Hamas will release six hostages this week and Israel will allow Gazans to return to homes in the north from Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.

The hostages include Arbel Yehud – the civilian at the centre of a row which has led to Israel delaying the return of Gazans to northern Gaza.

Hamas released four soldiers on Saturday, but not Ms Yehud. Israel accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire deal under which Israeli civilians were to be freed first in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Since the ceasefire deal came into force, seven hostages and more than 200 prisoners have been released.

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Thousands of displaced Palestinians attempting to reach northern Gaza have gathered at the military barrier blocking their progress for two days.

The ceasefire and hostage and prisoner release deal came into force on 19 January. Two exchanges have been completed.

In the third, Hamas will release Ms Yehud and two other hostages on Friday, followed by three more on Saturday, Netanyahu and Qatar, which has mediated the talks, said.

Israel will begin to allow Palestinians to move north on Monday, as well as freeing more Palestinian prisoners later in the week.

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Palestinians had been scheduled to be allowed to travel north of the Netzarim Corridor, a seven kilometre (4.3 miles) strip of land controlled by Israel that cuts off north Gaza from the rest of the territory, on Saturday.

Images show massive crowds waiting to pass.

“We’re sleeping in the streets,” Nireem Musabeh told the BBC at the checkpoint on Sunday. “We can’t go home and every time we try to go home they shoot at us.”

The 42-year-old had travelled from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, but was displaced from her home in Shejaiya, in the south.

Diab Shehbari said he had been at the checkpoint since 20:30 local time (18:30 GMT) on Saturday.

“All night the kids were screaming because of the cold – we lit a fire and covered them,” he said.

Israel has now said it will allow residents to return to the northern Gaza Strip from 07:00 (09:00 GMT) on Monday, and by vehicle two hours later, after the row over Ms Yehud was resolved.

Qatari and Egyptian mediators who have facilitated talks between Israel and Hamas were involved in the efforts to end the dispute. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman announced the breakthrough moments before Israel’s prime minister.

Israel had asked the mediators for proof from Hamas that Ms Yehud was alive. It appeared that had been given to the Egyptians as early as Saturday evening, the BBC understands.

Earlier on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he wanted Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza, which he described as a “demolition site”.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority condemned the idea, while Jordan and Egypt have also rejected the proposal.

The January ceasefire deal halted the war which began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 47,200 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

About 50 survivors of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau will return to the site on Monday to remember the day it was finally liberated on 27 January 1945.

They will be joined by heads of state including King Charles and other European royalty, Emmanuel Macron of France and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

But it will be the survivors – most in their late 80s and 90s – not the dignitaries, whose voices will be heard during the commemorations at the camp, where 1.1 million people were murdered, most of them Jews.

Their message is to tell the world what happened here and ensure that it never happens again.

“Every soul on this earth has the right to live,” says Jona Laks, who is now 94 and arrived with her twin and elder sisters in 1944. “Auschwitz was a laboratory for killing people. This was its task and it proved itself: few survived Auschwitz.”

Although daytime temperatures in recent days have climbed well above freezing and much of the snow has melted, many of the 50 arriving for Monday’s commemorations are now too frail to stay in the open for long.

Instead, an enormous, heated tent has been erected over the “Death Gate”, as the entrance to Birkenau is known.

The day will begin with survivors and Polish President Andrzej Duda laying a wreath at “Death Wall” at the first Auschwitz camp, where thousands of Polish prisoners, Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were shot. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer laid a wreath here recently and it was still there at the weekend.

The scene will later move to the death camp at Birkenau, known as Auschwitz II.

Each big anniversary to mark the camp’s liberation by Soviet troops is different. Thirty years ago, there was far less international interest, as renowned writer Elie Wiesel led a large group of fellow survivors and relatives to one of the crematoria blown up by the Nazis before they fled.

German historian Susanne Willems speaks lovingly of the survivors she has met over several decades: “Many were like favourite grandfathers to me. Of course we’ve lost many of them and it’s my duty to carry on and become their witness.”

There will be no political speeches from international leaders beside the Death Gate, and no Russian presence because of the full-scale war launched against Ukraine almost three years ago, even though the camp was liberated by the Russian-dominated 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front.

Vladimir Putin attended the 60th anniversary; he is not welcome now.

The Nazis’ decision to wipe out Europe’s Jewish population in extermination camps went into operation early in 1942. Six were built in occupied Poland: at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Treblinka was far smaller than Auschwitz, and yet 800,000-850,000 Jews were murdered there in a far shorter period.

Heinrich Himmler, supreme chief of the dreaded SS, and camp commandant Rudolf Höss oversaw the expansion of the Auschwitz complex to construct a second camp at Birkenau for industrial murder.

By the end of 1942 there were four separate gas chambers and crematoria.

The first mass deportations of Jews to Birkenau came from Slovakia and France in March 1942, and then in July from the Netherlands and Belgium as well, walking under the notorious sign (Works sets you free) at Auschwitz and on to their deaths in the new camp.

Soon trains would arrive at Birkenau at a specially constructed ramp, a short distance away from two gas chambers, and at one point 12,000 Jews were being gassed and their bodies burned every day.

Jona Laks had already lost her parents at Chelmo and arrived in 1944 with her twin sister Miriam and elder sister Chana from the Lodz ghetto further north.

“I was ordered to go to the left, which meant the crematorium, whereas my twin was sent to the right. That was only because the man was so bored, he would say ‘Left, right, left, right’ not even looking at the the people. I didn’t know that left meant death, but I did know it wasn’t good,” she told the BBC.

Eighty to 90% of new arrivals were sent to their deaths while others were selected for slave labour. “I was already very close to the gate; I could see the sparks, fire coming out of the chimneys and I could even feel the smell of burned flesh.”

Jona Laks was saved only because her elder sister shouted out that she should not be separated from her twin and word reached the infamous Nazi “Angel of Death” at the camp, Josef Mengele, who used part of Birkenau for often deadly medical experiments on twins.

Women and children, the elderly and infirm were sent immediately to the gas chambers. My own grandfather, on the first Dutch transport, survived slave labour for a month and a day, until 18 August 1942.

His sister, Geertje van Hasselt, her school headteacher husband Simon, and their two daughters Hermi, 14 , and nine-year-old Sophia were murdered on arrival on 12 February 1943.

Almost a million European Jews were murdered here from 1941 to 1945. But the dead also include some 70,000 Polish prisoners, 21,000 Roma and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and an unknown number of gay men.

Auschwitz drew 1.83 million visitors last year and although it is closed for the commemoration large numbers walked around the museum spread out in many of the old blocks across Auschwitz 1 at the weekend, and then the desolate, sprawling site of Birkenau.

The scale of the site is daunting. The remains of many of the blocks are cordoned off, with brick foundations all that is left as you peer into the distance. But the ruins of two gas chambers and crematoria remain, blown up as the Nazis sought to destroy the evidence.

“It makes you feel anxious being here. You don’t realise how sad it is until you see it,” said a young woman with a group of friends from Lancashire, all aged 18.

“Obviously you learn about it, but it’s crazy when you see it in real life,” said another. “It’s crazy to think that some people don’t think it exists.”

Far-right parties have made big advances in several European countries, not least in Germany, where Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is in second place in opinion polls ahead of next month’s election.

Historian Susanne Willems, who has for years brought groups to Auschwitz, last week took a group of police from Berlin to Auschwitz to explain the rise of Nazism and how any military-type of hierarchy runs the risk of moving into authoritarianism.

“I’m doing this work to help these people have a clear understanding of what the limits of police action need to be, and that whatever they’re asked to do, it remains their own decision whether to obey or not; and that they have the right, in fact the duty, to refuse anything that is, from their understanding, against human rights.”

Hours before the commemorations at Auschwitz, Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to make Holocaust education in the UK “a truly national endeavour”, to defend the truth against anyone denying it.

“We will ensure all schools teach it and seek to give every young person the opportunity to hear a recorded survivor testimony, because by learning from survivors we can develop that empathy for others and that appreciation of our common humanity, which is the ultimate way to defeat the hatred of difference.”

Among those who are not in Poland for the commemoration is Italy’s best-known living Auschwitz survivor, Liliana Segre, 94, who will instead be taking part in events in Rome.

A lifelong senator, Segre receives police protection because of a torrent of antisemitic abuse, which has hit a new level on social media since a documentary was released this month on her life.

Her father and grandparents were all murdered at Birkenau, but like Jona Laks she survived the Nazis’ death march to Malchow near the Ravensbrück concentration camp as a teenage girl.

“[Segre] often tells me ‘I’m tired of the insults’,” says the head of Milan’s Holocaust memorial, Roberto Jarach.

Rebels of the M23 movement say they have taken control of the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s east.

Residents shared videos of M23 rebels patrolling Goma’s main streets following a lightning advance against the Congolese army on Sunday that saw tens of thousands of people fleeing neighbouring towns.

After hours of gunfire and explosions in the streets of Goma – home to more than a million people – are now quiet, according to local media reports.

It comes hours after DR Congo’s foreign minister accused Rwanda of declaring war by sending its troops over the border to support the M23 rebels. Rwanda says Kinshasa supports militias who want regime change in Kigali.

Kenya has called for a ceasefire, and announced that the presidents of both the DR Congo and Rwanda will attend an emergency regional summit in the next two days.

Kenyan President William Ruto, the current chair of the the East African Community, said it was incumbent on regional leaders to help facilitate a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The M23 group has taken control of vast parts of mineral-rich eastern DR Congo since 2021. In the past few weeks the group has been advancing swiftly on Goma amid intense fighting.

Since the start of 2025 more than 400,000 people have been displaced in north and South Kivu, provinces near the border with Rwanda, according to the UN’s refugee agency.

One displaced woman, Alice Feza, said she is at a loss of what to do next, as she has fled from Kiwanja, Rutshuru, Kibumba and now, Goma.

“People are fleeing everywhere, and we don’t know where to go anymore, because we started fleeing a long time ago,” Ms Feza said, adding: “The war catches us here among the host families, now we have nowhere to go.”

Key roads surrounding Goma are blocked and the city’s airport can no longer be used for evacuation and humanitarian efforts, the UN has said.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces from the DR Congo’s territory and on the M23 rebel group to stop its advance.

Guterres, in a statement through his spokesman, called on Rwanda to “cease support to the M23 and withdraw from DRC territory”. He also called on the M23 to “immediately cease all hostile actions and withdraw from occupied areas”.

This comes after 13 soldiers serving with peacekeeping forces were killed in clashes with the rebels.

The UK has called for an end to attacks on peacekeepers, while France’s UN representative, Nicolas de Rivière, reiterated Guterres’ call for Rwanda to withdraw its troops from the DR Congo.

Both DR Congo and the UN say the M23 group is backed by Rwanda.

Rwanda has not denied this, but the country’s leaders put the blame on the DR Congo for the current conflict.

Speaking at the Security Council meeting, Rwanda’s UN representative Ernest Rwamucyo said he regretted that the international community choose to condemn the M23 group rather than the Congolese army, which, he said, had violated a ceasefire.

On Saturday, the UN said it would be pulling all of its non-essential staff out of Goma. Essential operations are ongoing in the DR Congo.

The M23 formed as an offshoot of another rebel group in 2012, ostensibly to protect the Tutsi population in the east of DR Congo, which had long complained of persecution and discrimination.

Rwanda has previously said the Congolese authorities were working with some of those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

However, Rwanda’s critics accuse it of using the M23 to loot minerals such as gold, cobalt and tantalum in eastern DR Congo.

I have reported on many elections.

I have seen prime ministers and presidents roll up at polling stations, cast ballots and then take a few questions from reporters.

But I have never seen anything quite like the scene at Polling Station 478 in Minsk.

Long-time leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, once dubbed “Europe’s last dictator”, arrived to cast his ballot. Then, while Belarusians were still voting, candidate Lukashenko gave a four-and-a-half hour press conference live on state TV.

It was an opportunity to quiz him on the controversial vote which his critics have denounced as “a sham”.

“What wretched question have you prepared for me?” he asked. “Like you always do.”

“Good morning,” I replied.

“Good morning, Steve.”

“How can you call this a democratic election, when your main rivals are either in prison or in exile?” I asked.

“Some are in prison, and some are in exile. But you are here!” said Lukashenko.

“Everyone has the right to choose. That is democracy. Some chose prison, others chose exile. We never forced anyone out of the country.”

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In reality, it was the authorities’ brutal crackdown on protesters after the 2020 presidential election that led to Alexander Lukashenko’s staunchest opponents either being jailed or driven into political exile. Personal choice did not come into it.

“You said recently ‘We mustn’t shut people’s mouths’ [silence people],” I reminded him.

“But your rivals haven’t just been kept off the ballot. Some of them have been jailed. There are currently more than 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus. Isn’t it time to open the prison cells and release them? People like Maria Kolesnikova, Sergei Tikhanovsky…”

“You keep going on about Maria to me. My God,” Lukashenko sighed.

“OK, I’ll answer your question…Prison is for people who have opened their mouths too wide and who have broken the law. Don’t you have prisons in Britain and America?”

“In any country, if you break the law, you must bear the consequences,” he continued. “The law is strict but it is the law. I didn’t invent it. You need to abide by it.”

“You need to abide by the law,” I interjected. “But these people are in prison for criticising you.”

“Ignorance of the law does not absolve you of responsibility before it.”

Although prominent opposition figures were not allowed to run, Alexander Lukashenko’s name was not the only one on the ballot. There were four other candidates. But they came across more like spoilers than serious challengers.

“We spoke to some of the other candidates,” I told Lukashenko. “One of them, the Communist Party leader, openly supports you. Another is full of praise for you. It’s a strange election, isn’t it, with opponents like this…”

“Steve, this is a whole new experience for you!” he replied, to laughter and applause from local journalists in the room.

“That’s true,” I said. “I haven’t seen an election like this before.”

“The Communists’ policy based on justice is the same policy that we’re promoting,” argued Lukashenko. “So why would they vote against me?”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has characterised this presidential election in Belarus as a “blatant affront to democracy”.

Not that Alexander Lukashenko seems to care.

“I swear to you,” he told me, “I couldn’t care less whether you recognise our election or whether you don’t. The most important thing for me is that the people of Belarus recognise it.”

US President Donald Trump has said he will impose 25% tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after its president barred two US military planes carrying deported migrants from landing in the country.

Trump said the tariffs “on all goods” coming into the US from Colombia would be put in place “immediately”, and in one week the 25% tariffs would be raised to 50%.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro responded by saying he would impose retaliatory tariffs of 25% on the US.

Petro earlier on Sunday said he had denied entry to US military deportation flights. He said he would “receive our fellow citizens on civilian planes, without treating them like criminals” and migrants must be returned “with dignity and respect”.

US officials told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that two military planes from San Diego were due to land in Colombia on Sunday with migrant deportees, but those plans were scrapped due to complications.

In response, Trump announced “urgent and decisive retaliatory measures” in a post on TruthSocial. He said the US will impose a travel ban and “immediate visa revocations” on Colombian government officials, as well as its allies and supporters.

Trump also said there would be visa sanctions on supporters of the Colombian government, and enhanced Customs and Border Protection inspections “of all Colombian nationals and cargo on national security grounds”.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added, saying his administration would not allow the Colombian government “to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States”.

