China’s tit-for-tat import taxes on some American goods are coming into effect on Monday, as the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies escalates and US President Donald Trump threatens to hit more countries with tariffs.

Beijing announced the plan on 4 February, minutes after new US levies of 10% on all Chinese products came into effect.

On Sunday, Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports into the US, with a full announcement to come on Monday.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to the Super Bowl, he also said he was planning reciprocal tariffs on other nations – but did not specify which ones would be targeted.

China’s latest tariffs on US goods include a 15% border tax on imports of US coal and liquefied natural gas products. There is also a 10% tariff on American crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars.

Last week, Chinese authorities launched an anti-monopoly probe into technology giant Google, while PVH, the US owner of designer brands Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, was added to Beijing’s so-called “unreliable entity” list.

China has also imposed export controls on 25 rare metals, some of which are key components for many electrical products and military equipment.

Trump’s announcement over the weekend of plans to impose a 25% tax on the US’s steel and aluminium imports comes days after he reached deals with Canada and Mexico to avoid 25% tariffs that he had threatened on all goods from the countries.

He introduced similar measures during his first term as president, imposing 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminium, but later granted several trading partners duty-free quotas – including Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

The EU import taxes were not resolved until the Biden administration took over the White House.

There was no mention on Sunday of which countries, if any, would be granted similar exemptions if these new tariffs are implemented in the following days.

His intention to implement reciprocal tariffs would fulfil an election campaign pledge to levy tariffs at the same rates that are imposed on US goods.

He also said import taxes for vehicles remained on the table after reports he was considering exemptions to universal tariffs.

Trump has repeatedly complained that European Union (EU) tariffs on imports of American cars are much higher than US levies.

Last week, Trump told the BBC tariffs on EU goods could happen “pretty soon” – but suggested a deal could be “worked out” with the UK.

The day after the latest US tariffs came into effect, Beijing accused Washington of making “unfounded and false allegations” about its role in the trade of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to justify the move.

In a complaint lodged with the World Trade Organization (WTO), China said the US import taxes were “discriminatory and protectionist” and violated trade rules.

But experts have warned China is unlikely to secure a ruling in its favour as the WTO panel that settles disputes remains unable to function.

Trump had been expected to speak to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in recent days but the US president has said he was in no hurry to hold talks.

Some of the many measures brought in by Trump since he took office on 20 January have been subject to change.

On Friday, he suspended tariffs on small packages from China, which, along with the additional 10% tariffs, came into effect on 4 February.

The suspension will stay in place until “adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue”.

After the order ended duty-free treatment of shipments worth less than $800 (£645) the US Postal Service (USPS) and other agencies scrambled to comply.

USPS temporarily stopped accepting packages from China, only to U-turn a day later.

President Donald Trump has said he will announce a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US, a move that will have the biggest impact in Canada.

Trump also said that there would be an announcement later in the week about reciprocal tariffs on all countries that tax imports from the US, but he did not specify which nations would be targeted, or if there would be any exemptions.

“If they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said.

He told reporters of his plans while traveling from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday.

Canada and Mexico are two of the US’s biggest steel trading partners, and Canada is the biggest supplier of aluminium metal into the US.

During his first term, Trump put tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminium imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

But the US reached a deal a year later with Canada and Mexico to end those tariffs, although the EU import taxes remained in place until 2021.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump said on Monday he would announce tariffs on “everybody” for steel and aluminium.

“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff,” he said.

In response, Doug Ford, the premier of the province of Ontario, accused Trump of “shifting goalposts and constant chaos, putting our economy at risk” in an online post. Canada’s steel production is concentrated in Ontario.

Trump’s comments also caused the stocks of major South Korean steel and car makers to fall. South Korea is a major exporter of steel to the US.

Shares of steel firm POSCO holdings dropped as much as 3.6%, while those of Hyundai Steel were down as much as 2.9%.

Those of car maker Kia Corp also fell by 3.6% during early morning trading.

Trump’s move mark another major escalation in Trump’s trade policy, which has already sparked retaliation from China.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

Earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose import duties of 25% on Canadian and Mexican products but later delayed that plan for 30 days – until early March – after speaking to the leaders of both countries.

He also brought in new US levies of 10% on all Chinese goods coming into the US. Beijing has retaliated with its own set of tariffs which took effect on Monday.

Trump also said he would announce more tit-for-tat tariffs on “Tuesday or Wednesday” and that they would take effect “almost immediately” after the announcement.

“The ones that are taking advantage of the United States, we’re going to have reciprocal [tariffs],” he said. “It’ll be great for everybody, including other countries”.

On the trip to New Orleans, Trump also signed an proclamation designating 9 February “Gulf of America” day to celebrate his order renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, as his plane crossed the body of water.

Mexico argues the US cannot legally change the Gulf’s name because UN rules dictate that an individual country’s sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles out from the coastline.

Trump was also asked whether he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and replied: “I don’t want to talk about it, and if we are talking, I don’t want to tell you about the conversations too early, but I do believe we’re making progress.”

“I would imagine I would be meeting with Putin at the right time… at the appropriate time,” he said.

Trump also repeated his unlikely suggestions that the US could take over Canada and the Gaza Strip, saying Canada would fare better as the “51st state” and that he was “committed to buying and owning Gaza”.

“What my parents taught me is that they used to live in peace and calm, without having to have any fear in their own country,” says 19-year-old Nick. “I would like to live in a country where I don’t have to be afraid.”

I meet him in a small bar on a street corner in the ex-mining town of Freiberg, Saxony – where he is playing darts.

It’s a cold, foggy night in February with just over two weeks to go until Germany’s national election.

Nick and his friend Dominic, who is 30, are backers or sympathetic to Alternative für Deutschland – a party that has been consistently polling second in Germany for more than a year and a half, as the far-right here and elsewhere in Europe attracts an increasing number of young people, particularly men, into its orbit.

One particular reason why Nick – and many other young German men – say they are afraid is the number of attacks in Germany involving suspects who were asylum seekers – most recently, the fatal stabbing of a toddler and a man in a park in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg. Immigration is now Nick and Dominic’s main concern, although they don’t oppose it in all forms.

“The people who integrate, who learn, who study here, do their work – I have no problems with them,” says Dominic, though he is critical of anyone he sees as taking advantage of the asylum system.

“But these days such statements are seen as hostile,” says Dominic. “You’re called a Nazi because of Germany’s past.”

The AfD – which has long been accused of anti-migrant rhetoric – is celebrating endorsements from tech billionaire, Elon Musk, who owns the social media site X. He has hosted a live discussion with party leader Alice Weidel on the platform and dialled into a party rally.

Now, as Germany waits to see just how well the far-right does in the upcoming election, the question is why so many young men in particular are being drawn to the far-right and what the consequences could be for a country that’s deeply conscious of its Nazi past.

Pew research in 2024 found that 26% of German men had positive views of the AfD compared to 11% of women, and the share of men holding this opinion has risen 10 points since 2022.

In the elections for the European Parliament in 2024, according to German exit polls the number of under 24-year-olds, both male and female, who voted for the AfD in Germany rose to 16 per cent, up by 11 points from 2019.

This comes at a time of rising general anxiety among young people according to a recent study by the German Institute for Generational Research.

In a sample size of 1,000 Germans aged 16 to 25, anxiety levels were the highest amongst respondents who class themselves as far-right while they were the lowest amongst people who put themselves in the middle of the political spectrum.

Women were more likely to be concerned for their rights and those of minority groups while men were found to be more worried about conservative values that are less based around rights.

Dr Rüdiger Maas, from the German think tank the Institute for Generational Research, says parties on the left often focus on themes such as feminism, equality and women’s rights.

“Overall, men don’t see themselves in these themes,” he tells us. “That is why they have a tendency to vote further right.”

Hard, populist right parties have also done well in countries such as France, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Italy.

“Sixty per cent of young men under 30 would consider voting for the far-right in EU countries and this is much higher than the share among women,” says Prof Abou-Chadi, in analysis drawn from a subset of the 2024 European Election Study.

As well as gender, migration and economic issues, social media is playing a part. Platforms like TikTok allow political groups to bypass mainstream, traditional media, which the far-right regard as hostile.

It’s clear that AfD “dominates” TikTok when compared to other German parties, says Mauritius Dorn from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). It has 539,000 followers on its parliamentary account, compared to 158,000 for the SPD who currently have the most seats in the German parliament.

And it isn’t just official accounts but a “considerable number of unofficial fan accounts also help to disseminate the party’s content”, says Mr Dorn.

Through setting up 10 “persona-based” accounts with different user profiles, they found, “those users who are more on the right-wing spectrum… see a lot of AfD content whereas users from the leftist spectrum see a more diverse set of political content.”

TikTok has said it doesn’t “differentiate” between the right, left or centre of politics and works to stay at the “forefront” of tackling misinformation.

Dorn observes that other parties recognised sites such as TikTok “too late”, which means they’re playing catch-up in establishing a strong footprint on the platform.

We’ve met one AfD influencer, Celina Brychcy – a 25-year-old TikTokker who has more than 167,000 followers – 53% of whom are male, with 76% aged between 18 and 35.

She mainly shares dance, trend and lifestyle videos, but also pro-AfD content.

Ms Brychcy says she doesn’t make money from promoting the AfD but does it because she believes in the cause and wants to “get a message across”.

Her political ideals include wanting the return of military service, more support for mothers who want or need to stay at home and stricter border controls.

When I press her about whether her views amount to a rejection of multiculturalism she replied no, but believes people should “integrate.”

“There are certain people who just don’t fit in with us Germans,” she added but repeatedly insisted she is not racist and doesn’t have “anything against foreigners.”

