréchal, daughter of Yann Le Pen, his middle child. He married his second wife, Jany, in 1991.

On learning of his death, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard left France Unbowed, wrote on X that he believed in “respect for the dignity of the dead and the grief of their loved ones …” adding “this does not erase the right to judge their actions. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s actions remain intolerable. The battle against the man is over, that against hatred, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism that he spread continues.”

A strong earthquake has struck near Shigatse, one of Tibet’s holiest cities, killing scores of people, damaging buildings, and sending people running to the streets in neighbouring Nepal and India.

Chinese state media said at least 126 people had died, more than 188 had been injured, and about 1,000 houses were damaged in the quake, which hit at 9.05am on Tuesday. The US Geological Survey said the earthquake was centred in the Tibet region at a depth of about 10km (6 miles). It measured the tremor at magnitude 7.1, while China recorded it as 6.8.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said all-out search and rescue efforts should be carried out to minimise casualties, properly resettle the affected people, and ensure a safe and warm winter.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who lives in exile in India, said he was “deeply saddened” by the natural disaster.

“I offer my prayers for those who have lost their lives and extend my wishes for a swift recovery to all who have been injured,” he said.

Tenzin Lekshay, a spokesperson for the Central Tibetan Administration, the government in exile for Tibet, said: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of lives and the extensive destruction of property in Tibet following the recent series of earthquakes. Our heartfelt condolences go out to the grieving families. We are holding a prayer service in remembrance and solidarity.”

More than 1,500 local firefighters and rescue workers have been dispatched to the affected areas, Xinhua news agency reported. Some 22,000 items including cotton tents, cotton coats, quilts and folding beds have also been sent to the quake-hit region, it said.

The state broadcaster CCTV said earlier: “Dingri county and its surrounding areas experienced very strong tremors, and many buildings near the epicentre have collapsed.” It said more than 40 aftershocks had been registered by midday, including 16 above magnitude 3.0.

Dingri is a county home to about 60,000 people, according to 2020 figures. The average altitude in the area around the epicentre, which borders the Himalayas, is about 4,200 metres. Temperatures in Dingri are around -8C (18F) and will drop to -18C this evening, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Li Qiang, China’s premier, stressed the need to ensure that people in the quake-stricken area were kept warm, according to Chinese state media.

Shigatse is regarded as the seat of the Panchen Lama, a holy figure in Tibetan Buddhism who is second only to the Dalai Lama.

Crumbled shop fronts could be seen in a video showing the aftermath from the nearby town of Lhatse, with debris spilling out on to the road.

Reuters was able to confirm the location from nearby buildings, windows, road layout and signage that match satellite and street view imagery. The date could not be verified independently.

Tremors were felt in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, 400km (250 miles) away, where residents ran from their houses.

Tremors were also felt in the northern Indian state of Bihar, which borders Nepal. As walls shook, people rushed out of their homes and apartments to open areas.

So far, no reports of any damage or loss to property have been received, officials in India said.

A magnitude 7.1 quake is considered strong and is capable of causing severe damage.

South-western parts of China are frequently hit by earthquakes. A huge quake in Sichuan province in 2008 killed almost 70,000 people.

According to CCTV, there have been 29 earthquakes with magnitudes of three or higher within 200km of the Shigatse quake in the past five years, all of which were smaller than the one that struck on Tuesday morning.

In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 tremor struck near Kathmandu in neighbouring Nepal, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands in that country’s worst earthquake.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys group who received a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in 2021, has formally asked Donald Trump for a pardon.

A jury convicted Tarrio of helping to orchestrate the insurrection. At the time of the attack, Tarrio had been banned from the city by prosectors for burning a stolen banner from a historic Black church in December 2020 during a protest march against Trump’s election loss.

Prosecutors said Tarrio was the driving force for organizing hundreds of Proud Boys to participate in the attack on January 6, and several top lieutenants in the group – a far-right militant organization – were at the frontlines of the violence.

US district judge Tim Kelly, a Trump appointee, sentenced Tarrio to 22 years in prison after his conviction. It is the longest sentence of any January 6 defendant.

In his pardon request, Tarrio claims he was targeted unfairly by the Biden administration. Trump has promised full pardons for January 6 rioters as soon as he takes office.

“Well, we’re going to look at each individual case,” Trump said, “and we’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start in the first hour that I get into office. And a vast majority of them should not be in jail … They’ve suffered gravely.”

Thailand has banned plastic waste imports over concerns about toxic pollution, as experts warn that failure to agree a global treaty to cut plastic waste will harm human health.

A law banning imports of plastic waste came into force this month in Thailand, after years of campaigning by activists. Thailand is one of several south-east Asian countries that has historically been paid to receive plastic waste from developed nations. The country became a leading destination for exports of plastic waste from Europe, the US, the UK and Japan in 2018 after China, the world’s biggest market for household waste, imposed a ban.

Japan is one of the biggest exporters of waste plastic to Thailand, with about 50m kg exported in 2023.

Thai customs officials said more than 1.1m tonnes of plastic scraps were imported between 2018 and 2021.

Penchom Sae-Tang, the director of the NGO Ecological Alert and Recovery, said: “The ban on all plastic scrap imports should be seen as a triumph for civil society in preventing hazardous waste entering Thailand.” But she warned vigilant monitoring and robust cooperation with authorities would be vital to make sure the ban was enforced.