Petro responded on X by announcing his own tariffs and celebrating Colombia’s heritage and resilience.

“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world,” he said.

He also offered his presidential plane to facilitate the “decent return” of deportees from the US who had been set to arrive in the country.

Also on Sunday, Petro said more than 15,666 Americans were in Colombia illegally – a figure the BBC has not been able to independently verify.

Petro said that unlike the Trump administration, he would “never” be seen carrying out a raid to return illegal US migrants.

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The US imports about 20% of its coffee – worth nearly $2bn (£1.6bn) – from Colombia, as well as other goods like bananas, crude oil, avocados and flowers.

Tariffs will make importing these goods more expensive which, if passed onto the consumer, could mean higher coffee prices rising.

Importers could shift to other sources to avoid this, which would in turn hit Colombian producers by reducing a key market.

The sanctions and travel bans on the Colombian government and its supporters, and the breakdown in diplomatic relations that signals, are also significant.

This is now not just a war of trade, but a war of words.

It is no secret that Petro does not like Trump – he has heavily criticised his policies on migration and the environment in the past. That just ratcheted up.

Petro said Trump would “wipe out the human species because of greed” and accused Trump of considering Colombians an “inferior race.” He went on to say that he is “stubborn” and that while Trump can try to “carry out a coup” with “economic strength and arrogance” he will, in short, fight back.

“From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms,” he said.

While Trump is unlikely to take threats from Colombia, this is something that should worry a US president who wants to tackle migration.

Trump’s own pick for deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, has argued that “working with other countries to stop such migratory flows” must be a “global imperative of US foreign policy”.

Tens of thousands of migrants from around the world head north towards the US after landing in South America each year, travelling up through Colombia, usually facilitated by criminal gangs.

The latest developments will no doubt make it harder for Trump’s administration to work with Colombia to stop this.

The feud between the two nations comes as Trump’s administration has vowed to carry out “mass deportations”. The president signed multiple executive orders related to immigration on his first day in office.

Some of Trump’s executive orders were signed with the aim of expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to arrest and detain unlawful migrants on US soil.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that 538 arrests were conducted on Thursday alone.

For comparison, ICE detained more than 149,700 people in the 2024 fiscal year under the Biden administration, which equals an average of 409 a day.

Trump declared a national emergency at the Mexico border, ordered officials to deny the right to citizenship to the children of migrants in the US illegally or on temporary visas and re-implemented his “Remain in Mexico” policy from his first term.

On Saturday, US Vice President JD Vance told CBS’s Face the Nation that he supports “doing law enforcement against violent criminals”.

“Just because we were founded by immigrants doesn’t mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world,” he told CBS’s Margaret Brennan.

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border tsar” told ABC News on Sunday that the military is currently at the US-Mexico border helping with departure flights on military planes and building infrastructure to secure the border.

“It’s sending a strong signal to the world: Our border is closed,” he said.

Trump campaigned on securing the southern border and reducing the number of undocumented immigrants who enter the US.

South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol has been charged with insurrection after he attempted to declare martial law in December.

His ill-fated attempt to impose military rule plunged the country into an unprecedented political crisis and he becomes the first sitting president in South Korean history to be charged with a crime.

The indictment comes after a court in Seoul rejected a request to extend Yoon’s detention on Saturday, which meant prosecutors had to make a decision on whether to charge or release him before Monday.

“The punishment of the ringleader of insurrection now begins finally,” Han Min-soo, a spokesman from the main opposition Democratic Party told a press conference.

Yoon’s legal team criticised the indictment and pledged to expose any “illegalities in the investigation”.

“The prosecution has made a grave mistake, reducing itself to being the indictment arm of the CIO, and a tool of political interests,” Yoon’s lawyers said, referring to the Central Investigation Office for high-ranking officials.

In South Korea, insurrection is punishable by life in prison or death. However the latter is unlikely, given that the country has not carried out executions in decades.

Separately, the Constitutional Court has begun deliberations on whether to formally dismiss Yoon as president or reinstate him.

The impeached president has largely refused to co-operate with the criminal investigation over the martial law declaration.

Yoon is set to stand trial along with his former defence minister and senior military commanders, who are accused of helping him plan and carry out the attempt to seize total power.

In an unprecedented televised announcement on 3 December, Yoon said he was invoking martial law to protect the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea.

At the time, the embattled leader was in a deadlock over a budget bill, dogged by corruption scandals and several of his cabinet ministers were under investigation.

The military announced all parliamentary activity was suspended and sought to impose controls on media outlets.

The opposition’s Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung urged people to protest at the National Assembly and asked his fellow lawmakers to immediately vote to repeal the order.

Less than two hours after Yoon’s declaration, 190 lawmakers who gathered – including some from the president’s party – voted unanimously to block it.

Soldiers equipped with rifles were seen entering the parliament building through smashed windows as a dramatic confrontation ensued.

Thousands of civilians gathered in front of the assembly and tried to block the soldiers.

Yoon was was impeached by parliament and suspended from his duties on 14 December.

The affair has triggered South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades and has polarised the country.

Many of his hard-line supporters have rallied around him. On Friday, tens of thousands gathered to protest, demanding he be released and returned to office.

If Yoon is removed from office, a presidential election would be held within 60 days.

The prosecutors’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mangala Pradhan will never forget the morning she lost her one-year-old son.

It was 16 years ago, in the unforgiving Sundarbans – a vast, harsh delta of 100 islands in India’s West Bengal state. Her son Ajit, just beginning to walk, was full of life: frisky, restless, and curious about the world.

That morning, like so many others, the family was busy with their daily chores. Mangala had fed Ajit breakfast and taken him to the kitchen as she cooked. Her husband was out buying vegetables, and her ailing mother-in-law rested in another room.

But little Ajit, always eager to explore, slipped away unnoticed. Mangala shouted for her mother-in-law to watch him, but there was no reply. Minutes later, when she realised how quiet it had become, panic set in.

“Where is my boy? Has anyone seen my boy?” she screamed. Neighbours rushed in to help.

Desperation quickly turned to heartbreak when her brother-in-law found Ajit’s tiny body floating in the pond in the courtyard outside their ramshackle home. The little boy had wandered out and slipped into the water – a moment of innocence turned into unthinkable tragedy.

Today, Mangala is one of 16 mothers in the area who walk or cycle to two makeshift creches set by a non-profit where they look after, feed and educate some 40 children, who are dropped off by their parents on way to work. “These mothers are the saviours of children who are not their own,” says Sujoy Roy of Child In Need Institute (CINI), which set up the creches.

The need for such care is urgent: countless children continue to drown in this riverine region, which is dotted with ponds and rivers. Every home has a pond used for bathing, washing, and even drawing drinking water.

A 2020 survey by medical research organisation The George Institute and CINI found that nearly three children aged between one and nine years drowned daily in the Sundarbans region. Drownings peaked in July, when the monsoon rains began, and between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon. Most children were unsupervised at that time as caregivers were occupied with chores. Around 65% drowned within 50m of home, and only 6% received care from licensed doctors. Healthcare was in shambles: hospitals were scarce and many public health clinics were defunct.

In response, villagers clung to ancient superstitions to save rescued children. They spun the child’s body over an adult’s head, chanting invocations. They beat the water with sticks to ward off spirits.

“As a mother, I know the pain of losing a child,” Mangala told me. “I don’t want any other mother to endure what I did. I want to protect these children from drowning. We live amid so many dangers anyway.”

Life in Sundarbans, home to four million people, is a daily struggle.

Tigers, known to attack humans, roam dangerously close to and enter crowded villages where the poor eke out a living, often squatting on land.

People fish, collect honey, and gather crabs under the constant threat of tigers and venomous snakes. From July to October, rivers and ponds swell due to heavy rains, cyclones lash the region, and rampaging waters swallow villages. Climate change is worsening this uncertainty. Nearly 16% of the population here is aged one to nine.

“We’ve always co-existed with water, unaware of the dangers, until tragedy strikes,” says Sujata Das.

Sujata’s life was overturned three months ago when her 18-month-old daughter Ambika, drowned in the pond at their joint family home in Kultali.

Her sons were at their coaching classes, some family members had gone to the market, and an elderly aunt was busy working at home. Her husband, who usually works in the southern state of Kerala, was home that day, repairing a fishing net at the nearby trawler. Sujata had gone to fetch water at a local handpump because a promised water connection at her residence had still not materialised.

“Then we found her floating in the pond. It had rained, water had risen. We took her to a local quack, who declared her dead. This tragedy has woken us up to what we should do to prevent such tragedies in the future,” says Sujata.

Sujata, like others in the village, plans to fence her pond with bamboo and nets to prevent children from wandering into the water. She hopes that children who don’t know how to swim are taught in village ponds. She wants to encourage neighbours to learn CPR to provide lifesaving aid to rescued drowning children.

“Children don’t vote, so the political will to address these issues is often lacking,” says Mr Roy. “That’s why we’re focusing on building local resilience and spreading knowledge.”

Over the past two years, around 2,000 villagers have received CPR training. Last July, a villager saved a drowning child by reviving him before he was sent to the hospital. “The real challenge lies in setting up creches and raising awareness among the community,” he adds.

Implementing even simple solutions is challenging due to costs and local beliefs.

In the Sundarbans, superstition about angering water deities made it hard to get people to fence their ponds. In neighbouring Bangladesh, where drowning is the leading cause of death for children aged one-four, wooden playpens were introduced in courtyards to keep children safe. However, compliance was low – children disliked them, and villagers often used them for goats and ducks. “This created a false sense of security, and drowning rates slightly increased over three years,” says Jagnoor Jagnoor, an injury epidemiologist at the George Institute.

Eventually non-profits set up 2,500 creches in Bangladesh, cutting drowning deaths by 88%. In 2024, the government expanded this to 8,000 centres, benefitting 200,000 children annually. Water-rich Vietnam focused on children aged six-10, using decades of mortality data to develop policies and teach survival skills. This reduced drowning rates, especially among schoolchildren travelling on waterways.

Drowning remains a major global issue. In 2021, an estimated 300,000 people drowned – over 30 lives lost every hour, according to the WHO. Nearly half were under 29, and a quarter were under five. India’s data is scanty, officially recording around 38,000 drowning deaths in 2022, though the actual number is likely much higher.

In the Sundarbans, the harsh reality is ever-present. For years, children have been either allowed to roam freely or tied with ropes and cloth to prevent wandering. Jingling anklets were used to alert parents to their children’s movements, but in this unforgiving, water-surrounded landscape, nothing feels truly safe.

Kakoli Das’s six-year-old son walked into an overflowing pond last summer while delivering a piece of paper to a neighbour. Unable to distinguish between the road and the water, Ishan drowned. He had suffered seizures as a child and couldn’t learn to swim due to the risk of fever.

“Please, I beg every mother: fence your ponds, learn how to revive children and teach them how to swim. This is about saving lives. We cannot afford to wait,” says Kakoli.

For now, the creches serve as a beacon of hope, offering a way to keep children safe from the dangers of water. On a recent afternoon, four-year-old Manik Pal sang a cheerful ditty to remind his friends: I won’t go to the pond alone/Unless my parents are with me/I’ll learn to swim and stay afloat/And live my life fear-free.

The UK’s largest luxury car maker, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), says it will invest £65m ($81m) to expand its bespoke paint services in response to growing demand from wealthy customers.

The plan includes opening new paint facilities in Castle Bromwich, UK and Nitra, Slovakia.

The firm, which is owned by India’s Tata Group, says it expects to more than double its bespoke paint operation, including helping clients match the colour of exclusive Range Rover SV models to their private jets or yachts.

It follows a similar move by Rolls-Royce, which announced earlier this month that it was investing £300m to build more highly-customised versions of its cars for super-rich customers.

“Range Rover clients are increasingly choosing to tailor their vehicles with more exclusive bespoke and elevated palette paints,” said Jamal Hameedi, director of special vehicle operations at JLR.

“By increasing our capacity we can satisfy the demand growth from our Range Rover clients and… clients of our other brands.”

The company says the plan will also help it cut energy and water use as well as reduce paint waste.

Earlier this month, Rolls-Royce said it was expanding its Goodwood factory and global headquarters to meet growing demand for bespoke models.

Rolls-Royce said the plan would “also ready the manufacturing facility for the marque’s transition to an all-battery electric vehicle future”.

Last month, Jaguar unveiled a controversial new electric concept car.

Some on social media said the new Type 00 car was “exciting” and “absolutely stunning”, while others called it “rubbish” and told Jaguar’s designers to “go back to the drawing board”.

However, the carmaker suggested the reaction was exactly what it wanted as it was trying to reset the brand and revive sluggish sales.

President Donald Trump has said he thinks the US will gain control of Greenland, underlining a claim on the Arctic island that he has repeated several times recently, on one occasion pointing to “economic security” as the reason. While the autonomous Danish territory has been quick to say it isn’t for sale, its vast and mostly untapped mineral resources are in great demand.

Jagged grey peaks suddenly appear before us, as the motorboat navigates choppy coastal waters and dramatic fjords at Greenland’s southern tip.

“Those very high pointy mountains, it’s basically a gold belt,” gestures Eldur Olafsson, the chief executive of mining company Amaroq Minerals.

After sailing for two hours we stepped ashore at a remote valley beneath Nalunaq mountain, where the firm is drilling for gold.

It’s also scouring the surrounding mountain range and valleys, hunting for other valuable minerals, having snapped up exploration licences spanning over 10,000 sq km (3,861 sq miles).

“We’re looking for copper, nickel, and rare earths,” says the Icelandic boss. “This is uncharted, and still has the potential to have multiple big deposits.”

The base camp is a cluster of mobile buildings and bright orange accommodation tents housing more than 100 staff, including Greenlanders, Australians, and British former coal miners. From there a road climbs up the valley, and we drive by car into the gold mine, following a dark tunnel upwards inside the mountain.

“See here!” says Mr Olafsson pointing to a seam of white quartz and a thin dark line. “Gold, gold, gold. All the way over. Isn’t that extraordinary?”

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The mine, which Amaroq bought in 2015, had operated for most of the preceding decade, but closed due to then falling gold prices, and high operating costs.

Amaroq is confident that the mine will now be profitable. And it plans to ramp up production this year, where it has built a brand new processing plant to crush the ore and refine the precious metal into gold bars.

“We can either walk off site every month with a suitcase of gold, versus a 30,000 tonne ship [carrying the ore],” explains Mr Olafsson.

He says that Greenland presents an unrivalled opportunity because its huge mineral reserves are largely untouched.

“It can be the supplier of all the minerals the Western world will need for decades,” adds Mr Olafsson. “And that is a very unique position.”

Yet currently there are just two active mines on the entire island.

Greenland is a self-governing territory that is part of Denmark, but controls its own natural resources.

It’s endowed with the eighth largest reserves of so-called rare earth elements, which are vital for making everything from mobile phones to batteries and electric motors. It also has large amounts of other key metals, such as lithium and cobalt.

There is oil and gas too, but new drilling is banned, while deep-sea mining has also been ruled out.

Christian Kjeldsen, director of Greenland’s Business Association, says that the global “geopolitical situation right now is driving interest in the world’s biggest island”.