Ms Brychcy is also against “role reversal” when it comes to the way men and women dress.

A reaction against “gender ideology” is another issue identified by Tarik Abou-Chadi, a professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford, as feeding far-right support amongst the young – something that is echoed by the Institute for Generational Research.

They asked first-time voters whether they found the LGBTQ+ trend “übertrieben”, which literally means “exaggerated” or over the top. The respondents who showed the highest level of agreement with that question were those who planned to support the AfD.

When I challenge Ms Brychcy over whether that could be seen as retrograde, she replied that “biologically speaking, we are men and women” and thinks people should present accordingly.

Ms Brychcy tells me she has lost a couple of friends because of her politics – and now mostly spends time with those of a similar outlook.

She doesn’t agree with those who view the AfD as a dangerous movement – rather one that would offer genuine, radical change.

When I ask Ms Brychcy if she considers herself as far-right, she says that on certain issues – such as border control and crime, “Definitely yes”.

It’s a striking reply, particularly as often, the label of far-right is rejected by supporters of the AfD, including by the party leader, Alice Weidel, who insists she heads a conservative, libertarian movement.

With the horrors of the Nazis further and further in the past, this is a generation that’s grown up with parties like the AfD – whether that’s on TV talk shows or in parliament after the AfD got its first MPs in 2017.

Prof Abou-Chadi believes that the far-right, generally, has become more normalised to the point, “They don’t seem so extreme any more.”

That’s despite party scandals such as a talisman of the AfD’s hard right, Björn Höcke, being fined twice last year for using a Nazi slogan, though he denied doing so knowingly.

The AfD, in three German states, is classified as right-wing extremist by authorities – including in Saxony, a designation the party unsuccessfully challenged in court.

It’s a state where the number of “right-wing extremist individuals” had reached a “new high” – according to a report released last year by Saxony’s domestic intelligence service – that showed data back to 2015.

In a shopping mall in the city of Chemnitz in Saxony, we meet a group of young men who – while they won’t go on the record – tell us they’re right wing.

Dressed in black, with uniformly short hair, they express beliefs that homosexuality is wrong and fear that the German “race” is under threat because of the growing migrant community.

They question narratives about their country’s past, seemingly a reference to the Nazi era.

Diana Schwitalla has been teaching history and social studies for eight years. She says she has had to confront a case of Holocaust denial in the classroom and has heard other troubling remarks.

“We hear the Second World War was actually a good thing, and there was a reason people died then – and that this is good. Hitler is described as a good man,” says Ms Schwitalla.

She adds, “Many students… very young students, {who} say it doesn’t matter who I vote for, they’ll do what they want ‘up there’ anyway. The question of who’s ‘up there’, I don’t get an answer to that.”

We met her over the course of two days – including at an adult vocational college in Freiberg that sits on the grounds of a former Nazi concentration camp. Jewish women, brought from Auschwitz, were used for slave labour here to make parts for aeroplanes.

We did hear some talk of opposition to the levels of immigration into Germany plus a desire for national pride.

The first day we met Ms Schwitalla, she is helping to organise a mock election for the students as a way of engaging them about democracy at another college site in the town of Flöha – about 15 miles away from Freiberg.

We spoke to Cora, Melina and Joey, all 18.

Cora says she has heard men of her age express a desire for women to be in the home harking back to a time “when women took care of the children and when the husband comes home from work, the food is cooked”. She likens it to the so-called “Trad Wife” trend of adhering to traditional gender roles.

Cora and Melina voice fears about a rollback of women’s rights – including on abortion, even – remarkably – the right to vote. “Luckily that’s not being discussed in politics yet,” says Melina, “but I’ve heard discussions about women not being allowed to vote in elections anymore.”

A small group of students line up to vote around lunchtime and we watch as the results come in with “Die Linke” scoring top – the left party that’s relatively popular amongst the young but polling at only around five per cent nationwide.

The AfD came second, reinforcing what Prof Abou-Chadi has found, that, “younger people are much more likely to go for a further left or further right party than a centrist one”.

The AfD, whose signature issues include security, borders and migrant crime, are now even embracing the concept of “remigration” – a buzz-word in Europe’s far-right that’s widely understood to mean mass deportations.

Speaking to people in Germany, it is clear that support for the AfD can not just be read as some form of protest vote, even if there is frustration with the parties that have traditionally governed Germany. Celina, Dominic and Nick – and others we spoke to – genuinely hope and believe that the AfD could set Germany on the path of radical change.

It’s still the case that other parties will not go into coalition with the AfD but in January a non-binding motion was passed in the German parliament thanks to AfD votes for the first time.

Prof Abou-Chadi believes in the longer, -term, there could be an even more seismic change.

“And as soon as the more mainstream parties start giving up the ‘firewall’ or cordon sanitaire the far-right will start cannibalising the right.

“It’s very likely that, in many or most European countries, the far-right parties will be the main party on the right – or already are,” he says.

Parties like the AfD have worked hard to try and normalise themselves in the eyes of the public.

While there are people in Germany and Europe who view the far-right as an extremist, even anti-democratic, force – it appears that the ‘normalisation’ effort is working, not least of all among the young.

Top picture credit: Getty

Israeli troops have withdrawn from the Netzarim Corridor – a military zone cutting off the north of the Gaza Strip from the south.

Hundreds of Palestinians in cars and on carts laden with mattresses and other goods began returning to northern Gaza following the pull-out – often to scenes of utter destruction.

The Israeli withdrawal is in line with the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement of 19 January under which 16 Israeli hostages and 566 Palestinian prisoners have so far been freed.

By the end of the first stage of the ceasefire in three weeks’ time, 33 hostages and 1,900 prisoners are expected to have been freed. Israel says eight of the 33 are dead.

• Rebuilding my home in Gaza as Trump wants me to leave
• What does the ceasefire deal contain?
• How 15 months of war has devastated Gaza

Hamas seized 251 hostages and killed about 1,200 people when it attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, triggering the Gaza war.

At least 48,189 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. About two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s attacks, the UN says.

On Sunday, crowds of Palestinians were seen traversing the Netzarim Corridor – mostly moving north to see what had happened to their abandoned homes.

“What we saw was a catastrophe, horrific destruction. The [Israeli] occupation destroyed all the homes, shops, farms, mosques, universities and the courthouse,” Osama Abu Kamil, a resident of al-Maghraqa just north of Netzarim, told the AFP news agency.

The 57-year-old, who had been forced to live for more than a year in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis, said he now planned to “set up a tent for me and my family next to the rubble of our house”.

“We have no choice,” he added.

Mahmoud al-Sarhi, another displayed Palestinian, told AFP that for him “arriving at the Netzarim Corridor meant death until this morning”.

He said this was “the first time I saw our destroyed house”, referring to his home in the nearby Zeitun area.

“The entire area is in ruins. I cannot live here,” he added.

About 700,000 residents of northern Gaza fled to southern areas at the start of the war, when the Israeli military issued mass evacuation orders before launching a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory.

Many of those displaced were subsequently forced to move multiple times after Israeli forces pushed into southern Gaza, too.

They were also prevented from returning to their homes through the Netzarim Corridor, stretching from the Gaza-Israel border to the Mediterranean Sea.

Israeli forces partially withdrew from the west of the corridor last month and the first Palestinians – pedestrians – were allowed to walk along the coastal Rashid Street as they crossed into northern Gaza.

Those on vehicles have to use Salah al-Din Street and undergo screening for weapons by US and Egyptian security contractors.

The Israel Defense Forces have not officially commented on Sunday’s withdrawal from the eastern part of the corridor, which will leave it in control of Gaza’s borders, but not the road that had cut it in half.

The Haaretz newspaper says the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry has been urging people to “exercise caution and adhere to the existing movement guidelines for their safety”.

• What will anger at sight of gaunt hostages mean for a fragile ceasefire?
• Stories of the people taken from Israel
• Bowen: Trump’s Gaza plan won’t happen, but it will have consequences

The troop withdrawal comes as an Israeli delegation is expected to fly to Qatar which has been moderating talks between the two sides in the Gaza war.

The Israeli government has previously said the delegation will initially discuss “technical matters” regarding the first phase of the ceasefire deal, rather than the more challenging second phase which is meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire, the exchange of all remaining living hostages in Gaza for more Palestinian prisoners and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

That will require further direction from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently became the first foreign leader to meet US President Donald Trump since his return to the White House.

During the trip, in the most dramatic shift in US policy regarding Gaza in decades, Trump called for the removal of the territory’s entire civilian population and the development of what he called “The Riviera of the Middle East”.

Convening his first cabinet meeting since returning to Israel over the weekend, Netanyahu said Trump had come up with a “completely different vision, much better for the State of Israel”.

“A revolutionary, creative vision – and we are discussing it,” he was quoted as saying in an official readout of the meeting. “He [Trump] is very determined to carry it out. It also opens up many possibilities for us.”

Trump’s proposal, which would be a crime under international law, has been almost universally rejected, including by Arab states.

The Saudi foreign ministry said on Saturday that it would not accept “any infringement on the Palestinians’ unalienable rights, and any attempts at displacement,” accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing”.

Egypt has also rejected any idea of the removal of the Palestinian population and has said it is calling an emergency summit of the Arab League on 27 February to discuss what it called “serious” Palestinian developments.

One of the biggest sporting events in the world took place in New Orleans as the Philadelphia Eagles clinched this year’s Super Bowl with an emphatic 40-22 victory over defending champions the Kansas City Chiefs.

The event did not just bring out the best the NFL has had to offer this season – but plenty of Hollywood A-listers, musicians and US President Donald Trump were spotted in the stands of the Superdome.