Imports of plastic were often mismanaged in Thailand, with many factories burning the waste rather than recycling it, leading to damage to human health and the environment.

Punyathorn Jeungsmarn, a plastics campaign researcher at the Environmental Justice Foundation, said: “While this is a great step forward for Thailand, there is more work to be done. After the law comes into effect, the Thai government must work to ensure its enforcement and implementation. This means industrial, environmental and customs agencies must cooperate to prevent any illicit imports of plastic waste … the current law does not address the transit of plastic waste, meaning Thailand could be used as a transit state to send waste to our … neighbours. The Thai government must guard against this.”

The ban comes into force as discussions continue in an attempt to rescue the global plastic waste treaty. Last year nations failed to agree the final wording of the treaty after talks in Busan. More than 100 countries supported a draft text that included legally binding global reductions in plastic production, which stands at more than 400m tonnes annually, and phasing out certain chemicals and single-use plastic products.

But the resistance of oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia to cuts in production led negotiators to concede defeat.

Prof Steve Fletcher, the director of the Revolution Plastics Institute at the University of Portsmouth, said a failure to agree a treaty to end plastic pollution was a threat to human health.

“Plastic pollution is now recognised as not only an environmental crisis but also a critical human health crisis. The need for decisive international action to tackle plastic pollution has never been more urgent,” he said.

In an article in the British Medical Journal, Fletcher said the unresolved disagreements at the treaty talks over cuts to production hindered progress towards a global agreement to protect human and environmental health.

Emerging research shows that there are substantial health risks from microplastic exposure, including increased risk of stroke, hearth attack and death. Some studies suggest microplastics play a role in dementia, the article said.

Burning plastic as a method of waste management posed severe health risks, which was compounded by the trade in plastic waste, he said.

Dr Cressida Bowyer, the deputy director of the Revolution Plastics Institute, which has carried out research into the dangers of open burning of plastic waste, said: “With 16% of global municipal waste burned openly, rising to 40-65% in low-and middle-income countries, vulnerable populations bear the brunt of this crisis. The toxic fumes from burning plastic are a silent but deadly contributor to global health burdens. Urgent action is needed.”

No date has yet been agreed for further discussions on the global treaty to end plastic waste.

Two people have been found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane that landed in Florida, the airline said.

The grim discovery was made on Monday night. The bodies were found during a routine inspection after the plane had landed.

“The circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” said a statement from JetBlue.“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”

The plane landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport and had most recently flown from New York’s John F Kennedy airport.

The deaths are the second such incident in recent weeks. Over the holiday period a dead body was found in wheel well of a United Airlines plane from Chicago after it landed in Hawaii. The airline said the wheel well of the Boeing 787-10 was only accessible from the outside the aircraft, and that it was unclear how or when the person accessed it.

Stowing away in the wheel well of a plane is extremely risky due to the low oxygen levels and freezing temperatures at the altitudes in which planes fly. About 80% of people who hide in the wheel well or another external compartment of an aircraft die during a flight, an 2011 FAA report found.

Mauro Morandi, an Italian man nicknamed “Robinson Crusoe” by the media after living alone on a paradise island for more than three decades, has died at the age of 85.

Morandi stumbled upon Budelli, an island off Sardinia famous for its pink-sanded beach, in 1989 after his catamaran broke down on the way to the South Pacific. He soon learned that the island’s caretaker was about to retire, and so he abandoned the sailing trip, sold his boat and took over the role.

His home on Budelli was a former second world war shelter until 2021, when he was evicted after a lengthy tussle with La Maddalena national park authorities, who had planned to transform the island into a hub for environmental education.

Morandi moved into a one-bedroom apartment on La Maddalena, the largest of the archipelago of seven islands off the north coast of Sardinia.

He spent some time in a care home in Sassari last summer after a fall, and is reported to have died at the weekend in Modena, northern Italy, where he was originally from, after his health deteriorated.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2021, Morandi said he was struggling to adapt to life after Budelli. “I became so used to the silence. Now it’s continuous noise,” he said.

Exasperated by consumerism, politics and other aspects of society, Morandi had set sail for Polynesia in 1989 in search of his idyll. But his journey was scuppered soon after leaving mainland Italy due to a technical hitch on his catamaran, forcing him to anchor in La Maddalena.

He decided to work for some time on the island to pay off the cost of the boat and fund the rest of the trip. But then, after clapping eyes on the nearby uninhabited Budelli, Morandi realised his paradise was much closer to home.

For years, Morandi guarded Budelli trouble-free, clearing its paths, keeping its beaches pristine and teaching summer day-trippers about its ecosystem.

Tourists, who have been banned from walking on the island’s pink beach since the 1990s, were often surprised to come across its sole inhabitant.

Food was delivered to him by boat from La Maddalena, and a homemade solar system powered his lights, fridge and, in later years, his internet connection. During winter, when there are no visitors, he spent his days collecting firewood, reading and sleeping.

Morandi had more than 70,000 followers across Instagram and Facebook. Followers paid tribute to him. “Ciao Mauro, now you can return to the island that protected you for decades,” wrote one follower.