He points to China having the world’s largest reserves of rare earth metals, while the West wants to secure alternative supplies.

“You have a very strong China sitting very heavily on the critical raw materials,” he says.

That has fuelled a growing focus among Western nations to get access to Greenland’s minerals. China has also been keen to get involved, but its presence is limited.

Reuters recently reported that the US lobbied an Australian mining firm not to sell Greenland’s biggest rare earth project to potential Chinese buyers.

Greenland’s Minister for Business, Trade and Raw Materials, Naaja Nathanielsen, says that interest in the territory’s minerals has “absolutely increased within the last five years or so”.

She adds: “We’re used to being a hotspot for the climate crisis. We want to be a part of the solution.”

Permits have now been given for 100 blocs across Greenland, where companies are searching for viable deposits. British, Canadian and Australian mining firms are the biggest foreign licence holders, while Americans hold just one.

But there are many more steps before these sites become potential mines.

Yet while Greenland may be sitting on mineral riches, any “gold rush” continues to be slow to materialise.

The economy, which has an annual GDP of just over $3bn (£2.4bn), is still driven by the public sector and fishing. And the territory also relies on an annual $600m subsidy from Denmark.

Greenland’s politicians hope that mining revenues will reduce reliance on the annual $600m subsidy from Denmark, and help boost independence efforts. But in the meantime Greenland is making more money from tourism.

Officially mining is still important for independence, says Javier Arnaut, head of Arctic Social Sciences at Greenland University. “But in practical terms, you can see that there are very few mining licenses awarded.”

Ms Nathanielsen concedes that while there are partnerships being developed with the US and EU, “we still have not seen large amounts of money flowing into this sector”. She hopes that there will be another three to five mines operating within the next decade.

However mining is not easy in Greenland because of its remote geography and weather. It’s the world’s largest island and 80% of it is covered by an ice sheet. It has rugged mountains and no roads between settlements.

“It’s an arctic terrain,” says Jakob Kløve Keiding, from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, which has mapped the territory’s deposits. “We have problems with harsh conditions in terms of the climate and limited infrastructure. So it’s quite expensive to open a mine.”

Those high costs, coupled with low global metal prices, have held back investors.

Others blame red tape for the sector’s slow growth. The territory has strict environmental regulations and social impact requirements, and getting permits can take time.

Ms Nathanielsen maintains that most communities do support mining, and that it boosts local economies. “They [overseas miners] are shopping in the local shop. They’re employing local employees. They’re chartering a local boat or helicopter,” she says.

Yet in the south’s biggest town, Qaqortoq, resident Heidi Mortensen Møller is sceptical whether new mines will lead to employment for locals. “When they say they’re going to add jobs, who are they talking about?”

Jess Berthelsen, head of local labour union, SIK, says that many people think mining income “will leave the country”, and not benefit Greenland. But he supports the growth of the sector. “Greenland needs more income and to earn money from other ways than fishing.”

It’s unclear how Trump’s latest gambit on Greenland will play out. However, the territory’s prime minister Mute Egede said earlier this month that “we need to do business with the US” and that it was “doors open in terms of mining”.

Mr Kjeldsen from the business association, hopes it will be bring “much needed investment” to the sector. “On the other hand, if the uncertainty surrounding the signals from Trump drag on for a longer period, there is a risk that this might impact the investment environment negatively.”

The US and Lebanon say the ceasefire deal with Israel – which had been due to expire on Sunday – has been extended until mid-February.

Israel had kept troops deployed in Lebanon beyond the initial deadline, accusing the Lebanese government of not fully implementing its part of the deal, which required the removal of Hezbollah from the area.

On Sunday, the Lebanese health ministry said Israeli soldiers killed 22 people and wounded 124 others who were trying to return to their homes in the country’s south.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati says, following contact from the US, the truce will now remain in place until 18 February.

The initial ceasefire plan, announced in late November, brought an end to 14 months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Brokered by the US and France, the agreement gave Hezbollah 60 days to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon and required Israeli forces to withdraw over the same period.

Announcing the plan, then-US President Joe Biden said it was “designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities” between the two sides.

But on Friday, with two days to go before the deadline, Israel said some soldiers would remain in the region as the ceasefire agreement was “yet to be fully enforced by the Lebanese state”.

A White House statement on Sunday said the deadline has now been moved to 18 February, and that negotiations will begin for the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after 7 October 2023.

Thousands of Lebanese residents have returned to towns and villages near the border since the deal was agreed, despite warnings that the region was still unsafe.

On Sunday, the Lebanese health ministry said 22 people had been killed by Israeli soldiers in the area.

The Israeli military said it had fired “warning shots in multiple areas”, without specifying if people had been hit, and apprehended several people it claimed posed an “imminent threat”.

The longstanding conflict between Israel and Hezbollah – an Iranian-backed militant, political and social movement – escalated last September. This lead to an intense Israeli air campaign across Lebanon, a ground invasion of the country’s south, and the assassination of Hezbollah’s senior leaders.

The offensive killed around 4,000 people in Lebanon – including many civilians – and led more than 1.2 million residents to be displaced.

Israel’s stated goal was to allow the return of around 60,000 residents who had fled from communities in the country’s north because of Hezbollah’s attacks, and to remove the group from areas along the border.

Hezbollah launched its campaign the day after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Swedish authorities have seized a ship suspected of damaging a data cable running under the Baltic Sea to Latvia.

Prosecutors said an initial investigation pointed to sabotage, and an inquiry has been launched involving Sweden’s police, military, and coast guard.

Earlier on Sunday, Latvia’s military reported that two ships were seen in the area where the damage occurred.

The apparent attack comes less than a month after Nato launched a new mission in the Baltic Sea in response to repeated attacks on underwater power and telecom cables – some of which have been blamed on Russia.

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Selina said her country was working closely with Sweden and Nato in response to the incident.

The cable belongs to Latvia’s state broadcaster, LVRTC, which said in a statement there had been “disruptions in data transmission services”, but that end users would be mostly unaffected.

Earlier this month, Nato launched its new “Baltic Sentry” mission, after several cables under the Baltic Sea were damaged or severed in 2024.

Nato chief Mark Rutte said the mission would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and drones.

While Russia was not directly singled out as a culprit in the cable damage, Rutte said Nato would step up its monitoring of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” – ships without clear ownership that are used to carry embargoed oil products.

Rutte said there was “reason for grave concern” over infrastructure damage, adding that Nato would respond to future incidents robustly, with more boarding of suspect vessels and, if necessary, their seizure.

Finnish police late last year said they were investigating whether a Russian ship was involved in the sabotage of an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia.

Singer and writer Nick Cave says the death of his two sons made him realise that art was not everything, and that responsibility to his wife and family now drive him.

The Australian musician told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that his wife and family are now the source of his creativity, and where he finds his joy.

“It’s difficult to exaggerate how beautiful this is that I have a little grandson, who’s like seven months old,” he told the show.

Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur died in Brighton in a fall from a cliff in 2015 and his eldest son Jethro died aged 31 in Melbourne in 2022.

The frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, 67, told host Lauren Laverne of his changing attitude: “It has a lot to do with Arthur and Jethro… I always just thought art was, kind of at the end of the day, everything.

“I mean, it’s a terrible thing to say, but it was, it was always there. It was always reliable.”

He said he would go into an office each day, lock the door and “work away… sort of, you know, in awe of my own creative potential”.

“And I think after Arthur died, I just shut the office, and I haven’t gone, I just locked it up,” he said. “I was just repelled by it in some way. It seems so indulgent.”

Cave has previously spoken about his grief over losing his sons, saying after Arthur’s death that he felt his presence all the time.

“Grief and love are forever intertwined,” he wrote in an open letter. “Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”

He told Laverne that while he still works “very, very hard” it is no longer the “be-all and end-all of everything”.

Cave, known for songs including Red Right Hand and Into My Arms, continued: “I find my responsibility towards my children and my wife, and to be a citizen, a husband, these things are the actual animating force behind, or should be the animating force behind our creativeness.”

He said his greatest joy comes “from my family and from my wife, one aspect of my family that it’s difficult to exaggerate how beautiful this is that I have a little grandson who’s like, seven months old”.

Cave and his family, including Arthur’s twin Earl and fashion designer wife Susie, have moved from Brighton to Los Angeles as they found it too difficult living so close to where Arthur died.

He set up online site the Red Hand Files in 2018, partly to help others whose lives have been hit by sadness or loss – it allows fans to ask Cave questions, and he replies to some of the hundreds he receives each week.

“What I really want to try and do is let people know in some way that it doesn’t have to be thus, and that there is a world beyond the grief that they feel,” he said.

Cave is going on tour in North America this spring, and told Laverne he will retire from music when he can no longer perform knee drops on stage.

But he admitted: “I could do (them), I can get down. It’s getting up. It’s a little bit harder.”

Less than a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has instigated his first international tariff dispute. And the target isn’t China, Mexico or Canada – frequent subjects of his ire – it’s Colombia, one of America’s closest allies in South America.

Colombia’s offence was refusing to allow two US flights carrying deported migrants to land because they were military, not civilian, transport planes. That appears to have been enough to prompt Trump to drop the hammer.

“We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States,” Trump posted on his social media site.

On top of the 25% tariffs he said he would impose, Trump said the US would introduce a travel ban and “immediate visa revocations” on Colombian government officials, as well as its allies and supporters.

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For his first week in office, the US president had seemed to be prioritising executive action on immigration over trade measures – even if the latter were a key campaign promise. As if to drive that point home, his first major announced tariffs are being enacted to punish a nation that he views as not sufficiently supporting America’s new hard-line immigration polices.

On a day when Trump had no public appearances – he’s at his Miami resort, having reportedly played a morning round of golf – the president has chosen to make an example of Colombia.

He is serving a warning to US allies and adversaries alike: If you don’t co-operate with the US, the consequences will be severe.

This is a formidable challenge for Colombia, but it is also a test for the new Trump administration.

If his sanctions lead to higher prices for US consumers will the American public object? Will they be willing to tolerate some financial pain incurred to advance Trump’s immigration priorities?

The US imports about 27% of its coffee from Colombia, according to the US Department of Agriculture, as well as other goods like bananas, crude oil, avocados and flowers. The coffee imports alone are worth nearly $2bn (£1.6bn).

Importers could shift to other sources to avoid this, which would hit Colombian producers by reducing a key market.

Colombia’s President Gustavo was quick to respond on Sunday afternoon, launching his own retaliatory strike in the war of words.

It’s no secret that Petro doesn’t like Donald Trump – he’s heavily criticised his policies on migration and the environment in the past. That just ratcheted up.

In a lengthy response on X, he said Trump would “wipe out the human species because of greed” and accused the US president of considering Colombians an “inferior race.”

Petro went on to describe himself as “stubborn” and said that while Trump could try to “carry out a coup” with “economic strength and arrogance” he would, in short, fight back.

Not only did Petro appear to threaten his own retaliatory tariffs, but most significantly he said: “From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms.”

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While Trump is unlikely to take threats from Colombia, this is something that should worry a US president who wants to tackle migration. His incoming administration officials have made clear that mission will require looking beyond the Mexico border.

Trump’s pick for deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau has long argued that “working with other countries to stop such migratory flows” must be a “global imperative of US foreign policy”. Sunday’s spat might make working together a lot less likely.

Tens of thousands of migrants every year from around the world, from India to China, head north towards the US after landing in South America and travelling up through Colombia across the Darien Gap – a key choke point just north of the Panama-Colombia border. It’s a dangerous journey usually facilitated by criminal gangs.

The US’s retaliatory measures will no doubt make it harder for Trump’s administration to work with Colombia to stop this pattern.

President Petro alluded to this in his response to Trump’s actions, noting that if talks over managing migration through Darien were suspended, “illegal activities will increase”. Those comments could be viewed as a veiled threat of more undocumented migrants on the way.

Petro was quick to say that his country would not refuse Colombian nationals deported from the US – only that they must receive “dignified treatment”. He even offered use of his presidential aircraft as an alternative means of transport.

According to senior US officials, however, talking on background to CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that’s not enough to avoid the sanctions.

Still, despite a Sunday of high drama, there does seem to be a path to de-escalate this sudden diplomatic standoff – if egos and national pride don’t get in the way.

But these kind of tariffs are a test of will. And, from the looks of it, this is just Trump’s opening move.

LoveFit Café, near Brighton’s busy city centre railway station, used to say its toilets were available for any passer-by to use, even if they weren’t a customer.

But it was a disaster, says owner Jason Bright, as homeless people would lock themselves in there for long periods of time.

“They’d fall asleep in there or take drugs. You’d get abuse,” says Mr Bright.

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done having a public toilet.”

Now he has a customer-only policy, although he does make exceptions for the elderly or young children.

We all get caught short sometimes, and for pregnant women, parents with children and people with certain medical conditions, it can be pretty often. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so you find yourself sidling into a café.

Increasingly, you run into a new problem: a little metal number pad, locking out anyone without a receipt and a keycode. In smaller establishments it might be a key dangling on a string and a lump of wood, but it amounts to the same thing.

Many places have a “no loo for non-customers” rule, and some are finding stricter ways to enforce it.

Recently Starbucks hit the headlines when it reversed its open-door policy in the US, prompting a new look at just how welcoming our High Streets full of coffee shops are, when it comes to people who want to spend a penny, without splashing out on lattes and buns.

In the UK Starbucks will still let non-customers in, but many rivals, including Costa Coffee, Pret a Manger, Waterstones and a large number of independent shops are limiting who can use their loos.

Some even say no to people with medical conditions, says Ellen, 27.

“My dad’s had a kidney transplant and we went in somewhere, explained that, and they still said no.”

But it’s too costly to always buy something, she says. “Coffees are like £4, I don’t really fancy paying that to go in and use the toilet.”

Alice, 25, does sometimes nip in without buying anything, but always asks first.

“If you ask nicely, more people are likely to let you use the toilet,” she says.

Gemma Wardle thinks that should be the general practice. She set up the popular TikTok account Loos of London, highlighting places for when you’re caught short.

“If [venues] have a customer toilet it should be open to all,” she says. She would like to see more public toilets, but doesn’t see why businesses can’t help.

“Shops and cafés should be doing their best to improve the toilet experience for all users, not trying to make it harder.”

Many other social media accounts and apps exist to help you navigate finding a bathroom when you’re out and about, including accessible toilets that people with disabilities can unlock with a Radar key.

One coffee shop that is happy for anyone to use their toilets is 200 Degrees, a chain based in Nottingham owned by Caffe Nero, with 22 shops across the Midlands and the North of England.

Commercial director Will Kenney says they think on balance it is probably good for business to let non-customers in.

“People may feel obliged to have a cup of coffee or a cake as they go back out,” he says. And it is nicer for staff. “No-one wants to be the toilet police,” he says.

But providing toilets isn’t free. As well as more cleaning, there are increased redecorating costs, as well as the obvious extra toilet roll, soap and paper towels, he says.

“We welcome people to come, but we don’t want our coffee shops to become public conveniences.”

None of this would be a problem if there were more public toilets.

But according to the British Toilet Association (BTA) their numbers halved after 2010. Cash-strapped local authorities closed facilities to focus on services they were legally obliged to provide.