Before the match started, actor Jon Hamm introduced the Chiefs while Bradley Cooper brought the hype for the Eagles.

Below are a selection of images of celebrities at this year’s Super Bowl.

• Follow live reaction as the Eagles clinch second Super Bowl

A “large” sewer blockage caused by “fat, grease and rags” has forced the cancellation of a Bryan Adams concert in Australia on public health grounds.

The Grammy Award winning artist was due to perform at the RAC Arena in Perth on Sunday, but the city’s water corporation said a blocked main risked backing up the venue’s toilets.

Adams apologised to fans on social media – many of whom had lined up for hours only to be turned away – and thanked them for their “patience and support” before promising to try to reschedule the show.

The concert promoter said the cancellation was “bitterly disappointing” and would provide ticketholders with a full refund.

“While every effort was made for the show to proceed, this matter was outside of the control of Bryan Adams, Frontier Touring and RAC Arena,” it wrote in a statement.

Perth’s water corporation said the fatberg responsible for the disruption had already “caused several wastewater overflows” on the main road near the venue and urged the public to avoid direct contact with “pooled water” in the area.

“We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused and will provide further updates as required,” it said in a post on Facebook, advising of the cancellation.

Adams – who is known for his tracks such as Summer of ’69 and Please Forgive Me – made his Australian debut in 1984 and has remained a beloved performer across the country ever since.

“I’m really sorry we couldn’t make this happen tonight — I was so looking forward to seeing you all,” he posted on social media on Sunday.

The Canadian rock star is still due to play in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne later this week.

Found in sewers around the world, fatbergs are formed when fat, oil and grease solidify and bind with items such as rags, or wet wipes.

They are known to cause serious blockages and environmental hazards. Last year, a fatberg weighing roughly the same as three double-decker buses was cleared from an east London sewer. And New York, Denver, Melbourne and Valencia have all found giant fatbergs blocking their waterways in recent years.

A nationwide blackout in Sri Lanka has been blamed on a monkey that intruded into a power station south of Colombo.

Power is gradually being restored across the island nation of 22 million people, with medical facilities and water purification plants being given priority.

“A monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system,” Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody told reporters.

The blackout started at about 11:00 local time (05:30 GMT) Sunday, forcing many to rely on generators. Officials say it may take a few hours to get power back.

On social media, people criticised the authorities while making fun of the incident.

“A rogue monkey knocked out Sri Lanka’s entire power grid after triggering a total failure at a substation in Colombo,” X user Mario Nawfal wrote.

“One monkey = total chaos. Time to rethink infrastructure?” he added.

Another X user, Sreeni R, posted an illustration of Hanuman, a Hindu god with the face of a monkey.

“Sri Lanka tasted monkey business in the past,” he wrote.

“Only in Sri Lanka can a group of monkeys fighting inside a power station cause an islandwide power outage,” wrote Jamila Husain, editor-in-chief of local newspaper Daily Mirror.

In a report published on Monday, the newspaper said engineers have been warning consecutive governments “for years” to upgrade its power grid or face frequent blackouts.

“The national power grid is in such a weakened state that frequent islandwide power outages maybe expected if there is a disturbance even in one of our lines,” it quoted an unnamed senior engineer saying.

Sri Lanka experienced widespread blackouts during its economic crisis in 2022.

An Israeli hostage freed from Gaza did not know his wife and daughters were killed in the 7 October attack until after his release on Saturday, his British family said.

Eli Sharabi was taken by Hamas 16 months ago and released on Saturday in Deir al-Balah, in Gaza.

His wife Lianne Sharabi, who was from Bristol, and daughters Noiya and Yahel were found murdered in their safe house “cuddled together” in 2023.

Lianne’s parents Gill and Pete Brisley told the BBC on Sunday that an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldier told Mr Sharabi what happened to his family.

His relatives had been unsure whether Mr Sharabi knew that Lianne, Noiya and Yahel – Mr and Mrs Brisley’s daughter and grandchildren – were killed in the 7 October attack.

He was one of three hostages handed to the Red Cross by Hamas in a choreographed release on Saturday as part of an internationally brokered ceasefire deal.

Speaking on stage during his release, Mr Sharabi said he was “very happy today to return to… my wife and daughters”, adding to concerns that he was unaware of what happened to them.

Mr and Mrs Brisley said Mr Sharabi was “lucid” and his “voice a bit husky” when they spoke later on a video call.

“He got choked up a couple of times but managed a small smile for us. Such a brave man,” said the couple who are due to fly out to see him soon.

Mr and Mrs Brisley, who live in Bridgend, south Wales, said they cried watching their son-in-law’s release on a livestream.

They said Mr Sharabi’s face looked “gaunt”.

Mr Brisley said it left them “a bit wobbly” and it was a “very emotional morning”.

He said: “When we saw Eli it was to see the emaciated state that they’ve put him in.

“Eli’s got quite a chubby face normally. You see the film of him with hollow eyes, sunken cheeks and his wrists were sticks.”

Mrs Brisley said: “Seeing Eli come out now, it brought everything back. [We] sat and bawled our eyes out.

“I was sitting there cuddling Lianne’s teddy bear. I think I made him wet actually. It reminded us of what we lost.”

“The only thing that keeps us going is the fact we know Eli is back. At least there’s one member of our very close family that is still alive,” Mrs Brisley said.

“[We’re] grateful to him for our two beautiful granddaughters, didn’t have them for long enough. We need now to concentrate on all of the happy times.

“So we live in our memories, that’s all we can do. Think about them, talk about them, and make sure nobody forgets them.”

Mr Brisley said: “We hope to be a part of getting him back to some sort of normal.”

Lianne grew up in Staple Hill, on the outskirts of Bristol, and first moved to Israel as a volunteer on a kibbutz when she was 19, before relocating to the country permanently.

After just three months in Israel, she met Eli. They had two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, who were 16 and 13 when they were killed.

One of Eli’s brothers, Yossi, was also taken hostage on 7 October, but was later killed in captivity. Hamas said his death was the result of an Israeli airstrike, which Israel said was likely.

Another of the hostages freed on Saturday, Or Levy, also learned upon his release that his wife was killed by Hamas during the attack in which he was abducted, his brother said.

Michael Levy told journalists: “For 491 days, he [Or] held on to the hope that he would return to her. For 491 days, he didn’t know she was no longer alive.”

He said his brother was “alive” and “here”, but their family’s “happiness is mixed with an immense sadness, a pain that cannot be described”.

The release of the three hostages comes under the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, which came into effect on 19 January.

Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday. The ceasefire deal will see a total of 33 hostages taken on 7 October released in weekly hand-overs in exchange for 1,900 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

So far, 16 Israeli hostages have been freed and 566 prisoners have been released since the ceasefire began.

On 7 October Hamas seized 251 hostages and killed about 1,200 people when it attacked Israel, triggering the war.

At least 47,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

About two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s attacks, the UN says.

Tareq, 10, from Gaza, and Safaa, 14, from Sudan live about 2,000km apart. They have never met, but they share a harsh reality – war has stolen their education.

“When I saw my school in ruins, a deep sadness overwhelmed me. I long for it to return to what it once was,” Tareq tells the BBC from Gaza.

“Despite everything, I haven’t stopped learning. I study at home, making sure not to waste a moment so when I do go back to school, I will be ready,” he adds.

In Sudan, Safaa dreams of becoming a heart surgeon. “I’m still holding on to hope,” she says, but she has traumatic memories of the country’s civil war.

“Bodies were scattered everywhere, which deeply moved me and made me want to save lives instead of seeing them being lost.”

Tareq and Safaa are among the 30 million children who, according to the United Nations children’s agency Unicef, are out of school in the Middle East and North Africa. It estimates that more than half – 16.5 million – are in Sudan alone.

In response, the BBC World Service has launched an Arabic edition of its award-winning educational programme Dars – or Lesson.

In the past year in Gaza, “over 600,000 children – that’s all the school-aged children in Gaza – didn’t get education”, says Saleem Oweis, a spokesperson for Unicef.

“We’re seeing a pattern of how conflicts, insecurity and crises are inflicting real harm on children’s education and learning,” he adds.

In Sudan, nearly two years after a civil war erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, millions of children are living in refugee camps where education is only available through local initiatives.

In an interview with the BBC, Sudan’s education minister, Ahmed Khalifa, highlights the scale of devastation.

“No state was spared,” he says. “Sudan has approximately 15,000 public schools. Between 60% and 70% of these schools have been completely damaged, losing their foundations, infrastructure and books.

“Even in safer states, schools have suffered damage due to systematic destruction by militias.”

Dars was first launched in 2023 for children in Afghanistan, including girls barred from secondary school, with the United Nations describing it as a “learning lifeline” for children unable to attend classes.

Designed for children between the ages of 11 and 16, Dars Arabic has weekly lessons on a range of subjects including maths, technology, climate and mental health.

It also features the stories of children, such as Tareq and Safaa, who despite war and other obstacles, are still determined to learn.

The first episode aired on Sunday 9 February, on BBC News Arabic TV. New episodes are broadcast weekly on Sundays at 05:30 GMT (07:30 EET), with repeats at 10:05 GMT (12:05 EET) and throughout the week.

The programme is also available on digital platforms, including BBC News Arabic YouTube, as well as lifeline radio services in Gaza and Syria.

Indian security forces have killed 31 Maoist rebels in the forests of Chhattisgarh state.

Two Indian commandos were also killed in the battle, and two other security force members were wounded, police said.

Chhattisgarh has seen a long-running insurgency by Maoists who say they are fighting for the rights of the poor.

Sunday’s clashes were among the deadliest clashes since the government ramped up efforts to crush the insurgency, which has been running since the 1960s.

“So far 31 dead bodies of the Maoists have been recovered,” senior police officer Sundarraj Pattilingam said.

The death toll could rise as police carry out operations in the area, he said.

Police said they had seized assault rifles and grenade launchers from the bodies of the dead rebels.

The clashes took place in the forests of Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh.

Amit Shah, India’s interior minister, who says the government expects to crush the rebellion by 2026, said the operation had been a “big success”.

The rebels are inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. They claim to be fighting for communist rule and greater rights for tribal people and the rural poor.

The insurgency began in West Bengal state in the late 1960s and has since spread to more than a third of India’s 600 districts.

The rebels control large areas of several states in a “red corridor” stretching from north-east to central India.

Major military and police offensives in recent years have pushed the rebels back to their forest strongholds and levels of violence have fallen.

But clashes between security forces and rebels are still common, killing scores of people every year.

A crackdown by security forces killed around 287 rebels last year – the vast majority in Chhattisgarh – according to government data. More than 10,000 people are believed to have died since the 1960s.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti has claimed victory for his party in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, although exit polls suggest he is short of a majority.

Kurti’s ruling Vetevendosje party won around 40% of the votes, compared to 50% in 2021, exit poll projections say.

He said he was confident he will be able to form a government, adding: “We are the [winners] and this is confirmation of a good, prosperous and democratic government.”

But, official results are unclear due to the failure of the Central Election Commission’s counting system.

President Vjosa Osmani has called on the commission to “protect the integrity of the electoral process, ensuring that every vote is counted correctly”.

The editor of the media group Koha said the president should sack the commission’s chair.

Besnik Krasniqi said the failure of the system for preliminary results was “intolerable”.

Koha news says centre-left party Vetevendosje will get 42% of the vote – securing 47 seats in the 120-member parliament.

The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) is polling 21%, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) is on 20%, and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) has 6%. The electoral commission is currently not giving any count updates, citing “technical problems”.

Kurti came to power in 2021 when a coalition run by his party secured a small majority with over 50% of the vote.

Before any results were officially declared Kurti said: “Our coalition will form our third government.

“It will continue the work. The people won, Vetëvendosje won.”

Kurti’s popularity has been boosted by efforts to extend government control over the ethnic-Serb majority north.

But that has antagonised Kosovo’s main backers – the EU and the US. Opposition parties advocate a more conciliatory approach, and have criticised the government’s handling of the economy.

The centre-right LDK has campaigned on joining Nato, and restoring relations with the US. The PDK, also centre-right, was founded by former guerrilla fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

“We are proud of the campaign and the election day. We await the results, but already we have reason to be optimistic,” said Vlora Citaku, deputy PDK leader.

Meanwhile, AAK leader Ramush Haradinaj, a former prime minister of the country, said he was “looking forward to co-operating on the creation of an opposition government” to prevent Kurti’s return to power.

Under Kosovo’s constitution, 10 MPs must come from the Serb minority, and they will not co-operate with Kurti’s party.

The remaining 10 seats are reserved for other minority ethnic groups, which have previously worked with Vetevendosje, which translates as “self-determination”.

Kurti has previously said he would not co-operate with any of the opposition parties.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, after years of strained relations between its Serb and mainly ethnic Albanian inhabitants.

It has been recognised by the US and most major EU countries, but Serbia, backed by its powerful ally Russia, refuses to do so, as do most ethnic Serbs inside Kosovo.

President Trump has defended Elon Musk’s drive to shut down sections of the US government amid legal challenges, transparency concerns and questions over conflicts of interest.

“He’s not gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it,” Trump said Sunday.

Democrats have accused Musk of personally benefiting from some of the changes that the Trump administration is trying to push through, such as the proposed closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Trump said Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) would soon examine spending in the military and the Department of Education, possibly in the next “24 hours”.

“Let’s check the military,” he said. “We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse, and the people elected me on that.”

Earlier on Sunday, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News he “welcomes” Doge putting military spending under the microscope.

“When we spend dollars, we need to know where they’re going and why, and that has not existed at the defence department,” he said.

Trump’s comments on Musk and Doge came from an interview with Fox News journalist Bret Baier during a pre-game broadcast leading up to Sunday’s Super Bowl.

During the interview, the president also said he was not satisfied with actions taken by Mexico and Canada on illegal drugs and border crossings.

He also said he was serious about his proposal to turn Canada into the 51st US state, an idea the wide majority of Canadians oppose.

Doge employees have entered several government departments since Trump took office and led the charge to try to shut down USAID.

In recent days, some Doge staffers have been spotted at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an agency set up to protect consumers in the wake of the 2007-8 financial crisis.

CFPB employees in the bureau’s Washington office have been told to work from home for at least a week, according to an email seen by BBC News.

However Trump’s opponents have filed legal challenges to try to halt some of the changes and several of the president’s executive orders.

On Saturday, a federal judge blocked Doge from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans held in Treasury Department records.

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer ordered Musk and his team to immediately destroy any copies of records.

The Trump administration has not responded to requests about Doge’s activities, funding or the number of people it employs.

Courts have also paused Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, a plan to put thousand of USAID staff on leave and a large buyout offer to federal employees.

Republicans including Vice President JD Vance criticised Engelmayer’s ruling. Vance alleged the injunction was illegal and wrote on X: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

Alina Habba, a Trump aide, told Fox News earlier Sunday that there would be “repercussions for people” trying to “step in Trump’s way”.

Democrats meanwhile stepped up their criticism of Musk and Trump, but with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, they have little leverage outside of legal action.

“Our courts are working as they should,” Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar told CBS’s Face the Nation. “What is not working is the way that the executive branch is behaving.”

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy says Musk “stands to gain from the closure of USAID”.

“It makes America much less safe around the world, but it helps China,” Murphy told ABC News. “Elon Musk has many major business interests at stake inside Beijing.”

Murphy called the Trump administration’s actions “the most serious constitutional crisis” since the Watergate scandal.

“The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes,” he claimed.

Trump’s interview restarted a tradition dating back about 20 years. The presidential interview has been absent from the Super Bowl pre-game for the last two editions after former President Joe Biden twice declined to appear.

President Trump himself refused to talk to NBC in 2018. This year he becomes the first US president to watch the game in person.

Fox News anchor Baier asked Trump about the differences between his second presidency and taking office for the first time in 2017.

“I had tremendous opposition [last time], but I didn’t know people and I didn’t have the kind of support I needed,” Trump said. “I was a New York person, not a [Washington] DC person.”

In response to a question about Canada, Trump said US trade deficits would justify annexation.

“I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state, because we lose $200bn a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen. It’s too much,” he said. “Now, if they’re a 51st state, I don’t mind doing it.”

Administration officials have previously said the figure of $200bn includes both defence spending and the US trade deficit.

When asked if Canada and Mexico had satisfied the demands which led to tariff threats, Trump responded: “No, it’s not good enough. Something has to happen, it’s not sustainable.”

The president also praised both Super Bowl teams and ultimately picked Kansas City to win the championship.

It was a warm February night when an ominous message popped into Hannah Grundy’s inbox in Sydney.

“I will just keep emailing because I think this is worthy of your attention,” the anonymous sender wrote.

Inside was a link, and a warning in bold: “[This] contains disturbing material.”

She hesitated for a moment, fearing it was a scam.

The reality was so much worse. The link contained pages and pages of fake pornography featuring Hannah, alongside detailed rape fantasies and violent threats.

“You’re tied up in them,” she recalls. “You look afraid. You’ve got tears in your eyes. You’re in a cage.”

Written in kitschy word art on some images was Hannah’s full name. Her Instagram handle was posted, as was the suburb she lived in. She would later learn her phone number had also been given out.

That email kicked off a saga Hannah likens to a movie. She was left to become her own detective, uncovering a sickening betrayal by someone close to her, and building a case which changed her life – and Australian legal standards.

The web page was called “The Destruction of Hannah”, and at the top of it was a poll where hundreds of people had voted on the vicious ways they wanted to abuse her.

Below was a thread of more than 600 vile photos, with Hannah’s face stitched on to them. Buried in between them were chilling threats.

“I’m closing in on this slut,” the main poster said.

“I want to hide in her house and wait until she is alone, grab her from behind and… feel her struggle.”

It’s been three years now, but the 35-year-old school teacher has no trouble recalling the “pure shock” that coursed through when she and partner Kris Ventura, 33, opened the page.

“You immediately feel unsafe,” Hannah tells me, eyes wide as she grips a mug of peppermint tea in her living room.

Clicking through the website Kris had also found photos of their close friends, along with images depicting at least 60 other women, many also from Sydney.

The couple quickly realised the pictures used to create the deepfakes were from the women’s private social media accounts. And the penny dropped: this was someone they all knew.

Desperate to find out who, Hannah and Kris spent hours at the kitchen table, identifying the women, searching their social media friends lists for a common link, and methodically building a dossier of evidence.

Within four hours, they had a list of three potential suspects.

On it, but immediately discounted, was their close friend from university Andrew Hayler. The trio had met while working at a campus bar, and the staff there quickly formed deep friendships.

And Andy, as they called him – the supervisor – was the glue of the group.

He was considerate and affable, Hannah says – the kind of guy who looked out for women in the bar and made sure his female friends got home safely after a night out.

They all hung out regularly, went on holidays together, loved and trusted each other.

“I thought of him as a very close friend,” Hannah says.

“We were just so sure that he was a good person.”

But soon they’d whittled down the list to just one name: his.

When Hannah woke the next morning and went to the police station, mingling with her shock and horror was a “naive” sliver of optimism.