Since 2018 numbers have risen again but Raymond Martin, managing director of the BTA, says that, at under 4,000, we still have less than a third of the number he estimates a growing and ageing population needs.

Some local authorities have leapt on what seems to be the perfect solution: to subsidise local cafes and shops to share their facilities. In many parts of the country, stickers can be seen advertising that non-customers are welcome to come in for the toilet.

Unfortunately, the schemes often break down, says Mr Martin, because local authorities see it as an opportunity to save money.

“As soon as they get about 10 to 15 cafes taking part, the council says let’s close [the public provision]. What then happens is those [café] toilets are swamped,” he says. “They can’t cope.”

Private providers often then withdraw, and put a lock on their loo door.

Mr Martin doesn’t think it should be left to coffee shops to fill the gap in provision, especially as they won’t cover the same hours as public toilets, catering to early morning dog walkers, delivery drivers, and evening joggers.

“This is about public decency, public dignity, we can’t have people defecating behind hedges,” he says. He wants the government to make it a legal requirement on local councils to provide enough conveniences.

The body representing local authorities, the Local Government Association (LGA), says its members have been trying to tackle the problem through partnerships with local business.

“However, councils are acutely aware that gaps in provision have opened despite these efforts, for instance where businesses have closed on our High Streets,” an LGA spokesperson said.

It is calling for longer-term funding pledges from central government that would allow authorities to “plan the transformation, rather than the closure, of facilities” and even restore lost conveniences.

“It’s like the United States doesn’t actually understand what I did for this country, it’s a betrayal,” Abdullah tells the BBC.

He fled Afghanistan with his parents amid the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a paratrooper for the US military. He worries he can’t help his sister and her husband escape too, because of President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending a resettlement programme.

The order cancels all flights and suspends applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemption for families of active servicemembers.

Trump argues the decision addresses “record levels of migration” that threaten “the availability of resources for Americans”.

But Abdullah and several other Afghan refugees have told the BBC they feel the US has “turned its back” on them, despite years of working alongside American officials, troops and non-profit organisations in Afghanistan. We are not using their real names, as they worry doing so could jeopardise their cases or put their families at risk.

As soon as Abdullah heard about the order, he called his sister in Afghanistan. “She was crying, she’s lost all hope,” he said. He believes his work has made her a target of the Taliban government which took power in 2021.

“The anxiety, it’s just unimaginable. She thinks we’ll never be able to see each other again,” he says.

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During the war, Abdullah says he was an interpreter for US forces. When he left Afghanistan, his sister and her husband couldn’t get passports in time to board the flight.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, told the BBC there is an amnesty for anyone who worked with international forces and all Afghans can “live in the country without any fear”. He claims these refugees are “economic migrants”.

But a UN report in 2023 cast doubt on assurances from the Taliban government. It found hundreds of former government officials and armed forces members were allegedly killed despite a general amnesty.

Abdullah’s sister and her husband had completed the medical exams and interviews required for resettlement in the US. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense endorsing their application.

Now Abdullah says Trump’s insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights, and says the anxiety is affecting his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.

Babak, a former legal adviser to the Afghan Air Force, is still in hiding in Afghanistan.

“They’re not just breaking their promise to us – they’re breaking us,” he says.

The BBC has seen letters from the United Nations confirming his role, as well as a letter endorsing his asylum claim by a Lt Colonel in the US Air Force. The endorsement adds that he provided advice on strikes targeting militants linked to both the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

Babak can’t understand the president’s decision, given that he worked alongside US troops. “We risked our lives because of those missions. Now we’re in grave danger,” he says.

He has been moving his wife and young son from location to location, desperately trying to stay hidden. He claims his brother was tortured for his whereabouts. The BBC cannot verify this part of his story, given the nature of his claims.

Babak is appealing to Trump and his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to change their minds.

“Mike Waltz, you served in Afghanistan. Please encourage the president,” he tells us.

Before saying goodbye, he adds: “The one ray of light we’ve been holding onto has been extinguished.”

Ahmad managed to fly out to the US amid the chaos of the withdrawal but is now separated from his family. He felt he had no choice but to leave his father, mother and teenage siblings behind.

If he and his father had not worked with the US, he says, his family would not be targets of the Taliban government. “I can’t sleep knowing I’m one of the reasons they’re in this situation,” he adds.

Before the Taliban takeover, Ahmad worked for a non-profit called Open Government Partnership (OGP), co-founded by the US 13 years ago and headquartered in Washington. He says the work he’s proudest of is establishing a special court to address abuses against women.

But he claims his work at OGP and his advocacy for women made him a target and he was shot by Taliban fighters in 2021 before the Taliban took over the country.

The BBC has seen a letter from a hospital in Pennsylvania assessing “evidence of injury from bullet and bullet fragments” which they say is “consistent with his account of what happened to him in Kabul”.

Making matters worse, he says his family is also in danger because his father was a colonel with the Afghan army and assisted the CIA. The BBC has seen a certificate, provided by the Afghan National Security Forces, thanking his father for his service.

Ahmad says the Taliban government has harassed his parents, brothers and sisters, so they fled to Pakistan. The BBC has seen photos showing Ahmad’s father and brother being treated in a hospital for injuries he claims were inflicted by people from the Taliban government.

His family had completed several steps of the resettlement programme. He says he even provided evidence that he has enough funds to support his family once they arrive in the US, without any government help.

Now Ahmad says the situation is critical. His family are in Pakistan on visas that will expire within months. He has contacted the IOM and has been told to “be patient”.

The head of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit group helping eligible Afghan refugees resettle, said he estimated 10,000-15,000 people were in the late stages of their applications.

Mina, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight out of Islamabad for six months. She worries her terror will threaten her unborn child. “If I lose the baby, I’ll kill myself,” she told the BBC.

She says she used to protest for women’s rights, even after the Taliban government took control of Afghanistan. She claims she was arrested in 2023 and detained overnight.

“Even then I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan. I went into hiding after my release, but they called me and said next time, they’d kill me,” she says.

Mina worries the Pakistani government will send her back to Afghanistan. That’s partly because Pakistan will not grant Afghan refugees asylum indefinitely.

The country has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbour, over decades of instability in the region. According to the UN refugee agency, the country hosts three million Afghan nationals, about 1.4 million of whom are documented.

As cross-border tensions with the Taliban government have flared, there has been growing concern over the fate of Afghans in Pakistan, with reports of alleged intimidation and detentions. The UN special rapporteur has said he’s concerned and Afghans in the region deserve better treatment.

Pakistan’s government says it is expelling foreign nationals who are in the country illegally back to Afghanistan and confirmed search raids were conducted in January.

According to the IOM, more than 795,000 Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan since September 2023.

The Afghan refugees we’ve spoken to feel caught between a homeland where their lives are in danger, and a host country whose patience is running out.

They had been pinning their hopes on the US – but what seemed a safe harbour has been abruptly blocked off by the new president until further notice.

From a set of roaring rapids, comes a grand vision.

There are plans to build a magnificent, multi-billion dollar mega-dam on the Congo River – one that would produce enough renewable electricity to power vast areas of Africa.

The structure would be called the Grand Inga Dam. Located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it would have twice the power generation of China’s Three Gorges and, therefore, be the world’s largest hydroelectric plant.

The Grand Inga Dam enticed investors and developers but decades after it was first dreamt up, the site reserved for the structure remains untouched.

While DR Congo’s government has insisted the plan is still in motion, critics point to the long delays, DR Congo’s record of poor governance and the potential for serious environmental harm.

There is also concern about the project’s revolving set of international partners. Just last week, Chinese state-owned firm the Three Gorges Corporation, withdrew from the project, a source close to the partnership told the BBC.

And then there is the eye-watering bill, which is reportedly as high as $80bn (£63bn) in a country that is one of the poorest in the world.

But some believe the nay-sayers are holding Grand Inga to a different standard than other major infrastructure projects. And while construction has not begun, there has been a flurry of meetings and discussions between interested parties over the past year.

The need for the Grand Inga is certainly there. Roughly 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency, a global watchdog.

Attempts to solve this problem date back decades – and in the early 2000s DR Congo and its neighbours – South Africa, Angola, Namibia and Botswana – dreamt up an interconnected electricity grid.

They looked to the vast Congo River, realising that its powerful waters have an immense hydropower potential.

The international collective – known as Westcor – sought to multiply the two dams that already existed on the river – Inga 1 and Inga 2.

DR Congo’s long-time leader Mobutu Sese Seko oversaw their construction in the 1970s and 1980s, but by the end of the century, both dams were dilapidated due to a lack of funding for their maintenance.

Westcor eventually disbanded but their Grand Inga dream lived on. Inga 1 and 2 now work at around 80% of their capacity and DR Congo has drawn up plans to supercharge this output, by adding six more dams along the river.

These extra dams are forecast to generate up to 40,000MW of electricity at any one time – enough to power New York city for approximately four days during the summer.

Through Inga, DR Congo will play its role as “the trigger of the African revolver… a catalyst for the industrialisation of Africa,” says the country’s Agency for the Development and Promotion of the Grand Inga Project.

The BBC contacted the agency for this article but it did not comment.

Despite its previous projections that Inga 3 would be completed by 2018, construction has not even begun.

The lack of visible progress suggests the project has stalled, but recent messaging from the World Bank – the world’s leading development organisation – implies otherwise.

Late last year, the bank announced it was back in talks with the Congolese government, having withdrawn its funding for Inga 3 back in 2016.

The World Bank had cited “strategic differences” but eight years later – and with Félix Tshisekedi having replaced Joseph Kabila as DR Congo’s president – it has done a U-turn.

“I think it’s the first time that I feel more optimistic. I almost believe that we can get it done,” Demetrios Papathanasiou, the World Bank’s global director of energy and extractives, told a South African panel last February.

This optimism seemed to be felt elsewhere, also. A pan-African alliance of finance institutions – including the African Development Bank – has recently been working together to help attract private investment to the project.

The Grand Inga is like a “serpent – it is up, down, visible, not visible,” José Ángel González Tausz, chairman of AEE Power, a Spanish-run company and partner in the project, tells the BBC.

In November, Fabrice Lusinde, the head of DR Congo’s public electricity company Snel, said that if work on Inga 3 began in 2026, two of its turbines should be up and running by 2032. Electricity produced by these turbines would then finance the plant’s other turbines, he said.

On its own, Inga 3 is projected to produce 4,800MW of electricity. South Africa, a country hindered by regular power cuts, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) stating that they will import just over half of this amount.

South Africa’s authorities have argued that Inga will deliver consistent and reliable energy, but critics in the country say cheaper electricity can be found elsewhere.

A Nigerian company, Natural Oilfield Services, has also reportedly signed up as a buyer. Like South Africa, Nigeria also suffers from severe electricity shortages.

Guinea and Angola have reportedly expressed interest in the Grand Inga Dam too.

So why – after decades of talks – have no new dams materialised?

“It is a project in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Mr Tausz says bluntly. “Even if the project is one of the best all over the world – it does not have the credibility.”

For decades, DR Congo has been blighted by corruption, a lack of infrastructure and sluggish development. Conflict in the east of the country also makes international headlines – though Inga is thousands of kilometres away from the fighting.

Investors are also “afraid” because the Grand Inga would not show returns for decades, Mr Tausz says, adding “who knows what will happen in Congo in the next 30 years”.

Mr Tausz – whose father worked as an engineer on Inga 1 in 1972 – also says that a lack of financial commitment by the Congolese government has contributed to the delay.

And then there is the funding issue. In September 2023, DR Congo’s president told reporters that the country was “still facing difficulties in mobilising investments” for the dam.

The recent withdrawal of China’s Three Gorges Corporation intensifies these difficulties. Three Gorges was a major partner, which brought money and expertise to the complex project.

According to the BBC’s source, who spoke under condition of anonymity, Three Gorges pulled out as they were frustrated with the way DR Congo President Tshisekedi was handling the project.

There has been no official confirmation of the pull-out.

But are these problems unique to the Grand Inga Dam? Not really, says Professor George Aggidis, a hydropower expert at the UK’s Lancaster University.

He says years of delays and numerous changes of partners are “normal” for a major infrastructure project like the Inga Dam.

He points to the UK’s Mersey Tidal Project – which if successful would be the world’s largest tidal barrier. The idea was first floated in 1984 and has been abandoned, then revived in the decades since.

“Does that mean we are unstable here in the UK?” Mr Aggidis asks. He describes the Inga project as “doable”.

A similar sentiment is shared by Alexander Schwab, an executive at Andritz, an Austrian-based company that signed on to supply equipment for Inga 3.

Mr Schwab says Andritz signed a MoU with the Congolese authorities but has not received any word on the project since 2021.

He seems largely unfazed by the lack of communication, saying that one in three major infrastructure projects will be “stalled somewhere”.

For Mr Schwab, the Grand Inga is “one of the best mega projects… in the world”.

But despite its potential, there are deep concerns about the project’s environmental and social impact.

A common criticism is that the dam will benefit South African consumers and DR Congo’s mining companies, but not the Congolese people. Some 80% of the population lack access to electricity.

“Inga will not bring electricity for the people,” says Emmanuel Musuyu, the head of Congolese civil society coalition Corap. He alleges that the majority of electricity has already been promised to South Africa and the mines.

In a recent report on Inga 3, the DR Congo authorities acknowledged that the dam is “alone not sufficient to address DRC’s energy and development challenges” but said it could act as a “catalyst” for national change.

The World Bank said it was exploring how it could support the government to ensure Inga “delivers broad benefits for energy access”.

Environmental and rights groups also worry that approximately 37,000 residents in the Inga area will be displaced without compensation. According to organisations like International Rivers and Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, thousands were forcibly removed from their homes and never compensated when Inga I and II were built.

They also say that the first two dams damaged the region’s biodiversity and that any extra dams are likely to do the same.

“It will have a specific impact on the fish and all animals in the water… when you change the flow of water in rivers, we can see some species of fish disappear,” says Mr Musuyu.

A 2018 study argued that many large-scale hydropower projects in Europe and the US have been disastrous for the environment.

DR Congo’s authorities have recognised that people would be displaced by Inga III, but said residents would be resettled in areas with basic services and promised that “fair compensation” would be awarded.

They have also recognised the risks to the local environment and said an assessment aiming to reduce this impact would be completed within the next two years. However, according to the BBC’s source close to the project, the authorities have not yet raised enough money to fund these studies.

If the Grand Inga is simply experiencing the ups and downs that come with big infrastructure projects, the World Bank may still have cause for optimism.

But the dam is a complex engineering project – one that requires its many stakeholders to work together in harmony.

The World Bank returning, only for the Three Gorges to leave, suggests DR Congo is struggling to maintain such unity.

And despite DR Congo’s ambition, construction cannot begin unless funding is secured.

So for now, it appears as though this project which has the potential to change the lives of millions of people in Africa remains just that – a grand vision.

• The spectacular failures and successes of massive dams
• How Félix Tshisekedi won DR Congo’s chaotic election
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The BBC has heard from hundreds of people who have been angered by comments by the former boss of M&S and Asda that working from home is “not proper work”.

In an interview with Panorama, Lord Rose told the BBC that home working was part of the UK economy’s “general decline” and employees’ productivity was suffering.