“We thought they’d go grab him that afternoon,” Kris says with a wry smile.

Instead, Hannah says she was met with disdain.

She recalls one New South Wales Police officer asking what she’d done to Andy. At one stage they suggested Hannah simply ask him to stop. Later, they pointed to a picture of her in a skimpy outfit and said “you look cute in this one”, she says.

New South Wales Police declined to comment to the BBC on the specifics of Hannah’s case.

But she says the way her complaint was handled made her feel like she was making “a big deal out of nothing”.

“And for me, it felt quite life-changing,” says Hannah.

Any faith she still held that police would help quickly dwindled.

Amid delays, she turned to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, but under its powers as a regulatory body it could only offer help in taking the content down.

Desperate, the couple hired a lawyer and commissioned a digital forensics analyst to move things along.

In the meantime, to avoid tipping Andy off and to keep themselves safe, they retreated inwards.

“The world for you just gets smaller. You don’t speak to people. You don’t really go out,” Hannah says.

Intense fear and loneliness filled the void instead.

“We’d already had to suspend complete belief to understand that he’d done these things, so [the idea of] him actually coming to try and rape you or hurt you isn’t that much of a bigger stretch.”

The couple installed cameras all around their house and set up location tracking on Hannah’s devices. She began wearing a health watch 24/7, so someone would know if her heartbeat rose – or ceased.

“I stopped having the windows open because I was scared… maybe someone would come in,” Hannah explains.

“We slept with a knife in both of our bedside tables because we just thought: ‘What if?'”

Still feeling abandoned by police, Kris had taken on the burden of monitoring the site for the slightest sign of escalation towards Hannah and any of their friends – who, to protect the investigation, still did not know anything.

Guilt ate at the pair: “We had a constant battle about whether it was right to not tell them,” Hannah says.

At one point told the investigation had been suspended, Hannah and Kris forked out even more money for a detailed forensic report, and threatened to make a formal complaint to the police watchdog. All up, they spent over A$20,000 (£10,200; $12,400) trying to protect themselves and stop Andy.

Finally a new detective was assigned and within two weeks police were raiding Andy’s house. He admitted everything.

Filled with relief, then dread, Hannah began calling her friends to break the news.

“My stomach just dropped,” Jessica Stuart says, recalling the moment she learned what Andy had done to her photos.

“I felt really violated but… I don’t think I fully comprehended.”

For her, again, the sucker punch was that a friend who she loved like “family” was behind the crime. Andy had always appeared “so unassuming” and “really thoughtful” – someone she’d called for help through a difficult time.

“It’s been really hard to reconcile that those two people are actually the same person.”

The case was uncharted territory for Australia.

For at least a decade, experts have warned advances in technology would lead to a wave of AI crimes. But authorities have been caught on the back foot, leaving deepfake victims – overwhelmingly women – vulnerable.

At the time Andy was arrested in 2022, there was no offence for creating or sharing deepfake pornography in NSW, or anywhere else in Australia, and the country had never seen a case of this magnitude before.

The 39-year-old was charged with using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence – a low-level catch-all offence for many internet crimes – and Hannah was warned to keep her expectations low.

“We were prepared to go to court and for him to get a slap on the wrist,” she says.

But she and the 25 other women who decided to be part of the case were determined Andy be held accountable. One after the other, several gave crushing statements at his sentencing hearing last year.

“You didn’t just betray my friendship, but you shattered the sense of safety I used to take for granted,” Jess told the court. “The world feels unfamiliar and dangerous, I am constantly anxious, I have nightmares when I am able to sleep.

“Forming new friendships feels impossible, burdened by the constant question: ‘Could this person be like you?'”

When it came time for Andy to apologise to the women he’d targeted, Jess and Hannah couldn’t stomach being in the room. They walked out.

“There is nothing that he can say to me that makes it better, and I wanted him to know that,” Hannah says.

Andy told the court that creating the images had felt “empowering” as “an outlet” for a “dark” part of his psyche, but that he didn’t think they would cause real harm.

“I have really done a terrible thing and I am so very sorry,” he said.

Judge Jane Culver was not convinced of his remorse, saying while there was “some contrition”, he didn’t seem to understand the clearly “profound and ongoing” suffering that his “prolific” and “disturbing” offending had caused.

She sentenced Andy to nine years in jail – in what has been called a landmark decision.

“The gasp that went through the court… it was such a relief,” Jess says.

“It was the first time I felt like we had actually been listened to.”

Andy will be eligible for parole in December 2029, but has told the court he intends to challenge his sentence.

Nicole Shackleton, a law expert who researches technology and gender, told the BBC the “unprecedented” case set a surprising, and significant, legal standard for future cases.

The judge had recognised “this wasn’t merely something that happened online” and that such behaviour was “tied to offline violence against women”, said Dr Shackleton, from Melbourne’s RMIT University.

But Australia and other countries remain poor at regulating the use of AI and proactively investigating its misuse, experts like her argue.

Australia has recently criminalised the creation and sharing of deepfake pornography at a national level. But many other countries have legislation accused of containing loopholes, or do not criminalise deepfake pornography at all. In the UK, sharing it is an offence, but creating or soliciting it is not – though this is about to change.

And in the face of under-trained and under-resourced police forces, many victims like Hannah or private investigators – like the one who tipped her off – are left to be de facto detectives and regulators.

In a statement, NSW Police said investigations into AI crimes are a challenging, “resource and time intensive process”, and training has recently been beefed up “with the goal that every officer… can respond to these types of crimes effectively”.

The force also works with the eSafety Commissioner and tech companies to take down deepfake abuse, the statement added.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said removal of the distressing material is the top priority for most victim-survivors, and eSafety had “an extremely high success rate in achieving it”.

But eSafety does not have the punitive powers to pursue criminal investigations and penalties, she added in a statement to the BBC.

“You can have whatever laws you like, [but] if you have a police force that are incompetent…” Kris says, trailing off.

“We’re obviously angry at Andy. But it is also disgusting that the only way you get justice with something like this is if you’re two people in your 30s that can afford to bully the police.”

They’re determined for things to be different for future victims. In the past six months alone, two schoolboys in separate cases in NSW and Victoria have been reported to police for allegedly creating mass deepfake nudes of their classmates.

After several years of hell, Hannah is also trying to move on.

But Andy’s looming appeal threatens the hard work she’s done to rebuild her life and mental health.

Knees at her chest and feet tucked under her on the couch, she says Andy got the sentence he deserved.

“Because for me, and for the other girls, it is forever… they will always be on the internet,” she says.

She still pays for a service which scours the web for the pictures, and she worries about future friends, employers, students – her own children – finding them.

One of her biggest fears is that her best memories will never be reclaimed.

“You post things on Facebook and Instagram because they’re the happiest moments of your life. You get a dog, you buy a house, you get engaged and you post a photo.

“He had turned every single one of those moments for us into porn. And so when you see that photo… well, now I see myself getting raped.”

If Japan needed reassurances it was indeed still the US’s top ally and friend in the increasingly unstable Asia-Pacific, it got that and then some.

But what was striking about the Trump-Ishiba meeting at the White House was what didn’t happen.

Unlike most of the Trump domestic and global dynamics so far, this was neither controversial nor confrontational.

“On television, he is very frightening,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters after Friday’s meeting.

“But when I met him, he was very sincere, very powerful and strong willed,” he added.

There’s a lot that ties Washington and Tokyo. Japan has been the top foreign investor in the US for five consecutive years, creating thousands of jobs. And there are 54,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan.

But President Donald Trump has given his friends and foes a lot to worry about: from tariff wars against China, Canada and Mexico to his US “ownership” of Gaza proposal and his sanctions against the International Criminal Court.

“Trump has made some erratic decisions towards countries that believed themselves to be America’s friends,” said Jeffrey Hall, lecturer at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies.

“There was a fear in Tokyo that the same might happen: that Trump might slap huge tariffs on Japan or start some dispute. But that didn’t happen,” he added.

While Trump didn’t rule out tariffs against Tokyo, it wasn’t the main feature of this meeting.

Ishiba went to Washington prepared. He’d studied. Literally. He held “study sessions” with staff and sought advice from his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.

He also had some help from the widow of the late former PM Shinzo Abe, who had a close relationship with Trump during his first presidency, forged on the golf course.

Ishiba’s homework paid off.

Apart from when Trump mistakenly referred to Nippon Steel as “Nissan”, there weren’t many eye-raising moments like the many other announcements by the US president.

In fact – as far as Japan is concerned – this meeting was reassuring.

Both leaders seemed to have met eye-to-eye on their countries’ plans to boost trade and defence ushering in a “golden-era” of Japan-US relations.

Ishiba announced his country’s plans to increase investment in the US to $1tn (£806bn), as the two economic powers rebalance trade relations.

Ishiba said Japanese car makers would boost investment, while Tokyo would expand imports of US liquified natural gas (LNG).

This would have been music to Trump’s ears and a boost to his “drill, baby, drill” announcement from his inauguration speech.

The two men also managed to find common ground on the controversial issue of Nippon Steel.

Trump said Nippon would “invest heavily” in the Pennsylvania-based US Steel without taking a majority stake.

The Japanese firm’s attempted takeover of US Steel had been previously blocked by President Joe Biden on national security grounds.

There were enough boxes ticked for Japan to breathe easy – but the main purpose of Ishiba’s visit was personal.

The Japanese PM has been in a fraught political position at home – with his minority government keeping a weak grip on power after it was humiliated in October’s general elections when they lost their ruling majority.

Ishiba was desperate for a win.

The man himself has not elicited much confidence in how he would fare opposite a notorious Trump.

“For weeks local media played up the idea that he would not succeed diplomatically – that he was clumsy, not a sociable person and that Trump would eat his lunch, if he made it to Washington,” said Mr Hall.

But Ishiba is walking away with what looks a lot like success.

The former Japanese defence minister is a veteran politician known for dense speeches in parliament. Observers have said such speeches manage to confuse some of his opponents and bore others.

But in a “Trump strategy meeting” with his staff, the biggest piece of advice he reportedly got was: “Conclusion first. Keep it simple.”

“Ishiba followed a play book to flatter Trump personally and offer him economic investments in the US instead of confronting him”, said Mr Hall.

There are several issues that Japan and the US could disagree on. Not least Trump’s proposal of a US takeover of the Gaza Strip, which sparked fierce criticism around the world.

Japan reiterated its long-standing position of supporting a two-state solution.

“We won’t change our stance,” said Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya last week.

Tokyo is also watching Trump’s trade war with China nervously.

But Hall said Japan would not be drawn into the US-China trade war if it could help it.

When it comes to China, Japan needs to strike a fine balance.

Beijing is Tokyo’s largest trading partner. China is one of the largest investment destinations for Japanese companies.

On the defence and diplomatic front both the US and Japan are challenged by China’s rising influence and assertiveness in the region and globally.

Not least with Chinese military’s now frequent and provocative moves in waters near Taiwan which Beijing sees as a renegade province.

In 2022, Japan, a pacifist nation, announced it would double its military spending by 2027, citing threats posed by China and North Korea, and saying it would acquire the ability to strike enemy bases.

The changes marked the most dramatic overhaul to Japan’s security strategy since it adopted a pacifist constitution after World War Two.

With North Korea continuing its nuclear program, South Korea in political meltdown, and the ongoing US-China rivalry, Japan has yet again presented itself as America’s least challenging and only unproblematic friend in the region.

“Japan will avoid any confrontation with Trump when possible. It will most likely become a ‘yes’ friend,” said Hall.

The expression Black Hawk Down, the title of a Hollywood film, has become shorthand for a 1993 US military disaster in Somalia.

Eighteen American soldiers lost their lives in the fighting that began on 3 October, but so did hundreds of Somalis.

As Netflix launches a documentary about those events, the BBC has spoken to some Somalis still scarred by what happened.

Despite being surrounded by the debris of an ongoing civil war, Mogadishu’s residents in the early 1990s embraced the moments of serenity.

The warm Sunday sunshine and cooling ocean breeze made for the perfect opportunity for Binti Ali Wardhere, 24 at the time, to visit relatives with her mother.

“That day was calm,” she remembers.

But like everyone else in the city she was unaware that the Americans were getting ready to attack warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed – and what happened would change her life forever.

The US had deployed soldiers to Somalia in 1992. They were there to support a UN mission that offered humanitarian assistance to alleviate a famine – in part caused by the collapse of the central government.

But after Aideed was blamed for being behind the killing of 24 UN peacekeepers in June 1993, he became a focus of military action.

This included a US raid in July in which at least 70 Somalis died, marking a turning-point in the way the Americans were viewed. It also led to the deployment of elite US Rangers.

On 3 October, the US got intelligence that Aideed would be at a meeting with his top officials at a hotel. The Americans launched an airborne operation that was supposed to take 90 minutes – in the end it lasted 17 hours.

For Binti, the first sign that something unusual was happening was the sound of deafening explosions that started just after 15:30 local time.

Mogadishu residents had become accustomed to the sound of fighting, but there was something about the magnitude of these blasts and the shockwaves they caused that felt abnormal.

People began fleeing in all directions.

Determined to understand what was happening, Binti climbed to the rooftop of her relative’s house. From there, she saw that the fighting was taking place in her own neighbourhood.

Two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, one at 16:20 and the other at 16:40. The taskforce was surrounded and then a rescue mission began.

Fearing for her family, Binti ran for home.

“To this day, I still see the bodies scattered in the streets,” she says.

• WATCH: The Somali battle that changed US policy in Africa
• WATCH: A military disaster remembered

Binti reached her house just after 18:00 and was relieved to find everyone safe.

The fighting eased a little bit, bringing a brief moment of calm.

She served tea as her husband discussed the war with a neighbour. But he did not have a chance to taste the tea as a shell hit their house.

Binti felt her hand get partially severed. She fell to the ground, a woman collapsed on top of her.

“There was hot water running over my head. I thought to myself: ‘Who opened the water pipe?'”

She then realised it was the blood of the person on top of her, who had died. It was Binti’s neighbour who had come to their house for safety.

That night, Binti also lost her husband, Mohamed Aden, and two sons – 14-year-old Abdulkadir Mohamed and 13-year-old Abdurahman Mohamed.

Four of her other children, along with her brother, who had been staying with them, were injured. Her brother later succumbed to his injuries.

Ifrah, who was just four years old at the time, was permanently blinded.

Binti’s eldest son, now a father himself, continues to struggle with mental health issues. To this day, the sight or sound of an aeroplane sends him into hiding.

He did not know it on that quiet Sunday morning, but prominent cameraman Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, also known as Ahmed Five, was to play a major role in how the events were seen.

Twenty-nine at the time, he had already documented clan wars, famine and the chaotic events of Mogadishu and its suburbs.

That day, he was not thinking about work when the explosions rattled the air.

The sounds of helicopter gunfire and heavy machine guns signalled something more intense than the crackle of AK-47 that he normally heard.

Ahmed always carried his camera, knowing that in Mogadishu anything could happen at any moment. He instinctively began documenting the unfolding chaos and headed towards the heart of the battle.

“Although this situation was completely different from the ones I had worked in before, I still decided to record these events and take on that responsibility,” he tells the BBC.

The closest event he had ever witnessed to this was the July raid which galvanised anti-American sentiment and set the stage for October’s confrontation.

On the first day, he filmed some of the fighting between the US soldiers and the Somalis.

Then on the second day, he was led to a house where US pilot Michael Durant was being held.

Mr Durant had been flying the second Black Hawk that had come down after it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. After crashing, his three crew members were killed in the fighting along with two others who had gone to rescue them.

“It was a huge gun battle. They say that 25 Somalis were killed by gunfire at crash site two, so that gives you some insight into how much shooting was going on,” Mr Durant later told the BBC.

• Black Hawk survivor speaks of his time in captivity

He was saved when a gunman recognised that the pilot might have value as a prisoner.

Ahmed then filmed the nervous and battered American who had several scars on his face. He can be seen confirming his identity while breathing heavily and glancing to his side at an interrogator, who is out of shot.

Until that point, neither the US nor Aideed knew Mr Durant was being held, Ahmed says.

“I handed the videotapes to a UN plane that flew daily from Mogadishu to Nairobi [in neighbouring Kenya].

“The first report of the Mogadishu battle to reach the world was from the footage I recorded. At the time, I was working as a freelancer for CNN.”

The images captured by Ahmed made headlines around the world.

They also fed into the debate about US combat policy in the African continent, which shifted after the fighting in Mogadishu.

“This is something I take pride in – though at the time, I didn’t anticipate its impact,” Ahmed says.

Within six months, the US had withdrawn its forces from Somalia. The perceived failure of the Somali mission made the US wary of intervening in subsequent African crises.

The third of October started as a day of celebration in Saida Omar Mohamud’s household as that morning she gave birth to a baby girl.

Relatives and neighbours gathered at her home to congratulate her, as the family prepared for a traditional name-giving ceremony.

But the mood shifted once the fighting started.

Chaos erupted as the first helicopter crashed in front of Saida’s home.

Within moments, she remembers at least 10 US soldiers storming into the house.

They gathered everyone into the living room, ordering them not to move and turned it into an impromptu field hospital.

The family watched in shock as wounded soldiers were laid on their dining table, receiving emergency medical treatment.

“Although they were afraid, they made us scared as well. They turned our house into a stronghold,” Saida says.

As well as her own searing memories, Saida left a permanent reminder of that day with what she decided to call her daughter,

As Somalis say, “no name is given without a reason” and so Saida’s little girl is now known as Amina Rangers.

The Netflix documentary features “raw, immersive storytelling with first-person interviews from both sides of the Battle of Mogadishu”, according to the publicity. It sheds light on the horrors experienced by Somalis like Binti during the conflict.

“This time, Somalis were given the opportunity to share their account of events. It is crucial that both sides of the story are always told,” Ahmed Five says.

But for Binti Ali, simply telling the story is not enough.

She lost loved ones in the war. Yet she feels the devastation inflicted on Somali families like hers remains largely unacknowledged.

“It was the Americans who destroyed my house, killed my husband, my two sons, and my brother, and left my family in lasting misery,” she says, her voice breaking.

“At the very least, they must admit what they have done and compensate us.”

• Why Trump is on the warpath in Somalia
• Somalia’s men in sarongs taking on al-Shabab militants
• Somali piracy 2.0 – the BBC meets the new robbers of the high seas
• A quick guide to Somalia

President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship in the US has sparked several legal challenges and some anxiety among immigrant families.

For nearly 160 years, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution has established the principle that anyone born in the country is a US citizen.

But as part of his crackdown on migrant numbers, Trump is seeking to deny citizenship to children of migrants who are either in the country illegally or on temporary visas.

The move appears to have public backing. A poll by Emerson College suggests many more Americans back Trump than oppose him on this.

But how does this compare to citizenship laws around the world?

Birthright citizenship, or jus soli (right of the soil), is not the norm globally.

The US is one of about 30 countries – mostly in the Americas – that grant automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders.

In contrast, many countries in Asia, Europe, and parts of Africa adhere to the jus sanguinis (right of blood) principle, where children inherit their nationality from their parents, regardless of their birthplace.