More than 350 people, the majority of whom support working from home, contacted the BBC with their stories.

One of them was Alba, 52, from Dorking, who is currently searching for a remote job. “We are not lazy. We don’t want to golf all day.”

Alba, who previously worked as a business administrator, lives with chronic pain, travel sickness and migraines, and says she needs to work from home to manage her condition.

“I just want a comfortable environment where I can deal with my health issues,” she says.

Out of 357 responses submitted by individuals who chose to contact the BBC, 250 people said working from home was essential, with many citing health issues as a key reason for flexible working

“I’m not in senior management, I’m not asking for a high salary, I just don’t want to be on sickness benefits and that’s what will happen if I can’t work from home,” says Alba.

She adds that her health issues once resulted in an ambulance being called at work.

Clare McNeil, director at Timewise, a consultancy specialising in flexible working policies, highlights that the benefits of remote work extend to employers as well, with such policies reducing staff turnover and sickness absence.

Mark Mortensen, associate professor of organisational behaviour at the business school INSEAD, says defining productivity can be challenging, particularly in creative and collaborative roles.

But Rebecca Mitchell, 38, a software engineer from London, says the difference in her productivity at work has been “drastic” since she started working from home 10 years ago.

Rebecca, who has ADHD, says that before working remotely, she struggled to stay employed.

“Working from an office adds too much stress and leads to a wealth of mental health issues for me,” she says.

She says that whereas before, she felt overlooked for career progression because of her disability, since working from home her salary has tripled.

“Autism and ADHD are only now being accepted. People understand neurodivergence now like they didn’t before.

“People like me rely on working from home in order to be a productive part of the workforce.”

The shift towards working from home has increased in the UK since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

While the trend in working only from home has fallen since 2021, a hybrid-working model – some days travelling to work and some days working at home – has become the new normal for many people.

According to a snapshot survey from the Office for National Statistics, 25% of working adults in Great Britain were hybrid working in January 2025, while 15% were working from home. The data shows where people said they were working on the day they completed the survey, rather than their wider working pattern.

But, of the BBC’s responses, 50 were against working from home.

One of those was Hannah, 31, a technical support manager in Birmingham.

After the pandemic, her employer shut down all its offices so she had to work remotely full-time. She says this has taken a toll on her mental, physical and financial health, prompting her to consider changing careers and moving house to improve her situation.

“It feels like I’m in a lockdown that’s never going to end,” she says.

Lord Rose, who recently stepped down as Asda’s chairman, told the BBC: “We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and the country’s wellbeing.”

For Hannah, who is single, remote work has left her feeling isolated.

“All the people who love working from home are in relationships, or have children, live with family – they’re not 100% alone all the time like me.”

When Zara Mohammed became the first female leader of one of the largest representative bodies for British Muslims in 2021, she already had a lot on her plate: rising Islamophobia, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a government refusing to engage with the group.

The then 29-year-old could not have imagined three years later, she would be facing one of the biggest challenges of her career – rioting across England and Northern Ireland, often explicitly targeting Muslims, and still no government contact.

The violent unrest, triggered by false rumours that the Southport knife attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker, saw bricks hurled at mosques and Islamophobic chants on the streets.

Many Muslims and people of colour felt afraid to leave their homes.

“It was so visceral. We were watching on our screens: people breaking doors down, stopping cars, attacking taxi drivers, smashing windows, smashing mosques,” she told the BBC. “The kind of evil we saw was really terrifying and I felt like, am I even making a difference?”

As Ms Mohammed ends her time as general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain – on Saturday, Dr Wajid Akhter was elected as her replacement – she spoke to the BBC about the difficulties she has faced.

In particular, she described the “unbelievable tidal wave of Islamophobia” in the UK, which she said was made more difficult to tackle due to the ongoing policy of government non-engagement.

“It was the Southport riots for us that made it really quite alarming. The justification was there, the urgency, the necessity of engagement was there, British Muslims were under attack, mosques were under attack and the largest umbrella Muslim organisation wasn’t being talked to,” she said.

Strains in the relationship between successive governments and the MCB began over a decade ago. Ties were severed with the MCB in 2009 under then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after the group’s deputy leader signed a declaration advocating attacks on the Royal Navy if it tried to stop arms for Hamas. Hamas’s military wing had been proscribed as a terror group in the UK eight years earlier.

The deputy secretary later resigned and Ms Mohammed said the MCB made clear such actions did not reflect the organisation, leading to a brief period of re-engagement.

However, under consecutive governments, that engagement was broken again. In 2018, when asked about Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, then Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the government did not engage with MCB as “too many of their members have had favourable comments on extremists and that’s not acceptable” – claims the MCB vehemently denied at the time.

For Ms Mohammed, there were hopes that engagement would be renewed when Labour entered government last year as she described “strong” and “positive” relationships with Labour MPs. However, the policy of non-engagement has continued without any explanation.

She said this was having a “terrible impact” on communities who “do not feel Islamophobia is being taken seriously”. “At least have a conversation about it, but to not say anything and not tell us why? Surely what happened 14 years ago cannot be the justification.

“What is the issue now? We’re not illegal, we’re not proscribed. We do not harbour any extremist views. We have a broad-based demographic of British Muslims,” she added.

A spokesperson for the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) confirmed there had been no change to the policy of non-engagement with MCB but did not detail why.

“All forms of religious and racial hatred have absolutely no place in our society,” the spokesperson said. “The government engages regularly with faith communities to help foster strong working relationships and we are exploring a more integrated and cohesive approach to tackling racial and religious hatred, including Islamophobia.”

Various government departments engage with faith organisations to discuss relevant issues and policy, including on the Covid-19 pandemic and tackling hate crime.

The rise in Islamophobia has personally affected Ms Mohammed, who faces frequent abuse online. She was also the victim of a hate incident on the London Underground by a man who used offensive language.

“I’ve definitely got more of a fear of my personal security than I’ve ever had before,” she said. “There’s been an onslaught of far-right, thuggish, anti-Islam, quite disgusting, really awful graphic content that’s posted on my account.”

National monitoring group Tell Mama UK recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate in the year after the Hamas attacks on Israel – the highest total in 14 years – with Muslim women particularly vulnerable.

Challenged on whether the MCB had done enough to support communities, particularly without government engagement, Ms Mohammed said the organisation had done “a lot of community building ” and “political advocacy” to address anti-Muslim hate, including interfaith projects, an Islamophobia event in Parliament and a Visit My Mosque initiative.

However, she said this had not changed mainstream narratives around British Muslims. “There has been such a normalisation of Islamophobic rhetoric without it being challenged or condemned.”

“We could say we’re making a difference but then what is being seen in national discourse does not seem to translate,” she added.

Ms Mohammed recognised this as part of a broader trend of hostility directed at Muslim politicians and leaders, drawing attention to former Conservative MP Lee Anderson saying “Islamists” had “got control” of the mayor of London.

Sadiq Khan condemned the remarks as “pouring fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred”.

As more Muslim professionals and politicians reached new heights, like Humza Yousaf becoming Scottish first minister and Sir Sadiq being knighted, they “faced disgusting levels of Islamophobia which others have not ever faced”, said Ms Mohammed.

A BBC Woman’s Hour interview with Ms Mohammed was also accused of being “strikingly hostile” with more than 100 politicians, writers and other prominent figures criticising Ms Mohammed’s “mistreatment” on the show. The BBC said it promised to “reflect on” the concerns raised following the interview.

These ongoing challenges has left Ms Mohammed in two minds about her legacy.

“You’re constantly firefighting. Did we make British Muslims’ lives better? On one hand, yes, because we raised these issues, we took them to a national platform. But with Islamophobia, we’re still having the same conversation.

“We still haven’t been able to break through, whether it’s government engagement, Islamophobia, social mobility,” she added.

“My happiest achievements are that I’ve visited over 300 organizations across the country,” she said.

“Whether it was Swansea, Newport, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, I really made sure wherever I went I met the women’s groups, and I always reassured them that they had a voice at the table and a leader.”

The Conservative Party did not respond to a request for comment.

US President Donald Trump has said he will impose 25% tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after its president barred two US military planes carrying deported migrants from landing in the country.

Trump said the tariffs “on all goods” coming into the US from Colombia would be put in place “immediately”, and in one week the 25% tariffs would be raised to 50%.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro responded by saying he would impose retaliatory tariffs of 25% on the US.

Petro earlier on Sunday said he had denied entry to US military deportation flights. He said he would “receive our fellow citizens on civilian planes, without treating them like criminals” and migrants must be returned “with dignity and respect”.

US officials told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that two military planes from San Diego were due to land in Colombia on Sunday with migrant deportees, but those plans were scrapped due to complications.

In response, Trump announced “urgent and decisive retaliatory measures” in a post on TruthSocial. He said the US will impose a travel ban and “immediate visa revocations” on Colombian government officials, as well as its allies and supporters.

Trump also said there would be visa sanctions on supporters of the Colombian government, and enhanced Customs and Border Protection inspections “of all Colombian nationals and cargo on national security grounds”.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added, saying his administration would not allow the Colombian government “to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States”.

Petro responded on X by announcing his own tariffs and celebrating Colombia’s heritage and resilience.

“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world,” he said.

He also offered his presidential plane to facilitate the “decent return” of deportees from the US who had been set to arrive in the country.

Also on Sunday, Petro said more than 15,666 Americans were in Colombia illegally – a figure the BBC has not been able to independently verify.

Petro said that unlike the Trump administration, he would “never” be seen carrying out a raid to return illegal US migrants.

• Co-operate or else: Trump’s Columbia face-off is warning to all leaders
• Six big immigration changes under Trump

The US imports about 20% of its coffee – worth nearly $2bn (£1.6bn) – from Colombia, as well as other goods like bananas, crude oil, avocados and flowers.

Tariffs will make importing these goods more expensive which, if passed onto the consumer, could mean higher coffee prices rising.

Importers could shift to other sources to avoid this, which would in turn hit Colombian producers by reducing a key market.

The sanctions and travel bans on the Colombian government and its supporters, and the breakdown in diplomatic relations that signals, are also significant.

This is now not just a war of trade, but a war of words.

It is no secret that Petro does not like Trump – he has heavily criticised his policies on migration and the environment in the past. That just ratcheted up.

Petro said Trump would “wipe out the human species because of greed” and accused Trump of considering Colombians an “inferior race.” He went on to say that he is “stubborn” and that while Trump can try to “carry out a coup” with “economic strength and arrogance” he will, in short, fight back.

“From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms,” he said.

While Trump is unlikely to take threats from Colombia, this is something that should worry a US president who wants to tackle migration.

Trump’s own pick for deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, has argued that “working with other countries to stop such migratory flows” must be a “global imperative of US foreign policy”.

Tens of thousands of migrants from around the world head north towards the US after landing in South America each year, travelling up through Colombia, usually facilitated by criminal gangs.

The latest developments will no doubt make it harder for Trump’s administration to work with Colombia to stop this.

The feud between the two nations comes as Trump’s administration has vowed to carry out “mass deportations”. The president signed multiple executive orders related to immigration on his first day in office.

Some of Trump’s executive orders were signed with the aim of expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to arrest and detain unlawful migrants on US soil.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that 538 arrests were conducted on Thursday alone.

For comparison, ICE detained more than 149,700 people in the 2024 fiscal year under the Biden administration, which equals an average of 409 a day.

Trump declared a national emergency at the Mexico border, ordered officials to deny the right to citizenship to the children of migrants in the US illegally or on temporary visas and re-implemented his “Remain in Mexico” policy from his first term.

On Saturday, US Vice President JD Vance told CBS’s Face the Nation that he supports “doing law enforcement against violent criminals”.

“Just because we were founded by immigrants doesn’t mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world,” he told CBS’s Margaret Brennan.

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border tsar” told ABC News on Sunday that the military is currently at the US-Mexico border helping with departure flights on military planes and building infrastructure to secure the border.

“It’s sending a strong signal to the world: Our border is closed,” he said.

Trump campaigned on securing the southern border and reducing the number of undocumented immigrants who enter the US.

Less than a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has instigated his first international tariff dispute. And the target isn’t China, Mexico or Canada – frequent subjects of his ire – it’s Colombia, one of America’s closest allies in South America.

Colombia’s offence was refusing to allow two US flights carrying deported migrants to land because they were military, not civilian, transport planes. That appears to have been enough to prompt Trump to drop the hammer.

“We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States,” Trump posted on his social media site.

On top of the 25% tariffs he said he would impose, Trump said the US would introduce a travel ban and “immediate visa revocations” on Colombian government officials, as well as its allies and supporters.

• LIVE – latest updates and analysis
• Trump orders 25% tariffs on Colombia over migrants row

For his first week in office, the US president had seemed to be prioritising executive action on immigration over trade measures – even if the latter were a key campaign promise. As if to drive that point home, his first major announced tariffs are being enacted to punish a nation that he views as not sufficiently supporting America’s new hard-line immigration polices.

On a day when Trump had no public appearances – he’s at his Miami resort, having reportedly played a morning round of golf – the president has chosen to make an example of Colombia.

He is serving a warning to US allies and adversaries alike: If you don’t co-operate with the US, the consequences will be severe.

This is a formidable challenge for Colombia, but it is also a test for the new Trump administration.

If his sanctions lead to higher prices for US consumers will the American public object? Will they be willing to tolerate some financial pain incurred to advance Trump’s immigration priorities?

The US imports about 27% of its coffee from Colombia, according to the US Department of Agriculture, as well as other goods like bananas, crude oil, avocados and flowers. The coffee imports alone are worth nearly $2bn (£1.6bn).

Importers could shift to other sources to avoid this, which would hit Colombian producers by reducing a key market.

Colombia’s President Gustavo was quick to respond on Sunday afternoon, launching his own retaliatory strike in the war of words.

It’s no secret that Petro doesn’t like Donald Trump – he’s heavily criticised his policies on migration and the environment in the past. That just ratcheted up.

In a lengthy response on X, he said Trump would “wipe out the human species because of greed” and accused the US president of considering Colombians an “inferior race.”

Petro went on to describe himself as “stubborn” and said that while Trump could try to “carry out a coup” with “economic strength and arrogance” he would, in short, fight back.

Not only did Petro appear to threaten his own retaliatory tariffs, but most significantly he said: “From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms.”

• Six big immigrations changes under Trump – and their impact so far
• Surge of children crossing the Darien Gap jungle
• Millions more Colombians living in conflict zones

While Trump is unlikely to take threats from Colombia, this is something that should worry a US president who wants to tackle migration. His incoming administration officials have made clear that mission will require looking beyond the Mexico border.

Trump’s pick for deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau has long argued that “working with other countries to stop such migratory flows” must be a “global imperative of US foreign policy”. Sunday’s spat might make working together a lot less likely.

Tens of thousands of migrants every year from around the world, from India to China, head north towards the US after landing in South America and travelling up through Colombia across the Darien Gap – a key choke point just north of the Panama-Colombia border. It’s a dangerous journey usually facilitated by criminal gangs.

The US’s retaliatory measures will no doubt make it harder for Trump’s administration to work with Colombia to stop this pattern.

President Petro alluded to this in his response to Trump’s actions, noting that if talks over managing migration through Darien were suspended, “illegal activities will increase”. Those comments could be viewed as a veiled threat of more undocumented migrants on the way.

Petro was quick to say that his country would not refuse Colombian nationals deported from the US – only that they must receive “dignified treatment”. He even offered use of his presidential aircraft as an alternative means of transport.

According to senior US officials, however, talking on background to CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that’s not enough to avoid the sanctions.

Still, despite a Sunday of high drama, there does seem to be a path to de-escalate this sudden diplomatic standoff – if egos and national pride don’t get in the way.

But these kind of tariffs are a test of will. And, from the looks of it, this is just Trump’s opening move.

Hamas will release six hostages this week and Israel will allow Gazans to return to homes in the north from Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.

The hostages include Arbel Yehud – the civilian at the centre of a row which has led to Israel delaying the return of Gazans to northern Gaza.

Hamas released four soldiers on Saturday, but not Ms Yehud. Israel accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire deal under which Israeli civilians were to be freed first in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Since the ceasefire deal came into force, seven hostages and more than 200 prisoners have been released.

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• Prisoners released to jubilant scenes in West Bank
• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal

Thousands of displaced Palestinians attempting to reach northern Gaza have gathered at the military barrier blocking their progress for two days.

The ceasefire and hostage and prisoner release deal came into force on 19 January. Two exchanges have been completed.

In the third, Hamas will release Ms Yehud and two other hostages on Friday, followed by three more on Saturday, Netanyahu and Qatar, which has mediated the talks, said.

Israel will begin to allow Palestinians to move north on Monday, as well as freeing more Palestinian prisoners later in the week.

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Palestinians had been scheduled to be allowed to travel north of the Netzarim Corridor, a seven kilometre (4.3 miles) strip of land controlled by Israel that cuts off north Gaza from the rest of the territory, on Saturday.

Images show massive crowds waiting to pass.

“We’re sleeping in the streets,” Nireem Musabeh told the BBC at the checkpoint on Sunday. “We can’t go home and every time we try to go home they shoot at us.”

The 42-year-old had travelled from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, but was displaced from her home in Shejaiya, in the south.

Diab Shehbari said he had been at the checkpoint since 20:30 local time (18:30 GMT) on Saturday.

“All night the kids were screaming because of the cold – we lit a fire and covered them,” he said.

Israel has now said it will allow residents to return to the northern Gaza Strip from 07:00 (09:00 GMT) on Monday, and by vehicle two hours later, after the row over Ms Yehud was resolved.

Qatari and Egyptian mediators who have facilitated talks between Israel and Hamas were involved in the efforts to end the dispute. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman announced the breakthrough moments before Israel’s prime minister.

Israel had asked the mediators for proof from Hamas that Ms Yehud was alive. It appeared that had been given to the Egyptians as early as Saturday evening, the BBC understands.

Earlier on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he wanted Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza, which he described as a “demolition site”.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority condemned the idea, while Jordan and Egypt have also rejected the proposal.

The January ceasefire deal halted the war which began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 47,200 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

The UK’s largest luxury car maker, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), says it will invest £65m ($81m) to expand its bespoke paint services in response to growing demand from wealthy customers.

The plan includes opening new paint facilities in Castle Bromwich, UK and Nitra, Slovakia.

The firm, which is owned by India’s Tata Group, says it expects to more than double its bespoke paint operation, including helping clients match the colour of exclusive Range Rover SV models to their private jets or yachts.

It follows a similar move by Rolls-Royce, which announced earlier this month that it was investing £300m to build more highly-customised versions of its cars for super-rich customers.

“Range Rover clients are increasingly choosing to tailor their vehicles with more exclusive bespoke and elevated palette paints,” said Jamal Hameedi, director of special vehicle operations at JLR.

“By increasing our capacity we can satisfy the demand growth from our Range Rover clients and… clients of our other brands.”

The company says the plan will also help it cut energy and water use as well as reduce paint waste.

Earlier this month, Rolls-Royce said it was expanding its Goodwood factory and global headquarters to meet growing demand for bespoke models.

Rolls-Royce said the plan would “also ready the manufacturing facility for the marque’s transition to an all-battery electric vehicle future”.

Last month, Jaguar unveiled a controversial new electric concept car.

Some on social media said the new Type 00 car was “exciting” and “absolutely stunning”, while others called it “rubbish” and told Jaguar’s designers to “go back to the drawing board”.

However, the carmaker suggested the reaction was exactly what it wanted as it was trying to reset the brand and revive sluggish sales.

US President Donald Trump has said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza.

Trump said he had made the request to Jordan’s King Abdullah and planned to ask Egypt’s president on Sunday, too.

Describing Gaza as a “demolition site”, Trump said: “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing”. He added that the move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority condemned the proposal. Jordan and Egypt have also rejected the idea.

A ceasefire is being observed in Gaza after a deal between Israel and Hamas to halt the war which began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 47,200 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

Most of Gaza’s two million residents have been displaced in the past 15 months of the war, which has flattened much of Gaza’s infrastructure.

The United Nations has previously estimated that 60% of structures across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and it could take decades to rebuild.

• BBC Verify: How 15 months of war have devastated Gaza
• History of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians

Trump made his comments while speaking to reporters on board the Air Force One.

“Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there.

“So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where maybe they can live in peace for a change.”

Trump did not give further details of the proposal, and the subject was not referenced in the White House’s official read-out of the call.

It is not clear whether the US president has formally made the request to Egypt, but its foreign ministry has rejected any such effort “whether through settlement or annexation of land, or by evicting Palestinians from their land through displacement or encouraging the relocation or uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term”.

Jordan’s foreign minister said the kingdom said it was “firm and unwavering” in its rejection of displacing Palestinians.

In Gaza itself, Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told the BBC: “Our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip endured death and destruction for 15 months… without leaving their land. Therefore, they will not accept any offers or solutions, even if they appear to be good intentions under the title of reconstruction, as announced by US President Trump’s proposals.

“Our people, just as they have thwarted all plans for displacement and an alternative homeland over the decades, will also thwart such projects,” he added.

In the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects aimed at displacing our people from the Gaza Strip”.

Asked about Trump’s comments, Abu Yahya Rashid, a man displaced in the southern city of Khan Younis said:

“We are the ones who decide our fate and what we want. This land is ours and the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will not leave it except as corpses.”

Decades of US foreign policy has committed to the creation of a Palestinian state, with Gaza as a key part. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects this.

Donald Trump has a long history of seemingly speaking off the cuff and floating ideas that never end up taking fruition.

However, the idea of encouraging Gazans to relocate to neighbouring countries has long been pushed by hardline right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government.

The former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from the Jewish Power party said he commended Trump “for the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt”.

“One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to promote voluntary emigration,” he wrote on X.

The current Israeli finance minister, the far-right settler Bezelal Smotrich, has also said Palestinians should emigrate to neighbouring countries to allow Jewish settlements to be re-established in Gaza.

Such comments outrage Palestinians and will dismay proponents of a “two-state solution” – the establishment of an independent Palestinian State alongside Israel.

There are fears amongst Palestinians that those around President Trump are pushing him in a more extreme direction when it comes to policy in the Middle East.

This month, Trump’s nominee to be the next US ambassador to Israel, the evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee, rejected the idea of there ever being a Palestinian state outright.

“The Palestinians had their chance in Gaza,” he said in a US television interview.

“And look what happened there.”

Gaza came under Israeli occupation in 1967. In 2005 Israel withdrew troops and settlers from the strip but it retains control of Gaza’s airspace, seafront and vehicle access.

Huckabee’s comments contradict six decades of US policy in the Middle East during which Washington has long pushed the concept of a “two-state solution”.

The US has previously said that it opposes any forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

More than two million Palestinian refugees, most of whom have been granted citizenship, live in Jordan, according to the UN.

They are descendants of some of the approximately 750,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in the conflicts surrounding the formation of Israel in 1948.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled to Egypt since the war with Israel began, but they are not recognised there as refugees.

Some on Israel’s far-right want to return to Gaza and establish settlements there. Israel ordered a unilateral pull out in 2005, with 21 settlements dismantled and about 9,000 settlers evacuated by the army.

Trump’s comments came as displaced people were delayed from returning to their homes in northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of breaching the terms of a ceasefire deal.

“There is nothing there – there is no life, everything is demolished. But still to return to your land, to your home is a big joy,” one man anxiously waiting told the BBC.

In separate comments on Air Force One, Trump said he had ended former President Joe Biden’s hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

“They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.

But the war in Gaza led to renewed calls for the US to reduce or end arms shipments to Israel, because of the level of destruction caused by US weapons in the territory.

About 50 survivors of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau will return to the site on Monday to remember the day it was finally liberated on 27 January 1945.

They will be joined by heads of state including King Charles and other European royalty, Emmanuel Macron of France and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

But it will be the survivors – most in their late 80s and 90s – not the dignitaries, whose voices will be heard during the commemorations at the camp, where 1.1 million people were murdered, most of them Jews.

Their message is to tell the world what happened here and ensure that it never happens again.

“Every soul on this earth has the right to live,” says Jona Laks, who is now 94 and arrived with her twin and elder sisters in 1944. “Auschwitz was a laboratory for killing people. This was its task and it proved itself: few survived Auschwitz.”

Although daytime temperatures in recent days have climbed well above freezing and much of the snow has melted, many of the 50 arriving for Monday’s commemorations are now too frail to stay in the open for long.

Instead, an enormous, heated tent has been erected over the “Death Gate”, as the entrance to Birkenau is known.

The day will begin with survivors and Polish President Andrzej Duda laying a wreath at “Death Wall” at the first Auschwitz camp, where thousands of Polish prisoners, Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were shot. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer laid a wreath here recently and it was still there at the weekend.

The scene will later move to the death camp at Birkenau, known as Auschwitz II.

Each big anniversary to mark the camp’s liberation by Soviet troops is different. Thirty years ago, there was far less international interest, as renowned writer Elie Wiesel led a large group of fellow survivors and relatives to one of the crematoria blown up by the Nazis before they fled.

German historian Susanne Willems speaks lovingly of the survivors she has met over several decades: “Many were like favourite grandfathers to me. Of course we’ve lost many of them and it’s my duty to carry on and become their witness.”

There will be no political speeches from international leaders beside the Death Gate, and no Russian presence because of the full-scale war launched against Ukraine almost three years ago, even though the camp was liberated by the Russian-dominated 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front.

Vladimir Putin attended the 60th anniversary; he is not welcome now.

The Nazis’ decision to wipe out Europe’s Jewish population in extermination camps went into operation early in 1942. Six were built in occupied Poland: at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Treblinka was far smaller than Auschwitz, and yet 800,000-850,000 Jews were murdered there in a far shorter period.

Heinrich Himmler, supreme chief of the dreaded SS, and camp commandant Rudolf Höss oversaw the expansion of the Auschwitz complex to construct a second camp at Birkenau for industrial murder.

By the end of 1942 there were four separate gas chambers and crematoria.

The first mass deportations of Jews to Birkenau came from Slovakia and France in March 1942, and then in July from the Netherlands and Belgium as well, walking under the notorious sign (Works sets you free) at Auschwitz and on to their deaths in the new camp.

Soon trains would arrive at Birkenau at a specially constructed ramp, a short distance away from two gas chambers, and at one point 12,000 Jews were being gassed and their bodies burned every day.

Jona Laks had already lost her parents at Chelmo and arrived in 1944 with her twin sister Miriam and elder sister Chana from the Lodz ghetto further north.

“I was ordered to go to the left, which meant the crematorium, whereas my twin was sent to the right. That was only because the man was so bored, he would say ‘Left, right, left, right’ not even looking at the the people. I didn’t know that left meant death, but I did know it wasn’t good,” she told the BBC.

Eighty to 90% of new arrivals were sent to their deaths while others were selected for slave labour. “I was already very close to the gate; I could see the sparks, fire coming out of the chimneys and I could even feel the smell of burned flesh.”

Jona Laks was saved only because her elder sister shouted out that she should not be separated from her twin and word reached the infamous Nazi “Angel of Death” at the camp, Josef Mengele, who used part of Birkenau for often deadly medical experiments on twins.

Women and children, the elderly and infirm were sent immediately to the gas chambers. My own grandfather, on the first Dutch transport, survived slave labour for a month and a day, until 18 August 1942.

His sister, Geertje van Hasselt, her school headteacher husband Simon, and their two daughters Hermi, 14 , and nine-year-old Sophia were murdered on arrival on 12 February 1943.

Almost a million European Jews were murdered here from 1941 to 1945. But the dead also include some 70,000 Polish prisoners, 21,000 Roma and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and an unknown number of gay men.

Auschwitz drew 1.83 million visitors last year and although it is closed for the commemoration large numbers walked around the museum spread out in many of the old blocks across Auschwitz 1 at the weekend, and then the desolate, sprawling site of Birkenau.

The scale of the site is daunting. The remains of many of the blocks are cordoned off, with brick foundations all that is left as you peer into the distance. But the ruins of two gas chambers and crematoria remain, blown up as the Nazis sought to destroy the evidence.

“It makes you feel anxious being here. You don’t realise how sad it is until you see it,” said a young woman with a group of friends from Lancashire, all aged 18.

“Obviously you learn about it, but it’s crazy when you see it in real life,” said another. “It’s crazy to think that some people don’t think it exists.”

Far-right parties have made big advances in several European countries, not least in Germany, where Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is in second place in opinion polls ahead of next month’s election.

Historian Susanne Willems, who has for years brought groups to Auschwitz, last week took a group of police from Berlin to Auschwitz to explain the rise of Nazism and how any military-type of hierarchy runs the risk of moving into authoritarianism.

“I’m doing this work to help these people have a clear understanding of what the limits of police action need to be, and that whatever they’re asked to do, it remains their own decision whether to obey or not; and that they have the right, in fact the duty, to refuse anything that is, from their understanding, against human rights.”

Hours before the commemorations at Auschwitz, Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to make Holocaust education in the UK “a truly national endeavour”, to defend the truth against anyone denying it.

“We will ensure all schools teach it and seek to give every young person the opportunity to hear a recorded survivor testimony, because by learning from survivors we can develop that empathy for others and that appreciation of our common humanity, which is the ultimate way to defeat the hatred of difference.”

Among those who are not in Poland for the commemoration is Italy’s best-known living Auschwitz survivor, Liliana Segre, 94, who will instead be taking part in events in Rome.

A lifelong senator, Segre receives police protection because of a torrent of antisemitic abuse, which has hit a new level on social media since a documentary was released this month on her life.

Her father and grandparents were all murdered at Birkenau, but like Jona Laks she survived the Nazis’ death march to Malchow near the Ravensbrück concentration camp as a teenage girl.

“[Segre] often tells me ‘I’m tired of the insults’,” says the head of Milan’s Holocaust memorial, Roberto Jarach.

South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol has been charged with insurrection after he attempted to declare martial law in December.

His ill-fated attempt to impose military rule plunged the country into an unprecedented political crisis and he becomes the first sitting president in South Korean history to be charged with a crime.

The indictment comes after a court in Seoul rejected a request to extend Yoon’s detention on Saturday, which meant prosecutors had to make a decision on whether to charge or release him before Monday.