Other countries have a combination of both principles, also granting citizenship to children of permanent residents.

John Skrentny, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego, believes that, though birthright citizenship or jus soli is common throughout the Americas, “each nation-state had its own unique road to it”.

“For example, some involved slaves and former slaves, some did not. History is complicated,” he says. In the US, the 14th Amendment was adopted to address the legal status of freed slaves.

However, Mr Skrentny argues that what almost all had in common was “building a nation-state from a former colony”.

“They had to be strategic about whom to include and whom to exclude, and how to make the nation-state governable,” he explains. “For many, birthright citizenship, based on being born in the territory, made for their state-building goals.

“For some, it encouraged immigration from Europe; for others, it ensured that indigenous populations and former slaves, and their children, would be included as full members, and not left stateless. It was a particular strategy for a particular time, and that time may have passed.”

In recent years, several countries have revised their citizenship laws, tightening or revoking birthright citizenship due to concerns over immigration, national identity, and so-called “birth tourism” where people visit a country in order to give birth.

India, for example, once granted automatic citizenship to anyone born on its soil. But over time, concerns over illegal immigration, particularly from Bangladesh, led to restrictions.

Since December 2004, a child born in India is only a citizen if both parents are Indian, or if one parent is a citizen and the other is not considered an illegal migrant.

Many African nations, which historically followed jus soli under colonial-era legal systems, later abandoned it after gaining independence. Today, most require at least one parent to be a citizen or a permanent resident.

Citizenship is even more restrictive in most Asian countries, where it is primarily determined by descent, as seen in nations such as China, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Europe has also seen significant changes. Ireland was the last country in the region to allow unrestricted jus soli.

It abolished the policy after a June 2004 poll, when 79% of voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring at least one parent to be a citizen, permanent resident, or legal temporary resident.

The government said change was needed because foreign women were travelling to Ireland to give birth in order to get an EU passport for their babies.

One of the most severe changes occurred in the Dominican Republic, where, in 2010, a constitutional amendment redefined citizenship to exclude children of undocumented migrants.

A 2013 Supreme Court ruling made this retroactive to 1929, stripping tens of thousands – mostly of Haitian descent – of their Dominican nationality. Rights groups warned that this could leave many stateless, as they did not have Haitian papers either.

The move was widely condemned by international humanitarian organisations and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

As a result of the public outcry, the Dominican Republic passed a law in 2014 that established a system to grant citizenship to Dominican-born children of immigrants, particularly favouring those of Haitian descent.

Mr Skrentny sees the changes as part of a broader global trend. “We are now in an era of mass migration and easy transportation, even across oceans. Now, individuals also can be strategic about citizenship. That’s why we are seeing this debate in the US now.”

Within hours of President Trump’s order, various lawsuits were launched by Democratic-run states and cities, civil rights groups and individuals.

Two federal judges have sided with plaintiffs, most recently District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland on Wednesday.

She sided with five pregnant women who argued that denying their children citizenship violated the US Constitution.

Most legal scholars agree that President Trump cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.

Ultimately this will be decided by the courts, said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and University of Virginia Law School professor. “This is not something he can decide on his own.”

The order is now on hold as the case makes it through the courts.

It is unclear how the Supreme Court, where conservative justices form a supermajority, would interpret the 14th Amendment if it came to it.

Trump’s justice department has argued it only applies to permanent residents. Diplomats, for example, are exempt.

But others counter that other US laws apply to undocumented migrants so the 14th Amendment should too.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is in turmoil – fighters from the notorious M23 rebel group have been surging through the country’s east, battling the national army and capturing key places as they go.

In just a fortnight, thousands of people are said to have been killed and the fighting has sparked an ominous war of words between DR Congo and its neighbour, Rwanda.

So how did DR Congo – the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa – get here?

The origins of this complex conflict can be understood through the story of one man – M23 leader Sultani Makenga, who is the subject of various war crime allegations.

To go back through Makenga’s life so far is to look into decades of warfare, intermittent foreign intervention and the persistent lure of DR Congo’s rich mineral resources.

His life began on Christmas Day in 1973, when he was born in the lush Congolese town of Masisi.

Raised by parents of the Tutsi ethnic group, Makenga quit school at the age of 17 to join a Tutsi rebel outfit across the border in Rwanda.

This group, named the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), were demanding greater Tutsi representation in Rwanda’s government, which at the time was dominated by politicians from the Hutu majority.

They also wanted the hundreds and thousands of Tutsi refugees who had been forced from the country by ethnic violence to be able to return home.

For four years, Makenga and the RPF fought the Hutu-dominated army in Rwanda. Their battle was enmeshed with the 1994 genocide, when Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

When looking back at this time in a rare 2013 interview, Makenga stated: “My life is war, my education is war, and my language is war… but I do respect peace.”

The RPF gradually seized more and more land before marching into Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, and overthrowing the extremist Hutu government – many of whom fled into what is now DR Congo.

With the RPF in power, Makenga was absorbed into the official Rwandan army and rose to the rank of sergeant and deputy platoon commander.

“He was very good at setting up ambushes,” one of Makenga’s fellow RPF fighters told the Rift Valley Institute non-profit research organisation.

His progress in the Rwandan army hit a ceiling however. The fact that he only had a basic education and spoke broken French and English was “an obstacle to his military career”, the Rift Valley Institute said.

Makenga is also said – to this day – to be very reserved and to struggle with public speaking.

In 1997, he was part of the Rwanda-backed forces who ended up seizing power in DR Congo, ousting long-serving ruler Mobutu Sese Seko. In his place they installed veteran Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila.

However, Makenga began to clash with his superiors – he was arrested by the Rwandan authorities after refusing orders to return to Rwanda, a UN Security Council report said.

He was therefore imprisoned for several years on the island of Iwawa.

Meanwhile, relations between Kabila and Rwanda’s new leaders deteriorated.

Rwanda had sought to crush the Hutu militiamen who were responsible for the genocide but had fled across the border in 1994. Rwanda’s fear was that they could return and upset the country’s hard-won stability.

But Kabila had failed to stop the militants from organising and he also started to force out Rwandan troops.

As a result, Rwanda invaded DR Congo in 1998. When Makenga was released from prison, he was appointed to serve as a commander on the front line with a Rwanda-backed rebel group.

Over the years, he gained a reputation for being highly strategic and skilled at commanding large groups of soldiers into battle.

After Rwandan troops crossed into DR Congo, there was a surge in discrimination against the Tutsi community. Kabila alleged that Tutsis supported the invasion, while other officials incited the public to attack members of the ethnic group.

Makenga – still in DR Congo – accused the Congolese leader of betraying Tutsi fighters, saying: “Kabila was a politician, while I am not. I am a soldier, and the language that I know is that of the gun.”

Several neighbouring countries had been drawn into the conflict and a large UN military force was deployed to try to maintain order.

More than five million people are believed to have died in the war and its aftermath – mostly from starvation or disease.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• The evidence that shows Rwanda is backing rebels in DR Congo

The fighting officially ended in 2003 but Makenga continued to serve in armed groups opposed to the Congolese government.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Tutsi rebels like Makenga were eventually amalgamated into the Congolese government’s armed forces, in a process called “mixage”.

But the political sands in DR Congo are ever shifting – Makenga eventually defected from the army to join the rising M23 rebellion.

The M23 had become increasingly active in DR Congo’s east, stating that they were fighting to protect Tutsi rights, and that the government had failed to honour a peace deal signed in 2009.

Makenga was elevated to the rank of an M23 general, then soon after, the top position.

In November 2012 he led the rebels in a brutal uprising, in which they captured the city of Goma, a major eastern city with a population of more than a million.

DR Congo and the UN accused Rwanda’s Tutsi-dominated government of backing the M23 – an allegation which Kigali has persistently denied. But recently, the official response has shifted, with government spokespeople stating that fighting near its border is a security threat.

By 2012, Makenga and others in the M23 were facing serious war crimes allegations. The US imposed sanctions on him, saying he was responsible for “the recruitment of child soldiers, and campaigns of violence against civilians”. Makenga said allegations that the M23 used child soldiers were “baseless”.

Elsewhere, the UN said he had committed, and was responsible for, acts such as killing and maiming, sexual violence and abduction.

Along with asset freezes, Makenga was facing a bitter split within the M23. One side backed him as leader while the other backed his rival, Gen Bosco Ntaganda.

The Enough Project, a non-profit group working in DR Congo, said the two factions descended into a “full-fledged war” in 2013 and as a result, three soldiers and eight civilians died.

Makenga’s side triumphed and Gen Ntaganda fled to Rwanda, where he surrendered to the US embassy.

Nicknamed the “Terminator” for his ruthlessness, Gen Ntaganda was eventually sentenced by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to 30 years for war crimes.

However, months after Makenga’s triumph, another, larger threat appeared. The UN had deployed a 3,000-strong force with a mandate to support the Congolese military in reclaiming Goma, prompting the M23 to withdraw.

The rebel group was expelled from the country and Makenga fled to Uganda, a country which has also been accused of supporting the M23 – an allegation it denies.

Uganda received an extradition request for Makenga from DR Congo, but did not act on it.

Eight years passed. Dozens of other armed groups roamed the mineral-rich east, wreaking havoc, but the Congolese authorities were free of the most notorious militants.

• Who’s pulling the strings in the DR Congo crisis?

That is, until 2021.

Makenga and his rebels took up arms again, capturing territory in North Kivu province.

Several ceasefires between the M23 and the Congolese authorities have failed, and last year a judge sentencing Makenga to death in absentia.