“The punishment of the ringleader of insurrection now begins finally,” Han Min-soo, a spokesman from the main opposition Democratic Party told a press conference.

Yoon’s legal team criticised the indictment and pledged to expose any “illegalities in the investigation”.

“The prosecution has made a grave mistake, reducing itself to being the indictment arm of the CIO, and a tool of political interests,” Yoon’s lawyers said, referring to the Central Investigation Office for high-ranking officials.

In South Korea, insurrection is punishable by life in prison or death. However the latter is unlikely, given that the country has not carried out executions in decades.

Separately, the Constitutional Court has begun deliberations on whether to formally dismiss Yoon as president or reinstate him.

The impeached president has largely refused to co-operate with the criminal investigation over the martial law declaration.

Yoon is set to stand trial along with his former defence minister and senior military commanders, who are accused of helping him plan and carry out the attempt to seize total power.

In an unprecedented televised announcement on 3 December, Yoon said he was invoking martial law to protect the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea.

At the time, the embattled leader was in a deadlock over a budget bill, dogged by corruption scandals and several of his cabinet ministers were under investigation.

The military announced all parliamentary activity was suspended and sought to impose controls on media outlets.

The opposition’s Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung urged people to protest at the National Assembly and asked his fellow lawmakers to immediately vote to repeal the order.

Less than two hours after Yoon’s declaration, 190 lawmakers who gathered – including some from the president’s party – voted unanimously to block it.

Soldiers equipped with rifles were seen entering the parliament building through smashed windows as a dramatic confrontation ensued.

Thousands of civilians gathered in front of the assembly and tried to block the soldiers.

Yoon was was impeached by parliament and suspended from his duties on 14 December.

The affair has triggered South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades and has polarised the country.

Many of his hard-line supporters have rallied around him. On Friday, tens of thousands gathered to protest, demanding he be released and returned to office.

If Yoon is removed from office, a presidential election would be held within 60 days.

The prosecutors’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

President Donald Trump has said he thinks the US will gain control of Greenland, underlining a claim on the Arctic island that he has repeated several times recently, on one occasion pointing to “economic security” as the reason. While the autonomous Danish territory has been quick to say it isn’t for sale, its vast and mostly untapped mineral resources are in great demand.

Jagged grey peaks suddenly appear before us, as the motorboat navigates choppy coastal waters and dramatic fjords at Greenland’s southern tip.

“Those very high pointy mountains, it’s basically a gold belt,” gestures Eldur Olafsson, the chief executive of mining company Amaroq Minerals.

After sailing for two hours we stepped ashore at a remote valley beneath Nalunaq mountain, where the firm is drilling for gold.

It’s also scouring the surrounding mountain range and valleys, hunting for other valuable minerals, having snapped up exploration licences spanning over 10,000 sq km (3,861 sq miles).

“We’re looking for copper, nickel, and rare earths,” says the Icelandic boss. “This is uncharted, and still has the potential to have multiple big deposits.”

The base camp is a cluster of mobile buildings and bright orange accommodation tents housing more than 100 staff, including Greenlanders, Australians, and British former coal miners. From there a road climbs up the valley, and we drive by car into the gold mine, following a dark tunnel upwards inside the mountain.

“See here!” says Mr Olafsson pointing to a seam of white quartz and a thin dark line. “Gold, gold, gold. All the way over. Isn’t that extraordinary?”

• Four ways this Trump Greenland saga could go
• Trump threat casts ominous shadow over Greenland

The mine, which Amaroq bought in 2015, had operated for most of the preceding decade, but closed due to then falling gold prices, and high operating costs.

Amaroq is confident that the mine will now be profitable. And it plans to ramp up production this year, where it has built a brand new processing plant to crush the ore and refine the precious metal into gold bars.

“We can either walk off site every month with a suitcase of gold, versus a 30,000 tonne ship [carrying the ore],” explains Mr Olafsson.

He says that Greenland presents an unrivalled opportunity because its huge mineral reserves are largely untouched.

“It can be the supplier of all the minerals the Western world will need for decades,” adds Mr Olafsson. “And that is a very unique position.”

Yet currently there are just two active mines on the entire island.

Greenland is a self-governing territory that is part of Denmark, but controls its own natural resources.

It’s endowed with the eighth largest reserves of so-called rare earth elements, which are vital for making everything from mobile phones to batteries and electric motors. It also has large amounts of other key metals, such as lithium and cobalt.

There is oil and gas too, but new drilling is banned, while deep-sea mining has also been ruled out.

Christian Kjeldsen, director of Greenland’s Business Association, says that the global “geopolitical situation right now is driving interest in the world’s biggest island”.

He points to China having the world’s largest reserves of rare earth metals, while the West wants to secure alternative supplies.

“You have a very strong China sitting very heavily on the critical raw materials,” he says.

That has fuelled a growing focus among Western nations to get access to Greenland’s minerals. China has also been keen to get involved, but its presence is limited.

Reuters recently reported that the US lobbied an Australian mining firm not to sell Greenland’s biggest rare earth project to potential Chinese buyers.

Greenland’s Minister for Business, Trade and Raw Materials, Naaja Nathanielsen, says that interest in the territory’s minerals has “absolutely increased within the last five years or so”.

She adds: “We’re used to being a hotspot for the climate crisis. We want to be a part of the solution.”

Permits have now been given for 100 blocs across Greenland, where companies are searching for viable deposits. British, Canadian and Australian mining firms are the biggest foreign licence holders, while Americans hold just one.

But there are many more steps before these sites become potential mines.

Yet while Greenland may be sitting on mineral riches, any “gold rush” continues to be slow to materialise.

The economy, which has an annual GDP of just over $3bn (£2.4bn), is still driven by the public sector and fishing. And the territory also relies on an annual $600m subsidy from Denmark.

Greenland’s politicians hope that mining revenues will reduce reliance on the annual $600m subsidy from Denmark, and help boost independence efforts. But in the meantime Greenland is making more money from tourism.

Officially mining is still important for independence, says Javier Arnaut, head of Arctic Social Sciences at Greenland University. “But in practical terms, you can see that there are very few mining licenses awarded.”

Ms Nathanielsen concedes that while there are partnerships being developed with the US and EU, “we still have not seen large amounts of money flowing into this sector”. She hopes that there will be another three to five mines operating within the next decade.

However mining is not easy in Greenland because of its remote geography and weather. It’s the world’s largest island and 80% of it is covered by an ice sheet. It has rugged mountains and no roads between settlements.

“It’s an arctic terrain,” says Jakob Kløve Keiding, from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, which has mapped the territory’s deposits. “We have problems with harsh conditions in terms of the climate and limited infrastructure. So it’s quite expensive to open a mine.”

Those high costs, coupled with low global metal prices, have held back investors.

Others blame red tape for the sector’s slow growth. The territory has strict environmental regulations and social impact requirements, and getting permits can take time.

Ms Nathanielsen maintains that most communities do support mining, and that it boosts local economies. “They [overseas miners] are shopping in the local shop. They’re employing local employees. They’re chartering a local boat or helicopter,” she says.

Yet in the south’s biggest town, Qaqortoq, resident Heidi Mortensen Møller is sceptical whether new mines will lead to employment for locals. “When they say they’re going to add jobs, who are they talking about?”

Jess Berthelsen, head of local labour union, SIK, says that many people think mining income “will leave the country”, and not benefit Greenland. But he supports the growth of the sector. “Greenland needs more income and to earn money from other ways than fishing.”

It’s unclear how Trump’s latest gambit on Greenland will play out. However, the territory’s prime minister Mute Egede said earlier this month that “we need to do business with the US” and that it was “doors open in terms of mining”.

Mr Kjeldsen from the business association, hopes it will be bring “much needed investment” to the sector. “On the other hand, if the uncertainty surrounding the signals from Trump drag on for a longer period, there is a risk that this might impact the investment environment negatively.”

I have reported on many elections.

I have seen prime ministers and presidents roll up at polling stations, cast ballots and then take a few questions from reporters.

But I have never seen anything quite like the scene at Polling Station 478 in Minsk.

Long-time leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, once dubbed “Europe’s last dictator”, arrived to cast his ballot. Then, while Belarusians were still voting, candidate Lukashenko gave a four-and-a-half hour press conference live on state TV.

It was an opportunity to quiz him on the controversial vote which his critics have denounced as “a sham”.

“What wretched question have you prepared for me?” he asked. “Like you always do.”

“Good morning,” I replied.

“Good morning, Steve.”

“How can you call this a democratic election, when your main rivals are either in prison or in exile?” I asked.

“Some are in prison, and some are in exile. But you are here!” said Lukashenko.

“Everyone has the right to choose. That is democracy. Some chose prison, others chose exile. We never forced anyone out of the country.”

• Lukashenko: ‘God forbid we should end up like Ukraine’
• Opposition calls election ‘a sham’

In reality, it was the authorities’ brutal crackdown on protesters after the 2020 presidential election that led to Alexander Lukashenko’s staunchest opponents either being jailed or driven into political exile. Personal choice did not come into it.

“You said recently ‘We mustn’t shut people’s mouths’ [silence people],” I reminded him.

“But your rivals haven’t just been kept off the ballot. Some of them have been jailed. There are currently more than 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus. Isn’t it time to open the prison cells and release them? People like Maria Kolesnikova, Sergei Tikhanovsky…”

“You keep going on about Maria to me. My God,” Lukashenko sighed.

“OK, I’ll answer your question…Prison is for people who have opened their mouths too wide and who have broken the law. Don’t you have prisons in Britain and America?”

“In any country, if you break the law, you must bear the consequences,” he continued. “The law is strict but it is the law. I didn’t invent it. You need to abide by it.”

“You need to abide by the law,” I interjected. “But these people are in prison for criticising you.”

“Ignorance of the law does not absolve you of responsibility before it.”

Although prominent opposition figures were not allowed to run, Alexander Lukashenko’s name was not the only one on the ballot. There were four other candidates. But they came across more like spoilers than serious challengers.

“We spoke to some of the other candidates,” I told Lukashenko. “One of them, the Communist Party leader, openly supports you. Another is full of praise for you. It’s a strange election, isn’t it, with opponents like this…”

“Steve, this is a whole new experience for you!” he replied, to laughter and applause from local journalists in the room.

“That’s true,” I said. “I haven’t seen an election like this before.”

“The Communists’ policy based on justice is the same policy that we’re promoting,” argued Lukashenko. “So why would they vote against me?”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has characterised this presidential election in Belarus as a “blatant affront to democracy”.

Not that Alexander Lukashenko seems to care.

“I swear to you,” he told me, “I couldn’t care less whether you recognise our election or whether you don’t. The most important thing for me is that the people of Belarus recognise it.”

Rebels of the M23 movement say they have taken control of the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s east.

Residents shared videos of M23 rebels patrolling Goma’s main streets following a lightning advance against the Congolese army on Sunday that saw tens of thousands of people fleeing neighbouring towns.

After hours of gunfire and explosions in the streets of Goma – home to more than a million people – are now quiet, according to local media reports.

It comes hours after DR Congo’s foreign minister accused Rwanda of declaring war by sending its troops over the border to support the M23 rebels. Rwanda says Kinshasa supports militias who want regime change in Kigali.

Kenya has called for a ceasefire, and announced that the presidents of both the DR Congo and Rwanda will attend an emergency regional summit in the next two days.

Kenyan President William Ruto, the current chair of the the East African Community, said it was incumbent on regional leaders to help facilitate a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The M23 group has taken control of vast parts of mineral-rich eastern DR Congo since 2021. In the past few weeks the group has been advancing swiftly on Goma amid intense fighting.

Since the start of 2025 more than 400,000 people have been displaced in north and South Kivu, provinces near the border with Rwanda, according to the UN’s refugee agency.

One displaced woman, Alice Feza, said she is at a loss of what to do next, as she has fled from Kiwanja, Rutshuru, Kibumba and now, Goma.

“People are fleeing everywhere, and we don’t know where to go anymore, because we started fleeing a long time ago,” Ms Feza said, adding: “The war catches us here among the host families, now we have nowhere to go.”

Key roads surrounding Goma are blocked and the city’s airport can no longer be used for evacuation and humanitarian efforts, the UN has said.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces from the DR Congo’s territory and on the M23 rebel group to stop its advance.

Guterres, in a statement through his spokesman, called on Rwanda to “cease support to the M23 and withdraw from DRC territory”. He also called on the M23 to “immediately cease all hostile actions and withdraw from occupied areas”.

This comes after 13 soldiers serving with peacekeeping forces were killed in clashes with the rebels.

The UK has called for an end to attacks on peacekeepers, while France’s UN representative, Nicolas de Rivière, reiterated Guterres’ call for Rwanda to withdraw its troops from the DR Congo.

Both DR Congo and the UN say the M23 group is backed by Rwanda.

Rwanda has not denied this, but the country’s leaders put the blame on the DR Congo for the current conflict.

Speaking at the Security Council meeting, Rwanda’s UN representative Ernest Rwamucyo said he regretted that the international community choose to condemn the M23 group rather than the Congolese army, which, he said, had violated a ceasefire.

On Saturday, the UN said it would be pulling all of its non-essential staff out of Goma. Essential operations are ongoing in the DR Congo.

The M23 formed as an offshoot of another rebel group in 2012, ostensibly to protect the Tutsi population in the east of DR Congo, which had long complained of persecution and discrimination.

Rwanda has previously said the Congolese authorities were working with some of those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

However, Rwanda’s critics accuse it of using the M23 to loot minerals such as gold, cobalt and tantalum in eastern DR Congo.

In the shadow of a vast crucifix, labourers and construction workers in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez are building a small city of their own. A tent city.

On the old fairgrounds, beneath an altar constructed for a mass by Pope Francis in 2016, the Mexican government is preparing for thousands of deportees they expect to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks.

Juarez is one of eight border locations along the 3,000-kilometre-long (1,900 miles) border where Mexico is getting ready for the anticipated influx.

Men in boots and baseball caps climb on top of a vast metal structure to drape over thick white tarpaulin, erecting a rudimentary shelter to temporarily house men and women exactly like themselves.

Casual labourers, domestic workers, kitchen staff and farm hands are all likely to be among those sent south soon, once what President Donald Trump calls “the largest deportation in American history” gets under way.

As well as protection from the elements, the deportees will receive food, medical care, and assistance in obtaining Mexican identity documents, under a deportee-support programme which President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration calls “Mexico Embraces You”.

“Mexico will do everything necessary to care for its compatriots and will allocate whatever is necessary to receive those who are repatriated,” said the Mexican Interior Minister, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

For her part, President Sheinbaum has stressed her government will first attend to the humanitarian needs of those returning, saying they will qualify for her government’s social programmes and pensions, and will immediately be eligible to work.

She urged Mexicans to “remain calm and keep a cool head” about relations with President Trump and his administration more broadly – from deportations to the threat of tariffs.

“With Mexico, I think we are going very well,” said President Trump in a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. The two neighbours may yet find a workable solution on immigration which is acceptable to both – President Sheinbaum has said the key is dialogue and keeping the channels of communication open.

Undoubtedly, though, she recognises the potential stress President Trump’s declaration of an emergency at the US border could place on Mexico.

An estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans currently live in the United States and the prospect of a mass return could quickly saturate and overwhelm border cities like Juarez and Tijuana.

It’s an issue which worries Jose Maria Garcia Lara, the director of the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter in Tijuana. As he shows me around the facility, which is already nearing its capacity, he says there are very few places he can fit more families.

“If we have to, we can maybe put some people in the kitchen or the library,” he says.

There comes a point, though, where there simply isn’t any space left – and donations of food, medical supplies, blankets and hygiene products will be stretched too thin.

“We’re being hit on two fronts. Firstly, the arrival of Mexicans and other migrants who are fleeing violence,” says Mr Garcia.

“But also, we’ll have the mass deportations. We don’t know how many people will come across the border needing our help. Together, these two things could create a huge problem.”

Furthermore, another key part of Mr Trump’s executive orders includes a policy called “Remain in Mexico” under which immigrants awaiting dates to make their asylum cases in a US immigration court would have to stay in Mexico ahead of those appointments.

When “Remain in Mexico” was previously in place, during Trump’s first term and under the presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, Mexican border towns struggled to cope.

Human rights groups also repeatedly denounced the risks the migrants were being exposed to by being forced to wait in dangerous cities where drug cartel-related crime is rife.

This time around, Sheinbaum has made it clear that Mexico has not agreed to the plan and won’t accept any non-Mexican asylum seekers from the US as they wait for their asylum hearings. Clearly, “Remain in Mexico” only works if Mexico is willing to comply with it. So far, it has drawn a line.

President Trump has deployed around 2,500 troops to the US southern border where they will be tasked with carrying out some of the logistics of his crackdown.

In Tijuana, meanwhile, Mexican soldiers are helping to prepare for the consequences of it. The authorities have readied an events centre called Flamingos with 1,800 beds for the returnees, with troops bringing in supplies, setting up a kitchen and showers.

As President Trump was signing executive orders on Monday, a minibus swept through the gates at the Chaparral border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana carrying a handful of deportees.

A few journalists had gathered to try to speak to, ostensibly, the first deportees of the Trump era. It was just a routine deportation, though, one which was probably in the pipeline for weeks and had nothing to do with the documents Trump was signing before a cheering crowd in Washington DC.

Still, symbolically, as the minibus sped past the waiting media towards a government-run shelter, these were the first of many.

Mexico will have its work cut out to receive them, house them and find them a place in a nation some won’t have seen since they left as children.

Donald Trump’s move to block diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives has led to the US Air Force reviewing material on the role of black and female pilots during World War Two from its training programmes.

A military official on Saturday said “immediate steps” were taken to remove material to “ensure compliance” with the US president’s order, the BBC’s US news partner CBS reported.

But on Sunday, military officials clarified that certain curriculum will not be removed from basic military training.

This includes lessons highlighting the Tuskegee airmen and Women Air Force Service Pilots, which will remain in the programme.

Trump signed an executive order banning DEI programmes in the federal government soon after returning to office, fulfilling a pledge he repeatedly made during the campaign.

Trainee troops are shown footage of pioneering servicemen and women as part of DEI courses during basic military training.

Lt. Gen. Brian S. Robinson, an air education and training command commander, said in a statement no trainees missed the lesson, but one group had their lesson delayed because of the review.

The Tuskegee Airmen are a group of around 1,000 black pilots who were trained at a segregated air base in Alabama between 1941 and 1946.

They flew hundreds of patrol and attack missions during the war, escorting American bombing crews over Europe.

Other lessons thought to be at risk included those highlighting the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

The female pilots were vital in transporting new planes bound for fighting in Europe from the factories where they were produced. Their contribution was later recognised with the right to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, which is reserved for military personnel.

“The revised training which focuses on the documented historic legacy and decorated valour with which these units and airmen fought for our nation in World War II and beyond will continue on 27 January,” Robinson said in a statement.

An Air Force official told CBS News on Saturday: “Immediate steps were taken to remove curriculum that is now under review to ensure compliance with Executive Orders issued by the president.

“Historical videos were interwoven into US Air Force and Space Force curriculum and were not the direct focus of course removal actions. Additional details on curriculum updates will be provided when they’re available.”

The news frustrated some Republicans.

Alabama Senator Katie Britt, a Republican, took to social media in opposition of the military dropping lessons on the Tuskegee Airmen.

“I have no doubt Secretary Hegseth will correct and get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days,” she wrote in a post on X.

Hours later, Hegseth replied: “Amen! We’re all over it senator. This will not stand.”

DEI programmes are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.

But Trump and other critics say the training is discriminatory because it takes race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics into consideration.

Earlier this week the Trump administration emailed thousands of federal employees ordering them to report any efforts to “disguise” diversity initiatives in their agencies or face “adverse consequences”.

While Trump’s executive order is limited to state-funded agencies, several major companies have followed suit, including DEI training being scaled back at Meta and Amazon.

Four ancient gold artefacts were stolen from a Dutch museum in an overnight raid in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Thieves used explosives to blast their way into the Drents Museum in Assen, which was hosting an exhibition of priceless Romanian jewellery made from gold and silver.

They left with three Dacian spiral bracelets and the exhibit’s central piece – the strikingly decorated Helmet of Cotofenesti, which was crafted almost 2,500 years ago.

Romania’s ministry of culture has promised to take all possible steps to recover the stolen items, which had been loaned to the Dutch museum from Bucharest.

Drents Museum director Harry Tupan said staff were “intensely shocked” by the burglary, which he said was the biggest incident in its 170-year history.

Police were called to the scene after reports of an explosion at 03:45 local time (04:45 GMT) on Saturday.

Officers carried out forensic investigation and reviewed CCTV footage throughout the day.

Police are also investigating a burning vehicle which was found on a nearby road, which they suspect may be linked to the burglary.

“A possible scenario is that the suspects switched to another vehicle in the vicinity of the fire,” a Dutch police statement said.

No arrests have been made, but authorities suspect multiple individuals were involved. Police have called global policing agency Interpol to help with the investigation.

A statement from the museum said four “archaeological masterpieces” were taken, including the Cotofenesti helmet, which dates from around 450 BC, and three ancient Dacian royal bracelets.

All four stolen items are of huge cultural significance to Romania, with the Helmet of Cotofenesti considered a national treasure.

In the late 1990s, 24 bracelets from the same era were dug up by treasure hunters and sold abroad.

The Romanian state worked for years to get them back from collectors in Austria, Germany, France, the UK and the United States.

US President Donald Trump has said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has done a “very good job thus far” and that the pair have a “very good relationship”.

Asked by the BBC on board Air Force One about his relationship with Sir Keir, Trump added that they would be having a call “over the next 24 hours” – a conversation which has since taken place.

Trump and the Labour leader have met on a number of occasions, including a visit by Sir Keir to Trump Tower in New York during the presidential campaign.

Tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk, however, has been strongly critical of Sir Keir and has repeatedly called for his removal from office.

• Can opposites Trump and Starmer find common ground?

“I get along with him well. I like him a lot,” Trump said of Sir Keir.

“He’s liberal, which is a bit different from me, but I think he’s a very good person and I think he’s done a very good job thus far.

“He’s represented his country in terms of philosophy.

“I may not agree with his philosophy, but I have a very good relationship with him.”

Trump was speaking during a visit to the press room on board the presidential plane on Saturday.

He was asked about his relationship with Sir Keir after responding to a question about where he might go for the first international trip of his second term.

“It could be Saudi Arabia, it could be UK. Traditionally it could be UK,” he said.

“Last time I went to Saudi Arabia because they agreed to buy $450 billion of American United States merchandise.”

Sir Keir and Trump spoke by phone following Trump’s re-election in November, with Downing Street saying at the time that the two had agreed the relationship between the UK and US was “incredibly strong” and would “continue to thrive”.

Last week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Sir Keir would visit Washington for talks with Trump “within the next few weeks”.

Several diplomatic challenges loom for the government, including Trump’s pledges to introduce trade tariffs and to cut US support for Ukraine.

It is also unclear whether Trump will agree to the UK’s proposed deal to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, where there is a joint US-UK military base, although the UK has said the new US administration will be given the chance to “consider” the deal.

While Trump praised Sir Keir, his billionaire ally Elon Musk has been strongly critical of him and has repeatedly called for his removal from office.

Earlier this month the Tesla boss, who is an adviser to the president, criticised Starmer in a series of messages on his X social media platform over the grooming gangs scandal, saying the prime minister was “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”.

In response, Sir Keir, who was director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, has accused critics of “spreading lies and misinformation” and says he tackled prosecutions “head on”.

There have been further questions raised about whether Trump will accept Sir Keir’s nomination of former Labour minister Lord Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to Washington.

Last month, Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of Trump’s election campaign, called Lord Mandelson “an absolute moron” and said he “should stay home”.

Lammy has described his own criticism of the president, made when he was a backbencher, as “old news”.

In 2018 he described Trump as a “tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” but the foreign secretary has since had dinner with him alongside the prime minister.

The CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is “more likely” to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals.

But the intelligence agency cautioned it had “low confidence” in this determination.

A spokesperson said that a “research-related origin” of the pandemic “is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting”.

The decision to release that assessment marks one of the first made by the CIA’s new director John Ratcliffe, appointed by Donald Trump, who took over the agency on Thursday.

Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, has long favoured the lab leak theory, claiming Covid most likely came from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The institute is a 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet market where the first cluster of infections emerged.

In an interview with Breitbart News published on Friday, Ratcliffe said he wanted the CIA to abandon its neutral stance on the origins of the virus and “get off the sidelines”.

“One of the things that I’ve talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years in not making an assessment about the origins of COVID,” he said.

“That’s a day-one thing for me.”

But officials told US media that the new assessment was not based on new intelligence and predates the Trump administration. The review was reportedly ordered in the closing weeks of the Biden administration and completed before Trump took office on Monday.

The review offered on Saturday is based on “low confidence” which means the intelligence supporting it is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.

There is no consensus on the cause of the Covid pandemic.

Some support a “natural origin” theory, which argues the virus spread naturally from animals, without the involvement of any scientists or laboratories.

The lab leak hypothesis specifically has been hotly contested by scientists, including many who say there is no definitive evidence to back it up. And China has in the past dismissed the lab claim as “political manipulation” by Washington.

Still, the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies.

In 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News it was his bureau’s assessment that “the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident”.

• FBI chief Christopher Wray says China lab leak most likely
• Have we found the ‘animal origin’ of Covid?
• FBI chief Christopher Wray says China lab leak most likely

When Donovan Shears sent a text message to a random number in 1998, it changed the course of his life.

He had been given his first mobile phone for his 18th birthday and had just discovered text messaging.

He made up a random number and sent off a message saying “hello”, to which his future wife Kirsty wrote back “hi”.

“That single moment led to over 20 years of love, laughter, and partnership,” they said.

Out of several messages to unknown numbers he sent from the Coventry pub where he was working that night, Kirsty in Cleethorpes was the only one to reply.

Fast forward four years, and the couple were getting married in Scotland, where Kirsty is from. They now also have two children, aged six and nine.

Kirsty said she replied to Donovan’s message thinking it was someone she knew, but whose number she had not saved in her phone.

Speaking to BBC CWR, they remembered how they first met at Coventry railway station and went for their first date at the then well-known city nightclub, the Colosseum, which is now called The Kasbah.

Donovan said: “I started sending out random text messages, showing off to my friends.

“I picked the first four digits the same as mine, then the last three digits randomly – it was probably about five or six different numbers – and then didn’t think anything of it.”

Kirsty said: “We would text through the day and then obviously it would become more and more frequent and then at one point we decided we should phone each other.”

“We were texting so much my phone bill was over £250 a month, I think that’s when I decided we should call,” Donovan continued.

“Feelings started to develop and she’d got the most beautiful Scottish accent, which attracted me to her as well.”

The pair eventually met up about six months after Donovan sent the first text.

“I said to my stepsister, I’ve got to go and meet this guy, and she was like, ‘He could be anyone’, and I was like, ‘Yes, I know’, but I was 18 and didn’t really think about consequences”, Kirsty said.

“I just got on a train and came to Coventry.”

Donovan said he was scared to make the first move, but Kirsty was much more assured.

“The rest is history,” he said.

“I remember coming back from our first night out and we just cuddled up, it was kind of magical in a way.

“She is an amazing woman, she’s so intelligent and we know each other so well, she’s my best friend as well as my wife.”

More than 20 years on from their big day, the pair will be taking part in a mass renewal of vows at Coventry Cathedral on Valentine’s Day, organised by BBC CWR.

Donovan said they are looking forward to celebrating the day as a family.

“I took my son for a suit fitting yesterday and he absolutely loved it, then my girl, she’s like, ‘I want to see Mummy get dressed up’, she can’t wait,” he added.

President Donald Trump has said he believes the US will gain control of Greenland, after showing renewed interest in acquiring the autonomous Danish territory in recent weeks.

“I think we’re going to have it,” he told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, adding that the island’s 57,000 residents “want to be with us”.

His comments come after reports that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen insisted Greenland was not for sale in a fiery phone call with the president last week.

Trump floated the prospect of buying the vast Arctic territory during his first term in 2019, and has said US control of Greenland is an “absolute necessity” for international security.

“I think the people want to be with us,” Trump said when asked about the island in the press room on board the presidential plane.

“I don’t really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen because it’s for the protection of the free world,” he added.

“I think Greenland we’ll get because it has to do with freedom of the world,” Trump continued.

“It has nothing to do with the United States other than that we’re the one that can provide the freedom. They can’t.”

Despite Trump’s apparent confidence, the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark have both previously said the island was not for sale.

Greenland’s PM Mute Egede said use of the territory’s land was “Greenland’s business”, though he did express a willingness to work more closely with the US on defence and mining.

Meanwhile, Danish premiere Frederiksen said earlier this month that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders”, and only the local population could determine its future.

Frederiksen reasserted her position in a heated 45-minute phone exchange with Trump last week, according to a report in the Financial Times.

The newspaper quoted an anonymous European official as saying the conversation was “horrendous”, and another saying Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland was is “serious, and potentially very dangerous”.

The Danish prime minister reportedly insisted the island was not for sale, but noted the US’s “big interest” in it.

Greenland lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the US. It is also home to a large American space facility.

In recent years, there has been increased interest in Greenland’s natural resources, including mining for rare earth minerals, uranium and iron.

Though the island has wide-ranging autonomy, it remains part of the kingdom of Demark.

But there is a general consensus in Greenland that it will eventually become independent, which could pave the way for a new kind of relationship with the US.

President Trump’s claim that the people of Greenland “want to be with us” may come as a surprise to some of the island’s residents.

A fishing boat captain in the Kapisillit settlement told the BBC Trump was “welcome to visit” the island, but that “Greenland belongs to Greenlanders”.

And local church elder Kaaleeraq Ringsted said Trump’s language was “not acceptable”, adding “Greenland is not for sale”.

There are several ways Trump could pursue his desire to take over the territory. Asked earlier in January whether he could rule out using military or economic force, Trump said he could not.

His recent comments have sent shockwaves through the Danish political establishment, sparking hastily organised high-level meetings in Copenhagen earlier this month.