During the M23’s latest advance, in which the rebels are said to be supported by thousands of Rwandan troops, Makenga has barely been seen in public.

He instead leaves the public speeches and statements to his spokesperson, and Corneille Nangaa, who heads an alliance of rebel groups including the M23.

But Makenga remains a key player, appearing to focus on strategy behind the scenes.

He has said his relentless fighting has been for his three children, “so that one day they will have a better future in this country”.

“I shouldn’t be seen as a man who doesn’t want peace. I have a heart, a family, and people I care about,” he said.

But millions of ordinary people are paying the price of this conflict and if he is captured by the Congolese forces, Makenga faces the death penalty.

Yes he is undeterred.

“I am willing to sacrifice everything, ” he said.

• South Africa and Rwanda go head-to-head over DR Congo war
• DR Congo’s failed gamble on Romanian mercenaries
• Your phone, a rare metal and the war in DR Congo
• WATCH: ‘The situation is chaotic’ after rebels seize DR Congo city

It’s a chilly mid-winter afternoon in Segovia, in central Spain, and tourists are gathered at the foot of the city’s Roman aqueduct, gazing up at its famous arches and taking selfies.

Many of the visitors are Spanish, but there are also people from other European countries, Asians and Latin Americans, all drawn by Segovia’s historic charm, gastronomy and dramatic location just beyond the mountains north of Madrid.

“There was a moment during Covid when I thought ‘maybe tourism will never, ever be like it was before’,” says Elena Mirón, a local guide dressed in a fuchsia-coloured beret who is about to lead a group across the city.

“But now things are very good and I feel this year is going to be a good year, like 2023 and 2024. I’m happy, because I can live off this job I love.”

Spain received a record 94 million visitors in 2024 and is now vying with France, which saw 100 million, to be the world’s biggest foreign tourist hub.

And the tourism industry’s post-Covid expansion is a major reason why the eurozone’s fourth-biggest economy has been easily outgrowing the likes of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, posting an increase in GDP of 3.2% last year.

By contrast, the German economy contracted by 0.2% in 2024, while France grew by 1.1%, Italy by 0.5%, and the UK by an expected 0.9%.

This all helps explain why the Economist magazine has ranked Spain as the world’s best-performing economy.

“The Spanish model is successful because it is a balanced model, and this is what guarantees the sustainability of growth,” says Carlos Cuerpo, the business minister in the Socialist-led coalition government. He points out that Spain was responsible for 40% of eurozone growth last year.

Although he underlined the importance of tourism, Mr Cuerpo also pointed to financial services, technology, and investment as factors which have helped Spain bounce back from the depths of the pandemic, when GDP shrank by 11% in one year.

“We are getting out of Covid without scars and by modernising our economy and therefore lifting our potential GDP growth,” he adds.

That modernisation process is being aided by post-pandemic recovery funds from the EU’s Next Generation programme. Spain is due to receive up to €163bn by 2026 ($169bn; £136bn), making it the biggest recipient of these funds alongside Italy.

Spain is investing the money in the national rail system, low-emissions zones in towns and cities, as well as in the electric vehicle industry and subsidies for small businesses.

“Public spending has been high, and is responsible for approximately half our growth since the pandemic,” says María Jesús Valdemoros, lecturer in economics at Spain’s IESE Business School.

Other major European economies have seen their growth stymied by their greater reliance than Spain on industry, which, she says, “is suffering a lot at the moment due to factors such as the high cost of energy, competition from China and other Asian countries, the cost of the transition to a more sustainable environmental model and trade protectionism”.

Since Covid, the other major economic challenge for Spain has been the cost-of-living crisis triggered by supply-chain bottlenecks and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Inflation peaked at an annual rate of 11% in July of that year, with energy prices hitting Spaniards particularly hard, but by the end of 2024 it had fallen back to 2.8%.

Madrid believes that subsidies it introduced to cut the cost of fuel consumption and encourage public transport use were key in mitigating the impact of the energy price rises, as well as several increases to the minimum wage.

At the height of the European energy crisis, Spain and Portugal also negotiated with Brussels a so-called “Iberian exception”, allowing them to cap the price of gas used to generate electricity in order to reduce consumers’ bills.

Mr Cuerpo argues that such measures have helped counter Spain’s traditional vulnerability to economic turmoil.

“Spain is proving to be more resilient to successive shocks – including the inflation shock that came with the war in Ukraine,” he said. “And I think this is part of the overall protective shield that we have put in place for our consumers and for our firms.”

The country’s green energy output is seen as another favourable factor, not just in guaranteeing electricity, but also spurring investment. Spain has the second-largest renewable energy infrastructure in the EU.

The latter is a boon for a country that is Europe’s second-biggest car producer, according to Wayne Griffiths, the British-born CEO of Seat and Cupra. Although Spanish electric vehicle production is lagging behind the rest of Europe, he sees enormous potential in that area.

“[In Spain] we have all the factors you need to be successful: competitive, well-trained people and also an energy policy behind that,” he says. “There’s no point in making zero-emission cars if you’re using dirty energy.”

Despite these positives, a longstanding weakness of Spain’s economy has been a chronically high jobless rate, which is the biggest in the EU and almost double the block’s average. However, the situation did improve in the last quarter of 2024, when the Spanish jobless unemployment rate declined to 10.6%, its lowest level since 2008.

Meanwhile the number of people in employment in Spain now stands at 22 million, a record high. A labour reform, encouraging job stability, is seen as a key reason for this.

This reform increased restrictions on the use of temporary contracts by companies, favouring greater flexibility in the use of permanent contracts. It has reduced the number of workers in temporary employment without hindering job creation.

Also, although the arrival of immigrants has driven a fierce political debate, their absorption into the labour market is seen by many as crucial for a country with a rapidly ageing population.

The Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been outspoken in underlining the need for immigrants, describing their contribution to the economy as “fundamental”.

The European Commission has forecast that Spain will continue to lead growth among the bloc’s big economies this year and remain ahead of the EU average. However, challenges are looming on the horizon.

The heavy reliance on tourism – and a growing backlash against the industry by local people – is one concern.

Another is Spain’s vast public debt, which is higher than the country’s annual economic output.

María Jesús Valdemoros warns that this is “an imbalance that we need to correct, not just because the EU’s new fiscal norms demand it, but because it could cause financial instability”.

In addition, a housing crisis has erupted across the country, leaving millions of Spaniards struggling to find affordable accommodation.

With an uncertain and deeply polarised political landscape, it is difficult for Sánchez’s minority government to tackle such problems. But, while it attempts to resolve these conundrums, Spain is enjoying its status as the motor of European growth.

One of the biggest sporting events in the world took place in New Orleans as the Philadelphia Eagles clinched this year’s Super Bowl with an emphatic 40-22 victory over defending champions the Kansas City Chiefs.

The event did not just bring out the best the NFL has had to offer this season – but plenty of Hollywood A-listers, musicians and US President Donald Trump were spotted in the stands of the Superdome.

Before the match started, actor Jon Hamm introduced the Chiefs while Bradley Cooper brought the hype for the Eagles.

Below are a selection of images of celebrities at this year’s Super Bowl.

• Follow live reaction as the Eagles clinch second Super Bowl

President Donald Trump has said he will announce a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US, a move that will have the biggest impact in Canada.

Trump also said that there would be an announcement later in the week about reciprocal tariffs on all countries that tax imports from the US, but he did not specify which nations would be targeted, or if there would be any exemptions.

“If they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said.

He told reporters of his plans while traveling from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday.

Canada and Mexico are two of the US’s biggest steel trading partners, and Canada is the biggest supplier of aluminium metal into the US.

During his first term, Trump put tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminium imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

But the US reached a deal a year later with Canada and Mexico to end those tariffs, although the EU import taxes remained in place until 2021.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump said on Monday he would announce tariffs on “everybody” for steel and aluminium.

“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff,” he said.

In response, Doug Ford, the premier of the province of Ontario, accused Trump of “shifting goalposts and constant chaos, putting our economy at risk” in an online post. Canada’s steel production is concentrated in Ontario.

Trump’s comments also caused the stocks of major South Korean steel and car makers to fall. South Korea is a major exporter of steel to the US.

Shares of steel firm POSCO holdings dropped as much as 3.6%, while those of Hyundai Steel were down as much as 2.9%.

Those of car maker Kia Corp also fell by 3.6% during early morning trading.

Trump’s move mark another major escalation in Trump’s trade policy, which has already sparked retaliation from China.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

Earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose import duties of 25% on Canadian and Mexican products but later delayed that plan for 30 days – until early March – after speaking to the leaders of both countries.

He also brought in new US levies of 10% on all Chinese goods coming into the US. Beijing has retaliated with its own set of tariffs which took effect on Monday.

Trump also said he would announce more tit-for-tat tariffs on “Tuesday or Wednesday” and that they would take effect “almost immediately” after the announcement.

“The ones that are taking advantage of the United States, we’re going to have reciprocal [tariffs],” he said. “It’ll be great for everybody, including other countries”.

On the trip to New Orleans, Trump also signed an proclamation designating 9 February “Gulf of America” day to celebrate his order renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, as his plane crossed the body of water.

Mexico argues the US cannot legally change the Gulf’s name because UN rules dictate that an individual country’s sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles out from the coastline.

Trump was also asked whether he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and replied: “I don’t want to talk about it, and if we are talking, I don’t want to tell you about the conversations too early, but I do believe we’re making progress.”

“I would imagine I would be meeting with Putin at the right time… at the appropriate time,” he said.

Trump also repeated his unlikely suggestions that the US could take over Canada and the Gaza Strip, saying Canada would fare better as the “51st state” and that he was “committed to buying and owning Gaza”.